Chapter 108: The Elemental Hero of Naiya!

"Ugh... where... am I? Hiss!"

Waking up from his stupor, the first thing that greeted Yougi was the blinding glare of the sun. Discomforted, he quickly raised his arm to shield his eyes. Once his vision cleared, he sat up and surveyed his surroundings. All he saw was white—the kind of white unique to the frozen wilderness of the natural world.

"Well, this is definitely a glacier."

Feeling the bone-chilling cold beneath him and the sting of the freezing wind against his face, Yougi confirmed that he was indeed stranded on a desolate, ice-covered wasteland.

System: "Noah Arc... Noah Kaiba... So that’s it!"

Prompted by the system, Yougi recalled everything that had happened before he lost consciousness.

Ishizu had lost to Kaiba. Immediately after, Yougi had approached her to ask what "future" she had seen. He was curious: now that he had altered the present, did the "future" Ishizu saw still align with the original animation?

Ishizu had told him that before the tournament began, she had used the power of the Millennium Necklace to glimpse hundreds of "future scenarios." While each one differed in the smallest details, in every single one, the winner of the final tournament was always Seto Kaiba.

For the first time, Ishizu doubted the power of the Millennium Necklace. Hundreds of futures, and she hadn't defeated him once? Driven by this, she decided to duel Kaiba herself. Throughout the match, until she activated the trap card "Exchange of the Spirit," the flow of the duel matched the visions she had seen perfectly. But after that card was played, the "future" slipped from her control.

In the futures she had witnessed, the events following the activation of "Exchange of the Spirit" were a blur, though the final outcome remained clear. She hadn't known how Kaiba would win, but in reality, he had triumphed using the "Dragon's Mirror" Yougi had given him and the "Ultimate Burst" magic card from the "Blue-Eyes" series provided by Pegasus.

With that, the semi-finals of the Battle City tournament had concluded. Only three remained: Yougi, Yugi, and Kaiba. As for the fourth spot? Due to Joey’s carelessness, the trap card "Last Gamble" he activated resulted in a double knockout against Mai Valentine, leaving neither of them to advance.

This meant the finals would be contested among the three. They agreed on the format: Kaiba vs. Yugi, Kaiba vs. Yougi, and Yougi vs. Yugi. The winner would get one point, a draw would be 0.5, and a loser would receive zero. Whoever had the most points after three matches would be the new Duel King. The others would spectate, and to promote Duel Monsters and the Solid Vision duel disks, the matches were to be broadcast by pre-arranged news crews.

...

A night passed. The next day, as everyone enjoyed breakfast in the lounge of the Battle Ship, the craft began to shake as if it were on solid ground. Rushing to the main control room, they learned from the pilot, Isono, that the ship had been pulled off course by an unknown force. When Isono tried to switch from autopilot to manual, it was useless.

While they panicked, a green-haired boy who looked remarkably like a young Kaiba appeared on the main screen. Calling himself "Noah," he pointed a machine gun at them, smiling as he invited them to disembark and visit his massive fortress. Unlike the original story, our protagonist Yougi was now among them. As for Ishizu, she stayed behind to look after her brother, Marik.

The events inside the fortress followed the anime's plot. They encountered the "Big Five"—former KaibaCorp executives whose consciousnesses were trapped in the digital world—and learned of the "Deck Master" rules. That was the last thing Yougi remembered before blacking out.

"Huh? Tea? Serenity?"

Recalling everything, Yougi noticed Tea and Serenity lying unconscious on a giant block of ice nearby. After shaking them awake and explaining their situation, a fat penguin wearing a gentleman's tuxedo waddled into their view.

"Welcome to my 'Frozen Ocean' playground! I am Shuzo Otaki, former head of the KaibaCorp personnel department and one of the Big Five." The fat penguin tipped his top hat and bowed politely.

"Shuzo Otaki...?"

System: "Oh! So it's this guy!"

Understanding who the penguin was, Yougi looked at him. The creature stood straight, meeting his gaze.

"Yuugi Sakaki, second president of Industrial Illusions and the first Duel King of the Duel Monsters world. It is an honor to duel you."

Yuugi Sakaki was the name he had chosen when registering his identity in this world, borrowing the surname of the protagonist from the fifth Yu-Gi-Oh! series. Perhaps because Yougi was present, Otaki—who was a bit of a lecher in the anime—remained perfectly gentlemanly. Before the Big Five were trapped, they had heard of Yougi defeating Pegasus, and from their new master Noah, they had learned of the young man who had conquered the father of Duel Monsters.

"You're challenging me? I accept!"

Seeing a new prompt from the system, Yougi looked at his starting deck and felt the urge to play. Since Otaki was a penguin-lover and a 55-year-old pervert, he would be the first test for his complete "Elemental HERO" deck.

"My Deck Master, as you can see, is the monster that represents my very image—Nightmare Penguin!"

The penguin monster flew out from Otaki’s deck and began swimming happily in the surrounding water.

"A Deck Master? Then I choose this one!"

As Yougi pulled a monster card from his deck and held it high toward the sky, the leader of his "Elemental HERO" deck made its grand entrance!