# Council Chamber
"I suppose," the Chairman said, "this is the result of your Lancers' newest member."
I felt nothing move in my chest. Whatever came next, I already knew it wouldn't be comfortable.
"We think you're strong enough." His tone didn't warm at all. "Strong enough to challenge the King, perhaps."
"Defeating him," the man in red added, "is another matter entirely. Correct, Chairman?"
"Correct."
Reiji's expression didn't shift. Beside him, Tsukikage was unreadable as always. Yuya had lost. But his plan had held together until the very end, and that, I suspected, was the only part of this the Council had actually been grading.
"If that weren't the case," the Chairman went on, "we wouldn't have decided to back your people, and let you all—"
"Pardon the interruption." I didn't wait for permission. "In the stands, something's wrong."
Every head in the chamber turned.
At the stadium's stands, two Security officers stood flanking a girl with pink hair and the boy beside her. I didn't need to see her face to know whose it was.
"Sharp eyes," the elder woman said, something like approval in it.
The Chairman murmured a few words into the air. A voice answered.
"Order me."
"Two images, already sent. Bring both to this building."
"Understood."
The line cut.
"Our guess was right, then," Reiji said.
"It seems so." The Chairman's chuckle hadn't changed once since we'd walked in. "You people read situations well."
"We suspected Roget might try something," the man in yellow added.
"He overthinks," the Chairman said. "And he's protective of what he considers his."
# The Duel Palace
"Yuya!"
Yuzu shoved forward, but the crowd between her and the track was too thick to cross, every voice around her chanting the same name over and over.
Two officers stepped into her path.
"You're coming with us," the first one said. "Security's order."
"On whose authority?" Yugo moved between them without thinking twice.
"Security's."
"We're Friendship Cup participants. That's supposed to mean you can't harm us."
"It doesn't change the order."
Yugo's eyes darken. "Then try and make us."
A second pair arrived before the standoff could go any further — white uniforms, tall hats, no hurry in their steps at all.
"Step aside," one said.
The Security officers stiffened. "This is a Public Order Bureau concern."
"No, it isn't. Administrative Council authority has sent us, and it supersedes yours. Leave."
They left. Yugo watched them go, jaw tight. He understood nothing except that something had just happened above his head.
"We apologize for the trouble," the white-uniformed men said, bowing slightly to both of them. "Please, follow us."
"Yugo?" Yuzu glanced at him.
"They're with the Council. If there's something above Security, it's that."
"You've been given special lodging," the man said. "A room in the Council's own building, for the duration of the Cup. This way."
A black car carried them to the tallest tower in the City. Past the entrance, down a long corridor, the men stopped.
"This is as far as we go. These two will take you the rest of the way."
Yuzu found her voice first. "Where's Yuya?"
"He's here as well. Somewhere in this building."
"Then please take me to him."
"I'm sorry. That isn't something we're permitted to do."
Two boys, no older than thirteen, stepped forward in matching uniforms, waiting.
# Suite — Yuya
He opened his eyes to a room steeped in near-total dark, one thin seam of light bleeding in around a curtain.
His whole body still ached.
He pulled the curtain back, and the light hit him like a wall.
Once his eyes adjusted, there was nothing outside but open sky — and far below, the Duel Palace, so massive an hour ago, now small enough to cover with two fingers.
"Awake already?"
He spun on feet. Five holographic figures flickered into being around the room.
"Where am I?" He restored his balance.
"Your room."
"...What?"
The Chairman laughed, light as always. "You're our guest now."
"Guest?"
"Yes. As you have been participated in Friendship Cup and as well a guest of other world, this place is also to shelter you people. You have been exhausted, it's good there weren't any severe injury, Friendship Cup will start tommorow so rest well."
Yuya focused on the last words. "Where are the others?"
"They are safe. Every one of your people has a room in this building."
"Until friendship Cup ends or if any of you lose, you will be kicked out immediately."
Yuya frowned . "I lost to Jacek, so..."
"That was exhibition match, just ceremonial duel. It doesn't count as one in a way. But once friendship Cup starts, in affiliated match, it will. Well then, all the best."
"And Yuzu?"
A pause, just long enough to matter.
"She's here as well."
The holograms blinked out before Yuya could ask anything else.
"Wait—"
Gone.
He crossed the room and twisted the handle. And it didn't move.
He tried again. Nothing.
"Locked?"
He pulled harder. Still nothing.
Something tightened low in his stomach.
"And they said guest."
He looked back at the room — the bed, the window, the sky that wasn't going anywher.
He started to bang at door with force, and calling for anyone, but no one answered.
# Council Chamber
"Even the finest hotel in this City couldn't keep Security out," the woman in blue robes said, "so we've placed all of your people in this building's own dormitory instead."
"For their safety," the Chairman added. "The rooms are sealed. We hope that won't be an inconvenience. The Duel Palace is close from here, at least — no time lost."
"We appreciate the consideration and your generosity," Reiji said. "We have no objection."
# Suite — Yuya
The own room was quiet, too quiet, the kind of silence that made every small sound in it seem deliberate.
His deck was sitting on the table.
Two cards were glowing faintly — the same two dragons that had glowed once before, against each other on that park.
Yuya's pulse climbed before he'd decided to let it.
He crossed the room and took those cards. Staring at them with mayhem.
"...What are you trying to tell me? It's just like on that day...
"Could it be, the other person who looks like me and had made mess at Facility is also here?!"
Nothing answered.
# Council Chamber
"Friendship Cup's first round will start tomorrow," the man in yellow said.
"So, they have a day's time to work however they want."
"That means this brings us to the end of today's meeting. We shall be going."
Reiji and I bowed before turning to leave.
"Wait for a second."
A voice called out from behind.
Reiji and I turned back.
"As evening is approaching, why not join us for dinner and share our thoughts over the table while entertaining the appetite?" The Chairman suggested. "A special guest whom you might not expect will also be joining us."
"May I ask who?"
"Well, why not come and find out?" He smiled. "We are sure you won't be disappointed."
# Roget
Roget's hand closed around the pawn, hard enough that it cracked.
"Those old fools. In my way again."
"Sir—" the officer started.
"I know."
He set the broken pawn down. "The profiles I requested."
Five holographic panels lit up in front of his director chair. Something passed over his face that didn't belong in front of subordinates, and vanished just as fast.
"And me as well, Director," a voice said from the dark behind him, low and heavy.
Roget's mouth curved. "That's more than enough."
He said, almost to himself. "Even if the winner is already decided, there's no risk in worth insuring. After all, it just makes things smooth and easy."
# Suite — Yume
Yume sat with the replay still running, Jack's final attack looping silently on the screen.
"He wasn't fighting Yuya."
His fingers tightened around his deck.
"He was fighting the crowd. And he won both."
# Dining Hall — Evening
The table was long enough that conversation had to cross a field of empty place settings before it reached the far end.
"Who's the guest you mentioned?" I asked.
Reiji and I had more or less guessed, but letting them feel delighted was a good move.
"You still haven't guessed?" The elder woman looked almost delighted. "The one your Lancers couldn't even stand against." Reiji's brow sharpened. "Jack Atlas."
The doors opened, and he walked in, unhurried, certain of the room before he'd even entered it. His eyes passed over Riley for a beat too long before moving on.
"I was told there were foreign guests tonight," he said. "I take it that's the three of you."
We exchanged the necessary courtesies. Food arrived in waves neither Reiji nor I paid much attention to.
By dessert, tea replacing the plates, I was still watching him, and he had to know it by now.
I couldn't make myself believe he'd come from the Commons. Not from how he sat, not from how he let silence do half his talking for him. Not the presence he gave off. Not how he ate food, and use spoons and held his cup of tea. If someone had told me he'd been born into the Tops, I wouldn't have questioned it — unless the lie came from someone bad at lying.
"Pardon me," Jack said, setting down his cup. "Is there something on my face?"
"Did he feel it, or did he just notice it?"
"No," I said. "I apologize. I'm having trouble picturing you as a Commons."
"Nothing to apologize for. Most people can't. But I don't mind what my origin is."
He said it like modesty. It didn't land like modesty. It landed like a compliment he'd just quietly accepted on my behalf.
"Rather," Jack continued. "I want people to see who I have become from where I was born."
"Can I ask your impression of your today's opponent?" Reiji asked, the question I'd been waiting for him to ask.
"Sakaki Yuya." Jack took his time with the next sip. "He looked like an ordinary duelist at a glance. Though he wasn't. He used tactics I haven't seen before. The monsters I haven't seen before. If he'd sequenced his plays differently, it would have been a longer show."
Interpreting it other way, that meant he still would had came victorious even if Yuya was more prudent.
"That's the King for you," the man in gray praised.
"He's this City's pride after all," the female member added.
"May I ask something," I said, "about your first turn?"
Jack's cup paused halfway to the table.
"You held Red Dragon's Fang in your hand instead of setting it. Most duelists set a defense like that immediately, no matter how weak the opponent looks. There's rarely harm in it."
"You noticed that?"
"It seemed deliberate."
"And?" Something in his gaze changed, like he wasn't putting any importance in our conversation. But he was now.
"I don't think it was."
Something in his eyes sharpened. "Interesting."
"If you'd set it on turn one, Yuya would had become cautious and had played around differently. Keeping it in hand let him believe you were exposed. That's not a mistake. That was a bait to let him believe his strategy and to make him his guard down. While the card you had set on first turn had already decided the outcome."
"So you would make the end more spectacular." I added in my thoughts.
The Council's attention shifted my way — whether that weight was approval or something colder, I genuinely couldn't tell yet.
"You have good instincts for this," Jack said. "But you're already three moves past where the duel actually was. You're not wrong that a weak opponent still deserves a real defense. But the more you plan for contingencies that never arrive, the less room you leave yourself to actually win the one that is in front of you.
"Forgive me," he added. "You never gave me your name."
"Ryoho Akaba."
I watched him turn the name over once, quietly, the way most people did. Introducing myself and immediately asking a King to shorten it to Ryo felt like the wrong first move to make at this table.
Reiji, beside me, clearly had his own read on the whole duel and had chosen not to share a word of it — not because he lacked one, but because nothing would be gained from saying it here. I'd wanted to see what would surface in Jack once his true intentions dropped, even slightly. This was as close as I was going to get tonight.
The conversation wound down after that. Nobody reached for more. Everyone simply waited for a reason to leave the table.
# The Next Day — Friendship Cup
"We're back!" Melissa's voice rolled over the packed stadium. "Today, the Friendship Cup officially begins!"
The giant holographic screen behind her dissolved into a wall of faces — one after another, dozens of them, flashing past almost too fast to follow. Appearing, covering whole stadium.
"These are your competitors!"
The Commons roared. The Tops, in their private boxes, allowed themselves something closer to polite excitement.
"Thirty-two duelists! Sixteen matches! And only one winner!
The screen went black for a heartbeat, every face gone at once.
Then the first pairing appeared.
Thirty-two names. Sixteen matches. One throne at the end of it.
Among those faces was the boy wearing Yuya's face.
And somewhere in the City, far from the names lighting up the screen, a forgotten light had come alive in an empty room.
Perhaps it meant nothing.
Or perhaps someone, somewhere, had just begun to move.