Duel Academy's new-term opening banquet went off without a hitch. The Academy had gone all out this year, laying out a lavish feast for its teachers, students, and guests from afar—so extravagant that the visiting students from other schools couldn't help but gape.
Jesse Anderson, the owner of Rainbow Dragon, munched on a big shrimp as he curiously asked the new friends he'd just made: "So, uh, is your main campus usually this loaded? A banquet on this scale… back at our campus, that'd be downright unthinkable."
Standing next to Jaden, Misawa said quietly, "You probably can't even imagine how much the main campus made last year…"
Everyone at the main campus had felt the changes over the past year. The Academy felt richer from top to bottom—benefits and stipends, every new wave of card stock in the school's warehouse, the discounts, the facilities…
In almost every aspect you could tangibly feel the upgrades. The Academy was getting better literally by the day.
And everyone in the entire school knew why. All of it had started after the arrival of one particular presence, someone everyone both revered and feared, who was as loved as he was resented.
Along with that, another unprecedented change had come—quite possibly for the first time since Duel Academy had been founded: the Ra Yellow dorm had begun to overshadow Obelisk Blue.
In the past, this school championed elite education and enforced a strict hierarchy among students. Yellow dorm students would automatically lower their heads and move aside when they met Blue dorm elites in the hallway. Everyone had a very clear understanding of where they stood.
But that foundational rule, unchanged since the Academy's founding, was starting to crumble. Yellow dorm students now walked tall wherever they went. Even Blue-uniformed elites no longer dared strut or act superior in front of them.
Seats in the classroom that had once been reserved only for Obelisk Blue students were no longer exclusive; no Blue elite dared arrogantly hog prime seating just because of the color of their jacket.
This year's incoming class even saw something unheard of: among the middle-school elites who'd been guaranteed direct promotion into Obelisk Blue, fully half voluntarily gave up that privilege and asked to be placed in Ra Yellow instead.
It was the first time Obelisk Blue had suffered such a massive outflow of talent, and the elite teachers of the Blue dorm could do nothing to stop it.
Meanwhile, buoyed by top students—and the presence of a certain unmentionable Lord in Yellow—Ra Yellow's facilities and perks had been continually upgraded. At this point, the dorm's overall standard was almost on par with Obelisk Blue.
On campus, people had even begun openly pointing out something that everyone had always known but never said out loud: the three dorms' colors and names came from the three Egyptian Gods, and every wannabe dueling kid knew that among the three, the supreme deity was The Winged Dragon of Ra.
So why was the Blue dorm ranked above the Yellow dorm that represented Ra? That made no sense at all.
Sure, no one had brought this up before, but everyone understood it was basically an unspoken rule Seto Kaiba had laid down when the Academy was founded.
What, you don't accept Obelisk outranking Ra Yellow?
Fine. The President says, "Beat the cards in my hand, and then I'll agree with you."
And so Obelisk Blue became the Academy's top dorm.
But now, Ra Yellow had brought forth a Lord in Yellow. That person refused to leave Ra Yellow and go up to Blue, and had practically become the dorm's figurehead. More importantly, he had actually beaten Seto Kaiba.
The long-ignored contradiction in the hierarchy was finally thrown onto the table as a weapon to attack Obelisk Blue.
The Lord in Yellow himself had zero interest in dorm rivalries and had no intention of coming forward to compete for anything—his silence was actually the only reason the Blue dorm hadn't already been completely trampled. But even with him saying nothing, just having his sun-bright name hanging over the Academy like a second sun was enough to put all of Ra Yellow above everyone else.
At this point, it looked like Ra Yellow overtaking Blue was just a matter of time. Most people believed the change in top-dorm status would happen within this very term.
Originally, there was supposed to be an exhibition duel at tonight's banquet: a friendly match between visiting Professor Viper and the Academy's own student and Duel King, Fujiki Kira. But it was abruptly canceled right as the banquet started.
Not because Kira backed out, but because Professor Viper flaked.
Many students who'd been looking forward to seeing the Duel King in action were disappointed. The burly professor was famous at his own branch campus; rumor had it he was a top-tier duelist with a terrifying card at his disposal.
The students had expected to see a clash of titans tonight. Sadly, they wouldn't get the chance.
In a single night, the rumor that Professor Viper had been hospitalized—and put in the ICU, no less—after a clash with the Lord in Yellow over conflicting, overly harsh teaching philosophies spread even further. Everyone drew a sharp breath, and the image of the Lord in Yellow wielding absolute power over the Academy as a student was seared even deeper into their minds.
Kira didn't mind.
He'd already contacted KaibaCorp's recon teams and had them covertly come to the island to help investigate. They had gathered evidence of Viper's intent to hold duels to the death and harvest students' life energy for some nefarious scheme, and they were now assisting in the search for the missing spirit, Yubel.
In a couple of days, once the evidence was made public, the entire Academy would see Viper's true nature clearly—and they'd also realize that it had been Kira who saw through his plot in time and saved all their lives.
Of course, the fact that an outside professor who'd only set foot on the island a single day, whose evil plan hadn't even begun, could be pre-emptively beaten into a vegetative state by the Lord in Yellow… that would make Kira's image as the Academy's de facto absolute authority even more unshakeable.
Kira had no issue with that either. If mere reputation could scare off petty villains and make anyone with designs on the Academy think twice, it would only make his life easier.
And if, even with such a fearsome reputation, someone still had the confidence to challenge the Lord in Yellow's authority, that was also fine.
Because if someone was that confident, it probably meant they were genuinely strong, and had something truly valuable in their possession. To Kira, such people were basically walking care packages waiting for him to sign for.
Like the generous Mr. Trapper he'd just met, who had gifted him an entire army of spirits.
Even counting the many Kira had promised to send back to their original masters, the spirits that remained with him were already a considerable force.
And then there was the even more generous Professor Viper, who had kindly sent him a heavyweight like the Vennominaga-tier god serpent.
That god-serpent was difficult to control, but Kira already knew exactly which rare deck he'd received as a parting gift from the swordsmen of Doma long ago would sync perfectly with the venomous package Viper had just delivered.
Worm.