"Student?"
"Ryusei?"
Silver Meteor struggled to open his eyes, feeling as if his eyelids were laden with lead. The bright light was stabbing his eyes, making it difficult to open them. He tried to get up but his limbs felt unusually heavy, preventing him from rising.
Then he saw the prominent teacher of Duel Academy, Teacher Nakagawa Megumi, along with the equally prominent student, Asuka Tenjouin.
"Teacher Nakagawa? Asuka?"
Ryusei was bewildered. He wondered why, as merely a game enthusiast, he was receiving attention from these two notable figures among the students.
"What is this... why am I here?"
Teacher Nakagawa and Asuka exchanged a glance.
"You... don't remember anything?" Asuka asked.
Silver Meteor furrowed his brow, trying to recall.
"I remember I went to Tongshiyi to participate in a competition, a flying shooting game tournament. I won the championship, and then..."
Silver Meteor scratched his head, his expression becoming increasingly pained as he tried to recall further.
"Ah, I can't remember. But I did have a very strange dream... Yes, I dreamed of Asuka."
He turned to look at Asuka, noticing her somewhat odd expression, and hurriedly added.
"Ah, it's not an inappropriate dream, rather... well, it was a bit strange. But I think I dreamed of dueling with Asuka, and my Tamashi's battle ship actually betrayed me, running off with Asuka..."
Saying this, he touched his chest, looking quite shaken.
"Thankfully, it was just a dream. Too terrifying..."
Asuka: "..."
A moment later, seeing Silver Meteor genuinely unable to recall anything, and looking physically weak as if drained, Teacher Megumi instructed him to rest properly in the nurse's office, while Asuka stepped out into the corridor, pulling out her student terminal.
She connected with Yugen.
"How is it?" Yugen asked.
"No, he doesn't remember anything. Just as you said." Asuka replied.
"Predictable."
"Do you know what's going on?" Asuka asked, "Ryusei mentioned something about the Light Association... what is that?"
"Evil forces lurking in the cosmos, watching over Earth." Yugen said solemnly, "Alien invaders coveting our planet."
Asuka sighed: "I'm asking seriously."
"I answered seriously as well."
Yugen responded helplessly.
Though he knew how absurd his words sounded, it was indeed the truth. The plot of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's second year centered around this storyline...
"I already have clues about this Light Association, I'm trying to talk to their leader." Yugen shifted the topic.
Their leader seemed quite unlucky.
Asuka thought to herself and said, "Alright. You don't need to worry about the Academy; I'll notify the lab, and everyone will be cautious. I'll inform you if anything else happens."
"Alright."
The image on the terminal screen disappeared. Yugen put away the terminal for now, turning to look at the surveillance footage.
At the moment, he was in the Hanuo Knight's stronghold, watching the surveillance footage. And in the footage, was none other than Ed Phoenix, whom he had defeated not long ago.
At that moment, Ed rode a motorcycle to a building. He parked the vehicle, dismounted, and hung his helmet on the handlebars, glancing around to ensure there was no one around before finally entering the building.
Kurosaki leaned over beside Yugen, watching the surveillance footage carefully.
"Revolver Leader, is this possibly the Light Association's..."
"Maybe." Yugen replied, "Let's take a look."
"..."
Ed walked through the white corridor, another burst of dazzling light confronted him. He pushed open the door and entered the grand hall filled with white light.
"Saio?"
Ed shouted loudly while looking around.
"Saio, are you here?"
No response.
He began to feel strange. Normally at this hour, Saio was always here, never leaving the hall empty as it was today.
"Saio?"
Still no response.
Venturing further, opening another door, he found himself in a room resembling a bedroom. It was eerie, a stark contrast to the pure white, brilliantly lit hall outside, like shadows cast from the dazzling light.
He tried searching for the light switch and was surprised to find none. The room didn't even have lights installed.
The bed was messy, literally a chaotic state resembling a chicken's nest. Nearby was a desk, and the mirror on the desk was shattered, with even traces of blood on the broken mirror. Ed could almost imagine someone angrily punching the mirror, their hand dripping with fresh blood.
This was the first time Ed had entered this room, seeing such a scene.
He quickly recalled the recent conversation with Revolver.
Did he really understand Saio now?
Could it be that Saio had unknowingly... already fallen into the prophesied doomed fate?
"Saio, what on earth... happened to you?"
He walked to the desk, noticing the tarot cards scattered chaotically across it. Among the disarray, in the center, was the one card Saio had prophesied his fate with years ago.
Demon.
...
...
"Ahhhh!"
Elsewhere, Saio angrily flipped the table. Papers, utensils, even the tarot cards went flying everywhere.
Saio was furious, gasping for breath.
And then, in the crystal ball beside him, another face of Saio appeared.
"It seems your fate has drifted out of your control."
The Saio in the crystal ball spoke.
"Shut up!"
Saio was enraged.
Yet things indeed had gone awry.
The Revolver had breached his prophecy multiple times by now. But his fate seemed to be nothing more than an insignificant pawn; even now, his prophecy showed no different.
But the reality was that up until now, whenever his subordinates or Mizuchi's reliable operatives encountered this person, they were defeated. His prophecy was rewritten time and again, now even his strongest pawns like Ed faced defeat.
And defeat was not the most terrifying.
To him, the most terrifying thing was that upon observing again, he found the trajectory of Ed's fate was also changing from what he previously predicted... no, saying so felt understated even.
Accurately speaking, Ed's fate to him seemed like an unbridled stallion now, utterly out of control. Even Saio couldn't decipher it, completely unaware of where the future would lead.
He disliked this feeling, the inability to predict or hold in his grasp.
Adding to his frustration was sending someone to Duel Academy, tasked with spearheading the development of the Light Association Academy branch... only to be dealt a defeat in their very first match.
He had also watched this duel remotely through the crystal ball, ultimately leading even his Light of Destruction to fall silent.
Starting to ponder, had Duel Academy's atmosphere become such?
He disliked this feeling.
Everything was in chaos.
His layout should have been perfect, everyone's fate intricately woven like a giant web, and he was its administrator.
Yet now it felt as though an invisible hand had roughly twisted the entire web into a tangled mess. He was enraged yet couldn't see the true form of the adversary.
Just a sense of intuition that there must be a mastermind behind all this.
All these events that unexpectedly surpassed his expectations, everything causing the disruption in fate must have originated from that person. That was his greatest enemy.
"Give up."
The Saio in the crystal ball spoke once more.
"This only shows that your fate has come to an end as well..."
"Shut up!"
Saio delivered a hand chop, shattering the crystal ball into fragments.
The world was finally silent.
Saio grunted in frustration, pulling out his phone to make a call.
"Mizuchi?"
"It's me. What's happening, brother?"
"Revolver."
Saio commanded.
"No matter what method or means you use, I want Revolver dead!"