Kira quickly caught up on the development status of the various projects during his absence, and soon learned that the highly-anticipated "Yugi Muto Research Project" had made some progress recently.
As previously mentioned, the Yugi Muto project was focused on the deck archetypes used by Yugi's "main personality" – the one pre-Pharaoh, before Atem's influence.
As is well known in the DM timeline, 99% of the original Duel King's duels were actually handled by Atem.
The number of decks Atem used thus far exceeds those of Yugi himself, and right after Yugi's rise to fame, he quickly retired. As a result, the decks played by Atem naturally have a higher profile.
On top of that, Seto Kaiba – the king of card printing – is Atem's number-one fan. In recent years, he has devoted even more resources to developing Pharaoh-themed deck series, especially those centered on Dark Magician. Relative to those, decks used by Yugi himself have received far less attention.
Yet Kira thought this was an excellent entry point, and took the initiative to collaborate with both KaibaCorp and Pegasus's Industrial Illusion, going deep into developing the decks Yugi used as himself.
Their latest achievement on this front was the debut of a new card series: the "Magician Girl" archetype.
This was a brand new deck that hadn't yet appeared in the original DM timeline, only making its debut in the "Dark Side of Dimensions" movie, piloted by Yugi himself.
Strictly speaking, the "Magician Girl" archetype can be considered a spin-off of the famous "Dark Magician Girl" – Yugi's well-known mascot waifu.
"Dark Magician Girl" essentially serves as the original card of this lineage.
In that movie, Yugi summoned "Apple Magician Girl" and "Lemon Magician Girl" during his duel with Kaiba. With further development, Kira's team already finished designs for five Magician Girl cards, including Apple and Lemon.
The five are: Berry Magician Girl, Lemon Magician Girl, Apple Magician Girl, Chocolate Magician Girl, and Kiwi Magician Girl.
They progress in levels from one to five, all with a fruit theme, and if you put together the first letters of their names – B, L, A, C, K – you get "BLACK", referencing how the five lead up to the level-6 "Dark Magician Girl".
Of course, from the names you can guess, these cards mostly feature cool, fair-skinned, voluptuous girls – clearly a deck for true men.
As a deck first wielded by "Yugi" in the movie, this archetype continues his classic style: cute, seemingly delicate girls, their pale slender arms and legs looking like they can't even open a jar – but on the field, a swing of their wands can shatter your soul.
They aren't aggressive attackers, but defensive, tricksy effect monsters.
The Magician Girls generally have abilities like, "When attacked, you can halve the attacking monster's ATK, Special Summon a new Magician Girl from hand, and redirect the attack to the new girl."
For the opponent, it feels like the harder you try to punch through, the deeper you fall into their traps. In the movie, even Kaiba's overwhelming "Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon" was toyed with and reversed by the Magician Girls, much to Kaiba's fury.
…
Having collected the cards, Kira also paid a visit to Duel Academy.
Over at Duel Academy, the research project teams Kira left behind had also been productive during his absence. As soon as the leader came back, each team rushed to present their latest results.
Strictly speaking, Kira did travel to a different dimension, but he didn't mention this to anyone at the Academy—he was only gone for about a month.
A month is both long and short. But for Kira, who often left to handle his own affairs, it wasn't unusual. And since his absence was during vacation, nobody found it odd.
He took a tally of the research department's yields. There were plenty, but each department only produced a smattering of cards – most weren't yet powerful enough to make a decisive difference for an entire archetype. Plenty of potential, but not anything ready for immediate use.
Notably, thanks to Jaden and his Neo-Spacian partners' cooperation, the "Neo Space" deck was successfully copied.
The world's only set, previously unique to Jaden, could now be officially produced and replicated.
This was vital, not just for Kira but for Jaden. Every duelist knows there's a huge difference between a card being "limited" to one copy and "unlimited," allowing you to run three.
Jaden's Neo Space deck was "physically limited"—there was only one of each in existence, so even if he wanted to use more, it was impossible.
But imagine if Neo-Spacians could be mass-produced: being able to run multiples of invincible Flare Scarab and hand-disrupting Aqua Dolphin would be a significant boost for Jaden.
In terms of real card meta, the Neo Space deck is considered lackluster overall, but still offers utility. Take the mighty Grand Mole for example: in the format's early days, it was a near-universal staple—there's a reason it was once limited.
Kira had no intentions of building an entire Neo Space or HERO deck for himself—that was Jaden's thing. But he was happy to run a few powerful cards as tech choices for creative combos in other decks.
Naturally, the reprinted Neo-Spacians were just normal cards—unlike Jaden's originals, which were actual dueling spirits, real aliens, and empowered with destiny.
But it didn't matter. As long as the cards worked, Kira was satisfied.
…
Not long after arriving at Duel Academy, Kira sensed a surge of darkness.
He followed the darkness all the way to the volcanic depths of Academy Island, where he found Jaden and a man facing off across the field—Trueman.
"You again," Jaden said. "You people just never give up."
Trueman sneered. "This time won't be like before, Jaden Yuki."
As he spoke, a torrent of dark energy gathered in his hand, forming a jet-black duel disk. A thick cloud of darkness condensed overhead, swirling into countless cards that whirled, one after another, into his duel disk, forming a sinister, ominous deck.
"This time," Trueman said coldly, "I'll make sure you never rise again!"
…