Virtual World, Kaiba Company's Dueling Arena.
Youyu and Kaiba Gozaburo's spirits stood on opposite sides of the dueling arena, with their card decks already set.
As expected, in the end, it's all about solving problems by playing cards.
But this time, neither side used the painful "Deck Commander" village rules set by Noah, opting instead for a duel based on the standard Duel City rules.
Of course, you can still choose from the cards available in the card pool.
However, just like before when Youyu dueled Noah, a lot of the speed-filtering cards have been trimmed.
This isn't unreasonable. After all, if you pack your deck with Forbidden Cards and play old Exodia, the duel itself loses its meaning.
Of course, Gozaburo doesn't know that Youyu, with the available card options, has endless strategies to play, and isn't lacking in that aspect at all...
Gozaburo selected his deck, squinting his eyes to scrutinize Youyu for a moment.
He had watched closely the cards and tactics Youyu used in his duel against Noah. Even though he had never heard of the tactics of that Hero Deck, its explosive strength was terrifying, but after seeing it once, Gozaburo felt it wasn't impossible to counter.
It's just a simple ultra-fast strong attack, summoning a large number of Fusion Monsters in an instant to unleash a high output OTK on the opponent.
Besides that, noteworthy is the combo centering on "Elemental Hero Absolute Zero," which can instantly wipe out all the opponent's front and back row cards, ensuring a one-turn kill success rate.
Indeed, it's a terrifying combination, but he already has a counter-strategy.
This was originally his best tactic to deal with Kaiba Seto, but now he doesn't mind trying it out on the guy in front of him first.
Even though Gozaburo isn't interested in dueling, since he seeks revenge on Kaiba Seto, he must defeat his opponent in the field he's most proud of. So he's specially prepared a dedicated deck for this (on-the-spot printed deck).
In the original animation, this virtual space, which took years and resources to build, ended up being directly destroyed by Noah, which is a pity when you think about it.
Just imagine, if Kaiba Gozaburo's spirit is eliminated but the space isn't destroyed, after the Duel City tournament ends, Kaiba Company retrieves and remodels this place into a pay-to-play project, renaming it "My World," or turning it into a global online competitive card club called "Duel Art Online," or just do anything else...
...Overall, it could be put to many uses!
Then, Youyu could snag some admin rights on the platform, then run off to sell tickets and memberships to silly players, wouldn't that attract a whole lot of fresh crops waiting to be harvested?
And it'd be a long-term stable income!
He's even thought of the lines to say.
"Don't miss it, the first online card gambling venue in Domino City is online!
The monthly member ticket is only 998! Original price 998, now 998, no discount!
Can other ads do it? In this era of rampant discounts, how many ads can claim to be completely discount-free like us!?"
Then players would be gasping, "Wow, Youyu-san is amazing, even the ads are so refreshingly unique! Just take my Crystal Stones..."
...Of course, no matter what, the first step is to eliminate Kaiba Gozaburo in this computer world.
Once you defeat this relentless AI, this virtual space is essentially masterless.
"Duel!" x2
[Kaiba Gozaburo, LP 4000]
[Youyu, LP 4000]
"You start first." Gozaburo said blandly.
Although the random result of the Duel Disc was Gozaburo, he can choose to relinquish this first-move opportunity to the opponent.
So it seems Gozaburo might be slightly intimidated after watching Youyu's aggressive burst of hero strategy against Noah, choosing wisely to go second.
Indeed, his decision is sensible. However, the hero tactic Youyu is playing this time might be a bit different...
"Then I'll start first, draw a card." Youyu draws a card from his hand, "...I summon 'Neo-Spacian Air Hummingbird,' defense position!"
The whirlwind rises, and a bird-man wholly red with white wings leaps out into the air, letting out a clear cry, and slowly lands on the ground.
Gozaburo was startled: "Neo-Spacian? What is this?"
His heart sank, growing tense once more.
An entirely different deck from the duel with Noah earlier!
This era's Gozaburo hasn't heard of them, but for old-card gamers, this series wouldn't be unfamiliar.
Neo-Spacians are the new power gained by Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's protagonist Yuki Judai during the mid-story, apart from "Elemental Heroes."
Though up to now Youyu hasn't been able to open this series in the System Card Pool, because Neo-Spacians and Elemental Heroes are closely related series that have shared cards, the system card pool in this virtual space temporarily opened some Neo-Spacian cards to Youyu.
Speaking of Neo-Spacians, can't miss Yuki Judai's signature monster, regarded as the symbol of his deck, as important as the "Black Magician" is in Yugi's deck — Elemental Hero Neos.
...Also known colloquially by players as Ultraman.
This is because according to story settings, Neos is an Elemental Hero receiving cosmic waves, establishing itself as the power Yuki gained from the distant other side of the starry sky, which oddly resembles the "Hero from M78" setup.
Besides, Neos himself looks like Ultraman, and Neos-series Fusion Monsters all have a "can only exist on the field for one turn" negative effect, reminiscent of the famous "three-minute real man" setup...
...Overall, whichever angle you look from, kind of seems like Ultraman.
What's more interesting is, Yuki Judai's signature series in the manga "Masked Hero," has clearly drawn inspiration from Japan's other notable tokusatsu series "Masked Rider."
A man who wields the power of both Ultraman and Masked Rider.
So by now you might understand why Yuki Judai, as the only protagonist in the Yu-Gi-Oh! series never to have dyed a non-edgy hairstyle, can still be so badass...
Youyu continued: "The effect of Neo-Spacian Air Hummingbird, once per turn, I can recover 500 LP for each card in the opponent's hand.
Your current hand count is five, so I recover 2500 LP."
The Air Hummingbird, flapping its wings, rose into the air. Massive flowers bloomed on Gozaburo's cards. Floating in mid-air, the bird absorbed the essence with its wings and transformed the energy into life points, transferring it to Youyu behind.
[Youyu, LP 4000→LP 6500]
"Setting two cards." Two set cards appeared by Youyu's feet, "End turn."
"My turn." Gozaburo chuckled, "Let me show you the strongest strategy I've integrated from countless dueling data!
Magic Card - Painful Choice, activate!"
Youyu looked at the super old Forbidden Card and was speechless.
...Is this your strongest strategy?
Scared, scared...
"Painful Choice allows you to choose five cards from your deck, and the opponent selects one to add to their hand, the remaining four go to the graveyard." Gozaburo chuckled, "The cards I'll choose are... these five!"
Of course, Youyu knows exactly what he's choosing without looking.
Gozaburo chose... Exodia's five pieces!