*Rustle*
Hearing the sound of rustling, Yuta woke up from his dreams.
He was not really a light sleeper, but he had a hard time sleeping yesterday.
It was because of the duel last night that he had trouble sleeping.
Because he had almost lost to Kaiba.
Yes, lost!
Truth be told, ever since he came to this world, he had looked down on native duellists.
After all, they only knew how to shout about the heart of the cards and play beatsticks without any real strategy involved.
So he thought that aside from Yami Yugi, he would not lose to anyone else, and the reason for that was not because Yami Yugi was better than him but because he was a cheater that could print cards on the spot.
So Yuta thought even if he lost to Yami Yugi, it would not be because he was worse than the opponent but because he was a cheater, so in his heart he was still the strongest duellist in the world.
This arrogance, yes arrogance, was further magnified when he got his hands on the legendary Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and he gained the ability to print cards on the spot as well, as long as the conditions were fulfilled, of course.
But with Yuta's game knowledge, the conditions were not hard to fulfil either.
So even against Yugi, he thought that he had a fair shot.
We can both print cards; who is afraid of whom!?
But this arrogance was shattered by Kaiba yesterday, and brutally at that.
His hand was out of playable cards; he did not even have Red-Eyes in his hands, his life-saving cards were almost all used up, and there was no way that he could tank the damage from Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.
The funny thing was even without it, Kaiba could have defeated him just with the Swordstalker combo alone.
Thankfully, he was lucky enough to draw Tribute to the Doomed, but what then?
No matter how much he replayed the duel against him in his mind, Yuta could not come up with a sure way to defeat Kaiba.
So even though the apparent results were a draw due to the malfunction of the Duel Disk, Yuta still considered himself to have lost.
He needed to get stronger; he needed to print even more vests for Red-Eyes and find ways to defeat Kaiba.
But how?
That was the question that troubled him for most of the night because with the cards in his hands, his deck had already reached its limit.
The only way to get stronger was to either defeat others and steal their cards or incorporate his cards into the Red-Eyes archetype.
The first one depended on luck, as even if he found others, it was not certain whether the cards they had would make his deck stronger.
As for the second one, he had no idea where to start in the first place.
He even asked Red-Eyes for help, but it said it did not know how to transfer its power.
So this brings us back to reality.
The reality where the current Yuta was weaker than Seto Kaiba.
The thought itself was enough to drive him mad!
*Rustle* *Muah*
The sound of rustling brought Yuta back to the present.
"What are you doing?" seeing that it was Mai that was moving around, Yuta got out of his sleeping bag and asked.
Mai was like a cat whose tail was stepped on and immediately jumped up, hiding something behind her back.
"Nothing!" Mai replied as she shook her head vehemently.
Normally, this would be a good time to tease and annoy her, but frankly, Yuta was not in the mood, so he decided to let her go for now.
Seeing that Yuta had no intention of asking further questions, Mai breathed a sigh of relief and hid the letter she just wrote in her pocket. She was planning on writing a letter and leaving the gang without a sound, creating a mysterious woman air in the group, but now that she was caught, there was nothing she could do.
"*Yawn* Anyway, let's wake the others and have a breakfast, then we will split up to search for duellists. I still need three more star chips to advance to the finals." Then Yuta went on to wake up the others.
Yes, Yuta intended to leave the group just like yesterday.
Originally, he debated whether to stay or not.
After all, originally, Black Skull Dragon made its debut in the fight against the Paradox brothers. He debated whether he should stay, take Joey's place, and participate in a tag team duel with Yugi to print a new vest for his favourite dragon.
But there was a problem.
He could not come up with a reasonable wording to make Black Skull Dragon stronger.
After all, both Red-Eyes and Summoned Skull were vanilla monsters, so there were no effects that Black Skull Dragon could inherit.
As for the ATK points, Black Meteor Dragon's ATK points were higher, so why even bother?
If he wanted to have a proper Black Skull Dragon, he needed to find Summoned Skull's retrain, Skull Archfiend of Lightning, and then create an Archfiend Black Skull Dragon with a modified effect.
Additionally, the Paradox brothers were not strong enough to push Yuta to the edge to fulfil the conditions of printing a vest.
Even if he tried to throw the game and create a crisis, Yami Yugi would pick up the slack.
So there was no point in playing this duel then.
As a result, he decided to split up from the group and find some nameless extras or Pegasus' enforcers to have a hearty duel.
Only then was there a slim chance to print a new vest or acquire cards powerful enough to help him defeat Kaiba.
"Uhhh, let me sleep more..." Joey was refusing to get up, so Yuta opened the zipper and...
*Trickle*
"*Gurgle* What?! Stop!" Joey immediately got up and wiped the warm liquid on his face to see Yuta pouring down the lukewarm water from his canteen that he had taken out of his bag.
"Woken up yet?" Yuta asked mischievously. Honestly, bullying Joey felt so good!
Maybe because Joey was Red-Eyes' original owner and didn't manage to bring out its true potential, Yuta always felt like he had a bone to pick with him.
If Red-Eyes could hear, it would have said, 'Young man, be more confident and drop the "maybe".'
"Ugh, what time is it anyway? The sun hasn't even risen yet!" Joey replied angrily.
"5 AM, but as they say, the early bird gets the worm. We need to have breakfast as fast as possible and then split up so that we can find more duellists."
"Fine, fine! I get it!" Joey waved his hand to indicate that he had understood and there was no need for Yuta to continue.
***Breakfast Dividing Line***
"So how are we going to split up?" Mini Yugi asked as he helped clear out the dirty dishes.
"Same as yesterday, I guess? Tristan with me, you, Joey, Tea and Bakura on one team, and Mai can go off and do her own thing."
"What? You are kicking me out! I don't agree!" Mai instantly jumped out. Even though she was originally planning on leaving without saying a word, this was different.
There was a world of difference between choosing to leave out of her own accord and someone kicking her out.
"Mai be good; if we all go together, there wouldn't even be enough duellists to share..." Yuta explained patiently, with a weird expression. He did not remember Mai being this clingy in the anime. Wasn't she a standard lone wolf-type character?
"So what!? Joey and Yugi can travel together, so why can't we?" Mai quipped back.
When she put it like that, there was nothing that Yuta could say in response, so he looked at her blankly.
No, big sister, if you are there, how can I fall into a crisis and need to print out a new vest to get out of the sticky situation?
Tristan is easier to trick since he doesn't know the game and will not notice me intentionally throwing the game away, but you are different. If you keep watching like a hawk and don't have any emotional fluctuations, believing that even though I look like I'm misplaying, I must have a plan.
In that case, how in da heck am I supposed to print new cards?
*Clap*
"That's settled then! Me, Yugi, Bakura and Joey in one team and Tristan, Yuta and Mai in the other. Then we will meet up in the castle tonight!"
Tea said as she clapped her hands and brought an end to the discussion, then continued on with washing the dishes.
"Umm, Tea, don't you think this is a terrible idea? Mai and Yuta don't look like they get along well, just like cats and dogs," Bakura whispered as he crouched down next to the riverbank to help Tea with washing the dishes.
However, Tea just shook her head in disappointment.
"Bakura, you do not understand the heart of a woman," Tea said mysteriously.
Yes, as an expert on reading people's expressions, Tea felt like she saw the truth clearly.
Similar to when she deduced that Yuta and Yugi must be cousins or at least relatives, this time she deduced that Mai must be liking Yuta.
Emphasis is on liking, not love.
These were budding feelings that Mai herself probably didn't even notice.
Through their interactions in the last two days, Tea understood what kind of personality Mai had.
She was someone who acted proud and mature on the surface but had a childish heart beneath it.
Now she did not know what kind of experiences Mai had to lead her to be like this, but she was sure of her excellent (?) deduction skills.
From Tea's perspective, Mai craved recognition, especially from those she recognised.
And from the interactions between the two, Yuta must be someone she recognised.
Yuta, on the other hand, was someone aloof. He did not deliberately act cool or anything, but Tea could feel a sense of detachment towards those around him. Like everything he said was the truth, and no one else in the world was right except for him.
Just like Mai, he only considered the people he recognised, and Tea could see that among the group, he only recognised Yugi, and he especially looked down on Joey for some reason, but that also showed that deep down, he must have recognised Joey as well; otherwise, he would not even bother with him.
It was like he had expectations of Joey, but because Joey failed to meet them, he was especially harsh towards him. Like a parent being disappointed in their child's test results.
In fact, if she was being honest, Mai probably didn't even like Yuta yet, but Tea could see the potential in this relationship.
One craved recognition; the other was not interested, which created this weird dynamic where Mai constantly chased after Yuta.
If their interactions stopped there, nothing would come out of their relationship.
They would only be rivals, just like Mai stated yesterday.
However, if they interacted more, Tea was sure that something could blossom from this.
That was why Tea decided to create an opportunity for them.
If they talked more, those two would definitely fall in love, and they even looked simpatico together.
The existence of Tristan also boosted this probability, since Tristan liked acting a little lewd; it would create a strong contrast with the aloof Yuta, boosting their chances of getting together.
Yes, Tea was a staunch supporter of Mai X Yuta.
After all, even she herself admitted that these two probably felt nothing for each other.
But she wanted to see.
She wanted to see this ship sail, so she was going to give both of them a push from behind.