Disclaimer: No I do not own Yugioh.

Legends of the Demon Duelist-Duelist Academy Arc

Chapter 47: Thoughts on the matter

Daniel sat in his office, looking at nothing in particular. It was dark in the room, just like his thoughts. ("It's been two weeks since we met Midnight, and still no response from Chaos. I wish it would just make its move already and save us some trouble.") Not that it mattered. Rikuo couldn't care less, though Ryu did decide to stay at the Academy for a while to make sure he was nearby if things did go crazy.

Daniel looked down at his replacement Chains of Time trap card. "I'm amazed that actually worked. Luckily for us our battle was in the darkness realm." If it hadn't have been, his little card trick would have failed miserably and Sestros would had most likely killed him. ("Now I hope that Midnight will keep his end of our deal and not released Sestros from my prison.")

"Pilkington, I'm going to rip out your spine!"

"Oh come on Eri, I didn't even know you had a tail! How could I have purposely grabbed it?"

"Silence!"

Daniel sighed and his mind flickered back to the end of that night, trying to ignore the small war going on right outside the faculty office. ("Hitokage was pretty beaten up…but apparently a 'Reaver' can absorb the abilities of its prey. And since he absorbed Sestros' immortality power, he survived.") That did have some….side-effects, but other than the blond-haired boy getting excessively moody and anti-social as of lately, it didn't seem to affect him badly.

But that didn't matter…because honestly Daniel didn't care. The only thing he cared about right now was finding out who or what Chaos was and destroying it. ("For evil to fear this thing enough to hold a ceasefire treaty with good. That's ridiculous.")

-

Just half a world away, a demonstration was going on right inside the headquarters of Kaiba Corp.

"And I welcome the members of the press to this momentous occasion. The new Kaiba Corporation Dueling Computer system is programmed to think just like a champion-level duelist. All of the applications that this new AI could be used with are incredible to even think about! Of course, first we'd like to hold a demonstration for all of you." Isona, one of Kaiba's private men, stepped back to reveal the demonstration area. It was a simple metal room with plain walls and floors. At one end was a steel machine with numerous computer wiring all over it. Next to it rested a small holographic table that was to be used for the test duel.

At the other end stood a human figure in a black cloak. "Can I take this stupid thing off now?"

"Of course you may!" Isona turned to look at the reporters who sat in the chairs of the room next to the test room. "A little test duel for you to use for the news. Stay or leave if you wish. And for our tester…"

The man removed the cloak to reveal a dark black leather trench-coat with metal spikes along the collar and wrists. His long black hair was tied into a pony-tail that hung against his back, and on his arm was a silver and black duel disk of the old-fashioned design used by Kaiba Corp. during the Battle City tournament 20 years ago. "My name is Deondre Anderson, one of the few people to ever defeat Seto Kaiba in a duel. I hope my skill will be sufficient for this test." His disk snapped into playing position.

"All systems active…." The Duel Computer's status screen flickered to life, already showing that it held five cards in its hand. "Duel start."

Deondre's golden eyes looked at the machine appraisingly and he slowly nodded. "Fine, let's duel then." He slid five cards off of his disk in one smooth motion. "I'll be going first, you pushy piece of scrap." He drew, already knowing what his strategy was going to be. "I set one monster card face-down on the field and two magic/trap cards face-down as well. End turn." The three cards appeared on the ground in front of him.

"Draw." The computer's screen showed that it had six hand cards now. "Summon Kaiser Seahorse (1700/1650) in attack mode and attack defense mode monster." A blue-armored monster appeared on the field and leapt forward with its golden spear, slamming the weapon right through the set card.

Deondre removed the card from his disk and slid it into his graveyard. "I didn't want D.D. Scout Plane (800/1200) on the field anyway. Anything else?"

"Set two cards face-down on the field and end turn." Two cards appeared behind the monster.

Deondre drew. "I set one monster in defense mode and end my turn."

"Draw." The computer now had four cards in hand. "Sacrifice Kaiser Seahorse to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500) in attack mode." The blue-armored creature disappeared off of the field and was replaced by a towering white-scaled dragon. "Attack defense monster. Burst Stream." The dragon roared and opened its jaws wide, charging up a glowing ball of light that tore across the field and blew the defense monster apart.

Deondre held up the card. "I choose not to activate D.D. Warrior Lady's (1500/1600) special ability." He slid the card into his graveyard. "Are you done?"

"End turn."

"Good, because I can't believe I'm fighting a copy of Kaiba's deck." Deondre's lips curled slightly into a smile. "Now I'm wiling to take this duel seriously." He drew, slid two cards into his disk, and then placed a card onto a monster zone. "I set two cards face-down and one monster in defense mode. End turn."

"Draw." The computer went silent as it calculated the chances those new cards were traps. "Set two cards face-down on the field and end turn."

Deondre drew. "That's what I thought. Your 'skill' has nothing to do with instinct or a duelist's true heart. All you are is a bunch of numbers stored into cheap metal. If you were smart, you would have called my bluff." His hand tapped two buttons on his disk and his cards that he set at the beginning of the game flipped up. "I play two continuous magic cards. The first is D.D. Beacon and the second is Dimensional Flare." A glowing green device and a burning green futuristic torch appeared on the field next to each other. "Then I flip up my face-down card Dimensional Explosion. This card requires I sacrifice a Dimensional monster on my field to activate it." He held up his face-down monster card. "Dimensional Warrior (1200/800) blows up with my Explosion card and wipes out your life points with this little combo that I have in waiting."

Everyone in the press room went silent at that declaration.

Deondre's remaining face-down card flipped up. "Curse of Pain is first. This will take the damage that Dimensional Explosion would cause to me and deal it to you instead. Ring of Destruction is just like Dimensional Explosion. So you take 2400 life points so far."

Deondre- 4000

Computer- 1600

Deondre flipped the two cards in his hand over. "Then I summon Dimensional Cannon (0/2000) in defense mode." A crystalline blue-colored machine appeared on his field. "The other card I play is Dimension Hole, which will remove my monster from the game." He smirked as a black portal appeared next to his cannon. It tried to suck up the machine but was unable to. "Whoops, my monster can't be removed from play."

His Beacon and Torch faded away. "But since I just played four D.D. cards, my two continuous magic cards have four counters on them. So by sacrificing those cards their counters are added onto my Cannon." The machine shuddered and spat out a ball of blue fire that slammed into the computer, blowing it apart. "Each counter lets my Cannon deal you 400 direct life points of damage. I win." He casually turned and walked out of the door that was just a few feet away from him, ignoring the booming explosions that came from the now wrecked computer. "And one more thing Isona…tell Kaiba that if he wants to have a good duelist protégée, he should train his brother Mokuba instead of trying to make machines to do the work for him."

-

At the back of the press room, three black-coated figures stood side by side against the wall, blending perfectly with the darkness.

"Well, he's rather cheeky, isn't he?" The first speaker had a clipped British accent, his face hidden by the shadows.

"Yeah, but his skill is worth the master's notice." The second member of the group had a spiky crop of hair sticking out all over his head. "And if that is what he wants, then he will get it."

"The little dog's a lightweight," the third member of the group growled quietly. His two eyes, one gold and the other silver, shimmered in the darkness. "There's only two duelists in the world that are worthy of me. Anyone else is just practice for that inevitable match."

End of Arc.