Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

The pharaoh who was defeated used an ancient stone tablet, but Atum was wearing a Duel Disk to draw cards. After putting away the cards, Atum heard Ramses II's voice and turned around, looking surprised: "Hayato?"

"No, it's Ramses II, isn't it?" But quickly, Atum realized that he was in the underworld, and Hayato, as a living being, could not possibly be here. The only person in front of him could be Ramses II. "Sorry, I didn't realize it for a moment."

“It’s alright, Pharaoh Atum. Habits are such a difficult and cruel thing to change. Even when I’m in my sixties or seventies, I still occasionally call out the name of Nefertari, who left my side more than twenty years ago.”

Ramses II shook his head, not really bothered by Atum calling himself "Hayabusa," and casually said to Atum, "I just went to see your vessel from your time in the human world—no, I should say your partner."

"Aibo?" Atum was somewhat surprised by Ramses II's words. "But how exactly did you, Pharaoh Ramses II, who is in the underworld, meet Aibo and the others on earth?"

"Because it's too complicated to explain, and I hate trouble, I've omitted the details. In short, your Aibo and my reincarnation, Hayato Kobayashi, have contacted me through my Gate to the Underworld."

Sharing a similar aversion to trouble as Hayato, Ramses II curled his lip and said unhappily, "They actually used me, who should have been revered and loved like the sun, as a mouthpiece. If it weren't for Hayato Kobayashi, I would have already unleashed a punishment as scorching as the sun."

"In short, what they want me to convey to you is—"

After a pause, Ramses II adjusted his voice, mimicking a voice remarkably similar to one Atum remembered:

"Take care, another game." This was from Grandpa Shuangliu;

"Looking forward to seeing you again, Atem. Let's play Dice again then." This is Otogi;

"We will definitely find a way to see you again, I'll bet Shizuka's phone number!"

"Wait for us in the underworld, Honda's life is our stake!" This was Honda and Jonouchi's words.

"You two idiots, be serious—huh? Me? Hmm…we'll definitely meet again, Atum." This is Kyoko;

"Can I too? Then please pray in the underworld that I won't get beaten by my sister—ugh!" This is Malik, but it looks like he still got beaten up;

"Grandma once said that those who walk side by side on the same path are merely companions, but those who, even if separated by vast distances, can still move in the same direction, are true friends." This is Hayato's story, and it's somewhat regrettable that he never got to meet his philosopher grandmother during his lifetime. No, ultimately, did that "grandmother" even truly exist?

Finally, the game's voice says: "I will become stronger, another me. When we meet again, I will show you an even stronger version of myself. It's a promise!"

“Aibo…” Atum listened to these relayed words, yet he could still feel the emotions the speakers wanted to convey, and was deeply moved. But then he looked at Ramses II, who coughed twice, with slight surprise. “Although it’s not very important, I still have to say the imitation is just too perfect. It’s as if they are speaking to me in person. To have such a talent is truly remarkable, Pharaoh Ramses II.”

"Hmph, for I am the Pharaoh among Pharaohs, the King of Kings, the only sun under the sun worthy of the highest reverence!" Ramses II looked quite pleased with the praise from Atum, who was of a higher generation than him.

But just then, a woman's voice came from afar: "Oh no! Pharaoh Abydos III wants to challenge someone to another duel?!"

"That's Queen Nitocris's voice? Oh no!" Ramses II's expression changed instantly. He said to Atum, "There's no time to explain. Get out of here with me right now!"

"Huh? Why do we run away just because someone wants to duel? How can a duelist run away from battle?" Atum asked, puzzled. He then pointed to Nektaneb I, whom he had just defeated, and added, "And we don't care—hmm?"

Nektaneb I, who had just been lying on the ground pretending to be dead, was now running wildly across the reeds of the underworld, saying, "Who wants to duel with that old bastard Abydos III? I, the Pharaoh, am really going to get myself into trouble!"

Although he still didn't quite understand why they were running away, Atum, considering that he had only recently arrived in the Underworld and was not very clear about any taboos or rules there, followed Ramses II. "By the way, after Aibo and Hayato asked you to relay those words, did they say where they were going?"

"Yes, I heard from them that there is something very important they need to do." Ramses II nodded.

When they were talking about what they were going to do, it seemed like they were talking about Jonouchi and Honda? The two of them immediately turned pale, as if they were going to do something dangerous and terrifying.

"C, C, C, why would anyone choose C for this question!" Pushing up his glasses, the English teacher, barely in his forties, was already balding due to his students' frustratingly low grades. "Even though they both mean 'I,' why would someone start a sentence with 'Me' instead of 'I'!"

"Katsuya Jonouchi, Hiro Honda! You two stand up and answer me!"

“But Pegasus is clearly—” Jonouchi, whose name was called, stood up and was about to argue back, but Honda, who sat behind him, covered his mouth.

"Teacher, you're right, we know we were wrong!"

The bell rang, and the English teacher, having released much of the pressure from being reprimanded by the head of student affairs after scolding the struggling students, walked out of the classroom refreshed. Meanwhile, Jonouchi, sitting in the classroom, said with dissatisfaction, "How dare you subtly mislead me with your strange verbal tic and make me unconsciously answer wrong questions on the mock exam! Unforgivable, Pegasus!"

"Unforgivable, Pegasus!" Jonouchi wasn't the only one who answered this question wrong; Honda subconsciously chose C for what was practically a free point. They were the only two in the class, even the entire grade, to have chosen C, so it's no wonder the English teacher was so angry.

“Compared to that heavily made-up old lady, Ms. Chono, Ms. Saotome is a really good teacher, even though she has a bit of a temper. You two should pay more attention to yourselves,” Kyoko reminded the two as she walked up to them with Yugi. “Next week is the central exam, so every little bit helps.”

"After all, you have to pass the central exam to take the second exam and then you can go on to higher education."

Today is the second day after the winter break, but most of the first day was spent on mock exams. Theoretically, today is their first day of class this semester, and the English class we just had was the last class of the morning. Seeing that Kyoko and Yugi were each carrying a small package, Jonouchi also took a wooden box out of his desk.

"I had so much fun in Egypt during the winter break that I completely forgot that the center's exams start in mid-January every year."

Honda sighed, "I've given up. Whatever happens, happens. There's no hope for university anymore. After graduating from high school, I can only go home and work in a factory."

"Huh? You're showing off, aren't you? You're showing off to us, you bastard Honda!" Jonouchi heard Honda's words and grabbed Honda's neck tightly. "Apologize to the workers who actually tighten screws in your factory, you capitalist's son!"

"Quack! Let go of me! The bento is going to spill! The bento is going to spill!"

Honda, who was trying to get rid of Jonouchi, quickly changed the subject, saying, "By the way, where did Hayato go?"

"Huh? Hayato should be in the second to last seat by the window..." Jonouchi's attention was successfully diverted by Honda, and he looked towards Hayato's location, only to find that Hayato wasn't there at the moment, and the comic book tucked inside the English textbook on the table was still there. "Huh? He's not here?"

Honda, who had managed to break free from Jonouchi's embrace, looked around and pointed to the corridor outside the classroom, saying, "Ah, so that's where it is."

Following Honda's direction, the group saw Bakura walking alongside Hayato through the window, with several disappointed girls behind them.

"Thank you so much, Hayato-kun. Otherwise, I would have been bothered like this forever." With a slight blush on his cheeks, Bakura thanked Hayato, holding five bento boxes in his hands. "Everyone in Domino City is as enthusiastic as ever. I wish I hadn't transferred back. There are so many bento boxes that we can't possibly finish them all. Would you like one, Hayato-kun?"

"I have a bento box too." Hayato gestured, holding a bento box wrapped in cloth, and met the gazes of the group coming out of the classroom. "Oh, shall we go to the rooftop together again?"

"Hehe, I brought my own lunch today, so of course I'm going to eat it on the rooftop." Jonouchi said with a grin, showing off a bit proudly. "This was specially made for me by Shizuka after she asked Miss Isis to teach her how to cook. I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of dishes are in it."

"Shizuka made this?" Honda was quite tempted upon hearing this. "Hey, Jonouchi, I brought some fried chicken nuggets today. Let's swap them later."

"You've got a plan, but Otogi can hear it all from across the sea," Jonouchi retorted.

“Jonnouchi, have you forgotten that Otogi returned to Domino City with us?” Yugi said with a smile. “His shop is still in Domino City. It seems he’s planning not to go back to America and to focus on running his shop here.”

"And I heard he's preparing for Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this year, planning to further promote his game there," Kyoko added after a moment's thought. Meanwhile, the game's eyes lit up when it heard about the gamescom, as if it held a special anticipation for the event.

As they talked, they walked up to the rooftop and found that there were already quite a few people there, gathered in small groups to enjoy lunch. However, there were also some who, with a sense of aversion to youth, enjoyed the quiet solitude of a corner by themselves.

The group of gamers were quite lucky. Although they arrived a little late, their usual lunch spot was still empty, thanks to something called "unspoken rules."

Although Hayato and his friends may seem to have unpopular characters like underachievers, delinquents, and eccentrics, from another perspective, in this city that is gradually being filled with Duel Monsters games, their small group has gathered three legendary duelists, making them practically at the top of the school food chain.

Japanese schools are small societies that place great importance on "atmosphere," and no one would dare to trespass and occupy the "territory" where the group often spends time, even if they don't really care about such things.

Honda and Jonouchi sat down directly on the ground, seemingly unconcerned about the dust. Bakura took out some tissues for everyone to clean their seats, and he and Hayato each sat on a concrete pillar facing each other. Kyoko and Yugi sat by the railing that prevented students from falling from the rooftop.

Upon opening the bento box, the game noticed that although Anzu's lunchbox was colorful, it mostly contained vegetables, with no meat or oil at all. There was no rice; instead, pumpkin was used. The only meat dishes were a small piece of tamagoyaki and two octopus sausages.

Noticing Yugi's gaze, Kyoko smiled and said, "How about it, Yugi, want to swap food with me?"

"No, Anzu, your healthy meal is just too anti-human! Although it is healthy, it has no taste at all." Yugi, who had tried it once before and was fooled by the tamagoyaki that had no salt or sugar and only the smell of eggs, immediately refused. "You really go to great lengths to maintain your figure, Anzu."

"Hehe, because my dream is to become a professional dancer in the United States after graduation. I've been working towards this dream since I was little," Xingzi said with a smile, picking up a piece of pumpkin and putting it in her mouth. "And I didn't force myself too much. A standard healthy meal would include taro, but I don't like taro, so I used pumpkin instead."

As Xingzi was speaking, she suddenly noticed a boy with long, dark blue hair eating a convenience store fried noodle bread alone in a corner of the rooftop.

Chapter 937 Making Duel Monsters Great Again

"Who is that person...?"

Kyoko felt that the boy looked very familiar, as if she had seen him somewhere before, but when asked to say who he was or where she had seen him before, she really couldn't remember.

It's not like when you bump into an old classmate you haven't seen in decades on the street and can't remember if they were from elementary or middle school or what their name is, but rather a kind of uncertainty about whether the other person is someone you know.

"Kyoko, what are you looking at?" Seeing Kyoko with a piece of octopus sausage in her mouth, not chewing, and staring in one direction as if frozen in place, Jonouchi turned his head curiously.

"Ah, I was looking—" Kyoko glanced at Jonouchi instinctively upon hearing his words, then subtly pointed in the direction of the boy she had just seen. Talking about someone behind their back is always impolite, and it would be even more embarrassing if someone found out, so Kyoko's gestures were very small.

But when she shifted her gaze back to the corner where the boy she had just noticed should have been, she found that the boy's figure had vanished in less than half a second. On the rooftop, which had been divided up by various small groups, the empty corner felt quite abrupt.

"Eh?"

Jonouchi, who hadn't seen anything, turned around and saw the absent-minded expression on Kyoko's face. Not knowing how he interpreted or imagined it, he said to Kyoko, "Kyoko, you are a girl after all, it's normal for you to want to be in a relationship. You were thinking about a boy you like just now, weren't you?"

"Sigh, I used to think you liked—"

"It's not like that at all! You idiot, Jonouchi, you're the one with a love-struck mind! I wouldn't be fantasizing about having a lot of kids with my future husband in broad daylight. Besides, the person I like is—"

After a pause, whether it was because she had inadvertently revealed that she had actually fantasized about the kind of romance she longed for in broad daylight, or because she was feeling down thinking about the person who had left her friends, Kyoko abruptly changed the subject, saying, "Anyway, I just saw a boy over there with dark blue hair, someone I felt like I'd seen before but also didn't."

"Uh, Apricot-chan, what you're saying... I don't quite understand. What do you mean by 'seems familiar but not quite'?" Bakura said, taking a cream puff from her lunchbox and putting it in her mouth, a happy smile unconsciously spreading across her face. "Mmm... I feel so light. I've never experienced anything like this before~"

"There's nothing to be afraid of, right? By the way, you actually had cream puffs for lunch, Bakura-kun, are you even thinking straight?" Hayato retorted, but he also took one. "Well, it's not bad, actually."

"These girls insisted on giving them to me. Last time, they ambushed me in an alley after school, and to get away, I had to tell them what I like and dislike to eat, and the result was..."

Bakura didn't care about the cream puff Hayato took from the bento box, but instead glanced at the other boxes beside her. "Everyone gave me cream puffs. Even though I like them, I can't finish them as snacks. I can only eat them for lunch. I should thank Hayato-kun for helping me finish some of them."

As he spoke, Bakura opened several bento boxes and distributed them to everyone: "Please help me finish some of these."

"Damn it, Bakura, you're really popular. Is it called the 'Bakura Fan Club'?" Honda said with a hint of sourness. "After Kaiba ran away, Bakura and Hayato took the top two spots in the 'most wanted to date' list."

As he spoke, Honda took a bite of the cream puff, but then frowned and asked, "Hmm? Why doesn't it taste very sweet to me?"

"It's probably because Honda, you ate too many sweets with Jonouchi when you were in Egypt recently. Even I can't quite handle the sweetness of the desserts that Egyptians like. Ah, thank you." Taking a bite of a cream puff, Yugi could tell that the sweetness of the cream puffs Bakura received was actually above average, but compared to the desserts he had in Egypt, it could only be considered "light".

"After all, we've been traveling for so long, so we definitely have to bring back some souvenirs. Although we almost lost our sense of taste while trying all the desserts, Mai and Shizuka were both very happy to receive the gifts." After swallowing the cream puff, Honda didn't rush to open his own bento box. Instead, he took out his chopsticks and waited for Jonouchi to open his bento box so he could grab it.

"I used to have no food aversions, but after going to Egypt, I do. I feel like I never want to eat desserts again. Not many people could stomach those Egyptian desserts, right?" Jonouchi shook his head, declining the cream puffs Bakura offered, and counted on his fingers, "That fake American Pegasus, that dessert addict Keipi who'll eat anything with chocolate, then Bakura and Hayato, and Atum..."

Upon hearing Jonouchi unconsciously mention Atum's name, a brief silence fell among them, and the atmosphere became somewhat heavy. Jonouchi realized that he had inadvertently brought up Atum's name again, drawing everyone back into memories of Atum who were still recovering from his passing, and quickly tried to change the subject.

"Huh? Wait, Honda, what did you just say? The souvenirs Shizuka received?" Although it was an attempt to change the subject, the serious expression on Jonouchi's face didn't seem fake at all. "I asked Shizuka why she received three souvenirs, and she wouldn't tell me. You're trying to lie to me, trying to ambush me, aren't you!"

"Take this! Jonouchi Iron Fist!"

"Wait a minute, there's one more thing I need to confirm before I die—I gave Shizuka one copy, and Jonouchi gave Shizuka one copy, so who sent the third copy?"

Jonouchi, who had raised his fist, and Honda, who was in a blocking stance, both looked thoughtful. After a moment, they said in unison, "Otogi?! I was wondering why he was staying in Domino City instead of going back to America!"

"You two are really lively. It's all your fault; the topic has veered completely off course." Hayato said, eating a cream puff while looking around at the corner where Kyoko had mentioned seeing the boy with dark blue hair. He couldn't see anything, so he asked Kyoko, "Kyoko, did you really see a boy there? There's no trace of him."

"Look, there's so much dust there that it could turn into a Pokémon if it were just exposed to moonlight."

"It's not quite at the level of 'stinky mud' yet. No, I really did see a boy." Even though Kyoko had played Pokémon Origins and knew where Hayato's complaint came from, she retorted and described it by fiddling with her hair, "The front half of that person's hairstyle was fairly round and normal, but the back half was a bit sticking up, making it look like a jellyfish."

"Isn't that the Judai?" Yugi said after thinking for a moment.

“That kid Judai is only ten years old, there’s no way he could be here.” Hayato shook his head.

Xingzi continued gesturing, "And also, his hairstyle has parts that stick up like cow horns."

"Isn't that Yusei?"

Yugi's guess made Hayato shake his head again: "Your guesses are getting more and more outrageous, Yugi. Yusei's father probably hasn't even been born yet."

“Just from the description, who could remember who that person is?” Jonouchi remarked, not taking Kyoko’s words to heart. Instead, he said, “For me, no matter how important something is, even next week’s central exam, nothing compares to opening my lunchbox and enjoying the first lunch I’ve ever eaten.”

When Jonouchi was young, his family broke up because of his gambling father. His mother left him with Shizuka. Jonouchi never expected that his terrible father, who was only an alcoholic, abusive and a gambler, would make him a lunchbox to take to school. For a long time, he relied on the school store for students who forgot to bring their own lunch.

The bento he received today was not only the first bento Shizuka had ever made, but also the first bento Jonouchi had ever eaten in his life. Even if guys like Dartz and Zorc, who wanted to destroy the world, appeared, they wouldn't be able to stop Jonouchi from enjoying the bento.

As Jonouchi awkwardly unwrapped the lunchbox and opened the clasp, just as he was about to lift the lid, a familiar voice suddenly rang out above them: