To be fair, the girl in front of him really was quite beautiful.
She wore a Gothic dress as deep as the night, like satin cut from the dark sky. Her skin was as flawless as first snow with a faint blush, so pale it looked as if it had never seen sunlight. Her hair was midnight-black and waist-length, woven into intricate braids adorned with tiny ornaments. Her petite, delicate figure resembled a finely crafted doll; in every movement she carried both the cool, mysterious elegance of Gothic style and the innocence and liveliness of a young maiden.
The first impression she gave was of flawless beauty. No wonder her first appearance had caused a sensation in the entire dorm. Yet there was a touch of unreality to that beauty.
Because Kira could tell at a glance she wasn't human.
Now the story came back to him. It was just a one-off episode somewhere in the 180-episode run of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, so he'd barely remembered it—until he saw the girl face-to-face and then connected it with the missing item notice he'd seen in the student terminal's Ms. Dorothy bulletin.
The girl's name was Alice—that was indeed her real name. But she wasn't human, not even a card spirit. She was one of the rarest things in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!: a doll spirit.
Of course, in the Yu-Gi-Oh! world spirits didn't only dwell in cards; card spirits were just the most common and the strongest. Any object with spirituality might host a spirit.
Alice's true body was a doll sold at the academy's campus shop—a doll rumored to possess extraordinary power. She was originally a doll created to protect duelists, acting like a talisman, and had always regarded guarding a duelist's heart as her duty.
But later, some students at the academy strayed in their hearts toward dueling. They blamed their defeats—and even their life setbacks—on their cards and decks, thinking they lost because their decks weren't strong enough and their cards were too weak.
So in a fit of anger, a student ripped up his card on the spot—tore his monster in half.
That one tear set everything off. The unjustly implicated monster felt aggrieved: clearly its owner was the weak one—can't even draw what he needs and still expects to win—and then blames the card for losing. The monster turned to darkness. From the torn card was born an evil card spirit who hated all duelists in the world and took as its mission "to make duelists lose the heart to duel through duels of despair."
However, the spirit's card had been torn; it didn't even have a vessel to act through. So the hateful spirit set its sights on the guardian doll in the nearby shop, forced its way into the doll and corrupted it, transforming it from a duelist's protector into a cursed doll of resentment.
That was the Alice of now.
She appeared to the students as a petite, adorable young girl, and with her perfect pretty-girl persona and first-rate cooking she quickly captured almost every student's heart—and stomach.
But it was only bait released by a top-tier hunter. In the original, the smitten Tyranno—completely entranced by Alice—got up at midnight, drooling, and sleepwalked into a small grove. Then, according to Alice, she "used a duel to drag him into a country of despair from which he could not escape."
However, despite Alice's description, when Jaden and the others arrived, they saw Tyranno flushed, eyes full of heart shapes, collapsed on the ground in a daze, body twitching now and then, a silly grin on his face with drool at the corner of his mouth. He didn't look like someone trapped in despair; if anything, he looked like he'd visited paradise. So what exactly Alice's "duel of despair" entails, we don't know and we don't dare ask. Judging by the result, it seemed rather enviable…
"Senpai? Senpai?"
The cursed doll blinked her big eyes, then shrank back instinctively, retreating two steps away from Kira in fear.
She lowered her head and whispered, "If you stare at me like that, I'm scared."
Kira, who had been lost in recollection, snapped back to the moment.
He smiled brightly. "Sorry, I was just thinking about something." He scooted over to make room. "It's fine—of course, you can sit here."
But now Alice hesitated.
In the original, after slipping out of the shop, Alice posed as a transfer student and infiltrated the Red Dorm. But with the world line altered, she'd come to the Yellow Dorm. The reason was simple: she was here for Kira.
Just as she said to Jaden in the anime, she sought strong duelists. The stronger the duelist she dragged into a pit where they no longer wanted to duel, the greater her sense of accomplishment.
Bearing the title of Duel King, Kira was undoubtedly the academy's number one. The tree that stands out catches the wind; of course she'd come to the Yellow Dorm—to meet Kira.
Yet the moment she saw him in person, she wavered.
Because she, a cursed doll fallen into darkness, felt as if she were staring into an abyss just by looking at him.
A voice in her heart told her: this person is dangerous.
The students around them, seeing a pretty first-year girl approach Kira on her own, felt a twinge of envy but also found it reasonable. He was the Lord in Yellow, the Duel King. Any newcomer to the school, given the chance, would want to meet him.
Alice felt that the person before her seemed friendly, his smile warm—but for some reason she instinctively wanted to avoid him.
She pinched the hem of her dress and murmured, "Um… Senpai, I just remembered I have something to do…"
"Don't be shy, it's fine, have a seat."
Kira smiled politely, then paused and narrowed his eyes.
"Or is it that… you don't want to sit?"
"N-no, that's not it!"
Alice hurriedly sat down.
But once seated, she only then realized what she'd done and felt puzzled.
Wait—why am I so afraid of him?
Still, since she'd come, she might as well proceed. Since she was already here, she would follow the plan.
Alice took a deep breath and slid a bowl toward Kira.
"Um… Senpai, would you like to try this?" she asked carefully. "This is mango foie gras sushi I made myself. It's really good."
Kira didn't stand on ceremony. He picked one up with his chopsticks and tasted it.
It was indeed excellent. No wonder the line at the cafeteria was so long; apparently it wasn't only for a glimpse of the pretty junior. He didn't know how her dueling skill was, but her cooking was clearly maxed out.
"Quite good. But let's skip the foreplay and get to the point."
Kira smiled.
"You and I both know why you came to me."
The doll girl started and didn't dare answer.
"Let's save ourselves the hassle; my time's tight. Here's the deal. Tonight at nine, come to my room."
The doll shrank back again in fear.
"You… what are you planning to do?"
Kira looked at her, puzzled.
"Duel, of course," he said matter-of-factly. "Isn't that why you're here? What else would we do?"
...
2 Bonus chapters at 500 PS