Judai's body lay still on the pavement, lifeless.
But within his fading soul, a desperate desire to live burned, a will not to let this second chance end so soon. Just before his soul could depart, the Duel Disk on his wrist reacted. It pulsed with energy, drawing upon that desperate desire, binding his soul back to his body before it could escape.
It began to glow, its structure shifting and evolving. The simple circular prototype morphed into a more advanced form, Duel Disk Version 2. It now featured a deck slot, a graveyard zone, and a wing-like extension for placing cards.
Yet that wasn't the end.
A single card materialized in the deck slot, floating in the air as if drawn by an invisible hand. It rose, hovered directly above Judai's chest, and began to glow with a soft pink light. It was a Trap Card, a Normal Trap.
From the card, a wave of temporal energy washed over Judai's body,a focused stream of reversed time. Wounds sealed themselves. Spilled blood flowed backwards, disappearing. His torn clothes mended. The damage undone him, leaving him whole once more.
The card's effect complete, it faded from sight. Its name: Reverse-Time.
And though time had been reversed, the upgraded Duel Disk remained, a permanent mark of what had transpired.
Judai jolted awake, sitting up sharply as air rushed back into his lungs. He gasped, clutching his chest, his whole body trembling with exhaustion.
"What… just happened?" he whispered to the empty street, disoriented and drained.
His eyes fell on his left wrist. The Duel Disk had changed. Questions swarmed his tired mind, but he was too weary to think, and the lingering feeling of vulnerability screamed at him to get inside.
Clutching the plastic bag of manga and his phone, he pushed himself up and broke into an unsteady jog toward his apartment. The moment he stumbled through his front door, fatigue overwhelmed him. He didn't even make it to the bed.
He slumped to the floor just inside the doorway, and darkness took him oncesleep, this time, a deep, dreamless sleep.
. . . .
April 8th
Morning arrived with the sound of chirping birds. Judai slowly pushed himself up from the floor, his entire body aching from a night spent on hard wood. He dragged himself to the bed and collapsed onto it, deciding then and there to skip school, exhaustion still clung to him like a heavy blanket.
He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling before closing his eyes.
"I still can't believe I came back to life," he whispered to the empty room.
Raising his left hand, he focused. In response, the Duel Disk materialized around his wrist, now in its upgraded, more intricate form.
"It definitely evolved," he muttered. "But do I need to die each time? Or just have a near-death experience? No way to know yet." He examined the device. "More importantly… what exactly can you do?"
A faint impulse prompted him to touch the central panel. The moment his finger made contact, knowledge streamed into his mind, rules, mechanics, interface functions.
"It works like Yu-Gi-Oh!… but also doesn't," he mused.
What Judai meant by that is that while the standard rules still apply, they have been modified as follows.
The core rules of Yu-Gi-Oh! remain in effect, but with specific changes:
Action Costs: Every action taken requires either mana or stamina to activate.
Maintenance: Any summoned monster or card that remains on the field requires a continuous supply of mana or stamina to stay in play.
Damage Mitigation: If a summoned card receives damage exceeding its capabilities, the user can pour in additional mana or stamina to prevent its destruction.
Modified Effects: Certain card effects will function differently under these rules.
Curious, he closed his eyes and concentrated. In his mind's eye, a system interface materialized, strikingly similar to Master Duel.
[Anima Cardiae]
· [Duel (Active)]
· [Deck]
· [Pack]
· [Balance Breaker (Locked)]
Most were self-explanatory, but Balance Breaker gave him pause. He pushed the question aside for now and focused on the only menu that seemed immediately actionable: [Pack].
A single available pack appeared.
He checked the description:
[Draw the very card fated to be in your Deck from among all of the cards available!]
And it was free for the first pull.
Judai mentally confirmed the draw. Cards flashed before his inner vision, eight in total:
1. [Link Spider] (Link Monster)
2. [Switch Point] (Normal Trap)
3. [Cabrera Stone] (Effect Monster)
4. [Silver's Cry] (Quick-Play Spell)
5. [Destiny HERO - Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer] (Fusion Monster)
6. [Performapal Trump Witch] (Pendulum Monster)
7. [Assist ★ Yummy] (Normal Trap)
8. [Endymion, The Magistus of Mastery] (Effect Monster)
Judai almost cursed out loud. The only immediately usable cards in the main deck were Trump Witch, Endymion, and Assist ★ Yummy.
"What kind of luck is this?" he sighed, exasperated.
'The fact that I pulled Yummy and it's actually usable is triggering me. That card shouldn't even exist.' He had a particular disdain for archetypes that could endlessly recycle monsters and bounce others monster, a bitterness carried over from memories of Master Duel.
He also noticed the pack system now required Gemstones to pull again, but there was no obvious way to acquire them. Similar to Master Duel, you must collect 1,000 gems in order to purchase a pack
'How do I get more? Is there no plus button? Do I have to… kill someone?' The thought lingered, unsettling.
Shifting focus, he navigated to [Deck]. On the card list, one entry was greyed out: Reverse-Time, a normal trap.
'So that's what saved me. I did die. The card just rewound time and put me back together.'
He assembled a rudimentary deck, placing the usable cards; Performapal Trump Witch, Endymion, The Magistus of Mastery, and Assist ★ Yummy, into the Main Deck slots. Link Spider and Destiny HERO - Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer went into the Extra Deck.
Opening his eyes, he found three physical cards now resting in the deck slot of the Duel Disk.
He was planning to test the summoning mechanics but decided not to since he was still tired. With that thought out of the way, he went to sleep for real this time.