The duel ended.
Hikaru packed up his Duel Disk and Deck, stretched his body, then turned to leave.
"H-Hikaru-san, you're leaving already?"
"What else?" Hikaru waved his hand.
Was he supposed to say, "Looking forward to our next duel" to his opponent?
Yeah, right. He'd puke.
Funglow Corp still had some post-duel matters to discuss with the notary and the cameraman, so they couldn't leave immediately. Hikaru understood this and simply told them he'd go rest in the car while they handled the rest.
He was just the Duelist, only responsible for the duel itself. The rest was their job.
The group figured Hikaru must have been drained from dueling a legendary Duelist and didn't try to stop him. So Hikaru sat alone in the car, half-reclined in his seat, opened his Deck, and began inspecting it.
Tierra slid over next to him, curiously peeking at his cards.
Hikaru knew exactly what kind of person Weevil Underwood was.
In the original, Weevil was infamous for being the first and only person Yugi Muto ever thoroughly humiliated with a corpse-kicking duel. Even after suffering multiple mental breakdown-level personality corrections, he never changed. Expecting a single duel to reform someone like that was pure delusion.
Besides, it had been ten years.
Ten years without change. He was still the same person.
Did Hikaru really expect him to reform after just one duel?
Especially when, before the duel, he'd crushed Rex Raptor's hand with a machine and even set up a trap to crash into Hikaru.
If Tierra hadn't been there, Hikaru would've had no choice but to dodge. A regular person might've been crippled.
So, before the duel even began, Hikaru and Tierra's plan was simple: "Draining the pond to catch the fish."
In short, drain all the Duel Energy from Weevil first.
Tierra didn't care about human lives, but she did enjoy this sort of thing. The more energy Hikaru drained, the more leftover energy she could casually devour. After all, Hikaru still couldn't channel every drop of Duel Energy perfectly into Super Polymerization.
The extra energy could go towards preparing components for her resurrection.
No way she'd turn that down.
As for whether the person survived, how long they'd stay unconscious, or if they'd drool afterward;
Not her problem.
And Hikaru?
He cared even less.
Even if Weevil woke up insane and the company had to care for him for life, that was still better than having to constantly guard against a cockroach hiding in the shadows.
Death wasn't likely. Not because Tierra couldn't do it, but because the duel was recorded and archived. It wasn't a Shadow Duel. Killing someone directly would raise too many questions.
Hikaru was far more concerned with the cards in his hand.
First and foremost, he needed to confirm whether any of his cards had turned into "Kahyoreigetsu."
After all, this duel was against one of the icons of Insect decks. If such a card appeared, he'd have to think about it.
But clearly, he was overthinking it.
A card like "Kahyoreigetsu" would only emerge from dueling someone like Celina or Rin.
Logically speaking, Kahyoreigetsu's effect would actually be pretty useful if it wasn't saddled with something like Parasite Fusion.
Hikaru stopped blindly flipping through his cards, set his Deck down, and slowly pulled out his precious side cards.
Inside were all the "branch" cards he'd been collecting lately.
Armityle the Chaos Phantom, Starving Venom Fusion Dragon, and his gaze fell on a card now glowing with flowing light, shining brighter and more solid than before.
The Claw of Hermos.
Compared to before, the completion rate of this card had probably reached a full 20 percent.
An explosive leap in progress.
Of course, chances like this would be rare moving forward.
This card's rapid advancement came from the sheer, reckless extraction of Duel Energy during this duel. In a friendly match with Rex Raptor, Hikaru would've never done something like this.
Then again, logically speaking, shouldn't the reward for defeating Weevil have been that card?
The Eye of Timaeus.
In canon, when Yugi dueled Weevil, his "Legendary Dragon" card was The Eye of Timaeus.
Yet here, there wasn't even the possibility of Hikaru receiving The Eye of Timaeus. Instead, The Claw of Hermos advanced.
Truthfully, even if The Claw of Hermos were fully completed, it was practically useless in Hikaru's hands.
The reason was simple, he'd realized long ago that while his "Super Polymerization" granted him extraordinary power, all the cards it created were strictly OCG or TCG versions of Fusion-related cards.
This meant that even with The Claw of Hermos, it was a vanilla version. Unlike the original series, he couldn't just rewrite the card's effect however he liked.
Unlike slapping it onto Dark Magician to create Dark Magician the Dragon Knight, The Claw of Hermos needed specific Fusion Materials and outcomes that Hikaru simply didn't have.
Forget Red-Eyes Black Dragon. He didn't even own Time Wizard.
Not that Time Wizard wasn't absurdly rare in this world anyway.
Still, official cards had their own merits. OCG versions had their own strengths.
At least the OCG didn't force you to fuse with one specific monster to summon a Hermos Fusion. As long as he had the right monster type, he could use The Claw of Hermos to fuse.
If he managed to complete it, maybe he could use other Fusion Materials to summon Hermos-based Fusions.
Like the Goddess Bow, Moonshot.
Or the occasionally very handy Time Magic Hammer.
Both of those had wild utility at the right moments.
For Hikaru, who severely lacked removal and recovery options, those cards were priceless.
As the company rep finished talking and approached, Hikaru casually packed away his cards.
"Hikaru-san, we've finished our discussions." The representative sat in the car and smiled. "Thank you for coming despite your busy school schedule."
"Haha, well, I'm part of the company too. A contract's a contract." Hikaru leaned back in his seat with a grin.
Meanwhile…
Rex Raptor turned off the duel footage he'd watched over and over, running his fingers over his Deck, while his gaze drifted toward the window.
In the flower bed outside, a riot of colorful blooms attracted passersby.
Occasionally, among those blossoms, a hidden insect would spook anyone who came too close.
A gardener or hospital staff member walked over, carrying a box, spraying something onto the flowers. Who knew what it was, but the flowers grew even more vibrant, even more beautiful.
"Hah."
...
Bonus @400
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