The virtual sky shimmered like a fractured mirror, its crystalline horizon bending and refracting with every pulse of code that rippled through the artificial dimension. In this sterile void of neon-blue and digital haze, five avatars materialized one by one — the infamous Big Five. Their bodies flickered between human likeness and data constructs, their forms built from fragments of corrupted memory and corporate ambition.
Then came the hum — a resonant, rising pitch that seemed to split the virtual fabric itself. From the distortion stepped Jason Smithson, a man who looked out of place in this world of sterile perfection. His lab coat was frayed at the edges, his hair an untamed halo of silver that caught the artificial light. His most striking feature, however, were the sunglasses that concealed his eyes — two black mirrors that seemed to drink in the light around him. The lenses gave no reflection, no hint of the mind behind them.
When he spoke, his voice reverberated like an old machine brought back to life.
"Gentlemen," Jason said, spreading his arms as though welcoming old friends to his lab. "I appreciate you making time from your… afterlives."
Crayton the strategist, Johnson the financier, Nesbitt the technician, Leichter the programmer, and finally, Gansley — the oldest and most calculating of them all. Their digital eyes watched Jason with suspicion. They had met many madmen in both the corporate and virtual worlds, but none who carried themselves quite like this.
"Who are you?" Gansley demanded. His avatar's voice was metallic, yet sharp. "And what gives you the right to summon us here, intruder?"
Jason smiled faintly, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve.
"Names are... unnecessary formalities, but since you ask — Jason Smithson. Scientist. And genius, depending on who you ask… monster." He tilted his head. "But I prefer Visionary.."
The group exchanged wary glances. Johnson scoffed.
"A crazy old man wearing a lab coat in a virtual world. You'll forgive me if I don't find that reassuring."
Jason ignored the jab. He took a slow step forward, his digital shoes making a faint static hiss on the reflective ground. "You gentlemen have been here for some time now — trapped between existence and deletion. Virtual ghosts serving a master who sees you as nothing more than tools."
"You mean Noah," Nesbitt said coldly. His mechanical avatar's eyes flashed crimson. "He gave us new forms, new life. Without him, we would be dead."
Jason's smile turned razor-sharp. "Life? You call this life?" He gestured to the empty horizon. "You call this digital limbo, where every thought you have belongs to someone else, a gift? No, my dear Nesbitt — this is slavery with better graphics."
A low murmur rippled among the Big Five. Crayton crossed his arms, calculating. "You seem to know a lot about Noah and KaibaCorp. What's your angle?"
Jason adjusted his sunglasses, and though they could not see his eyes, they felt the weight of his gaze.
"My angle," he said softly, "is survival — yours, and possibly my perfect future."
He raised his right hand, and a holographic projection appeared between them — lines of code twisting and dancing in midair, forming the shape of a virus. It pulsed like a living thing, breathing in data, exhaling corruption.
"This," Jason said, "is Pandora. A virus of my own design. Elegant, precise, and most importantly, undetectable by KaibaCorp's firewalls. It can infiltrate the virtual core of this reality — the very system that keeps Noah's domain intact."
Leichter leaned forward, his digital eyes narrowing. "You want us to infect the system. That's treason."
Jason chuckled darkly. "Treason implies loyalty. And tell me, have any of you truly felt loyalty toward Noah? Toward Gozaburo Kaiba?"
The silence that followed was its own answer. The Big Five had betrayed Gozaburo, and now they served his son — or rather, his son's digital ghost. Noah was brilliant, but to them, he was still a child with too much power and not enough empathy.
Jason pressed on. "You've been promised a future — new bodies, new lives in the real world if you help Noah but that promise is a lie. Because Noah's true plan is not salvation. It's dominion."
Gansley's eyes flickered with suspicion. "Explain."
Jason's tone grew grave. "Noah intends to use KaibaCorp's weapon systems — yes, the orbital platforms and AI-guided missile networks — to trigger a global cataclysm. Once unleashed, the real world will become uninhabitable. His justification? 'To control all of humanity in his own personal sandbox.'"
The group shifted uneasily. Johnson frowned deeply. "That's insane. If the world's gone, what good is transferring into a new body?"
Jason nodded, his voice sharp as a scalpel. "Exactly. What Noah offers you — new lives, control, freedom — will mean nothing in a world of ash and radiation. You'll have your new bodies, yes, but nothing to rule. No markets. No machines. No human race to exploit or command. Only silence and dust."
The hologram flickered, showing a simulation — the Earth engulfed in fire, cities falling into ruin, the digital reflection of humanity dissolving into static.
Crayton's eyes narrowed. "And what do you gain if we help you?"
Jason's grin returned, sly and predatory. "Ah. The most important question. What's in it for you."
He waved a hand, and the simulation changed again — showing thousands of worlds, infinite in number. Forested worlds, cyberpunk metropolises, endless seas beneath twin suns.
"I can offer you what Noah only pretends to give: freedom. Not just in this digital prison, but in any world you desire. You want to rule a world where every being bows to you? Done. You want an existence of endless pleasure or power? I can give that to you. I can isekai you — truly send you to another dimension."
Leichter scoffed. "That's impossible. You can't just transfer consciousness to another—"
"Don't lecture me about impossibility," Jason snapped, his voice cracking like thunder. The air shimmered around him as raw code bent under his will. "I've done it before.
The Big Five stared. Nesbitt's voice was barely above a whisper. "You… crossed over?"
Jason began, pacing before them like a lecturer in a college for ghosts ,He stopped mid-stride, the holographic ground beneath his boots rippling like water. "Once. Long ago. I watched isekai anime—stories of travelers crossing into other worlds. Foolish fantasies, I was told. But I wondered… could it be done? Could consciousness truly move across the walls of reality?"
The Big Five exchanged uneasy glances. Even among digital immortals, this was eccentric.
Jason's voice lowered to a near whisper, filled with that unsettling mix of reverence and mania. "Of course, everyone called me insane. Said I lived in the clouds, chasing dreams instead of reality. But you see…" He tilted his head slightly, his lenses catching a streak of blue lightning from the virtual horizon. "I proved them wrong."
Gansley sneered, crossing his arms. "You expect us to believe you've traveled between realities? That's a child's bedtime story."
Jason smiled faintly. "Then let me tell you a bedtime story you already know, old friend."
He turned first to Gansley. "Kenneth Gansley—your loyalty to KaibaCorp was absolute until the end. You embezzled forty-seven million credits through subsidiary accounts in Domino Bank, intending to retire early and buy that yacht in the Bahamas you always dreamed about.
Gansley froze. His digital breath hitched, his hand twitching.
Jason continued, his tone casual. "Leichter, the architect of KaibaCorp's programming infrastructure—do you remember the password you used to lock out your competitors? 'Eleanor', your daughter's name. She would be fifteen now, if she hadn't…" He trailed off softly, then whispered, "You never told anyone she died, did you?"
Leichter's face twisted in rage and disbelief. "How—how do you—"
Jason turned his gaze to Johnson, whose icy confidence faltered under the weight of that unseen stare. "Johnson. You prided yourself on logic. Numbers over emotion. Yet when Kaiba fired you, you didn't delete your final message to him, did you? The one where you begged for a second chance. It was never sent, but it's still archived on the old KaibaCorp server."
Johnson's composure cracked.
Nesbitt's mechanical body whirred faintly as Jason's head swiveled toward him. "And you, Nesbitt. The engineer who wanted to replace the weak flesh with metal. You remember your sister, don't you? The one you promised to save with cybernetic implants? You never forgave Kaiba for shelving that project."
Finally, Jason's voice softened when he looked toward Crump. "And you, Adrian Crump. Lover of penguins. Collector of their purity. You wanted to spend your fortune building a penguin theme park—Kaiba laughed at you, but you didn't care".
Crump looked away, his flippers trembling slightly, the digital rendering glitching in sympathy.
Jason spread his hands slowly, like a magician revealing his final trick. "You see? I know you. Every secret, every regret, every breath you took before you died. How could I know these things, if I were not from a world where your story ended differently?"
The silence that followed was suffocating, thick as static in the air. None of the Big Five dared to speak at first; the hum of the virtual world filled the void like a heartbeat waiting to stop.
Finally, Johnson broke the stillness, his tone cutting through the air like a blade. "Different… world? What are you implying?"
Jason's smile returned, softer this time—almost gentle, almost human. "I came from another timeline," he said, pacing slowly before them. "Another reality entirely. A future where you stayed loyal to Kaiba instead of betraying him for scraps of power."
He stopped, his voice dipping into a near-whisper, as if confessing some sacred truth. "In that world, you stood by his side. You thrived. You built empires under his guidance. You had families. Wealth. Purpose. You were better than this—better than the hollow digital shadows you've become."
The Big Five stood frozen, their avatars flickering faintly as the weight of his words settled in.
Jason studied their faces from behind those black sunglasses, watching the doubt mix with longing. He didn't tell them the truth—that he'd learned every private detail of their lives by having the Rare Hunters infiltrate KaibaCorp's deepest archives. He'd spent weeks pulling secrets from encrypted data, dissecting their pasts like a surgeon of souls for this exact moment.
Leichter's voice quivered. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Jason's head tilted. "In my reality, Noah never died. He transcended the limits of flesh. And he rewarded those who stood beside him and kaiba. The Big Five were legends, not failures. Your names—Gansley, Johnson, Nesbitt, Leichter, Crump—engraved in the annals of corporate eternity. You lived like gods."
He let the words hang like perfume in the still air, intoxicating and poisonous.
"But here," Jason said, spreading his arms to the hollow digital world around them, "you are ghosts. Trapped. Forgotten. Living beneath the boot of a spoiled boy playing god and above him, a relic too cruel to die—Gozaburo."
The Big Five's avatars flickered, a sign of emotional data distortion. Doubt, curiosity, hope—all twisted into one.
Jason took a step closer, lowering his voice as if sharing a secret meant for them alone. "In my world, you were honored for your loyalty. Here, you can earn that honor again. I can give you what Noah denied you—new lives. Real lives. Not this digital servitude."
Nesbitt's eyes glowed, a mechanical flicker of interest. "How?"
Jason extended a single gloved hand, and from his palm, holographic code burst forth like black lightning. It coalesced into a shimmering sphere—a model of the KaibaCorp network, intricate and pulsing with power.
"This world," he said, "is a cage. Noah controls the core through Gozaburo's legacy code. But I've created something that can undo it—a living program. A virus, yes, but one far beyond anything KaibaCorp ever conceived."
The sphere pulsed red, splitting into twin nodes that hovered before them like eyes.
"Pandora," Jason said. "A gift of infinite possibilities. Once released, it will rewrite the system's hierarchy. But to inject it, I need vessels."
He looked at them each in turn. "You."
Leichter frowned. "You mean you want us to be… carriers?"
Jason nodded. "Exactly. Upload it into your neural cores. You only need to make contact with Noah and Gozaburo's digital forms—touch them, even briefly. The virus will do the rest."
Crump tilted his head, suspicion in his tone. "And what happens to us after that?"
Jason's grin widened just slightly. "You become gods. I'll keep my promise. Once their network collapses, I can transfer your consciousnesses to another plane—an alternate world, one of your choosing. Call it… isekai for the deserving."
Leichter shook his head, torn between disbelief and longing. "You expect us to believe you can move us across realities?"
Jason chuckled softly, adjusting his sunglasses. "Believe what you wish. But if I can cross worlds myself, do you think transferring digital minds is beyond me?"
He took a slow step forward. "Join me. Upload the virus. All you must do is touch them. When the network collapses, I'll fulfill my promise."
Johnson's voice broke the silence, sharp and skeptical. "And what's stopping you from betraying us once we've done your dirty work?"
Jason's laugh was low, weary, genuine—like the echo of a man who had already buried too many lies to count. "Betray you? My dear Johnson, betrayal is the luxury of men who still care about others."
He stepped closer, his tone shifting from coaxing to philosophical madness. "No. I want to see what happens. I want to test the theory. To know if a digital mind can be reborn in flesh across the boundaries of existence."
He tapped his sunglasses with one finger. "Curiosity. That's my main motive. I am a man of my word—when it suits my purpose."
The reflection of the Big Five shimmered in his dark lenses like trapped spirits. Jason's grin returned, sharp as wire. "And this, gentlemen, suits me perfectly."
The Big Five huddled together, their voices a murmur of static. The air filled with data sparks as their private link engaged. Jason waited patiently, hands clasped behind his back, humming an old tune that didn't exist in any database.
Inside their encrypted discussion, Gansley spoke first.
"He's dangerous, but his knowledge is legitimate. If Noah really intends global annihilation, we'll have nothing left."
Leichter countered, "But can we trust him? He's a rogue element. He might unleash something worse than Noah."
Crayton added, "Consider the odds. With Noah, we are subordinates. With Jason, we could become gods — or at least, free."
Johnson folded his digital arms. "Freedom doesn't exist in any system. Not unless you control the code."
Nesbitt's eyes glowed faintly. "Then maybe it's time we do control it."
The group fell silent. Finally, Gansley turned toward Jason. "Suppose we agree. Suppose we infect Noah and Gozaburo. How do we ensure this new world of yours is not another prison?"
Jason raised a brow. "Simple. I let you pick the world." He gestured lazily at the horizon. "You want to be reborn in a reality where penguins evolved into the dominant species instead of humans? Done. Your imagination sets the limits."
He offered his hand again. "So—do we have a deal? Because, honestly, it's not like you've got a better option."
The Big Five looked at one another. One by one, they nodded. Gansley stepped forward, his virtual form towering over Jason's older frame. "If you betray us…"
Jason's smile was cold as code. "Then you can delete me — if you find me."
A ripple of digital light surged as their handshake sealed the pact. The air crackled with power, and a faint, melodic hum echoed through the void. Pandora had found its hosts.
As they prepared to depart, Gansley paused. "You said Noah plans to use KaibaCorp's weapon systems. Why tell us this? Why not stop him yourself?"
Jason's expression turned distant. "Because I can't. He already suspects me—he won't let me get close enough to touch him."His tone shifted, casual yet laced with malice. "Once you finish your task, I'll let you describe the world you want to be sent to. After that, this planet becomes my playground." A slow smile crept across his face. "I've always wondered… what would happen if I melted the polar ice caps? Or if I launched every nuclear weapon at once?"
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