"Darkness?"
Judai asked.
"You mean that dark power hidden inside Fubuki-senpai's mask?"
That power was strong, but it wasn't invincible. When Fubuki put on the mask, his personality would be swallowed by Darkness, and he'd fight with a Card Deck built around True Red-Eyed Black Dragon. Judai had a rough idea of how strong that dark persona was; from his current perspective, it honestly wasn't all that impressive.
By the way, every time Fubuki went all darkened it always looked super cool and imposing, full-on final BOSS vibes, that kind of "I've already won" swagger. Just looking at that confidence you'd think he was some undefeated king. But looking at the whole anime, his record is actually total losses; dude literally does not win a single duel.
Every time Fubuki acts like he's suffering terribly, as if he's made some earth-shattering resolve before donning the mask and transforming into Darkness—yet in reality it's completely useless; he can't beat anyone...
This is probably one of the reasons Darkness, supposedly a BOSS in GX, ends up feeling so lame.
"Yes, but that at best is only a fragment of its power," Yugen said. "The real Darkness is far stronger than that. Remember the abandoned dorm behind our Academy?"
Judai nodded. "Of course."
There was no way he'd forget. In the three years at the Academy, plenty of stories had taken place in that abandoned dorm; it seemed every Extraordinary event and dark force had a special fondness for that forsaken restricted zone.
"That place used to be a student club—a group of students studying dark powers, searching for where the power of Darkness lay."
Judai's heart stirred. "Fubuki-senpai was one of them too?"
"Probably, though he shouldn't remember now," Yugen said. "But Fubuki was just someone who got dragged in; he wasn't the core of the club. The most central member of that club was a student named Fujiwara Yuusuke. He's the key.
And Fujiwara Yuusuke had a beloved Dueling Spirit named Ernest. That Elf has probably already snuck into the Academy, investigating the incident of his master's disappearance back then.
Find that Elf; he'll be a powerful ally."
Ernest is of course a powerful ally, and also a card with important significance in Yu-Gi-Oh! history.
"Ernest" is the transliteration of the English word "Honest," meaning honest. But because its effect is so scummy and vile, it earned the nickname "Trash Honest."
Ernest's effect is: when a Light Attribute Monster battles, you can discard it from your hand to add the opponent Monster's Attack Power to your own Monster's Attack Power. This effect once made it the strongest hand trap unique to Light Attributes and rampant in the Physical Card meta, almost rewriting an entire generation of card nerds' dueling habits.
Back then, whenever you saw a Light Attribute on the opponent's field, you'd reflexively consider the possibility they were hiding Trash Honest in hand.
"An Elf called Ernest..."
Judai nodded seriously.
"I'll remember that."
Yugen continued, "As for Darkness's true body, based on the intel I have now, it's basically the aggregate of Duelists' negative emotions. Fear, despair, hatred—every negative feedback born from the heart ultimately gathers in some world filled only with darkness, and in that world a Monster named Darkness was born.
Its goal is most likely to use that world to assimilate ours, to draw everyone in our world into it and make us all part of itself."
Judai immediately said, "We absolutely can't let it succeed!"
"Exactly." Yugen smiled and patted Judai's shoulder. "But there's nothing you can't handle, right?"
Judai nodded, then asked, "What about you, Yugen? Are you still going to be away after this?"
"Yeah," Yugen said. "Things on my side are pretty important too; I might not be able to get away for a while. But I trust that with you here, this side will be fine."
Judai patted his chest again, assuring him he had this.
Yugen didn't stay much longer in the GX Dimension. He picked up a wave of cards, got a grasp on what had happened during his absence, handed over all the intel he knew regarding Darkness to Judai, and then didn't linger—he once again returned to the Synchro Dimension.
In the Synchro Dimension, the timeline-shifted WRGP tournament was in a tense preparation stage. But with the Taiyi Organization's reach and their organized push, it was definitely going to be held on schedule.
Meanwhile, New Tongshiyi also experienced the "Ghost Attack Incident," just like in the original anime.
A Riding Duelist calling himself "Ghost" suddenly began launching irregular attacks around the city on Riding Duelists, using Duels to completely trash these D-wheel Hands. And his Duels clearly carried real damage: every D-wheel Hand defeated in a Duel ended up crashing, with quite a few people seriously injured and sent to the ICU.
Up to now, at least, no one had died. It seemed Ghost hit hard, but still showed some restraint, at least not killing anyone.
The Pursuit Team's ace officer, Tetsu Ushio, personally went out, but upon encountering Ghost he also met with crushing defeat, got brutally beaten, and landed in the hospital.
Ushio's loss, however, enraged Yusei Fudo, who currently had a pretty good relationship with Ushio.
So Yusei also started patrolling the streets, and soon enough he really did run into that Duelist called "Ghost."
And, just like in the original storyline, it was in this Duel with Ghost that Yusei first witnessed the Synchro Killer known as "Mechanical Emperor."
Caught off guard with no preparation, Yusei was naturally taken by surprise and was in serious danger for a while.
But at the critical moment, Yusei activated the Red Dragon Card Printer on his arm, printing a Physical Card of World-Saving Dragon right on the spot. World-Saving Star Dragon fired a single shot and blew Mechanical Emperor away, straight-up knocking Ghost's head off.
Only then did Yusei and the others discover that Ghost was actually just a robot. When they located the D-Wheel Ghost had been piloting, the Mechanical Emperor Card Deck it carried had already been removed by someone.
This was Yusei and the others' first contact with Mechanical Emperor.
Even with Yugen's intervention, ZONE still stuck to his original plan: the trio of Mechanical Emperors would serve as the main rivals facing the 5DS team's protagonist group during WRGP.
The battles with Mechanical Emperor and the growth they undergo during those fights are also extremely necessary for Yusei and the others.
Likewise, among the Taiyi Three Emperors, the most hardheaded one, Placido, officially set his sights on Yusei Fudo after this Duel.
Although Placido had previously been thoroughly beaten up by Yugen, he now clearly understood the huge gap in their strength. He knew that relying on his own power alone, beating Yugen was pretty much impossible. Besides, Yugen was now his superior; with divine approval backing him, Placido probably wouldn't get much chance to make a move on Yugen anymore.
So now Placido's focus shifted completely onto Yusei. He was already seriously preparing for round two, aiming to utterly crush Yusei and reclaim the face he lost when World-Saving Star Dragon one-shotted him.
After a month of preparation, WRGP officially began.