So once again, Kira found himself at KaibaCorp.
He'd barely arrived before the panda-eyed Chaos Soldier research team swarmed him.
The team leader excitedly dragged him off for testing, saying the last hint Kira gave them was crucial—it had led them to a breakthrough for the Chaos Soldier series.
Kira had to think for a second to remember what he'd said.
Oh, that.
This time, unlike before, he didn't even give them any clairvoyant visions—he just casually suggested a general direction.
He'd only said that back in the day, Duel King Yugi Muto liked to combine "Gaia the Fierce Knight" and "Black Luster Soldier." Maybe there was a special meaning there—he recommended they try strengthening the connection.
If anyone else had said that, the team would've just shrugged it off. After all, Gaia and Black Luster Soldier had nothing in common except both being Warriors and looking cool—there was no evidence they went together.
But coming from Kira, it was different. He'd helped them break through years-long bottlenecks with just a few words and achieved results that shocked the industry.
So now, they didn't dare ignore anything he said.
Sure enough, Kira was right again. The reason no one had noticed before was that no team had ever thought to look at them together.
The two ace monsters Yugi had used—Gaia the Fierce Knight and Black Luster Soldier—really were connected.
The proof: with Kira's guidance, they'd just developed two new Gaia forms.
[Charging Gaia the Fierce Knight, Level 7, ATK 2300.]
Effect: You can Normal Summon it without tribute by lowering its ATK to 1900. If used as tribute, you can add a "Black Luster Soldier" monster from your deck to your hand.
[Arisen Gaia the Fierce Knight, Level 7, ATK 2300.]
Effect: Can be Normal Summoned without tribute if your opponent controls more monsters. If used as tribute, you can Special Summon a "Black Luster Soldier" from your hand or graveyard.
Also, when performing a Ritual Summon for Black Luster Soldier, you can banish this card from your graveyard as Ritual material.
The team leader was thrilled—this was another major breakthrough, opening up new research directions.
They'd already contacted another Gaia research team within KaibaCorp, who were also excited. Both groups agreed to work together from now on.
The other team's leader even said he wanted to meet Kira in person—if he could get just one or two hints, who knows what they might accomplish.
After hearing this, Kira fell into thought.
Developing Gaia decks, huh…
The first thing that came to mind was that playing Gaia was all about shouting loud enough. When you summon him, you MUST yell "GAIAAAA!" loud and proud—if you don't, the spirit won't respond.
Ahem, anyway, he remembered Gaia decks still had plenty of untapped potential.
Even though the best support cards came out later, both Gaia and Black Luster Soldier had a tough time staying competitive, even for fun play.
But if you could strengthen them early on, they'd still be pretty strong.
So Kira agreed—he'd contact the Gaia team when he had time and help with their research.
The team leader was delighted, saying Kira's name would go in their next published paper—which was a major international journal.
Kira thought, "At this rate, I'll have more academic achievements as a freshman than the whole faculty."
Later, he and Mokuba checked out other new KaibaCorp decks.
He saw the new "Felgrand Dragon" deck, which looked solid—but since he'd already gotten one from Alpha the delivery AI, he didn't need another.
But then, he saw a deck that truly surprised him.
The moment he saw the card box, his eyes were glued to it.
Wait, is that…
The legendary Sphere Kuriboh!?
[Sphere Kuriboh, ATK 300]
Effect: When your opponent declares an attack, you can send this card from your hand to the graveyard to change that monster to Defense Position.
If used for a Ritual Summon, you can banish this card from the graveyard as one Ritual material.
As an evolved form of the legendary Kuriboh, its block effect was upgraded from just preventing battle damage to switching the attacking monster to defense.
"Oh, that? That's the new Kuriboh series deck," Mokuba said, handing him the box.
Kira opened it and gasped. Wow—Kuribohs in all sorts of disguises, with tons of support cards.
But, wasn't Kaiba always saying Kuriboh was useless? Didn't he hate that card?
Or maybe, after all these years, Kaiba had finally decided, "If you can't beat it, join it."
"My brother told the researchers, 'Don't underestimate this card; it has hidden potential you can't imagine,'" Mokuba said.
Kira nodded.
Fair enough. Kaiba still called Kuriboh useless, but after being tormented by it countless times since the Duelist Kingdom, he had to respect it. Maybe he only kept calling it that out of habit—or tsundere pride, like with calling Joey a nobody.
But this little Level 1 hand-trap had long since earned his respect.
Thinking about it, Kira realized Kaiba invested a lot in researching all of Yugi's early ace monsters—Chaos Soldier, Gaia, Kuriboh…
Not to mention Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl.
It was as if he wanted a dedicated research team for every card Yugi ever used.
Kira's first thought was that maybe Kaiba was prepping cards in case the Pharaoh ever came back and couldn't keep up with the new meta. But then he realized, the Pharaoh was the kind of guy who could just draw whatever he wanted anyway.
So more likely, Kaiba just wanted to know thy enemy. If the Pharaoh ever came back with a whole new deck from the underworld, Kaiba wanted to be ready.
"I'll take a set of this," Kira said, picking Sphere Kuriboh.
"No problem, but honestly, this deck isn't rated very strong in practice," Mokuba warned.
"That's fine, I know," Kira chuckled.
The Kuriboh family are all hand-trap specialists; the deck's effectiveness depends on the build. A pure Kuriboh deck is fun, but probably not that strong.
Well… or maybe not. Maybe with a little tweaking, it could work.
If you beat someone with nothing but Kuribohs, wouldn't that just crush their spirit?
Next Goal: 300