Chapter 74: The Noise, and the Darkness Within
What greeted his eyes upon opening them was a patch of sky pieced together between the tree canopies. In his brain, clarity and sharp pain intertwined.
Bakura felt a bit lost: Where was he?
"Yo, you're awake. The surgery was a success, you're a girl now." A voice reached Bakura's ears. He looked towards the sound and saw a rather familiar face under a large tree.
"Hayato?" Sitting up from the ground and looking at the dense Forest surrounding the grassy area where he sat, Bakura was a little confused about the situation. "How did I end up here?"
"Speaking of that, why don't you try recalling the most recent thing you can clearly remember?" Flipping through a few Cards he had just obtained, Hayato only glanced up at Bakura, thinking to himself, 'Unlike Pharaoh and Yugi, he has no memory of being controlled?'
Bakura sat on the grass, covering his temples with a weak expression, trying to recall. Hayato continued to check the rewards from his previous Duel against Dark Bakura.
Due to the change in DP Rules, even with multiple reward bonuses like "Undamaged Victory" and "Used 3 Trap Cards", Hayato only received 600 DP in the end. After deducting the cost of activating the Dark Game, he only earned 100 DP, which was quite, quite uneconomical.
However, although his Dueling Prowess wasn't great, Dark Bakura's true identity was, after all, the Final Boss, the Great Evil God. He unexpectedly unlocked a full five Achievements for Hayato in one go, five!
They were—
[Giant God Soldier Level ATK!]: Monster's ATK reaches 4000 points.
[Five God Dragon Level ATK!]: Monster's ATK reaches 5000 points.
[Gaze into the Abyss.]: Activated a Dark Game once.
[Fatal Five Consecutive Hits!]: Achieved five consecutive Duel Victories.
[Legendary Darkness]: Eliminated a Dark Duelist once.
These five Achievements, besides the Fixed Reward of 1000 DP, also gave Hayato a bunch of Self-selection Tickets and Limited Card Packs. The former Hayato, who could get at least over 1000 DP from a single Duel, thought the DP from Achievements was just extra. But he didn't expect that with the update to the DP Rules, the Fixed Reward from Achievements would become the main source of his DP Points income.
The Cards in Hayato's hand were what he obtained from the Limited Card Packs and Self-selection Tickets. Although he got new Cards, honestly, Hayato would rather not have opened those Card Packs, because now several more noisy voices were added to his ears—
"Wahaha, as expected, we are Aniki's best partners, ne~"
"Our Ojama family can overcome anything when we unite!"
"Make the Ojama family great again!"
"Yay!" x2
Looking at the newly joined Ojama Red and Ojama Blue, Hayato felt a headache coming on. He hadn't expected that the Ojama Brothers, who had already awakened their Card Spirits, could actually accelerate the Awakening speed of other Ojama Monsters. He had gone through over a dozen intense (probably) Duels and spent about a month to awaken Gaia The Fierce Knight's Card Spirit.
And Ojama Red and Ojama Blue awakened less than ten minutes after he got them?
"Kuriboh~" Rainbow Kuriboh perched on Hayato's head, looking at the lively Ojama family. It couldn't help but call out to Hayato, its eyes fixed on the Dragon Type and Machine-Type Monsters that appeared in Hayato's hand.
"Don't look at me like that, I can't decide what Cards appear. But now that I think about it, I've almost gathered all the Ojama-related Cards except for Ojama Pink from the main Ojama family?"
Hayato looked at the Cards in his hand, feeling as if someone had arranged everything for him in the dark. Besides his usual EARTH Attribute Warrior Deck, he could almost put together a new Deck now?
However, before assembling a new Deck, Hayato had another urgent matter to deal with.
"aibo, do you think what that Rabbit-eared Great Demon King said before was true?" Looking at the Millennium Ring hanging on his chest, Hayato hesitated about whether he should continue his next action. "Do I really have the Aura of the Millennium Eye on me?"
"Kuriboh. Kuriboh! Kuriboh Kuriboh!" Floating down in front of Hayato, Rainbow Kuriboh spoke its opinion to Hayato in its clear and standard Kuriboh language.
Hayato nodded. "That's what I thought too. My personality was indeed a bit off recently, a bit too agitated, as if... it wasn't me?"
Hayato recalled not long ago, when he gathered the full Power of the five Card Spirits at the time, attempting to stop Pegasus from sealing Grandpa Solomon's Soul. In that difficult and brief confrontation—or rather, "desperate resistance"—Hayato was defeated without suspense and even fell unconscious for a period.
And after waking up, Hayato's behavior became somewhat irritable and Reckless. Whether it was arrogantly using Field Magic in the Duel against Pig-Head Goro, or physically assaulting Weevil for failing to stop him from tearing up Exodia. At the time, Hayato didn't feel anything was wrong with his actions, but now that he thought back, it felt increasingly strange.
Although his temper wasn't inherently good, he was definitely not such a Reckless and direct person.
In the previous Dark Game, Dark Bakura said that Hayato had the Aura of the Millennium Key and the Millennium Eye on him. Although Hayato himself didn't know when he had come into contact with the Millennium Key, which should rightfully be held by Shadi, there was no doubt that the Millennium Eye had genuinely interacted with him.
Hayato subconsciously held up the Millennium Ring on his chest and muttered to it, "Although it feels a bit silly. Wisdom Ring, guide me to the whereabouts of the Eye."
The Millennium Ring glowed with golden light. The five pendants surrounding the circular disk floated up against gravity, paused slightly, and then four of them pointed towards the location of Pegasus's Castle in the center of the Island. The remaining pendant swayed slightly before finally settling on pointing towards Hayato's direction.
And almost immediately after activating the Millennium Ring,隼人 felt a powerful force surge from the golden disk directly towards his brain, but it dissipated into nothingness just as it was about to reach him.
'Did the System's Psychic Barrier work?' Hayato breathed a sigh of relief. To be honest, he was gambling. Gambling that he could use the Millennium Ring's Power to detect if Pegasus had left a part of the Millennium Eye's Power within his Body, and also gambling that the System could intercept the Backlash from the Millennium Ring, one of the Seven Millennium Items, against its user.
And he had indeed gambled correctly.
Just as Hayato was thinking about how to deal with the Millennium Eye's Power within him, he overlooked a rather important matter—the Millennium Ring's Backlash against its user should have begun the moment it was worn. Even the previous owner Bakura Ryo's father lost his life because he failed the Trial.
But why had Hayato, who wore the Millennium Ring, not experienced even a trace of a test?
"That's a Monster with 3000 ATK, just like Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
"I want to form a God Deck!"
"The possibilities for humans are infinite!"
(End of this chapter)