Prologue

The stench of battle hung thick in the midnight air. Perched upon the hillock, Prince Jimu extended his arms from his sides as if he was all that stood between a violent world and the ancient temple that contained his destiny. An angry breeze clawed at his cape, bringing with it the sound of gunfire and the smells of dying men. It was an inane battle being fought in the forest below, a skirmish without reason or hope of victory. Yet if his soldiers could buy Jimu the time he needed to complete his plan, this mad crusade would mean an end to the war that had torn his kingdom in two.

It pained the Prince's heart to know that his victory came at the cost of the lives of so many good men. More saddening still was the knowledge that their enemies –the soldiers of New Asuka, whose territory Jimu's strike team had invaded- were equally innocent. For it was a civil war that had ravaged his kingdom for the past thirteen years, a needless conflict arising from the arrogance of Jimu's uncle and father, each believing themselves to be the rightful heir to the Asukan throne.

But their stubborn debate would be rendered meaningless soon enough. Jimu raised a hand to the empty glass case that hung around his neck, a case in which he usually kept his prize Duel Monsters card: Obsidiusk, the Black Crystal Dragon. The card had been a gift from his grandfather, the greatest king to ever rule Asuka, and it was the legend surrounding this card that had driven Jimu here, deep within enemy territory, to find the temple where the power of gods had lain dormant for millennia untold.

"My lord, I'm afraid I must insist."

Jimu turned to find Captain Minami again ascending the hillock to pester him with her naïve advisements.

"My orders were clear, Captain. We stand our ground."

"But your Highness, we're surrounded and outnumbered. If we don't get back to the helicopters soon, we won't get another chance."

"I will not warn you again: do not burden me with such trivialities. Once the Professor completes his work in the temple, your concerns will become obsolete."

Minami was standing at his side now. She wiped her raven hair away from her face, using her other hand to shield her eyes from the ravaging winds. "Then I humbly recommend that you find the Professor and tell him to hurry up. My men can't hold out much longer."

Jimu gritted his teeth. The Captain did have a point: the Professor had entered the Temple nearly half an hour ago; the ritual shouldn't have taken this long. Something must have gone wrong.

With a flourish of his cape, the Prince about-faced and marched down the hill, heading toward the temple entrance. "So be it. Buy me as much time as you can."

He barely heard Minami's "Yes, my lord," before he ducked under the ancient stone archway and began his descent into the bowels of the ruined temple. He took a flashlight from his belt and shone its light upon the stone walls of the sloped corridor as he made his way deeper and deeper into the darkness.

It was strange to see Egyptian writing here, so near the heart of ancient Asuka. But if his theories were correct, it was the Egyptians who had unleashed the powers of the six dragon-gods in the distant past, and it was the Egyptians who had then sealed them away, deeming their powers too great for mere mortals to control. But for the sake of his crumbling empire, Prince Jimu had to try. Awakening the slumbering gods was a monumental risk, yet Jimu had spent half his life uncovering their legend, and he was confident that he would be able to tame them.

His interest in the history of the crystal dragons had begun the moment he'd first laid eyes on his grandfather's Obsidiusk card, at the age of seven. Already a child prodigy at Duel Monsters, Jimu had yearned to know the story behind such a powerful card. He had spent every day for a year pouring through the royal library, eventually discovering that Obsidiusk was only one of six crystal dragons, each identical save for the elemental attribute it represented.

According to Jimu's findings, Maximillian Pegasus, the creator of Duel Monsters, had stumbled upon the dragons' resting place during a worldwide search for new monster ideas. Impressed with the carvings of the six beasts, Pegasus had turned each into a one-of-a-kind card, perhaps as a replacement for his failed Egyptian God experiment. But unlike the Egyptian Gods, the Crystal Dragon cards possessed no magical powers of their own, for the spirits they depicted had remained locked away where Pegasus had found them, in the very same temple Jimu was now entering.

Pinpointing the location of this temple had taken the Prince nearly a decade, but the hope of ending the war had prevented him from losing focus. Using the vast inheritance his grandfather had left him, Jimu had tracked down and acquired the other five dragon cards, two of which had been in the possession of one Professor Hiroka, an expert in Egyptian mythology. Based on various writings by Pegasus and his contemporaries, in combination with the text on the cards themselves, the Professor had pinpointed the location of the dragons' tomb. The final step was simple enough: organize a military strike team to escort Prince Jimu and the Professor deep into New Asukan territory and protect them long enough to release the dragons' spirits from their ancient slumber. To this end, Professor Hiroka had taken all six cards to the burial chamber under the temple, where he would recite an old Egyptian chant to break the seal on the imprisoned gods. Then Prince Jimu could use their power to force his father and uncle to reunite the kingdom and work out their differences, ensuring an era of peace and prosperity for all of Asuka's inhabitants.

But as he made his way further and further underground, Jimu could hear no chanting. In fact, this far beneath the earth, he could hear nothing at all.

"Professor Hiroka," he shouted, his voice echoing up and down the passageway. No response. The Prince kept moving.

Then, at last, he rounded a sharp turn and emerged into the burial chamber itself. His heart nearly stopped at the spectacle before him.

The room was bathed in torchlight, the walls strewn with hieroglyphs, the floor covered in the remains of the six stone tablets, and there, in the center of it all, was Professor Hiroka, his body levitating ten feet off the ground, his torso rigid, neck arched, eyes bulging, mouth open in silent agony and arms outstretched as if pinned to an invisible crucifix. Around him, swirling in a mystical cloud of entangled light were the dragon-gods themselves, a spectrum of discarnate spirits, a vortex of such contradiction that it seemed no force in existence could contain them. The discordant zeal of their freedom emanated from their dance, pouring outward in waves of enmity and benevolence, ire and tranquility, tenacity and vicissitude.

Jimu stood in the entrance, petrified by the palpable presence of such divine creatures. He could sense their magnificence drowning out the universe, their power so great it could tear the world asunder, their glory so overwhelming that he, a crown prince, was rendered insignificant to their notice.

But the Professor was not so oblivious. Their eyes locked for one crucial moment before Hiroka's body began trembling terribly, as if the fate of all things was bearing down upon his shoulders. His lips moved in soundless words until a raspy noise began to emanate from his throat, slowly progressing into a series of chanted words in some language Jimu could not comprehend. As the chant continued, the Professor's voice grew stronger, until finally the last word escalated into one long, tormented scream. The trembles turned into outright spasms and the Professor's eyes rolled back into his head.

Then, in a flash of blinding light, everything came to a stop. When the Prince's eyes had adjusted to the sudden darkness, he saw Professor Hiroka's crumpled form sprawled across the burial chamber floor. Only now did Jimu see that the Professor was holding something in his right hand.

The Prince rushed to his comrade's side and rolled him over, astonished to discover that Hiroka was not only alive, but conscious, if only barely.

He wanted to comfort the dying man, tell him help was on the way, but his brain was still reeling from the inexplicable ordeal that he had just witnessed, and all words seemed to elude him.

With a last great effort, the Professor raised his right arm so that Jimu could finally see what was in his hand: the six Crystal Dragon cards. The dying man stared up at Jimu with bright, watery eyes and with his final breath whispered "Keep… them…" He made as if to utter one last word, but in that moment the light faded from his eyes and his head fell back against the floor.

Jimu, too, collapsed to the floor, needing to calm himself and digest all that had just happened. The ritual had succeeded –that much was obvious. Professor Hiroka had unleashed the dormant gods. What had happened next, after Jimu entered the room, was less clear. If the six dragons had already been released, why had the Professor chanted another spell?

Slowly, the Prince's heartbeat returned to normal as his mind began to make sense of it all. After releasing the dragon-gods, the Professor must've been overwhelmed by their powers. If only Prince Jimu had been in the chamber with him when the ritual was completed, perhaps things would've turned out differently. Instead, it seemed that the Professor had used a counter-spell to reimprison the dragons, at the cost of his own life. But if that were the case, where were the spirits now? The stone tablets that had housed them for millennia were shattered. Had they been outright obliterated? Sealed inside the temple itself? Banished to another dimension? Jimu had studied Egyptian legends for most of his life, but this was the first time he had ever seen any proof of their existence, and the possibilities seemed limitless.

Yet one thing was clear: regardless of what had happened to the spirits, Jimu could no longer count on using their powers to end the war. His plan had failed. All these years of searching, a lifetime spent preparing for his destiny, had all amounting to nothing. New and Old Asuka would remain at war, and Jimu would be powerless to stop them. So many lives spent in a fruitless quest, and all Jimu had to show for it were the six cards in the professor's hand.

Keep them, he had said. Any other time, Jimu might've been tempted; they were, after all, among the most powerful cards in all Duel Monsters, and he was ranked one of the best duelists in the world. But after suffering so devastating a loss, a simple game seemed suddenly very childish.

He heard footsteps approaching. Then, "Your Highness, what happened?"

It was Captain Minami, to no great surprise. Jimu managed to rise but still couldn't think of anything to say.

"My Prince, we need to get you out of here now. The helicopters are ready to leave; they're only waiting for you."

Jimu managed a solemn nod and a weak "Yes." Denied the power of the dragon-gods, the helicopters were his only chance of returning home to Old Asuka. But before leaving the room, he bent down, closed the Professor's eyelids, and removed the cards from his hand. Obsidiusk he would keep, for it was rightfully his and retained great sentimental value. The others would go to Professor Hiroka's widow and two young children. The cards would do little to ease their pain, but after all Hiroka had scarified to assist Jimu in his doomed mission, it was the least his family deserved.

The Prince allowed Captain Minami to grab his arm and lead him up through the temple passageway. He did not know what would happen next. He supposed he would have to rebuild his life, find some new quest to pursue, maybe even return to dueling. Perhaps fate was simply not yet ready for him to end the war. Or perhaps ending the war wasn't his destiny after all. Maybe that destiny belonged to another, and if that was the case, there was nothing Prince Jimu could do but return to his father's side and wait patiently for that hero to emerge.