A crowd of people gathered around Manjoume and Insector's duel arena. Some trainees from nearby duel arenas even paused their duels to watch the captain duel. Manjoume heard several "Oh, is that Ojamanjoume?" and "Isn't that the pro duellist that went into decline?" from many of the onlookers and witnesses to this battle. This really annoyed Manjoume, but he promised himself that he would win this decisive fight and regain both respect from the people watching him and his own pride.

Insector (4000) LP | Manjoume (4000) LP

"I will start first! I will set 1 face down and set a monster." Insector announced. Ever since Pegasus died the new chief of Duel Monsters tournaments, Kazuto Tenji changed the ruling of summoning defence position monsters so that monsters that are played in defence position must be set. This helped to balance the game so that people won't summon free draw or dump cards such as Royal Magical Library and Armageddon Knight without a risk of taking damage.

"That ends my turn." Insector smirked.

"Alright! My turn, draw!" Manjoume shouted. Manjoume wanted to finish him off quickly, amusingly enough Manjoume's deck contradicted his intentions as a tempo deck requires patients. Which Manjoume could barely contain at the moment.

"I play Reflect Bounder in attack mode! (1700/1000)." A mechanical menace appeared that was equipped with mirrors and a red cloak appeared to Manjoume's side.

"I attack your monster!" Manjoume exclaimed with anger and pride as his mechanical monster destroyed Insector's set monster.

"Just as I planned! You destroyed Mystic Tomato (1400/1100) which when destroyed lets me summon a Dark monster with 1500 or less attack points from my deck. And that monster shall be Inzektor Dragonfly." Insector summoned a man wearing a red robotic suit equipped with 4 wings which and goggles that resembled compound eyes, the man was also equipped with a small gun which were loaded with small harpoons. The man was obviously wearing a "dragonfly suit".

"Inzektor…" Manjoume thought. He had known this archetype and had studied it very well and knew that if he made even the slightest mistake he would swiftly be defeated in no more than a turn.

"Are you going to end your turn? You know I don't have all day right?" Insector interrupted Manjoume's train of thought.

"I set 3 face downs and end my turn!" His 3 face downs were Magical Cylinder, Threatening Roar and Mirror Force, he was confident that he would be able to survive next turn as he had a strong backrow.

"It is over Manjoume, nice playing with you" Insector playfully said with confidence that he would win this turn. Manjoume however just ignored it and brushed it off as arrogance and overconfidence.

"I will attach Inzektor Hornet to my Dragonfly using the latter's effect." A tiny 30 cm tall man wearing an obvious "hornet suit" appeared, until shortly after folding himself transformer-style into a golden harpoon that looked like something coming out of a cyberpunk movie, which loaded itself into Dragonfly's gun.

"I will now activate Hornet's effect!"

"Wait! I chain by activating threatening roar!" Manjoume countered

"I activate my face down, Wiretap!" Insector nullified Manjoume's trap card. There was an electric surge that ran through Manjoume's face down card. The card then got burned up because of the electricity and returned to Manjoume's deck.

"And now my Hornet's effect will resolve with no interference!" Insector commanded his Dragonfly to fire its gun. The golden ammunition rocketed towards where Manjoume's threatening roar was. Since Manjoume chained threatening roar when Insector targeted it, the effect was going to resolve before Hornet's effect if it wasn't for Wiretap.

"Now I activate Dragonfly's effect! I can special summon 1 "Inzektor" except another Dragonfly. I summon Inzektor Centipede!" A large man wearing a "centipede" suit that was equipped with large arm blades and light blue goggles appeared.

"Now I attach Inzektor Giga Mantis to dragonfly!" A large being appeared that didn't even seem like it was a person wearing an insect suit. This creature was fully covered in Mantis armour with massive arm blades about three times the size as centipedes. Its face was fully covered with a mask, therefore making it appear as "fully robotic" as you cannot see even a part of its face. The Mantis opened up to reveal an Ironman suit-like interior with circuits, this "suit" then latched on and covered dragonfly head to toe. Dragonfly now looked like he was in a green mechsuit.

"Now due to Mantis's effect when it is attached to a monster the monster that is equipped has its original attack points changed to 2400! (1000-2400)

"I equip hornet from the graveyard to centipede to destroy Reflect Bounder!" Insector roared as the hornet harpoon destroyed Reflect Bounder.

"Finally I activate Heavy Storm." Weevil smiled.

"Heavy Storm!? This is bad, Manjoume knew what we had coming and already knew from his studying of the Inzektors that he had already lost. The storm continued to blow away his backrow along with dragonfly's Mantis suit.

"Dragonfly's effect activates again! Now I special summon another Centipede from my deck." Another centipede appears and Insector now has three monsters on the field.

"Now I attack you directly!" Insector shouted in triumph, already sure that he would win.

Manjoume was hit by a regular harpoon by Dragonfly (4000-3000), and then was finally greeted by a cross-slash by two centipede's (3000-0). The slashes sent Manjoume flying out of the duel arena where the crowd caught him. Insector laughed hysterically as his opponent was helped by the crowd and walked out of the training centre with a mischievous grin.

"Damn… I lost" Manjoume muttered with embarrassment.

"It is not your fault, I bet if you had had your original deck with you that you would have owned him!" Said a woman from the crowd.

"Yeah! You fought for us rookies Manjoume!" shouted another encouragingly.

"Wait guys, hold on don't overestimate him people. After all he did lost in one turn." Insulted a woman with spiky long red hair, who also wore a black leather jacket with ripped jeans.

"As if you would have stood a chance!" Ryota finally butted in.

"You are absolutely correct! That is why I wasn't impulsive and foolish enough to challenge him." The woman snapped back.

"Spike, it is not impulsiveness, it is courage" An old man with a monocle and a grey rag as a coat joined the argument.

"Spike! Hahahahaha, isn't that a boy's name? Ryota mocked.

"Yes, it is! Got a problem with that? The red haired woman with a bad attitude from before answered in a furious tone.

"Dinner time!" Called a seemingly transsexual blond man with dark purple lipstick.

"C-C-Cr-Cronos!?" Manjoume stuttered. "Why the hell would Cronos sensei be here?" Manjoume thought to himself.

"Manjoume-kun?" Cronos was surprised, how near the end of graduation Cronos missed the third-years who were about to graduate so much that he would even try to stop their graduation all together. Seeing Manjoume again was a joy. Although Cronos was a bit of an odd teacher in the end everyone realised that he did good for the students. Besides, it was Cronos who answered the phone call to put Manjoume in the pro league.

"So it is you! Hahahahaha…" Cronos greeted as he pulled Manjoume outside the centre. Outside the centre Cronos whispered in Manjoume's ear.

"Boy I need to talk to you about something… Meet me at Cabin 537 after dinner ok?"

"About what?" Manjoume Inquired quietly.

"You will know when we are there" Cronos spoke in a serious tone. Manjoume thought that it was rather strange that Cronos would be speaking in this serious tone. In fact, the students at duel academy never ever saw Cronos speak this seriously ever.

The rookies were to go to the Rookie Dining Area to eat. The building resembled slifer red dorm's canteen and eating area very closely. Manjoume was used to eating Slifer food quality meals. However many other rookies, notably Ryota took a while to swallow their meal. Their meal wasn't even that bad, it's just that the duck egg was excessively salted. However Ryota preferred seafood. After Dinner it was finally time.

Manjoume asked directions to where Cabin 537 was. He had to spend over 10 minutes asking around as he kept on getting rejected with "Why is a rookie going to the lieutenant cabin area?" However he finally found somebody to help guide him to the cabin. Manjoume knocked on the door and was shortly greeted by Cronos and then gestured to come inside. Judging by Cronos's body language it was obvious that this conversation they were going to have was covert. Cronos sat Manjoume down and poured them both hot green tea.

"Wait, you have tea on your cabins?" Manjoume questioned.

"Uh, uh yeah, I am Lieutenant rank so I get a few luxuries in my accommodation."

"Wait, so you are Lieutenant rank which means that you are good enough to be a rank one below captain?"

"I am honestly not that good compared to you Manjoume, however I have greatly improved since we last met as I have refined my skills as a duellist during this war, speaking of war…" Cronos spontaneously changed into a more serious tone drastically.

"Do you know what happened to Asuka, Judai, Shou and the others?"

"They all got defeated by the darkness. And were then brainwashed to become its servant. I tried to bring at least Asuka back to the good side, but I failed... I deeply regretted failing to protect her. I've always failed to impress her."

"Don't you worry Manjoume-kun, something tells me that you two will meet again sometime. And when that time comes you will succeed! Anyways, how did you escape?"

"I don't know really… I thought that I was going to be because Asuka defeated me. But somehow when I woke up a while later I was unchanged. They then decided to execute me and that is when I was saved. So how did you enrol to fight the darkness?"

"I obviously had a connection with Kaibacorp due the fact that I was a teacher at Duel Academy."

"Hey, you don't sound as though you're stupid anymore!" Manjoume teased, attempting to brighten the mood.

"WHAT YOU SAY?! SLIFER?" Cronos exclaimed, temporarily reverting back to his old self.

"About slifer… I was surprised at how you managed to enter the Pro League." Cronos returned to a lower tone.

"Yeah…" Manjoume answered with a sigh.

"That reminds me… I hold documents from our covert operations on the Darkness. I bet you would be intrigued by this". Cronos opened a safe next to his bed which contained everything form memoirs, photos and his own deck, and of course other documents. Cronos propped the document out on the table for Manjoume to read.

"The death of Pegasus connected to the fall of Jun Manjoume a.k.a 'Manjoume Thunder'". Various decisions from the new president of Pro League tournaments Kazuto Tenji such as the banning/unbanning of cards as well as the affiliation of duellists have connections with the Darkness" Manjoume read.

"Wait, so you are saying that a current global superpower such as the Darkness put so much effort into removing me, one person from the Pro League?" Manjoume questioned, obviously interested.

"Yes, it is because you are the only undefeated duellist in pro league history, you are considered the strongest duellist currently alive by news articles Manjoume."

"So do you have any proof of these claims? Sure, I mean I did suspect that the Pro League was biased against me, but only because I was too good… But why would the Darkness aim for me rather than say… Kaiba?" Manjoume questioned, with a hint of his former ego at "because I was too good…"

"First off. They did target Kaiba, but failed due to Kaiba's duelling talent and the amount of support he had from his bodyguards and connections with various organizations and companies around the world such as Schroeder Corp. And secondly we do have proof. Who is that man in the photograph on the bottom right of this document?"

"Kazuto Tenji…" Manjoume answered as they both looked at the picture. Kazuto in the photo wore a white hat and a white tuxedo. He had a short moustache and red sunglasses. Not much can be seen of his face due to the angle of the shot and that a portion of his face was bandaged. But Cronos pointed out an odd detail.

"You see that bandage?"

"Uh… yes, so?"

"Doesn't the red mark on top of the bandage look familiar to you?"

"Looks like just a cut to me"

"No, that is not a cut, look at the picture and then look at this." Cronos said as he whipped out a picture bearing a demonic figure that red had horns and was jet black.

"I've seen that before!" Manjoume said loudly with surprise.

"Yes, you probably have. This is the symbol of Darkness. A Grim Reaper with red horns. Now look at that cut, do you see a similarity?"

"Yes, yes I do! That resembles one of the red horns on the symbol!"

"There is your evidence, Manjoume."

They would continue talking about their odds of winning this war and the war itself, as well as the inner workings of Kaibacorp and the connections they had with other companies trying to fight off the darkness. An explanation of each rank and its privileges was also told to Manjoume. They then revoked the topic entirely and started conversing about what they did when Manjoume's year level graduated and what their daily lives were before the disaster struck. Their time became more of a light-hearted mood and they felt that they had returned back to the good old times before the disaster struck. Unfortunately it was midnight and Manjoume had to return to his cabin. Cronos said one last thing to Manjoume as they exchanged goodbyes.

"Keep this in mind Manjoume-kun… Tomorrow you will be deployed to fight the Darkness! Be careful boy," Cronos warned, knowing that he telling Manjoume to be careful may tick the younger man off.

"Don't worry, it will be a piece of cake." Manjoume, unfazed by the tease returned with a smile, arrogance and confidence which he hoped wouldn't be overconfidence.

Manjoume returned to his cabin and went to sleep in his hard, rough bed. Although he missed the luxury of his mansion. He felt as though he was back to the old days a Duel Academy in Slifer Red dorm.

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this chapter, I may update once every 4 days. Have a good day readers 3