Hayato searched through the files on his computer, a bit bored and hungry. The rest of the building was dark; he was the only one left in the entire building besides some janitors. Each file search was ending up as fruitless as the first. He was about to give it up for the night.
What if this card wasn't even real? It could've been a prank call from someone pretending to be Judai. Afterall, it had been several years since Hayato had even talken to Judai, and he could barely even remember what Judai's voice sounded like. Hayato could've just been wasting his time on a card that doesn't even exist.
He leaned back in his chair and thought a bit. There wasn't a single hit on the card search, and there should've been at least one by now, even if it was just a trace of a deleted file. Even the god cards were accessable as long as someone had the correct authorization, and Hayato had all the passcodes.
Still, Judai sounded pretty urgent over the phone. It really didn't sound like a prank call, and the voice sounded the like the voice that Hayato remembered. However, Judai was never as serious as when he was talking to Hayato that afternoon. Maybe that just proves it was a different person on the phone.
Hayato sighed and shut down his computer for the night. He didn't want to think of it anymore. Maybe he would search a little more tomorrow before giving up on the project altogether.
*time skip*
Hayato walked in from his lunchtime break, bread crumbs from a grilled cheese still around his mouth. He wiped them away vaguely as he plopped back into his rolling chair and woke up his computer. The green screen came up with a search engine box at the top, where Hayato typed "Crimson Dragon of Rage" into the little box for perhaps the fiftieth time that day.
As usual, the NO FILES FOUND message was flashed across the screen. But Hayato thought he saw something just before the words appeared. Curious, he tried it again. Yes, for just a brief second, there was definitely a link that appeared, but then disappeared.
He tried several more times, but the link never stayed for over a couple of milliseconds. Hayato wondered if it was a bug and decided to inform Mr. Pegasus.
He got up and walked out of his office. It was a short walk to reach Mr. Pegasus' office, as it was just down the hall. The doors slid open silently as Hayato walking on a conversation between Sho Marufuji and Mr. Pegasus. Sho was trying to convince Pegasus to organize another dueling competition, but Pegasus told him there weren't any opportunities. Sho silenced all of his arguments as he noticed Hayato. He pushed past Hayato as he left in a huff.
Pegasus looked slightly stressed, but tried to stay up-beat like he always was. "Hayato-boy! What brings you here?"
"I think there's, like, a bug in the computer systems, sir. One of the files isn't showing up; it keeps disappearing after, like, less than a second."
"And what file might that be?" Pegasus wondered, leaning forward onto his elbows. His silver hair shifted a bit, but never uncovered the hidden eye underneath.
"The Crimson Dragon of Rage, sir." The eccentric American paled and his visible eye widened.
"Wh-where did you hear of that card?" he asked, voice shaking. "No one should even know about that file. I made sure to wipe every trace of it years ago."
Hayato was shocked. Just what had Judai found? It had to be something terrifying.
"What is it?"
Pegasus hesitated for a long time before explaining. He closed his eyes and sighed. "Around the same time I was in Egypt and discovered the three Egyptian god cards, there was another tablet. It was locked away in a hidden room that was connected to the room containing the god cards.
"It seemed like a lot like the Slifer the Sky Dragon, but it itself did not have a name. The dark power coming off the tablet could almost be felt and seen, that was how thick it was. The defenses in that room were even harder to bypass than in a pharaoh's tomb. I wanted to get away from it, but I could only stare.
"I was eventually pulled away from it, and the tablet never left the tomb, but the beast never left my mind. I simply couldn't resist creating the card. It wasn't an option. It was as if I was possessed by a devil. Day and night, every hour, I couldn't stop.
"Once I was done, it was like I woke up from a nightmare and I realized what I had created. An evil aura like no other was coming off the card in waves. I had awakened something dangerous, and I wanted to fix my mistake by destroying the wretched thing, but every time I tried to get rid of it, there was some force that stopped me from doing so.
"So the only option left to me was to lock it away in an impenetrable vault and destroyed all records of it. It was called the Crimson Dragon of Rage because you could feel the anger coming off the card. I believe it was due to the fact that the card never was named and never accepted as one of the gods, but that's just a guess. Now answer my question: where did you hear about this card? Nobody should know about it, I was the only one who ever saw it."