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Chapter 326: Hayato VS Gozaburo
Gozaburo Kaiba, Noah Kaiba's biological father, the adoptive father of brothers Mokuba Kaiba and Seto Kaiba, and the founder of the arms company KaibaCorp.
After becoming one of the world's wealthiest individuals, Gozaburo, always driven by ambition, developed a grand ideal—to conquer the world with weapons.
However, while pursuing his ideal, he made a mistake.
His adopted son, the so-called "dutiful son," Seto Kaiba, invented the Virtual Projection System, intending to use it as the foundation for KaibaCorp's roots in the entertainment industry. But Gozaburo used this invention for non-peaceful purposes, such as developing Tactical Training Simulators and Phantom Devices to interfere with enemy vision.
This happened to be one of Seto Kaiba's sore spots. He felt his ideal had been ruthlessly trampled upon by Gozaburo.
Although Kaiba always acted like an ambitious schemer, trying every possible way, even cheating, to get Gozaburo to adopt him and his brother, and despite suffering from a severe Dueling Addiction, his ideal was actually quite simple: to build a world where children and adults could play and laugh to their hearts' content—in other words, a real-life Kaiba Land.
Of course, whether Kaiba Land, filled with Kaiba's peculiar aesthetic, could truly make children laugh is debatable. Still, Kaiba's ideal is quite admirable, especially his determination to transform KaibaCorp from an arms company, even at a huge loss. And this ideal is at least better than Gozaburo's ideal of ruling the world.
One person's ideal was peace, the other's was war. When compromise was impossible, one had to step aside, and that person was not Seto Kaiba. Knowing the principle of cutting the grass at the root, Seto Kaiba didn't hesitate and directly forced the defeated Gozaburo to his death.
However, what Kaiba failed to anticipate was that Gozaburo had left a fallback plan—something a normal person could never imagine: technology that could import a person's consciousness into the virtual world.
His gray hair was meticulously styled, and his red suit was sharp. So many years had passed, yet Gozaburo looked exactly as Kaiba remembered him. Looking at Gozaburo, who held a Blank Card in his hand with a look of ecstatic joy, as if he had found a treasure, Kaiba coldly shouted, "Release us from here, Gozaburo!"
"Do you, a mere ghost, think you can obstruct the path of the living towards the future!"
"Heh heh, I refuse." Gozaburo clutched the Blank Card in his hand, a cold smile on his face. A Duel Disk appeared out of thin air on his wrist, and he added the Blank Card to his Deck. "I remember teaching you this, Seto. Don't easily let go of something until you've squeezed out its commercial value."
"This Super Polymerization Card is only one final energy fill away from being truly complete. I won't let any of you on the field go."
"Super Polymerization?" Hearing the card's true name, everyone's gaze collectively fell upon Hayato. The earliest user of the Super Polymerization Card they remembered wasn't Gozaburo, who was trying to complete it now, but Hayato.
In his Duel against Ishizu Ishtar, Hayato used **Super Polymerization** to use Ishizu Ishtar's Monsters on the field as Fusion Material to Summon **Quintet Magician**.
Hayato also seemed to remember something and turned to look at Kaiba: "Hey Seto, is the Duel System on your S.S. Anne Airship still connected to the KaibaCorp Database?"
Although Kaiba didn't understand why Hayato was asking this now, he still nodded.
"That explains it then. Because I was quite certain that, besides the **Super Polymerization** I have, there shouldn't be any other **Super Polymerization** existing in this world for now," Hayato said. Even the **Super Polymerization** in Hayato's hand was a replica simulated by the **Philosopher's Stone - Sabatiel**, which only had the effect but not the actual power. "This guy Gozaburo's **Super Polymerization** was created by stealing the card data recorded within the airship's Duel System."
"But I have a question, Gozaburo. With just the data of **Super Polymerization**, you shouldn't have been able to analyze the power hidden behind it, let alone figure out how to create it."
"Who told you!"
"Hmph, I refuse to answer your question." Gozaburo Kaiba's thick unibrow twitched, and he activated the Duel Disk on his wrist. "You want me to release you, want me to answer your question? Absolutely, as long as you can defeat me in a Duel!"
Gozaburo waved his hand, and the environment, which Hayato had changed back to Domino City, was transferred again. In the blink of an eye, the surroundings turned into a very large office. Gozaburo Kaiba stood before a huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the scenery outside.
Outside was actually Earth? This office was in space!
"This is... the KaibaCorp President's Office?" Kaiba didn't need to look closely; he recognized it immediately as the President's Office where he usually handled company affairs. However, the furnishings were from several years ago, when KaibaCorp was still in Gozaburo's hands.
"Although I didn't understand, this guy wants someone to Duel him, right?" Joey Wheeler excitedly activated his Duel Disk, and the figure of his Deck Master, **Flame Swordsman**, appeared beside him.
Kaiba snorted coldly and blocked Joey Wheeler's path: "Don't make me say it again, you third-rate duelist. This is my business, it has nothing to do with you. I should be the one to cut off the grudge with this guy Gozaburo!"
"What do you mean it has nothing to do with us? We're already involved! What if you lose, Kaiba!" Mai Valentine saw Kaiba's harsh attitude towards Joey Wheeler and stepped forward to help. Her Deck Master, **Amazoness Queen**, appeared beside her.
With repeated defeats, the strong-willed Mai Valentine reflected on her losses and wanted to inject new vitality into her Deck, a new power besides **Harpie Lady**. Using the KaibaCorp Database, which stored almost all cards on the market, she found the new power that suited her best—the **Amazoness** Deck.
Not only were they Duel Monsters from the same matriarchal clan as **Harpie Lady**, but their card effects also happened to compensate for **Harpie Lady's** weakness against monsters on the opponent's field, despite being good at countering the backrow. Among other things, the **Nightmare Penguin** that had challenged her earlier was defeated by the **Amazoness Swords Woman**, which possessed a Reflect Damage effect.
"Hmph!" Too lazy to explain anything to Mai Valentine, Kaiba stubbornly refused to give way even half a step.
Meanwhile, Ishizu Ishtar used the power of the **Millennium Necklace** to get a foresight of the future, then asked Hayato with some uncertainty: "Hayato-kun, you said earlier that Gozaburo discovered the power hidden behind the **Super Polymerization** Card. What kind of power is that? Why did I see the future as a twisted chaos?"
"**Super Polymerization**, to put it simply, is a card that symbolizes ultimate power. Its power is even more exaggerated than a nuclear bomb; it possesses the power to fuse dimensions together, enough to destroy several universes."
Ishizu Ishtar and Yugi beside her were also startled by Hayato's answer: "What?!"
"In that case, there's one more reason why we absolutely must defeat Gozaburo." Atem looked at Gozaburo with a determined gaze, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his gaze was sharp. "We absolutely cannot let you complete **Super Polymerization**!"
"Heh heh, that's the kind of expression young people should have. But there are a bit too many of you. If you support each other, a Duel that isn't intense enough won't be sufficient to complete the **Super Polymerization** Card."
Gozaburo stroked his chin, seemingly having thought of a malicious idea. He gave a cold, ill-intentioned laugh and clapped his hands.
Corresponding to the six people standing opposite Gozaburo, five square mechanisms opened in the floor beside Gozaburo. As elevators rose, five people with stiff faces appeared, wearing Duel Disks.
Kaiba, Yugi, and Joey Wheeler's eyes widened in rage, and they simultaneously shouted the names of the people who appeared before them:
"Mokuba!"
"Téa! Tristan!"
"Serenity Wheeler! And Duke Devlin!"
The five people who appeared were none other than Mokuba, Téa, and the others who had been left on the S.S. Anne Airship!
Gozaburo Kaiba laughed coldly: "Are you angry? Good, you should be angry. The people appearing before you are your important family and friends, right? Their souls are now in my hands, and their bodies have been made into puppets by me. After all, I have to squeeze out their value."
"Want to get their bodies and souls back? Of course, you can. Defeat them with your full power!" Gozaburo laughed loudly and added, "But I need to remind you, the Duels controlling them are duel robots that have gathered the dueling consciousness data of famous duelists. If you don't give it your all, be careful, you might lose your own bodies as well."
As Gozaburo's words fell, the space within the already huge office expanded again. Taking matters into his own hands, he assigned opponents to everyone present.
Yugi's opponent was Téa.
Kaiba was pitted against his brother, Mokuba.
Joey Wheeler needed to defeat Tristan.
Mai Valentine would deal with Serenity Wheeler.
Ishizu Ishtar would duel against Duke Devlin.
And finally, standing before Gozaburo, was Hayato.
"Gozaburo, you bastard!" Seeing that his opponent was Mokuba, Kaiba, in a furious rage, wanted to rush towards Gozaburo, but found that after the space transfer, an invisible space barrier had been added between each team's field. No matter how much the angry Kaiba wanted to beat up Gozaburo, he couldn't pass through the barrier.
"Aren't you curious why I didn't deal with Seto, who forced me to his death, first, Kobayashi Hayato?" Gozaburo looked at Hayato standing opposite him.
Looking at Gozaburo coldly, Hayato said, "Anyway, for a vile person like you, the reason for doing that is nothing more than wanting to see the sad expressions of others because they have to fight against important people."
"Stop playing such boring games, Gozaburo Kaiba. Your ambition to dominate the world and destroy the world will be defeated by me and my Deck!"
"Duel!"
[Hayato: 4000 LP]
[Gozaburo: 4000 LP]
The Duel won't take long, it will end quickly. As a certain rider who stole something would say, the pain is only for a moment.
Afterwards, it's the part for the trouble-making duo who have been offline for a while.
(End of this chapter)
Gozaburo Kaiba, Noah Kaiba's biological father, the adoptive father of brothers Mokuba Kaiba and Seto Kaiba, and the founder of the arms company KaibaCorp.
After becoming one of the world's wealthiest individuals, Gozaburo, always driven by ambition, developed a grand ideal—to conquer the world with weapons.
However, while pursuing his ideal, he made a mistake.
His adopted son, the so-called "dutiful son," Seto Kaiba, invented the Virtual Projection System, intending to use it as the foundation for KaibaCorp's roots in the entertainment industry. But Gozaburo used this invention for non-peaceful purposes, such as developing Tactical Training Simulators and Phantom Devices to interfere with enemy vision.
This happened to be one of Seto Kaiba's sore spots. He felt his ideal had been ruthlessly trampled upon by Gozaburo.
Although Kaiba always acted like an ambitious schemer, trying every possible way, even cheating, to get Gozaburo to adopt him and his brother, and despite suffering from a severe Dueling Addiction, his ideal was actually quite simple: to build a world where children and adults could play and laugh to their hearts' content—in other words, a real-life Kaiba Land.
Of course, whether Kaiba Land, filled with Kaiba's peculiar aesthetic, could truly make children laugh is debatable. Still, Kaiba's ideal is quite admirable, especially his determination to transform KaibaCorp from an arms company, even at a huge loss. And this ideal is at least better than Gozaburo's ideal of ruling the world.
One person's ideal was peace, the other's was war. When compromise was impossible, one had to step aside, and that person was not Seto Kaiba. Knowing the principle of cutting the grass at the root, Seto Kaiba didn't hesitate and directly forced the defeated Gozaburo to his death.
However, what Kaiba failed to anticipate was that Gozaburo had left a fallback plan—something a normal person could never imagine: technology that could import a person's consciousness into the virtual world.
His gray hair was meticulously styled, and his red suit was sharp. So many years had passed, yet Gozaburo looked exactly as Kaiba remembered him. Looking at Gozaburo, who held a Blank Card in his hand with a look of ecstatic joy, as if he had found a treasure, Kaiba coldly shouted, "Release us from here, Gozaburo!"
"Do you, a mere ghost, think you can obstruct the path of the living towards the future!"
"Heh heh, I refuse." Gozaburo clutched the Blank Card in his hand, a cold smile on his face. A Duel Disk appeared out of thin air on his wrist, and he added the Blank Card to his Deck. "I remember teaching you this, Seto. Don't easily let go of something until you've squeezed out its commercial value."
"This Super Polymerization Card is only one final energy fill away from being truly complete. I won't let any of you on the field go."
"Super Polymerization?" Hearing the card's true name, everyone's gaze collectively fell upon Hayato. The earliest user of the Super Polymerization Card they remembered wasn't Gozaburo, who was trying to complete it now, but Hayato.
In his Duel against Ishizu Ishtar, Hayato used **Super Polymerization** to use Ishizu Ishtar's Monsters on the field as Fusion Material to Summon **Quintet Magician**.
Hayato also seemed to remember something and turned to look at Kaiba: "Hey Seto, is the Duel System on your S.S. Anne Airship still connected to the KaibaCorp Database?"
Although Kaiba didn't understand why Hayato was asking this now, he still nodded.
"That explains it then. Because I was quite certain that, besides the **Super Polymerization** I have, there shouldn't be any other **Super Polymerization** existing in this world for now," Hayato said. Even the **Super Polymerization** in Hayato's hand was a replica simulated by the **Philosopher's Stone - Sabatiel**, which only had the effect but not the actual power. "This guy Gozaburo's **Super Polymerization** was created by stealing the card data recorded within the airship's Duel System."
"But I have a question, Gozaburo. With just the data of **Super Polymerization**, you shouldn't have been able to analyze the power hidden behind it, let alone figure out how to create it."
"Who told you!"
"Hmph, I refuse to answer your question." Gozaburo Kaiba's thick unibrow twitched, and he activated the Duel Disk on his wrist. "You want me to release you, want me to answer your question? Absolutely, as long as you can defeat me in a Duel!"
Gozaburo waved his hand, and the environment, which Hayato had changed back to Domino City, was transferred again. In the blink of an eye, the surroundings turned into a very large office. Gozaburo Kaiba stood before a huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the scenery outside.
Outside was actually Earth? This office was in space!
"This is... the KaibaCorp President's Office?" Kaiba didn't need to look closely; he recognized it immediately as the President's Office where he usually handled company affairs. However, the furnishings were from several years ago, when KaibaCorp was still in Gozaburo's hands.
"Although I didn't understand, this guy wants someone to Duel him, right?" Joey Wheeler excitedly activated his Duel Disk, and the figure of his Deck Master, **Flame Swordsman**, appeared beside him.
Kaiba snorted coldly and blocked Joey Wheeler's path: "Don't make me say it again, you third-rate duelist. This is my business, it has nothing to do with you. I should be the one to cut off the grudge with this guy Gozaburo!"
"What do you mean it has nothing to do with us? We're already involved! What if you lose, Kaiba!" Mai Valentine saw Kaiba's harsh attitude towards Joey Wheeler and stepped forward to help. Her Deck Master, **Amazoness Queen**, appeared beside her.
With repeated defeats, the strong-willed Mai Valentine reflected on her losses and wanted to inject new vitality into her Deck, a new power besides **Harpie Lady**. Using the KaibaCorp Database, which stored almost all cards on the market, she found the new power that suited her best—the **Amazoness** Deck.
Not only were they Duel Monsters from the same matriarchal clan as **Harpie Lady**, but their card effects also happened to compensate for **Harpie Lady's** weakness against monsters on the opponent's field, despite being good at countering the backrow. Among other things, the **Nightmare Penguin** that had challenged her earlier was defeated by the **Amazoness Swords Woman**, which possessed a Reflect Damage effect.
"Hmph!" Too lazy to explain anything to Mai Valentine, Kaiba stubbornly refused to give way even half a step.
Meanwhile, Ishizu Ishtar used the power of the **Millennium Necklace** to get a foresight of the future, then asked Hayato with some uncertainty: "Hayato-kun, you said earlier that Gozaburo discovered the power hidden behind the **Super Polymerization** Card. What kind of power is that? Why did I see the future as a twisted chaos?"
"**Super Polymerization**, to put it simply, is a card that symbolizes ultimate power. Its power is even more exaggerated than a nuclear bomb; it possesses the power to fuse dimensions together, enough to destroy several universes."
Ishizu Ishtar and Yugi beside her were also startled by Hayato's answer: "What?!"
"In that case, there's one more reason why we absolutely must defeat Gozaburo." Atem looked at Gozaburo with a determined gaze, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his gaze was sharp. "We absolutely cannot let you complete **Super Polymerization**!"
"Heh heh, that's the kind of expression young people should have. But there are a bit too many of you. If you support each other, a Duel that isn't intense enough won't be sufficient to complete the **Super Polymerization** Card."
Gozaburo stroked his chin, seemingly having thought of a malicious idea. He gave a cold, ill-intentioned laugh and clapped his hands.
Corresponding to the six people standing opposite Gozaburo, five square mechanisms opened in the floor beside Gozaburo. As elevators rose, five people with stiff faces appeared, wearing Duel Disks.
Kaiba, Yugi, and Joey Wheeler's eyes widened in rage, and they simultaneously shouted the names of the people who appeared before them:
"Mokuba!"
"Téa! Tristan!"
"Serenity Wheeler! And Duke Devlin!"
The five people who appeared were none other than Mokuba, Téa, and the others who had been left on the S.S. Anne Airship!
Gozaburo Kaiba laughed coldly: "Are you angry? Good, you should be angry. The people appearing before you are your important family and friends, right? Their souls are now in my hands, and their bodies have been made into puppets by me. After all, I have to squeeze out their value."
"Want to get their bodies and souls back? Of course, you can. Defeat them with your full power!" Gozaburo laughed loudly and added, "But I need to remind you, the Duels controlling them are duel robots that have gathered the dueling consciousness data of famous duelists. If you don't give it your all, be careful, you might lose your own bodies as well."
As Gozaburo's words fell, the space within the already huge office expanded again. Taking matters into his own hands, he assigned opponents to everyone present.
Yugi's opponent was Téa.
Kaiba was pitted against his brother, Mokuba.
Joey Wheeler needed to defeat Tristan.
Mai Valentine would deal with Serenity Wheeler.
Ishizu Ishtar would duel against Duke Devlin.
And finally, standing before Gozaburo, was Hayato.
"Gozaburo, you bastard!" Seeing that his opponent was Mokuba, Kaiba, in a furious rage, wanted to rush towards Gozaburo, but found that after the space transfer, an invisible space barrier had been added between each team's field. No matter how much the angry Kaiba wanted to beat up Gozaburo, he couldn't pass through the barrier.
"Aren't you curious why I didn't deal with Seto, who forced me to his death, first, Kobayashi Hayato?" Gozaburo looked at Hayato standing opposite him.
Looking at Gozaburo coldly, Hayato said, "Anyway, for a vile person like you, the reason for doing that is nothing more than wanting to see the sad expressions of others because they have to fight against important people."
"Stop playing such boring games, Gozaburo Kaiba. Your ambition to dominate the world and destroy the world will be defeated by me and my Deck!"
"Duel!"
[Hayato: 4000 LP]
[Gozaburo: 4000 LP]
The Duel won't take long, it will end quickly. As a certain rider who stole something would say, the pain is only for a moment.
Afterwards, it's the part for the trouble-making duo who have been offline for a while.
(End of this chapter)
