The colossal giant towering amidst the clouds slowly dissipated as the final attack was successfully executed.
Cronos sat on the ground, gasping for breath heavily; it took a while for him to gradually recover.
"Mama mia... I really need to work out..." He muttered while getting up, picked up the box holding the sealed keys nearby, then walked to the seal, and carefully inserted the keys into the box one by one.
"Ku... Cronos..."
"Eek!!" Cronos was startled, nearly dropping the box in his hands. He turned around and realized that the pale Akaba Leo still had the strength to speak.
No, perhaps it was a swan song?
Even Cronos, who had no understanding of Darkness Duel, could see that he was not far from death.
"Heh..."
Cronos initially thought he might hear some harsh words but unexpectedly, the man merely chuckled, then completely lost response, as if scaring Cronos at the last moment would make his life worth living.
What—
Was he trying to scare me on purpose?!
Holding the box, he nervously watched the person.
After quite a while, he heard footsteps, as some Kaiba Company employees, dressed in black suits, ran into the forest.
On this island, no one could miss the giant reaching into the clouds, so as soon as they detected something, these members of Kaiba Company rushed towards the scene, disregarding their own safety.
But fortunately, upon realizing that the person here was Interim Principal Cronos, and seemed to have defeated the evil duelist, they relaxed.
A suited man wanted to go over and lift Akaba Leo, but as he was about to do so, a large amount of dark mist rose from Leo's body.
The employee was instantly pushed back, hitting the wall.
At that moment, Akaba Leo was being controlled to float mid-air.
"Mama mia..." Seeing this scene, Cronos instinctively exclaimed.
"Cronos—" A voice emerged from Akaba Leo's body.
Upon hearing the voice, Cronos, who had been tense and fearful, immediately stood upright, eyes wide: "It's you!"
Though he hadn't heard it many times.
But!
He would recognize this voice even if it turned to ashes.
Akaba Leo's voice!
"Finally, you couldn't resist stepping in personally!"
What?
Hearing Akaba Leo's words, Cronos was momentarily confused, but as a teacher, as interim principal, he could be timid before anyone except Akaba Leo—
He would never submit before Akaba Leo.
Thus, Cronos mustered the last strength in his body, stood rigidly upright, facing Akaba Leo directly, inflating his momentum to the maximum extent possible. Black flames scattered across Akaba Leo's body, slowly burning it, turning clothes and skin to white ash, yet the black flames illuminated the surroundings brightly.
"Please stand back, Principal Cronos!" A Kaiba Company employee stood before Cronos.
"No need! I'm fine as I am!" Cronos declined directly.
Then, he looked directly at the humanoid figure floating in the air, lowered his voice and said, "Professor Akuma, where are you really now? If you come forward and confess now, Kaiba Company's judgment on you might be lenient."
"You're still trying to deceive me, Cronos?"
Akaba Leo's voice came from Leo's body, arms spread wide: "Your current vision is still confined to one dimension, whereas I have transcended this state."
He seemingly still considered Cronos another ambitious opponent.
"By stepping in personally now, you might disrupt my plan, but—what about your disciples? Without your protection, they are but lambs to the slaughter in another dimension."
Cronos furrowed his brows in concern.
"The day to capture the entire mentor-disciple group is not far off, wait for it, Cronos!"
After speaking, Akaba Leo fell from the sky, landing with a thud, utterly limp on the ground.
Cronos gazed at Leo's body, silent for quite a while—
So...
Was that it?
Just left a harsh word?
He gently kicked Leo's body, realizing there was truly no response, approached closer, picked up Leo's Duel Disk, and began investigating with Kaiba Company's members.
In Leo's clothes, they found a card emitting dark mist.
Darklord Zerato.
His Ace Card, seemingly the source of his strength.
Cronos opened his deck, flipped through it, discovering most cards had shifted from "Darklord" to some ordinary Fairy-Type monster cards like Goddess of Reversal, Wing Weaver, among others.
It seemed, possibly it was that!
Witnessing this scene, Cronos immediately discerned what kind of "Spirit Card" it was.
This was evidently a situation similar to Fubuki's.
As a professor at Duel Academy, he naturally kept tabs on each student's status.
For a certain period, Tenjouin Fubuki struggled as any card placed in the deck during duels turned into Red-Eyes, leading to frustration. During that time, he agreed to Fubuki and Tenjo Hikari's application to the {Mountain} Dimension, therefore, he knew of this incident.
It appeared that wearing this Darklord Zerato card, and putting Fairy-Type cards into the deck, would allow transforming those into Darklord cards using Zerato's power?
Kaiba Company's personnel used equipment to test the Darklord Zerato card, then handed the card over to Cronos.
Though Kaiba Company resembled a world police in this realm, outside such matters, the company's foremost priority was safeguarding the normal rights of duelists.
As the victorious party, the defeated side not only used Darkness Power but additionally engaged in theft, so post-defeat, naturally everything would be handed to Cronos.
Cronos picked up the card, feeling a slight pain in his right hand, yet unlike Leo, he did not manifest an "Inverted Cross", evidently not being the "Blessed" mentioned by Leo.
But this matter was not something Cronos could ignore.
As Duel Academy's Interim Principal, since someone attempted to steal the Seven-Star Key today, he must make more decisions beneficial to the school in this world.
GX Tournament was the most crucial matter entrusted to him before the principal's resignation, and he certainly hoped that unexpected events wouldn't add fuel to the fire, amplifying the already poor reputation requiring close attention.
Thus, reality and GX Tournament, he had to maintain focus on both.
"Mama mia..." Back in the principal's office, Cronos sat at the principal's desk, feeling his bones were about to fall apart, lying flat on the table.
Too tired.
Mentally, physically, the recent month's affairs were more complex than what he had managed last year.
But he still tried his best, gathered his spirit, took out a letter from the desk, began drafting a letter, and once finished, contemplated for a while, then placed the Darklord card along with another card in the envelope.
The other card was Kaiba Company's extra "compensation" after a month of interrogation, which he planned to send to Tenjo Hikari.
Indeed. He wrote a letter to Tenjo Hikari.
Having his hands tied, he had to oversee the academy and couldn't leave.
The situation had reached this point, he could only trust the students!
As a teacher, if he didn't even trust his own disciples, then who could he possibly trust!?