Episode 9: Saved from Death! Magical Silk Hat

Yugi's opponent appears to be Kaiba, and Kimo says it's Kaiba's ghost. Everyone's shocked—especially Mokuba, who insists his brother isn't dead. Yugi says it's a trick of Pegasus's. Pegasus and Croquet are watching the confrontation on the computer screen from the castle hall. Pegasus tells Croquet that Yugi's opponent is Kaiba—the evil part of him that Yugi had banished to the Shadow Realm. (In the Japanese, Pegasus is a little surprised to hear that Kaiba is dead. It's Croquet who found the "replacement.")

The Ghost Kaiba taunts Yugi for a while, telling him that he wants revenge. He begins by playing Hitotsume Giant (Cyclops)—just as Kaiba began his previous duel with Yugi. Yugi counters with Dark Magician (Black Magician) and destroys the Hitotsume Giant. But Ghost Kaiba's not troubled. He insists that he really is Kaiba, and he'll win this time—Yugi no longer has his Exodia cards.

Meanwhile, the real Kaiba is lurking outside his mansion, hiding from Pegasus's goons, who still have his place staked out. In flashback we see what really happened when he jumped out the window—he caught himself on a ledge and climbed back up to safety. Now, he pulls up a hidden trap door in his back yard and enters the mansion through a tunnel, and entering a secret room, accessed by a retinal scan. (Called a "RETNA SENSOR" in the Japanese.)

He powers up his computer, and gets an update on what's been going on. The computer tells him that if Pegasus or his representative can defeat Yugi, the Kaiba Corporation board has promised to turn over Kaiba Corp to him.

Pegasus can't beat Yugi, Kaiba says. He has Exodia. But the computer tells him that Yugi's lost his Exodia cards, and that Pegasus is holding Mokuba prisoner. Now Kaiba realizes that he has to stop Pegasus from defeating Yugi in order to save Kaiba Corp. "It's takeover time—by me!" (Japanese Kaiba wants to save his company, of course, but his first concern is Mokuba.) He intends to hack into Pegasus's computers to find Yugi. (In the Japanese, he's just using the ordinary Internet to make his initial search.)

Back at the duel, Ghost Kaiba plays Blue Eyes White Dragon. Now Yugi and the others realize this is Kaiba's real deck—only he has the Blue Eyes White Dragon cards.

Kaiba has cracked Pegasus's computer, and is searching for Yugi's duel. But Yugi's data is protected, and Kaiba's computer can't crack it. So Kaiba hacks into Industrial Illusions' satellite, changing its course so that it crashes right into the building where Pegasus's mainframe is located, forcing the computers to use backup systems with less effective security. (Hm, it seems that in the Japanese, the "crash" is a virtual one, and Kaiba is simply hacking into the Industrial Illusions mainframe through the satellite. A rather cocky Kaiba says he invented the virtual technology Industrial Illusions is using, so it's easy for him to hack it.)

Yugi switches Dark Magician to defense mode, and plays Curse of Dragon in defense as well. But Ghost Kaiba plays Defense Paralysis (Defense Seal) to force Yugi's monsters into attack position, and destroys Curse of Dragon with his Blue Eyes.

Now Kaiba and his computer are searching Duelist Kingdom for Yugi's Dark Magician. But when they reach Arena 146, they're blocked by a virus.

Kaiba hacks his way past it, only to find a virtual fortress blocking Yugi's data. Kaiba guesses that Pegasus wouldn't think anyone could get this far, and that the password is something easy—like "Pegasus." (In the Japanese, the password Kaiba comes up with is "Alcatraz"—something that won't mean anything to viewers until much later in the show—which the subtitles render as "Arkadosla.")

Back at the duel, Mokuba still insists the Ghost isn't really his brother. He knows his brother, he says, and he's not a bad guy. (Japanese Mokuba says to Yugi instead, "Didn't you tell me my brother would come back? I trusted you!" And Yugi takes it on faith that Kaiba is still alive.) Yugi isn't sure, but all he can do is continue the duel. He plays Magical Hats to conceal his Dark Magician.

Kaiba was right about the password. He's in now, and can see the duel, just as Ghost Kaiba launches an attack on one of the Magical Hats!

To Be Continued