Yami Yugi

Yami Yugi aka Dark Yugi in the manga, and Japanese version. He is referred as the Nameless Pharaoh. He has been sealed in the Millennium Puzzle for 3,000 years (5,000 years in the English version). He is the main character of the Duel Monsters anime series, along with Yugi Muto. Together with Yugi, he holds the title "King of Games" (King of Duelists in Japanese version) by winning in the Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, Grand Championship and Battle City V2 (in GX anime). Yami Yugi's best friend is Joey Wheeler, while his closet friend is Yugi. Later on in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters series, Yami Yugi finds out that his real name is Atem. After Yugi solved the Millennium Puzzle, Yami Yugi resided in Yugi's body. Yami would take possession of it when Yugi is in danger.

Background
Atem was born around the millennium 1,000 B.C. (3,000 B.C. in the English version) as the only son of King Aknamkanon. Atem became heir to the Egyptian throne and the Millennium Puzzle. During his childhood he befriended Mana and was protected by Mahad. In one incident, Atem was attacked by a snake, but Mahad took the hit for the young prince. Atem then saved him by sucking the venom out.

His father forced him on a trip to an ancient tomb which Atem did not want to go. Atem accidentally slipped and almost fell off the edge. He asked for his father's help, but he told Atem that he needed to be strong on his own and he was able to get back on the path. Once in the main tomb, his father made a deal with the monsters to spare his son from the repercussions of the horrible actions from the creation of the Millennium Items. One day, Priest Seto was appointed as guardian of the Millennium Rod by Aknamkanon. Atem was present for the ceremony. The Pharaoh announced that Seto would serve him as his right hand. Secretly, Aknamkanon's brother, Aknadin, showed resentment towards Atem as Seto was his son and Aknadin wanted him to be Pharaoh, a goal he vowed to accomplish. He and Priest Seto became friends and rivals who competed with each other by testing their mystical skills and abilities

On the day he became Pharaoh, he was attacked by a common thief but was saved by Mahad. After this thief he was put through the Millennium trial and it was discovered that he was possessed and they let him go. Just minutes after that, his kingdom was attacked by Bandit King Bakura. Bakura had raided the tomb of his father Aknamkanon and stolen his DiaDhank and his coffin. Atem put Bakura through the Millennium trial, but it failed. Atem announced that Bakura's disrespect was appalling. Bakura easily defeated the The Sacred Guardians with his Diabound before Atem stepped in and challenged him with Obelisk the Tormentor. Diabound was severely injured and after almost being destroyed, Bakura fled.

Atem was awoken by a nightmare of Mahad dying in battle at the hands of Bakura. he and Mana went to Mahad's monster tablet and realized that he was in a battle with Bakura. The two headed to the spell-castors' training grounds where Atem's troopers were being attacked by Bakura's followers. Atem used a sword to knock over some of them and got Mana to send for back up before heading in to take out the rest of the thugs. During the fight, the back up arrived but were too late. Mahad's Millennium Ring was in Bakura's hands and he was merged with his Illusion Magician. The stone tablet then fell off the cliff and almost crushed Mana but Atem was able to save her. Bakura later returned to the kingdom to possess Aknadin. After this, he and Atem fought each other once again. Atem fought with Slifer the Sky Dragon whilst riding on horseback. While they fought, he ran past Dartz, a resident of Atlantis who was to become his enemy in 3000 years (5000 years in the English version). Atem was defeated and lost his Millennium Puzzle to Bakura.

After Atem was found, he and the other guardians headed for Kul Elna, the birth place of the Millennium Items. Atem and Bakura fought one last time. As Atem was about to defeat Bakura, Aknadin showed up with the Millennium Key that he stole from Shada and stole the other Millennium Items. After putting them in the Millennium Stone, Zorc Necrophades appeared and offered Aknadin anything he desired in exchange for his loyalty. Aknadin requested for Priest Seto to become the new king of Egypt, revealing that Seto was his son in the process. Zorc agreed and transformed Aknadin into Shadow Magus, who then attempted to destroy Atem, but Hassan appeared and protected him. Magus tried to convince Seto to join his side, but Atem convinced him not to. Magus took Seto and escaped into a worm hole that lead to the kingdom, Atem following in pursuit. However, in Kul Elna, Bakura sacrificed himself to summon Zorc Necrophades. Atem needed Priest Seto to become the new king in case Atem were to fall so he set off after him.

By the time Atem got there, Magus had possessed Seto after the latter refused to serve him. Magus had also killed Kisara and taken her spirit monster, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Seto/Aknadin tormented Atem as to how powerless he was to stop the dark one. Atem demanded to know why Seto chose Zorc's side over Atem's, but Seto claimed that he and his followers had no allegiance to Zorc or Atem. Atem and Seto fought, Atem using Dark Magician (Mahad) and Seto using Blue-Eyes White Dragon, with Seto emerging as the victor. However, Kisara stopped Blue-Eyes from killing Atem and destroyed Aknadin. Seto was free from Aknadin's control, and Atem thanked Kisara for this. This fight would be the main source of Yami Yugi and Seto Kaiba's rivalry.

However, after their duel, Zorc was set for the kingdom. Zorc arrived and a massive battle began. However Zorc was able to overcome Atem's forces. It then became clear that without the Millennium Items, they did not stand a chance. Isis and Mana set off to retrive them. Mana returned but Isis and Shimon had perished at Zorc's hands. Atem then brought out all 3 Egyptian Gods to fight Zorc. Though the gods were able to overpower him, it did not last. Without the combined form of the gods The Creator of Light, Zorc could never be destroyed. Zorc then destroyed all three gods and turned them into stone before proceeding to lay waste to the rest of the kingdom.

Not wanting Zorc's rampage to continue into other parts of the world, Atem defeated Zorc, by sacrificing his life in the process. He used his name as part of a spell that sealed Zorc's soul into the Millennium Ring. He gave the throne of Egypt to Priest Seto, then sealed his soul within the Millennium Puzzle, erasing his own memories to keep the spell from ever being used to return Zorc to life ever again. The puzzle was shattered by Priest Seto, and laid to rest in the Pharaoh's tomb.

Atem's puzzle was placed in a box and placed in his tomb. A number of traps and monsters were placed within to protect the artifact and traces of his name were destroyed. This action would cause history to refer to him as the "Nameless Pharaoh". Priest Seto built the Tablet of Lost Memories, a famous stone tablet depicting them battling one another with their favorite monsters, Blue-Eyes White Dragon (Kisara) and Dark Magician (Mahad), as a symbol of their Friendship.

Over the course of the next three thousand years (5000 in the English version) many would attempt to steal the Millennium Puzzle but would fall victim to the traps, except for one person who was driven mad and would wander his village saying "The shadow game. Beware". 3,000 years later (5,000 in the English version), the Puzzle was found by Solomon Muto. Solomon's guide attempted to kill him to take the Pharaoh's treasure for himself. After the guide met his fate at the hands of a monster, Solomon was saved by the apparent spirit of Atem. When he returned home, he brought the Puzzle back with him. His grandson, Yugi Muto, try to solve the puzzle for eight unsuccessful years. But when Yugi was 15 years old, he finally solved the Puzzle, which caused the Pharaoh's spirit to inhabit Yugi's body. The Pharaoh's soul, now came to be known as "the other Yugi" or "Yami Yugi", was now missing the vast majority of his memories.

Personality
In the manga, Yami Yugi starts out as an unforgiving vigilante. He emerges to deal justice to people who trespass the souls of Yugi and his friends. Although his acts are righteous, he lives up to his namesake of Dark; his Penalty Game punishments are usually very brutal.

Later living inside Yugi Muto's body, he seems to become more of a caring, nice, and friendly man, even though he always had that in him, and the friendship of Yugi's friends had helped it reveal to others. Yami Yugi is a strong, powerful and skilled Pharaoh. He attempts to balance darkness and evil in his use of the shadow magic from his Millennium Item. Unlike Yami Bakura and Yami Marik, he uses it to protect others, rather than for personal gain, and to inflict punishment only on people who have severely wronged others.

He is slightly reserved, as he doesn't reveal his existence to Yugi or his friends. At first Yugi feared Yami Yugi, but after Yugi admits to thinking "another Yugi" exists inside him, his friends become aware of his existence and accept him as a friend.

Yami Yugi's pride is his greatest strength and weakness. Initially he refuses to lose games, without considering the consequences. This has caused him to almost kill Seto Kaiba by attacking him while he stood on a ledge and would fall if his monster was attacked and Yugi would have won the duel (in the Japanese version, Kaiba threatened to commit suicide if he lose). Yugi holds him back from such acts at times, but he is not always successful. Yugi becomes afraid to let Yami Yugi out for a while, because of the harm he could cause.

During his duel with Rafael, Yami Yugi, albeit with great hesitation, eventually ignored Yugi's objections and used the Seal of Orichalcos rather than lose. Ironically, it was this action and Yami's subsequent corrupt actions during the duel that would lead to him losing a duel fro the first time, and having Yugi's soul capture by Dartz. Yami Yugi expressed great grief and guilt following the battle due to Yugi's willingly suffering, which were because of Yami Yugi's actions. Learning how to lose becomes an essential part of Yami Yugi's journey, which he is tested in for the Ceremonial Battle.

Yami Yugi is also wise and intelligent. He knows all the rules and details of how the game is played, as well as those of all games. He also knows several special game techniques, such as the Double Hit dice roll technique, which, when two dice are used and the one with the weak spin stops first, lets him make the still spinning dice hit the one not spinning, allowing him to change it's number, which is done by bumping the field with a body part, e.g the elbow. Yami is also capable of reading the ancient language of the Egyptians, figuring out the riddles or clues and what they mean.

Through Yugi and his friends, Yami Yugi learns the values and powers of friendship and unity. After seeing Yugi overcome Marik in his Duel with Joey, who has been possessed. Yami thinks to himself, and he learned something from Yugi; that in kindness lies the greatest strength of all; one day Yugi will surpass him in every way.

Yami Yugi cares about others well being, for example (Joey and Mokuba). He would help out others, and try to search for his friends. Like Kaiba, Yami Yugi cares about one person in his life, Yugi Muto. While Kaiba cares about his little Brother, Mokuba. Yami Yugi would even go too far to help Mokuba save Kaiba, against Kaiba's will. Yami Yugi respects other duelist that duel without cheating. (For Example Joey, Kaiba, Mako Tsunami, and Rex Raptor). He would later respect Mai Valentine, after she helps him face his own fears after he was defeated by Kaiba.

Yami Yugi also shows his angry side when he sees his friends being hurt. He is also in love with Tea Gardner. Like Tea (In the Manga only), he would show an angry expression when he saw her with someone. Yami Yugi has a hard time confessing his love to Tea, but enjoys being around her. He would even go through great lengths to save her as seen in the Duel Monsters series. Also in the Duel Monsters series, but in the Japanese version. Yami Yugi thought that Yugi was going on a date with Tea. But Yami Yugi didn't know that Yugi was making him go on a date with Tea at the Domino Museum, which freaked Yami Yugi out overall when Yugi released him from the Millennium Puzzle. This caused Yami Yugi to yell at the Puzzle, since he thought that Yugi brought him out of the Puzzle to duel, but he snapped out of it when he saw Tea looking at him, and he spoke to her politely in an embarrassing way.

Like Yugi, Yami Yugi is shown to dislike violence. Yami Yugi would never use violence to defend himself. He would try to think of different ways to stay out of fights. He would use Penalty Games to save Yugi and the others from danger. He would even tell his enemies to surrender the duel for their own safety, an example being during his duel with Arkana. Like Yugi, Yami Yugi duels for honor and justice, instead of trying to cheat. Just like Yugi, Yami Yugi is also independent, and trys not to ask his friends for help. This is shown when he plays Duels Monsters. But he is shown to give Joey, and his friends support as well. Yami Yugi is also shown to give Mokuba encouragement, hoping that the young boy can make the right decisions. Also like Yugi, Yami Yugi has have a long lasting friendship relationship with many duelist that he fought in the series. (For example: Seto Kaiba, Joey Wheeler, Mako Tsunami, Mai Valentine, Duke Devlin, and Maximillion Pegasus) He is shown to be very kind to the duelist that he encounters.

Appearance
Yami Yugi's character design was overseen by Kazuki Takahashi.

As he exists in Yugi's body, his appearance is largely the same as Yugi's, although many alterations are made when Yami takes control. The main difference is that Yami Yugi looks more like a teenager than Yugi, is taller and has a deeper voice. In the Japanese version, though, very little change can be detected in Yugi and Yami Yugi's voice. His eyes are also narrower with a more intense, determined gaze.

Yami Yugi's hair features multiple layers including long blond crocked, pointy locks for his fringe. Unlike Yugi, some of the blond locks jut upwards. The rest of his hair features five large spikes colored black with purple rims all along the edges. The spikes were loose and free flowing at the beginning of the manga, but over time became stiffer.

In many illustrations Yami Yugi is depicted having purple eyes like Yugi. But in some of the cover pictures of the Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga he is depicted having aqua green colored eyes.

At the beginning of the series, his outfit consists of the standard male Domino High uniform complete with a closed buckled collar and a large set of Ankh cufflinks on his sleeves, which weren't present when Yugi was in control. It also noted that his uniform becomes a darker shade of blue when Yami Yugi assumes control. Also, during Duelist Kingdom, Yugi's blue and white sneakers would turn into solid blue boot-like shoes when Yami takes control. The Ankhs were later removed. Unlike Yugi, Yami Yugi sometimes wears the jacket as a cape, which could be due to actually wearing one when he was Pharaoh.

He wears the Millennium Puzzle on a brown leather rope around his neck. The leather rope is later replaced with a chain.

When he played Dungeon Dice Monsters against Duke Devlin, he wears a dark-gray long-sleeved shirt, a sleeveless vest, dark blue pants and black shoes.

When he and Tea Gardner went out together to find out about the Millennium Puzzle, he wore black linen and several pieces of wrist-chains, to match the Millennium Puzzle's chain.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters, Yami wears a different attire of a violet jacket and jeans. He also wears the Capsule Shooter on his left arm. In episode 4, he gains duel armor that allows him to become one with one of his capsule monsters.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist Manga
Around 1000 B.C. Atem was born the son of Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen, shortly before the creation of the Millennium Items. Atem later served as Pharaoh and holder of the Millennium Pendant. He was accompanied by his vizier, Shimon Muran, and the six priests, Akhenadin, Isis, Karim, Mahad, Seto and Shada.

While Atem was about 15 years old, Bakura, King of Thieves marched into the palace, carrying treasures he stole from Akhenamkhanen's grave, and dragged Akhenamkhanen's mummy with him. He said he sought vengeance on what was done to create the Millennium Items. The six priests engaged in a ka battle with his Diabound, during which Atem walked over to Thief Bakura and took back his father's body. After thinking he heard his father say "justice lies in the name of the gods", Atem stood forward and was able to summon Obelisk to combat Diabound and force Thief Bakura to retreat.

Mahad died in a trap he set for Thief Bakura and merged his soul with his "Illusion Magician" ka to become the Dark Magician, who served as one of Atem's ka. Afterwards Atem granted Seto and his troops permission to search the city for Thief Bakura.

Atem heard news of a massacre believed to have been carried out by Thief Bakura. Soon afterwards, he spotted Thief Bakura fleeing from the palace and chased after him on horseback. Atem Summoned Slifer to fight Diabound. Atem allowed Slifer to be struck in order to protect innocent civilians from Diabound's attacks and then got Slifer to force the battle into the sky. However Diabound was able to disappear into the darkness and attack Slifer from behind. Atem pretended to surrender his Millennium Pendant in order to distract Thief Bakura while he had Slifer sneak up on him. However Thief Bakura got Diabound to make a similar sneak attack on the Pharaoh. The priests arrived in time to save Atem and cut off Diabound's hand. Atem sacrificed Slifer, so that Seto's Duos could attack Diabound, but Duos wound up hitting a decoy ka instead. Despite being low on ba, Atem went after Thief Bakura, hoping to stop him from killing innocent people. However Diabound destroyed the ground around Atem, leaving him dangling on the edge of a chasm. Thief Bakura took the Millennium Pendant from him, before leaving him to fall.

Atem survived the fall and shortly after he woke up, was found by Spiria, Shada and his soldiers. Atem then led the troops to Kul Elna to confront Thief Bakura, where he wouldn't be able to kill innocent bystanders. At Kul Elna, the soldiers found the underground cavern containing the Millennium Stone and were attacked by evil spirits inside it. Refusing to let them die, Atem went inside and confronted Thief Bakura. Thief Bakura showed him the stone and explained that the Millennium Items were forged here using a sacrifice of every Kul Elna villager. He then tried to kill Atem with the evil spirits, but the Dark Magician, Mahad, appeared and protected him.

Atem was distraught by the news of how the Millennium Items were created and wondered why his father allowed it. However Mahad assured him that Akhenamkhanen initially had no knowledge of how the items were created and had fallen ill and died shortly after learning the truth. Mahad came close to killing Diabound, but Diabound absorbed the souls of the deceased villagers and became stronger. Isis, Kalim, Mana, Siamun and Seto arrived to help Atem battle Thief Bakura and Diabound. However Akhenadin took the Millennium Items and placed them in the stone, summoning Zorc Necrophades.

Atem defeated Zorc Necrophades, sacrificing his life in the process. He used his name as part of a spell that sealed a part of Zorc's and a part of his own soul in the Millennium Items. Atem's soul got sealed in the Millennium Pendant. The pendant was shattered and became known as the Millennium Puzzle and was then laid to rest in the Pharaoh's tomb.

In the 1960s when Solomon Muto ventured to the Tomb of the Nameless Pharaoh, his companion, Ahmet, shot him in attempt to take the tomb's treasure for himself. However Ahmet was devoured by a monster spirit and Solomon was pulled to safety by an apparition of the Pharaoh, who mistook him for Shimon. Afterwards Solomon recovered the Millennium Puzzle from the tomb, and brought it to Japan, eventually leaving it in his basement at the Kame Game shop.

Around 1996, Yugi Muto solved the Millennium Puzzle while he was under the pressure of coming up with money to pay Tetsu Trudge Ushio, for his self-imposed body guard fees. This caused the Pharaoh's spirit to inhabit Yugi's body. The Pharaoh's soul, which comes to be known as "the other Yugi" or "Yami Yugi" was missing the vast majority of his memories. He was able to occasionally take control of Yugi's body without Yugi knowing.

Yami Yugi emerged and arranged to meet Ushio at the school at midnight. He challenged Ushio to a Shadow Game, money and knife, where players had to grab bank notes off their own hand with a knife. Ushio got greedy and tried to stab Yugi, so he could take all the money for himself. However Yami Yugi dodged the attack and inflicted the Illusion of Avarice Penalty Game on him for cheating. Ushio was put under the illusion that litter and leaves were money, which he showered himself in. Yami Yugi laughs after his victory, and decides to return the money that Solomon gave to Yugi.

A director from ZTV tried to orchestrate a bullying documentary, Caught on Camera: School Violence, by having A.D. Fujita attack Yugi. Yami Yugi confronted the director afterwards and challenged him to a dice game Shadow Game, where the director must roll equal to or lower than him to win. Yami Yugi rolled a 6, but still insisted that the director roll, despite his victory seeming obvious. The director tried injuring Yugi by throwing the die at his face. However Yami Yugi blocked with the Millennium Puzzle, breaking the die in two, making it land on both 1 and 6, totaling 7. Yami Yugi then inflicted the Mosaic Illusion Penalty Game on the director, pixelating his vision.

The untalented singer, Sozoji, forced Yugi and Tomoya Hanasaki to sell tickets to his concert, and subsequently beat-up Hanasaki for letting Yugi take his burden of tickets. Yami Yugi emerged and faced Sozoji in a game of silence. The first person to make a sound, lost. Sozoji noticed how Yami Yugi might lose. With Yugi's life on the line, his heart pounded as he got excited about winning. But his heartbeat became amplified by his microphone connected to nearby speakers, making him lose the game. Subjected to one of Yami Yugi's Penalty Games, Sozoji continued to hear his heart beat louder and louder.

When Tea Gardner was held captive by an escaped convict armed with a gun at Burger World, Yugi had to serve the convict cigarettes and vodka. Yami Yugi took control and challenged the convict to the one finger BATTLE! Shadow Game, where each player could only use one of their ten fingers. Blindfolded, Anzu could not see who was challenging the convict and thought he sounded like Yugi, but was too confident and daring to be him. The convict choose his index finger, hoping to pull the trigger of his gun. Yami Yugi choose his thumb and used it to flick on a cigarette lighter. Yami Yugi was allowed to light the convict's cigarette, after which he dropped the lighter on the convict's arm, which was pouring vodka. The vodka began to overflow, making it impossible for the convict to fire the gun without setting himself on fire. While Yami Yugi escorted Tea away, the convict dropped his cigarette, setting himself on fire. After this incident, Tea became obsessed over finding the identity of her rescuer.

The alleged psychic Kokurano tried to seduce Tea, by reading her future, telling her that a wonderful man would reveal himself to her, causing her to swoon before him in love. Tea hoped this was the man who saved her at Burger World. For Yugi's disbelief in his powers, Kokurano predicted that countless letters would fall from the heavens and bring disaster on Yugi. Later that day Kokurano knocked over bookshelves on top of Yugi. Yami Yugi emerged and realized that Kokurano was making his predictions come true. He rushed to Tea, who Kokurano had knocked out with a bottle of chloroform. Using the bottle, Yami Yugi defeated him in the Paper Crash! Shadow Game, leaving him unconscious and exposed as a fraud.

During a school festival, Goro Inogashira had his class tear up Yugi's class Carnival Games spot, to make room for their okonomiyaki stand. Yami Yugi challenged Goro to an air hockey Shadow Game, Griddle Ice Hockey, using a block of ice containing a tube of an explosive chemical as a puck and the okonomiyaki grill as a board. Goro dealt powerful blows to the puck, making it difficult for Yami Yugi to keep up. But Yami Yugi, managed to nick the puck with his bat, causing the ice to break with Goro's next blow. The chemical hit the hot surface, causing it to explode in front of Goro.

The teacher Ms. Chono found Tristan's love jigsaw puzzle to Miho Nosaka, during a desk check and began reading the message to the class. As she assembled it to find the sender's name and expel him, Yami Yugi turned the jigsaw into a Dark Puzzle Shadow Game, where Ms. Chono felt the pain she was inflicting on others. On completion of the puzzle, her makeup cracked-up, revealing her true ugly self. She then fled the room without expelling anyone.

The Junky Scorpion shop owner sold Joey a rare pair of shoes, but had them stolen back by his Muscle Hunters. Yami Yugi returned to the Junky Scorpion and played the coin in sneaker Shadow Game with the owner to take back the shoes. The owner's pet scorpion was put in a shoe, while both players tried to pull out coins without getting stung. The owner got greedy and tried to kill the scorpion. He failed to do so and got his hand stuck when he tried grabbing all the coins at once. The scorpion left him badly poisoned from a sting.

After Seto Kaiba stole Solomon Muto's "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card, Yami Yugi and Kaiba engaged in a Shadow Game of Duel Monsters. Kaiba secretly added the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card to his hand, pretending to draw it. He Summoned it and tried to attack, but the true loyalties of the "Blue-Eyes" did not lie with him, so it destroyed itself. Yami Yugi used "Monster Reborn" to revive it and used it and defeat Kaiba. Yami Yugi inflicted the Experience of Death Penalty Game on Kaiba, causing him to believe he was trapped in the Duel Monsters Spirit World, where he suffered death at the hands of monsters.

Yugi called to the Millennium Puzzle to help him find Joey, while Joey was held captive by Hirutani's gang. Yami Yugi located the gang at the "torture chamber" and let one of the gangsters punch him back, to lure them into a puddle. As he stood up, he covertly put a metal bar under an unconscious gangster's arm. He also hung the Millennium Puzzle off a chain over the unconscious boy's forehead. Yami Yugi then challenged the gang to a game, Landmine Search Network; he warned them that there was a time bomb below their feet and it would detonate if they could not find the switch. Some of the gangsters thought that Yami Yugi was bluffing, but Hirutani realized that activating their stun guns in the rain while standing in a puddle, would cause them to get electrocuted. The gang assumed the stun guns to be the switches and advanced to attack Yami Yugi without using them. However Yami Yugi insisted that they did not find the switch. Rainwater trickled down the chain the Puzzle was tied to and off the tip of the Puzzle onto the unconscious member, waking him up. As he woke up, he moved his arm suspended over the metal bar, causing him to let the stun gun he was holding drop into the puddle of water electrocuting the gang.

Shadi, the holder of the Millennium Key and Scales, saw Yugi at a museum. After hearing, Yugi owned the Millennium Puzzle, he used the Millennium Key to enter the room of Yugi's mind. Instead he found two rooms; Yugi's which was filled toys and another for Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi appeared inside his room and invited Shadi in, if he dared. Shadi introduced himself as an unwanted guest, who had come to learn the power of the Millennium Puzzle and if the power was needed he would draw it into his bloodline. Not willing to simply show Shadi the power, Yami Yugi imposed a Shadow Game, Labyrinth Treasure Hunt; somewhere inside the soul was Dark Yugi's true room and if Shadi could find it, then he would find what he was looking for. Shadi accepted the game, but mentioned that once he entered someone's room, he can redecorate it to control the individual or change their personality. Yami Yugi started the game and the place turned into a maze of doors and staircases. Shadi began searching, but the doors were filled with traps. Eventually Shadi was left dangling above a bottomless pit. Yami Yugi saved him and advised that he leave. Shadi parted, thinking he has lost the game, but Yami Yugi assured him it was only the beginning.

Upon learning that Yugi was coming to visit Professor Yoshimori at Domino University, Shadi possessed Yoshimori, giving him the intention of making Yugi's friends suffer, hoping it would coax Yami Yugi into taking control of Yugi's body. When it became evident that Yoshimori alone would not be enough, he also possessed Tea, making her his hostage. Threatening to kill Tea, he forced Yami Yugi to take control and told him to come to the roof in ten minutes for a Shadow Game.

The Shadow Game was the Trial of the Mind. Shadi stood Tea motionless on a board over the edge of a building. The board was supported by ropes tied to four ushebti, which would shatter when a weakness in Yami Yugi's heart was detected. A fifth ushebti for Shadi's heart held up the Millennium Key, which would slide down to Tea's hand and return her to normal should Shadi's ushebti break. Seeing Tea's danger immediately caused one ushebti to break. Shadi proceeded to put Yami Yugi through a series of stages hoping to expose weaknesses in his heart.

For the first stage, Hell Quiz, illusions of zombies climbed out the ground and grabbed onto Yami Yugi. The only way to break the illusion was to determine the zombies true nature, by solving the riddle "What creeps on the ground and clings to the pillars?". Yami Yugi realized that he was the pillar, the zombies were what creeps on the ground and the answer to the riddle was a shadow, making the zombies his shadow.

In the second stage, Yami Yugi played Concentration or Death. An illusion of Ammit held onto him, while he was faced with nine face-down slabs. The slabs' other sides contained images of four pairs and one unmatched image. The slabs represented a mirror and Yami Yugi needed to determine what the odd image was within five minutes or be bitten by Ammit, which despite being an illusion would kill him. Yami Yugi realized that the slabs being a mirror contained images of visible parts of Ammit, so the four pairs were her eyes, ears, nostrils and arms, while the odd one was her mouth.

The last stage, was the Game of Death. Shadi created an illusion of Joey, in his old bully persona. Seeing Joey behave in his old ways, caused regular Yugi to take control for a split second and weep causing two ushebti to break. Yami Yugi and Joey had to take turns tossing the Millennium Puzzle. The direction the puzzle landed pointing was the direction their opponent had to walk and the idea was to make the opponent walk into a bottomless pit. Yami Yugi worried that was a small chance the illusion was actually the real Joey possessed by Shadi. Yami Yugi refused to take his turns, explaining that he trusted that his friend wouldn't kill him. This caused the illusion to stop playing and disappear.

The last rope supporting Tea's platform began to break, but the real Joey, being chased up the side of the building by the possessed Yoshimori arrived and held it up. Surprised by how the friends supported each other, Shadi's ushebti shattered and Tea was restored to normal. Joey struggled to hold up the board as Yoshimori pulled at him. This nearly caused Tea to fall, but Yami Yugi caught her and helped her onto the building. Yami Yugi then instructed Joey to touch the Millennium Key off Yoshimori to return him to normal.

Yami Yugi taught Shadi that unity was a power of the Millennium Puzzle and Joey warned Shadi to leave. Shadi left beaten, but pleased because his bloodline had been searching for someone like Yugi and he may be able to open "that door". Joey and Tea, unaware of Yami Yugi's existence, noticed how Yugi had been acting different. When they approached him about this, Yami Yugi had already returned control to Yugi and they suspected they had just imagined it.

Yugi's Digital Pet, U2 developed a persona like Yami Yugi. Using data it incorporated from a connection with Joey's pet, it changed into a more confident powerful form in order to beat the bullysome pet owned by Kujirada.

Tomoya Hanasaki, dressed as the hero Zombire, tried to take on a gang, who told him that they had kidnapped Yugi. Hanasaki's father was supposed to pay the gang to let Tomoya beat them, but could not afford the price they demanded. Yugi learned what had happened when he went to Hanasaki's house and met Hanasaki's father. The two of them went to the location on a ransom note found in Hanasaki's room. By the time they arrived, the gang had started attacking Hanasaki and Yugi switched to Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi broke up the fight and challenged the thugs to a Shadow Game. The gang proceeded to chase Yami Yugi, who left a trail of spray paint, starting at a discarded cigarette butt. As the butt burned away, it acted as a fuse and when the paint caught fire it created the Maze of Fire. Caught in the fire, the thugs dashed out of the yard and jumped into the canal. Afterwards, Yami Yugi escorted Hanasaki away. Hanasaki thought he had been foolish for thinking he could be a hero, but Yami Yugi insisted that he could.

To get revenge on Yugi for defeating his brother, Seto Kaiba, Mokuba forced Yugi into a game of Capsule Monster Chess. When Mokuba's followers tried taking Yugi's Millennium Puzzle, he switched to Yami Yugi and told them off. Mokuba who was aware that Yugi turned into a different person when he games had hoped this would happen, as Yami Yugi was the Yugi he wanted to defeat. Mokuba used a rigged dispenser to distribute the players monsters.Yami Yugi wound up with mostly low level monsters, while Mokuba got high level ones. Throughout the game, Yami Yugi sacrificed his pieces to lure Mokuba into lining his pieces up diagonally. Yami Yugi then used the special ability of his last monster "Torigun", to destroy all monsters diagonally aligned with it, defeating Mokuba. For a Penalty Game, Yami Yugi caused Mokuba to imagine he was trapped in a giant Capsule Monster Chess capsule. Yami Yugi then left while telling Mokuba to stop speaking nonsense once the giant capsule disappears.

Mokuba later invited Yugi to Kaiba's mansion. Here he lured Yugi and Joey into a game of Russian Roulette Dinner; a game where players spun a turntable and ate the meal on the table that stopped in front of them, not knowing if it was poisoned or not. Initially Mokuba lied that the food wasn't poisoned and said that they were playing a game where there was treasure hidden in one of the meals. After Joey was poisoned by one of the meals, Yami Yugi emerged and was forced to continue the game if he wanted to get the antidote for Joey. Yami Yugi suspected Mokuba was cheating when he saw how he could eat a meal without any fear of it being poisoned. He then realized that Mokuba was using a syrup bottle as a switch to stop the table when he wanted. Using the Millennium Puzzle to smash the syrup bottle, Yami Yugi stopped a poisoned meal in front of Mokuba. Mokuba's fear of the meal confirmed it was poisoned. Yami Yugi reminded Mokuba of the rules and Mokuba proceeded to eat the poisoned meal, allowing Yami Yugi to claim the antidote to save Joey.

The next day Yugi and his friends participated in Kaiba's Death-T theme park. They won the first of its games, which were designed to kill them, without aid from Yami Yugi. When Joey battled the Chopman in the last part of Death T-2, Yugi's Millennium Puzzle briefly flashed before Yugi got a plan on how Joey could beat the Chopman.

Distraught by Tristan getting trapped in the room of falling cubes in Death T-3, Yugi admitted to Joey and Tea that he thought there was another Yugi inside him. He explained that since he solved the Millennium Puzzle, there have been times when he blacks out and he thinks that he changes into another person when that happens. He had refrained from saying anything about this before, because he was afraid his friends would think he was weird and leave him. However Joey and Tea said that they will always be his friends even if there was another Yugi.

In Death T-4, Yugi had to face Mokuba alone in another game of Capsule Monster Chess in a Battle Box. Yugi changed into Yami Yugi, causing Tea and Joey to knowingly see him for the first time. The game used Solid Vision to make the monsters life-like and the loser was to suffer the "Experience of Death" Penalty Game. Once again, Mokuba used a rigged dispenser to give himself high Level monsters and give Dark Yugi mostly low Level monsters.

Yami Yugi placed his monsters together on the board, while Mokuba's were more spread out. Yami Yugi passed his first few turns, allowing Mokuba to surround his monsters. Yami Yugi then began moving his pieces and allowed Mokuba to defeat two of his monsters in order to line both players' monsters up how he wanted them. As Mokuba used "Armorsaurus" to attack Yami Yugi's "Mogley", Mogley used its dig ability to dodge into a hole, causing "Armorsaurus" to keep rolling until it smashed into Mokuba's "Megaton", destroying both monsters. Yami Yugi got "Ninja Squid" to use its self-destruct ability to take itself and Mokuba's "Zoid "M"" out. Defeating those three monsters cleared a path for Yami Yugi's "Beeton" to get to an evolution square and evolve into the Level 5 "Hyper Beetle". "Hyper Beetle" destroyed Mokuba's Level 4 "Nama Hargen" and then battled his Level 5 "Big Foot", but got destroyed. As "Big Foot" proceeded to attack "Mogley", it fell apart, damaged from its earlier attack. Having defeated all of Mokuba's monsters, Yami Yugi won the game.

Yami Yugi left the Battle Box and following the rules of Death-T, Kaiba inflicted the "Experience of Death" on the loser, Mokuba. Mokuba was surrounded by Solid Vision monsters. Yami Yugi was surprised to see Kaiba do this to his own brother and then pulled Mokuba out to safety. Mokuba was stunned to see that Yami Yugi rescued him. When questioned, Yami Yugi replied that he wouldn't have won if he didn't had friends reaching out to him. This reminded Mokuba of what Kaiba used to be like and hoped Yami Yugi would be able to revert Kaiba's personality in the next stage.

Yami Yugi proceeded to the Dome Duel Arena for Death T-5. Here he faced Kaiba in a game of Duel Monsters using the Deck Grandpa had given to Yugi. Near the beginning of the Duel, Yami Yugi had trouble with Kaiba's "Saggi the Dark Clown", whose ATK had been tripled with "Dark Energy". Eventually he beat it with "Gaia the Fierce Knight", only to be overpowered once again by Kaiba's "Blue-Eyes White Dragon".[53] After Kaiba Summoned a second "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", Dark Yugi held them back with "Swords of Revealing Light".

Yami Yugi had three weak "the Forbidden One" cards in his hand. The regular Yugi then imagined Grandpa was speaking to him and Grandpa compared the cards to the Millennium Puzzle, saying they were not meaningless and could be put together like pieces of a puzzle. This reminded Yami Yugi of "Exodia", a monster who could only be Summoned by gathering five cards. He then managed to draw the fourth piece. By the time the effect of "Swords of Revealing Light" wore off Kaiba had brought out his third "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and Yami Yugi had only 200 Life Points left. Beginning his last turn, Yami Yugi started to doubt he could get the last piece of "Exodia" and was afraid to draw. Thinking of his friends he gained the courage to draw and got "Exodia the Forbidden One". "Exodia" was then Summoned and Kaiba was defeated.

Yami Yugi inflicted the "Mind Crush" Penalty Game on Kaiba. This destroyed the evil part of Kaiba's heart and left him in a coma while he reassembled the shattered puzzle of his heart. Mokuba, who had saved Tristan from the room of falling cubes to repay Yami Yugi for saving him earlier, arrived and called Kaiba's guards off from Yami Yugi and his friends. Mokuba told Yami Yugi how Kaiba had changed throughout the years and Yami Yugi explained that when Kaiba is done assembling the puzzle of his heart properly, he will return. That day, Yugi became aware of all the battles he and Yami Yugi fought together.

Tea gave Yugi a Lovely Two, a love compatibility tester. Initially it got no reading when near Anzu's Lovely Two suggesting that Yugi and Tea weren't romantically compatible. The teacher Tsuruoka later confiscated Yugi's tester. When he threatened to smash it and called Yugi, Joey and Tristan worthless, Yami Yugi emerged and said that he never loses a game. Tsuruoka then imposed a game, Find the Keyring!. He hid the Lovely Two somewhere in the school. If Yami Yugi, Joey and Tristan could find it within an hour, they would get the tester back. If not, they would be expelled and the tester would be smashed.

The game began 30 minutes later after the device had been hidden. Yami Yugi quickly deduced that the tester was within the building, having checked Tsuruoka's outdoor shoes. Tea who had been bashful, seeing Yami Yugi out, gave him her love tester in the last few minutes of the game, hoping it would be of some help. Thinking people usually hide items where they can see the hiding spot, Yami Yugi went to Tsuruoka's office and Tsuruoka's adamant orders for them to get out confirmed this suspicion. Yami Yugi also believed it was hidden on Tsuruoka's body. With students not allowed to touch him and no way of proving this, Tsuruoka thought he had won. However Yami Yugi switched on Tea's Lovely Two, which got a reading this time. The noise came from Tsuruoka's head, revealing he had a wig. Tristan and Joey recovered the tester, winning the game and Tsuruoka begged them not to tell anyone about his baldness.

When Joey took part in The Get the Million Game, Yugi overheard the producer and a technician talk about how the game was rigged for Joey to lose so they wouldn't have to give him any prize money and his suffering would boost ratings. Disgusted Yugi switched to Yami Yugi and challenged the producer to a game, threatening to tell about the show being rigged should he not accept. The producer told the technician to play the game to get rid of Yami Yugi.

The game, Red Paint Lottery, was 50-50 chance. Each player pulled a rope, one of which was attached to a paint can. After they pulled their ropes, the paint can landed on the technician's head. This prevented him from pressing the button on the switchboard which rigs the game. The producer was unable to do so himself because the paint had also covered the color-coded switchboard. Yami Yugi inflicted the "Mind on Air" Penalty Game on the producer, causing his greed to show. After Joey won the prize, the producer ran out on set, grabbed onto a camera and ordered the viewers to send him money.

Koji Nagumo cheated in a game of Monster Fighter with Yugi, by punching him and stealing his equipment. Yugi then borrowed Joey's fighter, "Killer Emaada" and tracked Nagumo down. He found that Nagumo was selling a lot of Monster Fighter equipment that he had stolen and challenged him to a rematch. This time they played best out of three and Yami Yugi warned Nagumo that it would be a Shadow Game, which Nagumo interpreted as meaning there was no rules.

In the first round, Nagumo attempted to punch Yami Yugi, but lost concentration in the game as he did so. This left his monster, "Wild Spider" open. It got hit and knocked out of the arena, causing Yami Yugi to win the round. Nagumo felt the pain his monster should have taken and dropped to the floor before he got to hit Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi explained that the players are scapegoats in this game, preventing their monsters from being damaged.

In the second round managed, after throwing a few punches Nagumo made a feint attack and was about to score a direct hit. Yami Yugi was unable block in time, but switched the power off of "Killer Emaada", causing it to flop to one side, hence avoiding the attack. Using the feint strategy too, Yami Yugi was about to hit the weak point on "Wild Spider". However Nagumo kicked him in the side, stopping him. Nagumo then got "Wild Spider" to knock "Killer Emaada" out of the arena and punch it several times in the stomach while it was in midair, causing Dark Yugi to feel the blows himself.

Angered by Nagumo's foul play, Yami Yugi upped the level of the Shadow Game from 1 to 3 as they entered the third round. He warned Nagumo that he wouldn't be able to cheat in this round. As Nagumo was about to lose, he tried to kick Yami Yugi again. However this time, the stolen fighters and "Wild Spider" grabbed onto Nagumo's leg, holding him back. With "Wild Spider" on the floor, Nagumo's field monster was replaced with his own soul as punishment for betraying the trust of his monster. "Killer Emaada" then knocked Nagumo out of the arena, causing Yami Yugi to win the game.

Yugi and Tea went to Domino Park together. Tea became obsessed with making Yami Yugi appear. When an evacuation was ordered due to a bomb scare, Tea stayed behind hoping this would cause Yami Yugi to come out and rescue her. By the time Yugi caught up to Tea, she was on the Ferris wheel and Yugi heard from the police that there was a bomb on that ride. The bomber allowed the police to play a card game, which could control the bomb before it detonated in ten minutes. The detective asked if anyone nearby was good at card games, so Yugi switched to Yami Yugi and offered to play the game.

The game, "Time" Cards, required the player to play clock solitaire. After Yami Yugi turned over four cards of the same number, the bomber blew up a car on the Ferris wheel of the same number. Since the game ends when the four kings are turned over, Yami Yugi hoped to turn them over before turning over four of a number corresponding to a car people were in. With seconds left until the ten minutes were up, Yami Yugi turned over the last king, ending the game.

The police escorted the passengers off the Ferris wheel and Yami Yugi told them that the bomber was in car #13 posing as a passenger, since it was the only safe car and the only place in the park where the bomber would have been able to see the cards. To Yami Yugi's discomfort, Tea then suggested that they get back to their date.

Imori was aware that Yugi gained "powers of darkness" after solving the Millennium Puzzle. He stole the Millennium Puzzle in order to lure Yugi into a Shadow Game using Dragon Cards, hoping to take his place as "guardian of darkness" on winning. Yugi was unable to switch to Yami Yugi without the Millennium Puzzle and Imori had studied the game. These factors led to Imori winning and Yugi's soul being sucked into the soul-eating jar to be consumed by the dragons. However as he collapsed onto the table, Yugi touched the Millennium Puzzle, allowing him to change to Yami Yugi.

Had he not touched the puzzle, Yami Yugi said that his soul would have been entombed in the shadows forever. Yami Yugi challenged Imori to a rematch. Unable to become guardian of darkness without defeating "the other Yugi" Imori accepted. Players needed to gather three identical Dragon Cards to summon a dragon. Each turn a player drew one card from card from the deck or took the last card their opponent discarded and discarded then one card. Imori got a good starting hand and was soon able to summon a Level 5 water and wood dragons; "Shui Long" and "Mu Long". His dragons grew stronger each turn until Yami Yugi completed his sets, a Level 4 earth and level 5 metal dragon; "Tu Long" and "Jin Long".

Imori created a flood with "Shui Long" in an attempt to rust "Jin Long". However Yami Yugi got "Tu Long" to raise the earth, creating a dam. "Shui Long" used its water to strengthen "Mu Long", who stuck its shoots into "Tu Long" preventing it from moving. With it unable to create another dam, Imori got "Shui Long" to use another flood attack on "Jin Long". However since "Shui Long" had given some of its power to "Mu Long", the attack wasn't strong enough to fully beat "Jin Long". "Jin Long" proceeded to slice up and defeat "Mu Long". It then got hit by another flood, this time destroying it. "Shui Long" used its flood attack on "Tu Long", but Yami Yugi got "Tu Long" to use its ground shatter attack to cause the water and "Shui Long" to fall into cracks in the earth. With Imori's two dragons defeated, Yami Yugi won.

For Imori's Penalty Game, his soul was sucked into the soul-eating jar. Since it could only hold one soul at a time, Yugi's soul was freed. Yami Yugi sealed-up the Dragon Cards and thinking that this game brings disaster hoped that nobody would break the seal again.

Nezumi lured Yugi and Joey into Hirutani's torture chamber. In an attempt to get Jonouchi to rejoin the gang, gangsters surrounded Joey swinging yo-yos at him and hung Yugi from a hook by the neck using the Millennium Puzzle's rope. Joey refused to rejoin the gang and managed to save Yugi. After Joey took care of five of the gangsters, Yugi switched to Yami Yugi and he and Joey split up. Joey took on Hirutani whileYami Yugi faced the rest of the gang.

Yami Yugi led the gangsters onto a galvanized roof and took out his own yo-yo. He challenged the gangsters to a game, where the last one standing on the roof won. As the gangsters chased Yami Yugi, he swung his yo-yo into the roof, breaking holes in it. Eventually the gang cornered him, but found themselves standing in an area surrounded by holes. The holes and their weight caused the roof to give way below them, leaving them to fall.

After defeating Hirutani, Joey apologized to Yami Yugi for getting him caught up in his problems, but Yami Yugi insisted that Joey's problems were his problems too.

Yugi, Tea, Joey and Tristan visited their new friend Ryo Bakura, the holder of a Millennium Item, the Millennium Ring, to play the tabletop role-playing game Monster World. Unknown to them Bakura's other self, Yami Bakura, who had his eyes set on the Millennium Puzzle took over Bakura's body and played against them, turning the game into a Shadow Game.

Yami Bakura managed to trap the souls of Tea, Joey and Tristan in their avatar miniatures. Confident of the existence of Yami Yugi, Yugi deliberately let Yami Bakura trap him in his miniature, so Yami Yugi could take control of his body. This allowed the two Yugi's to meet for the first time. Yugi and his friends put their lives in Yami Yugi's hands. Yami Yugi rolled the dice to help dictate the moves of his friends. They trusted him to keep them alive and help them defeat Yami Bakura's monster, Zorc, in order to free their souls.

Yami Yugi rolled a critical hit 03 for Honda, allowing him to blast Zorc's hand off. The hand then mutated into more monsters and Zorc left the battle to them. Yami Yugi rolled a super critical 00 for Joey, making him defeat the eyeball monster and a critical 02 for Yugi, causing him to tame Zorc Arm Dragon into an ally. He then revealed that like Yami Bakura he had been using the double hit technique to manipulate his dice rolls. From that point, both players agreed to throw the dice fairly.

The miniatures advanced to Zorc Castle, where a suspicious tower caught their attention. Realizing it was a trap, Yami Yugi belatedly tried to warn them to stay out the tower. The ceiling dropped onto the adventurers' heads holding them in place and revealing an incomplete column in the middle of the tower. Yami Bakura explained that they needed to roll a certain double number to finish the column, so it could support the ceiling and let the group escape, otherwise the miniatures would break under the pressure of the ceiling in three turns. Yami Yugi made two rolls failing to save them. During this time Zorc appeared and attacked the adventurers once. Yami Yugi then realized that the semi-circle patterns on the pillar were parts of an incomplete number, which could be 00, 33, 66, 88 or 99. He then managed to roll a 33, completing the column. Yami Bakura rolled a 12 for Zorc, who attacked immediately after, cutting the tower in two. Due to the characters' high speed stats they were able to escape the attack and get behind Zorc.

By channeling the emotions of his friends into the dice, Yami Yugi rolled more critical hits as his friends attacked Zorc. However due to the Level difference between Zorc and the other characters, the attacks had little affect on him. Using the Millennium Ring to seal the souls of Bakura's old gaming friends into the dice Yami Bakura created brainwashed dice, which he could control. He rolled a super critical 00 for Zorc's next attack, making it strong enough to defeat the others. However as Yami Bakura calculated the damage from the attack on the computer, Ryo Bakura took control of his left hand and altered the damage so that Yami Yugi's friends each had 1 HP left. Yami Yugi realized that something was wrong with Yami Bakura during that calculation and thought it could be the key to defeating him.

Yami Yugi rolled another critical hit, allowing Joey to stab Zorc's eye out. Anzu and Zorc's initiative scores were tied for the next attack, so they rolled to determine who moved first. Ryo Bakura used his left hand to swap the brainwashed dice for regular dice without Yami Bakura realizing. This allowed Yami Yugi to win the initiative roll and get Tea to heal the party. Ryo Bakura then threw the brainwashed dice for Zorc's attack and forced them to land on a fumble, 99, causing the attack to backfire and damage Zorc.

Yami Bakura impaled his left hand on a model tower to stop Ryo Bakura interfering. Yami Yugi and his friends heard him mention Ryo's name and then suspected that there were two different Bakuras. So for Yugi's next move, Yami Yugi got him to use his taming abilities, targeting Zorc. He rolled a critical 02, allowing Yugi to pull Ryo Bakura's avatar, a Level 13 white mage, out of Zorc's left arm, where the hand had been cut off. As a non-player character, Bakura used his white magic to lower Zorc's defenses, so when Yami Yugi rolled for Tristan the attack did more damage than usual, blowing off the side of Zorc's stomach.

Zorc transformed into his final form, Last Zorc, raising his attack and defense. Yami Bakura rolled a super critical, allowing Last Zorc to use his "Zorc Inferno" attack. Bakura created a white magic shield to protect the party, leaving them with only a few HP. Yami Yugi deduced that since Zorc didn't change into this more powerful form before, it must have a weak point and he's using this form as a last resort. He realized that a hole that opened in Zorc's stomach during its last attack must be the weak point. With not enough time for Yami Yugi to attack it before it closed, Pokii, a monster Yugi had tamed earlier, flew into the hole to hold it open. Pokii advised the adventurers to attack him and Last Zorc's weak point together. Refusing to sacrifice an ally, Yami Yugi rolled a critical for Yugi, who used his beast tamer glove to grab Pokii and simultaneously punch through Last Zorc's weak point. Rolling a critical for Jonouchi, he then cut Last Zorc in half.

Last Zorc was still alive after the attack and Yami Bakura planned on making him self-destruct and take destroy the others with him. Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura rolled to see who got initiative for the next attack. Yami Yugi channeled his friends belief into his dice. Yami Bakura sealed a part of his own soul into his dice, creating "doppelganger dice", guaranteed to roll a super critical 00. Both players rolled 00, which would mean a simultaneous attack. However by sealing a fragment of his soul in the dice, Yami Bakura also sealed a Ryo Bakura's soul in them. Ryo Bakura was able to use this to shatter the dice. With no dice, Yami Bakura's roll was invalid and Yami Yugi proceeded to attack, having Tea blow up the remainder of Last Zorc.

Ryo Bakura's soul was destroyed along with the dice. However, a fragment of his soul still existed within the white mage Bakura miniature. The white mage Bakura asked Yami Yugi to roll for him to let him use his magic. Yami Yugi rolled a 00 and the white mage Bakura was able to transfer his soul back into Bakura's body. After that Yugi and his friends' souls returned to their proper bodies. Afterwards Bakura made a diorama as a memento of the adventure, including a miniature of Yami Yugi, holding a die.

The creator of Duel Monsters, Maximillion Pegasus challenged Yugi to a Duel through a television, using what initially appeared to be a prerecorded tape of himself. When the picture on one of Yugi's cards got sucked into the TV,Yami Yugi realized the Duel was a Shadow Game and took over.

Pegasus was able to predict all of Yami Yugi's moves and counter them, which seemed impossible for a prerecording. He also insisted that Yami Yugi take part in his upcoming Duel Monsters tournament should he lose. Suspecting that the videotape contained subliminal messages, Yami Yugi ignored his instincts to Summon the Zombie "Undead Warrior" and instead played "Dark Magician" face-down. Pegasus Summoned "Rogue Doll", which had an advantage over Zombies, only to get destroyed by "Dark Magician". However "Rogue Doll" being destroyed on the tape's footage indicated Pegasus knew that would happen when he made the tape.

With limited film on the tape, Pegasus imposed a time limit, such that if there was no winner after another 15 minutes, the player with the least Life Points would lose. He warned Yami Yugi that a Penalty Game awaited the loser. Although Yami Yugi got ahead at one point, he opted not to defensively guard his Life Points until the time ran out, considering that to be cowardly. With ten seconds left, Pegasus had higher Life Points. Yami Yugi tried making a final attack to defeat Pegasus, but the timer ran out and he lost.

Pegasus showed Yami Yugi his Millennium Item, the Millennium Eye and explained that its Mind Scan power was what let him read Yami Yugi's mind. Using it also he sucked the soul of Grandpa into the TV as Yami Yugi's Penalty Game and a means of forcing him to enter the upcoming tournament. Yugi gained the ability to sense Dark Yugi's feelings around that time and knew that he felt bad for losing to Pegasus. Yami Yugi blamed himself for what happened to Grandpa and wondered how he could win against an opponent who could read his mind. Regardless he decided to enter Pegasus' tournament to save Grandpa.

Shortly after Yugi soon received his invitation to Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom tournament, he heard of Joey's sister, Serenity, who needed money for an expensive operation to save her eyesight. Yami Yugi gave one of his two Star Chip entry items to Joey, so he too could compete for the tournament's prize money to pay for the operation. Over the next week, the Yugis and Joey trained for the tournament.

Yugi and Joey were accompanied by Tea, Tristan and Bakura as they went to the tournament. On the boat to the Duelist Kingdom island, Weevil Underwood threw the "Exodia" cards, Yami Yugi used to defeat Kaiba in Death-T, overboard. Angered Yami Yugi vowed to take Weevil out first when they got the kingdom.

As Pegasus explained the tournament rules, Yami Yugi realized that he and Joey needed to win their first duels, since Star Chips were to be wagered on each duel and they only had one each. He also became suspicious of why a large island was needed for a card game tournament and remembered Weevil saying that there would be new rules.

Yami Yugi followed Weevil into a forest, where he was challenged to a Duel. Wanting to immediately eliminate Weevil, Yami Yugi bet his Star Chip and his life, so that he could win both of Weevil's Star Chips. Seeing their surrounding landscape reflected on the Playing Field, combined with Pegasus' choice a multiple terrain island for the tournament, Yami Yugi suspected that monsters were to be powered-up by the field they were placed in. Knowing Weevil secretly planned on using this information against him, Yami Yugi was able to counter by also choosing a field to power-up his own monster.

With the terrain, powering-up his Insect-Type monsters and granting them initiative, Weevil overwhelmed Yami Yugi with barrage of monsters and Set a Trap Card which would destroy all Yami Yugi's monsters on attacking. However Yami Yugi destroyed Weevil's monsters using "Mirror Force" He withdrew his own monsters with "Monster Recovery" and used a weaker monster, "Kuriboh", to detonate Weevil's Trap at minimal loss.

With his trap distracting Yami Yugi from attacking his "Larva Moth", Weevil was able to equip it with "Cocoon of Evolution" next turn. Using "Burning Land" to rid the cocoon of its field power bonus and attacking it with "Gaia the Fierce Knight", Yami Yugi forced the contained moth to prematurely emerge as "Great Moth", rather than its perfectly ultimate form.

Being earthbound, "Gaia" was unable to attack "Great Moth", so Yami Yugi fused it with "Curse of Dragon" into "Gaia the Dragon Champion". Although "Gaia" and "Great Moth" had equal attack, "Great Moth" used its poison pollen to weaken "Gaia". Yami Yugi washed the pollen away with "Magic Mist", but "Gaia" was still defeated by "Great Moth". However the mist had dampened "Great Moth" and Yami Yugi played "Summoned Skull", whose lightning-based attack was powered by water. "Summoned Skull" destroyed "Great Moth", defeating Weevil and eliminating him from the tournament.

Yami Yugi encountered Mai Valentine afterwards and suspected that she wanted to duel him. However Mai challenged Joey, saying it was not wise to immediately face Yugi, so she wanted to win Star Chips off the weaker opponents first. Although their friends tried talking Joey out of accepting her challenge, Yami Yugi advised him to do his best. Joey was initially put at a disposition by Mai's alleged psychic powers, but Yami Yugi reminded him of the riddle "What is something you can show, but can't see?", as a nod to Mai's perfume. Joey then picked-up on Mai's Aroma Tactics strategy and later went on to win the duel.

As Yami Yugi and his friends searched for food, they stumbled upon fish cooking over a fire on a cliff. Following Joey and Tristan's suggestion to steal it, they soon found out that it belonged to Mako Tsunami, who unknown to them had left it their as bait for opponents. Mako shared the food with them, but then challenged Yami Yugi to a duel, having lured him to the terrain of his choice, the ocean. Both players wagered two Star Chips.

Mako hid his monsters within the ocean and performed stealth attacks on Yami Yugi's monsters, which were Summoned on the wasteland portion of the field. Yami Yugi summoned "Silver Fang", which he powered-up with "Mystical Moon", but Mako defeated it with "Leviathan", whose attack flooded most of the land area. Yami Yugi played "Giant Soldier of Stone" in the last bit of wasteland, giving it 2600 DEF. As Yami Yugi planned, Mako's monsters surrounded the land. Yami Yugi then switched "Giant Soldier of Stone" to Attack Mode and attacked the "Mystical Moon", destroying it. "Leviathan" had only been able to flood the field due to the high tide created by the moon. With "Mystical Moon" gone, the tide returned to normal stranding Mako's monsters on the shore. Yami Yugi then destroyed them using "Curse of Dragon" and "Burning Land", defeating Mako. The two players parted ways afterwards, wishing each other luck in the tournament.

Yami Yugi and his friends spotted one of Pegasus' men, Kemo, forcefully removing someone from the island for losing his Star Chips, despite his objection that they were stolen. Yami Yugi and his friends soon encountered the thief, who then challenged Yami Yugi to a duel, wagering five Star Chips. The thief's lack of a Duel Glove, led Yami Yugi to realize he was not invited to the tournament. The thief quickly proved to be no match for Yami Yugi, so he tried grabbed a handful of the Star Chips and running. However Yami Yugi stopped him and removed his mask and bandanna, revealing the thief was Mokuba Kaiba.

Although he was mad at Yami Yugi for leaving his brother Seto, in a coma after Death-T, Mokuba's motive was not revenge. He explained how Pegasus needed to defeat Yugi in an official Duel to take control of KaibaCorp. Mokuba thought that if he could get Yugi disqualified, Pegasus would not be able to duel him. He also told them he had been kidnapped by Pegasus, while defending KaibaCorp, and Yami Yugi agreed to help Mokuba.

As Mokuba tried to give Yami Yugi the Star Chips he had taken, Kemo interrupted saying the transaction was against tournament rules. He grabbed Mokuba and confiscated his Star Chips. Joey objected that two of the Star Chips were Dark Yugi's. Kemo repeated that the only way to get Star Chips was by dueling, so Yami Yugi challenged him to a duel. Kemo declined, saying he does not play games, but arranged an opponent for him, Mimic of Doom.

Mimic intimidated Yami Yugi, by impersonating Kaiba through a puppet, which he had claim to house Kaiba's soul, in seek of revenge. He also used the real Seto Kaiba's Deck, as demonstrated when he Summoned "Blue-Eyes White Dragon".

Mimic used "Stop Defense", to keep Yami Yugi's monsters in Attack Mode, while he overpowered them with "Blue-Eyes White Dragon". Yami Yugi defeated the first dragon, by hiding his monsters with "Magical Hats". When "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" attacked a hat, hiding "Spellbinding Circle", it was weakened enough for "Dark Magician" to destroy. Yami Yugi was unable to defeat the second "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and was about to lose. However the dragon refused to attack and the Kaiba puppet fell from Mimic's hands, while instantaneously the real Kaiba woke-up from his coma.

Yami Yugi summoned more monsters, including the "Mystical Elf", who began chanting a spell. Eventually the third "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" was drawn and Summoned. Yami Yugi reflected its attack with "Mirror Force", but Mimic blocked with "Negate Attack". Yami Yugi used "Monster Reborn" to revive a destroyed "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", which "Mystical Elf" powered-up with her spell, allowing it to destroy Mimic's dragon and defeat him. Angered by the Mimic's mockery of the real Kaiba, Yami Yugi inflicted a Penalty Game on him, causing him to believe he was haunted by a puppet of himself. Yami Yugi took Kaiba's Deck from Mimic and realized that Kemo had secretly left and taken Mokuba with him.

Mai set-up a duel between Joey and Rex Raptor. Yami Yugi planned on helping Joey. However Joey specifically asked him not to help, as he wanted to win on his own. Yami Yugi agreed with Joey's decision and returned control of his body to Yugi. When Joey was in danger of losing, Yugi tried to help him, but Yami Yugi talked him out of it. He explained that Joey was also battling himself and if they help him beat Rex, he would still lose to himself. Joey managed to win the duel without help from either Yugis.

During the first night of the tournament, Yugi and his friends camped with Mai. Suspecting that Tea had a crush on Yugi, Mai got the two of them to meet-up alone. Yugi thought that Tea really wanted to see Yami Yugi and was about to change to him, but Tea told him not to and convinced herself that both Yugis were the same person.

Mai was forced into a duel against Panic, in which she lost all her Star Chips. Panic then challenged Yugi, who switched to Yami Yugi and vowed to win back Mai's Star Chips. Since Mai had eight Star Chips and Yami Yugi only had six, he bet his life to make up for the difference. To ensure Yami Yugi kept his word, Panic snapped a wire rope around his neck, so that he could choke him to death if he lost. Yami Yugi was okay with the conditions, but warned Panic that he would suffer a Penalty Game, if he lost.

Panic used "Castle of Dark Illusions" to hide his side of the field in darkness. After drawing "Swords of Revealing Light", Yami Yugi showed it to Panic and predicted he would win after five turns. Suspecting Panic had a "Reaper of the Cards", Yami Yugi baited it into getting caught in "Spellbinding Circle", where it later got destroyed in the crossfire of an attack. With the reaper removed, Yami Yugi played "Swords of Revealing Light", illuminating Panic's side of the field and preventing him from attacking for three turns. Over the three turns, Panic built up his defense with "Yellow Luster Shield", while Yami Yugi summoned "Gaia the Dragon Champion" and used "Catapult Turtle" to launch it at "Castle of Dark Illusions", breaking its flotation ring. When the effect of "Swords of Revealing Light" wore off, the castle fell on top of Panic's monsters, who were unable to run due to the "Yellow Luster Shield", and Panic's Life Points dropped to 0.

Yami Yugi inflicted a Penalty Game on Panic, causing him to believe he was being hanged. Yami Yugi tried returning the Star Chips to Mai, who refused to take them, until Joey helped convince her. Mai considered them to be a loan and said she was unworthy of facing Yami Yugi until she paid him back.

During the same night, Kaiba arrived on the island and received his deck back from Yugi. Before leaving, Kaiba said that he would be one who beats Pegasus and take back what he almost lost. Yugi then switched to Yami Yugi, who told Kaiba that he and his friends were also fighting to protect what they hold precious and he would be the one to defeat Pegasus.

Joey went missing in the morning. The Millennium Puzzle showed Yami Yugi a vision of Joey dueling underground, leading him and his friends to find Joey in a cave after he defeated Bones. Before they could leave, Bandit Keith had his companions, who ambushed Joey, block the cave exit with a boulder. Searching for another way out, they entered an underground maze, which led them to the Meikyu Brothers. In order to exit, Yami Yugi and Joey needed to defeat the brothers in a Team Labyrinth Duel.

The Meikyu Brothers used "Labyrinth Wall" to turn the field into a maze and presented a riddle, where Yami Yugi and Joey needed to discover which of the two doors the brothers guarded led to the surface. As a hint, the brothers said that one of them would only tell the truth and the other would only lie. Each of them claimed they guarded the true door and offered to answer one question from each of Yami Yugi and Joey. Joey asked the brothers which door they were guarding and both of them pointed to Meikyu the Younger's door, implying Meikyu the Elder was the liar.

However Yami Yugi was cautious since both brothers had said "one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies", whereas as a pure liar and a pure honest man should not both say the same thing. Not outruling the possibility that they were both liars, Yami Yugi suggested that they play on, while he figured it out.

The brothers played monsters, which benefited from the labyrinth setting. Joey managed to save Yami Yugi's "Celtic Guardian" from "Wall Shadow" using "Axe Raider" and "Kunai with Chain". Yami Yugi and Joey kept their monsters together to protect each other, but the brothers split the group by rearranged the walls with "Magical Labyrinth". As the brothers began taking out Joey's monsters, Yami Yugi used "Mystic Box" to displace "Dark Magician" and take out "Jirai Gumo" and "Labyrinth Tank" at once. The brothers' "Dungeon Worm" hid underground and used hit and run attacks, until Joey used "Salamandra" to allow "Flame Swordsman" to send an attack into its wormhole and scorch it. The brothers then gathered their final component to Summon "Gate Guardian".

The components; "Suijin", "Kazejin" and "Sanga of the Thunder" could attack monsters anywhere in the labyrinth and block attacks directed at each other. "Suijin" flooded the field to attack "Flame Swordsman". Yami Yugi took advantage of the water it left, to carry an electric attack from "Summoned Skull" towards "Suijin" and used "Spellbinding Circle" on "Kazejin" to prevent it blocking the attack. The brothers dispelled the circle afterwards. Yami Yugi and Joey fused their monsters into "Black Skull Dragon", which was immobile being too wide for the corridors of the labyrinth, which was only crossable via ground units.

Meikyu the Younger used "Ryoku" to halve Yami Yugi and Joey's Life Points and add them to the ATK of "Kazejin" and "Sanga". Yami Yugi moved "Dark Magician" up close to "Gate Guardian" and used "Monster Reborn" on "Suijin" to block the next attack from "Gate Guardian". Joey used "Copycat" on "Ryoku" and power-up "Black Skull Dragon". Yami Yugi then used "Shift" to swap the position of "Dark Magician" and "Black Skull Dragon", allowing the dragon to attack and destroy "Gate Guardian".

With the Meikyu Brothers defeated, Yami Yugi and Joey, each had 10 Star Chips, enough to qualify for the finals, but in order to exit the underground, they still needed to choose the correct door. Yami Yugi remembered Meikyu the Elder being considered the liar for pointing to the wrong door earlier, but the clue only said he would speak lies and he did not speak in that instance. Yami Yugi considered the "Mei" door, the "Kyû" door, both doors or a secret third door could be the exit. Although given five minutes to look for another door, Yami Yugi sat still. The brothers seemed to confident the wrong door would be chosen for a game of 50-50 chance, so he assumed both were lying and would say whichever door he chooses is wrong. Yami Yugi showed the brothers he had written "迷" (Mei) on one coin and "宮" (Kyu) on another. He put the coins on the table under his hands and said that the coin he leaves under his hand would show which door he chooses.

He lifted up one hand revealing the "Kyu" coin. The brothers assumed this meant he was choosing the "Mei" door. Bakura, who had unknown to anyone was being controlled by Yami Bakura, tried to warn Yami Yugi that Kyu was the correct door. The brothers agreed with Bakura, but said it was too late for Yami Yugi to change his mind.

However Yami Yugi revealed that he had also written "Kyu" on the opposite of the Mei coin and put both coins Kyu side up, meaning Kyu was his choice. Having already said Kyu was the right door, the brothers had to let them leave. Yami Yugi wondered if Bakura had figured out the brothers trap too and credited him distracting the brothers for stopping them discovering his two-sided coin.

When the group arrived at Pegasus Castle, Kaiba stood before Yami Yugi, saying they were fated to duel again. With 10 Star Chips, it appeared Yami Yugi had nothing to gain from this Duel. However noticing something different about Kaiba, Yami Yugi accepted the duel. The two of them stood on connected towers and used Kaiba's Duel Disk technology, which had a different rule setting. They each bet five Star Chips, so one of them could enter the castle.

Players' hands could only contain up to five cards at a time. The five were also considered to be on the field with one set as the main monster. Kaiba took advantage of this by attacking cards in Yami Yugi's hand and Yami Yugi took advantage of it by using "Shift" to force Kaiba to attack the "Dark Magician" he had not summoned.

Kaiba used "Mystic Lamp" to retreat "La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp" and reflect Yami Yugi's attacks. To stop Kaiba hiding the lamp, Yami Yugi exposed Kaiba's hand with "The Eye of Truth", which also revealed that Kaiba could be planning on fusing his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" cards. Yami Yugi used "Mystic Box" to allow Dark Magician to destroy both "La Jinn" and the lamp.

Kaiba used the virus "Crush Card", disallowing Yami Yugi from having any monsters with 1500 or more original ATK and soon afterwards, fused his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" cards into "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon".

Yami Yugi used "Multiply" to create a legion of "Kuribohs", which destructed on impact, creating explosions to block the ultimate dragon's blasts. With "Living Arrow", Yami Yugi used "Polymerization" to fuse "Mammoth Graveyard" with "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon", creating an unstable fusion, which decayed each turn weakening, until it had less ATK than Yami Yugi's "Celtic Guardian". "Celtic Guardian" cut off one of the dragon's heads per battle and Dark Yugi planned on winning by cutting off the second head.

However, Kaiba stepped backwards one tile for every 100 damage he took, putting him in danger of falling from the tower to his death if his Life Points reach 0. He then used "Monster Reborn" to revive one of the dragon's heads in full health with 3000 ATK. Though hesitant at first, Yami Yugi remembered he had to save Grandpa and concluded he could not lose. He declared an attack, but before it could go through, Yugi took back control of his body and called it off. Kaiba proceeded to win by attacking "Celtic Guardian" with the revived head. The battle left a scar on Yami Yugi's memory, as Yugi and his friends later found the memory behind one of the doors in his soul room, with Yugi commenting on the pain as he approached the door and witnessing what was beyond it.

Seeing how he could have let Kaiba die, Yugi came to fear Yami Yugi, and his confidence in himself. When Mai arrived and offered to give him her six extra Star Chips, Yugi refused thinking Yami Yugi would not have taken them. However Joey and Mai told Yugi that it was also about what he wanted and that he was fighting for things more important than pride. When Yugi took the Star Chips, Joey offered to take care of Yami Yugi if he gave him any hassle over the decision.

After Pegasus defeated Kaiba and trapped his soul in a "Soul Prison" card, he revealed that Kaiba had been fighting to save Mokuba. Yugi then got mad and switched to Yami Yugi, who warned Pegasus that he would not forgive him and vowed to defeat him.

One of Pegasus' men announced that the finalists would need one of the two cards, which they had received with their invitation to the tournament, "The Honor of the King's Right Hand" and "The Honor of the King's Left Hand". Yami Yugi hypothesized that the "Right Hand" granted the winner the prize money and the "Left Hand" the right to face Pegasus. Joey had neither of the cards and ran the risk of disqualification, so Yami Yugi gave him "Right Hand" card, since he needed the prize money and kept the "Left Hand" card, since he needed to face Pegasus.

At the finalists dinner party, Yami Yugi, Tea, Joey and Tristan were surprised to see a portrait of Shadi, reinforcing Bakura and Yami Yugi's suspicions that Pegasus had more information on the Millennium Items. They also saw a portrait of Cyndia and wondered who she was. During the meal, Tristan, wanting to repay Mokuba for saving his life at Death-T, asked Yami Yugi if he could save the Kaiba brothers when he defeated Pegasus, to which Yami Yugi agreed, despite acknowledging that he and Kaiba may be his enemy forever. The finalists found Millennium Eye replicas in their soup, which contained letters pairing them up for the next round. Yami Yugi was to face Mai, while Joey was to face Keith.

During the night, Yugi admitted to Tea that he did not like how he always needed to be helped by other people, including Yami Yugi and vowed to one day become strong enough to not lose to Yami Yugi. The next morning, Grandpa, told Yugi that he balances Yami Yugi; When Yami Yugi becomes overconfident in his abilities and loses his heart and sense of justice, he needs Yugi's help.

Yami Yugi regarded Mai as a weaker opponent he just needed to beat before getting to Pegasus. Not giving the Duel his full attention, he almost immediately lost two of his strongest cards to Mai's "Mirror Wall". Mai reminded Yami Yugi of his "something you can show, but can't see" riddle and said he would not be able to defeat her without figuring out the answer. Yami Yugi drew "Dark Magician", who was strong enough to defeat "Harpies' Pet Dragon", but not while Mai had "Mirror Wall", so he played it in Defense Mode and Set "Mirror Force" to destroy Mai's monsters when she attacks. However Mai used "Shadow of Eyes" so that her "Harpy Lady" would use pheromones to force Yami Yugi's monsters into battle. "Dark Magician" attacked and his ATK halved by "Mirror Force". Mai used "Harpy's Feather Duster" to remove "Mirror Force" and proceeded to attack and destroy "Dark Magician".

Seeing how well, Mai was playing, Joey thought he was lucky to have beaten her earlier. However Mai explained that Joey won because he knew his weakness, accepted it and became stronger to overcome it. She learned from that Duel that a Duelist's courage is truly tested when they lose, not when they win. A strong heart is born, when one is prepared to lose, she stated and asked Yami Yugi if he had that courage. Remembering his Duel with Kaiba, Yami Yugi realized that he was afraid to lose, while Yugi was not. He admitted that he did not want to face that fear and the strength of Yugi made up for his weakness. That was what he could show, but could not see.

Fully focused on the Duel and with Yugi by his side, Yami Yugi drew "Brain Control". With it, he took control of "Harpies' Pet Dragon", which Mai informed him wouldn't attack its master, the "Harpy Lady". However Yami Yugi Summoned "Catapult Turtle" and used it to launch the dragon at "Mirror Wall", destroying both and subtracting half the dragon's ATK from Mai's Life Points.

Mai was able to win by attacking "Catapult Turtle" with "Harpy Lady". However Yami Yugi's confident eyes combined with his face-down card, convinced her not to. She instead used "Kaleidoscope" to multiple her "Harpy Lady". Yami Yugi revealed that his face-down card was a bluff, "Monster Recovery", and used it to return the turtle to his Deck and draw five new cards. With "Shadow of Eyes" in play and none of his cards strong enough to beat the harpies, Yami Yugi thought he had lost. However Anzu calling the harpies "sleazy" reminded him how the pheromones work, so he played "Mystical Elf" in Defense Mode. Being the same gender as the harpies, she was unaffected by the pheromones. Mai revived "Harpies' Pet Dragon" with "Monster Reborn" and defeated "Mystical Elf".

Yami Yugi used "Swords of Revealing Light" and stalled for three turns while he brought out the components to Summon "Black Luster Soldier". With "Black Luster Soldier", he attacked and defeated "Harpies' Pet Dragon". On her next turn, Mai surrendered, unable to win and not wanting to see her harpies injured. Yami Yugi thanked Mai for reminding him what he had lost sight of and Mai promised to become stronger from her loss.

Yami Yugi watched Joey and Bandit Keith's semifinal Duel. He considered Joey to no longer be an amateur and this to be his hardest battle so far. He didn't provide any help to Joey and credited Joey's success in the Duel to his courage as a duelist, rather than luck or miracles.

Following Joey's victory, Tea thought Joey and Yami Yugi would have to Duel in the finals. However Yami Yugi said that the Duel would be pointless since they both have the same goal and dueling would only expose more of their tactics to Pegasus. Joey was okay with skipping the Duel as he knew Yami Yugi was the only one capable of defeating Pegasus, but asked if Yami Yugi was really okay with being given the extra baggage of fighting for him. Yami Yugi replied that he will win because he is fighting for Joey, like how Jonouchi won because he was fighting for Serenity. Yami Yugi received "The Honor of the King's Right Hand" from Jonouchi and got ready to face Pegasus. Pegasus also considered them dueling to be unnecessary and prepared to face Yami Yugi.

Before the duel, Yami Yugi got Pegasus to promise to release the souls of Grandpa and the Kaiba brothers if Yami Yugi won. Yami Yugi presented the cards "The Honor of the King's Right Hand" and "The Honor of the King's Left Hand" and Pegasus asked if Yami Yugi knew why the "Left Hand" card was blank. Yami Yugi correctly guessed that his soul would be sealed in that card if he lost, causing himself to be displayed in the picture.

Using his Mind Scan, Pegasus dominated the first few turns of the Duel by reading Yami Yugi's mind. He also used "Toon World" to turn his monsters into Toon versions, allowing them to dodge attacks. Yugi suspected that Pegasus was only able to read one of the Yugi's minds at a time. He managed to communicate with Yami Yugi and suggested a Mind Shuffle strategy; Yugi and Yami Yugi would alternate turns and swap back control before Pegasus could read their mind. Yami Yugi hid "Dark Magician" inside "Magical Hats", but Yugi managed to choose which hat it went under. Pegasus read the mind of Yami Yugi who didn't know where "Dark Magician" was and attacked the wrong hat. On the next two turns, Yugi drew and Set "Mirror Force" and "Living Arrow" and switched to Yami Yugi, before Pegasus could read his mind. Pegasus used "Magic Neutralizing Force" to remove the hats and attacked "Dark Magician". However Yugi took control and used "Living Arrow" to get "Magic Neutralizing Force" to target Pegasus' cards, negating "Toon World" and allowing "Mirror Force" to destroy Pegasus' monsters.

Pegasus explained that Egyptian wizards used to battle using monsters sealed in stone tablets and that he created Duel Monsters to bring these games to the modern world. Since he considered himself to be against a worthy opponent, he changed the Duel to a Shadow Game to recreate these battles. The nature of the Shadow Game made it difficult for Yugi to endure, so Yami Yugi took control for most of the remaining Duel.

Pegasus used "Relinquished" to absorb Yami Yugi's monsters as shields. Yugi took control to give Yami Yugi time to think of a plan without having his mind read and managed to play "Dark magic Ritual" face-down, but after two turns, Yugi collapsed. When Pegasus tried reading Yami Yugi's mind again, an apparition of Yami Yugi's friends appeared and blocked him. Pegasus tried using "Jigen Bakudan" to destroy the monsters absorbed by "Relinquish" and damage Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi used "Mystic Box" to free "Dark Magician" from "Relinquished" and put "Jigen Bakudan" in its place. He then took control of "Relinquished" with "Brain Control" and used "Dark Magic Ritual" on "Dark Magician" and the monsters equipped to "Relinquished" to Summon "Magician of Black Chaos".

Pegasus fused "Relinquished" with "Thousand-Eyes Idol" creating "Thousand-Eyes Restrict", whose eyes paralyzed Yami Yugi's monsters. When "Thousand-Eyes Restrict" tried absorbing "Magician of Black Chaos", Yami Yugi used "Multiply" on "Kuriboh", causing multiple "Kubibohs" to intercept and be absorbed instead. The "Kuribohs" exploded on impact, blinding the eyes on Pegasus' monster. This freed "Magician of Black Chaos", who attacked and destroyed "Thousand-Eyes Restrict", defeating Pegasus.

Keeping his word, Pegasus freed the souls of Grandpa and the Kaiba brothers. He told Yami Yugi that the Millennium Items possessed an evil intelligence, prompting Yami Yugi to ask Pegasus how he received the Millennium Eye. Pegasus explained how the death of his lover, Cyndia led him to Egypt, where he met Shadi and secretly followed him to an underground temple. He was denied exit unless he became the holder of a Millennium Item, so he was put on trial by the Millennium Eye, which choose him as its holder and showed him a brief apparition of Cyndia.

Joey wondered why Yami Yugi didn't give Pegasus a Penalty Game. Tea suspected that since Yami Yugi came from a Millennium Item, hearing that the items possessed an evil intelligence couldn't have been easy for him and by inflicting a Penalty Game, he would only be proving it right.

Croquet gave Yami Yugi the prizes and Kaiba's Duel Disk briefcase. He explained that Pegasus had wanted to take over KaibaCorp so he could use the Solid Vision technology to create a lifelike vision of Cyndia. Yami Yugi and his friends were with Mokuba when his soul was restored and brought him to his brother. To repay the favor, Kaiba brought Yugi and his friends back to Japan in his helicopter.

Mr. Clown framed Yugi for stealing merchandise from his shop. After taking him away for the alleged crime, Clown stole the Millennium Puzzle and locked Yugi in a secret game room, where he faced Duke in a game of Dungeon Dice Monsters for the ownership of the Puzzle. As Yugi gets the upperhand on Duke, Clown entered the room and shattered the Puzzle. Yugi manages to defeat Ryugi with Yami Bakura's help and Duke admits that he cannot hate Yugi.

Clown pretended to apologize as he put the Puzzle's chain back on Yugi's neck. However he tightened the chain and dragged Yugi into another room, locking the door and pinning down the a piece of the Puzzle by its chain. He faces Yugi in the same Shadow Game he played against Solomon Muto, intending to solve the Puzzle and curse Yugi, repeating what had happened to Duke himself. However Duke accidentally sets the room on fire. Joey arrives to save Yugi, but Yugi refused to leave without finishing the Puzzle. After he finished the Puzzle, Joey managed to remove the pin and help him escape.

While Yugi recovered in the hospital from the fire, he and Yami Yugi constructed a new Deck together. Tea questioned Yugi as to whether he had made a new wish when he reconstructed the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi admitted he had not thought about making a wish, but had hoped he would see Yami Yugi again while he solved it. Soon afterwards, Tea admitted to herself that she was probably wrong in thinking Yami Yugi was a part of Yugi that the Millennium Puzzle brought out. It was what she wanted to believe, but now thought that he may be a separate person who came from the Millennium Puzzle and wondered what would happen to Yami Yugi if the puzzle had to be brought somewhere in Egypt.

Before leaving the hospital, Yami Yugi told Yugi that he doesn't remember his name or where he came from. He just knew that he existed while Yugi wore the Millennium Puzzle and wondered what would happen to him if if the Millennium Items were to be placed in the Millennium Stone. However he said he wanted to stay with Yugi forever more so than getting back his memories. Yugi wept that he agreed and offered to share his memories with Yami Yugi.

Yugi told Tea at school that Yami Yugi had been feeling down but wouldn't tell him about it. He asked Tea if she could go out with him on Sunday to cheer him up. Yami Yugi wasn't told about this until almost the last minute. Yugi annoyed Yami Yugi by making him go on the date alone.

Yami Yugi and Tea first went to a coffee shop, where they spoke about their futures. Yami Yugi didn't know where he was going and said that he knew Tea could make her dream to study dance in America a reality. Next they went to a card store, where Yami Yugi purchased a Booster Pack, which included "Lightforce Sword". At the arcade, Tea was challenged to a game of Virtual VS by Step Johnny. Yami Yugi advised her to ignore him, but Tea refused to back down from a challenge and defeated Johnny. Afterwards Yami Yugi told Tea of his dilemma; He could go to Egypt and find out where he came from, but if he didn't go looking things would stay the way they are. While he wants to find out about himself, he doesn't want to leave Yugi. Although Tea wanted him to stay, she told him to stay honest to his own heart. With that in mind, Yami Yugi decided to go to The Art of Egypt exhibition at the museum to find clues to his past.

Inside the museum, Yami Yugi and Tea saw the Tablet of Lost Memories, which depicted 3000 year old Egyptians identical in appearance to Yami Yugi and Kaiba. Yami Yugi was certain that he the pharaoh depicted and wondered why Kaiba was also on the tablet. Ishizu Ishtar, the possessor of the Millennium Tauk greeted Yami Yugi and told him that he needed to gather the seven Millennium Items in order to regain his memory. Although she had an item herself, she assured him she was not an enemy, but the enemy he was soon to face is the holder of the seventh item. On leaving the museum, Yami Yugi asked Tea not to tell Yugi what they had learned in there.

Shortly afterwards, Yami Yugi and Tea were greeted by Mai, who teased Tea a bit about being on a date. She was surprised to find that Yami Yugi was unaware that there was a duelist gathering at that location for the proclamation of a huge Duel Monsters tournament. Kaiba then appeared and announced that the Battle City tournament was to take place in Domino City in two days time.

Yami Yugi opted to take part in the tournament, but was unhappy with the ante rule. He valued how rare a card is by how precious it is to its owner, so he refused to take rare cards from his opponents should he win. With that in mind, Yugi became suspicious that Yami Yugi was entering the tournament for another reason. The day before the tournament, Yugi received a free new model Duel Disk due to his level 8 duelist rating in Kaiba's database. Yugi and Yami Yugi stayed up all night preparing their Deck. In the morning, Yami Yugi admitted to Yugi that he was entering the tournament to find out about himself and Yugi didn't ask any further questions.

Before the tournament, Kaiba told the participants that they each had a Puzzle Card. They needed to wager them in Duels until they got six. Stacking six cards would reveal a portion of a map and a light would appear indicating the location of the finals.

Joey confronted a Rare Hunter Ghoul, who had taken his "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" the night before. Yami Yugi interrupted and challenged the Rare Hunter to a duel. Considering the Rare Hunters to be scum, Yami Yugi wanted to eliminate him from the tournament immediately. Joey was about to tell Yami Yugi the Rare Hunter's Deck type, but Yami Yugi stopped him saying he had no right to know his enemy's strategy beforehand. He began to ask the Rare Hunter's name, but then decided it didn't matter and prepared to duel. The second the tournament began the Duel started.

As the Rare Hunter focused purely on building up his defense and changing his hand, Yami Yugi realized that he was planning on Summoning "Exodia". Using the "Lightforce Sword" he got earlier, Yami Yugi forced "Right Arm of the Forbidden One" out of the Rare Hunter's hand and used "Chain Destruction" to destroy it and all remaining copies in the hunter's Deck. Unable to complete "Exodia" without the "Right Arm", the Rare Hunter had no way of winning.

The Rare Hunter became possessed by Marik Ishtar, who controlled him through the Millennium Rod. Marik introduced himself and said that he had entered the tournament to get the third of the Egyptian God cards, which was in the possession of someone in the city. He warned Yami Yugi that the Rare Hunter he fought was the weakest of the Ghouls. With him defeated, Yami Yugi was given his Puzzle Card and Joey's "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". Lastly Marik warned Yami Yugi that a Rare Hunter possessing an Egyptian God was lurking in the city and if Yami Yugi was to face him, it would be instant death.

Yami Yugi tried returning "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" to Joey. Despite his attachment to the card, Joey refused to take it without earning it. He asked Yami Yugi to promise to face him in a duel if he proves himself as a true duelist in the tournament. Yami Yugi agreed and as they parted ways, Yami Yugi thought to himself that he had been waiting to hear those words. He later explained to Yugi that by holding Joey's favorite card, they're giving him something to fight for and make him show his true strength.

Marik arranged for Arkana to prepare for a duel with Yami Yugi and also keep an eye on his friends. It struck Yami Yugi that the Rare Hunters must have known that Joey had the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", since winning it was the only advantage they had to dueling him before the tournament had started. He wondered how they knew Joey had the card and Yugi realized that it must have been though the card shop, where they got the Duel Disks, since the clerk there had seen Joey's rare card, when he checked his rating. Yami Yugi assumed that the shop must be a front for Rare Hunters and raced there.

Inside Yami Yugi saw his duelist information on the clerks computer. A projection of a "Dark Magician" then came out of the screen and introduced his master, Arkana, the true user of the "Dark Magician", who was about to duel Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi explained that cards and duelists choose each other based on trust and when the two hearts are bound by trust, the card's true power will display. He accepted the challenge to show who was the true master of the "Dark Magician". Both players feet were clamped in place for the duel, such that buzzsaws would cut off their feet if they lost the duel.

When Yami Yugi suspected Arkana was using the stripper technique when he shuffled his deck, so he used "Card Destruction" near the beginning of the duel to combat this, sending "Dark Magician" to Arkana's Graveyard. Yami Yugi and Arkana quickly Summoned "Dark Magicians", which equally matched each other as they fought backed with combinations of Spell Cards. Arkana considered his monsters to be his slaves and used "Ectoplasmer" to sacrifice them to damage Yami Yugi. Due to the effect of "Ectoplasmer", Yami Yugi's "Dark Magician" sacrificed itself without command to protect him from Arkana's "Dark Magician".

Finally Arkana used "Dark Magic Curtain" to summon another "Dark Magician", thinking Yami Yugi, who had only one "Dark Magician", couldn't use it too. However Yami Yugi was able to summon "Dark Magician Girl", who was strengthened by the "Dark Magicians" in the Graveyards, including the one Arkana "betrayed". "Dark Magician Girl" destroyed Arkana's "Dark Magician", winning the duel for Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi was about to leave Arkana have his feet cut off, but Yugi took control and saved him.

Yugi expressed concerns that the Ghouls were trying to kill Yami Yugi and confessed that he knew Yami Yugi was entering the tournament to regain his memories. Although part of him wanted Yami Yugi to stay the way he was, Yugi thought that might be because he had become too dependent on him to protect him and his friends. Not wanting to "trap" Yami Yugi or stay dependent forever, Yugi considered it his duty to help Yami Yugi regain those memories.

Yami Yugi became suspicious of Marik playing "Humanoid Slime" in Attack Mode, despite its low ATK and high DEF. He predicted Marik's Fusion summon of "Humanoid Drake" and was able to counter with "De-Fusion". Next Marik Summoned "Revival Jam", which kept regenerating after it got destroyed. Using "Jam Breeding Machine" to summon "Slimes" and "Nightmare Steel Cage" to stop Yami Yugi attacking, Marik got three "Slimes" and sacrificed them to sumoon "Slifer the Sky Dragon".

Yami Yugi afraid to move in the presence of "Slifer", as he could feel the power flowing from it. Marik explained that the ATK of "Slifer" was 1000 times the number of cards in his hand, giving it 3000. On Marik's next turn, "Slifer" had 4000 ATK and it attacked "Buster Blader", who had 3100 ATK due to his effect. Yami Yugi used "Lightforce Sword" to take a card out of Marik's hand, lowering the ATK of "Slifer" to 3000, meaning it would be destroyed by "Buster Blader". However Marik used "Jam Defender" to get "Revival Jam" take the hit instead of "Slifer" and revive itself. He then played "Card of Safe Return" to draw three cards whenever "Revival Jam" came back. With 5000 ATK, "Slifer" defeated "Buster Blader".

Yami Yugi summoned "Dark Magician Girl" in Defense Mode and Marik revealed another effect of "Slifer"; When an opponent's monster is summoned "Slifer" subtracts 2000 from the ATK of DEF of an opponent's monster depending on its battle position and destroys it if it goes to 0 or below, it is destroyed. Yami Yugi used "Magical Hats" to hide and protect "Dark Magician Girl" and then hid "Spellbinding Circle" and "Magic Cylinder" under the remaining two hats. Next turn, Marik used "Infinite Cards", so "Slifer" wouldn't be bound by the hand size limit. In his Battle Phase, he attacked the hat containing "Dark Magician Girl". Yami Yugi responded by using "Magic Cylinder" to reflect the attack back at "Slifer" and "Spellbinding Circle" to hold "Slifer" still and make it weaker than the reflected attack. However "Jam Defender" caused "Revival Jam" to take the attack instead and when it revived Marik drew three more cards. Marik explained that cards like "Spellbinding Circle" will only affect Gods for one turn and after it wore off, he destroyed "Dark Magician Girl" with "Slifer".

Not seeing any way of defeating "Slifer", Yami Yugi dropped to his knees. However Kaiba appeared and demanded that Yami Yugi get on his feet. He refused to watch one of the few people he recognizes as a duelist shamefully lose and considered himself to be the only one capable of defeating Yami Yugi. He told him not to be intimidated by the face of God and assured him that nothing is infinite. Noticing a limit to the power of "Slifer", Yami Yugi came up with a plan to defeat it.

Yami Yugi revived "Buster Blader" in Attack Mode with "Monster Reborn" and got it to attack the 13000 ATK "Slifer". "Revival Jam" blocked the attack and got destroyed. Before it fully regenerated, Yami Yugi took control of it with "Brain Control", leaving it regenerate on his side of the field. Since it had less than 2000 DEF, it was destroyed by "Slifer, only to regenerate again. A loop was formed where it constantly regenerated and Marik drew three cards with "Card of Safe Return" after each iteration. Yami Yugi explained that the power of "Slifer" was limited by the number of cards in its controller's Deck and when Marik was unable to draw any more cards, he lost.

Through the ante rule, Yami Yugi received "Slifer the Sky Dragon" and The Doll's Puzzle Card. Kaiba then challenged Yami Yugi to a duel, but was interrupted by The Doll as Marik used him to warn Yami Yugi that the Rare Hunters were about to put his friends in danger. Yami Yugi then fled to find his friends.

On his way to his friends, Yami Yugi was stopped by two Rare Hunters who challenged him to Duels, threatening to have Joey killed if he refused to accept. As the Rare Hunters tried to decided who would face Yami Yugi first, Kaiba arrived and suggested they make it a Tag Team Duel. He assured Yugi he was doing it because he wanted rid of the Rare Hunters, not because he cared about Yugi's friends. Using the Egyptian God "The God of Obelisk", Kaiba quickly defeated the two hunters.

Yami Yugi and Kaiba also defeated another Rare Hunter and the Ghouls reported it as an emergency that the two had teamed-up and both had Egyptian God cards. However Marik arranged for two assassins with Decks to beat Gods to target them.

KaibaCorp managed to track Joey using their satellites and reported his location to Kaiba. Yami Yugi thanked Kaiba, but tried telling off for mocking Joey.

Before they could get to Joey's location, one of Marik's arranged assassins, Lumis leapt at them and attached a Duelist's Chastity Belt to Kaiba's Duel Disk. The other assassin, Umbra showed them that he had the key necessary to remove the belt. To get back the key and to avoid having Joey killed, Kaiba and Yami Yugi had to face the two Rare Hunters in a Tag Team duel on top of a tall building. The game was set up so that the glass below each player would shatter if they lost, causing them to fall to their death. To win both players of the opposing team had to be defeated.

Lumis and Umbra's strategy was based on teamwork. Umbra played monsters, while Lumis backed him up with Spell Cards. Kaiba on the other hand had no intention on relying on teamwork and planned on defeating the Ghouls himself. Even after Yami Yugi saved him from losing, he claimed he did not need his help.

The Ghouls made some of Yami Yugi's cards effectively unusable and cost him Life Points each turn through "Mask of Accursed" and "Mask of Dispel". With "Mask of Restrict", they prevented them or any of Yami Yugi and Kaiba's cards being sacrificed. With nothing in his hand of use without Sacrifices, Yami Yugi contemplated playing "Card Destruction", but worried he could lose Kaiba's trust by causing him to discard something important. However Kaiba egged him into doing it saying cards requiring sacrifice may as well be in the Graveyard. After Kaiba blocked an attack that would have defeated Yami Yugi, Yami Yugi played "Card Destruction" and Kaiba revived his discarded "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" with "Monster Reborn".

Kaiba credited the move to using his team mate rather than teamwork. However Yami Yugi showed him the power of unity by telling him to attack "The Masked Beast", which had more ATK then "Blue-Eyes" and then revealing the "Archfiend of Gilfer" he had discarded was weakening the beast and allowed "Blue-Eyes" to defeat it.

The Ghouls halved the ATK of "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" with "Mask of Weakness" and attacked it with "Nuvia the Wicked". However Yami Yugi used "Mystical Rift Panel" to transfer the effect to "Nuvia", causing it to get destroyed in battle. As the Ghouls bickered over whose fault that was, Kaiba began to see the power of unity.

Lumis summoned "Masked Beast of Gardius" and planned on attacking "Alpha the Magnet Warrior", which would defeat Yami Yugi. Kaiba instead coaxed him into attacking "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" by threatening to make it stronger next turn. Yami Yugi summoned "Gamma the Magnet Warrior" and merged it with his "Alpha" and "Beta" into "Valkyrion the Magna Warrior".

Yami Yugi declined Kaiba's orders to avenge "Blue-Eyes" by killing "Des Gardius" with "Valkyrion", warning him that anger and vengeance can throw off a duelist's judgment. Once Kaiba thought clearly and realized that "Valkyrion" was a decoy and the power of unity was Yami Yugi's trump card, Yami Yugi attacked. "Des Gardius" was destroyed, but its effect equipped "Mask of Possession" to "Valkyrion" giving control of it to Mask of Light. When he tried attacking Yami Yugi with it, Yami Yugi used "De-Fusion", splitting back into "Alpha", "Beta" and "Gamma". Kaiba used "Soul Exchange" on the three of them to summon "The God of Obelisk", which he used to attack and defeat Umbra.

The glass below Umbra was blown up, but he used a parachute to save himself from falling to his death. Yami Yugi urged Lumis to give up now that his partner was gone, but Kaiba still insisted on crushing his enemies. However Marik took control of Lumis. Through him, he informed Yami Yugi and Kaiba that he had used this duel to assess their Decks and instructed Yami Yugi to come to his friends.

Kaiba took two Puzzle Cards from Mask Light's unconscious body and gave one to Yami Yugi, bringing them both to six Puzzle Cards each, enough to qualify for the finals. Putting them on his Duel Disk Kaiba found the location of the finals, but Yami Yugi was uninterested. Mokuba then arrived by helicopter, having tracked Jonouchi's location.

Kaiba learned about Marik's brainwashing power from Yami Yugi. He brought Yami Yugi to Joey via the helicopter because he was interested in confronting Marik, the leader of the Ghouls and because he wanted so see what Yami Yugi's "answer" to what good the "power of unity" would be if he was forced to fight his friend.

The helicopter arrived at Domino Pier, where Yami Yugi found Joey had been possessed by Marik. Yami Yugi made attempts to snap him out of it, but was unsuccessful and challenged to a "Duel of Death". To force Yami Yugi into accepting, Marik revealed he was also possessing Tea and threatened to make her swallow a poisonous pill.

At the Arena of Death, Yami Yugi and Joey had their hands cuffed onto a 300 kg anchor, which was set to plunge into the sea after 40 minutes. Each player had a box at their feet containing a key to their handcuff, which could be opened by defeating their opponent. Yami Yugi was told to leave "Slifer the Sky Dragon" aside, so it wouldn't get pulled into the water if he lost. As he did so, he also added Joey's "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" to his deck.

Joey quickly got the upperhand, using Spell Cards that were meant to be Forbidden in the tournament. Yami Yugi didn't want to kill Joey and struggled to think of a way to win back his heart. Yugi asked Yami Yugi to let him fight the duel instead, saying Joey saved him before and now it's his turn to save Joey. Yami Yugi argued that the Duel was difficult, but Yugi insisted anyway. Yami Yugi agreed under the condition that he could take back control if things got worse. Marik, who wanted to get revenge on the Pharaoh, Yami Yugi, was unhappy with this move.

Yami Yugi remained at Yugi's side to provide guidance, but Yugi asked that he remain quiet and watch. He was shocked by Yugi's decision to use "Exchange" while "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" was in his hand. However Yugi knew Joey wouldn't take "Red-Eyes", because he promised Yami Yugi he wouldn't take it back until their duel after Battle City. When Yami Yugi feared the duel was getting too dangerous, he tried to take over, but Yugi removed the Millennium Puzzle preventing him from doing so. Yugi said that if he didn't become strong by himself, Yami Yugi would never be able to leave him.

When Yugi got the Millennium Puzzle back, he had managed to return Joey to normal and the duel had ended in a draw with both players surviving. Yami Yugi was impressed, having learned from Yugi that in kindness lies the greatest strength of all and believed that one day Yugi would surpass him in every way. Afterwards Kaiba told Yugi to tell Yami Yugi that he had given him the "answer".

Yugi went to Domino Stadium for the finals, where he boarded the Battle Ship blimp, along with the other finalists and his friends. Marik was a finalist, but posed as an ally "Namu", while his companion Odion posed as Marik. Kaiba addressed Yami Yugi's decision to not use his Egyptian God during the preliminaries and said he would not accept that in their battle. Afterwards, the Yugis added it to their deck for the finals.

Yugi and Bakura were paired up for the first of the quarter finals and Yami Yugi quickly learned that he was facing Yami Bakura rather than Ryo Bakura. Yami Yugi asked if Dark Bakura was after his Millennium Puzzle again. Yami Bakura didn't give a straight answer, but said he wanted to win "Slifer the Sky Dragon".

Yami Bakura spent his first three turns summoning monsters in Attack Position, which Yami Yugi trounced and quickly lowered Yami Bakura to 750 Life Points. However Yami Bakura revealed that his seemingly weak moves were necessary to summon "Dark Necrofear". Yami Yugi destroyed "Dark Necrofear" using "Dark Magician Girl" and "Magic Formula", but this allowed Yami Bakura to use her effect. Her marionette's soul began possessing Yami Yugi's monsters without Yami Yugi knowing which one it was. The possessed monsters attacks would backfire on Yami Yugi, damaging him and recovering Yami Bakura's Life Points.

Since "Dark Necrofear" was destroyed, Yami Bakura was able to use "Destiny Board". A Ouija board appeared on the field and the spirit of "Dark Necrofear" began spelling out "DEATH" with one letter per turn. Yami Yugi would lose if it completed its message.

Using "The Dark Door" and "Dark Spirit of the Silent", Yami Bakura restricted Yami Yugi's attacks and forced him to attack with the possessed monsters. Yami Yugi used "Monster Recovery" to clear his own field and summoned "Kuriboh". The spirit had to possess "Kuriboh", which Yami Yugi targeted with "Chain Destruction", destroying "Kuriboh" and the spirit with it.

With the Ouija board spelling "D-E-A-T", Yami Yugi used "Monster Reborn" to revive "Dark Necrofear" preventing her using the board from the grave. However Yami Bakura used "Deja Vu" on his next turn, returning "Dark Necrofear" to his Graveyard and "Dark Magician Girl", "Gamma the Magnet Warrior" and "Kuriboh" to Yami Yugi's field. With one turn to win, Yami Yugi drew and Summoned "Slifer the Sky Dragon". Since the marionette's spirit had been revived with "Kuriboh", Yami Bakura tried possessing "Slifer", but the spirit was unable to possess a God.

Yami Bakura was about to lose, however Marik used the Millennium Rod to return control of Bakura's body to Ryo Bakura. Odion posing as Marik explained that Ryo in his injured state could be killed if struck by "Slifer". Yami Yugi didn't want to attack, but with a time limit on his move, he was going to lose if he did nothing. However Yami Bakura despised Marik's method of winning and took back control of Ryo's body. He assured Yami Yugi that he would survive and told him to attack. Yami Yugi complied and won the duel.

As Joey dueled Odion, who posed as Marik, Yami Yugi took control of Yugi's body to ask Joey the "something you can show, but can't see" riddle. Joey initially believed it was his deck, as he could see it, but not the card he was about to draw. Yami Yugi grew suspicious of what the ark of Odion's "Royal Temple" was protecting, and suspected it was "The Wind Dragon of Ra", but had a hunch that Odion shouldn't have that card. When Joey accused Odion of not being Marik, the enemy who was being shown, but not seen was the answer given to Yami Yugi's riddle. Seeing Odion use a fake "The Wind Dragon of Ra", Yami Yugi got a glimpse of one of the effects of "Ra". After Odion's defeat, Yami Marik took control of Marik's body and identified himself to Yami Yugi and the others.

Put off friendship by Joey's earlier exclusion of her, Mai told DYami Yugi and Joey not to come to her duel with Yami Marik because she didn't need them cheering for her. Despite this they still came. Yami Yugi realized that the duel was a Shadow Game and unsuccessfully tried talking Mai out of retreating. He noticed that Mai was seeing illusions and after warning her what they were and not to let them break her, Mai was able to suppress them. He saw the Sphere Mode of "The Wind Dragon of Ra" and learned it was necessary to read a heratic inscription in order to summon it through Ma's attempt to summon it. Marik held Mai still with his torture cards and prepared to attack her directly with "Ra". Fearing Mai was about to die, Joey tried moving her but Yami Yugi ran between them and Ra to intercept the attack.

Yugi makes an appearance in the final battle between Yami Yugi and Yami Marik where both the original selves are sacrifices for the final duel, the example being that every time, one of their alter egos loses some Life Points, the original self's body begins to disappear to the shadows. The original Marik is unconscious but feels nothing while Yugi, still very much awake experiences pain at having his body consumed by the darkness.

Yami Yugi soon manages to turn the tables and defeat Yami Marik. In an unexpected turn of events, Marik and Yami Marik swap sides with the original Marik returning to his normal body while Yami Marik becomes the sacrifice. Marik stops fighting by placing his hand over his Duel Disk and as such, Yami Marik disappears, having been dispelled for good.

As a result, Yugi is returned to normal and Yami Yugi wins the Battle City Tournament, gaining the three Egyptain God Cards as well as an insight into his past when he exmaines the tattoos on Marik's back which eventually leads the group back to the stone tablet at the Domino City Museum.

Yako Tenma blamed the Yugis for the death of Pegasus during Duelist Kingdom. So he kidnapped Tea and had a Solid Vision projection of her accompany Yugi, who believed it to be the real Tea, for a while. During that time Tenma controlled a Solid Vision version of himself which he used to challenge Yugi to a Duel. Dark Yugi Summoned "Slifer the Sky Dragon", which Tenma countered with "The Wicked Avatar", a card he had created behalf of Pegasus, who had designed the card but hesitated to create it. "The Wicked Avatar" took on the form of a dark "Slifer". It was immune to the effect of "Slifer" and destroyed it in battle. Tenma then caused the Solid Vision Tea to disappear and told Yami Yugi that she was to be sacrificed for Project R.A. and he would need to come to KaibaCorp if he wanted to save her.

Accompanied by Joey and Tristan, Yami Yugi went to KaibaCorp. At the entrance they were confronted by Deschutes Lew, who gave Yami Yugi a "Soul Prison" card containing Tea's soul. Deschutes explained that he was one of thirteen Card Professor mercenaries Yami Yugi would need to defeat if he wanted to save Tea. Yami Yugi dueled and defeated him, earning a key card, allowing him to enter the next block of the building.

Yami Yugi then faced Tilla Mook, who was to get a cash reward of $100,000 (US) if she defeated him. Yami Yugi won and gained the next key card. As they proceeded to the next stage, Joey picked up a "Booby Trap" card, triggering a trap, separating Joey and Tristan from Yami Yugi. Yami Yugi proceeded to defeat Kirk Dixon and later Maico Kato, earning the next two card keys.

Although not all the Card Professors had been defeated, Tenma appeared before Yami Yugi. He had now perfected a "Wicked God" Deck and challenged Yami Yugi to a duel, where he could see Tea if he won, but would surrender his Egyptian God cards to Tenma if he lost. Yami Yugi accepted the challenge and managed to summon "Valkyrion the Magna Warrior" at an early stage. Not knowing the extent of the power of "The Wicked Avatar", he hoped equipping "Valkyrion" with "Lightning Blade" would suffice. However Tenma summoned "The Wicked Dreadroot".

Tenma reveals the second of the "Wicked Gods", "The Wicked Dreadroot", but Yami Yugi successfully defeats it with "Arcana Knight Joker". After the duel, it becomes clear that Yami Yugi wasn't dueling Yako Tenma, but his twin brother, Gekko Tenma. Yako had taken over Gekkou's mind in order to duel Yugi. Tenma reveals the goal of his "R.A. Project" (short for "Rebirth of Avatar") is to call the soul of Pegasus back from the dead in Tea's body.

Gekko regains his mind, and reveals that he opposes his brother's plan. He also reveals to Yami Yugi that he can communicate with Tea by placing the "Soul Prison" card on his Duel Disk. Seto and Mokuba Kaiba soon arrive back at KaibaCorp via their jet in order to retake KaibaCorp. Yako had told Kaiba not to interfere, and promised that return of the server after his plan was completed. Kaiba defeats a Card Professor to gain access to the tower, but by the end of the duel Mokuba has hacked into the security system, so they don't need the card key.

Yami Yugi questions Gekko as why Tea was chosen. The prerequisites for placing a soul in another body are complicated. Duelists tend to fight back, so a non-duelist had to be used. The person must be healthy, and they must be a family member or friend of the enemy. Tea was chosen as she met all these requirements. He also reveals that the man who told Yako what happened to Pegasus, and insinuated Yugi's involvement in the incident was Bandit Keith. They soon meet with Keith, and Gekko himself defeats another Card Professor.

Kaiba arrives at the top of the tower, and duels Yako in an attempt to regain his company. However, Gekko defeats him with a combination of "The Wicked Avatar" and "The Wicked Dreadroot". Yako had hoped to use this duel to call Pegasus' soul, but Kaiba is able to stop him with an override function. The final two Card Professors, Depre Scott and Richie Merced, duel Yugi and Gekko. Yugi (without help from Yami Yugi) defeats Scott using "Toy Magician". Gekko loses to Richie, however, but Joey has already found Tea, so it hardly matters. Confusing Gekko for Yako, Joey assaults him, but is stopped by Yami Yugi and apologizes. Yami Yugi, Gekko and Tristan continue into the tower, while Joey duels Bandit Keith, whom he defeats with "Gearfried the Iron Knight", freeing Keith from his fear in the process.

Yami Yugi finally duels Yako once more, and is able to defeat "The Wicked Avatar" using "Obelisk the Tormentor" and "Divine Evolution". Yako is frustrated, but continues the duel with encouragement from Gekko and his memories of Pegasus. Yugi ultimately defeats him, and control of KaibaCorp returns to Kaiba, while Yugi is reunited with Tea.

As Yugi and his friends talked about going to the museum to recover Yami Yugi's memories, Tea expressed concern that by regaining his old memories, Yami Yugi might lose his memories of his time with them. However Yami Yugi assured her that he wouldn't forget them so easily. After school they went to the museum and met Bobasa, who was safekeeping the Millennium Key and Scale, and told Yami Yugi he must go to the Memory World. Inside the museum, Tea bought a cartouche pendant for Yami Yugi that he could write his real name on when he remembered it. By holding the three Egyptian God cards up to the Tablet of Lost Memories, Yami Yugi's soul got sucked into the tablet, leaving no trace of himself in Yugi's body.

Yami Yugi's soul was brought to a table in the museum, where he played the Ultimate Shadow RPG with Yami Bakura. The setting of the RPG was the Pharaoh's Memory World. The game was a recreation of the Pharaoh's past made using the Pharaoh and Zorc Necrophades' memories. The events in the game were largely the same as the past, although it was possible to make changes. Yami Yugi's characters consisted of his Ancient Egyptian self and companions from when he was Pharaoh. Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan and Bobasa entered the RPG as non-player characters to assist Yami Yugi, while a fragment of Yami Bakura's soul entered to aid Yami Bakura and Zorc.

Yami Yugi's consciousness partly existed within the Memory World, where he relived the last moments of his life as Pharaoh, initially unsure what was happening. He mistakenly called Shimon Muran "Grandpa" and asked him to explain what was going on. Thinking the Pharaoh must be nauseated, Shimon briefed him on a few things from his lost memory. The Pharaoh witnessed a ka battle and noted similarities between it and Duel Monsters, as well as Priest Seto and Seto Kaiba.

The Pharaoh relived his battles with Thief Bakura. However before he was supposed to be beaten by Diabound and have the Millennium Pendant stolen, Yugi, Joey, Tea and Tristan arrived to help him. Yugi replenished his ba gauge, allowing him to summon Ra and defeat Diabound. Yugi then explained to the Pharaoh that this was the world of his memories and they were searching for his real name. Yami Bakura playing the RPG was unhappy with the changed events and used one of his hourglasses to use Zorc's power to rewind time. This time the Yami Bakura NPC distracted Yugi and his friends, so they were unable to save the Pharaoh. Before being found by Spiria, the Pharaoh briefly encountered Hassan, who identified himself as the one who watches memories and warned him that a great battle was coming.

As the Pharaoh and the priests battled Bakura and Diabound in the chamber at Kul Elna, Yami Yugi at the RPG table used their cards to control their actions. Yami Bakura used another hourglass to freeze time, allowing Akhenadin to collect the remaining Millennium Items from the priests and place them in the stone, Summoning Zorc Necrophades. With Yami Yugi's characters frozen and Zorc at full power, Yami Bakura only needed to attack to win. However thinking one-sided games were no fun, he told Yami Yugi that his key to winning might be in his NPC friends. Yami Yugi pointed out that he had Seto on his team and if Yami Bakura was play the roles of his characters by their personalities, he should have Ahkenadin stop Zorc attacking since Seto is his son. Yami Bakura asked if Yami Yugi would give him the Seto card in exchange for not attacking, but Yami Yugi declined. Yami Bakura got Zorc to disregard Akhenadin's parental emotions and attack. However Hassan appeared and shielded Yami Yugi's team from the attack.

However, in the world, the real Yami Bakura launches an attack that triggers an earthquake and destroys the tomb as well as any hope of finding the Pharaoh's true name.

But it's soon revealed that the group managed to get out of the tomb and armed with their own Duel Disks, reunite with Yami Yugi who's left weakened after countless attacks from Zorc. They launch their own cards with Yugi choosing the Dark Magician to go up against Zorc but the dark God overpowers them. Just as Zorc prepares to attack, Hassan emerges, deflecting the blow, only to reveal that it's actually Shadi, a revelation that leaves the group stunned. As Shadi's body fades away, it becomes clear that one more strike from Zorc will mean that the long-waging fight will go in Zorc's favor and result in Yugi and the group dying.

Upon seeing the cartouche she gave him at the beginning of the "Memory World" manga, Tea orders the group to think of what the hieroglyphs of and after a long struggle, Yami Yugi watches as his name is carved onto the cartouche and reveals that his name is Atem.

With their help, Dark Yugi manages to discover his true name: Atem and upon summoning the three Egyptian God Cards, Slifer the Sky Dragon, The Wind Dragon of Ra and Obelisk the Tormentor, manages to fuse the three Gods together to create Horakhty, the ultimate god and creator of light who destroys Zorc in a single shot, a move that leaves everyone stunned.

Horakhty tells Atem that Yugi and his friends were the key to finally unlocking his long-forgotten name. However, while Yugi, Tea, Joey and Tristan get to safety, Atem stays on, vowing to see the world through to its future. He eventually confronts Priest Seto who has fallen under the influence of his estranged father, Akhenaden, the High Priest of Darkness who committed suicide so that he could gain access to Seto's mind in hopes of fulfilling his wish on the Millennium Eye which was to make his son King.

A duel is called and Atem despite having nearly run of his Ka- the ability to summon monsters decides to fight, bringing the Dark Magician to his side while Akhenaden/Seto chooses the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

However, as the Dark Magician attempts to destroy the stone slab of the Blue Eyes, Atem finds that Akhenaden/Seto's Blue Eyes has succeeded in destroying the Dark Magician's slab first which causes the Dark Magician to disappear. Akhenaden, using the Millennium Rod attempts to get the Blue Eyes to kill Atem who's been left vulnerable but Kisara, the human girl whose body possessed the Blue Dragon's spirit emerges at the last second, telling Seto he must not let himself be captured by the shadows. The Blue Eyes disappears, re-emerging into Seto's mind where it frees Seto by destroying Akhenaden who whispers, "Seto.." before disappearing forever.

Among the wreckage, Seto returns to his normal body and attempts to challenge Atem to a fair duel for the title of King but Atem who has no memories after this point given that in the first place, he originally sacrificed himself to kill Zorc begins disappearing. Before he vanishes, Atem gives Seto the Millennium Puzzle and expresses his hope that Seto will make the land great again and restore peace to the shattered country and after that, eventually disappears too.

Seto is left holding both the Millennium Rod and Puzzle, whispering "Pharaoh" as the Blue Eyes stands over him, guarding him.

In the modern world, Yugi, Joey, Tea and Tristan who have been freed from the tombs are watching the game as well as the real Bakura who is unconscious. Atem then returns to Yugi's body where the others including Yugi greet him, relieved that he's back. They check on Bakura, only to find that it's the original good Bakura and after examining him, realize that he's out cold.

As Atem goes to grab the Millennium Puzzle, Yugi remarks that it's almost time to which Atem agrees.

A month later, Yugi, Tea, Joey, Tristan, Bakura and Solomon along with Duke Devlin have descended on Egypt. While everyone gets into the holiday spirit, Yugi remarks on how he'll call Atem "the other me" up until the moment Atem leaves.

At Cairo International airport, the gang are trying to figure out how to get to the Valley of the Kings. Everyone's in good spirits except for Tristan who has somehow managed to get the runs from drinking the water. The group get a surprise when Marik Ishtar and Odion arrive and there's an emotional reunion involved as the group hadn't seen the two since Battle City.

With a raging sandstorm preventing them from getting to the Valley of the Kings, Marik's sister, Ishizu has arrived, having gotten a ship for them. While on board, Yugi soon figures out that in order for Atem to return, someone has to challenge the Pharaoh to a duel and win which leaves Joey, Duke and Tea stunned and as the chosen one who rebuilt the Millennium Puzzle, Yugi realizes it falls into his hands to defeat Atem.

The next morning after Yugi and Atem have spent the reminder of the night assembling and designing their new respective decks for the upcoming duel, the ship arrives at the Valley of the Kings where everyone welcomes Atem home.

In the tomb where the duel will take place, Atem places the seven Millennium Items in the slab and as a result, both he and Yugi finally and permanently become two separate individuals in two different bodies. Once they've both split from one another, the two get ready for what will be the most difficult duel of their entire lives: their duel against each other.

Duelist Kingdom arc
Kaiba challenges Solomon Muto to a Duel after seeing his "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" for the first time. He defeats Grandpa and tears up the card, and saying it will never be used against him, Yami Yugi duels him using Grandpa's Deck. Kaiba Summons the other 3 "Blue-Eyes White Dragons" and Yugi defeats him with "Exodia the Forbidden One". After winning, he Mind Crushes Kaiba, dispelling his evil side.

With his eyes set on the Millennium Puzzle (in the English version), Maximillion Pegasus sends Yugi a video tape and invitation to Duelist Kingdom. When the video is played, Pegasus appears on the screen and requests a Duel with Yugi. Using his Millennium Eye, Pegasus takes Yugi into The Shadow Realm, while Yugi's friends and Grandpa are frozen. Yami Yugi emerges and duels Pegasus. Pegasus reads Yami's mind, using his Millennium Eye and learns his strategies. Yami ultimately loses due to the time limit on the Duel. Pegasus then steals Grandpa's soul, using his Millennium Eye to blackmail Yugi into entering the Duelist Kingdom tournament.

At the tournament, Yami defeats Weevil Underwood and Mako Tsunami and supports Joey in his Duel against Mai.

Mokuba Kaiba, who was held prisoner by Pegasus, escapes and steals another duelist Deck. Mokuba wants revenge for how Kaiba Corporation got humiliated after Seto Kaiba lost to Yugi and knows Pegasus needs to beat Yugi in order to take over KaibaCorp. He duels Yami Yugi in the hopes of eliminating him, so Pegasus will be unable to face him in the finals. Unable to beat Yami, Mokuba steals two of his Star Chips, to get him disqualified. Yami manages to convince Mokuba, they should be working together and to return the stolen Star Chips. Mokuba tries to return the first Star Chips he stole, but the duelist he took them from is already being shipped off the island. As Mokuba shows Kemo that duelist's Star Chips, Kemo slaps them into the water, including two of Yugi's, and takes Mokuba captive. Yami challenges Kemo to a Duel for Mokuba's freedom. Kemo doesn't duel, though, but arranges another meeting, where he'll have an opponent for Yugi.

Yami faced the Mimic of Doom, who initially disguised himself as Kaiba. The Mimic insisted that Kaiba was dead and he was his ghost seeking revenge. In the English version, he claimed to be Kaiba's evil half that Yami had sent to the Shadow Realm. In all cases Yami's opponent used Kaiba's Deck. The real Seto Kaiba hacked into Pegasus computer system and installed a virus in the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", Yami's opponent Summoned. In the Japanese anime, he used the Millennium Puzzle to put the Mimic in a coma. In the English anime, he drove all evil from the Mimic.

Yugi and his friends met up with Ryo Bakura. In the second series anime, since Monster World was skipped, Yami Bakura played a similar game with Yugi and his friends. Yami Bakura trapped Tristan, Téa, Joey, Yugi and Bakura in Duel Monsters cards, while he and Yami Yugi dueled with them in their Decks. After Summoning "Dark Magician", the card Yugi had become, Joey, Téa and Tristan see that there are two Yugi for the first time in the anime. Yami is put at a disadvantage, as he focus on keeping his friends alive for the Duel. Yami Bakura plays "Change of Heart", which Ryo had become. Ryo refuses to turn his friends against each other and takes over Yami Bakura's "Lady of Faith", telling Yami Yugi that he can win, if he attacks him. Yami Yugi refuses to attack his friend. He then uses the Millennium Puzzle to switch the souls of the two Bakuras and attacks, sending Yami Bakura to the Graveyard and winning the Duel. Afterwards Téa, Tristan and Joey all think they dreamt it.

Yami then faces PaniK, to win back Mai's Star Chips that she lost to him. Yami believes he knows what kind of man PaniK was—a cowardly bully hiding behind defenses. Yami defeats him, but PaniK doesn't give up and tries to kill Yugi with flame injectors. Yami protects himself with the power of the Millennium Puzzle, and inflicts a Mind Crush on PaniK.

Yami Tag Duels with Joey as they take on the Paradox Brothers together. The game being a Labyrinth Duel, puts it strongly in the Paradox brothers favor, but Yugi and Joey are able to beat them through teamwork. To leave the Labyrinth, there are two paths out of the arena: one leads out of the caves, while another leads to an endless maze. As a way of helping the two, the Brothers claim that one of them will speak only lies, while the other will speak only the truth, and furthermore allow both Yugi and Joey to ask one question each to find out which path is correct. However, Yami deduces that both brothers are lying and they have the power to change which path leads where. By using a two-headed coin to trick the Brothers into admitting this, Yugi and his friends escape the caves. After this win Yugi and Joey have enough Star Chips to enter the finals.

On entry to the castle to enter the finals, Yugi is confronted by Kaiba, who must beat Yugi, before he can face Pegasus. Kaiba Summons the "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon", causing troubles for Yami. Yami shields himself with a wall of "Kuriboh" from "Multiply" and manages to weaken the dragon by fusing "Mammoth Graveyard" into it, causing it to decay. When Yami is one attack away from victory, Kaiba stands up on the wall of the castle. If Yami continues the attack, Kaiba will be blown off the edge. Yami continues the attack, but Yugi takes control and cancels the attack, forfeiting the Duel to Kaiba, who takes five of Yugi's Star Chips.

Yugi manages to regain a spot in the finals as Mai gives him her excessive Star Chips, in thanks for winning hers back off PaniK. Yugi faces Mai in the first round of the finals, but patronizes her and only thinks of facing Pegasus. This leads to a lot of bad plays on Yugi's behalf. (In the English version, Yugi refuses to let Yami duel, in fear that he may harm his opponent, like he was willing to harm Kaiba. Yami tries to talk Yugi into letting him duel, as Yugi puts up a weak fight. After talking with Mai about facing fears, Yugi lets Yami take control.) Having faith in his friends and everyone depending on him, Yami Summons the "Black Luster Soldier" and uses it to defeat Mai.

Yami Yugi faces Joey in the finals. Despite being friends, neither player holds back. Joey uses all he's learnt from the Yugis in the past and puts up a close Duel. Both players begin crying as Yami makes his final move winning the Duel.

Yami proceeds to face Pegasus in the finals. His souls is at stake as he battles for the release of Grandpa and the Kaiba brother's souls.

Pegasus dominates the Duel at an early stage, with his Toon Monsters and using his Millennium Eye to read Yami's mind. Yami talks with Yugi, who gets the idea to continually switch control of his body. This way after Yugi makes a move, he switches to Yami, whose mind Pegasus then reads. This causes Pegasus to not see what cards are played face-down and where Yugi hides "Dark Magician" under "Magical Hats". Pegasus uses "Magical Neutralizing Force" to remove the hats, but Yami uses a cards Yugi Set, "Living Arrow", which copies "Magical Neutralizing Force", which destroys "Toon World", and "Mirror Force" destroys Pegasus' Toons. Pegasus then takes the Duel to the Shadow Realm and uses his eye-themed monsters. Yugi, unable to cope with the Shadow Realm passes out after a few turns, setting a card as he does so.

Yami struggles with continuing the Duel alone. He then gets a vision of Grandpa, who tells that Yugi may not physically be with him, but his spirit still is. When Pegasus tries to read Yami's mind, the card he drew is blocked because of Téa, Tristan, and Joey spiritually bonding together to support Yami. Yami manages to counter Pegasus strategy, using the last card Yugi set, "Dark Magic Ritual" and a combination of Magic Cards, resulting in the "Magician of Black Chaos" being pitted against Pegasus' "Thousand-Eyes Restrict". Using "Multiply" "Thousand Eyes Restrict" is forced to absorb a "Kuriboh Token" and has each of its eyes covered, freeing the Magician from its paralysis. "Magician of Black Chaos" attacks "Thousand-Eyes Restrict", winning the Duel.

Legendary Heroes arc
Mokuba Kaiba requests the help of Yugi and his friends after Seto Kaiba gets trapped in a virtual reality game by the Big Five. Yugi, along with Joey, Mai and Mokuba save Kaiba. Yami and Kaiba together Summon Dragon Master Knight and use it to defeat the final Mythic Dragon. He then returns to the real world with Mokuba and the others.

Battle City arc
Later on, Yugi asked Téa if she could go out with Yami, a request Yami was completely unaware of. Yugi believed that spending time with Téa would help Yami cheer up from his apparent gloom of not knowing anything about his past. The next day when Yugi meets Téa at the meeting site, he switched to Yami. At first, Yami showed a confident face as he often did, but became confused when noticing that there was no one to duel. Yami began to yell down at the Millennium Puzzle but was cut short when he noticed Téa standing before him and showed a rare but rather funny and peculiar expression of embarrassment.

After visiting many shops and attractions,they enter an arcade. Inside, Yami observes with interest the many games he has never heard nor seen before. Téa is later challenged and squares off against Johnny Steps in a dance game. Not taking his loss too well, Johnny later catches up with Yugi and Téa and challenges to another game. If she loses she must become his girlfriend. Yami, not wanting to place Téa's dignity at stake, instead challenges Johnny to a game of Duel Monsters. If he wins, Johnny must leave Téa alone. If Johnny wins, Téa must go on a date with him (an event which Yami felt confident he could prevent). Yami reveals himself to be Yugi Muto during the Duel, causing Johnny to surrender and run. Téa stops him, tells him how quitting isn't going to get him far, and that he must keep trying to achieve his goals.

Afterwards Téa and Yami go to an Ancient Egyptian exhibition to find clues to Yami's past. Here they meet Ishizu Ishtar, who shows Yami some information about his past as a pharaoh and tells him he must enter the Battle City tournament to learn more, as well as warning him of a coming danger.

Yugi is invited to the Battle City tournament. Yami faces the Rare Hunter, Seeker in the preliminaries, winning back Joey's "Red Eyes Black Dragon" and learning that his enemy is a man named Marik Ishtar. After trying to return "Red-Eyes" to Joey, Joey insists that Yugi should keep it and he'll take it back when he becomes a better duelist. Yami next faces Arkana, whose signature card is also a "Dark Magician". The Duel is set up, so two sawblades draw closer to the player's feet, as their Life Points lower. Yami wins the Duel and rescues Arkana from the blades.

Yami Yugi faces an Egyptian God for the first time, as Marik duels him, through his puppet Strings. Strings Summons "Slifer the Sky Dragon" and creates a massive hand of cards. Yami manages to turn Marik's strategy against him, ultimately forcing his opponent to Deck Out, and takes "Slifer the Sky Dragon" after winning. Kaiba challenges Yugi to a Duel after his victory against Strings. Yami however postpones the Duel, as he must check his friends' safety, as Marik is just after threatening to turn them into Mind Slaves.

Kaiba assists Yugi in his search. Along the way, they Tag Duel a pair of Rare Hunters, who Kaiba quickly disposes with "Obelisk the Tormentor". Marik then sends the same pair of Rare Hunters Umbra and Lumis to Tag Duel Yugi and Kaiba. Umbra and Lumis Decks are designed to combat the Summoning of the God cards, but Yami and Kaiba manage to work together and get around their lock, Summoning Obelisk once again to win the Duel. Yugi acquires enough Locator Cards to proceed to the finals after this Duel.

At Domino Pier, Yami locates Joey, only to discover that his friend is possessed by Marik. Both players are chained to an anchor and forced to Duel. Defeating their opponent would release a key to save themselves. After a timer hits zero, the anchor would drag one of the two players chained to it into the water to drown. Marik doesn't allow Yugi to use Slifer. Yami puts the card aside, not planning to use it anyway and instead adds Joey's "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" to his Deck. Shortly into the Duel, Yugi asks Yami to let him handle it. Yami is unsure if that's the safest option, but relinquishes control to Yugi. Yugi puts the Millennium Puzzle aside, so Yami cannot take control. Yugi manages to snap Joey out of Marik's control in time for Joey to force the Duel into a draw and save both players. Yami learns from Yugi that in kindness lies the greatest strength of all, and he thinks one day Yugi will surpass him in every way.

Yami competes on Kaiba's blimp for the Battle City finals. Kaiba warns him that he won't win unless he uses Slifer, and Yami reluctantly adds the god card to his deck. His first duel is against Bakura, and is shocked to find that his dark half has survived. During the duel, Yami finds time is against him as Yami Bakura tries to win with the "Destiny Board". Soon, Yami's only hope is Slifer, and he plays the god card for the first time. Marik, who had enlisted Yami Bakura's aid, tells him to use the real Bakura, who had been injured, to try and get Yami to forfeit the duel. Yami Bakura does, but then changes his mind at the last minute, and Yami uses Slifer to attack and win the duel.

During Mai's duel with Yami Marik, Marik uses "The Winged Dragon of Ra". Joey shields Mai with his own body, though it would risk a great deal of damage. Yami rushes in at the last minute and takes the hit; his own body, through the power of his Puzzle, affords him the strength to withstand Ra's attack. Yami Marik, however, still banishes Mai to the Shadow Realm.

Virtual World arc
Before Kaiba's blimp can land on KaibaCorp Island, Yugi, Kaiba, and the rest of the passengers aboard are rerouted to a hidden bunker. The bunker seems to be operated by a boy who calls himself Noah, who forces Yugi and company into a Virtual World, where everyone is separated from one another to fend for themselves—and to Duel against KaibaCorp's former Board of Directors, the Big Five.

Yami finds himself trapped in a lock down Duel against Gansley, who has taken on the form of the Deepsea Warrior. Gansley's abilities as the Deepsea Warrior damage Yami's Life Points considerably, until Yami's Deck Master, Kuriboh (who chose itself as his partner), saves him from losing the Duel and his body. Yami manages to win by using Rainbow Blessing with Kuriboh to create a path for Swift Gaia the Fierce Knight to strike the finishing blow against Gansley and win. Yami is later seen helping Yugi duel against trap doors that will lead them to Tea,but they found out that they were going in a circle. They then reach Tea,and see Dark Magician go to Tea's duel to help her win. Yami is then seen looking at Joey's duel against one of the members of the Big Five. Yami reveals that Joey's enemy is cheating,and that Joey has to figure it out soon,or he'll lose the duel.

Later on, the Big Five, sharing Tristan's body, challenged Yugi to a Duel, and Joey volunteered to be his Tag Team partner. They battled the Big Five and won in the end.

Yami convinced Noah to Duel him after he said that Kaiba would have beaten Noah, had Noah not used Mokuba to keep him from losing. He replaced Kaiba as Noah's opponent and combined Kaiba's deck with his own, despite Kaiba having only 400 life points while Noah had nearly twenty times his score. With every passing turn, Noah turned each one of Yugi's friends to stone when Yugi failed to defeat him. After a harrowing battle, Yami, drawing on the strength of his friends, was able to activate Card of Sanctity and draw himself a brand-new hand (One card for each of his friends). From that hand, he was able to use a One Turn Kill strategy involving "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" to defeat Noah and restore Kaiba, Mokuba, and all of Yugi's friends to normal.

Battle City Finals arc
After escaping the Virtual World, Yugi and the other three finalists in Battle City—Yami Marik, Joey Wheeler, and Seto Kaiba—competed against each other in a 4-way Battle Royal, to determine which opponents would be paired up against each other. Yugi found himself pitted against Kaiba in the rematch of the Millennium since their bout in Duelist Kingdom.

Yami Yugi is seen looking at Joey's duel against Yami Marik,and vows to win his duel against Kaiba for him. He then looks at the millineum necklace, and sees a vision of him and Joey dueling each other. Yami then puts Red Eyes Black Dragon in his deck,before he faces Kaiba.

During this "Clash in the Coliseum", both Yugi and Kaiba Summoned the respective Egyptian God Card each of them possessed, but the Duel became a heated stalemate, as neither Egyptian God was able to destroy the other. After a frightening flashback of Ancient Egypt, where Yugi and Kaiba saw their previous incarnations conduct a Shadow Game, both "Slifer the Sky Dragon" and "Obelisk the Tormentor" were destroyed, so both Yugi and Kaiba fell back on Summoning their favorite cards ("Dark Magician" and "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", respectively) to battle each other. When Kaiba Summoned his two other "Blue-Eyes White Dragons" with "The Flute of Summoning Dragon", Yugi considered forfeiting the Duel, but was convinced by Joey's spirit to continue the fight. On this note, Yugi Summoned "Red-Eyes Black Dragon"—which Joey had given to him after Seeker's defeat—and activated "Magician's Selection" to destroy "Lord of Dragons", leaving "Spellbinding Circle" free to weaken one of the Blue-Eyes enough for Yugi's Red-Eyes to destroy it.

Kaiba would ultimately force the Duel into a 6-turn showdown by using "Final Attack Orders" to reduce both players' Decks to 3 cards. Afterwards, he Summoned "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon", but Yugi Summoned "Dark Paladin" in the same turn and used "De-Fusion" to separate Kaiba's monster into its 3 components. The Duel would end in Yugi's favor, with "Diffusion Wave-Motion" allowing "Dark Paladin" to strike the final blow. As per the ante rule of the Battle City Tournament—and after Kaiba berated Yugi with his delusion that one cannot truly win while relying on others—Yugi was given "Obelisk the Tormentor" before "The Final Face-Off" with Marik.

In "The Final Face-Off" between Yugi and Marik, the Duel is a Shadow Game involving the loser forfeiting his good side, but as Marik pointed out, no matter who won, an innocent soul would be lost forever—and if Yami Yugi lost, Yugi would vanish into the Shadow Realm, and the Pharaoh would cease to exist.

Although Yami Summoned "Slifer the Sky Dragon" early in the Duel, Marik countered by Summoning "The Winged Dragon of Ra" in the same turn and would later attempt to defeat Yugi with Ra's "One Turn Kill" power (Point-to-Point Transfer in the English dub). Yami responded by activating a card that Kaiba had given him before the Duel—"Fiend's Sanctuary", which would turn all Battle Damage back on Marik if the attack went through. Even though Marik negated Ra's attack with "De-Fusion" (which he'd gained after Yugi activated "Exchange" to take "Monster Reborn" from Marik), Yami would then combo "Fiend's Sanctuary" and "Multiply" to Summon "Obelisk the Tormentor" and attack Marik directly, but it would not be enough to win, because with that direct attack, Marik had everything he needed to complete his Immortality strategy, eventually locking down Yami's attacks with a combo of "Egyptian God Slime" and "Jam Defender" before reviving his Winged Dragon of Ra with "Monster Reborn" yet again.

The Duel ultimately culminates and concludes with the destruction of both Ra and Yami Marik (thanks to Yami Yugi's "Ragnarok" card), and when Marik regains control of his body and mind, he forfeits the Duel to Yami Yugi, destroying Yami Marik, and gives him his "Winged Dragon of Ra" card, Millennium Rod and Millennium Ring. In addition, Marik also shows him the hieroglyphs tattooed on his back. According to Marik and Ishizu, the "Secret of the Pharaoh" is written somewhere in the hieroglyphs, and only the possessor of the Millennium Puzzle and the three Egyptian God Cards can unlock that secret.

Yami Yugi, and the others leave the island on a Kaibacorp helicopter. They are surprise that Mokuba, and Seto are in a Blue Eyes White Dragon Jet. Mokuba tells everyone that he, and Seto are leaving to start building Kaibaland in Domino City. Yami Yugi then stays Goodbye to Tea, Duke, Mai, Tristan, and Serenity. He then heads back to the Kame Shop, and takes over Yugi's body to duel Joey.He and Joey then meet at the Domino pier for their duel to see, who can win the Red Eyes Black Dragon. He and Joey start their duel, to conclude the rest of their battle City Tournament adventure.

Waking the Dragons arc
After the Battle City tournament, Yugi goes to the museum, where Yami Yugi attempts to regain his memories by holding the Egyptian Gods up to the tablet, but is interrupted by real life Duel Monsters appearing outside.

Later that day, a group of perpetrators break into Kame Game and steal the God Cards. Yami Yugi meets up with them and Duels one, known as Gurimo, who, during the Duel activates a Field Magic Card called "The Seal of Orichalcos", which entraps himself and Yami Yugi inside an magical force field. Gurimo explains that by using his new Magic Card, he and Yugi are cut off from the outside world and only he who wins the Duel can escape the full power of the "The Seal of Orichalcos", as it will extract the loser's soul to awaken the Great Leviathan. Gurimo Summons the stolen "Obelisk the Tormentor", who is affected by the "Seal". Yami Yugi manages to destroy "Obelisk" and defeat Gurimo, sealing Gurimo's soul, but does not recover the God cards.

The next night, when Yugi falls asleep, he and Yami awaken inside the Millennium Puzzle, where "Kuriboh" guides them to a portal into the Duel Monsters Spirit World. Here, they meet Dark Magician Girl, who explains about the Leviathan and urges them to pull a sword from a crystallized dragon. In doing so, Yugi, revealed to be 1 of 3 chosen Duelists, releases the Legendary Dragon known as Timaeus, who becomes a card in Yugi's Deck. Together, he and Yami use this card (dubbed "The Eye of Timaeus") to fight the Paradius organization, who are trying to awaken the Great Leviathan with the power of "The Seal of Orichalcos".

Afterwards, Pegasus sends Yugi and his friends a videotape, inviting the group to Industrial Illusions headquarters in America to collect a card needed to defeat Paradius.

Believing Yami Yugi was an evil Pharaoh, Rafael targets him to try and take his soul. He manages to lure Yugi into a Duel, but tells him he won't be using "The Seal of Orichalcos". Rafael later plays the card "Exchange", forcing Yami to take that very Magic Card. Yugi instructs that they must not play that card, no matter what. Unfortunately, Yami reaches a point in the Duel where he cannot win without playing it. While he does consider playing it, Yugi objects, to no avail. However, upon playing the Seal, Timeaus automatically leaves Yami's side of the field, as it doesn't co-operate with the Orichalcos. The energies from the Orichalcos cause Yami to turn into a corrupt form of himself that no one's ever seen before, which is revealed when he begins tributing his own monsters in a careless attempt to damage Rafael's Life Points and win, despite Yugi's objections. Rafael uses Yami's strategy against him when he summons "Guardian Eatos", whose ATK increases according to the amount of monsters in the opponent's Graveyard, and defeats Yami. "The Seal of Orichalcos" begins to take Yami's soul, but Yugi decides to sacrifice himself in Yami's place, since the Seal only needs one of their souls.

Yami falls into depression and guilt over what he let happen to Yugi. As he continues his travels, he and Téa are split from Joey and Tristan on a train hijacked by Rex and Weevil. Weevil, seeking revenge for his loss in Duelist Kingdom, Duels Yami on the roof, using "The Seal of Orichalcos". "Timaeus" refuses to assist Yami when he plays it because of his actions in the last duel. When Weevil tricks Yami into thinking he's permanently lost Yugi's soul, Yami goes berserk and recklessly attacks him by using the combo "Breaker the Magical Warrior" with "Berserker Soul". Téa stops his constant and vengeful attacks, pointing out he's already won the Duel, but not in time for them to escape the out-of-control train, as after the Duel, it derails itself and falls off a cliff.

Yami and Téa are rescued by Ironheart. Ashamed of himself, Yami lets Ironheart hold onto his "Timaeus" card. Ironheart leads Yami to a place of lost souls, where, after confronting several evil spirits of Duelists he has faced (most of them originated in the Duelist Kingdom arc of this series), he finds Yugi's spirit. Yugi convinces Yami to engage him in a Duel, stating that this is the only way that Yami can prove he's sorry for his recent misdeeds. During the Duel, Yugi uses "The Seal of Orichalcos" which shocked Yami to the core and uses the strategy similar to Yami's from his Duel with Rafael. Yami tries to reason with him; but, Yugi refuses to listen still thinks he never care about everyone's lives and uses monster sacrifice to get through to Yami's doubts which is indeed a success by using a trap card, Divine Wind to counter this strategy. Defeating Yugi's strategy, Yami is told by his partner that he had overcome his mistakes and, in doing so, defeated the darkness in his heart and eliminating the influence of the Orichalcos that corrupted him. As Yugi vanishes suddenly, Dartz conjures an Orichalcos Soldier to duel Yami immediately afterwards. Yami is unable to defeat the Soldier's "Orichalcos Gigas" without "Timaeus", so Ironheart, Chris and Skye sacrifice their own lives as they return the card to Yami, imploring him to save this world. With the darkness within Yami's heart erased, he summons "Timaeus", fuses his dragon with "Dark Magician Girl" to summon her "Dragon Knight" form, and uses it to defeat the Soldier.

Afterwards, Yami and Téa meet up with the rest of their group and Seto Kaiba, who had just escaped a harrowing rematch with a vengeful Alister atop his own jet. Kaiba takes them back to Domino City, which has become overrun with Orichalcos Soldiers. After Joey beats Valon, he loses his own soul in a Duel with Mai. On that note, Mai, who realized she made a mistake leaving Joey for "a madman who promised me power" (according to her), and who was filled with rage over losing Joey (as he was "the only one who ever cared about" her), challenges Rafael in a duel to avenge Joey (believing that Joey would've done the same thing for her if their roles had been reversed), but also loses her soul. Yami makes his way to Duel Rafael, who tosses him Joey's "Hermos" card. This time Rafael uses "The Seal of Orichalcos" and allows his "Guardian Eatos" to fall under its power. However, after Yami uses "Amulet Dragon" to destroy "Eatos", "The Seal of Orichalcos" begins to feed on Rafael's anger, just as "Guardian Dreadscythe" is summoned in Eatos' place.

Equipping his new Guardian with his "Reaper Scythe" card, Rafael defies his own practice of letting his own monsters go to the Graveyard in a vengeful attempt to defeat Yami, stating that he hates him more than the thought of having monsters in his Graveyard. However, after Yami summons "Eatos" back to the field under his control and equips her with "Goddess Bow", he destroys Rafael's "Dreadscythe", ultimately managing to free him from Dartz's influence. To end the Duel, Rafael plays "Soul Charge" to revive his monsters, but depletes his Life Points and loses on purpose. However, since Rafael overcame the darkness in his heart, there was nothing to power the Seal, thus allowing him to keep his soul.

In the final Duel with Dartz, Yami and Kaiba teamed up to defeat the former King of Atlantis, but Dartz revealed that "The Seal of Orichalcos" had more than one level, and proved it when he activates "Orichalcos Deuteros" and "Orichalcos Tritos". Using his "Orichalcos Kyutora" to protect his Life Points from being depleted and the magic of "Orichalcos Deuteros" and "Orichalcos Tritos" to increase his Life Points and disrupt his opponent's strategies with every passing turn, Dartz seemed almost unbeatable. Kaiba lost his soul after some time, due to the immense ATK of "Orichalcos Shunoros", but not before using "Wish of Final Effort" to increase Yami's Life Points by the ATK of his destroyed "Mirror Force Dragon".

Afterwards, Yami continued the Duel and activated the seemingly useless card that Pegasus created back at Industrial Illusions to battle Dartz and the Paradius Corporation—"Legend of Heart", which allowed Timaeus, Critias, and Hermos to assume their human forms as the Legendary Knights. Sending them into battle against Dartz' "Orichalcos Shunoros" and later, his infinitely strong "Divine Serpent", Yami was able to eke out his victory—but not before the Leviathan seemed to swallow Dartz whole. The Legendary Knights opened a tear in reality, returning the souls of the Chosen Duelists to their proper vessels.

The final episodes of this arc brought Yugi, Joey, and Kaiba into battle with Dartz, who seemed to have merged with the Leviathan. Joined by the inhabitants of the Dominion of the Beasts, they call forth their strongest monsters, as well as the Legendary Knights, to battle the Great Beast. However, the Leviathan is too strong, despite their best efforts, and absorbs the three Chosen Duelists into its own body. Yami convinced all the people whose souls' dark feelings fueled the Leviathan's power to remember all the good things in their lives.

In turn, the Chosen Duelists—as well as the Egyptian Gods, whose souls Dartz offered as a tribute to accelerate the Leviathan's awakening—were released, and Yami left Yugi's body to join them in the battle. Through the power of the light of everyone's souls fueling the Gods, Yami was able to defeat the Leviathan, and Dartz was restored to his human form. However, the Leviathan's essence still existed, and Yami knew that the only way to defeat the Great Beast was to face his own evil and step into its darkness. Using the power of his light, Yami's spirit was able to destroy the Leviathan (in the English version, it is banished to the Shadow Realm). With the Beast permanently eliminated, Dartz seemed to act differently, as it was revealed in a flashback during the Tag-Team Duel with him that he had also fallen under the control of the Orichalcos. Yami Yugi and the others Head back to Rebecca, and Arthur Hawkins since they have no way to get back to Domino City.

KC Grand Championship arc
With the threat of the Orichalcos now behind them, Yugi and his friends were prepared to head back to Domino in Japan—but no one had any airfare for the trip back home. Seto Kaiba offered to take them back home, on one condition: Paradius' interference in KaibaCorp had all but ruined the latter's credibility, so Kaiba would be planning the ultimate tournament, the KC-1 Grand Prix Championship, to restore his company's reputation, and he wanted the rest of the group to attend. The winner of the tournament would face Yugi Muto in an attempt to claim his title as the world Duel Monsters champion.

On the opening day, while Yugi and his friends are watching a Duel between Rick and a CPU opponent, a hacker traps all the duelists and spectators inside the makeshift electronic stadium. The CPU opponent level has been altered to its highest of difficulty, and the only way for everyone to escape is to defeat the CPU in a Duel. Rick had mostly Dragon-Type Normal Monsters and almost no Magic or Trap Cards in his Deck. Yugi transforms into Yami and takes over, using "Heart of the Underdog"—a card Yugi had given Rick—and combined it with the effects of "Spirit Ryu" to win and free everyone. Yami Yugi is seen looking at Joey's duels. Including looking at Rebecca's duel against Vivian Wong. Yami Yugi then trys not to tell Joey that Kaiba named his wheeler monkey after Joey,so then changes back to Yugi. But Yugi tells Yami Yugi oof, when Yugi realizes this.

Yugi didn't duel much in this season. He cheered for Joey and Rebecca throughout the tournament. He dueled and defeated Vivian Wong, in order for her to cure Solomon Muto's back.

Yami faced Leon von Schroeder, who assumed the alias Leon Wilson, in the finals. Leon acted differently during the Title Bout and Yugi discovered that Leon only wanted to duel and defeat him to earn the respect of his family that Zigfried could not earn in his youth. Leon played an illegal card, "Golden Castle of Stromberg", that forced Yugi to discard half the cards in his Deck with every passing turn that Leon took and also infected a virus into the KaibaCorp computer system. Yami figures out a weakness in the card: he couldn't discard half the Cards in his Deck, having only 1 card left. He was able to destroy it and nullify the virus. With "Golden Castle of Stromberg" defeated, Yugi continued the Duel and played several Magic and Trap Cards before striking the final blow using "Dark Magician", "Necromancy", and "Diffusion Wave-Motion" to win. He then gives Leon some words of encouragement,after his duel. He is then announced the winner of the Tournament.

Capsule Monsters arc
Yugi Muto wakes up after having a strange recurring nightmares about the Pharaoh being captured by an evil monster with glowing red eyes and telling him that why he is having these dreams will become clear when he "plays the game". This time, the Millennium Puzzle starts glowing in response to the dream, bewildering Yugi even further.

Before leaving for school that day, Yugi noticed that his grandfather, Solomon Muto (Sugoroku Mutou in the Japanese versions and English-language manga), had not returned from his "secret expedition" (Yugi was told at the last minute) as his flight was due last night. Yugi is worried about the fact that Solomon is missing.

Meanwhile, there is a new game on the block; the Capsule Monsters board game is the new fad in the Duel Monsters craze, and Yugi has already taken the opportunity to learn the rules of the game. When Joey breaks the news about the trip, Yugi and his friends could not contain their excitement. Yugi, Tristan Taylor (Hiroto Honda), and Tea Gardner (Anzu Mazaki) agree to take Joey's other three tickets.

Just when the private plane for the trip approached its final destination, the engines cut out and the aircraft crash lands in a mysterious forest. After Yugi and his friends evacuate the aircraft, they find a man who says his name is Dr. Alex Brisbane.

When Yugi lets slip to Brisbane that he is Solomon Muto's (Sugoroku Mutou) grandson, Brisbane tells him that he's a colleague of Grandpa, and on their latest expedition together he disappeared. Now Yugi knows just where Grandpa had gone, but the Pharaoh still suspects something. They just happen to win a trip; their plane just happens to crash; and they just happen to meet the man who was the last person to see Grandpa. It all seems a little bit coincidental. Brisbane shows Yugi and the gang where he last saw Solomon. Yugi and his friends are surprised when they discover that Brisbane last saw Solomon in a pyramid.

Brisbane explains that he believes it to be the legendary pyramid of Alexander the Great, and that it's supposed to contain some sort of ancient game. They check it out, narrowly avoiding a number of dangerous traps, and come across a room that, as Tristan put it, is the size of Cleveland. The floor looks like a giant map of different land types, which looks incredibly familiar to Yugi. Joey decides to check it out but, to everyone's surprise, disappears into thin air the second he steps on the map. Coming to the conclusion that Solomon must have gone to the same place as Joey, the rest of the gang decide to follow, leaving a bewildered Brisbane behind.

They find themselves in a forest, with Joey nowhere to be seen. Yugi notices a lot of egg-shaped rocks around, but before they can investigate, some giant cockroaches (Gokibore, a monster from the Volume 6 expansion set) and a giant praying mantis (Kamakiriman, from Volume 3) ambush them. The escapes of Yugi, Tristan, and Téa causes them to have to split up.

Yugi is cornered by the mantis, so the Pharaoh takes over to protect him. He accidentally touches one of the strange egg-shaped rocks whilst jumping, which somehow causes Celtic Guardian to appear. Celtic Guardian attacks the mantis, destroying it.

Meanwhile, Tristan and Téa escape the cockroaches by ducking into a cave. They find themselves on a beach, accompanied by two monsters: Thunder Kid and Happy Lover.

At the same time, Joey is up high on a mountain, looking over onto the forest that the gang are in, hearing Yugi's shouting. Suddenly, a giant bird (LOB-039 Kurama) comes up behind him and grabs him by the shoulders, flying away with Joey in his claws.

Back in the forest, Celtic Guardian disappears in a beam of light, transforming into a small capsule. Now, Yugi knows where he'd seen this before. Somehow they have entered a real life version of Capsule Monsters. However, he is soon again attacked by a monster, this time it's a Trent. Pharaoh realizes the strange device on their wrists are for launching the capsules that house their monsters in order to summon them. Calling upon Celtic Guardian, the Pharaoh attacks the tree, but it gets the upper hand and injures Celtic Guardian. The Pharaoh feels Celtic Guardian's pain and realizes that the Capsule Monster world is a deadly Shadow Game. To make matters worse, the Trent turns surrounding trees into copies of it to assist its attack. However, the Pharaoh releases a new capsule monster to assist them, the fire-attribute Hinotama Soul. It easily burns the Trents to ash. The Pharaoh switches with Yugi, and Yugi runs off to find his friends.

Elsewhere, Joey has been dropped by the Kurama into a nest of its young. Joey repeatedly jumps off cliffs housing Kurama nests to escape until he lands on a branch and accidentally releases Baby Dragon from another rock. Joey boards Baby Dragon and flees the mountains. However, a flock of Kurama chase after them. Realizing there are too many to take on head first, Joey decides to trick them into getting stuck in a small opening in a canyon.

On the beach, Tristan figures out that Happy Lover and Thunder Kid are monsters they accidentally released from the egg-shaped rocks back in the forest when they ran from the giant roaches. Suddenly a giant sea monster called Root Water emerges from the ocean. Happy Lover and Thunder Kid stand before it to keep Tristan and Téa safe.

Elsewhere, Joey has taken refuge behind a waterfall and checks his guide book, still believing himself to be in India. Joey then notices a treasure chest behind him and Baby Dragon and opens it. However, instead of treasure a scroll wraps around him, and Baby Dragon burns it off him (with Joey having to put out the fire on him in the waterfall). The ashes of the scroll turn into a map, and Joey wonders if it's a treasure map.

Back on the beach, Tristan is having Thunder Kid attack Root Water with limited success as Thunder Kid is taking a pounding from the giant monster. (They too realize they feel the pain inflicted on their monsters.) Téa remembers Yugi's advice on how to play the board game version of Capsule Monsters and has Happy Lover heal Thunder Kid with its Heart Beam. Tristan then decides to blind-side Root Water with a sneak attack and Thunder Kid is successful in frying the fish. However, instead of vanishing, Root Water's charred body shatters and the beast evolves into High Tide Gyojin. It then creates a typhoon, sucking up Téa and Tristan along with their monsters. However, Solomon arrives and uses his Summoned Skull to blast High Tide Gyojin apart, saving Téa and Tristan.

Having seen Summoned Skull's "Lightning Strike" attack, Yugi heads to the beach to find Téa and Tristan unconscious with their monsters. However, his mind is put to ease when Solomon walks up to him and tells him that they're resting after the ordeal they went through. Yugi happily clings onto his grandpa and cries in joy of seeing him again.

Later, Yugi and the others make camp and begin to wonder where Joey is in the Capsule Monsters world. At the same time, Joey has gotten hungry and follows the smell of the campfire to his friends (after nearly fallen to his death before Baby Dragon managed to catch him). The Pharaoh switches with Yugi and explains that their dilemma of being in this world won't be an easy problem to solve. However, Téa points out that the flowers around them have gotten closer since they set up camp. Solomon tosses a stick from the fire into the flowers to reveal that they are actually a pack of Flower Wolf. Everyone but Solomon (whose Summoned Skull is too high level to be used frequently) releases their Capsule Monsters to fend off the pack. However, the Pharaoh knows they don't stand a chance and has Thunder Kid blind the wolves temporarily by reflecting its lightning off Celtic Guardian's sword.

The next day, Tristan and Joey do an annoying "victory dance" while the Pharaoh and Yugi wonder about the safety of their friends. Joey and Tristan then collapse and beg for food. Tristan then remembers about snacks he packed for the trip, but then remembers everyone (except Solomon) left their packs back at the campsite. After Solomon tries to encourage them to go a few days without food, they take off to find some, but run into tree branches. Tea reveals Solomon had a bag of food and taunts them as she eats a chip. Solomon tells them all they had to do was ask nicely. While Joey and Tristan complain, Yugi notices that the mountains are moving and runs to the edge of the forest to see they're on an Island Turtle. Joey and Tristan try to be tough until Yugi tells them it won't attack them unless they keep it up. Joey and Tristan apologize but immediately do another victory dance. Téa complains about the lack of female friends she has, while the Turtle roars in annoyance to Joey and Tristan's song. It dives, forcing everyone to "abandon ship!"

They then reach a temple in the middle of the lake and enter to have the doors shut behind them. Joey notices a "giant tea pot" in the middle of the room and (having switched with Yugi) the Pharaoh tells him it is not a tea pot. La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp emerges from the lamp. The Pharaoh summons Celtic Guardian and begins fighting the genie. Suddenly, the doors swing back open and a flood of water rushes in. It then freezes, trapping Téa and Solomon in ice. The perpetrator behind this is Neo Aqua Madoor, "Jack Frost's evil cousin". Tristan and Joey summon their monsters to help out the Pharaoh despite his constant protests, telling them to not interfere out of concern for their safety. Joey then tells him that they don't want to see him get hurt either as the Pharaoh realizes they can use the two enemies' attacks against each other. After faking head on attacks, Celtic Guardian and the others' capsule monsters back off as Neo Aqua Madoor and La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp's attacks collide into each other and destroys them.

Téa and Solomon are released form the ice, and a tablet with Egyptian writing on it appears. Solomon translate it: " Before the shadows blanket the land, Go to the fortress of fear. Locate the place where the spirit sleeps, And the pathway you seek will appear." Joey takes out his map from earlier and realizes that it shows the exact space they're on right now and that the fortress is on the same square, but VERY far away. Everyone resolves to go there, hoping the pathway it mentioned means the way home. Tristan finds a secret passage under the main floor (as they did not want to take chances with swimming across) and they quickly run through it.

Coming out above ground, they find themselves in an ancient graveyard that is soon flocked with Wood Remains and The Wandering Doomed. Yugi, Tea and Joey each release a new monster; Kuriboh, Dark Witch and the Flame Swordsman respectively. With their new monsters the Zombies are easily defeated.

Racing to the top of the hill the fortress lays upon, Tristan jinxes their good luck as four walls rise up from the ground and surround the fortress with statues of the Aqua Spirit, Spirit of Flames, The Rock Spirit and Garuda the Wind Spirit at each corner. Joey unsuccessfully tries to fly over as he is repelled by a force field. Yugi figures out that if four people mimic the stances of the four statues, the door will open. They do so, forcing Yugi to enter the fortress himself. Yugi falls into a pit, but is saved from a rough landing by the Pharaoh taking his place. The walls of the room they are trapped in begin to close in on them while outside, Joey breaks his pose and the statues come to life and begin attacking everyone. The Pharaoh finds a new capsule and releases the monster, which carries him up in a beam of light. Coming to his senses, the Pharaoh sees his new monster is Dark Magician and that his friends are in trouble. Using Dark Magician's "Magical Crossroads" the statues are destroyed at the cost of Solomon's Summoned Skull being taken down by the Rock Spirit.

Inside the fortress, Yugi opens the coffin located in the fortress (the place where the spirit sleeps) just as the sun sets and everyone else comes in. The coffin turns into a doorway and a piece of golden armor hovers above it. Another riddle appears as the armor dons itself on Yugi. Solomon says it says five trials await them to test the strength of Yugi's heart. Despite some discussion about not going through with the trials, everyone decides to go along with it in hopes of it leading them home again.

They arrive in a desert and find a village, where they are given a pendant and the instructions for the first trial; "Silence the whisper that rides the desert wind". While Solomon stays a safe distance form everyone else, they call forth their monsters and destroy a Medusa Worm, which they initially believed to be the enemy. However, it turns out to be one of many Medusa Worms under the voice's control. Everyone, but the Pharaoh is spat on by a worm and are turning to stone. Dark Magician takes the Pharaoh above the storm and the voice sent to confuse them to show him a tornado causing it. The Pharaoh calls Dark Magician back to his capsule and proceeds on foot to reach the voice. However, he isn't strong enough to reach the tornado. He then sees a man wearing a cape and mask, telling him to merge with the Dark Magician to gain the strength needed to pass the trial. Doing so, the Pharaoh becomes the Dark Warrior and flies into the tornado to find the voice is Mystical Sand. Silencing her, the Pharaoh clears the trial and reverses the Medusa Worms' petrification on his friends. The armor takes a toll on the Pharaoh as he is not used to it yet. Yugi takes his place to relieve some of the pain and tells of the man he saw explaining how to use the armor. One of the five shapes on the pendant lights up to signify the victory over this trial, and a doorway comes out of the sand.

Entering it, everyone finds themselves on a floating island above the clouds. Yugi collapses from the strain of the Duel Armor and is taken to a cave to rest. Another message arrives, and Solomon reveals that next is "The Trial of Light and Shadow". They are tasked with breaking an unbreakable stone in the "valley of light" as it appears only once a day. Deciding to take care of the trial in Yugi's place, Tristan, Joey, and Solomon head for the nearest valley as it becomes noon and the stone is revealed. However a Prisman appears and begins to attack them. Tristan takes advantage of its short temper and uses it to blast the stone apart.

In the meantime, Yugi has recovered, and Téa shows the Pharaoh the trial's instructions. Noticing they only know half of the trial, the Pharaoh realizes that by exposing the parchment to darkness, the second half is revealed. He realizes they are now in danger and takes off with Téa to find them.

Elsewhere, everyone has picked up a large piece of the stone and smash Prisman to pieces. However, a Skull Guardian appears as a sign of the second phase of the trial beginning. Joey hoped he was there to congratulate them, but it began attacking instead. The Pharaoh once again merges with Dark Magician to become the Dark Warrior and easily defeats the monster. However, he spares it as a glow where the stone was appears. The Pharaoh then explains that the second part of the trial was to not only defeat the Skull Guardian, but to show mercy. This rewards them with the means to leave the island. At the same time the masked man from before appears to all of them and congratulates the Pharaoh on completed Level 2 of the trials. The Pharaoh wonders what will happen if he completes the trials, and the stranger explains that he will receive the power to rule the world as he will have proven himself a true king. However, even though the Pharaoh might not want it, there are others seeking it, and it must be claimed before someone evil does. Also, if they fail, they will be trapped here until the next challenger arrives.

Using the wings found in the trial's reward chest, everyone flies off into another glowing doorway.

Back outside the game, Dr. Brisbane is laughing evilly that soon the power to rule the world will belong to him.

In the game, everyone has reached a volcanic area, where they must remove the Blade of Chaos before it's too late. Tristan gains a new monster, Thunder Dragon. Joey ends up separated from them, but returns, fused with Red-Eyes B. Dragon and full of evil. As Joey fights the Pharaoh in Dark Warrior mode, Joey begins to wonder why he is attacking his friend and realizes this happens because of his fusing with Red Eyes. Breaking free of the evil controlling him, Joey separates form Red Eyes, sees the Blade of Chaos is stuck in its thigh. Removing it, Joey clears the third trial and claims Red Eyes as his monster. Everyone leaves through another glowing doorway.

They then end up in a jungle (where they learn that despite its apparent endless scenery, it is only as big as the game board itself). Their next test is to find a golden apple that "gives you a raise" and offer it up. Tristan finds a giant melon and draws a picture of himself on it. The fruit then falls down a hole, and everyone follows it to find themselves in a chamber with three long pedestals with an apple each on them. Tristan then notices his melon in the corner, which turns out to actually be a Petit Moth. Everyone attempts to leave, but are then caught in a labyrinth. Joey eats some of the fruit he took from the forest and instantly becomes a genius. Right as he is about to figure out how to get out of the labyrinth, a Battle Ox chases him away from his equations. At the same time, Téa gets a Seiyaryu after defeating a Jirai Gumo. Hopelessly lost in the meantime, Tristan releases a Shovel Crusher and it careens around the labyrinth like a lunatic, collecting his allies and depositing them back at the apple room. However, there is a slight difference. An apple is missing and a Cocoon of Evolution is where Petit Moth was. It hatches into Great Moth and Yugi becomes the Dark Warrior to fight it. However, a Dark Magic Attack simply further evolves it into Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth. The Pharaoh then realizes that he must eat one of the apples to evolve Dark Magician in order to stand a chance against the moth. Doing so evolves his magician into Magician of Black Chaos and earns them victory. He then takes the remaining apple to an altar, which opens a doorway.

They then find themselves back at the camp where they were attacked by the Flower Wolves. The masked man appears and properly introduces himself as Alexander the Great. He then goes on to explain he once possessed the Millennium Ring, which he considered his lucky charm as it helped him conquer most of the world. However, prolonged possession of it caused a split personality to emerge (due to Zorc being sealed in the ring) and most of his retainers lost faith in him. He was then put to a test to see if he was still worthy to wear the ring by Shadi and was the first to participate in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters Collectible Figure Game. However, though he was victorious in the trials, the door leading to the great power to rule the world did not open. This enraged his darker half into attacking his four vassals. It was then the pyramid punished him by splitting his soul in two. His darker half was sealed into the pyramid and he was sent to the game to act as a guide for future adventures. Alexander then gifts the monster-less Solomon with a new monster and tells him he will need it for the fifth trial.

They head to a village, where Alexander explains that the fifth trial involves destroying five different elemental dragons known as the Fiendish Five that terrorize the village. They find a girl about to sacrifice herself to give their dragon god the strength to keep the five away. However, they intervene and promise to slay the dragons. Solomon, using his new Curse of Dragon against Aqua Dragon, the Pharaoh faces Tyrant Dragon, Téa versus Serpent Night Dragon, Tristan battles Luster Dragon #2 and Joey fights Meteor Dragon. However, despite the aid of Yugi's new Black Luster Soldier, everyone fails to defeat the dragons and are forced to return to the village. The Pharaoh then learns of a sword that can slay the five only if a large power descends upon the village. Tricking the five into coming towards the village, the Pharaoh frees the sword and slays them. However, the defeated dragons transform into the Five-Headed Dragon. The girl from earlier prays for her god's help and her tears free the Blue Eyes White Dragon from its picture, and it fuses with the Pharaoh and slays the Fiendish Five once and for all.

With the trials now completed, everyone is about to be sent home, and Alexander is given permission to use Solomon's body as a means of taking himself out of the game.

They arrive outside to find Dr. Brisbane acting normal and concerned for their safety. He then wonders if they found anything interesting in the game, and Solomon presents the trial pendant, now fully lit. Right as the evil side of Alexander tries to grab the pendant, the good side jumps into Dr. Brisbane and seemingly subdues his evil side. However, it's a trick as the evil side was stronger and fused together with his weaker good half. Evil Alexander takes the pendant and runs up to the doors and successfully opens them after waiting for thousands of years. Everyone chases him into the room and they find themselves in an alternate dimension.

Shadi appears and wonders who should receive the power promised to the victor of his challenge. Though the Pharaoh protests that Evil Alexander cheated, Shadi points out that Alexander has a fair claim to the power as he tried himself and won thousands of years ago. To end the stalemate, Shadi announces one final Capsule Monsters battle. Evil Alexander summons the souls of his vassals to assist him and Good Alexander's Duel Armor. Evil Alexander fuses with Reshef the Dark Being and sacrifices his retainers' monsters to summon his Seven-Armed Fiend, the apparition from Yugi's dreams. Everyone but Yugi's monsters are destroyed except for their dragons and Seven-Armed Fiend is destroyed. However, Evil Alexander decides to use the remaining monsters he used for his sacrifice to power Reshef and use his pawns' pain connection to them as a shield. However, the Pharaoh, disgusted with Evil Alexander for how he treats his loyal subjects, fuses with his friends' dragons to form the Armor of Unity and destroys Reshef. The evil side of Alexander is purged and the good Alexander tells the Pharaoh that his reign over Egypt is what inspired him to be pharaoh himself. Alexander then passes on with his vassals. Shadi wishes to gift the Pharaoh with the power promised, but he instantly turns it down. Shadi then muses to him that the one who can rule the world need not possess the power. The pyramid then begins to collapse, and everyone manages to escape safely.

They return to their pilots to discover the rescue plane has come. They talk the pilots into taking Solomon and Dr. Brisbane back to Domino City with them.

Dawn of the Duel arc
This series is taken place after the KC Grand Championship, Dartz and the Grand Leviathan, and the adventure of Capsule Monsters. It starts out with Yugi's grandfather telling him the story of how he obtained the Millennium Puzzle, traversing through the tomb of the great Nameless Pharaoh. Their first trap consists of statues that attack the tomb robber if you do not pay respect to the Pharaoh. His grandfather figures out the secret because of how the statues have their feet, their left foot forward. One of the guides dies in the process. The second trap consists of tablets that contain creatures from the Shadow Realm. The other guide deceives Mr. Muto by hitting him in the shoulder with a sharp stone from a slingshot, causing a slight gash to appear. (In the Japanese version, said guide shoots him with a gun.) Mr. Muto falls off the side, grabbing the cliff, holding on tightly. As the other guide eventually perishes after being attacked by a shadow creature turned flesh, Mr. Muto looks above him on the ledge, to see someone standing there, but for some reason, he is dressed in Egyptian clothing, and none the less, dressed in gold. The man kneels and says, "I've been waiting for you". He then helps Mr. Muto up onto the ledge as he passes out. When he comes to, he retrieves the puzzle at the end of the corridor, and in his mind, he could swear to himself that he saw the ghost of the Nameless Pharaoh. The flashback ends, and Yugi falls asleep for the night, excited, and sad about the day to come.

His sleep is interrupted as Rex and Weevil steal the bag that contains both the Egyptian God Cards, and the Millennium Items Yugi collected. Rex and Weevil are intercepted inside an alley by a man in a black cloak, who gets the bag back. As Yugi also ventures down the alley, he recognizes the black-coated man as Bakura, the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. Yami takes control and talks with Bakura before they each go their separate ways for the night.

The next day, when they arrive in Egypt after a long journey, they meet up with Marik, Odion, and Ishizu, who asks to speak to the Pharaoh. They take a journey to the place where the Tablet of the Pharaoh was sealed, and once there, the Pharaoh holds the Egyptian God Cards up for it to see. They all get blinded by a light, which sucks the Pharaoh out of Yugi's body and the Puzzle, and travels back to the world of his past life as Pharaoh. There, he undergoes the events that happened recently before he died. He learns that his father commanded six priests, known as Seto, Guardian of the Millennium Rod, Isis, Guardian of the Millennium Necklace, Karim, Guardian of the Millennium Scales, Shada, Guardian of the Millennium Key, Mahado- or Mahad in the English Dub-, Guardian of the Millennium Ring (who later sacrifices himself), and Ahknadin, Guardian of the Millennium Eye (who later betrays them all). The day Yami becomes king, the Thief King Bakura attacks the palace, filling the Pharaoh's head with lies that his father, Aknamkanon, was the one who created the Millennium Items, and it is also found that Bakura dragged Aknamkanon into the Throne Room.

However, Yami can't bear to listen to this madman anymore, and summons Obelisk the Tormentor to combat Bakura's Diabound, his God Monster. The priests are in shock, as well as Bakura, while Yami unleashes his power, making Bakura flee to recover from battle.

The next day, Mahado battles the Thief King inside a tomb. While Yami and his childhood friend Mana, whose spirit is later the Dark Magician Girl, and Mana was whom the card was based on, fight Bakura's skeleton army outside, Mahado joins together with his monster inside to defeat Bakura. Unfortunately, he escapes with the Millennium Ring, and Mahado is sealed inside a stone tablet, and his name is changed from Illusion Magician to Dark Magician. It was said by Shadi earlier in the Yu-Gi-Oh series, that the only one who could summon the Dark Magician and control him was the Pharaoh himself. Soon after that, they face tragedy yet again as Bakura attacks Ahknadin inside the monster temple, trying to steal his Millennium Item. He just ends up putting a spell on the old priest, and escapes. The Pharaoh gives chase into the village, summoning Slifer as he does so.

At the same time, Yugi, Tea, Joey, and Tristan, who had ventured into the puzzle to find Yami with the help of Shadi, see the Pharaoh chasing the Tomb Robber, and give chase on foot. Later, after a long battle, Slifer is wiped out, leaving the Pharaoh with nothing more than a few breaths. Yugi steps in, with the other three of his friends, and give Yami more strength, allowing him to summon the Winged Dragon of Ra. After he defeats Bakura, Zorc Necrophades makes his first appearance, rewinding time, so that Yugi and his friends never get the chance to help Yami. Slifer is knocked out once again, and this time, the Pharaoh decided to combat Bakura himself. Diabound tears apart the cliff supporting Yami, and after Bakura takes the puzzle, he stomps on the cliff hard enough to knock off the slab that held Yami up. As he falls, Tristan goes to fight the Thief, but gets a spell placed on him as well, though it is not known until later. They search and search for the young Pharaoh, meeting Mana as they look. They eventually reunite, but Yami leaves soon after with Mana to go to Kul Elna, where Bakura lives.

While Yami and Mana witness the rising of the evil God Zorc, and Ahknadin betrays them all, after revealing that Seto is his son, Yugi and the others traverse through Yami's tomb to find his name. They go through the same traps that Mr. Muto did, and eventually reach where he found the Millennium Puzzle. Tristan reveals himself and how he was put under Bakura's spell, and the scale imprinted on the floor starts to tip, forcing Yugi to chose between his friends, or the name of his partner. In the end, they all get out, and later battle with Bakura in one final match. Yugi eventually beats him using a combination of Gandora, the Dragon of Destruction, and Silent Swordsman, reaching the tomb end, and finding Yami's name. Seto loses Kisara to his father, and battles Yami, who wins, and while Seto pays his respects to Kisara, Kaiba makes himself known to Yami that he has been here for quite a while now. As Kaiba watches Yami and Seto race off, he wonders why he has been sent here, and later figures out all that had happened to him in visions, and why.

Yami and the Priests are taken out one by one as they battle the evil lord Zorc Necrophades, a hulking beast with a head for a stomach. Through much traversing, and after getting back the Millennium Items, Shimon also helps by summoning Exodia, but is also taken out later. Yami summons the Egyptian Gods, thinking it will be enough. The sun starts to reveal itself once more, but Zorc arises again, blacking out the sun of Egypt. He crushes the Egyptian Gods, causing Yami to pass out from the pain it causes him, and from fatigue. Seto tries to use the Blue-Eyes White Dragon he obtained from a girl his father killed named Kisara, but fails when it gets destroyed as well. Kaiba summons the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and Yami uses the Millennium Scales to join with the beast to become the Dragon Master Knight. Even that fails as Zorc still stands strong. Shadi makes an appearance as Hasan, the Sun Protector of the Royal Tombs, when he saves the Pharaoh from Zorc's attack. After almost passing out once more, Yugi and the other arrive to help their friend, summoning Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Fire Sorcerer, Super Roboyaru, and Dark Magician, with Mahado in control, after he had been wiped out earlier. Mana assists with the Dark Magician Girl the best she could, but they all eventually perish in battle from attacks. The only way to win was to tell the Pharaoh his name, but there was one problem.

Yugi confesses that his name was carved in hieroglyphics, that they couldn't read. They all work together as they think about the symbols to appear on the cartouche that Téa had given the Pharaoh earlier. Kaiba assists in defending them, and finally, Yami's name appears, allowing him to figure out who he is. He says his name to the skies, "Atem!", and re-summons the Egyptian God Monsters from their stone state. He merges them into the Creator of Light, Horakthi, and banishes Zorc for good. Later, after the sun returns, as Atem vanishes, he relinquishes his position as Pharaoh to his cousin, Seto, since Ahknadin, his father, and Atem's father, Aknamkanon, the older of the two, were brothers. They journey back into the real world, having the good Bakura back and the evil Bakura destroyed with Zorc, and embark on their final journey that will decide Atem's fate—whether he should stay in the present for another 5,000 years, or move onto the afterlife.

Ceremonial Battle arc
With the seven Millennium Items, three Egyptian God Cards, Zorc Necrophades defeated, his past learned, that including his true name, the pharaoh can depart the mortal world, and join his faithful priests in the afterlife. In order to open the doorway to the afterlife, Yami must be defeated in a Duel, known as the Ceremonial Battle. Kaiba was skeptical of this, since he thought that Yugi would just be dueling himself. He even grabbed Yugi by the throat and started yelling at him in a dramatic act of anger. This was probably the closest thing Yu-Gi-Oh had to an actual fight that wasn't blocked or edited by 4Kids.

Yami and his friends follow the Egyptian belief that a pharaoh must depart via a boat. Joey and Kaiba both volunteer to face Yami in the battle, but Yugi insists that he shall battle Yami. Yami leaves Yugi to think in private, as he constructs a Deck for the battle. Yugi does the same for Yami.

They arrive at the Eye of Wdjat. Yami Yugi and Yugi split into two separate physical bodies and begin to duel, with neither player holding back. Yami quickly Summons the Egyptian Gods. Using "Valkyrion the Magna Warrior" in combination with "Magnet Force" and predicting Yami's moves, Yugi is able to redirect Slifer's blasts back at the Gods, lowering their ATK and eventually destroying them.

As the Duel continued, Yami's will was so strong and powerful he had actually influenced fate itself to draw exactly the card he needed at the right time. After a few turns, Yami Summons "Dark Magician", who Mahad takes on the form of to defend the Pharaoh. Despite Yami's best efforts, Yugi destroys his most faithful cards that Yami Summons.

Yami tries to end the Duel, by reviving "Slifer the Sky Dragon" with "Monster Reborn", but Yugi predicted the move earlier and revealed the card he hid within "Gold Sarcophagus" was also "Monster Reborn", negating its effect. Yami ends his turn, ready to admit defeat. Yugi hesitates to make his last attack, as he does not want Yami to leave. Yugi weeps and orders "Silent Magician" to attack Yami, winning the Duel.

Yugi falls to his knees, crying, thinking that he is weak and cannot follow in Yami's footsteps. Yami tells Yugi that he is not a coward and reminds Yugi that he has taught him about the principles needed to win. Now that he is leaving, he says that there would be no one else for Yugi to follow and that there would only be one Yugi.

The Eye of Wdjat glows on the wall. Yami tells it his true name, Atem, in order to open the gate to the afterlife. His friends try to talk him out of leaving at first, but come to accept that he must go. Yami then says his farewells and enters the afterlife to join his Ancient Egyptian friends.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (Anime)
In the English version, Mr. Stein mentions during his history class that Atem ruled over the Ancient Egypt in the time of building of the Pyramids, 5,000 years ago, and that he saved mankind at that time

In the series finale of  Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime, Yugi transports Jaden Yuki to the past to Duel his high self shortly after winning a second version of Battle City. After Jaden gains an upper hand and is about to strike the finishing blow, as well as seeing Jaden to be an incredibly powerful Duelist, Yami takes over Yugi's body and Summons "Slifer the Sky Dragon". Yami Yugi tells Jaden that only a god is suitable for being the opponent of a great Duelist like him.

When Jaden gets excited about fighting a God, Yami tells him that the true duel begins. At the end, Yami Yugi, Yugi Muto, and Jaden are seen smiling.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Pyramid of Light
The events of Battle City have just concluded, and Yugi now owns all three Egyptian God Cards. Seto Kaiba longs to finally defeat him, and he has a plan. He suspects that since Maximillion Pegasus created the Egyptian God Cards, he would have also created a way to beat them, just in case.

Yugi, Joey, Téa, and Tristan at school. They were just leaving when the noticed a big crowd of people. When they went to see what it was all about and it turned out to be a group of people wanting to duel Yugi. Joey tells Téa to get Yugi out of there, they run out of the crowd and notice people are everywhere looking for Yugi. Téa noticed the museum and they go in there. She tells Yugi that no one would look there for them.

Yugi Muto and Tea Gardner, seeking refuge from a mob of duelists wanting to face Yugi for the Egyptian Gods, stumble into Domino Museum, where they discover a new attraction on display called the Pyramid of Light, which looks a little like the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi's grandpa, Solomon Muto (who also happens to be visiting the museum), reads an inscription on the side of a sarcophagus (The eye that sees what's yet to come, its vision shall be fulfilled, unless blinded by events predetermined, thus light & shadows both be killed), triggering a strange vision in Yugi's mind concerning his Millennium Puzzle, the Pyramid of Light, Anubis, and Kaiba.

After he wakes up, he finds the pyramid stolen, the sarcophagus now empty, and Mokuba standing outside. Mokuba says that Kaiba wants Yugi to bring his duel disk to the KaibaCorp Duel Dome immediately.

Yugi does so, transforming into Yami Yugi on the way, and finds Kaiba ready to duel. Seto asks Mokuba to seal all the exits, forcing Yugi to duel him, but not before Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor find their way in to watch.

The duel goes on for what seems like an eternity, and Yugi is starting to suspect that there are dark forces at work - especially when Kaiba activates a Trap Card called the "Pyramid of Light", which not only bears a striking resemblance to its namesake in the museum, but also prevents Yugi from using any of the Egyptian Gods! Before long, Kaiba has his "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" on the field, but to Yugi's surprise, he sacrifices it to summon a monster known as the "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon", which is even stronger!

The Pyramid of Light also pulls the souls of Yugi, Joey, and Tristan into Yugi's Millenium Puzzle, where they are chased by a group of mummies controlled by an unknown force...

Kaiba could win the duel there and then, but he wants to humiliate Yugi by wiping him out with his own Egyptian Gods! His "Pyramid of Light" removed the gods from play, and he wants to play "Return from the Different Dimension" to get them under his control. Of course, to do that, he needs to destroy his Pyramid of Light first, otherwise it would just destroy the gods again! Kaiba commands his "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon" to use its "Shining Nova" effect, which allows it to sacrifice itself to destroy anything on the field - and he aims it at the Pyramid of Light. Suddenly, a ghostly voice calls out, "This I cannot allow!", and the Pyramid stays exactly where it is. Then, a man rises up from behind Kaiba, throws him aside, and takes over the duel himself.

It's Anubis, the Egyptian Lord of the Dead, whom the Pharaoh destroyed 5000 years ago. But now he's back with the Pyramid of Light around his neck and two of his most powerful monsters - "Andro Sphinx" and "Spinx Teleia! On top of this, Téa, Joey, Tristan and Yugi are all trapped inside the Millennium Puzzle, leaving the Pharaoh to duel all alone. Putting all his faith into the cards, Yugi draws the "Double Spell" card, which allows him to discard his other spell card to activate "Monster Reborn" from Seto's Graveyard. He uses it to revive "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon", who then destroys the "Pyramid of Light" (after it was weakened by Yugi from inside the Millennium Puzzle), along with "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia". But Anubis's not done yet. With the Pyramid gone, he summons his last trick up his sleeve - "Theinen the Great Sphinx"! Yugi, however, activates "Reverse of Reverse" to activate Kaiba's "Return from the Different Dimension". The God Monsters return, destroy the Great Sphinx and Anubis is seemingly defeated. But a giant jackal - the ancient Egyptian representation of Anubis, the Lord of the Dead - rises from the remains of the Pyramid!

Kaiba and Yugi join forces, putting all their strength into the "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon" card, and using Shining Nova to destroy Anubis once and for all. On top of it all, Pegasus, who had earlier arrived via helicopter to help them, gets them out of the explosion in time. After this, Yugi thanks kaiba for all he's help. But brushes the thanks a side,and departs promising to defeat Yugi. Mokuba then leaves as well asking his brother to slow down. Yugi thanks his friends for helping him,and lastly talks to Yami Yugi.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time
Yusei Fudo had a nightmare about the Zero Reverse incident that his father created. With Yusei upset, Jack Atlas and Crow Hogan decided to have a Turbo Duel to cheer Yusei up. After driving down the highway, Paradox, who traveled back in Yusei's time, challenges Yusei to a Turbo Duel. After a few turns, Yusei tunes "Junk Synchron" with "Junk Warrior" and Synchro Summons "Stardust Dragon", but Paradox reveals a blank card and launches a beam at "Stardust Dragon", absorbing it and creating a blackened corrupt card of it into the blank card. Yusei confronts Paradox, who shows him the corrupt card, before vanishing through time again. Yusei, Jack and Crow halt their Duel Runners and look in bewilderment at the original "Stardust Dragon" card, whose illustration has just been blanked.

Yusei, Jack and Crow then started questioning about Paradox's identity at their garage, when Akiza Izinski, Leo and Luna arrived and showed the archives they found about the past. They found an old article about "Maximillion Pegasus" and "Yugi Muto", with Yusei recognizing Yugi as a legendary duelist. They also discovered a record of "Stardust Dragon" assaulting various duelists in Europe. Knowing that "Stardust Dragon" could not have existed in that era, Yusei zooms in on the article's picture to discover Paradox standing in the background of the dragons. Outside, New Domino City begins to crumble and collapse. Witnessing the destruction, Jack Atlas realized that "Stardust Dragon's" existence in the past is now changing the future, which is their era.

With the support of the other Signers, their marks begin to glow as the complete Crimson Dragon appears on Yusei's back followed by Yusei's Duel Runner glowing as well. Yusei feels himself being called by the Crimson Dragon and beckons Yusei to board his runner. With its help, a time slip is opened and Yusei begins his chase after Paradox.

In Venice, Paradox finds Jaden Yuki, who still has the powers of Yubel and The Supreme King. Paradox attacks him with "Cyber End Dragon" and "Rainbow Dragon". Jaden manages to resist by Summoning "Elemental HERO Neos" to protect him. In response, Paradox Summons "Stardust Dragon", a monster from the future, and proceeds to overwhelm Jaden (This scene is how the movie opens before changing to Yusei's nightmare of Zero Reverse). Stardust Dragon's first attack almost destroys Neos and sends the two skidding backwards into a wall.

As Paradox commands Stardust Dragon to attack Jaden again, Yusei appears with the Crimson Dragon, who takes the blows for Jaden. Paradox disappears once again.

Soon, Yusei and Jaden began to chat on a roof. Seeing Yusei's Duel Runner, Jaden gets excited seeing such a technology, asking Yusei if that was the Duel Disk of the future. He then explained that he came here because he heard that there were cards missing from duelists. Yusei explains to Jaden that Paradox is trying to change the past and that his target was Maximillion Pegasus. Jaden then used his laptop to find out an article about the event that Paradox performed that would create a major historical event. (In the English version, Jaden did not believe Yusei, which is why he opened his laptop and discovered that truth.) Jaden then checks his card, as his "Elemental HERO Neos" card turns into a blank card. As the country began to collapse, Yusei tells Jaden that they must hurry to save the world.

Yusei and Jaden then ride Yusei's Duel Runner, with the Crimson Dragon taking both of them even further back in time.

Meanwhile, in Yugi's timeline, sometime after Battle City but before the Waking the Dragons arc, Maximillion Pegasus is currently holding a tournament. The Sakiyomi Jan Bang! made a cameo as the MC of the event. Yugi and his grandfather, Solomon Muto, noticed "Stardust Dragon", "Cyber End Dragon" and "Rainbow Dragon" in the sky. Paradox then attacks the crowd with "Cyber End Dragon" and "Stardust Dragon", killing almost everyone, including Pegasus and Yugi's grandfather.

Amongst the ruins, Yugi is the only survivor against Paradox's attack. He stands up and searches for other survivors. He finds a bandanna belonging to his grandfather and cries over his death. He then sees Paradox laughing on top of a building, happy that he finally completed his mission. At that moment a crack in the space appears and the Crimson Dragon suddenly "swallows" Yugi. Then, Yugi is thrown back in time at the same place half an hour earlier. Yusei and Jaden find Yugi and explain to him what they know about Paradox to him. Yugi agrees to fight with them against Paradox to free the trapped monsters and save the world.

At the event, Jaden Summons Yubel and starts to scare the audience, so they would flee. By doing so, Yugi hopes the future is safe as Jaden regains his "Elemental HERO Neos" card. However, Paradox arrives regardless to the shock of the heroes. After Paradox took his mask off and introduced himself, Yugi asks Paradox what kind of person he is. Paradox replies that he is from a future which was destroyed by Duel Monsters. He intends to destroy the game of Duel Monsters to prevent that future from happening. Yusei tries to tell Paradox that by changing time and trying to destroy Duel Monsters, he will also erase people from the timeline as well, to which Paradox replies that it is what he is looking forward to the most. Yusei, Yugi and Jaden challenge Paradox to a 3 on 1 Duel, with a time limit of 20 minutes, before Pegasus arrives at the event and the other dimensions crumble to pieces. Jaden's eves change color as Yubel appears behind him and Yusei's Mark of the Dragon glows as the Crimson Dragon roars behind him as the two Duel Kings say their catchphrases and then Yami says to Yugi that the Duel against Paradox would be the toughest and Yugi responds by saying that they should rise to the challenge. Yugi transforms into Yami and says his catchphrase as Paradox accepts this challenge and the Duel begins.

Paradox's Duel Runner transforms into a flying type and he floats up high and the Duel begins.

Paradox declares the first move. He activates "Malefic World" that lets him put a random "Malefic" monster from his Deck to his hand instead of drawing a card during his Draw Phase. The field begins transforming into a purple atmosphere full of stars. Then, he sends "Cyber End Dragon" from his Extra Deck to the Graveyard to Special Summon "Malefic Cyber End Dragon" from his hand. He sets a card to end his turn (because in a 3-on-1 Duel, you cannot attack on the first turn). By this time, Yugi, Jaden and Yusei come to the realization why Paradox has been stealing monsters: He's using them to Summon the "Malefic" monsters, as Yugi understands that by destroying a monster's good version, Paradox can Summon their dark version.

Yusei tells everybody that despite them never fighting together before, they must work together to defeat Paradox, as Yugi & Jaden agree. Yugi then asks Yusei to take the first turn for his team.

Yusei activates "Reincarnation of Hope", which sends "Sonic Chick" and "Quillbolt Hedgehog" from his hand to the Graveyard; but on their team's second Standby Phase, they are allowed to add a monster from their Deck to their hand. Yusei then Summons "Junk Synchron" and due to its effect, he also Summons "Sonic Chick" back on his field. He then activates the effect of "Quillbolt Hedgehog" to Summon it back to his field. He then uses the 3 monsters to Synchro Summon "Junk Gardna" in Defense Position. Yugi becomes surprised by the concept of Synchro Summoning, as Jaden is just as confused by Yusei's Synchro card, but praises Yusei's play and shows his interest in the future cards. Yusei Sets 2 cards to end his turn.

Paradox adds "Malefic Rainbow Dragon" to his hand due to the effect of "Malefic World". He then sends "Rainbow Dragon" from his Deck to the Graveyard to Special Summon "Malefic Rainbow Dragon" from his hand. Jaden then becomes angry since Paradox is using Jesse's card. Paradox attacks "Junk Gardna" with "Malefic Rainbow Dragon", but Yusei activates the effect of "Junk Gardna" that switches "Malefic Rainbow Dragon" to Defense Position, thus stopping the attack. Paradox then attacks "Junk Gardna" with "Malefic Cyber End Dragon", this time destroying it and inflicting Piercing Damage to Yusei's Life Points. Yusei felt the real damage that Paradox did to him, but not before activating "Junk Gardna's" 2nd ability, which switches Paradox's other monster in Defense mode and "Miracle's Wake", reviving his "Junk Gardna". Yusei apologizes for losing some Life Points, but Yami and Jaden insisted that Yusei did a good job, stopping the assault of both monsters. Paradox then Sets a card and ends his turn.

As Jaden's turn begins (his theme song plays in the Japanese version), he asks Yusei if he may borrow "Junk Gardna". Yusei agrees, as Jaden activates "Polymerization", fusing his "Elemental HERO Neos" with Yusei's "Junk Gardna" to Fusion Summon "Elemental HERO Neos Knight". The ATK of "Elemental HERO Neos Knight" increases by half the ATK of "Junk Gardna", making it 3200. Because of the other effect of "Elemental HERO Neos Knight", it can attack twice during the same Battle Phase. Thus, Jaden attacks Paradox's "Malefic Rainbow Dragon" and "Malefic Cyber End Dragon" with "Elemental HERO Neos Knight". Paradox activates "Malefic Tune", allowing him to draw 2 cards. Jaden Sets four cards to end his turn.

Paradox adds "Malefic Stardust Dragon" to his hand due to the effect of "Malefic World". He then sends "Stardust Dragon" from his Extra Deck to the Graveyard to Summon "Malefic Stardust Dragon". Yusei then became shocked to see that his ace monster became corrupted and in the English dub he yells at Paradox, calling him a snake and is horrified at what has been done to his card. Paradox then Normal Summons "Malefic Parallel Gear" and tunes it with "Malefic Stardust Dragon" to Synchro Summon "Malefic Paradox Dragon". Yusei is stunned by this, to which Paradox says that he is not the only one who could Synchro Summon. He activates its effect, Special Summoning "Stardust Dragon" and decreasing the ATK of Jaden's "Elemental Hero Neos Knight" by 2500. Paradox attacks "Elemental HERO Neos Knight" with "Malefic Paradox Dragon", but Jaden activates "Hero Barrier", negating the attack. Yugi and Yusei praise Jaden for that move, but Paradox activates "Malefic Claw Stream", destroying "Elemental HERO Neos Knight", but Jaden activates "Elemental Mirage", resurrecting "Elemental HERO Neos Knight" with its original ATK (2500). He explains to Yugi and Yusei that he did this to ensure that there was at least a monster on the field by Yugi's turn. Because of the effect of "Malefic Paradox Dragon", the ATK of "Elemental HERO Neos Knight" is reduced to 0. Paradox Sets 2 cards to end his turn.

As Yugi's turn began (his theme song plays in the Japanese version), he adds "Dark Magician" to his hand due to Yusei's "Reincarnation of Hope". Paradox knew that he would try to go for the "Dark Magician". Yugi activates "Ancient Rules", which allows him to Special Summon it. The Dark Magician, however, is still affected by the effect of Malefic Paradox Dragon, reducing its ATK to zero. Jaden gets excited seeing Yugi's ace card, while Yusei remembers based on the archives, the Dark Magician is Yugi's ace monster. At this point, Yusei asks Yami to destroy Stardust Dragon, since Malefic Paradox Dragon's effect will prevent them from launching an attack. Yugi then activates "Bond Between Teacher and Student", which Summons "Dark Magician Girl" to his field. Yami then activates "Magic Gate of Miracles", which lets him take control of one of Paradox's monsters and which Paradox assumes it is his "Malefic Paradox Dragon". In response, Paradox chains "Malefic Force", which protects his "Malefic Paradox Dragon" from Yami's card effects. Yami then smiles claiming his true target is "Stardust Dragon". Now Yusei gets his "Stardust Dragon" back on his field. Jaden then praises Yami for this, noting that Yami never wanted Malefic Paradox Dragon in the first place. By doing so, Malefic Paradox Dragon's effect is negated, thus returning the Dark Magician & Elemental Hero Neos Knight's ATK to their original amount. Yami then activates "Dark Magic Twin Burst", combining his two monsters' ATK together, raising the ATK of "Dark Magician" to 4500. He attacks and destroys "Malefic Paradox Dragon", resulting in Paradox losing 500 Life Points. Paradox then grins, claiming that these desperate moves change nothing. Yugi disagrees, mentioning to Paradox that he had two monsters and now he has none. Paradox mentioned that they only created the path for the Summoning of a powerful monster and activates "Malefic Paradigm Shift", which Summons "Malefic Truth Dragon" to his field when his "Malefic Paradox Dragon" is destroyed. This costs Paradox half of his Life Points to activate (Paradox: 1750 Life Points). Paradox then fuses with his new monster and everyone is amazed to see such a gigantic monster. Yugi then Sets 2 cards face down and ends his turn.

By now, time has run out as Pegasus is about to arrive, but cannot land his helicopter due to Malefic World still being in play. Back in New Domino City, everybody is watching their dimension collapse but Jack knows that Yusei still has a chance.

Paradox then starts his turn. He plays "Malefic Selector" to remove "Malefic Parallel Gear" and "Malefic Cyber End Dragon" from play to add "Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and "Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon" to his hand. Paradox then sends both "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" from his Deck to the Graveyard to Summon "Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon" and "Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon".

Yugi is shocked that the "Red Eyes Black Dragon" & "Blue Eyes White Dragon" have become Malefic monsters as well. Paradox then attacks "Dark Magician Girl" with "Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon". At that point, he also mentions Malefic Truth Dragon's ability: If a Malefic monster destroys one monster, the other monsters are destroyed also. Jaden then activates Yugi's "De-Fusion", sending Elemental HERO Neos Knight back to the Extra Deck and Summoning his "Elemental HERO Neos" and Yusei's "Junk Gardna". Yusei then uses the effect of "Junk Gardna" to switch "Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon" to Defense Position, thus canceling its attack. Yugi praises both Jaden and Yusei for this impressive display of teamwork but then Paradox then attacks "Dark Magician" with "Blue Eyes White Dragon" and destroys it, costing Yugi, Yusei and Jaden 500 Life Points. He then activates the effect of "Malefic Truth Dragon" which would destroy all of Yami, Jaden and Yusei's monsters, but Yusei activates the effect of "Stardust Dragon" to negate the destruction effect of "Malefic Truth Dragon" and destroy it. However, Paradox activates the effect of "Malefic Truth Dragon" which removes from play his "Malefic Rainbow Dragon" and negates the effect of "Stardust Dragon". He then attacks "Elemental HERO Neos" with "Malefic Truth Dragon" and thus activating its effect again, destroying "Dark Magician Girl" and "Junk Gardna". Also, for every monster destroyed, Malefic Truth Dragon inflicts 800 damage. Yami, Jaden and Yusei's Life Points are all reduced to 500 as all 3 of them are pushed back by the explosion. Paradox then activates "Malefic Divide", Special Summoning "Malefic Stardust Dragon" from the Graveyard. He then orders it to unleash its fury so that Duel Monsters will perish forever. Yusei falls to his knees, saying that everything is lost and the future is doomed. Jaden tells Yusei not to surrender reminding him that they have a "secret weapon" on their side. Yugi also tells Yusei that other than Paradox, they believe in Duel Monsters. To show him what he means, Jaden activates "The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh". The effect of "Flute of Summoning Kuriboh" allows Yami to add "Kuriboh" to his hand. Yami then discards "Kuriboh" to reduce the Battle Damage to 0. Paradox ends his turn, but not before "Malefic Stardust Dragon" gets destroyed by the effect of "Malefic Divide" and the original "Stardust Dragon" gets Summoned back to Yusei's field due to its ability. Yami then tells Yusei that no matter which era he is in, his friends will always be supporting him.

Yusei gets up, as Yami & Jaden tell Yusei to end the Duel, as they promise to aid. Yusei activates "Stardust Mirage", Special Summoning all monsters that Paradox destroyed during this turn. This brings back "Dark Magician Girl", "Dark Magician", "Elemental HERO Neos" and "Junk Gardna". Paradox is shocked, as all the monsters previously destroyed in his turn are Special Summoned back to their field. Yusei then draws a card to start his turn, as Jaden then activates "Neos Spiral Force", doubling the ATK of "Stardust Dragon" to 5000. Yami then activates "Dark Spiral Force". This then doubled Stardust Dragon's attack again to 10000. Yusei attacks "Malefic Truth Dragon" with "Stardust Dragon" and the combined efforts of "Dark Magician" and "Elemental HERO Neos", winning the Duel and restoring peace. Paradox is destroyed by the attack and is never to be seen again. Pegasus is finally able to land and arrive at the event.

After the Duel, Yusei thanks Jaden and Yami and hopes to meet them again, as Yami looks down from the rooftop towards the event where Pegasus is among the crowd. Yami gives a friendship speech and Yusei and Jaden return to their respective timelines. Back at New Domino City, everybody comes running to Yusei as Yusei himself looks at the sky and hopes to protect his future so that one day, he can meet Jaden and Yugi/Yami again. In the English version, he also says that the true magic of Duel Monsters isn't in the cards, it's the bonds we forge because of it.

Yugi Muto
After putting the Millennium Puzzle together, a "walk-in" spirit entered his mind and bonded with him. Yugi was initially unaware of Yami Yugi's existence and control of Yugi's body would involuntarily shift when Yugi or his friends are wronged. After finding out about the spirit, he was afraid of him, but eventually grew to accept this revelation as well as Yami himself. The two develop a bond similar to that of brothers or a father and son, and Yugi begins to grow, becoming stronger as he remains in Yami's shadow. After winning the Ceremonial Battle, Yugi was upset to see him go, claiming that he was weak and wasn't ready. Yami Yami was proud of him, and tells him otherwise. Then as he steps through the door to the afterlife, Yami Yugi gives Yugi a thumbs up, now ready to go on his own.

Mokuba Kaiba
''Mokuba has a good friendship relationship with Yugi. At first Mokuba wanted to get revenage on Yugi for defeating his older brother in a duel. But then Yami Yugi try to explain to him what happen after the duel between them. But Mokuba won't listen, and told Yugi that Pegasus was trying to took over KaibaCorp. Yami Yugi told Mokuba that after the duel with Kaiba, he wiped out the evil in Seto. Now Seto trying to start over to redeem himself. But Yami Yugi fail to notice that Mokuba left the dueling post that he was in. Mokuba instead grab Yugi's star chips, and started to run off. Yami Yugi told Mokuba to stop,and that what he is doing is wrong. Yami Yugi told Mokuba that they can help him rescue Seto,and defeat Pegasus toghter. Mokuba then asks Yami Yugi what can he do, and Yami Yugi tells him that he can start by trusting in him. He then tells him that he has to return the star chips to the kid that he stole them from,and agree. But they were to late to reach the boat, and Mokuba beg Kemo to bring the boat back so he can return the star chips to it's owner. ''

''But Kemo slaped out of Mokuba's hand,and into the water. Kemo then grabed Mokuba. Yami Yugi then yells at Kemo to release Mokuba. But Kemo says that in order for Mokuba to be free, is to have a duel. Yami Yugi agrees to duel,but finds out that he is dueling the mimic of doom who looks like Kaiba. After he defeats the mimic of Doom,with Kaiba's help. Kemo takes Mokuba,and locks him in a deep dark dungeon.''

''When Yugi saw Kaiba about to duel Pegasus. Pegasus then brought out Mokuba's soul les body.which shocked everyone and Yugi. Yugi now knows that Mokuba is in the same situation as his grandfather. After Kaiba lost the duel to Pegasus,which would have free Mokuba. Yugi was so angry that Kaiba was trying to save someone that he truely cared about. Yugi turn into Yami Yugi, and yells that he will see Pegasus at the finals.''

''Yugi the vows to rescue Mokuba, his grandfather, and Seto. Before he duel Pegasus, Yugi asked if he wins the duel. That Pegasus will free Mokuba, Seto and his grandfather's souls as promise. Pegasus then read Yugi's mind,and found out the promise between Yugi and Mokuba. ''

''After Yami Yugi defeated Pegasus in the shadow round duel. Yugi realizes that Pegasus went to his bedroom to free the souls of Mokuba,Seto and Solomon Muto as promise. Yugi the watch Mokuba happily reunited with Seto, and as a reward for saving Mokuba from Pegasus. Kaiba gives Yugi and his friends a ride back home in his helicopter. ''

''Mokuba then repaided Yugi with a dueling area in Kaibaland,so he can duel Rebecca. When Seto was trap in his vitural game, by the Big Five. Mokuba then went to ask Yugi and his friends for help. Yugi agree to help Mokuba in the vitural world game with Joey, to save Kaiba. After everyone saves Kaiba,and wins the game. Everyone returns to the real world. Mokuba then tells Kemo that Seto is looking for him. After Kemo leaves,Mokuba thanks Yugi for rescueing his brother again.''

''During the Battle City Touranment, Mokuba sees Yami Yugi in person while trying not to throw the Espa Roba brothers out the touranment for cheating. Mokuba then helps Tea and Solomon successfully find Yugi after his duel with Arkana. Mokuba then witnesses Yami Yugi's duel with Slifter the sky dragon. After the Duel, he gives Slifter to Yami Yugi. Mokuba even trys to call off the Duel between Joey and Yugi. He saw that if either of them lost the duel,one of them would get hurt. Mokuba even knows that if Joey,or Yugi drowned in the ocaen. Then Tea would get hurt as well. This shows that Mokuba cares about Yugi's well being.''

''During the battle city finals, after seeing Seto lose to Yami Yugi. Mokuba believes that what Yami Yugi and Joey say about his older brother is true. Mokuba begs Seto to stop trying to destroy the past,and instead try to help Yugi defeat Marik. After the Battle City tornament is over,Mokuba tells Yugi that he is going to help build Kaiba Land in america. ''

''Mokuba then sees Yugi the Doma Saga, and is shock that Yugi's soul got capture by Dartz. But Mokuba was confuse, and thought that Yami Yugi was the real Yugi. Mokuba then support Yami Yugi and Seto in their duel against Dartz. Mokuba was angry that Seto lose,but was knock unconsicious by Dartz. Mokuba did not see the rest of Yami Yugi's duel with Dartz. When Yami Yugi defeated Dartz,and the three legendary duelist's souls were return to their rightful body. Mokuba woke up,and was happy to see Seto and Yugi alive. Mokuba then try to go help Yami Yugi,Joey and Seto fight the great Leviathen. But Tea told him to stay with her,so he can be save from harm. After the Great Leviathen is gone for good,Mokuba reunites with Yugi on the beach.''

''During the Grand Championships Saga,Mokuba gave Yugi,Joey and Rebecca their invites to the touranment. Mokuba then helps out at the touranment to see who the stange hacker was. Mokuba also witnesses Yugi becoming Champion of the Touranment.''

''Mokuba then sees Yugi battle Yami Yugi in the ceremonial Battle. He also witness Yugi being the true King of Games, along with Yami Yugi. Mokuba, Seto, Yugi,and the rest of the gang flew back to Domino City after the Ceremonail battle ended.''

Knownable Relatives

 * Aknamkanon (Father/dead)
 * Aknadin (Uncle/dead)
 * Priest Seto (Cousin/dead)
 * Mana (Childhood Best Friend/dead)
 * Yugi Muto (Closet Friend & Future Incarnation)
 * Joey Wheeler (Best Friend)
 * Mokuba Kaiba (Friend/Ally)
 * Tea Gardner (Friend & love Interest)
 * Yusei Fudo (Partnal-Counterpart/Ally)
 * Uzumaki Naruto (True Counterpart)

Triva
Yami Yugi shares many similarities with Uzumaki Naruto from Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden. Yami Yugi also shares some similarities with Yusei Fudo from '''Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's'''.
 * Yami Yugi along with Yugi Muto, Ryo Bakura, Yami Bakura, Mokuba Kaiba, Seto Kaiba and Gozaburo Kiaba. Are the only Yu-Gi-Oh! characters who's names remain the same in the Japanese version and English version.
 * Yami Yugi shares the same English voice actors as Kyoshiro Mibu and Demon Eyes Kyo from Samurai Deeper Kyo, Asato Tsuzuki from Descendants of Darkness, Knuckles the echidna from Sonic the Hedgehog, and Tetsu Trudge from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's.
 * Both are the main characters of their respective series. (For Naruto : Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden, and for Yami Yugi : Yu-Gi-Oh!/Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters)
 * Both have spiky hair
 * Both have another half inside of them (For Naruto : Dark Naruto and for Yami Yugi : Yugi Muto)
 * Both get amnesia in some point in their life. (For Naruto : during his battle against Menma and for Yami Yugi : before he gets sealed inside the Millenium Puzzle)
 * Both have two best friends (For Naruto : Sasuke and Gaara. For Yami Yugi : Yugi Muto and Joey Wheeler)
 * Both have a rival that dislike them (For Naruto : Sasuke and for Yami Yugi : Seto Kaiba)
 * Both have someone that truly cares about them (For Naruto : Iruka and for Yami Yugi : Yugi Muto)
 * Both are seen crying in the series.
 * Both have someone that is in love with them (For Naruto : Hinata and for Yami Yugi : Tea)
 * Both go through a ton a grief after they lose someone (For Naruto : Neji and for Yami Yugi : Yugi)
 * Both don't like to use violence to hurt someone unless they have to protect their friends.
 * Both try not to punish their enemies.
 * Both try to get their rivals to help them face someone that is evil.
 * Both call someone Oji-Chan throughout the series (For Naruto : Hiruzen and for Yami Yugi : Solomon Muto)
 * Both of their parents are present in the franchise.
 * Both can communicate feel with their allies.
 * Both use Japanese-honorifics at the end of someone's first name.
 * Both wear long sleeve clothing.
 * Both try their hardest not to be a burden to others.
 * Both try to do things on their own with their friends support.

Yami Yugi also shares some similarities with Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. Yami Yugi also shares some similarities with Kami from Dragon Ball Z.
 * Both are the main characters of their respective series. (For Yami Yugi : Yu-Gi-Oh!/Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters and for Ichigo : Bleach)
 * Both of them lost their mother before the series start. (For Yami Yugi : having his mother died before he was a child and for Ichigo : losing his mother to the hollow known as Grand Fisher)
 * Both have a woman of their team. (For Yami Yugi : Tea Gardner and for Ichigo : Orihime Inoue)
 * Both are the son to a legendary hero (For Yami Yugi : Aknamkanon, and for Ichigo : Isshin Kurosaki)
 * Both have spikey hair, and have a similar personality. (Both : Hyper, Energetic, aggressive, quiet and kind)
 * Both have a love interest that is in love with them. (For Yami Yugi : Tea and for Ichigo : Orihime)
 * Both have one rival that hates them (For Yami Yugi: Seto Kaiba and for Ichigo : Uryu Ishida)
 * Both a friendship hate relationship with someone (For Yami Yugi : Seto Kaiba and for Ichigo : Rukia)
 * Both have a Friendship-protection relationship with someone (For Yami Yugi : Mokuba and for Ichigo : Orihime)
 * Both have many rivals that they meet (For Yami Yugi : Seto Kaiba, Weevil Underwood, Mako Tsunami and Mai Valentine. For Ichigo : Isshin, Uryu, Renji, and Kenpachi)
 * Both have one person that they find annoying (For Yami Yugi : Weevil Underwood and for Ichigo : Isshin)
 * Both have one fear (For Yami Yugi : being separated from Yugi and for Ichigo : getting a shot)
 * Both can see ghosts in ghost form, and can communicate well with their friends.
 * Both have call many characters by their first name.
 * Both can see ghost spirits, and try not to kill their rivals.
 * Both have consider two people as their best friends (For Naruto : Yugi Muto and Joey Wheeler. For Ichigo : Tatsuki Arisawa and Yasutora "Chad" Sado)
 * Both have met their other half in their mind (For Yami Yugi : Yugi Muto and for Ichigo : Hollow Ichigo)
 * Both have fought against their other half's a lot of times, and rush into battles without thinking.
 * Both are seen as an older brother for two young characters (For Yami Yugi : Yugi and Mokuba. For Ichigo : Karin and Yuzu)
 * Both are seen being haunted by their childhood past in the series.
 * Both have had a ton of fate in others to believe in them.

Yami Yugi also shares some similarities with Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho.

Voice Actresses & Actors

 * Japanese : Shunsuke Kazama 


 * Japanese voice actress : Megumi Ogata (Season 0/Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie), Mariko Nagahama (child in the Dawn of the Duel arc)


 * English : Dan Green 

all information on Yami Yugi came from http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Yami_Yugi