(Cipher 169) 3: 46th

Azars LP: 5600 Shins LP: 5800

"I activate My Xyz monsters effect." Azar detached one material from the Xyz-monster(8/3000/2400) he had just summoned. "Heliopolis can destroy one or more cards, by sacrificing monsters on my field or in my hand." Azar sent the Hieratic Dragons of Eset and Su from his hand to the graveyard; two cards for two targets. "I destroy your Number and your set spell/trap card!" The Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord invoked the brutal powers of the solar prominence, illuminating the garden. "Awk!" Shins mighty Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon(8/4300/3000) and set trap card, Magic Cylinder, were removed from his side. "You got around my ambush!" He groaned. "Ambush?" Azar misunderstood that remark for something less innocent at first. "Oh. You wanted me to summon Draggluon and take control of Number 62." He eventually figured out what Shin had wanted to do. He had set Magic Cylinder to deflect an attack from the Primal dragon, which would near cripple his lifepoints if the trap was succesful. In fact it could undo him entirely, as he would have tried to use Prime Photon Dragons attackpoint boosting effect to compensate for the damage-halving condition that was in place on Prime Photon Dragon. Without a Galaxy-Eyes attached to Number 62, it could not resummon itself from the graveyard either. "That is all you planned."

"Yeah? What else could I have planned?" Shin fumed. He was disappointed that Azar had seen through his strategy so easily. "Never mind." But Azar was glad. There was no sinister intent behind Shins actions, he was sure of that now. Whatever was going on, Shin had no idea of it. Then was he being used? "Because I tributed the Hieratic Dragons Eset and Su, their effects are triggered. They special summon two normal-type dragons from my deck, with their stats reduced to nothing." Azar searched his deck and found two more Blue-Eyes White Dragons. Both of them(8/0/0) were summoned to the garden. "I use them as Xyz-materials." Azar overlayed his White Dragons and performed another rank 8 Xyz-summon. He did not summon Draggluon this time either. He went with Thunder End Dragon(8/3000/2000) instead. Regardless, he had enough attack power to finish the duel. "Direct attack!" Heliopolis made the first strike, and gathered solar flames in its claws.

Shin however was not entirely helpless. "I special summon Gagaga Gardna from my hand!" With himself made into an attack target, Shin could bring out the shield-bearing Gagaga warrior(4/1500/2000) from his hand in defense mode. During Azars battle phase, Sorcerous Spell Wall would raise any monsters defense by 300 points as well. Though that did not affect much. "I see." Azar continued the assault, the Hieratic Overlord hurled the flare away. "Gagaga Gardna can discard a card from my hand, to negate its own destruction!" Shin let go of the last card in his hand, just to make sure his Gardna(1500/2300) withstood the first attack. "Damn." It took a second attack from Thunder End Dragon to get rid of it. One bolt of lightning reduced Gagaga Gardna to dust. "I have to defeat him. I can not lose here." Azar was unfortunately out of cards to play. His turn had to end now.

"Oh you nearly had me there!" For his part, Shin remained unaware of the tension in the air. "I might not even get a chance to turn it around!" Shin would need a good card to get him out of his pinch at least. "Draw!" Sadly.. for Azar.. "Allright! No dead draw for me!" ..it was a lifesaver. "I activate Gagagadraw! I banish three Gagaga monsters from my graveyard to draw two cards!" Shins spell removed Gagaga Clerk, Gardna and Sister from the graveyard. Next, two cards entered his hand; two more Gagaga cards. "Lucky!" Shin quickly activated one of them. "Spell card: Gagagag Academy Emergency Network!" Because only Azar controlled monsters right now, Shin could summon any Gagaga monster from his deck. "Here she is, Gagaga Girl!" He went with the beautiful apprentice magician: Gagaga Girl(3/1000/700). "That's one down. One to go.. I normal summon Gagaga Caesar!" The imperial white warrior(3/1800/300) was next.

"Those exact two cards?" Shins luck was something else. It was getting to a point where Azar had to wonder if it was all just a coincidence.

What Shin would do with them was obvious too. Gagaga Caesar could banish one fallen monster in, if it had a level. All Gagagas would then copy the level of the banished monster. "I activate Caesars effect and banish Hierophant of Prophecy from my graveyard!" This time around it banished the monster Shin had discarded earlier through Gardna's effect. Both the Caesar(7/1800/300) and Girl(7/1000/700) were now ready for the seventh rank. "I do not know if you saw me use this one before, actually. So maybe it will stun you!" The Gagaga's were placed on top of each other. "Here goes! I Xyz-summon the Dark Magician of Illusions!" Another magic circle opened a path into the extra deck, and a dark-armored spellcaster(7/2500/2100) with long blonde hair came through it. Shin did not to say of course, that this summoning also led to the activation of Gagaga Girls ability. "..." Azar saw the attackpoints of his special summoned Thunder dragon(0/2000) drop to zero, because Gagaga Girl had been used as an Xyz-material for a dark-attribute Xyz-monster and her attackreducing effect had gone off.

That effect needed no explanations, unlike Shins Xyz-monsters effect. "Dark Magician of Illusions can summon a normal spellcaster from my hand or deck." The Illusionist drew one of its Xyz-materials into its staff. "I am gonna go with Dark Magician, the classic variant!" With the charged up staff, the Illusion Magician casted a spell that called its counterpart from the deck; the Dark Magician(7/2500/2100). He resembled the Xyz-monster in everything but hairstyle and skintone, as he was paler and kept his hair in his helmet. "That's not the best part though!" Shin opened the battle phase. "Because when a normal spellcaster declares an attack, Dark Magician of Illusions can banish one of your cards, Azar!" The Dark Magician(2800/2100), now empowered by Sorcerous Spell Wall, was about to destroy the weakened Thunder End Dragon. At this time, the Xyz-mage prepared another illusion. "Gotcha!"

"Ugh!" Azar would be left with no defenses after the Dark Magician destroyed his other Xyz-monster, his life would be depleted entirely. "Trap card, Dragons Rebirth!" So Heliopolis would not be banished by Shins card. "I banish one dragon I control, to summon another from my graveyard!" Azar did not let his dragon go to waste. "You what?" Shin saw it disappear alright, only to be exchanged for the first Blue-Eyes White Dragon(8/3000/2500) in Azars cemetery. "Man. I was so close too!" Dark Magician still killed Thunder End Dragon. That victory was not as sweet as a complete one would have been. "Still one step ahead of me. You did not lose any of your skills, did you Azar?" He ended his turn. Shin still was having fun.

Azars LP: 2750

"No. I guess not." Azar drew his card. "Shin. Do you remember our first duel? Do you remember why we dueled?" He suddenly asked his friend, with a loaded tone. "Why?" Shin thought it through, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Uhh. the tournament! Right? You wanted to train with me." That was all he could come up with. It was also technically true from his point of view. "..That must have been it." Azar recalled telling Shin as much.. except.. he was not sure if that was the truth. What other reason had there been? There was one, a forgotten motive. "It's not important. It happened."

"Cards of Consonance." Azar activated a hand exchange spell card. He swapped out the White Stone of Legend in his hand, for two cards from his deck. "Dragons Mirror." Azar activated a spell card, a fusion spell card. "Whoa what!?" Every duelist knew about this card. Dragons Mirror could fusion summon any dragon fusion monster with materials on the field or in the graveyard! "Are you gonna summon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon?" Azar had the necessary cards for the threeheaded white dragon. "No. Beyond that." And he had room for more, for an even bigger fusion monster. "Five dragons can be merged, to summon this dragon." Azar banished one remaining Blue-Eyes, Hieratic Dragon Su, Divine Dragon Apocralyph, Queen Dragun Djinn and White Stone of Legend. "I fusion summon Five-Headed Dragon!" A mythical godlike dragon was created from the bodies of the five banished beasts. This dragon(12/5000/5000) had one head for each element besides Light; heads of fire and steel, dark scales, blue scales and light scales.

Azar began his battle phase and proceeded to destroy Shins monsters. The Fiveheaded Dragon destroyed the Illusion Mage with blasts of earth, water, wind, fire and darkness. "Oh boy. Now that's old-school." Shin had no defense against it and he did not seem to mind. "Way oldschool." When his Dark Magician fell in battle with Blue-Eyes White Dragon, all he could do was admire the symbolic nature of it all. The magician and the dragon had always been rivals.

Shins LP: 2800

"I am sorry Shin. This duel is over." And while Shin was not Azars rival, he could not go easy on him. "Quickplay spell card: Silvers Cry." To that end he played a ressurection spell from his hand, one that targeted destroyed normal-type dragons. "Oh geez." A second Blue-Eyes(8/3000/2500) was summoned back to Azars side, still in the middle of his battle phase. "Direct attack!" Perhaps somewhat over-enthusiastically, Azar concluded their game. The great dragon let loose its burst stream of destruction and sent Shins lifepoints into oblivion. "Oh nooooo." Shin laughed as he dramatically kneeled down to surrender. "Oh wow. That was a blast!"

Shins LP: 0

"I imagine it must have been." Ever the example of punctuality, Camilla Helder showed up in the garden as soon as as the duel had been settled. "You are done then?" She asked as she looked down at Shin. "Oh..ah.. yes! Ahem..I hope I did not cause too much of a disturbance." He quickly pulled himself up and inspected his surroundings. He had summoned a Number and only now started worrying about the damage that could have caused. Shin forgot to lower the intensity of his D-pad. "You shook some leaves loose from the trees. Father'll survive." Camilla had already assessed the damage as a mere trifle. "What will you do now then? Do you have accommodations or transport?" She did not know how he got here, and the hour was growing late. "You are welcome to pass the night here. In that event you would stay for dinner, of course. The food is not synthetically made, but we Helders prefer the old-fashioned ways of cooking."

"Stay here? Meet the family?" Shin did not want to make it too obvious that he had second thoughts about that. "Nah. I am good. I don't want to.. whats the word? Impose! Yeah I don't want to impose on you. I have a Limo.. and a driver!" Luckily his home was not too far from here. "Suit yourself. Azar, I will be in the main room." Camilla nodded at her brother and withdrew from the scene. "And I thought that Janis chick sounded old-fashioned." As soon as she was gone, Shin eased up again. "It's just the family way." Azar said with a sigh. In spite of her polite act, he had not failed to notice that she did not actually say goodbye to Shin. "But it is getting late. We should probably go our separate ways here." Azar de-activated his D-pad. "Yeah I can come back another time. It was nice seeing you again. You should come visit us some time! They may not talk about it as endlessly as I do, but the rest of the gang misses you too!"

"The gang.." Once again the past flashed before Azars eyes. Now, for the first time since he left the city and them, did he feel regret. He did want to go back there. "Perhaps I will. It would make me happy. We will see... I have a lot of work to do." He was not ready yet. Or so he told himself. Whatever this feeling of dread was, he wanted to locate the cause. "Shin. If anything happens, I want you to tell me, understand?" He did not want to involve Shin directly. This was as much as he could ask of him. "Sure Azar. I will keep in touch. Don't know what you are so spooked about though."

Neither did Azar.

...

"My notes?" Azar could not believe it. It was all gone. His notes, his dream log; they were deleted from his computer. He checked and checked again, they were nowhere to be found. In fact he could find no proof of them ever existing. Yet he was sure he had typed them out. "What could do this? Why?" For a second he thought of calling out Camilla to ask her if she had anything to do with this. However she couldn't have been responsible. Azar always knew when someone had been in his room, there were telltale signs like on what angle the door stood or how much dust had gathered on his chair and desk. Nobody had sat here since he left to see Shin. Had he imagined it all? Was he simply getting delusional and paranoid? No, his eyes never lied.. Never. The timing was too suspicious. This 'erasure' had to have taken place during his duel with Shin, a duel in which he was about to use his Number. Whatever made Shin appear then and there also took his data way, as if it expected Azar to have a change of heart. But what could manipulate Shin without Shin being aware of it? Was it..the Number itself?

"The Numbers. It all comes back to them."

He dug deeper, searching for any information he could find on the net. The Numbers, there was no record of them until the early 21st century. That was to be expected, as the Numbers had only been discovered fifteen years ago. People learned how to control these Numbers and improve the quality of life with them. Still very little was understood about them, about their own origin. People did not even know why they were always expressed in only two dimensions. Where did they come from? That was the big puzzle. If you were to believe the religious side, then they were a gift from the gods, a blessing from the messiah or even something unwittingly released from a Box. Far from the truth perhaps, but every myth had an origin in reality.

Meanwhile to the world of science, figuring out the creation of Numbers was like trying to analyze the creation of the universe. It could not be done, it was not attempted. As far as any man or woman knew, the Numbers had been around since the dawn of time. The thing that put off Azar the most, was the fact that nobody seemed to question it. Nobody talked much about it, online or in the real world. Nobody even questioned what the Numbers wanted. They were not seen as a conscious form of life, or even a life. They were just accepted as a part of nature. Humans did not wonder where Chaos had come from, or where he had gone either. They just believed It to be dead. The world was happier this way, with no more conflict, no more struggle. All they focused on was the future, on matters like space exploration. The past was left behind, as written by the digital age. There was not a single trace of data online that countered this worldview... Azar did not trust it. The dreams had shown him something else, a world unfamiliar with Numbers.

...

On the other side of the country, in a grim house near the suburbs, a phone rang. "Yes?" It was picked up and answered by a female voice. "It happened again? I was affraid of this.. Who is it this time?" She asked, and gasped when the answer was given. "NO.. not Azar."

...

The next morning, Azar headed out. He was going to class as far as his family knew, they never bothered to check whether or not he did. He maintained his own finances anyway. All he brought with him were his clothes, his D-pad and cards, and his paper notebook. He started writing things down on paper after losing faith in his laptop. In actuality he was travelling a greater distance, and not in pursuit of Shin. As much as Azar wanted to see his friends again, and as much as he believed they were as innocent as Shin, he could not bring this to them. Eyes and ears were everywhere, any person could be in on this... Any person with a Number. If he could not trust the Numbers, not many people were left for him to talk with.

There might be one. In the war against Chaos, there had been another.. a human with a power like that of Chaos. They met her as an Agent, who at first had been used as a weapon against the threat. She soon grew unstable and tried to destroy the Numbers herself. He was there that day that she had been stopped. She might know more..

Azar took the fastest train he could find and journeyed towards a city in a whole other country. These days public transport could get you anywhere in a matter of hours, all thanks to the power of Numbers. Once there he approached an unassuming domicile in a middle-class neighborhood. Unless you knew the adress it would be difficult to find the specific location. Thankfully it was not a well-guarded secret. Azar rang the bell next to the door.

"Yes?" A woman with long black hair opened it. "Hello. My name is Azar Hellder, is this the house of Carpenter?" He greeted her. "Yes it is. I'm Stella Carpenter. And you said your name was Helder? Oh. You must be here for my daughter then!" The woman had heard of that surname before. "Come in! Come in!" The eager way in which he was welcomed, Azar could only assume that this house did not get many visitors. "I will call her!" She left the door and allowed Azar to come in, while she called for her daughter.

"It's you!" Down the stairs she came, the girl in grey. She looked happy to see him and was all smiles. "Yes. It's me. Hello Ann." Azar had not replied right away. The image that Azar remembered so deeply was in such sharp contrast to this girl here, that it distracted him. The other her was nowhere anymore, she who called herself 'Necara'. "I hope you can help me with something."

(To be Continued in Cipher 4: Lonely In Sanity)

New Cards used by Azar Helder
Five-Headed Dragon

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Dragons Rebirth

New Cards used by Shin Artega
Dark Magician