(æ)donai

by Kim Chang-Ra

Academia has fallen, but it has not yet splintered. As new faces and old enemies conspire in the shadows, Masumi and her friends are faced with the possibility that this peace may be nothing more than the calm before the storm … (Sequel to (æ)lohim and (æ)mæth. Post-canon with a dash of Masumi/Yaiba.)

29. XXVII

XXVII

Château Pique-Diamant

An hour had passed before Masumi judged herself satisfied.

Kiku and Kikyō were panting in front of her, their new clothes drenched in sweat and smudged all over with green and brown from many, many falls onto the grass. Only recently had they been able to complete an entire lap around the mansion, as Masumi had instructed them to do—and only just now had they been able to do it in under a minute.

The pitfalls had happened early and often: the cards the twins had been using were, more often than not, ill suited to maneuvering around an Action Field. Kiku had especially struggled—even though Masumi had expected the blind Duelist to do so, the humanoid forms of the monsters she used weren't particularly suited for riding. That wasn't to say she herself couldn't—but when her psychic powers all but required her to be in physical contact with her sister at all times, it made for a very awkward time riding piggyback on Nekroz of Gungnir. All three of them had left a sizable furrow in one of the mansion's many gardens from that particular crash.

Masumi couldn't help but flash back to her early days at LDS as all this was going on, where she was just beginning to grasp at the notion of performing Action Duels on a regular basis. The Fusion ace had learned the hard way back then that her own Gem-Knights did much better as monsters than as mounts. That had left her with little choice but to overhaul her workout regimen—something that she'd understood wouldn't be enough for Kiku to thrive in a Duel like this for when the time came. Watching the twins sprint, jump, and fall short of one hard-light platform after another—as though competing in a particularly devilish three-legged race—only drove that point home.

Kiku, it seemed, had had the same impression of her abilities so far. The scowl on her face grew deeper and deeper with every tumble she took—and about two dozen of them later, it had finally dawned upon her that perhaps she had ought to turn to her twin sister for guidance, in more ways than one. Not only did Kikyō have better eyesight, but a few of the Rituas she possessed could carry them both over the Action Field with much better speed than any of the Nekroz monsters Kiku employed. That had been proved when Kikyō had brought out another Ritual Monster—one Evitritua Mind Augus, a very green-in-the-face Rika had immediately blurted out—mounted the monster's back with Kiku holding on tighter than ever, and proceeded to turn Cross Over into its own personal swimming hole.

That had been just a few minutes ago. They hadn't even made it halfway around the grounds before Hotene started cheering—Rika, joining in a few seconds later, had promptly forgotten her own encounter with the ghastly-looking Mind Augus—and Masumi knew then that there was no point in having to drill the twins like this any further. The platforms that had once given Kiku and Kikyō no end of fits now seemed like so many distant memories.

So it was that even as the twins had dismounted Mind Augus—arm in arm, both sweating like they'd run miles, and smiling fit to burst—the Fusion ace began hastily putting together the next leg of their crash course in training.

"Okay. So now you know how to find your way around an Action Field." Masumi had deliberately stopped herself from saying 'around Action Fields' instead. Better to save that surprise for when we actually have time for it. "But I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that while you were whizzing around up there, you started asking each other the same question: Why?"

The twins blinked in tandem. "Why do all this in the middle of a Duel?" Masumi went on, gesturing above them at the platforms of Cross Over. "Action Fields are flashy and all, sure, but if all you're doing is Dueling in them, then the novelty starts to wear off pretty quickly. Which is why they're only half the draw of an Action Duel."

She nodded to Angel-IQ. "Keep your eyes on the sky, girls. You're about to see the other half real soon."

And before she'd even taken the first of three steps backward, the hologram's eyes had flashed once. With a BANG like a firecracker, an explosion of light had erupted in the sky, and a thousand glittering streams had each dispersed in a different direction, disappearing within seconds as soon as they hit the ground.

"Action Cards." Masumi waited for Kikyō's eyes to finally stay still. She wondered if the Ritual user had gotten an idea of what she was planning on doing next. "Special Spells and Traps that you can find just about anywhere on an Action Field, and play at any time. Just a single one of them can make a normal Duel a lot more interesting."

"What all can they do?" Kiku asked, bewildered at what her sister's rapid-fire signing must have been telling her.

"Honestly? Just about anything within the bounds of the Duel itself," replied Masumi. "Usually, they'll be themed around the Field they're a part of—but when you've been Dueling in Action Fields for as long as we have, you start to see how much they have in common. Dress them up however you like, but you're always going to find a Miracle or an Evade or something like that in even the craziest Fields."

"My favorite one's High Dive!" Hotene piped up. "That one always makes my monsters big an' strong!"

Kikyō frowned, giving her signing a more inquisitive tone. "So these cards just make your monsters stronger?" her sister translated. "Or someone else's monsters weaker?"

Masumi nodded. "Most of them do. Just be careful of the Traps—you don't see them very often, but those tend to do the opposite thing at the worst possible time." She spared a few milliseconds to dispel another painful memory of those early days of learning how to play an Action Duel. "There's a few more that can protect your monsters from being destroyed, or shield you from battle damage—so you're starting to see the pattern here. Since the Battle Phase is where all the action happens, that's usually when you want to play your … well, Action Cards."

"And while you're playing all your real cards before that," Kiku went on, continuing to translate for her twin, "you look for these Action Cards? Like a scavenger hunt or something?"

"You're not collecting them, if that's what you're asking," said Masumi quickly. "The thing to remember about Action Cards is you can only have one in your hand. So, sure—look for them as much as you like. Just be sure that the one you find is the one you actually need. Otherwise … " She didn't see any need to finish her sentence.

A few moments passed while the twins digested this information. "So how do you look for them?"

Masumi knew instinctively that Kiku was speaking more for herself than for her sister—so she needed a few more moments to settle on a good answer. "It depends on the Duelist. Nine times out of ten, we'll just run around and do things the old-fashioned way. Shen—give them an example."

"Hǎo de." And before either of the twins had time to brace themselves, Shen had sped off in a zigzagging blur. The Fusion ace counted under her breath—one-one thousand, two-one thousand—and reached eight before the Synchro user finally jumped down from a Solid Vision platform some twenty feet above them, landing in a three-point stance between Kiku, Kikyō, and Masumi. Something small and gleaming was in his hand—and Shen flicked it just high enough in the air for it to register as one such Action Card before he caught it between his index and middle fingers.

" … Okay, maybe not that fast," Masumi added, rather lamely. "Or that flashy. But you get the idea."

She didn't need to know Japanese sign language to guess what Kikyō might have been signing. "She was about to say," Kiko commented anyway, somehow managing to mirror the deadpan stare on her twin sister.

"Don't worry," Hokuto reassured them. "Not every Duelist wants to be like Shen. In fact, you'd be surprised how many Duelists aren't like him at all and still hold their own in Action Duels. Take Fuyu here—does he look like a guy who'd be able to grab an Action Card from fifty feet away in five seconds flat?"

Fuyu shied away from him. The helmet concealed enough of his face that it was impossible to tell, but Masumi had a strong suspicion that the pale cheeks beneath it were tomato-red at being singled out by his friend. The twins, for their part, didn't seem in any hurry to provide an answer, either—no doubt because they themselves didn't look like they could mimic Shen any better than any one of them, the Fusion ace thought.

"No?" Hokuto smirked. "Prove them wrong, Fuyu."

The Xyz Duelist coughed softly—and then, he'd ignited the jet-black Duel Disk he'd slipped into the sleeve of his jumpsuit, specially designed to hold it secure in the micro-G environments he preferred to Duel in. Scarcely had its lavender blade arced along his arm that he'd drawn a handful of cards, and placed one of them onto his Duel Disk.

Masumi recognized the lavender-and-gold figure of Satellarknight Vega almost before the monster's hologram had been fully reproduced in their midst. The warrior had been the very first card Fuyu had ever played against her, on the day they'd first met. Vega was still almost as slender as the boy who'd Summoned her—and gleamed just as brilliantly now as she had on that fateful day.

Fuyu now gestured briefly with his hand, pointing somewhere behind and off to the left of the twins. He must have seen an Action Card there, Masumi knew, because Vega wasted no time in rocketing off in that direction—and very nearly at the same speed as Shen just a minute before. The mass of the hologram sent a few zephyrs rippling over Kiku's and Kikyō's clothes—just enough for the latter of the pair to start signing excitedly.

"So fast … " Masumi heard Kiku murmur.

A few moments later, Vega was dashing back towards them, something small and glittering in her hand. With a final, mighty leap, she hurled it straight for Fuyu like a dagger—but the boy caught it with just the barest flinch, exhaling a ragged breath as though the small effort had overloaded him with a marathon's worth of adrenaline.

Kiku tilted her head. Masumi could tell the Xyz Duelist's demonstration had sparked something in her brain. "I can guess that you just thought of a third way to look for Action Cards?"

She was looking right at Kikyō. The mute Duelist was smiling—and for once, her eyes weren't wandering all over the place. In fact, as Masumi followed her gaze, it was clear she'd zeroed in on Rika.

The Junior Synchro ace had seen—and so had her friend. "Can we still show them anyway, Masu-chan?" wheedled Hotene. "I wanna do the flashy action thing too!"

"Go for it. This'll help us get to know each other that much better." Masumi stepped back a few paces. She hoped everyone could work together as best they could with the time they had—but somehow she doubted that Rika would forget how her first Duel against the twins had started any time soon.

Sure enough, the green-haired girl was swiping cards this way and that on her Duel Disk without even breaking eye contact with Kikyō. Even Hotene looked surprised at how quickly Daigusta Falcos shimmered before them all, inches above the grass—and just low and far away enough for Rika to sprint towards her monster, contort herself into a back handspring, and land right on top of the green plumage that padded her monster's neck.

By then, Hotene had conjured her Spiritual Beast Kannahawk, and soon hovered level with Rika upon her mount's golden feathers. "Race ya?" the tiny Duelist chirped.

Rika didn't answer. She and Kikyō were still eyeing one another intently. Then, she jerked her head once—and in a moment, everyone present seemed to understand what was about to happen.

Both twins cracked identically wide smiles. Masumi, grinning with the rest, had time enough to wish she'd thought to bring some snacks before the four girls and their monsters—the twins astride Kikyō's Ritual Monster together—commenced a mad dash around the vast field that surrounded the Château. Within moments, each of them were attempting to trigger as many Action Cards as they could find, regardless of where they were or what they could do.

"I hope they don't overdo it," Yaiba muttered next to her as he sat down, and they watched Hotene and Kannahawk perform an aerial to grab a card stuck on top of a tree branch. "The last thing I want is for us to have to fight the bad guys at the same time we're having to fight our own bodies."

"Do you remember the Maiami Championship?" It was a rhetorical question, but the Synchro ace nodded anyway. "That day, we all learned that there was a dark side to the game we loved to play. But these two girls haven't known any other side of Duel Monsters—they were turned into living weapons, forced to forget anything even resembling a normal life. And that's if they ever knew one in the first place."

She watched as Kiku conjured her Nekroz of Clausolas to zoom towards a far-off Action Card. "Right now, Yaiba, this is our chance to do the opposite—to show them that the same weapons of war they were made to use can be ways to make every day worth living instead. I want tomorrow to be the first day they wake up and go to bed with a smile on their face … because of what we taught them here today."

Yaiba nodded placidly. "Let's at least make sure they have a bed to go back to first, all right?"

Masumi rolled her eyes. "You and your love of swords—you just can't stop cutting to the quick, can you?" But she winked at him. "Don't worry—I'll give the girls five more minutes. Angel-IQ can keep score if she likes.

"And you and I"—she trapped his hand under hers, feeling her smile take on a crafty edge—"can enjoy this little bit of peace and quiet for as long as it lasts."

Yaiba said nothing. But he leaned into her shoulder, bushy hair and all—and for Masumi, that was enough.

---

Giza, Fusion Dimension

Sora had heard the Antique Gear Devils before he'd seen them.

It had happened so quickly that his head was still spinning like a top: by the time Kaito and Haruto were yelling in his ear about the enemy deploying some kind of artillery, Sora had been left half deaf by the first salvo of BANGs—and that had been before the wall of sand and wind that had left him half blind and completely out of breath in the wake of the explosions that erupted all around him and the Des-Toy Scissor Tiger he'd been riding.

Even after the clouds of sand had faded, he still—damnably—couldn't see the monsters responsible; all he saw was the vast outer wall of the Ædonai's fortress. It was vast only in the distance it spanned—it wasn't much higher than a three-story house at its tallest—but that was enough to conceal the Devils the Ædonai had hastily erected behind it, and just short enough that they could lay down the curtain of fire that had just thrown Sora's plans out the window—

"AUGH!"

His heart dropped into his bowels at the sound—punctuated by a particularly terrific explosion that rattled his teeth; it couldn't have been more than ten meters away.

Sora knew who it was, too. "REI!" Abandoning all self-preservation, he dashed off in that direction.

He didn't have to sprint for long; Saotome Rei was lying against a rock, grimacing as she held a hand to her side. "I'm hit!" his erstwhile classmate managed to cough out. "They winged me … that's all … but the shellshock got me bad, Sora! I'm no good to you right now—they'll fire another salvo any second!"

Sora cursed—he'd called out for Rei to back him up for a run to take these damned Devils down. Losing her, even if for a few minutes, was a few more minutes where the Lancers Combined would be out in the open.

Thinking quickly, he switched to a different frequency on his Duel Disk. "Tyranno! Shinji! Rei's pinned down! Cover for her so we don't lose her for good! Kurosaki—you'll have to take her place!"

"On our way!" Two shadows swooped overhead; Sora had just enough time to see Overtex Coatlus and Rise Falcon decimate an entire wing of Antique Gear Wyverns between them. Seconds later, Tyranno had dismounted from his monster and sprinted towards Rei.

Only when he started tending to her did Sora finally exhale. "Dennis—Yūzō!" he howled into his Duel Disk. "Get into position—it's now or never!"

"Right behind you!" And sure enough, the two boys had dashed into view. Tanegashima Yūzō looked distinctly the worse; his white suit was covered in sweat and sand. Though he somehow still had his top hat, it hung at a crooked angle and looked badly singed; he held onto it for dear life even after he and his teammate had drawn fresh hands.

Dennis had seen combat before, and so he had enough wits about him to make the first move. As one soldier after another locked into the nascent Duel, he wasted no time in acting. With a daring grin on his face, he belted out, "I'll use my Scale 2 Entermage Water Dancer and my Scale 6 Entermage Fire Dancer to set the Pendulum Scale!"

The winds that followed felt like the breath of God. For an instant, Sora allowed himself to relax at the twin figures that rose either side of Dennis: slender dancers in motley—one in red with a hoop in each hand, the other in blue and brandishing a pair of double-ended clubs, and each in a column of light that framed him perfectly.

"With these two cards, I can Pendulum Summon as many monsters as I like, if their Levels are from 3 to 5!" Dennis was in his element; he had shifted into the full-blown ringmaster of his own show. He wanted all eyes on him right now, Sora knew—which meant fewer eyes on everyone else, least of all him.

With great difficulty, he tore his eyes from the Duel and forced his brain to focus on the Devils' continuing barrage. A single kick spurred his Scissor Tiger southward to group up with Shun.

"PENDULUM SUMMON!" Dennis cried. "Come forth! Entermage Trick Clown, and Entermage Flame Eater!"

Tanegashima Yūzō had never seen Dennis Duel in person, but even he had to admit that he looked like a boy in his element. As both monsters shimmered out of thin air to flank him—one, a squat jester in motley balancing upside-down upon a ball the size of his hand (Level 4: ATK 1600/DEF 1200); the other, a disembodied, fire-breathing head (Level 4: ATK 1200/DEF 1600), each looking as cartoonish as the other—their Summoner raised his hands to bask in the glow. Dennis looked less like a former soldier of Academia and more of a ringmaster introducing the first act of a circus—a comparison that Yūzō had used more than once to describe some of his own classmates.

"Better brace yourself," Dennis confided to him sotto voce. And then, raising his voice: "Because my Flame Eater's effect activates whenever it's Normal or Special Summoned, and inflicts 500 damage to each Duelist!"

Yūzō had just enough time to throw up his scarlet cape and shield his face from the blast that followed a split second later. Even then, he could feel the wall of heat blast him back hard enough that he stumbled where he stood. His top hat wobbled dangerously upon his black bowl cut as he heard one LP gauge after another dropping to 3500—but otherwise it stayed put. When he chanced to lower the cape, he saw Dennis lowering his arm from his eyes and as much of his frizzy hair as he could shield with it, while each Ædonai soldier was shaking soot out of their uniforms.

"Next, I activate the Continuous Spell: Bubble Barrier," Dennis went on, swiping another card onto his Duel Disk with an elaborate flourish, "to protect each of my Entermages from being destroyed by battle or card effect once per turn—and to keep me from taking battle damage from any attacks involving those Entermages, too!" He waited for a pair of translucent spheres to encircle both of his monsters, one for each of them—before throwing his hand in the air. "And finally, I'll Overlay my Flame Eater and my Trick Clown to construct the Overlay Network!"

The bubbles that had just enclosed his monsters now began to shimmer brighter still—and shrink as well until they were scarcely bigger than the cards that had created them. Yūzō craned his neck as far back as he could, watching them rise into the air, into the miniaturized galaxy that had erupted over the otherwise clear sky:

"SHOW MUST GO ON!" bellowed Dennis. "Artisan of the air, swing across the stage with grace!"

"Xyz Summon! Appear now! Rank 4! Entermage Trapeze Magician!"

The mass of stars bloomed and boomed, expelling a masked, brightly clothed jester wrapped in a crimson cloak that Yūzō was quick to think looked rather like his own. It swung once around the field in a wide arc, holding a double-ended baton aloft that shone with glowing cables from each end, reaching off into infinity (Rank 4: ATK 2500/DEF 2000; ORU 2).

Dennis crossed his arms, looking as smug as smug could be. "Turn end!" he declared, before bowing to Yūzō with mock aplomb. "Surprise us, Yūzō-san!" he added with a crafty smile.

---

The ace of the Surprise School couldn't help but note the emphasis on the word, and wondered what Dennis knew about his Deck that he himself did not. But even as he checked the cards in his hand, and felt excited at what they contained, he felt a sudden surge of fear rush up from his stomach to grip at his neck, choking his elation before it could bubble out of him.

Just one week ago, he thought he'd put this all behind him. Yūzō and several of his classmates had toured several primary schools in Maiami City, putting on exhibition Duels with each other to their pupils as a way of getting them psyched up for what Duel Monsters was really about—with a generous helping of Solid Vision-flavored eye candy for the masses, and a dash of self-advertisement about who they were as a school. They weren't the only ones, after all—not by a long shot—but if you wanted to make a name for yourself as an institution, you had to do it as early as possible. Yūzō had a suspicion that without schools like You Show and his own to be around to wow the kids, Duel Monsters would be as grim and deadly serious of a battle as LDS often made it look.

Lo and behold, they'd proved it when Academia—a force Yūzō thought had been defeated months ago—had reared its head once more under a different name, but using the same tactics that had almost brought their entire city and way of life to heel. The Leo Duel School, as they had before, proved their savior once again—but Yūzō had heard stories of some of the Duels that had transpired to make it happen.

No, not Duels, he'd told himself. Battles—actual battles, as if they were fighting a war. That was not who he was.

And yet, when Yūzō had learned that the two Duelists who'd done their part to save the world had been kidnapped by the invaders only yesterday—when he'd found out what they were planning to do with Yūya and Yuzu—he had realized that the very way of Dueling—indeed, of life—that he championed was at risk of being eradicated. And so he'd gone to LDS, to rescue a boy and a girl who he hardly knew … but to whom he knew he owe so much.

Yūzō had seen enough Duels to know that a Duelist would show their true nature when it mattered most. A fighter, an entertainer, or something else completely—when the chips were down, sometimes the simplest way to win was … just to be who you were. Entertainers could not be soldiers, nor the other way round. Mimicking them during a Duel was one thing—but to actually transform your inner self from one to the other was a wholly different matter, and one that took many Duels and many years to achieve.

Better, he'd decided long ago, to use those years perfecting the boy he was than to dream—or worry—about the man he might become. The boy would grow into a man in time.

So as he raised his eyes from his opening hand, and stared down an already vast number of soldiers that appeared to be growing vaster still every second, Tanegashima Yūzō prepared to embrace exactly who he was.

As Dennis had said just now, the show must go on … and life, like every show, always has its surprises …

---

"COME ONE! COME ALL!"

He'd put his best foot forward, lifted his chin high, and belted out the words in a stentorian voice he'd practiced in his spare time. "Step right up! Step right up to this once-in-a-lifetime experience! That's right, folks: I'm giving you the chance to be a part of my Field Spell: Amazement Precious Park!"

Almost as one, every single soldier locked into the Duel turned toward Yūzō just in time to see him slip the card into his Duel Disk. The explosions that followed sent plumes of sand so high they blocked out the entire battle unfolding around them—fortress walls, Antique Gear Devils, and all—before erupting into a dazzling pyrotechnic display that filled the clear sky with multicolored stars.

Something else filled the sky a few moments later: a gleaming silver tower—nearly the size of LDS itself—erupted from the desert behind him. Nor was it alone; within seconds, an entire theme park had assembled itself all around Yūzō, complete with roller coaster, Ferris wheel, and more besides. The patch of desert Yūzō and Dennis had been standing in had become a thoroughfare with just about every sort of carnival game imaginable—and all the prizes it implied—before it forked left and right towards the rest of the park.

Dennis was lost for words. Even some of the soldiers they were facing were turning round in circles, trying in vain to take it all in. Yūzō dearly wished he could see the faces under those boring half-helms they wore. The only sign of emotion from them they betrayed was a tensing of the jaw, and a bite of the lip, and the odd grunt of annoyance. But it was enough to tell him he'd caught them on the wrong foot.

A good start—but he knew he could do better. And so: "Since this is your first time visiting, boys and girls"—he ignored that he couldn't tell if any of the soldiers were girls at all—"I'll introduce you to the staff! First of all, let's give a warm welcome to the lovely Amazement Attendant ‹Comica›—as I Summon her in Attack Position!"

Nobody clapped, let alone cheered. But Yūzō didn't care—he'd already turned toward the tower that dominated his Field Spell. A streak of color had leapt from its summit, and now made a beeline up the left fork right for him. Two seconds later, a young woman of roughly his size and build had landed to his right with nary a sound (Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 1800). Streaks of blue and violet shot through her thick blonde hair, and her strange eyes were one of each color as well. Stranger still were the monster's garments: dark- and sky-blue sleeves met vivid lime long-coat before spiraling off into a navy skirt and matching tights, and a little teal hat perched askance atop her head.

"Comica's effect activates when she's Normal Summoned," Yūzō explained, as his monster struck a pose—far too fluidly to mimic a human being—"and lets me Set 1 Ɐttraction Trap Card straight from my Deck! Don't worry—she'll give you the tour later," he added after he did just that, hand cupped to his cheek as if confiding a big secret to the multitudes of Ædonai soldiers. "But first, she'd like you to meet her twin sister! Say hello to my Amazement Assistant ‹Delia› as I use her effect to reveal 1 Ɐttraction Trap Card in my hand"—he paused in his discourse just long enough to whip out his Amaze Ɐttraction Cyclone Coaster and show it far and wide, before exchanging it with his other Monster Card—"and then Special Summon herself from my hand!"

One second later, it became apparent that Delia wasn't simply Comica's twin—but a veritable mirror image of her. Both her similarities and her differences were on display from the moment she'd leapt from the roller coaster in the distance and alighted on Yūzō's left (Level 4: ATK 1800/DEF 1400). Her blonde hair had the same style and streaks of blue and violet as her "sister", as did her own mismatched eyes—only reversed and with the colors swapped. Even Delia's own garish outfit—from her aqua-colored long-coat to her bright green hat—seemed deliberately fashioned to imitate her twin before making a complete and total U-turn.

"Now I'll activate Delia's second effect!" crowed Yūzō. The sight of his twin monsters had instilled that old sense of bravado back in him. "By sending an Ɐttraction Trap Card from my hand or field to the Graveyard, I can Set a different one from my Deck! So I'll send that Cyclone Coaster I showed you a minute ago"—he slid it into his Duel Disk, before ejecting a card from his Deck—"and then, since there's already such a big crowd on the doorstep, I'll activate the effect of my Precious Park: during my Main Phase, I can activate 1 Ɐttraction Trap Card during the same turn it was Set! So ALL ABOARD," he roared, "for my Trap Card: Amaze Ɐttraction Thrill Train!"

Comica and Delia moved as one, in different directions, leaping out of the street. That was the only warning the soldiers got: before any of them could think to hunt for where the girls had gone, an endless pink-and-white train had materialized around them all, to yelps, shouts and even a few curses from the soldiers.

Less shocked was Dennis—his Trapeze Magician floating next to him—who'd found himself belted into a front-row seat so quickly that his frizzy hair was still bouncing every which way … but he was giggling as if he had suddenly turned half his age all over again. Yūzō himself struck a gallant pose behind the smokestack of the dragon-shaped locomotive at the head of the Solid Vision train, while both his monsters peeked out from the windows of the engine beneath, their lips creased in identical grins.

"What the—get us out of here!" one of the soldiers yelled. Yūzō suspected he'd just seen that the harness securing him to his seat didn't have any buckle. Oh well.

"My Ɐttractions all have effects that let me turn them into Equip Cards," he continued, "that I can equip to either an Amazement monster I control, or a monster my opponent controls! So I'll equip my shiny new Thrill Train to Miss Comica, and then activate its effect: by changing the equipped monster's battle position, my opponent can choose an Ɐttraction Trap Card in my Graveyard, and Set it to my field!"

He had just enough time to tense his arms before the engine lurched forward. More curses and roars of pain erupted from the luckless soldiers inside as the sudden shift from zero to one hundred kilometers an hour took its toll upon their bodies. They'd be dealing with the whiplash from that for a while, Yūzō thought with a smirk.

He peered downward. "What do you say, Dennis?" he yelled. "Kids in the front-row seat get first choice!"

The pause that followed was long enough that Yūzō could tell his teammate was making a show out of a choice that wasn't a choice at all. "How about Cyclone Coaster?" Dennis finally asked. "Back when I studied in Brooklyn, that was always my favorite part of Coney Island!"

One of the soldiers snorted. Yūzō paid him no attention. "Say no more! Delia?" As he Set his Cyclone Coaster, he gestured to his other monster, who took Dennis by an arm and shot out from the train like a missile toward the roller coaster in the distance, with the LDS Duelist in tow. Trapeze Magician drifted after them, making very little effort to keep up with its Summoner's rapidly fading shout of panic and pure exhilaration.

"And with that, I end my turn," the ace of the Surprise School finished—before snapping his fingers as though he'd forgotten something. "Oh, wait—I did mention something about a tour, didn't I? Off we go!"

With a roar from its dragon's mouth, Thrill Train picked up speed, and Yūzō spun on a heel, feeling the familiarity of the showman his school's curriculum had cultivated in his brain. "Off to your right, you'll see our world-famous carousel Majestic Manège—every horse and saddle is painstakingly crafted to resemble those legendary pitch-black steeds of the Rokubushū era! Just beyond that is the dedicated kids' zone we'll be opening soon—our Fluffy Forest contains a petting zoo and a soft-play arena that's sure to appease the animal in every boy and girl! Up ahead and to your right is our Rapid Racing circuit, designed by Hans Tilke of the FIA—"

"Oh, for God's sake!" one of the soldiers finally burst out. "Do we look like kids to you?!"

Well, that didn't take long. Yūzō resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the soldier went on, "Can't you see what this nutcase is trying to do?! He's dividing our forces—we were supposed to reinforce the artillery emplacements! If no one else can … " His mouth worked in silent anger for a few moments. Then: "Ugh—to hell with this! My turn!"

The harness that held him offered just enough freedom for him to slap a card from his opening hand onto his Duel Disk. "I Summon Antique Gear Hound Dog!" he growled. Yūzō barely kept himself from biting his lip as he saw that all-too familiar mechanical dog shimmering next to the train an instant later, running at breakneck speed just to keep pace (Level 3: ATK 1000/DEF 1000). "When my Hound Dog is Normal Summoned, its effect inflicts 600 damage to my opponent!"

He bared his teeth in an ugly smirk. "And what a shame you don't have a Trapeze Magician on your field to shield you from that damage like that fool Dennis! Hound Fla—"

"Now wait just a minute!" Suddenly Yūzō was smiling a toothy grin of his own. "So—you don't think you're kids, do you? Too old to indulge your inner child anymore, are you?" He winked at them. "Well … if you say so! I'll give you a little something more adult-sized, then—and it just so happens we're heading right for it!"

He threw out his hand. "Prepare yourself, if you dare … for my next Trap Card: Amaze Ɐttraction Horror House!"

He leapt off Thrill Train just in time: almost at the exact moment he'd activated his Trap, the entire construct had screeched to a halt with a bestial clamor of brakes. The curses of the soldiers weren't entirely drowned out; if they hadn't had cricks in their neck already, Yūzō thought, they almost certainly would now from a stop like that. Their angry mutters, however, died rather quickly when they saw what had made the train stop so suddenly.

An enormous gate of forbidding black iron barred their way: the only way, so far as could be seen, through the spiked metal fencing that encircled one of the most ramshackle houses Yūzō had seen in his time—and he'd not been short of references when he'd had this card designed, either. The white paint of the three-story mansion was peeling, the trees on the property were leafless and creaking—and even as the soldiers looked on, the skies had darkened to near pitch-black in a matter of seconds, flashing with forked lightning and rolling with the thunder.

Scarcely had the soldier playing his turn gotten to his feet than Comica had snatched him up with a slender arm and hooked him by the elbow, giggling maliciously as she forced him off his feet and through the gate. His protests and insults were to no avail; Hound Dog bounded after them, trying in vain to keep up—and moments later, with a slam and a squeal of poorly lubricated joints, all had vanished into the seemingly abandoned mansion without a trace.

"Oh dear," Yūzō said with a mock shudder. "Even I don't know what's in there. He might be too scared to play a single card! Not that I bet he has a choice," he snickered. "When I activated my Horror House, I equipped it to his Hound Dog—and when that one Ɐttraction's equipped to an opponent's monster, its second effect lets me change it to face-down Defense Position! That stops his monster from dealing any damage to me—and keeps him from using it as a Fusion Material!"

As if to emphasize the soldier's current dilemma, a strangled yell erupted in the distance, in the direction of Horror House … a yell that changed very rapidly into a scream. Then—with a BANG that caused even Yūzō to flinch, if only slightly—the doors of the house flew open, and the soldier sped out from within at a full sprint, his eyes wide as coins and his face white as bone. A pulsing, skull-like orb was in pursuit—one that Yūzō imagined the soldier, had he still carried his wits about him, might have realized was his very own Hound Dog: leashed, muzzled, and unable to do anything about it. As it was, the soldier completely ignored the rest of them, streaking away and out of view before any of his squad could berate him for abandoning them to a "nutcase".

Never gets old. The Surprise ace would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so serious. "Who wants to go in next?" Yūzō asked his unwilling guests. "Maybe whatever scared him won't scare you? Is there a different surprise for the next unwary trespasser? Or"—he smirked ominously—"are you too chicken to find out for yourself?"

Nobody answered him. Yūzō tapped at his Duel Disk. "Let me give you a hint. I activate my third and final Trap Card: Amaze Ɐttraction Cyclone Coaster—and equip it to my Delia!" Within moments, the crimson roller coaster on the opposite side of the park abruptly came to life with a burst of light and noise. A sleek golden snake of cars looped along its length, tipped with the flaming triangular head of a gigantic phoenix. Yūzō swore he could hear Dennis whooping with glee somewhere inside those cars, hands held high and head full of adrenaline.

He exhaled—that meant he was safe. Probably. Hopefully. "When Cyclone Coaster is equipped to an Amazement monster I control," he continued, "I can use its effect to add another Amazement monster to my hand, and then send my Coaster to the Graveyard!"

Whether by accident or design—he'd never be sure for as long as he lived—Yūzō had timed his explanation so that the roller coaster had reached a steep hill before suddenly shutting down. Dennis, however, still had his momentum, and so before Yūzō had even ejected his chosen card into his hand, and slid his Trap into his Duel Disk, the boy had hurtled out of his seat almost too quickly for his Trapeze Magician to catch him—almost.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!" he cheered, sailing right into the arms of his monster.

Yūzō was fully aware that he wasn't the only one staring at the former Academia standout's antics, and he afforded himself a few seconds to dispel the audacity of the whole thing before returning to the Duel at hand. Delia, for her part, had used the distraction to sail back to Yūzō's side as if she'd never left at all.

As for Comica … "Since my Thrill Train is equipped to an Amazement monster I control," he told the soldiers—as the monster in question did her best game-show-hostess pose towards the locomotive that had done her bidding—"I can use its effect to change that equipped monster's battle position again—which, as we all know, lets my opponent choose an Ɐttraction Trap Card in my Graveyard to Set right back to my field!"

As Comica made for the cockpit of Thrill Train again (Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 1800), Dennis chose that moment to hop back into sight. His hair was frizzier than ever, and he was breathing heavily.

But darned if he didn't look like he'd just come down from cloud nine, Yūzō thought. "Perfect timing, Dennis—I was just about to ask if you wanted to do the Cyclone Coaster again!"

Dennis managed a weak smile. "I don't know about you," he panted, "but I'm all Cyclone-d out right now. Can we do the Horror House instead?"

One of the soldiers went slack-jawed. Yūzō decided to consider him the smartest of the bunch—he must have just realized what his strategy had been all along … and that Dennis, of all things, had been the lynchpin of it all.

"Starting to get how this ride works?" he told them, triumph written all over his face as he made a show of Setting Dennis' choice of card into his Duel Disk a second time. "Like any Equip Card, my Horror House gets sent to the Graveyard if the monster it's equipped to is flipped face-down. But! As long as I have my Thrill Train equipped to my monster, I can change its battle position every turn. As long as Dennis is part of this Battle Royale, his Trapeze Magician makes him invincible! As long as this Duel is a Battle Royale, I can treat Dennis as my opponent for just enough time that he gets to have the first choice of Ɐttractions for the rest of you to experience! And as long as that choice is Horror House … then those Antique Gear Hound Dogs you love to let off your leashes on innocent people … are as harmless as so many cute little puppies!"

He threw back his head, and laughed as long and loud as his lungs could let him. "I am Tanegashima Yūzō: the ace student of the Surprise Duel School—where tricks and Traps are the name, the game, and one and the same! Behold my Endless Surprise—a paradise of Dueling that you just can't bear to leave behind!"

Yūzō felt his gleeful grin stretch to a frightening level. "Whether you want to or not … "

His words echoed with a sinister rumbling that surprised even him. It took a few seconds for him to realize that that might not entirely have been the result of dramatic effect—but was, in fact, the earth quaking under their feet.

Dennis looked around. "Sounds like a bunch of stuff exploded out there," he shrugged. "Good thing we're in here."

Yūzō made a note to thank Sora for his sense of timing. "So!" he addressed the soldiers. "Who's next in line?"

---

He'd seized his chance the instant he'd seen the adamantine spire of the Field Spell erupt in the middle of the desert.

"Let's go, Kurosaki—while they're still cut off!" Shiun'in Sora hollered up to his wingman. Shun had been next to invaluable in his efforts to shrug off as much of the shellacking from the Devils up ahead (Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 1800). But the numbers—perhaps inevitably—had finally gone against them; both of them only had 800 LP to their name, and they were starting to get tired from their constant search for any Action Card that could negate as much of that damage as possible. Now it was time to take the offensive, Sora knew—and about damned time, too.

Because the card he'd just drawn had given him a good idea of where to start. "I Summon Furnimal Dog in Attack Position," he cried, waiting for the little plush puppy he'd just conjured to finish cavorting around his heels (Level 4: ATK 1700/DEF 1000), "and then, since it was Normal Summoned, I use my Dog's effect to add a Furnimal monster or an Edge Imp Scissors from my Deck to my hand! I add Furnimal Sheep—and then," he added, ejecting the card from his Duel Disk, "since I control another Furnimal monster, I can Special Summon that Sheep from my hand!"

He'd barely finished his sentence before the orange ball of fluff had materialized in full at his feet (Level 2: ATK 400/DEF 800)—but even then, Sora was already halfway through playing his next card; he couldn't waste any time. "Next: my Spell Card, Death-Toy Patchwork—which lets me add both a Fusion and an Edge Imp monster from my Deck to my hand!" He did so. "Then, I'll activate that Fusion, and fuse the Edge Imp Scissors I just added with the Furnimal Cat in my hand to Fusion Summon this!"

He covered his mouth with an elbow as the vortex swirled into being above his head—it wouldn't do to be coughing out sand when he was in the middle of his strategy. Seconds later, echoes of the monsters he'd chosen—the mass of blades and shears that was Scissors, along with his purple winged Cat—had been sucked inside … here we go …

"Demonic claws, sharp fangs! Become one in the mystic vortex and reveal a new form and power!"

"Fusion Summon! Appear! Mystical jungle beast that rips everything to shreds! Death-Toy Scissor Tiger!"

The Fusion Monster was heard well before it was seen: a shrill, ominous cackling that reverberated in the din until it filled the entire desert. Then—Sora moved aside just in time—the scintillating blades of Scissor Tiger, followed by Scissor Tiger itself, burst out from underneath a nearby dune so quickly that the sand didn't even have time to settle into the fur of the misshapen monster's mutilated body (Level 6: ATK 1900 » 2800/DEF 1500). It stopped for just long enough to let Sora mount it behind the scissors that carved it down the middle—and then sped off with him.

"My Scissor Tiger's effect gives it 300 ATK for each Death-Toy and Furnimal monster I control—including itself!" Sora didn't bother mentioning his monster's other effect—he had something less pedestrian in store for the Devils that barred his way. So he went straight on to business. "Then, because my Furnimal Cat was sent to the Graveyard as a Fusion Material for a Death-Toy monster's Fusion Summon, I can use its effect to retrieve the same Fusion card that sent it there in the first place!"

One ejected card later: "Next, I activate Furnimal Sheep's second effect! By returning another Furnimal monster I control to the hand, I can Special Summon an Edge Imp monster from my hand or my Graveyard! So I'll return my Dog"—the round little pooch shimmered and faded from view—"and then I'll revive my Edge Imp Scissors! Come forth!" And scarcely had the last remains of one monster disappeared than another returned: the same sinister set of evil shears he'd seen just a minute ago, opening wide as though raring to devour any monster in its path, friend or foe (Level 3: ATK 1200/DEF 800).

Scissors Tiger was heard to growl softly—its ATK dropping to 2400 with the loss of Dog was likely why—but Sora paid it no mind. "And now," he smirked, "I play the Spell Card: Greater Fusion! With this card, I'm able to Fusion Summon a Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck, using at least 3 different monsters as material! I fuse the Furnimal Dog in my hand with the Scissors and the Scissors Tiger on my field … and combine them into this!"

With a whine of tortured joints, the Edge Imp went to work, its many blades carving up both Dog and Scissors Tiger with equal impunity. By the time another hurricane of energy—this one much larger than before—had swirled into shape overhead, nothing remained for it to suck up besides a mass of dismembered limbs and blades. But just as he began to launch into his chant, Sora could have sworn that the severed head of Scissors Tiger was smiling—

"Claws of the sadist!" he shouted. "Sunder your primal foe and show us the power of eons past!"

"Fusion Summon! Show yourself! Wild ghost-cave beast that bares fangs at all! Death-Toy Sabre Tiger!"

WHUMP. A second dune was obliterated as an even bigger, even more scarred and skewered monstrosity rumbled out from under the earth and onto the field. When Sabre Tiger—all twelve feet of it—finally drew level with Sora, it opened its jaws wide and bellowed a horrid, discordant shriek that sounded equal parts bestial and metal (Level 8: ATK 2400 » 2800/DEF 2000).

The shriek did not stop, even as the jaws snapped shut—"because my Sabre Tiger's effect does more than just give every Death-Toy on my field 400 ATK," explained Sora, "or even keep it from being destroyed for any reason if it was Summoned with 3 Fusion Materials! It also lets me resurrect a Death-Toy from my Graveyard, as brand-new as ever! So be reborn, Scissors Tiger!"

And with an even more horrible retching noise, Sabre Tiger lurched forward and literally spewed out the monster that had been sewing itself back together inside its very gut. Scissors Tiger wasted no time in prowling to Sora's other side, cackling insanely at its new lease on life (Level 6: ATK 1900 » 2800 » 3200/DEF 1500).

Laughing, too, was Sabre Tiger—as any monster with a fresh point gauge reading 3700 ATK might be wont to do—but Sora wasn't done yet. "Now I'll activate my Fusion again," he declared, "and fuse my Furnimal Sheep with the Edge Imp Chain in my hand!" And a third tornado of wind and light erupted above him. Chains snaked down from within, whipping around the helpless Sheep in the time it took to bleat in surprise. It thrashed and struggled against its iron bounds to no avail, and within moments it was hoisted aloft into screaming oblivion:

"FUSION SUMMON!" cried Sora. "Appear! Chained beast that binds everything! Death-Toy Chain Sheep!"

The Sheep that floated down to the field looked very little like either of its constituent parts. Barbed hooks and saws had replaced its limbs, and even its horns, while lengths of chain bound it at the midriff to a pair of whirring, toothed discs that soared over its body like macabre imitations of wings (Level 5: ATK 2000 » 2900 » 3300/DEF 2000).

"Edge Imp Chain's effect!" Sora threw out his hand. "If it's sent from my hand or field to the Graveyard, I can add 1 Death-Toy card from my Deck to my hand! I add a special card called Toy Parade—because its effect allows it to always be treated as a Death-Toy card—and then, I activate it to target a DARK-Attribute monster I control that was Special Summoned from the Extra Deck! I'll target my Death-Toy Sabre Tiger!"

As if in reply, his Sabre Tiger hunkered down, looking ready to pounce on the nearest prey that caught its attention. "For the rest of this turn," Sora went on, "I can only attack with Sabre Tiger—but each time it destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, I can make it attack again! Furthermore, any monster that's Fusion Summoned through Greater Fusion gains the ability to inflict piercing damage if it attacks a Defense Position monster!"

He stayed quiet just enough to let his targets hear the SHHK of Sabre Tiger's claws unsheathing to their fullest. And then—"Battle Phase! Death-Toy Sabre Tiger! Destroy every Antique Gear Devil you see—and don't stop attacking until they're scrap! Screaming Sabre Slash!"

He was able to scrabble onto its back just in time: scarcely had Sora braced himself between two of the blades on its back that Sabre Tiger let fly with a distorted, yowling screech—and launched. It took two leaps to scale the wall that separated him from the Devils in his path—but once that was done, Sora had just enough time to take in the vista beyond.

His first, brief thought was of confusion: for an organization that seemed religiously devoted to constant innovation and reinvention, the Ædonai seemed content to have made this fortress among the ruins of a necropolis. Tombs and statues were scattered hither and thither, and though none dared to approach the majesty or the scale of the Pyramids themselves, even the smallest of them could have dwarfed a house. But just as quickly, the word "religiously" had taken root in him, and it wasn't long before he began to wonder if perhaps the true fortress was beneath—that the entire complex had been hollowed out from under this hallowed ground.

If that was true, Sora thought, storming the place would take much longer than he'd feared. But he had no time to dwell on this; his Sabre Tiger had just dived for earth—and the first Antique Gear Devil in its path.

The cacophony that happened less than a second later was the mingled screeching roar of his monster and the death throes of his opponent's; Sabre Tiger had trampled the Devil as though it had all the substance of a house of cards. The soldier that had crewed it was knocked right off his perch and almost off the parapet; only some quick thinking with the blade of his Duel Disk to slow his momentum had saved him. Sora waited until his LP gauge had dropped to 2100—and then it was on to the next one.

Left, right, and center the Devils fell, and their Summoners were scattered like so much chaff on the wind, but Sora no longer paid them any care. He'd lost count after the fourth soldier had smacked against the parapet with a noise like a sack of meat being swung against a wall. All he was concerned about was dealing with the immediate threat, and then getting back out. He knew what he was doing would solve only half the problem.

And sure enough, the moment the last Devil had been sundered under his Sabre Tiger, and its controller's LP gauge read 2100 like the rest of his companions—some of the monster's wreckage was beginning to twitch and clump together, as if animated by some invisible hand. A quick look further back revealed even more towers of spare parts taking shape where his Sabre Tiger had decimated the Ædonai's artillery squad.

The soldier nearest him had gotten to his feet. "When you destroyed our Devils, you activated their final effect," he coughed out. "It lets us Special Summon an Antique Gear monster from our Deck—and bypasses any Summoning conditions it might otherwise have! And we'll each Special Summon Antique Gear Golem!"

Sora barely resisted the urge to mouth the monster's name—he was well aware that the Ædonai had pulled this exact same maneuver on the LID in Maiami City. That didn't make the monsters that emerged from those mobile piles of scrap moments later any less imposing, though—and while each mechanical Golem was smaller than a Chaos Giant by far, they were still large enough to punt his Sabre Tiger right off the ramparts (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 3000).

His monsters were still stronger, but that did not soothe Sora—he knew if those Golems were allowed to linger for too long, things were going to get even messier than they already were. So he wheeled his Sabre Tiger round and off the parapets—"Turn end!"—and promptly set about looking for a place to take cover.

He didn't want to be anywhere close to Kurosaki Shun during the next few minutes.

---

"My turn! DRAW!"

The Xyz Duelist dug a heel in the sand; a few of the more errant grains had already been buffeted by the shockwave he'd made by drawing his card. Shun didn't bother to look at it; he'd known what he wanted to do from the moment Sora had begun the Duel.

"First, I Summon Raid Raptors – Vanishing Lanius"—he felt the gusts whip at his long-coat as his monster hovered beside him (Level 4: ATK 1300/DEF 1600)—"and then, I activate the Spell Card Raid Raptors – Call! By targeting a Raid Raptors monster I control, I can Special Summon 1 monster from my Deck or Graveyard that shares its name in Defense Position! Behold!" With a flourish, he'd swiped a card and slammed it on his blade almost in the same movement, and an identical mechanical bird shimmered into sight (Level 4: ATK 1300/DEF 1600).

"Next, since I control at least 2 Raid Raptors monsters," grunted Shun, "I play the Continuous Spell: Raid Raptors – Nest, and use its effect to add 1 Raid Raptors monster from my Deck to my hand! I add a third Vanishing Lanius … and then, I'll use my Vanishing Lanius' effect to Special Summon its brother from my hand! GO!" He raised an elbow to his face to protect it from the cloud of sand that had suddenly erupted when the monster swirled into being right in front of him (Level 4: ATK 1300/DEF 1600).

"That makes 3 Level 4 monsters—all of which I'll use to construct the Overlay Network!" he roared, and in a trice, his monsters gleamed with bright purple energy, streaking into the miniature mass of stars that had just appeared in the clear sky, consumed to a one:

"Obscured falcon! Raise your sharpened talons in front of adversity, and spread your wings of rebellion!"

"Xyz Summon!" Shun chanted. "Appear! Rank 4! Raid Raptors – Rise Falcon!"

FLASH. With a keening cry, his monster soared majestically from the portal he had made (Rank 4: ATK 100/DEF 2000; ORU 3), wheeling round the veritable horde of Golems once before coming to earth in front of Shun. He was on its back a second later, hunkering down as Rise Falcon's iron wings beat once, and carried him aloft.

He felt every muscle tense in anticipation of what was coming next. "And finally," he growled, feeling his hackles tense, "I activate the Spell Card: Rank-Up-Magic – Skip Force! By targeting a Raid Raptors Xyz Monster I control, I can use it as an Overlay Unit and Xyz Summon a Raid Raptors monster from my Extra Deck, whose Rank exceeds it by 2! And so I target my Rise Falcon—and use it to reconstruct the Overlay Network!"

In the corner of his eye, he saw his monster gleam with the same purple energy that had subsumed each Vanishing Lanius he'd brought out a minute ago. But he did not make to leap from its back—even as his monster hurtled up for the galaxy that had just bloomed in front of him, he could feel it changing into something fiercer by far:

"Prideful falcon. Spread your wings dyed in the blood of heroes, and charge through the path of revolution!"

"Rank Up: Xyz Change!" bellowed Shun. "Appear! Rank 6! Raid Raptors – Revolution Falcon!"

Mighty engines whined to life beneath him, and the fire and smoke of exhaust billowed all around him. Then, with a single beat of wings, it was all dispelled, and he soared into the clear skies beneath his monster: a mechanical bird of jet-black armor and gunmetal gray blades that could have held its own against any jet fighter in the world (Rank 6: ATK 2000/DEF 3000; ORU 4).

"Revolution Falcon's effect—by detaching an Overlay Unit, I can make it attack every single monster the opponent controls, once each!" He paused just long enough to watch one of the purple lights that orbited Falcon wink out. "Then, if it battles a monster that was Special Summoned, its second effect can reduce that monster's ATK and DEF to zero! And your Antique Gear Golems don't stop monster effects from being activated during the Battle Phase!"

Shun could feel the redness consuming his vision, and he almost attacked then and there, but he blinked it away just in time. He had to go just a little bit further, he knew—and so he kicked his Revolution Falcon into a steep dive that nearly unseated him. They fell together, almost at a ninety-degree angle—before leveling off at the last possible moment. Had he been a couple inches taller, Shun could have craned his neck back to kiss the sand above him.

But he kept his head about him, and well that he did; he almost sped right past what he was looking for. But a bit of quick thinking—and an aerial from his Falcon—brought man and monster right side up at the same moment he had spotted the Action Card, gleaming in the desert like a diamond in the rough, and brushed it with his fingertips.

It was enough—and the card itself was more than enough. "Now—the Action Card: Flame Power!" he cried. "By targeting a monster I control, I grant it 400 ATK for the rest of this turn!" He felt the heat surge beneath him as a thousand tongues of flame licked at his mount, but Revolution Falcon seemed to care only for the point gauge that showed its ATK at 2400. Perhaps it knew what was coming next, a calmer part of the Xyz Duelist pondered.

But now was no time to be calm. "BATTLE PHASE!" Spittle flew from his lips as he pronounced judgment on the Duelists below him at last. "Revolution Falcon! Destroy every single Antique Gear Golem you see—and turn them all to molten slag! REVOLUTIONAL AIR RAID!"

---

Sora knew he had to get out of there—now. He was all too aware of what it felt like to get pummeled into paste by this monster … and so he ran for it right as he saw the armor plates unfolding beneath Revolution Falcon's flaming wings, revealing enough clusters of missiles to level an entire city.

With a howl of noise like the Katyushas of old, those missiles ignited, streaking for one Golem after another with lethal accuracy. The explosions that followed ripped them all into ribbons of shrapnel. The screams of the soldiers that controlled them ended as quickly as they'd come, lost amidst the shrill screams of their Duel Disks as their Life Points plummeted to zero, before even those were snuffed out by the sinister dirge of Shun's Falcon … and the roar of adrenaline, bloodlust and rage erupting from Shun himself. Just listening to it gave Sora a chill.

The wall of the Ædonai's fortress shook from the force of the explosions … and then, mere moments later, an entire section cracked with a deafening noise as the stress of the battle finally became too much to bear. It wasn't enough to crumble outright—the wall was simply too thick and sturdy for that—but Sora's heart still rose at the sight. He and Shun had just given the Lancers Combined a possible route into the fortress—one that wouldn't need anyone to sneak around and waste time.

He accessed his Duel Disk's comm. channel again. "We've damaged the outer wall! Anna—Allen! Focus on that section and give us a way in!" It might draw some heat off their flanks—and maybe even give Gongenzaka and Sawatari more time to finish scouting, he thought to himself. "Everyone else, close up and get ready to move in!"

---

The squad had caught up to Asuka and Mieru with agonizing slowness—as if they'd been waiting for the desert to finish them off before they moved in for the kill. For Mieru, that felt especially true; her dress was soaked with her own sweat and tattered from multiple falls in the sand. Arrowsylph's shadow did nothing to stop her dehydration—though Asuka had spared a split second to toss a ration pack her way before switching on her Duel Disk.

Mieru had bridled at what the pack contained; heavy though it was, most of the contents were in the form of pills—a third of it was dehydrated food, while the rest were so clear they might have looked empty if they hadn't been most of the reason why the pack was so heavy at all. The Divination Duelist, curious, had sampled one of the latter—and the eruption of water that burst in her mouth was so intense that most of it nearly went out of her nose.

"Hydration tab," Asuka had explained to her—right before a Hound Flame knocked the wind out of her. "That's an ounce of water in each of them. One or two is good enough to make the other pills a little more appetizing, but they can help keep your fluids up on their own if you use them carefully enough." She hadn't had time to say more after that; the shadow of a Chaos Giant had towered so high over them as to block out the sun.

After five Hound Flames and as many Chaos Giants, Asuka's blonde hair, once immaculate even in this hellish heat, was almost as tangled of a mess as Mieru's own. Her life gauge hovered at 400, and sweat dripped from every pore of her body. But she was on her feet—and when she drew her card, every drop of that sweat seemed to evaporate in a trice, reinvigorating her so thoroughly she might have just grown a few years younger.

"I activate the Ritual Spell: Machine Angel Ritual!" Asuka cried, holding a card aloft, and Mieru's eyes widened. She's a Ritual user?! Just like me?

But no one else shared her surprise. "This lets me Release monsters from my hand or field," Asuka went on, "whose total Levels equal or exceed the Level of a Cyber Angel Ritual Monster in my hand, so that I can Ritual Summon that monster! So I'll release the Level 5 Cyber Tutubon and the Level 5 Cyber Angel – Nasateiya – in my hand!"

Mieru thought she saw a pair of transparent shades swirling around Asuka just then: a girl wearing a colorful cross between a leotard and a tutu, and an armored, white-tailed centaur with four legs, four arms, and a cape that draped over them all. She might have taken them for a mirage if it weren't for the miniature sandstorm they were creating in their midst, swirling around Asuka and engulfing the Duel site so quickly that Mieru felt blessed coolness, and almost forgot that she'd been two steps from dehydration and heatstroke to boot:

"Angel of light hiding eternal power. Now show your form to this vast world, and illuminate all creation!"

"Ritual Summon!" Asuka screamed to the sky. "Descend! Level 10! Cyber Angel – Vishnu –!"

The sandstorm shrank into a tornado, intensified—and then, quite suddenly, four golden wings, each twice as long as Mieru stood tall, dispelled the dust and wind to reveal a slender, four-armed woman in an elaborate bodysuit of pink, purple, and white. The headdress atop her lavender hair, and the eight-pointed halo of gold that floated behind her, framed an expression of such austere serenity that Mieru wondered if Asuka really had conjured the avatar of a goddess (Level 10: ATK 3000/DEF 2000).

But no—it's a Ritual Monster, she thought in awe. And she looks a lot stronger than my Tarotrei …

It didn't take long for Asuka to prove her right. "Vishnu's effect activates when she's Special Summoned," she said, her lips creased in a defiant smirk, "and destroys every Fusion Monster on my opponent's field whose Level isn't higher than its own! Then, anyone who controlled a monster destroyed like that takes 1000 damage for each one!"

Vishnu raised her four arms. All of a sudden, the quiet beauty in her face had focused itself into something resolute and unyielding. In a flash, each palm clasped a blade that hadn't been there a moment ago, and brandished it at the Chaos Giants that dared to stand in her way.

"And finally," Asuka went on, relishing as much of the look of incipient horror as the soldiers' helms betrayed, "for each monster destroyed, Vishnu can attack that many times during this Battle Phase! Now GO!"

Her monster hovered aloft, ten—twenty—thirty feet into the air, and Mieru felt a sudden thrill of adrenaline.

"ASCENSION BURST!"

SHHK.

It happened too quickly for the Divination Duelist to make sense of it all. Arms and blades alike blurred in the air until they'd half vanished from sight, like just one more mirage. One second later, Vishnu blurred straight through one Chaos Giant after another, scattering their wreckage far and wide even beyond the Duel site. Most of it fell on the soldiers' position themselves; the entire squad was forced to ignominiously run for cover. It did not save them.

In less time than it took for the last of the Chaos Giants to tumble to the desert, dismantled beyond hope of repair, six soldiers had become six shimmering cards—and Hōchun Mieru's look of wonder had morphed into horror.

Did she just … ?!

She'd closed her eyes, rubbed at them, opened them again—and still they told a truth she could not yet comprehend. In a second, she'd whirled on Asuka, a thousand questions and accusations exploding all over her brain—only to see a steely expression on her face that wouldn't have looked out of place on her own Vishnu a minute ago.

"We're not out of this yet, girlfriend," was all that she said, not even looking her way. Mieru followed her gaze—and felt her stomach drop to her bowels: a second patrol had been hard on the heels of the first one her teammate had just singlehandedly sealed into cards. The noise that came from their gritted teeth was a clear sign they'd seen the whole Duel from start to finish, knowing they'd be too late to stop what had come.

" … You'll pay for that, you traitorous bitch!" All six soldiers had filled their hands before the Divination Duelist could even think to be angry at them for insulting Asuka like that. In less than a second, she'd forgotten that she had been sweating up a storm and dangerously dehydrated—five cards were in her hand almost before she knew it—

And then twin streaks of sand streaked either side of them, each screaming with the whine of a D-Wheel's engine.

"We'll take it from here, ladies!" One of the bikes skidded to a halt, revealing the round face of Tony Simmons, split across the middle by his massive grin. "You've earned yourselves a breather—we'll make it a long one, too!"

"Now who's up first?" Damon Lopez challenged from alongside him, revving his D-Wheel with such a menacing look on his face that he might have been trying to physically run the soldiers over. "We'll take all you putas on!"

Mieru was ready to believe it, too. She'd just about clambered to her feet to say as much—when a sudden rumble unseated her as quickly as she'd stood. Stars winked in front of her eyes as she dusted sand out of her air.

"The heck was that?" she asked Asuka. But even as the older girl shrugged, she was looking somewhere behind her, towards the distant dunes in the north, with confusion and worry etched all over her face.

---

Far to the south, Maeda Hayato and Marufuji Shō weren't faring much better. For one thing, the two squads that had been hard on their heels had been pursuing them in perfect tandem, unlike the two that had staggered their movements with Asuka and Mieru. Which meant that when they inevitably caught up to the former Academia dropouts, a Duel that Shō had hoped to turn into a pair of six-on-ones had turned into one big mess of a Duel.

A full dozen Hound Dogs and Chaos Giants later, however, he was ready to laugh his fool head off, even as 400 LP blinked tauntingly on both of their Duel Disks. Luck had been a lady today—all five cards he'd drawn at the start of the Duel had been the proof of that. He still needed one more to pull it off—and even then, it might not be enough; it all depended on whether his friend was just as lucky—but the sight still made him giddy with anticipation.

Hayato had made the first move, and passed his turn just as quickly in four panted words. He just wasn't built for long-distance running, Shō thought in pity, however impressive his physique might be otherwise—and this accursed desert hadn't done him any favors either. He looked like he'd lost five pounds already, with how much he'd been sweating out here. But now that he'd watched thirteen different Duelists take their first turns—Shō had stretched his out as much as he could before passing as well—Hayato looked like he'd gotten some of the wind back in his sails.

He drew his card, and let fly with a bark of laughter. "I activate the Spell Card: Fusion," he announced, "and use it to fuse the Big Koala and the Des Kangaroo in my hand!"

Shō almost laughed with him. Not only was this one more stroke of good luck for him, but he couldn't have hoped for a better monster for his lifelong friend to have played at a time like this, either. So as he watched the echoes of his partner's chosen monsters rise into the air, he dared to dream the unthinkable:

"Fusion Summon!" Hayato bellowed. "Level 9! Master of Oz!"

The THUD that followed a second later was loud and long enough for Shō to wonder if anyone else here might have mistaken it for an earthquake. As he picked himself off from the ground, and dusted off the sand and aches from his clothes and his body, he couldn't help but feel his jaw drop at the sheer size of the monster Hayato had Summoned, even though he'd seen it a hundred times before: a titanic green koala, inch for inch the height of the Chaos Giants that stared it down—decked out in boxing gloves, an belt of black and gold that befitted its girth, and an expression of challenging defiance (Level 9: ATK 4200/DEF 3700).

"One card face-down," Hayato finished, slipping it into his Duel Disk, "to end my turn! Go for it, Shō!"

Which he did so quickly that he nearly forgot to pray to Lady Luck one last time before he drew his card. He flicked it round—and his heart swooped. That wasn't what he'd been hoping for—but that didn't mean he could still use it.

And so, grinning, Shō took off at a full sprint, searching for the nearest gleam of light on the dunes. He found one within seconds—and with a shower of photons, the Action Card was in his hand.

Perfect! "I activate the Spell Card: Double Magic!" he declared, swiping it across his Duel Disk. "By discarding a Spell Card—like the Action Card: Wonder Chance I picked up just now—I can target a Spell Card in my opponent's Graveyard, and apply that target's effect when it resolves!"

He waited until every single one of the soldiers had whirled on Hayato in horror. Shō looked his way as well, just to be sure—and was rewarded with the boisterous smile plastered on the big guy's face.

"That's right!" He gathered up every card in his hand save one. "Since this is a Battle Royale, I'll copy the effect of my friend's Fusion … and use it to fuse the Expressroid, Truckroid, Drillroid and Stealthroid in my hand!"

Twelve mouths fell open. "No way … " one of them managed to mutter. "What are the odds of that?"

Shō wouldn't have minded knowing himself. But he'd learned long ago that once-in-a-lifetime opportunities ought to be cherished for as long as they lasted. Dwelling on them could wait until later. So he watched one, two, three, and four different echoes of the monsters he'd put in his Graveyard: a long snake of a train, an eighteen-wheeler, a mobile drill, and a stealth fighter—all of them twisted and deformed enough to look like they'd leapt straight out of a cartoon—slip into the vortex above him that roared with enough sound to nearly drown out his next words:

"Fusion Summon! Level 9! Super Vehicroid – Stealth Union!"

The metal monstrosity that emerged soon after looked like an amalgam of everything he'd used to make it possible. The black wings of Stealthroid and the purple body of Drillroid had split down the middle and connected with one another, forming arms, legs and a torso that was already near the size of the Chaos Giants. Moments later, Shō saw Truckroid layer itself over that to form both the head and the upper torso, adding a good ten feet to its height—while both engines of Expressroid pointed at opposite ends from where they'd perched upon its shoulders (Level 9: ATK 3600/DEF 3000).

"Stealth Union's effect!" Shō did his best fists-on-hips heroic pose. "I can target any monster on the field that isn't Machine-Type, and equip it to my monster! And since there's only one monster that fits the bill … "

" … it means we'll have make sure that monster fits inside!" Hayato cut in just then. "Trap, activate: Enlargement! By targeting a monster my opponent controls, I can stop it from attacking directly—but I can also double its ATK and DEF for the rest of the turn! And since none of your Chaos Giants can be touched by Spells or Traps … "

" … then my Stealth Union's about to get a major upgrade!" finished Shō. And true to his word, even as the semi trailer on his monster's chest unfolded, its metallic body was growing larger and more massive with each passing moment. By the time Shō had mentioned its "major upgrade", Stealth Union was large enough to have bodily lifted a Chaos Giant with one hand, its point gauge had swelled to 7200/6000, and Master of Oz had been enveloped in a beam of energy that dragged it into the waiting recess in its chest.

"Stealth Union's second effect lets it attack every single monster my opponent controls once each while a monster's equipped to it by its first effect," Shō went on, as his partner's monster was sealed inside, "but whenever it attacks, I have to halve its original ATK! It's still more than enough to pound your Chaos Giants into spare parts—but I've got one more card to play!"

And he held it aloft triumphantly for all to see. "The Quick-Play Spell: Limiter Removal! For the rest of the turn, I can double the ATK of every Machine-Type monster on my field, and destroy them at the end of my turn!"

Lightning snaked along his monster's metal skin, racing from his eyes and down his spine, and collecting within the palms of Stealth Union's hands. "BATTLE PHASE!" Shō screamed—only faintly registering Hayato saying it with him. "Super Vehicroid – Stealth Union of Oz! Destroy them all—Absolute Ayers Rocky Burner!"

The soldiers were already in full retreat by the time his monster's ATK gauge had rocketed even higher to 12600—every last point of it reflected in the lightning and fire that wrapped around its fists like the flares of miniature suns. But even as they ran, the world seemed to go silent, as if waiting with bated breath for the hammer blow to fall—

When it did, it fell with a tremendous WHAM that consumed the soldiers within a dune's worth of sand, blasted sky-high and flattening the ground beneath. It took the better part of a minute for the cards in which they'd been sealed to fall to earth—and even then, the ground still trembled from the aftershocks of Stealth Union's final attack—

—but was that really his monster's doing? Even as Shō watched his monster vanish into nothingness, feeling the cool, familiar thrill of victory washing over him, the rumbling did not fade over time. In fact—unless the shellshock was affecting him more than he'd expected—it seemed to be growing stronger.

Hayato was turning round in a full circle. "You feel that?"

So it isn't just me. "Yeah … " Shō bit his lip. "But … where's it coming from?"

---

Half the walls of the office of the Chief of Security were covered with flickering monitors; each of them four feet at the corners and displaying almost every angle of the unfolding battle. Several outlying screens showed more than that, but those were of little concern to the three figures in the center of the room. One sat in the exact center of the office, while the others flanked him either side and below, cloaked like twin shadows, and silent as silent could be.

"Cri-key." A low whistle escaped Jim "Crocodile" Cook's lips as he fixed his eye—or at least, the one not swathed in bandages from brow to cheek—on the image of Shō and Hayato. "You can always trust kids to make a right mess of things. But damn if they weren't quick about it, this bunch."

He chuckled. "Ole Sora's been busier than I gave him credit for."

"Our outer defenses are already buckling," the figure on his right reminded him. She nodded to a monitor, where an Xyz Monster that the scanners identified as a Heroic Champion Excalibur belabored the crumbling eastern wall with its broad blade. "Even now they are focusing their efforts on breaching the secondary perimeter."

"They'll need more than Duel Monsters to put a hole in that," said Jim.

"Need I remind you of the covenant you made with my clan to build your fortress here?!" The ethereal voice that emanated from under the Bestatter's hood was as bitter cold as the desert outside was baking hot—and might have sounded alluring or even exotic in the absence of either extreme. But her Middle Eastern accent bore the staccato bite of fury even as it curved every vowel that left her lips. "Your people protect your fortress—"

"—but your people protect your sanctum," Jim finished, rolling the one eye he could and adjusting his hat so that its wide brim didn't rub against the prosthetic inside his left socket. "I have my way, that's exactly what'll happen."

Green light glowed from underneath the bandages, and one of the monitors flared. The image it had been displaying now ballooned in size until it covered half the wall. Two dragons with shimmering wings—each mounted by a boy his data files told him were the Tenjō brothers—scored and seared the earth below with chromatic fire.

"See, Sora knows his Art of War," he explained to the woman, cycling from one feed to the next. "Chapter six: 'For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.' He knows numbers ain't on his side, so what does he do? He puts Duelists out every which way but down, so as we have to divide ourselves to engage them."

"Which risks spreading his inferior numbers too thin," said the Bestatter. The third figure said nothing.

Jim nodded. "Literally the next thing the book says. 'Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks'." He wondered if the Bestatter's culture had ever possessed the likes of that Chinese philosopher-general in antiquity. "'Numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.'"

An unseen pair of nostrils flared from under her hood. "Then you mean to let them intrude upon our holy ground."

"Now don't sound so accusing, miss," Jim said loftily. "You know whose orders I'm followin' 'ere. And you know he wasn't talking out of his fat arse, neither." A beat. "He did believe he could do better than two out of three … "

"Belief," the Bestatter stated with an awful conviction, "is a power that too many humans like you fail to conceive."

Jim didn't feel like dignifying that with a response. He believed what he saw—and his eyes let him see plenty.

He tapped at a control panel built into his chair. "Right, then—showtime. Battalion commanders—report in."

"Second Battalion. In position, ready to engage."

"Third Battalion. In the pipe." "Five by five."

Jim cracked his knuckles. "Then we go to Phase Two, people. Bestatter—fall back to your turf. Tell your crew to be ready to do what they do best." The hooded woman nodded, and left the office with neither word nor sound.

By then, the Australian had turned to the third figure. "Go topside and wait for my signal. I want to see the looks on those kids' faces in me eye"—he tapped under his bandages—"when they get a good look at you."

He smirked. "And I know which o' those ankle-biters you'll want to go after first."

The figure made no response save a low, hissing breath that didn't sound entirely human. Then he, too, was gone.

Now alone, Jim tapped at one last screen, enhancing the image of two children: a boy and a girl, each dressed in loose black cloth and lying beside each other on a table of roughly cut stone. The image quality was just enough to show the pink hair of the girl, and the two-tone red and green of the boy …

---

Tenjō Haruto had never remembered feeling so alive in a long time.

As he and his brother soared half a kilometer over the battlefield, wreaking havoc on any Antique Gear Wyvern who dared to meet them, a surge of adrenaline had boiled inside his frail body. His smile had been tiny at first, tempered by the clamor of battle—but as he watched the Chaos Giants fall one by one, and then squad by squad, he'd felt that grin stretch his cheeks to the breaking point. In scarcely fifteen minutes, they'd halved the number of soldiers that'd moved to intercept them—even Orbital 7 hadn't been so optimistic in calculating their odds of success.

It felt good to see the destroyers of Heartland get a taste of their own medicine, he thought—and he knew Kaito well enough that for how much rage and retribution he'd used to conceal it, this felt every ounce as cathartic for him, too.

And then the comm. lines had started talking about things like the ground rumbling, even after the Chaos Giants had been defeated. Both boys had climbed a few hundred meters higher, scanning the ground for anything that might—

"New contacts detected," Orbital 7 announced just then. "Multiple hostiles, sectors eight and eleven."

Haruto's head whirled downward so quickly that his neck cricked. What he saw sent his heart plummeting right out of the sky: more clouds of dust had appeared directly north and south of the Lancers Combined, out of nowhere. His first alarmed thought had been sandstorms, but the odds of them appearing then and there were remote.

And then he'd seen the pillars—six-sided, metal, and large enough to seat the dragon he was riding—rising from the dunes that had concealed them. Haruto counted five—ten—twenty of them, all in a line, and each of them nearly as tall as a Chaos Giant. He had little doubt that something just like it was taking shape to the north.

In an instant, it became clear that the fortress they'd been laying waste to had been a lot more expansive than Rei's intelligence had let on.

" … Kaito?" His voice was heavy with dread. "Are you seeing this?"

His Duel Disk crackled. "Yeah." A second crackle—and then: "Sora? We've got trouble. … Big trouble."

Big wasn't the word that Haruto wanted to use—because big didn't seem to do it justice. From this distance, he just barely saw the pillars unfolding into multi-leveled hangars, multicolored shapes racing out from their depths into the desert before the doors had even fully opened. Some of those shapes were combining scarcely a second after their departure—in the time it took for Haruto's stomach to drop level with his heart, fifty different unions of six different Duel Monsters had formed before his eyes.

The Lancers had been caught in a pincer formation, he now understood. They'd been cut off at their flanks—which meant they could only go forward, to the fortress they had yet to fully assail … or back to the waiting Nile.

Haruto looked back at that distant, deep blue, deceptively calm ribbon of water—and knew that they were trapped.

---

Château Pique-Diamant

A shrill noise like a fire alarm cut the peaceful day in two.

Masumi and Yaiba toppled over one another, each scrabbling to cover their ears as they tried to extricate themselves from their suddenly-awkward embrace. Shen had catapulted himself into a dragon stance that almost scared Fuyu more than the sound itself; the poor Xyz Duelist had gone so pale so quickly that he looked two steps from a heart attack. Hokuto was forced to lean against his partner just to keep him from flopping onto the ground.

Only Hotene, Rika, and the twins—owing to being some distance away, having given up on hunting down Action Cards and now simply racing each other on their monsters while doing laps around the mansion—escaped the worst of the cacophony. But noise would have been enough for anyone inside or outside of the house to hear it. No doubt some of the horses at the stable near the edge of the clearing had been scared out of their wits.

By the time they'd made a beeline for Masumi and dismounted their Duel Monsters, the Fusion Duelist—fingers in her ears—had recovered just enough to glower at the source of the noise with all the annoyance she could muster.

Angel-IQ's eyes were flashing bright red, and the hologram's mouth was wide open, generating the piercing shriek that had disrupted their training. Neither the look nor the sound suited her in the slightest.

"WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?!" Hotene, always the loudest of the LID, was a mere whisper in comparison. Masumi could only shrug—she wanted to save her vocal cords for when it mattered most.

The chance came sooner than she'd expected—though later than she would have preferred. Ten seconds later, the shriek ended as quickly as it had begun, and a merciful silence settled upon the clearing.

"Are … you … TRYING to give us a heart attack?!" Masumi raged at Angel-IQ.

"My apologies." For once, the hologram looked as though she meant it. "My mainframe's proximity sensors have been triggered. A dimensional incursion was just reported in sector AA-00."

Immediately, all trace of anger left her. "Dimensional?!"

"Affirmative. High traces of Fusion radiation have been detected as well."

Yaiba swore. "Sector AA-00? That better not be close to where we are!"

"It is not." But just as quickly, Angel-IQ amended, "Sector AA-00 is the Leo Duel School's primary campus."

Half a dozen mouths fell open. "Wha—how?!" Hokuto's mouth worked, but no more words came out. "They just appeared right on top of our school?"

Masumi felt Yaiba grip her hand tightly. "How many of them, Q?" he asked warily. "How many invaders?"

Angel-IQ did not blink. "Three."

Before any of them could look stunned, her eyes flashed blue. "Interfacing with traffic operations CCTV network. Accessing live feeds and reformatting for holographic projection."

Her digital hands waved through midair, and data spilled from her fingertips, flowing into a giant glowing cube that loomed taller than any of them. Masumi saw the skyline of Maiami City projected from within in three dimensions, dominated as ever by the crystal spike of LDS. But she saw no sign of invaders—not three or even three hundred.

She frowned. "Magnify."

The cubical image frizzed—and suddenly jumped inward on LDS, close enough for Masumi to see them: a trio of figures atop the literal pinnacle of the school. She saw nothing but a vague impression of human forms that seemed to have nothing in common but the black cloaks that swathed them. One looked wider than it stood tall—perhaps it was sitting rather than standing. The one in the middle was tall and slender, and the third was taller still, broad at the shoulder, and more misshapen than any man or woman Masumi had seen in her life.

Man … or woman …

Something cold gripped at Masumi's spine. An uncut gem took shape inside her mind's eye, waiting to be freed. "Focus on the one in the middle," she said, barely in a whisper. Then, a moment later: "Maximum magnification."

But a moment later, the figure she'd fixed on did something that made Angel-IQ's efforts completely unnecessary. With a pale hand, the woman—for no man had fingers that deceptively delicate—lowered the hood of her cloak.

Then waist-length locks of spring-green hair had spilled out, whipped in every direction by the wind, and Masumi—through the fog of fury and fear that had suddenly enveloped her body, mind, and soul—saw her mental gem shatter before she could confirm what she already knew. In its place burned an ancient Word the Fusion ace knew all too well—permanently scarred into her brain by the fell magic that had concealed death amidst truth—

ÆMÆTH

---

A/N: And the pendulum starts to swing the other way. Oh god.

I apologize if this comes out looking rushed or scuffed at all. A good chunk of this was written over the past couple weeks, when I had some downtime while working out of town. Each shift, however, has seen me starting earlier than my usual—and I don't doubt that's cut into the quality of the chapter considerably. I likely won't have a good chance to take a look at any errors in formatting or editing until tomorrow afternoon; feel free to point any of them out in the meantime.

Writing Yūzō's Duel was unexpectedly fun—which maybe I should've seen coming, given what I had him use, and probably why it turned out to be the bulk of the chapter. I wonder if an Amazement Duel would've made Yūzō look more dangerous in the show than the laugher he put on against Gongenzaka. That's been and always will be my biggest critique of ARC-V—all that wasted potential, and for what?

(ahem) Anyway. Rate and review if you wish, and I'll see you in the next chapter! Thanks for reading! – K