In the morning following Jack's disappearance Yusei and the others couldn't reach Carly or Mina, Yusei had assumed they had gone to drown their sorrows somewhere.
"Luna… Crow… Jack… All gone… They're gone!"
"Yusei please tell me they're not gone forever." said Leo.
"I don't know Leo… I just don't know."
During the night that followed Yusei and the others were on high alert. They didn't want Damian to get Akiza, and they didn't want him to get to Yusei, but they especially didn't want him to get both, so Yusei was in the Satellite while Akiza was locked up in her father's house.
"Yusei… Why do you think someone would do all this? I mean stealing people's souls over a card game?" asked Rally.
"This has to be about more than just cards, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. Most people don't worry about a game title that probably won't matter years from now… no, there has to be more to it, there has to be something else that drives Damian to do the things he does."
At that moment Yusei received a call.
"Yusei! I've got him!"
"Blister? Where is he?!"
"He's in the city; he appears to be heading for…"
"Akiza!"
"Yusei wait, it's too dangerous!"
Yusei ignored the pleas of his friends; he mounted his runner and took off.
Damian used his runner to jump over the fence that guarded Hideo Izinski's house. He was met with a hailstorm of gunfire by the guards that had been ordered to shoot to kill, but their bullets did nothing, nonetheless they just kept shooting until they ran out of ammo.
"My turn." said Damian smiling.
He threw his hands in the air and huge wave of fire erupted out of the ground. When it was over all the guards were rolling around screaming. With no further resistance on the outside Damian marched up to the front door, he wasn't surprised that it was locked, not that it would stop him from achieving his goal. He burned the door down and entered the building, he was met by more guards, but he just beat the hell out of them.
"I've waited too long for this… I won't be denied."
Damian walked through the hallways looking for his prey, he could smell her fear, and not just her own, he could sense the fear of her parents. Damian knew all about how parents care for their children, unfortunately he learned that lesson too late.
"Pathetic mortals."
Damian finally found the room he was looking for, he could sense the power of the dragon radiating from inside. He conjured a ball of fire and blew down the door.
"Here's Johnny!"
"Stay back!"
For a moment Damian just stood there, then he opened his mouth wide and exhaled, at that moment Akiza's parents fainted.
"What did you do to them?!"
"Nothing, they're just going to take a little nap, while you and I duel."
Akiza could see there wasn't much of a choice in the matter.
"Wait!"
"What for?"
"You've done enough damage to my father's house already, and I don't want to do any more."
"Fine… We'll take it outside then."
Akiza knew all about Damian's strategy to summon Exodia, but she was confident that she had found a way to wipe out Damian's life points before that happened.
"Let's duel!"
"I know the rules say ladies first, but the rules of men mean little to me. I summon a monster in defense mode, next I'll place a card face down, and now I'll play the spell card Contract with the Devil, to use this card I need to discard my entire hand, but from now on I get to draw two cards during my draw phase. And I'll leave it at that."
Akiza looked at her hand; she already had plenty of cards to do some damage.
"I play the spell card Seed Cannon! From now on whenever a plant monster is summoned I can place a plant counter on it. Now I summon the monster Evil Thorn!"
(ATK: 100 DEF: 300)
"Now I'll activate its special ability, by sending Evil Thorn to the graveyard I can special summon two more Evil Thorns from my deck!"
(2x ATK: 100 DEF: 300)
"And that's not all! Thanks to Evil Thorn's other special effect you take 300 points of damage!"
(Damian: 3700)
"Now I activate the spell card Double Summon, now I can sacrifice the two Evil Thorns on my field to summon Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis!"
(ATK: 2200 DEF: 0)
"Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis, destroy his face down monster!"
Damian's monster was destroyed, and Amaryllis was destroyed with it due to its effect.
"Since my Amaryllis was destroyed you lose 800 life points!"
(Damian: 2900)
"But since you destroyed my Sangan I get to take a monster from my deck with 1500 attack points or less."
"Whatever, now during my end phase I can remove one plant type monster from my grave to special summon Amaryllis in defense mode!"
(DEF: 0)
For a moment Damian just stood there looking at Akiza. The way he looked at her made her feel uneasy.
"Sorry… It's just that you remind me of… someone…"
"Someone? Last I checked you're just a heartless wretch!"
"That wasn't always true… But yes, as I am I have no heart… I feel no love, no anger, no fear, no joy, no sorrow. I am hollow, I have no reason to live, and yet I will live… forever."
"Just make your move!"
"Very well…"
Thanks to Akiza's strategy her Seed Cannon now had five counters on it. On her next turn she could destroy it to inflict 2500 points of damage. Thanks to Damian's Contract with the Devil spell card he could draw two cards from his deck.
"I activate the spell card Dark World Dealings, this requires both of us to draw a card from out decks and send one card to the graveyard, which triggers my Appropriate trap which lets me draw two more cards… Just what the doctor ordered. I activate the spell card A Loan from the Devil!"
(Not a real card, but you probably guessed that, right?)
"First a contract, now a loan?"
"The Devil makes deals all the time, it doesn't matter in what form they come. This one of a kind card gives me 5000 life points, I know that sounds like a lot, but there is a catch. Five turns from now I'll lose 5000 life points."
(Damian: 7900)
"And now I shuffle all the monsters in my graveyard back into my deck so that I may special summon Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord!"
(ATK: ? DEF: 0)
Akiza had heard about this monster. When all five pieces of Exodia were sent to the graveyard by its effect then the card's controller would automatically win, so she'd just have to destroy it before that happened.
"Now I'll activate Exodius' effect, when he attacks I can send one monster card from my hand or deck to the graveyard, I choose Left Leg of the Forbidden One, and the best part is since there's a normal monster in my graveyard Exodius gains 1000 attack points."
(ATK: 1000)
"Exodius, destroy her Amaryllis!"
Amaryllis was crushed underneath Exodius' fist.
"You forget, when Amaryllis is destroyed you lose 800 life points!"
(Damian: 7100)
"No matter, I still have plenty of life points left."
With only 1000 attack points Exodius would be all too easy to destroy, after that Akiza just had to hammer away at Damian's life points until the effect of his Loan from the Devil spell kicked in.
"I activate the effect of Seed Cannon! Since it now has five plant counters on it, I can send it to the graveyard to deal 2500 points of damage to your life points!"
(Damian: 4600)
"Next I summon Violet Witch in attack mode!"
(ATK: 1100 DEF: 1200)
"Violet Witch, attack and destroy his Exodius!"
"I don't think so; I activate the trap card Negate Attack!"
Violet Witch's attack was absorbed.
"A signer with special powers and you didn't see that coming? This is going to be easier than I thought. I place one card face down, next I activate Exodius' effect and send Right Leg of the Forbidden One to the graveyard, giving 1000 more attack points to Exodius!"
(ATK: 2000)
"Exodius, destroy her Violet Witch!"
(Akiza: 3100)
"Since you just sent Violet Witch to the graveyard, I can take a plant type monster with 1500 or fewer defense points from my deck and add it to my hand."
"Take whatever monster you like, nothing is going to help you get out of this mess, nothing in your garden of a deck will protect you from the awesome might of Exodia!"
"We'll see about that. I'll summon a monster in defense mode and end my turn."
"You know for a duelist of your credentials that was a pretty poor move. Whatever, it's your funeral. I activate Exodius' effect and send Left Arm of the Forbidden One to the graveyard."
(ATK: 3000)
"Exodius, destroy her face down monster!"
Akiza's face down Hedge Guard was crushed.
"Let's see if your precious Exodia can protect you from this… I summon Twilight Rose Knight in attack mode!"
(ATK: 1000 DEF: 1000)
"His special effect lets me special summon a level four or lower plant type monster from my hand, and I choose Lord Poison!"
(ATK: 1500 DEF: 1000)
"Now I'll tune Twilight Rose Knight to Lord Poison, in order to synchro summon Black Rose Dragon!"
(ATK: 2400 DEF: 1800)
"Now I'll activate Black Rose Dragon's special ability, by removing a plant type monster in my graveyard from play, I can reduce the attack points of one of your monsters to zero, namely your Exodius!"
(ATK: 0)
"Black Rose Dragon, attack!"
When Black Rose Dragon's attack hit, Exodius exploded.
(Damian: 2200)
"Strong… yes… very strong…"
When the smoke cleared Damian was on his knees.
"You attack me not out of hatred… no… not like the Black Rose… You attack because of your friends… especially… Yusei."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb with me Akiza… I know what lurks in your bleeding heart… I know because I've been there… You used to enjoy people's pain because of the pain they caused you… trust me when I say you don't know what pain is… Look into my eyes… and see…"
Suddenly Akiza found herself in a whirling torrent of blinding color, when she could see again she saw a turbo duelist that didn't look much older than Yusei who had just lost a duel.
"Lose the loser! Lose the loser!" chanted the crowd.
"What you are seeing are shadows of things that have already happened." said Damian "The person you see is the man I once was. I wanted more than anything in the world to be a champion turbo duelist… but I always came in last place… every… damn… time."
Next Akiza saw the boy alone in the hands of a girl about his age.
"Everyone thought I was a loser, but not her… she always believed in me… she was my angel of mercy… I was willing to do anything to make her happy… so I spent all my hard earned money getting my hands on what I knew could bring me to victory… Exodia."
Akiza saw the human Damian showing his Exodia cards to his girlfriend. Then she saw him dueling with it.
"She was so excited… For the first time in my life it looked like I could be a champion for her… At the next prestigious tournament I debuted my deck, I dueled with it, and I won with it… I remember how happy she and my parents looked after every duel."
Akiza saw the human Damian with a ring.
"It was the final day of the tournament… After I won I was going to ask her to marry me…"
The scene changed to the duel.
"Everything was going according to plan… I was going to win the duel and live happily ever after… then just as I was drawing the final piece of Exodia… it happened."
The human Damian lost control of his runner and crashed into the wall.
"I woke up in the hospital a week later… when I asked my parents where she was they handed me a letter… She couldn't believe it… I couldn't win a tournament even with Exodia in my deck… she left me… the only person who ever believed in me was gone!"
Akiza watched the human Damian burst into tears in his bed.
"Weeks passed and my body healed… but my heart and spirit remained broken… I had put my heart and soul into my Exodia deck and still it had failed me. Before I had been able to bear the pain of losing… but now the one thing that helped me through my tough times was gone… I couldn't stand the pain anymore… so I decided to end it all…"
Akiza watched Damian ride off into the middle of nowhere on his repaired duel runner, when he finally stopped she watched in horror as he pulled a gun out of his pocket and put it to his head.
"NO!!!" she screamed.
BANG!!!
She watched Damian's lifeless body fall to the earth.
"But I had forgotten one thing… Suicides go to Hell…"
Damian's blood red eyes shot open and his head burst into flames leaving nothing but his skull in its place, then the body got up and roared.
Just like that it was over, and Akiza and Damian where back in her parent's backyard dueling…
"There is only one way to end my damnation… I must bring him souls… not just any souls… He wants the five signers… especially Yusei… and you're going to help me bring him down… you have his heart… now I'm going to break it."
"Well I don't plan on losing!"
"Tough rocks."
Damian drew his cards.
"I play the spell card Forbidden Seal. By paying 500 life points I can take a card from my deck and add it to my hand… Next I shuffle my deck, look at the top five cards, and arrange them in any order I please… Next I activate the spell card Hand Destruction, which forces us both to send two cards in our hands to the graveyard, then we both draw two cards. Finally I activate my face down trap, Backup Soldier!"
(Forbidden Seal is not a real card)
"No!"
"Yes, now I get to bring back the three Exodia cards I sent to the graveyard with Exodius' effect… And I'm afraid that's checkmate."
Behind Damian the seal was broken, and Exodia came forth.
"This can't be!"
"It can be, and it is… Exodia, OBLITERATE!!!"
Akiza watched in horror as her Black Rose Dragon was blown away by Exodia's attack, then she herself was hit by the blast. She couldn't get up; all she could do was lie helplessly as Damian approached.
"Yusei will… find you."
"I'm counting on it."
Without a single noise Akiza was engulfed in flame. Damian held his prize up to his face.
"And then there was one."
Yusei came speeding up to Akiza's father's house, he could see the flames.
"No…"
Yusei ran around screaming Akiza's name, he finally found her duel disk sitting by itself in the backyard.
"Akiza… no."
Suddenly the mark of the Dragon's head on Yusei's arm began to glow. He raised his hands to the heavens and screamed.
