Chapter 2: Cut from a Different Card
An hour of physical examinations followed their duel with the ultimate diagnosis that Bryan and Matt were stable and already in recovery. Confronting the powers of nine god cards in a single evening had worn both guys to their limits. After an overnight stay at the health center, the doctor would reassess their conditions and figure out where to go from there. Lying there in the dark, neither student was ready to sleep just yet.
"You still up?" Bryan asked.
"Yeah." Matt sighed deeply and said, "You'd think exhaustion would have taken me by now, but every time I close my eyes, I see the leftovers of a human body that touched the Shadow Realm." It was too dark for him to see clearly. He turned his head so he could see the shadow where Bryan slept in the bed. "Do you have them?"
Bryan nodded, and he gently slid back the blanket to show Matt the three shimmering cards he held in his hand: the three Sacred Beasts. Quietly, he replied, "Do you have yours?"
"I do." Just as gently so as not to draw attention to them, he slid back his blanket and showed Bryan the three Egyptian Gods. "And hers." With his other hand, he revealed the three Wicked Gods. "I told everyone I lost track of them during all those duels. It wasn't easy keeping them hidden during that exam, either. If anyone asks, I've always walked with a limp."
"Got it," Bryan chuckled. Whispering again, he asked, "What do we do?"
"We can't leave them out for others to get hurt. We've got to hide them. Preferably not in some Egyptian tomb. That never seems to last. Obviously, keeping them close makes it easier to check on them, but it's also a big risk keeping them all near one another."
"Let's keep them together," Bryan immediately decided. "It's a risk, but it also reduces the chance that someone will just stumble upon them." He looked around, wondering if they were really alone or if a nurse or another patient were listening in. "You know the place where we dueled? Let's put them there. It's out of the way and difficult to see." He referred to a small grove in the woods where the spotted white deadnettle grew amidst a heavy overhead canopy that prevented other flowers from blooming. If the guys buried the cards there, they'd be hidden by the luminescent flowers in a wooded area that could be difficult to locate without directions. "We can't exactly slip out of here to do it tonight, though."
"No. They'll still be searching for them anyway. We need to wait a week or so and then do it at a time no one will miss us. It might involve causing a distraction of some kind." Matt suddenly chuckled to himself. "Actually, I have an idea for how to dismiss ourselves without having anyone follow, but it might involve a bit of acting on our parts, and a little competition."
"Yeah. It's a big stretch to see the two of us being competitive. I'll have to draw on all that acting talent I learned from Stanislavski, but I guess I'll be able to manage. We just keep them hidden in the meantime?"
"You're a creative guy. Do what you can for now. We just need to wait for the search to die down first, and then we can hide them without worrying about being caught. Then they can stay there forever and never cause us trouble again."
"Where are you going?" Jessica asked him. The blonde followed Bryan's fast, dedicated pace through the woods early in the day, yet the woods held a deep foreboding against the overcast sky. The very essence of the trees felt tainted by darkness, and she still didn't know why he carried a trowel with him.
"No one asked you to follow me," he replied grimly.
"The Ghost commanded me to observe your adjustment and report back to him if you die. He says some are not able to absorb the power of the Seal."
"Well, the Seal draws me here," Bryan clarified for her. He moved with conviction, and it was tough for Jessica to keep up moving through the brush. She didn't have the physical strength and stamina he did, and even though she'd been a Horseman for weeks already, her energy reserves still hadn't reached his initial level. With the power of darkness channeled directly inside his body, he achieved the strength of a dueling god.
And a god deserved a suitable servant.
A human eye would see the clearing as pretty, perhaps—a blanket of shimmering flowers on the ground beneath the majesty of greens and oranges among the autumn trees. But the eye truly trained on the energies of nature witnessed a sight quite the opposite: a hellish landscape dotted with trees withering under a persistent mist of shadows, all emanating from the ground beneath the grandest tree.
Even Jessica was startled to see such darkness dwelling within the island. "What is all this?"
"This is my claim," Bryan answered her. He found the spot and thrust the trowel into the earth, digging scoop after scoop of sod until he found the tin case he and Matt buried. From the case poured tremendous amounts of shadow energy. Touching it was like grabbing hold of fire.
"How long has that been there?"
"Too long," Bryan sneered in reply. He popped the lid off the top and offered a gentle smile for the red dragon whose energy seemed to light the air on fire. "Hello, Uria, Lord of Searing Flames. Two years is too long. It's time you and I were finally reunited." He plucked the flaming card from the tin and slipped it into his deck box as the flames extinguished beneath the force of Bryan's power. With no purpose for the rest of the tin, he closed the lid again and dropped it back into the ground.
Jessica seemed disappointed. "You don't want the rest of them?"
"They belong in the ground," Bryan answered. "Only Uria called me out here. Uria belongs to me."
It may have been the only card reaching out to Bryan, but Jessica couldn't deny the intensity of shadows continuing to spill from the box. She eyed the tin warily and then took a single step toward it—just enough to use her foot to shove the dirt back on top of the tin and bury it once more. Her power as a Horseman made her strong, but the power within that box sent a true paralytic shiver down her spine.
For almost two whole minutes, Dr. Houtz looked dumbfounded by the shared story Bryan and Matt told her. She sat at her desk with her eyes darting between the two guys and a third point above and behind them, which they both assumed was her "happy place" she visited mentally anytime she was presented with a situation she had difficulty assimilating.
Finally she said, "So let me get this straight: You were possessed by shadow power, and that strengthened your bond with Uria." As far as Bryan knew, that was correct. He had been possessed by the Shadow Realm once before using Uria as a conduit, and so the link between them was already tenable. "And despite also being possessed by shadow power, Jessica Parks, who is one of the top duelists at the Academy, witnessed the location of the other god cards, but she was too scared of the power coming from them to consider taking them."
"Yes," Bryan replied. "That is an excellent summary." He held Uria in his hand to show her his evidence. While his fingers touched the card, the image on its face shimmered as if reflecting strobe lights, but neither did Bryan's hand move nor the sun alter its intensity.
But she didn't look convinced, and being an expressive woman, her confusion was visible in the form of pressing her lips together, squeezing her eyebrows close, and wiggling her nose ever so slightly from side to side while thoughts raced through her head. "I'm still a little lost. Can you go back and start at the beginning instead of starting in the middle?"
Bryan and Matt looked at one another with the same half-shrug. Matt was the one to speak up with, "Well, pretty much from Day 1 in the nursery, I knew I was different from the other kids."
Stopping him right there, Dr. Houtz said, "Too far. Tell me what happened before you decided to hide the god cards." She had heard the known details of the incidence from Dr. Lankford and Dr. West, but neither of them knew the god cards were buried on the island, instead thinking them lost forever to the mystical Shadow Realm. Obviously, the boys' perspective may shed some much-needed light.
"In order to enhance spiritual energy, you need spiritual energy," spoke Maya Kawamura, the female faculty advisor to the Yellow Dorm. She was also Duel Academy's expert on the god cards. "The greatest concentration of spiritual energy imaginable exists in a realm separate from our own—a higher plane of existence known in legend as the Shadow Realm."
"The Shadow Realm…" repeated a girl, one of Maya's mentees. "Didn't the legends say that the god cards came directly from the Shadow Realm?"
"Yeah. I thought that was just a myth," added a boy mentee.
"The realm exists," Maya assured them. "The mythology lies in the distortions of the story over time. For one, the gods didn't come from the Shadow Realm: They are the Shadow Realm. This higher plane is a collective consciousness. When Pegasus made a spiritual connection to that plane, he transferred a small portion of the consciousness into his hand-painted cards. The god cards, therefore, possess the greatest concentrations of spiritual energy imaginable and provide a direct link to the Shadow Realm. Of course, the link is tenuous as long as the seals on their power remain."
"How can we break their seals?" the boy asked.
"We must complete a ritual that will weaken the seal on the gods."
"What kind of ritual?"
"A duel."
Maya grinned as she thought about the years of planning and preparation for this semester. All of it led to this point in time. With the power she collected, she needed only to defeat the current guardians of the god cards and take possession of them all. Nine god cards in one place… That's all she needed in order to ascend to the collective consciousness of the Shadow Realm. And thanks to her years of firming her willpower, she had every plan of merging with the consciousness, yet remaining a distinct entity. That's how she planned to take all that power for herself.
In the midst of her final duel, Maya drew forth the power to summon two of the god cards she kept hidden from the world—the result of a stealthy "excavation" at the highest levels of Industrial Illusions.
A powerful demon emerged from the ground, its green body rippling with muscle protected by nothing except the bones of a skeleton fiend. Shadows poured from the demon's body and soaked the ground in a shallow pool that hid the ground from view. Maya was unaffected by the demon's presence, instead enjoying the effect it had on all other witnesses. "The Wicked Dreadroot spreads fear across the field; this has the dual effect of cutting in half the points of all monsters except himself and making you wet your pants."
Bryan scoffed and said, "Only a little. It's not like I need to change my shorts." The duel itself was adrenaline-pumping, but it was hardly terrifying. For Bryan to feel this way, he knew he faced creatures with real power. The Wicked Gods amplified his emotions and turned general anxiety into genuine fear. "What about your Wicked Avatar?" He referred to a creature almost identical to Dreadroot—almost because it's entire body was liquid Shadow, jet-black with the only details offered by the light of the moon. "Its points are still higher than Dreadroot's right now. Don't they get cut in half, too?"
"No. The Wicked Avatar does not have any points of its own, and therefore nothing to cut in half. The 4100 points it has now come directly from Dreadroot after the fear effect has already spread. As I told you before, The Wicked Avatar (4100) will always be the strongest monster on the field, and it cannot be defeated."
Despite the exhaustion and the fear, Bryan managed to find that nugget of stupidity that enabled him to ignore his emotions and make a play based solely on skill. "It can be defeated. My Neo-Spacian Dark Panther has a very special ability that makes him the perfect match to face The Wicked Avatar." The eyes of his caped panther began to shine with a blue hue, and then a matching blue hue shone over Avatar's eyes. Suddenly Dark Panther began to grow and expand. "Once per turn, Dark Panther gets to copy the name and effect of a monster on your field." Bryan's man-sized feline reshaped itself until it became a furry, blackened copy of The Wicked Dreadroot and unaffected by the fear effect.
"Impossible," Maya uttered. The Wicked Avatar was supposed to be a perfect representation of the Shadow Realm—even stronger than all the other gods. How could a mere freshman defeat it with a deck of basic cards?
Bryan also looked pretty surprised—surprised enough not to notice his fear anymore. "Whoa! Go get 'im, Dark Panther (+4100)!" Bryan's monster, still a panther at heart, crouched low and stalked across the field slowly, and then it pounced harshly on top of The Wicked Avatar (4100). Avatar was pinned to the ground, but it thrust its enormous claws at the same time as Dark Panther. Both monsters pierced the other directly in the heart, and soon they faded into a shadowy mist.
The emotional roller coaster affected by the Wicked Gods did wear on Bryan, as did the weight of the Shadow Realm's power. Drawn by the presence of nine god cards, the Shadows began to grip the entire physical realm more tightly, starting with the duel between the gods. Maya was older, more experienced, and spiritually better trained than Bryan. She was largely unaffected whereas he eventually passed out without completing the duel. Maya felt that completed a portion of the ritual, but Matt saw an opportunity to protect his best friend.
Matt set Bryan on the ground gently, ensuring as much comfort as he could, and then he reached for Bryan's Duel Disk. "I have a better idea. How about I put my energy on the line right now?"
"What do you propose?"
He disconnected Bryan's Duel Disk and attached it to his own arm without resetting it. "This will be a real tag team duel. Bryan can't finish, so I will do it in his place."
"Truly?" Maya was shocked by this suggestion. She motioned toward The Wicked Dreadroot, that massive demon that spread fear across the field like fog. "You realize I still have a god monster already on the field and twice your Life Points?"
Matt nodded. "I understand the setup is hardly advantageous, but if this is the result of Bryan's duel, I'm sure I can work with it." After all, this particular deck based on Elemental Hero Neos was the very first deck Matt ever used. He took a moment to look through the Graveyard as he adjusted the Duel Disk and prepared to duel against the professor who opted for early retirement in order to enter the Shadow Realm directly. "What have you got to lose?"
"Very well. You may play Bryan's hand for him, then."
But even though Matt fought hard and managed to destroy The Wicked Dreadroot using the power of Elemental Hero Glow Neos, Maya summoned a third god card—a dark dragon armored by metal forged from solid Shadows. The Wicked Eraser wasn't a card Maya intended for battle, however; she used Eraser's focus to pull every ounce of Shadow energy in the vicinity to a single point, and when that point ruptured, it would destroy her opponents, complete the ritual, and tear a dimensional rift through which she could ascend to that higher planer.
"I will become a true god!" she uttered with pure ecstasy in her voice.
"A god, huh?" Matt muttered. He opted not to activate his trap when Maya's monster reached the critical point. "If you want to see god so badly, then go right ahead!" The Wicked Eraser exploded, sending shockwaves of shadow energy for miles out into the ocean. To those as far away as the college town Kazuki, the shockwaves only gave the citizens goose bumps, a brief sneezing fit, and a moment of uneasiness. To those near the center of the blast, the air may as well have been on fire. The sensation of sheer pain passed almost instantaneously as the Shadows rendered Matt's body numb and nearly consumed him completely if not for the glow around his neck that protected him and Bryan.
Maya stared into the spot where Eraser exploded as a small tear appeared in the dimensional continuum, just as she'd predicted. Shadows spilled from the tear and submerged her entire body, and she felt herself rise through the mist. Slowly until she entered the rift and then fast as the speed of light, she traveled through the void toward the light given off by the collective consciousness she sought, ribbons of green, white, and black lights streaming past her the whole way. She could already feel the power flowing into her. The warm consciousness that occupied the Shadow Realm was becoming a part of her.
"Yes," she uttered as she reached out, eager to end the trip even sooner.
But wait! Her hand wasn't complete anymore. Her skin was fading, burning within the fiery light, and the bones began to dissipate. Her entire body faded in the light; she couldn't make it all the way to the end of the tunnel.
"Why?"
As suddenly as the rift opened in that explosion, it closed again. The land behind the academic buildings was quiet again save for the sounds of insects returning to their normal routines and two terrified duelists passed out in the grass.
As the only conscious witness, Maya's male counterpart in the Yellow Dorm said, "That was unexpected." It seemed nothing could damper his forever-neutral disposition. "Perhaps she was right about the Shadow Realm being as a god. Yet she was only human, and humans are not capable of touching the hand of god."
"There we go," Dr. Houtz interrupted. "From there, we end up with you two in the health center hiding god cards. Most of that, Kevin did know about."
Bryan asked, "Who's Kevin?"
She frowned. "He's your faculty advisor."
He looked confused for just a moment when Matt mouthed the words "Dr. Lankford" to him. "Oh, right, yeah. I just keep forgetting that a guy who acts like that in the classroom can have a first name that doesn't start with Damien."
"Actually, that's why we came to you," Matt explained. "We tried going to Dr. West, but Mitsuro turned us away saying his schedule was full. On top of that, he's getting close to retirement and might not wish to concern himself with matters of this magnitude. People have died in the past from their involvement with the Shadow Realm."
"Thanks for involving me, then," Dr. Houtz replied dryly.
"We don't actually need you involved," Bryan reminded her. He pointed to the paperwork he already printed out for her to sign. "We just need approval from senior faculty so we can get Academy support to participate in this tournament."
She already read the invitation and the approval forms once, but she perused the pages again as she requested, "Tell me again what you're trying to do with this. Start with the part about how you were trying to get invited."
The guys looked at one another for a moment and silently agreed Matt told the story better. "It goes without saying that someone out there will always want to possess all the god cards—it's a power thing. Since they disappeared from that hole in the ground, word of their reappearance has spread one card at a time, starting with that man who played Obelisk the Tormentor during a national tournament without holding back."
"Ren Bacon," Dr. Houtz remembered from their earlier summary. His name was also mentioned on the invitation Bryan received as the event's organizer. She pulled up the Wikipedia article on his name at her computer. "He's an actor with a reputation as a deadly duelist, especially after Obelisk sent the other guy into cardiac arrest. I'll admit, that sounds like a fantasy."
"Yet, it's true," Bryan insisted, suggesting she look up that guy's Wikipedia page. "The will of the duelist plays a big role, though. During the winter break, I made sure to enroll in a televised tournament so I could play Uria somewhere everyone could see. But unlike Ren Bacon, I had no intention of hurting my opponent, so Uria's shadow power didn't do anything noticeable."
"And in accordance with the plan, Bryan's play got noticed, and someone invited him to bring Uria to the city of Yasna." Yasna was less of a city and more of an iceberg, located in the far north and with a population of "you're out of your mind." The city was located three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, and it was classified as having a polar climate. At that time of year, Bryan was asking to participate in a tournament where the daytime temperatures never rose above freezing. Those people who did take up residence there were self-sufficient with food, typically by fishing and hunting, and made what little money circulated their economy through mining natural resources.
Dr. Houtz nodded at the invitation. "So you think Ren Bacon is gathering people who hold the god cards so he can keep them for himself. Unfortunately, this invitation already prohibits one of you two from going."
Bryan winced while Matt's expression simply fell. "God-holders only. We're working on that part." Obviously it would be easier for Bryan if Matt were there with him, but even if the Academy approved a cohort for Bryan, having no god card meant Matt couldn't participate. He'd be nothing more than Bryan's frozen cheerleader.
"You are also aware that Dr. Lankford can veto any travel requests I sign? He's your actual advisor, after all."
"It is currently our belief that he will not actively object as long as you are the one to approve the trip," Bryan stated. Although he and Matt believed Dr. Lankford didn't like them, and the grumpy professor was likely to be too lazy to help them, they both figured he would also be too lazy to stop them if they sought other help—sort of a "skip dad, ask mom" kind of situation.
Actually, Dr. Houtz enjoyed the thought. She grinned a bit wickedly as she imagined a potential confrontation with Dr. Lankford. "Fine." She signed the forms and handed them back. "As far as I'm concerned, this is a competition we can't afford to skip. As long as the god cards are out there, someone will seek them. In fact, this is probably convenient for the school with all the god cards being gathered in one place. And we really have no better chance to earn them back, except maybe by sending me."
Both guys froze, afraid to show a reaction until she revealed her true feelings about that comment. Was it a joke? Was she serious? She already signed the approval forms…
"I don't have time to get involved," she confessed. "I'm a busy woman, you know? It's bad enough I work all the time and take care of my husband at home without gallivanting to the coldest reaches of the globe. You know Yasna is technically a desert because the rainfall there is less than five inches per year?"
"No rain is a good thing when the temperature is fifty below," Bryan remarked.
She shrugged. "Still. You've got my permission. Go give that to Mitsuro and have her pass it along to Corbin. You'll both be on your way as soon as the approval comes in. Now leave so I can get back to work."
"Awesome! Thanks!" Bryan reached across the desk for a handshake, but when Dr. Houtz offered her hand, he held it instead the same way as if he were to kiss it. "If anyone ever asks, you're the most beautiful professor on the island." Without kissing her hand, he offered thanks again and turned to walk out of her office.
Matt returned her puzzled, somewhat frightened look. "I don't know what that was all about. Personally, I've got a thing for Dr. Kerr."
Dr. Houtz narrowed her eyes and grinned back at him. With feigned frustrated, she said, "Bye, Matt. Remember to pack a sweater."
The administration building wasn't a big building, filled with the offices of twenty employees for whom work was little more than filling out forms and ordering supplies all day. In the hallway, Bryan commented to Matt, "You always have to one-up my jokes, don't you?" They walked through the remarkably narrow halls toward the stairs. Dr. West's office was up another floor, and Mitsuro's work space was right outside.
"Since when did you start sucking up as a joke? That almost got you suspended in high school."
"It was funny then, too. It's not my fault Miss Minnick had no sense of humor."
Those small halls led quickly to the office of Dr. Sebastian Arbus, the man who replaced Dr. Apple as the Yellow Dorm's faculty advisor a year earlier. But that's not how Bryan and Matt met him.
Bryan lightly hit Matt's arm. "Thinking about your mother?"
Dr. Arbus was a guest at the luxurious hotel and casino where the guys stayed during a winter dueling tournament during their freshman year. Actually, they snuck in a little gambling time at the casino and ended up playing a game of Blackjack against a cocky Russian who didn't get out of bed unless the stakes were high. Dr. Arbus offered financial backing for the game and came out ahead when Matt was victorious.
But more importantly, Dr. Arbus spent a lot of time with Matt's biological mother—the woman who owned and ran the hotel. At the time, she was a generous, mysterious, and exotic person who made no indication she knew who Matt was. Since then, Matt learned that she had been so generous because they were related. She was the one who gave Bryan and Matt the Duel Disks they currently used.
"Turning in those forms isn't really a two-man job, right?"
Bryan shrugged. "I don't know. This is heavier paper." But he let the joke die there. Nodding toward Dr. Arbus's door, he said, "Go ahead. I'll catch up with you later."
Matt was slightly reluctant to ask questions about his mother. He grew up in a huge foster family, rationing food and getting beaten on a regular basis while she was rich and could have easily taken care of him. Why did she abandon him? If she was so willing to be generous with him, why not tell him they were related?
He rapped on the door, but it was unnecessary: Dr. Arbus left his door wide open. He was British by birth and had that combination of charming and smug that only the British could afford so effortlessly. Never had Matt seen him look even bothered, and he had a class with some of the noisiest kids at the Academy. And his office was much less homey than Dr. Houtz's had been. Where she had pictures of her husband and her lab equipment, Dr. Arbus had books on obscure mythology and knick knacks from the many places he'd visited during his travels.
"Mr. Luther," he spoke with a slight level of cheer in his voice. "What brings you here?"
Matt smirked, but only because he suddenly felt witless. He had nothing clever to say—only the raw truth. "I was hopeful you might be able to tell me a little about my mother."
He smiled back at the surprisingly coy student. "Yes, I heard you and Bryan talking in the hall. Have you given your mother a ring?"
"I want to get to know her first," Matt replied, finally finding his humor.
"Have you called her?" Dr. Arbus rephrased.
Matt shook his head slowly. He hated to admit his cowardice, but he had been incredibly reluctant to give her a call. He looked her up online and read newspaper articles about her hotel, but he was afraid he wouldn't like what she had to say if he asked her the questions he wanted her to answer.
"I haven't gotten up the nerve yet."
Understandingly, the professor simply smiled and said, "I assure you, Leona loves you deeply. There is no doubt in my mind that when she left you for adoption, she believed it was the best option at the time. Likely she is just as concerned with that decision as you are and is afraid to initiate that discussion with you."
That sounded like a reasonable perspective, but it wasn't comforting to the son who felt snubbed, especially when he thought there might be another reason. He believed that she still loved him, but… "Is it true I had a brother?"
"Who told you that?"
"Cary found birth records for me and my twin brother. She also found a death certificate for him. Did my mother abandon me because she couldn't handle my brother's death?"
"I was not made aware you ever had a brother." He hummed softly to himself. "You may be correct about your mother's feelings. If you were twins, seeing you may have been a constant reminder of your brother's death."
A viable explanation was hardly an excuse, but at least, if Matt was able to look past his personal feelings and assume the mindset of someone who lost a child, he could understand personal withdrawal as one possible result. After all, she put her living child up for adoption and separated from her husband. Who knows how long it took before she was able to move past her sorrow and become the beautiful woman she was when Matt finally met her. Even though he could only envision the opposite reaction—clinging tightly to his remaining child—Matt accepted that his mother's reason was valid.
He finally uttered, "Perhaps I can give her a call before we head to Yasna."
"I heard something on that," Dr. Arbus replied. "Scuttlebutt says Bryan received an invitation to a tournament for people with god cards. You will accompany him?"
"Yes, but I can't participate. It's our bet that the organizer is a man only interested in the god cards and uninterested in the pretense of letting other people play."
"You have a god, don't you?" The question struck Matt fiercely as Dr. Arbus pointed to his chest. "Two of them. I believe your parents gave them to you."
"Congratulations. I expected this of you the moment you arrived at my hotel." The beautiful Leona reached her open hand to Matt and said, "I am honored to have met you. You truly are the future." She gave him the level of praise he never got back at Duel Academy.
Somewhat surprised by her gracious and flattering reaction to a loss, Matt blushed and replied, "It was fun. I've never seen cards like the ones you played. That was a crazy duel, and the whole tournament was intense. Thank you so much for inviting us." He took her hand and held it for a moment. He felt the urge to hold onto it for just a moment longer. Maybe he really was attracted to her, or at least her warm smile, but he didn't let go until Bryan smacked him and extended his own hand out to her for a separate handshake.
"Please take this," Leona added as she handed Matt the card off the top of her deck.
"Spenta Mainyu?" Matt said. "I can't take this. This is the strongest monster in your deck."
"Please keep it," Leona requested, "not as a prize, but as a souvenir. You deserve it after that performance. It will remind you of how strong you were to defeat me. From this moment on, you are even stronger."
"What about me?" Bryan asked excitedly.
Leona smiled and said, "You, too, hold great potential. I imagine your greatest potential comes from your combined teamwork. Together, very little in this world will be able to stand against you. Enjoy your trip home. I hope to hear more from you in the future."
The energy from Zurvan added to the transmutation circle that surrounded the duel field, and Matt felt a surge of heat through his body just before the energy ended its cycle. When the energy subsided and he had a moment to recover, he felt stronger than before. It was difficult to describe exactly what made him feel more powerful—the warmth inside him or the perfect resonance with the surrounding nature. He almost felt like he could fly.
"Congratulations," said Dr. Oscar Apple. He was a tall and lanky man with eyes that held the wisdom of multiple worlds within them. "The ritual is complete. Ahura Mazda has awakened. The remainder of his development is up to you." He stepped up and offered a handshake.
Matt took Oscar's hand and held it for a moment. He felt a surge of adrenaline that made him feel temporarily unified with the baffling man he only just called "opponent." When he let go, Oscar offered a card off the top of his Extra Deck, placed in a plastic case just like the Spenta Mainyu card Matt already wore around his neck.
"Zurvan?" Matt said. "I can't take this from you."
"Please keep it," Oscar requested. "Not as a prize, but as a souvenir." Eighteen months since his last meeting with Leona, Matt felt a sudden pang of déjà vu. "From this moment on, you are even stronger than you were before. Your power has increased infinitely with the total awakening of the spirit inside you. This is as far as I can guide you. From this moment, you and Ahura Mazda must work to become united, and together you will determine what to do with your new power."
Matt opened his jacket and pulled out his necklace—a nylon string holding two encased cards in front of his chest. Each was a card he never used in a duel, but rather he kept them close because they reminded him of how strong he could be and because he always felt warmer with them nearby. When he touched the cards, the images shimmered just as Uria did when Bryan showed it to Dr. Houtz.
He thought god cards were only those cards created by the Shadow Realm. Then again, he recently saw recorded duels and heard firsthand reports of three cards based on Norse myths. Everyone claimed they had the same aura as the other god cards, even though the power they gave off was something completely different from the Shadows. Maybe these cards were the same, especially given the way they stirred the inner spirit within Matt.
"Those cards in your hand may not have come from the same ritual, but their aura is every bit as powerful as the cards born of the Shadow Realm. Present those to the organizers in Yasna and they'll beg you to join the competition."