Chapter 23: Brutal Shiro
After bidding the Bombardier and Queen farewell, we continued into a third corridor. This time, the person waiting for us was someone with shoulder-length untidy white hair, in a white version of what Murasaki was wearing. "Ah, Shiro, the Overseer of Synchros," Carnivore spoke.
"Carnivore. I don't know how you bested my compatriots, but you won't pass here," this Shiro guy calmly stated.
"Well, Toby, it looks like the three of us are going to be in the front lines."
"Wait!" a shout came down from the hall. Turning around, I could see two figures running towards us. As they got closer, I could finally identify them as Nightshade and Hunter-Killer.
"I thought you said you weren't getting involved. What made you change your mind?"
"Your victories over the other Overseers," Nightshade began. "We couldn't believe it. We tailed you out of curiosity expecting the worst, and when the first two Overseers fell, we started to realize that maybe we can bring them down too. So we will be Shiro's opponent!"
The corridor walls and roof retracted to form a Duel Arena, after which Nightshade and Hunter-Killer took their positions and began the Duel. Nightshade went first, placing a card face-down and ending his turn. Hunter-Killer drew, Summoned Meklord Army of Wisel (1800/0), placed a card face-down and ended his turn. Shiro drew and played Graceful Charity, drawing three cards and discarding two. Next, he activated Synchro Monument, forbidding activation of cards when a Tuner or Synchro Monster was Summoned. Thirdly, he summoned a Level 3 Junk Synchron (1300/500) and used its ability to bring back a Level 2 Draw Slime (300/400). That was when Shiro began speaking, shouting: "Now I'm tuning my Level 2 Draw Slime and my Level 3 Junk Synchron. Flimsy hopes constructed by prisoners with wishful pipe dreams, come to me and serve as a weapon for your true master! Synchro Summon! The efforts of trash, Junk Warrior!" as the monster appeared with stats of (2300/1300). Due to Draw Slime being sent to the Graveyard, he also drew a card. Thankfully, all that could be done was to end the turn, albeit with two face-down cards.
Nightshade drew, and summoned his own Draw Slime (300/400). After this, he attacked Shiro's Junk Warrior, and although it seemed like Suicide, I knew from our Duel that Nightshade wasn't one to do something without a plan. Sure enough, the Slime was destroyed, allowing him to draw one card, and he was due to take 2000 points of damage. That was when he revealed his Sinister Seeds, negating damage in intervals of 1000 and Special Summoning one Sinister Seed token (100/100) for each multiple of damage negated this way. He got two Sinister Seed Tokens in Defense Mode as a result, and then activated Closed Plant Gate. Since he controlled two Plant-type monsters of the same name, in this case Sinister Seed Token, Shiro couldn't declare an attack during his next turn.
Hunter-Killer took over, and once he saw the strategy of Shiro, he thought that he had an answer. He summoned Meklord Army of Skiel (1200/1000), followed by a Double Summon and summoning of Meklord Army of Granel (1600/1200), which in turn was followed by the Special Summoning of Meklord Astro Dragon Asterisk (?/0) since he controlled three Machine-type monsters. His fifth move was the card Boon of the Meklord Emperor, allowing him to draw one card for each Meklord monster he controlled, resulting in four new cards. Asterisk's attack was now equal to the total ATK of each Machine-type monster Hunter-Killer controlled, resulting in 4600 ATK. The effect of Granel activated, halving the ATK and DEF of Junk Warrior to 1150/650, and then I saw him attack with Skiel. Staunch Defender activated on Shiro's side of the field, however, forcing all of Hunter-Killer's monsters to attack the one. In total, he took 50 damage from Skiel, 450 damage from Granel, 650 damage from Wisel and 3550 from Asterisk. Rainbow Life activated then as well, instead adding the total damage of 4700 to his current Life Points at the cost of discarding a card. Now, although he was without a monster, his Life Points were at 8700 now. Hunter-Killer placed a card face-down to end his turn.
Shiro drew, and used Soul Charge to revive Junk Synchron and Draw Slime at the cost of reducing his Life Points to 7700. Then, he summoned a Level 1 Buster Blaster (0/0), and used the ability of Junk Synchron to bring back a second Draw Slime. Shiro began speaking again, shouting "Now I'm tuning my two Level 2 Draw Slimes, Level 1 Buster Blaster and my Level 3 Junk Synchron. When the mules tire of toiling away, raise your swords and with burning fury slice to shreds any hope they attempt to call forth. Synchro Summon! Quell the uprising, Crimson Blader!" as the monster appeared with stats of (2800/2600). Since two Draw Slimes were sent to the Graveyard, Shiro drew two cards. Also due to activate was the ability of Asterisk, but it was shut down by Synchro Monument. Two cards were placed face-down to end Shiro's turn
Nightshade drew, and Closed Plant Gate wore off. He immediately Tributed his two Sinister Seed Tokens to summon Yubel (0/0) and attacked Crimson Blader. I knew what Nightshade was trying to do: instead of Yubel being destroyed, it survived and dealt Shiro the total battle damage of 2800, bringing him down to 4900. Finally, Mystical Space Typhoon was used to destroy Synchro Monument, Samsara Lotus (0/0) was Summoned, and Tributed to keep Yubel on the field, and he finished with two face-down cards.
Hunter-Killer drew, and activated the Continuous Spell Card Lock-On Laser, which would deal 200 damage to his opponent every time he Set a card. A second attack was launched, but Negate Attack triggered to stop it and end the Battle Phase, forcing Hunter-Killer to end his turn, albeit with a Set card.
Shiro drew, and Summoned Copy Plant (0/0), after which he used Soul Charge to revive his two Draw Slimes, coming down to 3900, then using Card of Sanctity to get a six-card hand for everyone. Copy Plant copied the Level of the Draw Slimes, after which Shiro began speaking again: "I'm tuning my two Level 2 Draw Slimes and my now Level 2 Copy Plant. When the failures break their shackles for the fragrance of the outside world, incarcerate them anew! Synchro Summon. The organic shackles, Splendid Rose!" as the Level 6 monster was Summoned with its stats of 2200/2000. This in turn finally activated Hunter-Killer's set Level Cannon, dealing 1000 damage for the cards summoned prior to Synchro Summoning and dealing a further 1200 damage for the Synchro Summon itself. Asterisk also activated an ability which Hunter-Killer called 'Nemesis Tornado', dealing an extra 1000 damage. All in all, it came to 3200 damage, leaving Shiro on 700 Life Points. Although, now, he had two extra cards due to the Draw Slimes, which equaled eight cards total. He set three, taking 600 damage from Lock-On Laser to come to 100, then activated a second face-down Rainbow Life, negating all of that damage and gaining 3600 Life Points to come to 7500 Life Points. From there, he activated Emergency Provisions, destroying all three Set cards, which were (I couldn't believe what I saw) Apples of Enlightenment, allowing the drawing of three cards since they were removed from the field in addition to Shiro coming to 10500 Life Points.
"Now you all die," Shiro stated. I could only assume that this meant that he drew a 'Wicked' monster. Sure enough, he played two copies of 'Premature Burial' to return his Draw Slimes to the Field at a combined cost of 1000 Life Points, used Double Summon to summon another Draw Slime, and sacrificed all three to Tribute Summon The Wicked Dreadroot (4000/4000), announcing that it couldn't be affected by any Traps or Monster Effects, and Spells only last for one turn. From this, he took 1200 points of damage from Level Cannon for the Draw Slimes, followed by 2000 points of damage due to the Level 10 Monster to come to 7300 Life Points. Three cards were also drawn due to the Draw Slimes' effects, and he played a Pot of Greed to draw two cards.
The Overseer then played Trap Pause, freezing all face-up Continuous Trap Cards and allowing him to draw more cards for each Trap frozen. There was Level Cannon, allowing him to draw one more card. A Mystical Space Typhoon destroyed Lock-On Laser, after which a card was placed face-down and another Emergency Provisions destroyed it. Monster Reborn was then used to re-summon Junk Warrior from the Graveyard, but since Level Cannon was frozen by Trap Pause, no damage was dealt there, and the life-gain from Emergency Provisions cancelled out the effect of Asterisk. The effect of The Wicked Dreadroot had activated, halving the ATK and DEF of all other monsters on the field. This effect didn't really hinder Nightshade, but Hunter-Killer's monsters were all affected, as the Meklords had all reduced their ATK, now only netting Asterisk 2300 ATK points.
Shiro removed Copy Plant in the Graveyard from the game to halve Asterisk's ATK to 1150 with Splendid Rose and attacked Asterisk with The Wicked Dreadroot. Although the attack went through and damaged him by 2850 to come to 1150, Asterisk survived by Tributing a Meklord, in this case Wisel, and losing 900 ATK to come to 1400 originally, but now coming to 700 due to Splendid Rose. From there, Junk Warrior attacked, but Nightshade revealed Staunch Defender, causing all monsters not unaffected by Trap Cards to attack a monster of his choice, namely Yubel. The damage from Junk Warrior totaled 1150, from Crimson Blader was 1400 and Splendid Rose was 1100, causing a total of 3650 Battle Damage… all dealt to Shiro through Yubel's ability, bringing him down to 3650 Life Points. He placed a card face-down and ended his turn.
Nightshade drew, and used Giant Trunade to return all Spell and Trap Cards to their owner's hands. From there, he attacked The Wicked Dreadroot with Yubel, using its ability to deal a fatal 4000 damage to Shiro.
The walls and ceiling returned to their original position afterwards, with Nightshade and Hunter-Killer forcing Shiro to open the way forward. Finally, the last of the Summon Overseers was defeated, leaving the way clear to the Warden. Carnivore, Rebecca and I walked into the now revealed office to confront the main attraction himself: Brutus Angustia.