Davis Fey drummed his cards between his hands, fanning them out before notching them back together. Every so often, he'd break off the top sheet, examine it in the light, then shuffle it back in. Eventually, his eyes slid over to Otaro, who was sitting with his back turned on a stool beside the bed.
"Well, I suppose this is a learning moment, Otaro." His voice oozed idly across the room. "Nepotism never won any duels."
He heard Otaro sigh heavily, and cherished this little victory over the dueling prodigy. It emboldened him to keep talking.
"Not to say Ori didn't accomplish something for us," he amended. "You said that Tokari boy had a high-grade, right? Well, it looks like his card is forfeited back to Mother Earth now."
"It's not that simple." Otaro gazed into the distance, which wasn't very far in their stuffy room. "That monster kept appearing even when he was knocked out. I think he might be the same as Ori."
"He might be, he might not be." Fey shrugged. "Whatever he is, he was, now that he's buried."
Otaro didn't respond.
Fey rolled his eyes. "What, you think he's still alive? It's been five days, Otaro."
The Heart Excavation site had been closed indefinitely while the company worked to put out fires, in a manner of speaking. A team of pickmen had been deployed at reduced pay each day to excavate the tunnel that had collapsed on Yuu Tokari. The work was slow, since the earthquake had also injured many of the miners, including a trespasser who, as it turned out, was only disguising himself as a miner. The beds at the infirmary were full up, and life in the Atrium had nearly ground to a halt. Fey could only imagine the hassle. He was lucky that he had his own mission.
"This is putting a real wrench in my training schedule, you know? Clavis can't focus on card games in these conditions." Fey folded his arms and put his feet up on the table. "How am I going to find a new protege in five days? I know, I know, that's my problem, and you're just here as an oversight. I enjoy our talks, Otaro. It lets me know you care."
Otaro remained silent. Fey leaned back in his seat til he tipped out of it, but instead of falling, he vaulted backwards over the stool and landed on his feet. He looked at the bed.
Ori would wake up every couple of hours, but there was something in her that didn't wake up with her body. She nodded when spoken to, but quickly lost focus and drifted back to sleep. Otaro eventually stopped talking, and just held her hand when she was conscious. It seemed to help.
Fey was torn. Never mind that Ori was taking up the only bed in the apartment; if he lost any assets he'd been provided on his mission, he knew it would reflect poorly in his yearly review. On the other hand, he was almost certain he would overall succeed. Otaro, despite his talents, would be much more efficient when he wasn't trying to babysit Ori. Also, the shutdown of the mine operation meant that the entire colony would converge on the Atrium Grand Prix, just five days away. Never mind the temporary loss in profits; he would get the results and explain the collateral later. It would help to have a scapegoat for that occasion.
So Davis Fey crossed his heart and prayed for Ori Yamatano's continued health.
There was some stirring in the sheets. Ori's eyes were open as though they'd always been.
"Ori." Otaro only said her name, just to let her know he knew she was there, for however long they'd have this time.
It wasn't very long. Silence began to stretch once more.
Outside of Daimonji Manor, floodlights illuminated the procession of people passing by for the night. Steam rose from the soup as it sloshed into the bowls, sometimes splashing onto the fingers of the person holding it, who would lick their hands so as to waste none of it. They would reach the edge of the floodlights' glow and disappear into the night.
The earthquake had hit Badtown the hardest. Years of shoddy, compounded construction had collapsed in minutes, and to make matters worse, the closed excavation site meant that even less money from the miners' salaries was flowing into the neighborhood. In this, Gozu Daimonji had seen an opportunity to prove her capacity.
The matriarch of the Monji stood back behind the serving table, invisible to the people who stood in the light. She watched the expression on their faces, the mixed broth of relief and despair. A hot meal was the highlight of their day, but to acknowledge that joy brought on a far greater, existential sorrow. To be unpurposed was a great tragedy, though not unique. Perhaps the Monji had been founded because of this, a collaboration of those with no idea why they had possessed power. The purpose was to have any purpose at all. Just as the Monji's capacity created their purpose to rule, their purpose created capacity.
She wondered how her grandfather was doing. Mezu Daimonji had been deliberately uninstructive in leaving her the reins of the family. He would likely approve of her method of distinguishing herself; he was the one who had taught her how to duel, after all. She briefly imagined him sitting at a short table in the alley with other geezers, activating the graveyard effect of Mezuki like he'd done a thousand times. She hoped he had a capacity to be happy without a purpose. That alone would justify him, would in itself grant him the purpose to remain.
Up at the serving station, Matsu sneezed. Muzou quickly shooed him away to wash his hands. Matsu trudged past Gozu, his gait weary. He had been running all over town, sneaking onto the excavation site to scout information for the Monji. He'd only just gotten back in time for the nightly meal line.
Gozu made eye contact with her subordinate, enough to make the nature of her query clear. Matsu shook his head. No change.
The excavation team had made progress down the tunnel, and tapped a Morse Code message into the wall to see if the vibrations could reach Yuu. Like every day, there was no response. At the close of the fifth day, there was talk of slowing the pace, changing the mission from rescue to retrieval.
Gozu exhaled slowly. At this moment, she could only admit to herself that she'd wanted to duel Yuu Tokari again. To say anything else would serve no purpose, not anymore.
"I can't believe this!" Valz grumbled, clutching his bandaged head. "You're just going to let him die in there?"
Chief Oga sat at his bedside and stared at his hands. "I think I already let him die."
Every other visit Oga had made to the injured miners this week had been a dinner call, made all the more delicious by the irony of their reversed situation. Even Valz Lemora, who he'd initially been furious to learn had snuck onto their jobsite, had grown on him due to their mutual concern for Yuu. And he could hardly fault Valz specifically when Fey and the Yamatanos had effectively done the same thing and made him even more liable for it. Oga couldn't understand the mind of someone who willingly came from the surface to work in the Atrium mines, but they were mostly in sync on this topic.
"He shouldn't have to rot in there," Oga agreed. "It's not right." Every miner's worst nightmare was to be buried alive, as though their entire life had been a descent to their grave.
"But you have to think of the other miner's jobs," Valz said. "You can't keep excavating if you're diverting all your resources to the collapse."
Oga nodded. Valz sighed.
"When did Yuu start working here, anyway?"
"Before I was foreman. Ten, eleven years ago maybe." Oga shook his head. "You could bury the boy under a pebble. They say he had to get his pickaxe handle shortened so he could hold it."
"He was a kid?"
Oga nodded. "The Atrium provides work opportunities for all of its capable residents. That loophole let Yuu onto the site. No idea how he ended up here all alone, though."
"Right. Getting press clearance was an absolute nightmare. It took months to even get in the door at Heart Corporation."
"Heart plays close to the chest," Oga quoted from something he'd overheard on the job site.
"Ooh, that's good. Can I quote you on that?"
Oga thumbed his nose. "Of course."
They were quiet for a minute as Valz ate his dinner.
"Has the senior command said anything about all this?"
Oga laughed brusquely. "They prefer not to be in a room with me. The first I hear of them will probably be a pink slip and severance."
"But it's not your fault!" Valz sat up sharply and winced in pain. He scowled. "I know that's not how corporate liability works. They're not gonna get away with this, though. I'll write all about it."
Oga's legs ached all of a sudden, and he massaged the rims of his kneecaps. "Do those San Domino rags ever mention us?"
He knew what the answer was. Human nature stopped at the boundary between the surface and underground. The deep darkness was really just industry, a cold bedding for the dreamless sleep of everyone who'd given up. The people on the surface were compassionate, but ultimately, they didn't see much use for improving the state of the miners' lives. If you didn't grab life between your teeth and shake for all it was worth, you had better get used to living inside the means handed to you. Everyone agreed that it was only fair that comfort matched ambition.
Valz looked into the distance. Oga had noticed that when he spaced out, he looked unusually high in the horizon.
"D-boards," he said eventually.
"Huh?"
"The last story that ran before I left was about a new law proposal to ban D-board accessories. Some folks are calling them dangerous and inflammatory, while the opposition calls the proposal 'an attack on San Domino's rich Turbo Dueling culture," and all of this is to say that nobody is really talking about anything. It's not that they don't know about things down here, and not even that they don't care. They just don't focus."
"Think you can change that?"
Valz thought for a moment. "No."
Valz and Oga looked at each other for a long time before the foreman stood up and made to leave. He stopped at the door and spoke without turning around.
"Whenever you finish that story about this place, let me read it over."
Valz groaned. "I'm not really a fan of critical feedback from the subject. What edits would you have in mind?"
"I'm not trying to change any of it. I just want to know, I guess. What it all is."
Oga let his last words spin to the ground like a maple seed. He left quietly, on his way to Heart Excavation for the night.
Before he learned to hew the earth, Clavis had learned to listen to it. The more solid a thing was, the further vibrations could travel through it. As a child, he'd sleep with one ear to the ground, hoping to catch the noises on the far side of the planet.
Later in life he'd find a pneumatic drill in his hands, and learn that the principles of solidity applied to him as well. If he gripped it too tightly, his hands would go soft in minutes, his joints mashed together by the kickback force. The long pulverizing bit would just as easily melt him as it did the rock wall in front of him. It was like that with every kind of work, though. And so Clavis learned to adapt, to only become as solid as the job demanded. Intrinsically, he knew that this kind of work would destroy his body anyway. He lived to live long, and that was the true reason he had outlasted every other man of the mines.
Industrial lights cast his shadow on the wall of collapsed rock. Beside him, pickmen carted away the waste rock, injected water and oil into the holes he'd made to loosen the scree. Zato Sanada stood behind them, his nasally voice carrying above the drilling din.
"Get the next cart ready! Your shift isn't over yet!"
Over the past five days, Zato had avoided giving orders to Clavis directly. The deputy foreman sculpted the task force around the old man's wisdom, letting him take the lead on the drill line. Tensions over Yuu and their mutual association with Inspector Fey had made things terse between them, but they had an understanding forged from surviving the Atrium all this time. Clavis had decided that his survival would at least be worth saving Yuu. He lifted the drill to chest height and pierced his stone shadow's heart.
As his generation had fallen one by one, he remained, becoming less and less his actions and more and more his testament. He did not survive because he was particularly wise, but soon he was the wisest one left. He was more and more regarded as a mythical creature, a relic for the lives lost to the mines. A living legend, doing nothing but living.
With the younger miners, he spoke briefly and impactfully, but what they interpreted as wisdom (and even condescension) was nothing but standoffishness and confusion. A chasm had opened between them.
All this was until a young boy descended into the darkness with nothing but the shine in his eyes. And so, no matter what, Clavis would save Yuu Tokari.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Clavis didn't say anything in response, just tensed his arms so that the shock traveled from the drill across the shoulder blade to Zato's hand, who juddered for a moment before letting go. Clavis depowered the drill and turned around, his ears ringing from the sudden silence.
"Oga's here, and the team is done for the night," Zato said, shaking his hand out in annoyance. "Take a break. No point in making a mess by yourself."
Clavis nodded. He set the drill on the flatbed cart and pulled off his gloves, letting the sweat mingle with the dust in the air. Before he left, he grabbed a chisel and rapped the wall nine times. S-O-S. He put his ear to the wall and waited.
"Oga said he would bring the paperwork tonight. Once we've got it processed, we'll notify his family of his passing."
Clavis nodded. He wasn't listening to Zato.
"I checked and the surname Tokari is pretty common in San Domino. In the event that we don't locate them, Tokari's personal effects would be normally rendered into Heart's custody, as per the Atrium civic legislature."
"Get to the point." Clavis's eye sought Zato out of its corner.
The bald man was unintimidated. "It means that you could sign as his guardian and claim his belongings. It might help."
Clavis finally pulled his ear from the wall. Nothing again. He chuckled as he walked back down the mineshaft. "I can never understand your angle, Sanada. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were just feeling sorry for me."
Zato fell into step beside him, moving like a light oil. "Don't worry, I feel sorrier for myself. I gave that kid a high-grade, and that's two hundred bucks I'm never seeing back."
"Didn't think you were the type to buy cards."
Zato jabbed a finger in his face. "Don't lump me in with you. I'm just diversifying my investments. They can't all pan out."
His face dropped as he said this, and Clavis knew that the investment Zato was referring to was Yuu. The old man suppressed his disgust for the time being, only to have shame flood into its place like a whirlpool surrounding a sunken ship. After all, hadn't he been investing in Yuu as well? Giving him the cards, hoping that he could turn the world on its head, could justify the years of hopelessness and ridicule that Clavis had accumulated. It was no wonder that the pressure had gotten to the boy.
Bitter regret seeped in below Clavis's lower teeth. He searched his hands, turning them over for a clean spot to wipe his eyes with. He couldn't find one, so when the tear dropped from his eyes and caught the lamplight, Zato pretended not to notice.
The pain had knocked him out at first, before jolting him back awake as blood sprayed beneath his breath. His muscles spasmed, and the bones lagged behind, splinters jarring together and sliding out of his skin. He couldn't muster the air to scream.
He was lying face-down in the rubble. His pickaxe lay dented from the fallen boulders littering the cavern floor. His sunstone had shattered, his deck scattering in a heap. He couldn't move his left arm. One of his legs was buried. The other was blood.
Yuu Tokari remembered his name and the last four hours all at once. He had no idea how long he'd been passed out, or how long he'd have until it happened again.
He regretted talking to Ori. He hadn't just been desperate to duel; he'd been desperate to duel her, a professional duelist, to prove himself. He was still worried about Clavis, but he'd been more worried about himself. Afraid to waste the gift he'd been given, he was now literally wasting away in a collapsed mine. At this rate, he wouldn't even get to starve.
Duradine glimmered in the ceiling above him. Somehow, the earthquake had exposed nearly the entire vein, which coiled around the tunnel in a hypnotic trail. Yuu had never seen so much at once before.
A card on the ground caught his eye. It was the Trap Card he'd drawn on his last turn against Ori, the one he'd been forced to banish with Yellow Duston.
Solemn Wishes / Trap Card
That card had always seemed to embody the spirit of his deck. It was hope from one who was not hopeful, who knew that believing was foolishness and believed anyway because a belief that was worth nothing also cost nothing. A dream meant to be held, not fulfilled. Though Yuu really mostly knew it as a way to gain 500 life points.
He pushed himself up on his right arm, trying to catch more glimpses of the duradine ceiling. It felt as though he were screaming, but he couldn't tell if any sound was coming out. It didn't matter; when he faced a wall of duradine, he felt dreams welling back into him. Maybe it was only temporary, the rush of pulling a rare card. But it was the only desire he had that wouldn't harm anyone else.
Originally, he'd thought that encouraging everyone to duel would give them hope. But it had taken only one day for Zato to twist that notion, making Yuu his accomplice to cheat the Monji. Then at the duel meetup, he'd seen duelists discouraged and broken down by the Dust Lord, and the insurmountable wall of skill and cards that lay between them. Finally, in his own duel with the Dust Lord, he'd insisted on pushing their duel further, to the point that they were both forcing themselves to continue. Was it that that had led to the cave-in? Anything was possible, he supposed.
The stars were beginning to swim together. Yuu's arm gave way beneath him, and he landed face-down in his cards. In the end, he was never able to bring people together with Dueling. The duradine held their wishes, but some were never to be granted.
And so Yuu Tokari made one last wish as the breath seeped out of his body. If I could do it all again, I wish I'd never tried to duel.
"But you can't go back in time anyways. So why waste your wish?"
Yuu couldn't see anymore. His thoughts circled the drain. Because dueling can't save me. It can't save any of us.
"That's a limitation of dueling, but it's not a limitation of yourself. So why don't you change dueling?"
Laughter was a matter of brain sparks now. How can I? I've lived my whole life without accomplishing anything. No one can rely on me now.
The strange voice died away, or maybe Yuu did first. Either way, there was silence.
Then, beneath his outstretched hand, there was warmth.
"Maybe no one can rely on you yet. But you can change yourself, too. All you need to do is take your turn."
Yuu's finger muscles grasped in concert, touch being the only sense left in his dying mind. Air grazed past his lips as he spoke. "I draw."
The sleep that had barnacled onto his soul was brushed away, and Yuu blinked as the vision returned to his eyes. He gazed in wonder at the card he now held, the card that had saved him: Fake Trap.
Fake Trap / Trap Card
Yuu peered into the card, looking for some kind of fine print. How did this save me?
"It's not that card. Look down."
Yuu's eyes slid to the floor, where a card was glowing softly, face-up. Solemn Wishes.
"By drawing that card, you've regained 500 life points," the voice said.
Yuu didn't question it. For someone as duel-obsessed as him, it seemed only natural that the card's effects would give him the spirit to keep going. Besides, a part of him knew that this was only the last hallucination of a fading mind.
Suddenly, real, torturous pain flooded back into his body, making him drop the card in shock. He flailed around on the ground for another.
"I draw!"
Sphere of Chaos / Level 5 / DARK / Machine / ATK 1600 / DEF 0
His voice grew steadier as the flesh of his throat and lungs healed. Yuu stretched his arm further, grunting with effort. "I draw!"
Raimei / Spell Card
His ribs reassembled beneath him like a wheeljack, and the tendons in his leg began to reknit. Yuu gasped as more waves of pain accompanied the expedited healing. He managed to pull his jaws tight for one last shout, thrusting the card high above him.
"I draw!"
Crime of Prometheus / Level 7 / LIGHT / Pyro / ATK 2500 / DEF 2100
Light exploded into the air above him. The Crime of Prometheus alighted on the floor of the cave and made it sparkle. The flames engulfing its robes were cool to the touch, the color of vanilla ice cream. Yuu looked up at it and smiled.
"It's you, isn't it? You're the one who saved me."
The Duel Monster looked back at him, its eyes lenses of translucent fire. Then, a smile wedged under its nose.
"Not quite. I'm the one who saved you, but I'm not the 'Crime of Prometheus' specifically. Also, I'm not done saving you yet."
"Prometheus" waved its hand, and Yuu felt the stones burying his leg heat up as they were infused with its legacy. They retracted and packed tight to the wall, and Yuu crawled forward and gingerly removed his foot from the hole. His hand found another card, and his ankle popped as it twisted back into the socket.
Yuu got to his hands and knees, and then to his feet. The robed figure of light still towered over him, filling the cavern with an otherworldly presence. Still a little woozy, Yuu put out his hand.
"What's up? I'm Yuu."
The Crime of Prometheus gently passed its hand through Yuu's. "I have thousands of names. Many have meaning in your language, and some others are far older. What would you like to call me?"
Yuu thought for a moment. "How about Hobson?"
"I am called Zekara," Zekara said conclusively. Its features diffused emotion through Prometheus's form. "And I mean what I said to you earlier. If you can't duel for others, why not try to find a way to make it possible?"
"It's easy for some kind of magic Duel Spirit to say that. How are you possible, anyway?"
"It is impossible for me not to exist. I am, have been, and will be," Zekara said simply. "And you are just as inevitable, Yuu. The fact that you wield the power in these cards and perceive me is proof of that worth."
"Worth, huh?" Yuu looked back at the collapsed tunnel ceiling. "Guess I'm just buried treasure now."
Yuu could swear he saw the ancient ghost thing shrug. "That, like your limitation, is your own choice. You now know what is available to you."
"What's available to me?" Yuu thought for a moment, then pointed at the rubble. "Crime of Prometheus, attack the wall!"
Zekara raised an eyebrow, but lifted its hand, and a pulse of light shot out and dispersed among the rocks, outlining them like burning coals. "The strength of that wall currently exceeds that of 'Crime of Prometheus.' Beware the battle damage."
No sooner had it said this than blood welled up in Yuu's mouth, causing him to vomit. He dropped to his hands and knees, pulling cards from the ground into his hand until the pain subsided. When he could see clearly again, he honed in on one of the cards he'd drawn. "Got it! I'll set this monster face-down in Defense Mode!"
He blinked, then looked at Zekara. "Do I have to wait til next turn to change its position, or-"
"It's fine."
"Okay! I Flip Summon my Night Assailant!" Yuu shouted, as a cloaked figure billowed around the flamberged dagger in its hand. It rushed forward, becoming one with the darkness before drawing all of that darkness to the tip of its blade, striking the stone with a clang.
Night Assailant / Level 3 / DARK / Fiend / ATK 200 / DEF 500
The cavern reverberated for a moment, but the stone barely chipped.
"So even an effect that destroys monsters won't work? What, does the rock wall count as a spell card?"
Zekara shook its head. "It appears to be unaffected by all of your cards."
Yuu dropped his cards in frustration. "Then I don't have a way out after all."
Zekara's eye shifted to the ground. "Not yet."
Yuu followed its gaze to his pickaxe, levered at an angle beneath a boulder. Yuu set his foot to the rock and wrenched his pick free, hefting it to his shoulder. His head felt light.
"Hey, Zekara. How much oxygen is in this cave?"
Zekara remained nonchalant. "You ran out a while ago."
Yuu laughed shakily. "Okay."
He looked down to his chest, where the soft light of Solemn Wishes seemed to ebb with his own heartbeat. "Well, I'd better keep taking my turn, then."
With a swing of the pickaxe, pure duradine broke away from the wall, cascading down like dreams to a sleeper. "I draw!"
Clavis stared down at the piece of paper on the table. "This is it?"
Oga sighed. "Yeah. I also filled out some safety forms explaining the accident and estimating repair costs. But when an employee bites it on site, this is all we have to fill out."
Zato looked unperturbed. "Well, I get it. When they've got our number already, they don't really need all those words for subtlety." Indeed, it seemed like all the "employee compensation form" did was acknowledge that the event occurred at all. "Event" was a multiple-choice option.
For a moment, Clavis's eyes were locked on the name bubble at the top, imagining there the names of every person he had ever worked with. He shut his eyes against the horrors, but when he opened them, the name Yuu Tokari was staring back.
"Let's get this done quick," he said numbly. "Where do I sign?"
Chief Oga handed him a pen that looked stubby in his hands. Clavis let the words on the page before him jumble and become meaningless - even his own name, which he signed at the bottom.
Zato held the page up to a lamp and examined the signature. "That should hold up. At the very least, I don't think anyone will fight you on it."
Clavis nodded. Right now, he could vaguely hear the sounds of laughter. He focused in on them just as they were punctuated with the soft clink of duradine on the lunch table.
Two younger workers were huddled over a set of cards. There was a time when Clavis would have known their names. Instead he just watched them as they held their cards like poker hands and picked up every card to read its effect carefully, breaking down into an argument over whether Mystical Space Typhoon could negate Sakuretsu Armor.
Oga grit his teeth. "It's midnight already. Don't these punks have anywhere better to be?" He slammed his palm flat on the table and got up to reprimand them, but he stopped when Clavis put a hand on his wrist.
The old man shook his head. Chief Oga trembled with rage, and for a second Clavis thought he might strike him again. Then his lips set in a hard line, and he sat back down, shifting in his seat to watch the two duelists as well. Clavis only now noticed how old the foreman looked.
Nobody aged when you were looking. Clavis had seen Yuu grow from the boy lost in the dark to someone who had a chance to escape it altogether. But that was only what he thought was best for Yuu; time and time again the boy had told him what he wanted to do. Clavis had only recently realized it was what he wanted to do, too: become a pro duelist.
The revelation that should have brought them closer together had instead torn them apart. Maybe Yuu couldn't rely on Clavis, the duelist. But could he rely on Clavis, the miner? And why was he thinking about Yuu in the present tense?
He looked back at the entrance to the mine. Yuu had once described their workplace as full of treasure, but Clavis had only ever seen it as a feature of their survival. But now came the faintest feeling of portent, of luck. There was someone in those mines, and he needed to find him.
Zato set the employee compensation form down. "I guess we'll be seeing a lot more buybacks from now on," he said.
Chief Oga scoffed. "A bunch more nobodies scraping together fourth-rate decks. Just more fish in the pond for me."
Zato side-eyed him idly. "Chief, do you fish?"
"Well, no…" Oga frowned. "It's an expression. See…Clavis? Clavis?"
Clavis wasn't hearing them anymore. He stood up and walked past the meal tables, back to the mouth of the mine. It yawned before him, threatening to swallow them all up; then again, they were all underground already, anyway. He took up a pickaxe from the work station, switched his headlamp back on, and shuffled into the dark.
Later that night, Gozu caught Matsu sneaking out with one of her dojo's Duel Disks. She ordered Muzou to beat him up; as he did so, Gozu noticed he was wearing an identical Duel Disk.
Matsu's punishment quickly turned into a regular brawl, which transitioned into a Duel as both players began the game with a black eye. Exasperated, the leader of the Monji sat down to watch. The line outside of Daimonji Manor had dwindled, and only a few hungry stragglers remained. She would have rathered the two of them not to squabble in public, but to get angry about it would display unbecoming insecurity.
"Go, X-Head Cannon! Shoot his stupid face off!" Matsu sneered.
X-Head Cannon / Level 4 / DARK / Machine / ATK 1800 / DEF 1000
The mechanical beast trained its cannons on Muzou, whose smugness didn't waver for a second.
A card in Muzou's hand began glowing as he activated it. "I activate the effect of Rainbow Kuriboh to dazzle your monster out of its attack!" A multichromatic mammal with skin as smooth as a seal flew up and shot a beam of rainbow light across X-Head Cannon, imprisoning it in a prism.
Rainbow Kuriboh / Level 1 / LIGHT / Fiend / ATK 100 / DEF 100
"I'm not finished yet!" Matsu declared, rifling through his hand. It was clear he didn't have a play.
Gozu was about to stop them from embarrassing the Monji any further when footsteps padded beside her. A little girl in a worn coat was carefully sitting down so as not to spill her soup. Her mother limped up behind her, swaddling her to her side. She nervously offered a greeting to Gozu, who nodded back in deference.
Many people just glanced at the duel as they walked back to their homes in Badtown. Some stood by for a moment before losing interest. The little girl watched with rapt attention, cheering when Matsu's XYZ-Dragon Cannon obliterated Muzou's monsters. Matsu flexed his muscles and grinned, and Muzou rolled his eyes. They were both relaxing as they fought, Gozu realized. Matsu's goofy machismo and Muzou's vindictive drollness were a poor fit for Monji life, but put on a stage and exaggerated, they made for a good evening's entertainment. Gozu realized that she had relaxed as well.
Playing the villain against Tokari had been proof of her worthiness to the Monji clan. But what if it too was a harmless guise? If she could do it differently, she might have played it up a bit more.
She really wished she could duel him again.
Yuu had forgotten what it was like to breathe. He had forgotten how to eat as well. For him, both of these were movements of the pickaxe, and his hand filled with duradine like a lung.
Zekara had diminished in size since its first appearance, burning low in a corner among Yuu's discarded cards.
"Now, Raigeki Ookazi Tower! Bring down the wrath of the heavens!" Yuu shouted as his automated lightning rod distorted the air around it, crackling as it electrocuted the stone with white-hot plasma. Some of the rock face melted together, but the wall looked no shallower than when he'd started.
"That was 10,400 points of damage," Yuu moaned breathlessly, falling backwards onto the floor. He stared up at the ceiling, which was pockmarked with his draw attempts.
"Zekara, how many turns has it been?" he asked.
"You have taken 3374 turns since being trapped here."
"That's not as many as I thought," Yuu quipped morosely. "How many days is that?"
"What's a day?"
After a brief, painful silence, Yuu stood up again. "Okay. I've tried monster destruction, banishing, effect damage, piercing damage. None of it worked. At this point, maybe I should just sit tight until they dig this place out."
"Maybe. Are you going to do that?"
"No." Yuu looked at the wall again. "I really can do this."
Zekara burned low, more featureless than before.
"I've been meaning to ask, Zekara," Yuu said as he took up the pickaxe again. "What do you get out of all of this?"
"I'll tell you that when I get it."
"Whoa, whoa. That's really creepy. Maybe they should keep us both in here."
A sheaf of duradine broke away onto the floor, and Yuu quickly parsed it with his pick. "Mirror Mail, Virtual World City - Kauwloon, another D2 Shield, oh wait, Lava Golem! Wait, this thing summons to my opponent's field? Man, no thanks." He tossed it to the side and kept searching.
"Have you exhausted all of your options?" Zekara asked.
"Not if I can keep doing this," Yuu replied. "If this is still an option, then I'll keep going like always. But Zekara, I've tried negating their effects and reducing their stats, I've tried shuffling them back into the deck. I even got that Synchro monster that can return monsters to the hand, not that it would do anything. What else is there to do?"
"When you change your own nature, you change the nature of the task ahead of you."
"You really want me to save dueling that badly? I can't understand you." Yuu thought for a moment. "Change the nature. Wait a second."
In a flash, he dove for the cards that had been scattered before. "Here it is!"
Zekara floated over to him. "I thought you said that this card was useless."
"Oh, it is. But I can use its uselessness!" Yuu marched back towards the rock wall. The ground before him had been tidied up into a Duel field over the course of his experiments. He had sacrificed most of his cards to charge up Raigeki Ookazi Tower just now, but he still had Night Assailant and Crime of Prometheus on the field.
"I hope you're ready to turn up the heat, Zekara!" Yuu shouted. "Because when I sacrifice two monsters on my opponent's field, I can turn them into Lava Golem!"
A flash of white hot liquid began bubbling in the wall, as though it had begun to bleed. The trickle became a downpour, with bits of molten rock cooling and reheating in a blood-like circulation. The magmatic vascular system grew arms and a head, reaching out as it screamed to life.
Lava Golem / Level 8 / FIRE / Fiend / ATK 3000 / DEF 2500
Zekara floated on Yuu's field, the cool flames of Prometheus contrasting the sudden, overwhelming heat. "I see. By Tributing two monsters on your opponent's field to summon Lava Golem, you can get around their immunity to your card effects. Since they're tributed as the cost of the summon, it's not an effect at all."
"That's right!" Yuu said, beaming as Lava Golem towered over him.
"But now you're fighting a monster with 3000 ATK. What's more, you've only put a dent in the wall."
"It's true that I haven't solved all my problems yet," Yuu admitted. "But I've changed them to something I can work with! So next, I'll call forth Genex Ally Birdman in a special summon! To do so, I'm returning one monster from my field to my hand!"
Zekara nodded idly. "So you'll be returning your weak Night Assailant, then?"
"Negative. I'm returning Crime of Prometheus!"
Zekara, in Prometheus's form, pointed at itself. "Me?" It barely had time to register the surprise before it was warped away, the air sealing around it like lips. That air stirred from the deployment of bright green rotors, and a large-beaked robot swooped onto the field.
Genex Ally Birdman / Level 3 / DARK / Machine / Tuner / ATK 1400 / DEF 500
Yuu glanced around the cave. "Zekara, can you still hear me?"
"Yes, thank you for asking." The voice seemed to be coming from all around him with equal distribution. The duradine glowed with every word. "Now, why did you keep the weaker monsters on your field?"
"So that I can do this!" Yuu flung his hand wide. "Because Genex Ally Birdman is a Tuner monster, I can open the gate to a Synchro Summon! Level 3 Genex Ally Birdman! Level 3 Night Assailant!"
Genex Ally Birdman squawked as it decomposed into bands of green light, wrapping around Night Assailant, who itself was becoming translucent.
3 + 3 = 6
Sweat dripped from Yuu's face as he shouted, "The scourge sealed within the ice will now be unleashed! Storm forth, Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier!"
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier / Level 6 / WATER / Sea Serpent ATK 2300 / DEF 1600
The cavern behind Yuu frosted over, the sweat suddenly wicking from his forehead as all the moisture froze to the walls. In the shadows, three golden eyes opened. Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier rampaged onto the field, shunting a gust of cold wind up against Lava Golem. Pockets of gas began combusting all over the giant's body, even as solid stone crept up its torso. Yuu shielded his face from the violent winds, hiding behind Brionac's icy scales.
"Now, I activate Brionac's special ability! By discarding one card, I can return one card on the field to the hand!"
Frosty air blew from Brionac's maw over Lava Golem's limbs. The giant tried in vain to keep moving as rocks were sewn through its joints, mashing together in a horrific crunching sound. In seconds, it solidified into dark glass. With a roar from Brionac, the construct shattered, turning back into a card and flying back to Yuu's hand.
"But I'm not done yet! Because I'm sacrificing two more of my opponent's monsters to resummon my Lava Golem!"
Just as before, the wall poured open as more and more of the blockage melted to become Lava Golem.
Yuu felt dizzy from the blast of heat that washed over him. "Once more the lava pours forth! Once more the blizzard will rage! Go, Brionac!"
Brionac roared again, and Lava Golem writhed as it froze into obsidian. It crumbled to the ground, and Yuu advanced.
"You've found a way to make an infinite loop of removal," Zekara observed. "But will you survive it?"
Yuu could barely hear the voice anymore. Every summon of Lava Golem was accompanied by a wave of overwhelming heat, only for the air to freeze again as Brionac's ability took effect. The temperature fluctuations were whipping up a convection current in the air, threatening to blow him off of his feet, and when he dug his feet in, he found them pierced by the obsidian shards strewn across the ground. All the remaining water in his body was turned into pure steam from his pores, as all the world around him turned to glass. He walked forward through the heart of the raging elements.
"I'm doing it!" He laughed, and it came out as a dry cough. "I'm doing it, Zekara! I'm going to survive!"
"I can see that, Yuu Tokari."
"And once I do," Yuu said, his vision tunneling to his cards as he played them for the umpteenth loop, "I'm going to change dueling! Then maybe dueling can change the world!"
"Is that so?" Yuu could almost hear a sarcastic drawl in the spirit's voice. "But why not just try to change the world first? Why bring dueling into it at all?"
"That's obvious!" Yuu shouted as the aura from Solemn Wishes broke around him into glittering pieces. "It's because I'm a duelist!"
The molten glow of Lava Golem receded, its last embers reflecting in the glass hollow of the tunnel. Brionac folded its wings as it vanished from the field. Yuu couldn't see any of it anymore. He still hadn't broken through.
Faintly, he heard Zekara laugh. The spirit's voice sounded like the echo of a cracked bell. "Yes, you are a duelist, Yuu Tokari. And because of this, we will surely meet again. When that day comes, will you listen to my wish?"
Yuu smiled. "Of course."
"Then farewell, and good luck." The duradine stopped pulsing. Yuu's knees hit the ground, then his torso, then his head. He breathed out softly.
Above him, the obsidian wall shattered as a pickaxe burst through.