III

The speed with which Herman had taken charge of the situation was unbelievable. Masumi had almost toppled off her perch on the bleachers when he'd suddenly jumped to his feet; all of a sudden, the huge man was barking out instructions to everyone in the room, and at such a volume that the ongoing sirens outside were all but drowned out.

"Mein kinder," he said to Ayu, Futoshi, and Tatsuya, all equally terrified, "go to your principal at once! He will get you to safety—so do not let him out of your sight! Go! Schnell! Shūzō"—he'd whirled on You Show's principal, still crouched over his motionless daughter—"Dennis and I will take care of Yūya and Yuzu. Please make sure the rest of your students are safe and accounted for."

Shūzō suppressed a gulp, and took one look at Yuzu, before he finally nodded. He ushered the three kids close to him, and they quickly disappeared through the door without another look back.

"Dennis, take Yuzu; I shall take Yūya," Herman said to his former student. He hurtled onto the Dueling field with a speed that belied his age; Masumi was quickly reminded of a rampaging rhino as he sped for Yūya. "Do not permit them to see you for even a second. Do not follow me out of the school—but keep within sight of me as best as you can—we will reconvene someplace where they will not be found."

He stared at Yūya before effortlessly hoisting the unconscious boy over his shoulder. Dennis grimaced with exertion as he dragged Yuzu into a standing position, draping her over his shoulders like a particularly heavy cloak.

Masumi, meanwhile, had finally found her voice. "Now just wait a minute!" she cried at Herman. "What the hell is going on here?! What were those big robots I saw in the city?! And why are Yūya and Yuzu so important right now that you're taking them yourselves?!"

The German shook his head. "There is little time to explain more, Fräulein. Those robots are Duel Monsters—they are called Antique Gear Chaos Giants, and they are notorious for being the monsters used by soldiers of Academia when they invaded a target city—"

The Fusion Duelist's mouth fell open. "Academia?!" For a long moment the powers of speech eluded her. "But that doesn't make sense! That place doesn't exist! It was shut down after Z-ARC was erased—everything inside the place was liquidated, every student transferred! How can they be invading us? Why would they invade us?!"

"I cannot say," Herman said, turning for the door and motioning for Dennis to follow; he fell in step with some difficulty, owing to his smaller frame and the mass of Yuzu still weighing him down. "But I am suspecting they may be hunting for both of these children."

Masumi blinked. "You mean—Yūya and—"

"Ja. As to how and why, it is possible that some of their command structures did not dissolve as quickly as others did. It may be that these Chaos Giants were Summoned by soldiers who are still loyal to their cause—"

He broke off, looking somewhere above him. The ground was beginning to shake—like something big and heavy was walking past the school. Masumi heard the hissing whine of pneumatics, the metal-against-metal groan of churning gears.

"We cannot stay here." Herman was talking very fast now. "We must wait to speculate until the city is safe. Dennis has told me you have Dueled against the forces of Academia before?"

Masumi nodded. "Not against these Antique Gears or Chaos Giants, though," she admitted. Her throat felt tight.

"Don't use Action Cards against them," Dennis told her. "They have effects that keep their enemies from activating Spells and Traps during the Battle Phase. And the Chaos Giants are even nastier—Spells and Traps have no effect against them, period—and they can attack every enemy at once with piercing damage!"

The Fusion user had a mental image of a huge mechanical arm swiping wide at everything within reach, leveling whole buildings and reducing streets to impassable rubble. " … How am I supposed to fight something like that?"

"If you're lucky, you won't have to." Dennis put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and smiled; Masumi was so rattled by how upside-down things had become that she didn't even object. "There's still the Lancers. They can take down Chaos Giants like they're nothing. But you've got your own team to lead, right, Masumi?"

She nodded—and then horror seized at her throat. "Yaiba!" she choked out. "I have to make sure he's okay!"

But a second later, her heart sank: she'd fished out her Duel Disk and switched it on—only to be greeted with the same NO SERVICE message that had graced its screen ever since she'd entered You Show.

Dennis swore—an uncharacteristic moment from the lighthearted American. "I should have known something was wrong from the start," he muttered as he stared at the message. "Of course they'd jam communications right before an assault—it was standard procedure—"

He stood, renewed strength flowing through his body; Masumi saw he no longer appeared encumbered by the limp form of Yuzu. "If you know where Yaiba went, you need to go straight to him now," Dennis said urgently. "If you're lucky, those two girls he went to pick up are with him, too. You'll be safe as long as you're together."

Masumi gulped. "What about Hokuto and Fuyu?" The Xyz Duelists had fought alongside each other for longer than she'd known either of them. So she knew they'd put up a fight—but would that fight be enough?

Dennis, apparently, did not know either. But he did his best to make his disheartened expression disappear. "You'll find a way," he smiled. "If half the stories I've heard about you are true, those soldiers are going to wish they'd stayed in bed before you're through with them."

Something rumbled ominously outside just then. Herman laid a huge hand on Dennis' shoulder. "We must hurry—we can no longer delay!" he grunted. "Find a side exit—and be ready for a fight at a moment's notice! Go!"

Dennis nodded, and secured a Duel Disk to his arm—a darker blue in color than Masumi's own. She took the hint, and mimicked his movements. The click of the straps against her forearm was as good as a full suit of plate armor.

"Good luck out there," Dennis said to her. But she had no time to reply back; Dennis and Herman had sprinted out of the arena in opposite directions, each with their charges in tow.

The Fusion Duelist stood there for only a moment, doing her best to gather her thoughts and prepare for a fight. So used was she to fighting enemies that worked in the shadows, away from the public eye, that the notion of battling a veritable army of soldiers felt alien. The irony of being caught off guard by a force that did not need to rely on such things as subterfuge did not escape her.

Then, quite suddenly, she was sprinting out of the arena, then out of the school and into a city in chaos—hoping against hope that she'd be able to find Yaiba in time.

Leo Duel School

Bedlam reigned in Himika's office. The LDS headmistress had hastily organized an emergency conference call with various LeoCorp technicians. The Endymion Duel School's principal had fled to a shelter, their negotiations long since forgotten. With normal satellite communications now known to be jammed, they'd been forced to use the landlines in the building. And the news they delivered was growing more disheartening by the second.

"Our runners count fifteen Chaos Giants, Himika-san!"

"Fusion energy readings pegged the dial in milliseconds—the sensors are overloaded!"

"We were able to read five in the commercial sector—localized to sector CM-37! Multiple stampedes reported!"

"Another four in the airport—air traffic control confirms heavy casualties—"

"Five more in the residential districts—three in sector AV-96; another two in sector TR-14!"

Which meant the one she'd seen outside her office, Himika thought, was all by itself. Perhaps it was the leader, and was counting on its companion monsters to distract Maiami City's defenses from whatever its mission was.

"I want dispersal fields up and running in every affected sector yesterday," she ordered. "Invert their harmonics and contain those Chaos Giants—we have to keep them from destroying as much of the city as possible!"

Himika had used dispersal fields to great effect in the Infernoid incident earlier in the year. These unique barriers of hard light could disrupt foreign Solid Vision constructs—such as enemy Duel Monsters—to the point that, at maximum strength, they could be prevented from forming within its perimeter. By simply modifying those fields to project an inverted wavelength, the effect was effectively reversed: Solid Vision could be formed inside the field's boundary, but even one photon outside of it would cease to be in a heartbeat. Once inside, they wouldn't get out.

But that still left the question of how they'd gotten in to begin with.

"Was there evidence of any dimensional transmission?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so, ma'am," said one of the technicians on the line. "We think they brute-forced access into one of the Interdimensional Corridors. Probably inserted a backdoor into the linkup that connects the fragments of the ARC-V reactor. If that's true," he said darkly, "they can use them just as easily as we can now."

"Now we know why Yūshō wanted them shut down," Himika remarked to Nakajima. The You Show founder hadn't lingered around LDS after giving his warning and making sure Himika had obeyed him; her aide had seen him speed off for the nearest elevator—most likely, they agreed, to make sure his son was safe.

She began to issue more orders. "Post guard patrols at every access point on every floor of LeoCorp," she said to Nakajima. "Cut power to the elevators and all high-security terminals in the building—"

"Himika-san—we have a new problem!" cried another technician. "These invaders are deploying multiple reserve forces alongside their Duel Monsters! They don't appear to be using any of their own—but that means they can operate outside of our dispersal fields and spread elsewhere in the city!"

Even Nakajima flinched at the curse that erupted from his boss' mouth. "They're a damn sight more organized than the last bunch that tried invading us," Himika huffed a few moments later, still very red in the face.

"They're splitting their forces almost as soon as we contain them," her aide agreed. "They hit our communications first to cause confusion, touched down in our population centers for maximum casualties. These aren't just some hotshots with the Obelisk Force, Himika-san. These are professionals. Military—maybe even private security … "

He set his jaw. "That kind of cooperation is months in the planning," he muttered. "Maybe even years."

Before Academia even landed on our radar, thought Himika—and almost certainly before Z-ARC had been stopped. That changed things immensely; they could no longer approach this with the same tactics as before.

But that didn't mean those tactics couldn't still be used again. First, however: "I want every single Duelist enrolled in our school to assist the police in evacuations," she said. "If these bastards want maximum casualties, they'll have to fight for it. Get me a secure line to Mayor Sawatari and the Minister of Defense. We may need the Self-Defense Forces to step in if they fall. As ex-JSDF, you'll be acting as my liaison to the Minister, Nakajima."

"Understood. But that still leaves those Chaos Giants," he pointed out. "Do you think the Lancers will be enough to break through those monsters? We know what they're capable of from their former agents—should we not try to put some more of our forces on standby to assist them?"

"You're damned right they'll be enough," Himika said angrily. "And if they're smart, they'll be moving to engage them right now. Those Chaos Giants are top priority. If we can take them out by challenging their controllers to enough Duels, we can disrupt the Fusion energy they're generating from their Duel Disks' holographic emitters—and maybe get our communications back to where we can start organizing a defense!"

"And the LID?"

Himika pursed her lips, thinking. "Keep them on standby," she decided. "They can operate at their own discretion until we need to call them up." Until we can call them up at all, she amended in her head. Masumi and her group of Duelists had proved several times over that they had the intelligence and capacity to act without official orders. Perhaps they might even be able to track down the leading figures of this assault, and engage them to destabilize the enemy's command structure. But that would still require enough communications that—

"New contact at the airport!" a technician yelled over the phone. "Confirmed dimensional rift!"

Himika cursed. "More soldiers?" Please, no more Chaos Giants …

"I don't think so, ma'am—this one looks different. It's too high up for infantry … too small for a Chaos Giant … "

He trailed off—and then, without warning, broke out into laughter. "Hot damn!" he whooped. "It's—"

Exactly who it was, Himika didn't hear. Not that she needed to. The harsh, keening cry that had drowned out the man on the other end of the line was instantly recognizable to anyone who'd ever seen a Raid Raptors monster.

Maiami International Airport

The wreckage of planes littered the tarmac—mere silhouettes lost in the oily flames that poured into the air. Most had not been occupied; the few that were had either been able to lift off in time or had evacuated their passengers to safety. But the heat of the flames was incredible; Kurosaki Shun, even from high above as the Duel Monster beneath him hovered on a thermal, could feel his face crisping from the onslaught within seconds of his arrival.

He considered himself lucky he'd arrived when he did. When the Resistance had witnessed the attack in Heartland City, Tenjō Kaito had volunteered to lead the counterattack himself. Shun had been with him at the time, and had protested profusely, saying that they needed every fighter they could get to deal with this unforeseen threat. But when Heartland Tower had been destroyed, thanks to the attack of some unseen, unfathomably powerful monster, Kaito had paled completely and practically shoved his fellow Xyz Duelist into a portal to Standard, ordering—ordering!—Shun to warn as many people in Maiami City as possible that the Xyz Dimension was under attack.

But either something had gone wrong when he'd crossed the Dimensions, or this attack had been vastly more coordinated than Kaito had been led to believe. For Shun hadn't even gulped in his first breath of the Pendulum Dimension before seeing no less than four Antique Gear Chaos Giants on the ground below him and his Rise Falcon, attacking the airport and every single plane docked there.

He'd barely even given it a second thought—Shun's reaction to seeing any monster of Academia had long since been ingrained into his subconscious. His Duel Disk had been running hot even before he'd crossed over; the sky-blue blade shimmered along his arm as brightly as the hottest stars of the universe.

One push of a button was all he needed. "Duel Mode on," the device announced. "Battle Royale standby."

And then, he'd inflated his lungs to his fullest. "HEY!" His bellow nearly drowned out the roaring flames under him. "UP HERE, YOU BASTARDS!"

That got their attention. Shun saw the holograms of the Chaos Giants shimmer briefly, then turn in his direction.

And he bared his teeth in a vicious snarl. "DUEL!"

"I've got a signal!"

One of the technicians on the conference call cheered. Himika just barely restrained herself from doing the same thing once she'd taken a look at her mobile, and seen the telltale bars in one corner.

She'd been correct in assuming that the Fusion energy produced by the Chaos Giants had overloaded the comm. grids with the sheer amount of it. When Kurosaki had initiated his challenge, the monsters had instantly disappeared when their controllers' Duel Disks had been forced into Duel mode—and so had the energy signatures.

But Himika also knew that the soldiers wouldn't waste time in Summoning those mechanical behemoths as quickly as possible—she had a very short window of time to act. And so she'd turned her fingers into ten different blurs as she keyed in a code on her computer. Seconds later, she watched a sphere of hard light blooming around the Chaos Giant below her, transforming the cracked street beneath its legs into a grassy veldt, and the curbs and façades of the buildings that lined it into so much greenery that the whole crossroads was now a veritable micro-jungle. Bursts of light around the Chaos Giants in the distance told her their surroundings had been similarly changed.

And then, barely a minute after that, she was engaged in a wholly different group call. "Sora—position and status?"

"I'm minutes from the commercial sector!" a young boy's voice shouted. Himika heard the telltale sucking noises of a lollipop being sucked away to the stick. "I'm hoping those Chaos Giants don't belong to anyone I know!"

"Put it out of your mind. Just neutralize them," Himika said shortly to the former child soldier. "I've already enabled the Action Field: Wonder Quartet and enabled them for use inside the dispersal fields that are holding those monsters at bay. Kurosaki's arrived to bolster our forces—he's handling the incursion at the airport. Gongenzaka?"

"Please look out your window," replied a gruff, steely baritone. She did—and instantly saw the broad white coat of Gongenzaka Noboru—barely a small, squirming dot on the street below—heading for the Chaos Giant that towered over him with purpose in every step. The headmistress thought she could even see his ubiquitous black pompadour.

"I—the man, Gongenzaka—will not suffer flunkies and inferiors. This one is the leader—and the leader is mine!"

"Don't let the thrill of honorable combat dull your senses," Himika admonished him. "There is little to be honored in war. You have the luxury of one against one. End this as quickly as you can."

"Understood."

Himika switched to a new frequency. "Sawatari?"

She winced at the long, tinny scream that reached her ears a split second later. I might have known. "Sawatari—what's your status?!"

"Status?!" Sawatari Shingo hollered the word as if he'd never heard it before. "My 'status' is really, really scared for my life! I've got two of those huge metal monsters chasing me and Kakimoto after they blew his house to kingdom come! Ootomo and Yamabe are heading for me, too—they've got three more on their tail—"

Himika stood up, furious. "Order them to pull back at once," she hissed. Sawatari's friends were far from Lancers—against Chaos Giants, they'd only get in his way if it came to a battle in the streets. And if Sawatari himself tried to act noble in the face of five of these mechanical monstrosities—if his father found out—

"There's no other Duelists in sight!" Sawatari protested. "How else are we supposed to fight these things?!"

"Break off your rendezvous and get your friends to a safe location—now!" Himika was almost spitting into her phone at this point. "That is a direct order! Acknowledge!"

Silence.

"Sawatari!"

No response. Only then did Himika realize that the signal strength on her mobile had gone back to zero. The soldiers Shun was fighting must have re-Summoned their monsters, and created enough collective Fusion energy to disrupt their communications once more. She might as well have shouted at a brick for all the good it did.

Feeling distinctly diminished, she pocketed her phone. Until we get them back, she thought, they're on their own.

One of the luxuries of being in a Battle Royale was that no Duelist could attack or draw on their first turn. That was all to the better for Kurosaki Shun. He did not want to waste any of his cards when there was every chance these soldiers could destroy them without needing to attack. So he'd gone first, passed, and bitten his lip in trepidation.

By then he'd alighted on the tarmac of the burning airport—now overwritten with the Solid Vision of an Action Field; Shun recognized the desert ruins that formed only one portion of Wonder Quartet. He was also close enough to get an in-depth look at the soldiers that had Summoned the Antique Gears of the Obelisk Force—and that in-depth look was enough to convince him that at least a good chunk of them had once belonged to that self-proclaimed elite company of Duelists; there were too many similarities in their dress and behavior for him to assume otherwise.

There were differences, however, and plenty of them—the first being that of their helmets. Those had been silver, spiky, and stylized after what Shun assumed was some Duel Monster of myth and legend—but the masks these soldiers wore were far simpler and sleeker in design. There were no frills or unnecessary elements of fashion—just a silver helm, a black skullcap underneath, and a mirrored visor to conceal their eyes. Then there were the uniforms: the Obelisk Force had been known for its distinctive blue jackets and white pants, but no such things were to be found here. Instead, each soldier wore fatigues of lavender and dark, camouflage-patterned gray; Shun was reminded of a freshly forged Damascus steel blade, catching the sun's rays as it carved through the air.

What concerned him most were the Duel Disks on their arms—yes, he thought; they wore two. One was instantly recognizable as an Academia Duel Disk, but with its characteristic shield shape turned round until it pointed along the arm, turning it into a sort of arrowhead. The violet blade that lanced out from the silver-gray device stuck out point first, too; Shun had no doubt that such a modification allowed it to be used as more of a physical weapon—the implication of that made him grimace.

The device clamped on each of their right arms was smaller, and had no such blade to speak of—making it less of a Duel Disk, and more of a wrist-mounted keypad—but Kurosaki was close enough to the lead soldier that he could see the image of a card on its screen: a Level 10 Fusion Monster. No doubt it was the same Chaos Giant he'd stared down right before he'd started this Duel. He guessed this new device gave these soldiers the ability to use certain monsters outside of a Duel—with the only drawback being they couldn't use them in one.

They still behaved like the Obelisk Force, though: all four of them had begun their turns with an Antique Gear Hound Dog (Level 3: ATK 1000/DEF 1000) and used their effects on Shun for 600 damage a pop, bringing him down to 1600 LP. They'd then used those Hound Dogs' second effects, and fused them with no less than three monsters apiece in their hand to bring out a Chaos Giant (Level 10: ATK 4500/DEF 3000) to each of their fields. Such was the size of those heavily armored machines that four of them clustered so close together almost blocked out the sun. Finally, they'd each played the same Spell—Antique Gear Garage—to add their Hound Dogs back to their hands, ready to inflict more damage for next turn, just in case their big guns got taken out.

Shun shook his head. They were so predictable it was breathtaking. He had to wonder if they'd deliberately stacked their Decks for an opening like that. He wouldn't have put it past the old Obelisk Force—and he certainly wasn't about to put it past this new bunch of bastards, either, since they Dueled just like them.

"My turn! DRAW!" He drew his card so quickly that he could have sworn the shockwave snuffed out several of the nearest flames. Shun's heart almost skipped a beat—the Spell tucked innocuously in his fingers was ordinarily not a card he'd consider The One He Needed To Draw When He Needed It Most. But maybe … just maybe …

"I Summon Raid Raptors – Vanishing Lanius in Attack Position!" he said, slapping a monster onto his Duel Disk, and watching the familiar sight of his blue-and-green mechanical bird rising into the air, its cyclopean eye gleaming bright blue (Level 4: ATK 1300/DEF 1600).

"Vanishing Lanius' effect!" Shun cried. "Once per turn, if it was Normal or Special Summoned this turn, I can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Raid Raptors monster from my hand! I Special Summon another Vanishing Lanius"—a second avian machine, a mirror image to the one he'd just brought to his field, shimmered into existence—"and use its effect to Special Summon yet another Vanishing Lanius!" And a third monster careened onto the field, maneuvering itself until it was beak to beak with its brethren.

This, he was pleased to see, caused one of the soldiers to step back in fear. He was smarter than his comrades, Shun thought—perhaps he would save him for last. "I now use all three of my Level 4 Vanishing Lanius," he smirked, "to construct the Overlay Network!"

He had to hunker down to avoid being blown off his feet, such was the intensity of the miniature galaxy that had bloomed in the middle of the field. His monsters were sucked inside without further preamble, and their cries mingled to form a keening shriek that melded with the sudden, otherworldly wind:

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

"Xyz Summon!" Shun howled to the sky. "Appear! Rank 4! Raid Raptors – Rise Falcon!"

His blue cloak billowed every which way as his ace monster tore its way into the real world like a monstrous bat out of hell (Rank 4: ATK 100/DEF 2000; ORU 3). Chrome exhaust pipes gleamed in the flames, humming with exhaust and hissing with black smoke that darkened the sun where the Chaos Giants did not. Gleaming, too, were its curved talons and wicked beak, shining like scimitars striking home for the kill.

Shun smiled. A lifetime ago, all he would have needed to do from here would be to activate his Rise Falcon's effect, and these soldiers would be dead in the water—or possibly just dead. Now, however, there was a part of him that believed those sorts of victories were too easy … too boring. Sometimes, victories needed to be a statement.

And so—"I activate the Spell Card: Rank-Up-Magic – Raid Force!" he cried. "With this card, I can target 1 Xyz Monster I control, and Overlay it to Xyz Summon a Raid Raptors Xyz Monster whose Rank is 1 higher than that target! I therefore Overlay my Rise Falcon, and its own Overlay Units … to reconstruct the Overlay Network!"

This time, all four of the soldiers took steps backwards. The three shadowy orbs of that spun lazily around Rise Falcon now froze in their tracks, and shot straight into the monster's breast, causing it to crackle with dark energy. The monster only had time to flap its wings and soar into the stratosphere with one last shriek. Seconds later, it had imploded into a sphere of black lightning, snapping with a thousand arcs as if trying to rip the sky itself apart:

"Ferocious falcon. Break through this fierce battle and spread your wings! Destroy our gathering foes!"

"Rank-Up! Xyz Change!" bellowed Shun. "Appear! Rank 5! Raid Raptors – Blaze Falcon!"

Several of those rips had stitched together, glowing and growling with angry red energy. Thunder rumbled, and the gathering clouds lashed at each other with crackling plasma. Then, with a sonorous CRASH, a huge bolt of lightning struck the tarmac from on high, causing a shockwave that actually extinguished one of the burning planes nearby—

—and Blaze Falcon soared forth from the storm with a roaring screech, Shun atop its back (Rank 5: ATK 1000/DEF 2000/ORU 4). The Duel Monster's streamlined, scarlet-and-black armor cut through the air as cleanly as any jet fighter. Even the Xyz Duelist found himself gripping at the neck of his monster for dear life; Rise Falcon, being slower and more maneuverable, had often been his choice for traversing any battlefield, Action or otherwise.

But Shun quickly adapted to the rush of speed, the surge of adrenaline that coursed through his body. "Blaze Falcon's effect!" he snarled. "By detaching an Overlay Unit"—one of the quartet of spiraling spheres, trying in vain to keep in pace with the monster, finally winked out as if giving up the race—"I can destroy every Special Summoned monster my opponent controls, and inflict 500 damage to them for each destroyed monster! And since your Chaos Giants' effects only protect them from Spells and Traps, and only prevent my monsters' effects from activating during the Battle Phase—"

The soldiers seemed to realize then that they were clustered too closely together. Armor plates were sliding across Blaze Falcon's wings, revealing hidden caches stocked full of feather-like blades. A lazy flap ejected them all, and they spun in the air until—like the needle of a compass against a magnet—they froze in place … and took aim.

"—it means they're nothing but the rusted scrap they deserve to be!" Shun roared, throwing out a hand. "GO!"

Behind its murderous beak, Blaze Falcon's eight eyes gleamed with sinister green light—and so did its many blades, sweeping, stabbing, and scything the Chaos Giants into ruined hulks with pinpoint laser bursts in a spectacular light show. The wreckage collapsed with one tremendous THUD after another, causing their controllers to tumble to the ground in a tangle of limbs—with each of their Life Point gauges now reading 3500.

Shun was satisfied at the sight. But he was still far from finished. "And now—the Spell Card: Rank-Up-Magic – Skip Force!" he screamed, slamming one more card onto his blade. "By activating this card, I can target 1 Xyz Monster I control, and Overlay it to Xyz Summon a Raid Raptors Xyz Monster whose Rank is 2 higher than that target! So I'll target my Blaze Falcon, and use it and its Overlay Units to reconstruct the Overlay Network again!"

Scarlet energy coursed over his monster, disintegrating it photon by photon and turning the remnants dark as pitch. Shun leapt from his perch just as he felt the first gusts of wind, sucked into the miniature black hole that had formed in his monster's place—the wreckage around him was beginning to shift again, affected by the vacuum—

"Unyielding falcon. Spread your broad wings to the edges of heaven, and set the land ablaze with my soul!"

The hole in space-time flared—then burst into a billion clusters of vivid purple light, and a choking cloud of smoke, obscuring Shun from the view of the soldiers he was facing, obscuring everything else around him—

And then a new sound filled the air: the whine of massive engines and many smaller motors, all coming to life and melding with the wind, gathering into a deafening cacophony of pure noise—something immense was rising up from underneath, as if it had been slumbering beneath the airport this whole time—

"RANK-UP! XYZ CHANGE!" Shun thundered. "Appear! Rank 7! Raid Raptors – Arsenal Falcon!"

With a mighty gust of wind unseen in all but the strongest of terrestrial storms, Shun's newest weapon of war unveiled itself in full. Arsenal Falcon looked every inch as big—if not bigger still—than any one of the jetliners and enormous cargo planes that were scattered in pieces around the airport. Gunmetal gray wings, lined with sleek black armor, concealed massive hangars beneath their sweeping span, and green lights blinked to life all over its body, from its bladed tail to the ten eyes that dotted its streamlined head (Rank 7: ATK 2500/DEF 2000; ORU 4).

Those green lights now cast shadows all over Shun himself, standing tall on his monster's broad back, arms crossed at his chest. His yellow-green eyes danced with fire, every tongue searing the image of the soldiers below. All of them were pointing at his monster, perhaps saying the same thing: don't let its size fool you; it only has 2500 ATK … there's no way it can do anything to us …

Except: "Equip Spell: Raptor's Ultimate Mace!" he declared, swiping the card he'd drawn to start his turn across his blade. "Any Raid Raptors monster I equip this card to gains 1000 ATK! And that means"—the green lights of Arsenal Falcon hummed and brightened around him as its ATK rose to 3500—"it's time for my Arsenal Falcon's effect! As long as even one of its Overlay Units is a Raid Raptor monster, it can attack that many times each turn!"

The soldiers froze, went completely silent. And then—perhaps at some unseen signal from their leader—they ran.

Too late, Shun smirked. "BATTLE PHASE!" His roar cut through the noise of the Duel like the judgment of God. "Arsenal Falcon, attack directly—send every one of those pretenders to hell! DARK TALON VENDETTA!"

He heard the hiss of the wing hangar doors yawning open. Arsenal Falcon maneuvered itself a little lower, giving Shun just enough of a vantage point to see the soldiers fleeing for the edges of the dispersal field—

THOOM. THOOM-THOOM-THOOM.

Four enormous missiles—two from each wing—streaked out from beneath his monster in quick succession. Shun's eyes were just quick enough to see the smallest pair of them bearing the wings of his Vanishing Lanius, a third that looked like his Rise Falcon—and a scarlet blur that moved too quickly to be anything but his Blaze Falcon.

The last of these was first to strike home, creating a massive crater in the tarmac and sending the lead soldier high into the air, screaming hysterically. His LP gauge hit zero before he'd hit the ground. The remainder of his squad didn't get much further; inside of ten seconds, three more smoking holes had been blasted in the runways, and three more soldiers lay face-down with their arms splayed at odd angles, with each of their Duel Disks shrieking the same message of defeat.

Shun dismounted from his monster without a second thought, not even registering its disappearance behind him, and made a beeline for the lead soldier. Within seconds the blade of his Duel Disk was at the luckless man's throat.

"What were you doing here?" Shun growled. "Why did you attack these people?"

The soldier managed a grin. It wasn't a pretty one; most of his teeth were either missing or broken, and blood leaked from the gaps of the ones that survived.

"You really think I'd tell you?" spat the soldier. "You're just Xyz slime. You wouldn't understand why we fight."

Shun hauled him to his feet, fury in his face. "Your fight's over," he sneered. "You lost."

That only made the bloodied soldier grin wider. "We haven't even started," he said, coughing blood even as he laughed in Shun's face. "You have no idea what we've set in motion here. No idea at all."

A beeping noise issued from the keypad on his right wrist. With what must have been his last reserves of energy, the soldier raised his fist high, and spoke three words.

"Unum in multis!"

"Multi in unum!"

Shun almost didn't hear the response from his three subordinates; he'd just now realized what the keypad had been programmed to do. There was no time to savor his victory—he needed to leave immediately—

Elsewhere, Masumi was so fixated on sprinting through the city streets that she almost didn't notice a single bar of reception spring up out of nowhere on her Duel Disk. When she did, she skidded to a halt so quickly that she nearly fell face-first on the curb.

Within seconds, she'd dialed a number. "Yaiba—Yaiba, are you there?"

"I—ere!" The audio was heavy with static, but Yaiba's voice was instantly recognizable even through that. "I've—t the kids—with me—till at the gym—"

Masumi exhaled in relief. "Stay there—and stay low," she told him. "I'm making my way over now. Can Rika and Hotene put up a fight?"

There was a pause, for a short while her only reply was static. "—eah," the Synchro Duelist's stuttering voice came through. "on't—split up—not yet—alled Hokuto—Fuyu—too far away—"

Masumi did her best to parse this; it sounded like Yaiba wanted to keep as many of the LID together as possible—but both of their Xyz Duelists were too far away for that to happen. She thought for a few moments.

"That might be for the best," she decided. "We shouldn't be bunched up too much out here. If the girls can fight on their own, I say let them; if they can't, they're smart enough to find the nearest shelter. Head back to You Show, babe—you'll meet me halfway, and we can fight together if we need to."

"—ight. Lo—you!"

Masumi smiled. "Love you too." She ended the call, and resumed her sprint with renewed vigor.

Sora didn't consider himself a shopaholic. He wasn't one for the latest gadgets—except maybe where Dueling was concerned, but then, those had been standard military issue back home—nor was he likely to pay attention to the latest trends in clothing and fashion. So when he'd seen one of the five Chaos Giants he was pursuing use the laser cannon in its right fist to carve right through the local mall, he didn't feel the sort of stabbing feeling that came with seeing one's preferred hangout spot getting destroyed.

Then he'd caught up to them—and noticed that one of the shops that had been vaporized in the attack had been his favorite candy store. What little remained of it had been swallowed up by the lava fields of Wonder Quartet.

Such had been his anger that he'd spat out his lollipop stick, and ignited his yellow Duel Disk without a word.

The battle that followed had been largely a blur—figuratively and literally, thanks to the heat haze that permeated this sector of the Field. But all five of the soldiers he'd been fighting had been quick to Fusion Summon the same Chaos Giants (Level 10: ATK 4500/DEF 3000) they'd been using to wreck the city and attack any people they could find. Sora had already needed to disperse at least one crowd of them when they'd gotten too close to the Duel, in danger of getting caught in the crossfire of the Antique Gear Hound Dogs that had reduced his Life Points to a mere 1000—right on the edge of the danger zone.

He took a deep breath. "My turn!" he cried. "Draw!"

His eyes flicked to the card in his fingers—Yes! "I Summon Furnimal Mouse in Attack Position! Then"—he watched the round, winged rodent bounce onto his field, a sugared donut in its paws (Level 1: ATK 100/DEF 100)—"I activate my monster's effect, and Special Summon two more Furnimal Mice from my Deck!" And with a squeak, a pair of identical monsters had alighted alongside its brother (Level 1: ATK 100/DEF 100).

"Next," Sora continued, plucking another card from his hand, "the Spell Card: Death-Toy Patchwork! With this, I can add an Edge Imp monster from my Deck to my hand—as well as this! I add and activate the Spell Card: Fusion! And since I already know where you guys came from, let's just skip the song and dance—I fuse all three Mice on my field with the Furnimal Penguin in my hand, and the Edge Imp Scissors I just added to it!"

He smiled as he felt the telltale hurricane rumble behind him. His Mice scattered, and were quickly sucked inside—followed by the echoes of two monsters that could not have been more different from each other: a tiny penguin barely up to Sora's knee, and many scissoring blades and shears that hissed in the air before vanishing completely:

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

Sora's chant was drowned out by the THUD of a heavy green paw hitting the tiled floor of the mall. The ground shook, sending debris jumping into the air—

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

A giggling shadow leapt out from the vortex, alighting on a nearby escalator, then finally landing on the long-since-emptied concierge, smashing it beneath its bulk. What emerged from the wreckage was something out of a young child's nightmare: a stuffed cat seven feet tall and twice as long from nose to tail (Level 6: ATK 1900 » 2200/DEF 1500), horrifically mutilated and crudely reanimated, with at least three pairs of scissors stabbed through its arms and chest, then stitched in place. Four eyes—two that popped from the monster's skull, and another glowing pair inside its toothy, smirking maw—leered at the soldiers as if they were yet more mice for it to catch in its clutches.

"Scissor Tiger's first effect gives my Death-Toys 300 ATK for every Death-Toy and Furnimal monster I control," explained Sora. "Its second effect activates when it's Fusion Summoned—and lets me target and destroy as many cards on the field as the number of Fusion Materials used to Summon it! That's five Fusion Materials—three Mice, a Penguin, and the best pair of Scissors a Fusion Duelist could ask for—and five big hunks of walking scrap! GO!"

Scissor Tiger cackled insanely. It crouched, tensed—and then suddenly it was nothing but a green-and-silver blur of fur and snipping blades, hurtling straight for the soldiers and their monsters. The Chaos Giants were too large—too slow—to flee the onslaught; inside of five seconds, they were indeed nothing but so many hunks of walking scrap.

"And talking of Fusion Materials," Sora went on, as his Scissor Tiger returned to his side, barely even winded, "if my Penguin was sent to the Graveyard to Fusion Summon a Death-Toy monster, I can use its effect to draw 2 cards, then discard a card from my hand!" He did so, tossing one of them, and slapping the other on his blade almost at the same time. "Then I'll activate the Continuous Spell: Toypot—and with it, the Spell Card: Death-Toy Fusion!"

He dimly registered the colorful machine appearing behind his back; Sora was far too in his element to care about anything else but the second vortex that was beginning to crackle overhead. "I can use this—you guessed it—to Fusion Summon another Death-Toy monster from my Extra Deck, by banishing its materials from my field or my Graveyard! And I'll banish every single monster I used to Summon Scissor Tiger—so that they can Summon this!"

He threw his hands high, feeling the rush of sound from the swirling mass above him, and began to chant anew:

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

"Fusion Summon! Show yourself! Mystical beast that prowls the lonely mountain! Death-Toy Scissor Wolf!"

What little remained of the concierge desk was scattered in every direction by the latest arrival to the Duel: a blue-furred monstrosity of about the same size as Scissor Tiger—and almost exactly the same level of mutilation (Level 6: ATK 2000 » 2600/DEF 1500). Crimson eyes, set within the void of its slavering jaws, narrowed at the soldiers, who were suddenly looking a lot more fearful than when Sora had first shown himself to them.

Scissor Tiger took one glance at its companion and giggled with crazed glee, perhaps aware of its own point gauge rising to 2500. Sora couldn't resist a smirk of his own as he activated "—the Continuous Spell: Death-Toy Factory! By banishing a Fusion card from my Graveyard," he said, "I can Fusion Summon yet again—using monsters from my hand or field as the materials, just like the first time! I banish my Death-Toy Fusion, and fuse my Scissor Tiger with the Furnimal Cat in my hand!"

He had to drop to a knee to preserve his footing; the wind that had erupted from his newest churning portal was enough to topple some of the piles of debris around him. With a final cackle, his Scissor Tiger leapt for the vortex, pursued by a tiny purple cat with equally tiny wings on its back—

"Claws of the sadist! Become one with your primal ancestor and show us the power of eons past!"

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

Sora had barely finished his chant when the monster landed on all fours with a WHAM. Sabre-Tiger looked more ripped and scarred than any Death-Toy yet seen this Duel: almost a dozen curved blades sprouted from within its furred bulk, including one the size of a man that sliced through its chest, and two more from its head that looked more like horns (Level 8: ATK 2400 » 2800/DEF 2000).

"Sabre Tiger's effect gives all of my Death-Toys 400 ATK," grinned Sora, "and its second effect lets me target and Special Summon another Death-Toy monster from my Graveyard! Since there's only one of those in my Graveyard, that means there's just no contest!" He smirked. "Come out to play, Scissor Tiger!"

Sabre Tiger's mouth opened wide—far wider than it should. The stitching that bound the jaws together nearly snapped as Scissor Tiger emerged from inside its bigger brother's belly, looking none the worse for wear—and indeed, looking more gleeful than ever for a very good reason (Level 6: ATK 1900 » 2300 » 3200/DEF 1500).

Scissor Wolf and Sabre Tiger growled alongside their resurrected brother, their own ATK now at 3300 and 3700. But it wasn't enough for Sora—if he could just pull a couple more monsters, he'd have this in the bag.

"When Furnimal Cat is used as Fusion Material for a Death-Toy monster," he said, "I can target a Fusion in my Graveyard and put it back in my hand!" One press of a button on his Duel Disk ejected it one second later, and he swiped it up without hesitation. "Next, the Furnimal Wings I discarded for my Penguin's effect! By banishing it and another Furnimal from my Graveyard, I can draw a card—and then, I can destroy a Toypot on my field and draw a second card with it! So I banish my Wings and my Cat—and DRAW!"

He did so with a grunt of exertion. Sora flipped the card in his hands—tensed—and smiled. So far, so good … "Now! I destroy my Toypot"—he heard the machine behind him collapse into a hundred pieces—"and DRAW!"

He regretted putting as much force into the action as he did; he'd need to get that shoulder looked at later. But Sora had seen the second card, and suddenly the pain didn't matter. He wouldn't even need to use Toypot's effect to add another monster from his Deck—he already had everything he needed in the palm of his hand.

And so—"I reactivate the Spell Card: Fusion," he yelled, "to fuse the Furnimal Lio and Edge Imp Saw in my hand!"

Amidst the rumble of still another portal, he thought he could hear one of his opponents talking. It was the one in the middle—mostly likely the squad leader, therefore, from what Sora could tell. The tone was low, either from awe or a wish to not be heard—but Sora still had enough of his soldier's senses to hear him anyway.

"Four Fusion Monsters in one turn … " murmured the man—definitely young and gruff enough to be former Obelisk Force. "You haven't changed at all, Shiun'in Sora."

He grinned from under his silver helm. "He could have used you. We would've been so much stronger … "

Sora blinked. He who?! But he tabled the question for later—the noise and whirling color behind him had reached a crescendo. He saw a plush lion hurled inside the depths of the whirlpool, with a multi-bladed disc right on its tail:

"Steel blades possessed by demons. Become one with the fanged beast, and show us a new form and power!"

"FUSION SUMMON!" he bellowed. "Appear! King of the hundred beasts that tears everything to pieces! Death-Toy Wheel Saw Lio!"

The new Fusion Monster hit the floor with enough force to shatter the tiles beneath its blood-red claws, causing more lava to leak from below. Flesh-colored fur, bandaged and sawn apart by the many slashing edges that formed its mane and torso, rippled and flexed as the mutilated lion uttered a whirring, whining roar from its bifurcated jaws (Level 7: ATK 2400 » 2800 » 4000/DEF 2000). A chorus of cries arose to greet it: Sabre-Tiger's was the loudest of them, its own ATK gauge—once at 3700—now dead even with that of Wheel Saw Lio, thanks to Scissor Tiger.

Sora's smirk wouldn't have looked out of place on any of his Fusion Monsters. "Ready for some playtime, Toys?" He waited for the feral growls to subside. Then—"Battle Phase! Wheel Saw Lio—attack directly!"

He stabbed out with a finger at the nearest gray-clad soldier—and the next moment, his chosen monster was a whirling mass of saws, claws and teeth. It lashed out with a horrid, distorted shriek, backhanding the luckless man across his face with enough strength to lift him off his feet, and claw the helmet right off his head.

Sora didn't even wait to hear the soldier's Duel Disk reach zero LP with a shriek. "Next! Sabre Tiger—attack directly!" Again he trained his finger on the nearest soldier—and again he watched said soldier try in vain to evade a snarling collection of blades and fur. He was smacked off his feet and against an escalator, landing with a CRUNCH that sounded equally of broken bones as it did crumpled metal.

Two down. "Scissor Tiger—attack directly!" With another crow of insane laughter, his 3500-ATK Scissor Tiger was off, rushing straight down the field for the lead soldier. This time, however, the man was ready; Sora saw him tense and drop to one knee right as his monster struck him head-on. He skidded all the way to the wall—just barely inches from crashing through the glass of a jewelry store—but he was still standing; his LP gauge read a scant 500.

Not that it mattered to Sora. "And finally, my Scissor Wolf! Its effect lets it attack once for every Fusion Material used to Summon it!" He counted on his fingers. "Now … what's five times thirty-six hundred again?"

He waited for the two soldiers to run for it, then snapped his fingers as if he hadn't known the answer all along. "Oh yeah, that's right! Enough to finish this Duel—and you along with it! Scissor Wolf, attack them all directly!"

Scissor Wolf moved like lightning. One moment it had bulled right for one of the fleeing soldiers; the next, it butted him aside with enough force that it registered on his LP gauge, plummeting to 400—and then to a big fat zero as the momentum sent him through a pane of glass and into a boutique clothing outlet. Claws skidded against the floor, scoring gashes in the tile—and seconds later, Scissor Wolf had charged down the second soldier, catching him in its jaws, shaking him like a dog toy—and finally flinging him against an elevator hard enough to crumple the doors.

That just left the squad leader—and both Sora and his Wolf advanced on him now. It was impossible to tell which of the two was more satisfied at seeing the man broken and on a knee.

"This changes nothing, Sora," the soldier snarled defiantly. He was tapping at the screen on his other wrist. "We're still going to win, no matter what happens to this city—just like you're still a traitor who picked the losing side."

"Really?" Sora, out of breath though he was, felt quite airy about it all. "What did you want to happen to my city?" He deliberately emphasized the word. "'Cause the way I see it, everyone here's fighting back—against you."

The soldier smiled. The screen on his keypad began to beep, glowing with purple light. "Unum in multis, Sora."

He reacted just in the nick of time—with one final swipe, Scissor Wolf had finished the soldier off right as a violet flash engulfed his body. At the same time, a suddenly tense Sora had sprinted away, knowing full well what that light was, and that he didn't want to get caught in its area of effect—

Silence. Sora skidded to a halt, looked back at the ravaged, half-melted pavilion of the mall—and bit his lip.

The soldiers were gone.

He exhaled, deactivating his Duel Disk and watching his Death-Toys vanish from view. "I need a candy bar after that—OH, WAIT!" he was suddenly hollering, focusing all of his ire on the nonexistent squad of soldiers who'd turned his favorite candy store to rubble. "YOU MANIACS BLEW IT ALL TO H—"

Sora broke off right as something gurgled in his stomach. He rolled his eyes. "Great," he huffed. He set off along the deserted mall, wondering if it would be worth the battery power to have his Duel Disk hack a vending machine.

But the farther he traveled, the less Sora began to think about his sweet tooth, and more about what the soldier had said. Unum in multis. He'd taken a few foreign languages as an elective at Academia, including English and the Romance languages that had risen from the old Latin tongue. Unum in multis … one among many, he translated.

He shook his head. Probably some silly little creed that had been thought up after his time there, he decided. It wasn't as though the Obelisk Force had spent that time stepping up their game, from what he'd seen today—

Now what was that? His ears had picked up a new sound, magnified many-fold against the silent galleria. It was faint, and fading, but Sora had heard enough to look off to his right, where he thought the sound had come from.

All he saw was a hallway, its main branch ending at a department store. Sora shook his head. Maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him. Or maybe this mall wasn't as deserted as he'd thought. But those hadn't sounded like soldiers' footsteps, or even police—they were too quick, too light. Not at all the sound heavy boots would make.

He stared down the hall for a long moment before he felt his insides growl again. Whoever it was, he decided, it could wait until after he'd had a bite to eat. So could the battle—there was no use fighting on an empty stomach.

Okay … where can I find a vending machine around here? Sora wondered, as he set off deeper into the mall—quite unaware of the eyes that lingered on his retreating figure … before they, too, vanished into the commercial expanse.

Gongenzaka Noboru considered himself far too noble a man to sink to the level of profane tirades. But he'd felt an especially long one build up inside his mouth, as while he'd been the first to reach the man he believed to be the leader of these soldiers, he hadn't been the first to challenge him.

He didn't know the policeman's name, nor what Duel School he might have attended to explain the Beast God King Barbaros he'd carried in his Deck. Noboru, however, had too much respect for authority to have refused his order to step back and allow him to take over. But it hadn't been enough—and he had been forced to intrude on the Duel when it became clear the nameless policeman had no chance.

At least he'd had the sense to flee before the certainty of being sealed into a card, but intrusions carried a penalty. Which meant Noboru had less LP than he might be comfortable with on any given day—and less still thanks to the Hound Dog that had torn holes in his favorite coat, and had Summoned the Chaos Giant (Level 10: ATK 4500/DEF 3000) that currently towered over him and the Solid Vision forest that had appeared with Wonder Quartet.

1400 Life Points was survivable for a one-on-one Duel, though—and now that he'd begun his turn, Noboru knew just what to do with the card he'd just drawn to start his turn.

"I Summon Superheavy Samurai Kagebo-C!" he declared, watching a slender robot in purple armor shimmer in front of him (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 1000). "Then, I use its effect to Release it and Special Summon another Superheavy Samurai from my hand! I Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Dai-8 in Defense Position!"

Kagebo-C blew a long note on the flute it carried—then suddenly collapsed to reveal a rickety wagon, laden with mismatched armor and carried by a green robot with tires for legs (Level 4: ATK 1200/DEF 1800).

"Now for my Dai-8's effect!" boomed Noboru. "If I have no Spells or Traps in my Graveyard, I can change it to Attack Position, and add a Superheavy Samurai Soul monster from my Deck to my hand!" He did so. "Then, I use the effects of the Superheavy Samurai Souls Chūsai and Iwato'oshi in my hand, and equip them to Dai-8!"

As motors revved inside Dai-8, a crossbow appeared on one of its arms—and then two more arms sprouted from each of the green robot's shoulder blades. "Soul Chūsai's effect allows me to Release the monster it is equipped to," said Noboru, "and Special Summon another Superheavy Samurai monster from my Deck! I Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Big Ben-K in Defense Position!"

He planted one of his geta sandals with a thud on the grassy field that, again thanks to Wonder Quartet, had grown over the crossroads outside LDS. A much bigger THUD answered him a moment later as—right at the moment Dai-8 had vanished from view—a hulking machine in thick red armor, half his height again and about as broad at the shoulder, stomped onto the field, a long, double-bladed spear in its hands (Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 3500).

"By Releasing Chūsai and Dai-8, I also sent my Iwato'oshi to the Graveyard," said Noboru, "and because I did that, I can use Iwato'oshi's effect to add another Superheavy Samurai from my Deck to my hand! I add the Tuner monster Superheavy Samurai Horaga-Ī—and because I still have no Spells or Traps in my Graveyard, I can Special Summon it to my field with its own effect! Behold!"

He stomped the ground with his other geta, and another scarlet-armored robot, this one barely reaching his waist in height, shimmered onto the field, a giant conch half his size raised to its lips (Level 2: ATK 300/DEF 600).

"This is the genius of Steadfast Dueling, as laid down by my father!" Noboru cried, feeling his heart blazing in a way that would have impressed Hīragi Shūzō, "and this is the genius of Steadfast Dueling, as perfected by his only son! Watch now—as the noblest of men, Gongenzaka, Tunes his Level 2 Horaga-Ī with the Level 8 Big Ben-K!"

He clapped his hands together with a sonorous shockwave. Before him, Big Ben-K and Horaga-Ī began to glow a bright green, their metallic bodies converging on one another in a double halo of light:

"Raging deity, in unison with the roar of a thousand blades, come forth in a spiraling sandstorm!"

"Synchro Summon!" roared Noboru. "Now come before us, Level 10! Superheavy Kōjin Susano-Ō!"

BOOM.

The earthshaking impact unseated the enemy soldier, and even his Chaos Giant was forced to readjust its footing with a whine of motors. But for a student of Steadfast Dueling, to be unaffected by such a momentous force was a mark even its lowliest of students shared—and Gongenzaka Noboru considered himself nothing if not the best.

The proof of this now drew itself to its full height behind him: fifteen feet tall, and almost as wide, the elephantine bulk of Susano-Ō shook the ground with every step, and the heavy sword it unsheathed seemed to make it tremble even more, as if in sudden fear (Level 10: ATK 2400/DEF 3800).

"I now use the effects of two more Souls—my Soul Great Wall and my Soul Double Horn—to equip themselves from my hand to Kōjin Susano-Ō!" Noboru bellowed, slamming the last two cards in his hand upon his fiery orange blade. Moments later, a scaly green wall twice his height had shimmered along Susano-Ō's right arm, while an even thicker suit of horned armor assembled itself over the already thick teal plates that covered the Synchro Monster.

Noboru permitted himself a smile then. "Due to the effect of Soul Great Wall, any monster equipped with it gains 1200 DEF! Furthermore, my Kōjin Susano-Ō's effect allows it to attack in Defense Position, and to use its DEF for damage calculation! And any monster equipped with Soul Double Horn," he added, watching his ace monster grow to a daunting 5000 DEF, "is able to attack twice each turn! BATTLE PHASE!"

Susano-Ō's sword began to glow with blinding light. "Kōjin Susano-Ō," thundered the scion of the Gongenzaka Dōjō, "attack Antique Gear Chaos Giant!"

With a roar of rockets, Susano-Ō surged forward, cannonballing into Chaos Giant with enough force to knock the robot—over twice its size, but more than twice as top-heavy—right off its feet. One swift slice from its sword carved the great machine in two at the waist, and the two halves disintegrated in a tremendous explosion.

"And now"—Noboru stabbed out with his finger—"attack directly! Kusanagi Sword Slash!" Another burst of rockets whirled the mechanical samurai a full hundred and eighty degrees—and far quicker than the soldier could hope to escape the inevitable.

SMASH. The crater his monster's attack left in the road wasn't as big as the footprints left by the Chaos Giant's weight. But it was close, and only the grace of fate, Noboru decided—well, either that, or the Solid Vision of Wonder Quartet—might have kept it from being bigger still and causing the entire street, hard-light grass, trees, and all, to cave into the sewers below.

Susano-Ō faded from view—the Duel complete, the battle won—and he walked towards the fallen soldier, already composing a speech in his head about how once again, nobility and gallantry had triumphed over sheer cowardice.

But the speech was not to be; Noboru had only just seen the soldier rise to his feet before he screamed three words.

"Unum in multis!"

Before he knew it, a blast of purple light issued from the device on the soldier's right wrist, blinding Noboru enough that he fell to the road in surprise. Stars flared in his eyes for a few moments before he could recover enough to blink them away.

When he did, he could do nothing but gape: the soldier was gone. No, he thought just as quickly; that wasn't true—not entirely. Something small and thin—barely big enough to fit in the palm of his hand—fluttered about in the breeze that caressed the streets, quiet in the aftermath of the battle. Then, a moment later, this too flared with a flicker of blue light, and it disappeared before Noboru's eyes as well.

It took him some time to realize the enormity of what he'd just seen: the soldier had turned himself into a card. And then something else—someone else—had transported that card back to God-only-knew-where, to doubly ensure that no knowledge whatsoever could be gleaned from the soldier's defeat.

And all this, he thought with a growing disgust, had happened almost with delight. Though Noboru did not know what the soldier's final words meant, he had been just close enough to see the smirk of madness across his lips.

He'd sealed himself—effectively committed suicide—with glee.

The street seemed ten times quieter now. Noboru felt himself trembling. What kind of enemy are we fighting, he thought, to put such thoughts into the lowest of its ranks? What sort of person would do this to his own army?

Something was missing here, he mused. They were forgetting a critical element—

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!"

Noboru blinked at the deafening squeal that had just come from the device. Oh. Of course.

He shook his head. "Gongenzaka calling any Lancer," he muttered into his Duel Disk. "Can someone—anyone—please rescue Sawatari before he hurts himself?" And hopefully, he added in his head, before he managed to drag anybody else into whatever mess he'd stepped in?

A/N: Okay—so here's the breakdown: it's Thanksgiving week, and I'm fresh off a birthday weekend and halfway into a personal vacation. This and a relatively calm two weeks at work leading up to this point has given me the chance to make a considerable amount of backlog for my story.

So as I rest my fingers and enjoy the remainder of my time away from work, I'm going to close out the month and give you all a treat by releasing all four—yes, four—chapters I've written in the time since I last updated this story. Seeing as most of them are more action than plot advancement, I hope that'll help with a swifter return to the larger story at hand, and therefore a way to stave off any confusion as to what's going on.

Thanks for reading! – K