XIII
A complete hush had descended upon the Ryōzanpaku campus. The weight of Streiter's words seemed a black hole, sucking in all else around it—the air they breathed, the sounds of the Duel; all of it meant so little to Masumi now.
Until the rude noise that came from Yaiba forced her back to her senses.
"'A war worth fighting, and a peace worth fighting for'?" he repeated derisively, staring at Masumi as if hoping he'd heard the man wrong. "That doesn't make any sense! You don't earn peace by making war!" He spluttered for a moment, apparently beyond words. "I mean, come on—we just had this talk, like, months ago!"
"I know," Streiter told them. "I read the after-action report. What J.D. Crowley wanted wasn't war. That simpleton of a cyborg wanted the Arc Area Project to favor those loyal to Academia, and no one else. Sabotaging your school was one step closer to his vision of populating the Original Dimension with Fusion users, and no one else."
His nostrils flared. For the first time seeing him, Masumi thought he looked angry. "Do you know what I call that? A purge—not a war." He shook his head, as if trying to clear an old memory. "But that is immaterial. Because of you, everything Crowley worked for became a twisted shell—much like himself," he said blithely.
"If you're trying to flatter us, Markus," spat Hokuto, "then I have to say, your compliments suck."
"The trouble with being deep cover is that you tend to forget you are part of a cohesive unit," said Streiter, brushing off the Xyz user's insult like it was dust on the lapels of his suit. "That independence from the whole is what caused Crowley to underestimate you, and Gwendolyn Grimm before him. But I still remember what I am."
"Do you?" Masumi had finally found her voice. "Because you're facing us all by yourself, right here, right now—and without any minions to back you up." She crossed her arms. "They made the same mistake."
"You are children," Streiter said simply. "You do not think like soldiers. You continue to cling to the notion that everything you do today is nothing more than a game." He curled his lip. "Sakaki Yūshō made that same mistake."
"Sakaki Yūshō is a million times the man you ever were!" Hotene stamped her foot down hard to emphasize the number. "He knew how to make us smile an' laugh, an' love Duel Monsters for what it was!" she raged. "You're the one who made it more than just a game—you an' your whole stupid school, an' your whole stupid gang with it!"
Shen straightened his tunic. "Nǐ bùguò shì bàotú," he said, in a voice quieter than his allies. "You have thrown away everything you stood for as a soldier. Armies swear oaths to protect the people and their way of life—"
"Let it go, you two," sighed Fuyu, shaking his head. " … He's too old to be swayed by a bunch of kids. You heard what Leo said—guys like Markus only know how to do one thing. They're too set in their tracks to do anything else. My dad says that with people like that"—he tensed, hand on his Duel Disk—"you don't talk sense into them."
He drew a card with a flourish, beginning his turn. "You beat it, instead." He flipped over his card, staring—and laughed softly under his helmet. "Perfect. First, I Summon the Satellarknight Procyon I added to my hand with the effect of Betelgeuse!" He slid the monster across his Duel Disk, waiting just long enough that the bite-sized golden warrior had shimmered in front of him (Level 4: ATK 1300/DEF 1200). Then: "Since Procyon was Summoned, I can use its effect to discard a tellarknight monster from my hand and draw a card in its place!"
He did so—and Masumi swore his grin grew even wider when he saw what he'd drawn. "And now," Fuyu crowed, "I activate the Quick-Play Spell: Satellarknight Skybridge! By targeting a tellarknight monster on my field, I can shuffle it into the Deck and Special Summon a different tellarknight from my Deck in its place!"
From the Deck?! Alarm bells went off in Masumi's head. "Fuyu, wait—!"
But it was too late. "I shuffle my Procyon, and Special Summon Satellarknight Altair in Attack Position!" yelled the Xyz Duelist, and the fires of Streiter's Field Spell seemed to burn more vividly blue as an equally blue-armored knight shimmered onto Fuyu's field (Level 4: ATK 1700/DEF 1300), and tapped Procyon on the shoulder. At once, the junior knight vanished with a burst of light, leaving his companion alone to face the indomitable Domitianus—whose point gauge, Masumi had just seen, now read 4000/1700.
"I tried to warn you," the Fusion Duelist groaned. "Markus' Colosseum doesn't just trigger with his own Gladial Beasts—it's every monster! We Special Summon from the Deck, we just end up making his monsters stronger!"
Fuyu flinched, but stood his ground. "Don't worry," he said. "It was a risk I had to take—I know what I'm doing."
He turned away then, and focused his gaze on Altair. "My monster's effect activates when it's Special Summoned, and lets me target a tellarknight in my Graveyard and Special Summon it in Defense Position! So I Summon—!"
Domitianus moved so quickly for its bulk that it took a moment for Masumi to register. One moment, the behemoth had been leering at them, still chanting under its breath—the next, it had flicked out with its bladed trident and sliced through the air in a horizontal arc. Why it had done that, Masumi wasn't sure.
Then she noticed Fuyu had stopped talking. The Xyz user had gone completely rigid, shivering where he stood. The reason why was much more apparent: something small and round had rolled onto the ground before his feet.
A closer look sent a bucketful of acid pouring into Masumi's stomach—that something was Altair's severed head.
"That was also why Grimm and Crowley underestimated you as Duelists," Streiter remarked matter-of-factly; his Domitianus might have simply swatted a fly. "They let you get too far in your stride. Leave your enemies alone, and they will become too big of a threat to resolve with necessary force."
He frowned, perhaps noticing the stares of half a dozen Duelists silently demanding what he'd just done. "Oh, yes," he muttered absentmindedly. "Gladial Beast Domitianus' effect: once per turn—during any of our turns—if a monster effect would be activated, I can negate the activation … and destroy the monster responsible."
Fuyu sagged where he stood. So did Altair; the decapitated monster slumped to the ground, collapsing into a pile of photonic dust. Masumi felt no less dejected than he did; she had a good idea of what Fuyu had been hoping to do. She suspected that the monster he'd sent with Procyon's effect had been Satellarknight Deneb—which had the ability to add another tellarknight from his Deck to his hand. By reviving Deneb, and then Pendulum Summoning whatever monster he'd added, Fuyu would have been able to Xyz Summon again—perhaps his Deltatheros, so he could transition into a more offensive role for this Battle Royale. But with one swift stroke—of genius, and of hard-light formed into sharpened steel—Streiter and his monster had, rather literally, stuck a fork in Fuyu's strategy.
It seemed the Xyz Duelist knew it, too. "I end my turn," he sighed, so softly Masumi had to strain to hear his voice.
When the words did register, she felt her jaw drop. "What're you doing?" she hissed. "Your Procyon could have destroyed his Hoplomus—Markus Summoned that thing in Attack Position!"
"I know—and that's what scares me!" rasped Fuyu. "You don't Summon something with that much DEF in Attack Position unless you have a good reason. Markus is planning something—I'm sure of it. And I think his Domitianus is the lynchpin of it all." He shuddered. "Something about that Fusion Monster is … it's just wrong, Masumi."
She didn't think he was lying. But still … "We have to do something," the Fusion Duelist protested. "We can't let ourselves get scared of just one monster!" She rounded on Shen. "Tell me you can do something about it."
The Synchro user was already drawing his card. "A good first step," he said, half to himself, before he acted. "Trap Card, open: Secluded Ethereal Waterfall! By activating this card, I have the option of adding a Wyrm-Type monster from my Deck to my hand!" He ejected a card from his Deck, swiping it up in a blur.
Then, he tensed. "Battle Phase! Yaizer—attack Gladial Beast—!" But he got no further; his monster was already charging Streiter's field down with the force of a freight train. Yaizer flapped its wings once, roared—
SHLCK.
The wet noise twisted Masumi's insides far more than the sight did. She stared, green in the face and feeling bile in her throat, as Yaizer's mouth lolled grotesquely. Domitianus' trident had filled its jaws, spearing the dragon in mid-bellow right where spine met skull. The serpentine behemoth, still reciting its sinister chant, heaved its weapon upwards, and gravity forced the bladed edge further down the gullet of Shen's slain dragon.
Shen himself was openmouthed in shock—an emotion Masumi had not seen from the otherwise stoic boy in a long time. "That … is not possible," he muttered. "I did not activate Yaizer's effect. I also Synchro Summoned it with Taotie; his effect made it so that control of any monster for which it was used as Synchro Material could not change. It was my intent to attack his Hoplomus—it was supposed to destroy it." He shook his head, agitated. "Why did—"
"It's Domitianus," Fuyu hissed. "It has to be—it must have another effect that it used on your monster!"
"Not precisely," Markus said. His calm demeanor looked thoroughly at odds with the cruel sneer on his Fusion Monster's face. "Domitianus' second effect need not be used on any monster you control. It does not target, nor does it destroy—to be sure, it does not affect any of your monsters at all. It does, however, affect you."
He smiled. "When any monster declares an attack, its controller must choose a target for that attack. Because of my Domitianus' effect, however, you no longer have the power to choose what your monster attacks."
His smirk grew wider, and he pointed a thick thumb to his broad chest. "I do."
Domitianus flicked its trident downwards, hurling Yaizer's body to the ground and skewering it straight through the heart. The violent gesture shattered Shen's dragon into a million shards of light—and with it, all certainty Masumi had had of winning this Duel.
"Did I hear that right?" Yaiba murmured. He sounded as if he was in shellshock. "He decides what we attack?!"
Hokuto nodded. "No wonder he Summoned Hoplomus in Attack Position," he said. "He knew it would be safe!"
"Now every attack we make will just go right to his Domitianus … " Hotene's whisper could scarcely be heard; the little girl, her messy hair wilted, looked at her wits' end. "It'll just destroy every monster we attack with … "
Masumi did her best to keep her panic in check—this was a setback, and no mistake. But it wasn't the climax of the Duel—and certainly not its end. She still had her Aquamarine; because his effect activated in the Graveyard, rather than the field, she doubted Domitianus would last long enough to use its effect against her monster before she sent it back where it belonged. She would take a heavy hit for it—but it would be worth the LP lost to see his field empty.
"Let's focus, everyone," she soothed. "We can still do this. Shen—anything more you can give us?"
"Only this." The Synchro user Set his remaining brace of cards—one a monster, judging by the skull-like hologram that pulsed above it—and the other to his back row. "Turn end."
He gestured to Hotene, but for once the tiny Duelist didn't jump to beginning her turn. There was very little force behind her arm as she drew her next card—and even that vanished a moment later. Masumi had a suspicion that whatever card Hotene had wanted to draw, this hadn't been the one.
Sure enough, she could see a visible grimace on the Junior Fusion ace's lips as she announced, "I Summon Spiritual Beast Rampenta in Attack Position!" Not even the appearance of the same green, human-sized penguin that served as one half of the Sephirampirika behind her (Level 4: ATK 1600/DEF 400) could fully dispel her sour demeanor.
But Masumi's keen eyes also saw the twinkle in her counterpart's blue stare. "Now for Rampenta's effect!" Hotene cried. "Once per turn, I can banish a Spiritual Beast monster from my Extra Deck, an' send another Spiritual Beast monster from my Deck to the Graveyard that has the same Type!" With rather more force than might be called for, she swiped a card from each end of her Duel Disk, feeding them into various slots. Masumi wondered if she was that intent on saving victory from the jaws of defeat.
Then Hotene's frown deepened further still, and she signaled the end of her turn without a word—and an unusually pensive look on her face as she stared at Streiter's field.
"What's wrong?" Masumi asked. "Is it Domitianus again?" The monster in question was eyeing Hotene's Tamed Petolphin with the same look that a shark might give a helpless swimmer—and still chanting all the while.
Hotene shook her head. "Remember when Markus Set a couple cards to end his last turn?" The Fusion ace nodded. "He hasn't used them yet. But why?"
It was Masumi's turn to frown. She stared past Domitianus, stared at the man himself. It was enough to wonder if anyone had been able to successfully read Streiter in all the time he'd been a Duelist—his eyes betrayed so little, and the rest of his face even less. The mind beneath worked at a completely different speed from any of theirs, even her own—he and his Deck were slower, yes, but so much more patient because of it.
"DRAW!" Hokuto, apparently, neither possessed nor approved of this patience; he started his turn with the clear intent to cause maximum damage by the time he finished it. "First, I Summon Sacred Hawwa in Attack Position! Then," he added, before the small figure in white-gold armor had finished materializing in front of him (Level 2: ATK 900/DEF 100), "I'll activate Hawwa's effect: by Releasing it, I can Special Summon another Sacred monster from my hand or my Graveyard in Defense Position! So from my Graveyard, I Special Summon Sacred Acubes!"
Hawwa twirled the staff in its hand, whirling it faster and faster until it had become a blurry sphere of gold and white. Then, with a blinding flash like a star gone nova, the wide body of Acubes had taken its place and then some, clicking its mechanical claws and holding them to its breast in a defensive position (Level 4: ATK 800 » 1300/DEF 2000). Masumi thought it looked more crab-like now than she'd first given it credit for.
"Since I Special Summoned Acubes, that means it activates its effect, and gives all my Sacred monsters 500 ATK!" Hokuto gestured to his Xyz Monsters. It was hard to tell which one looked more ready to wreck Streiter's field—Hyades with its 2400 ATK, or Beehive with its 2900.
"Continuous Trap, activate: Gladial Naumachia!" Streiter had moved so quickly Masumi was expecting the huge man to dislocate his shoulder upon revealing his Set card. "While I control this card, every monster my opponent controls must attack if able!"
The earth rumbled under their feet, and every monster started at the unexpected noise. Masumi could hear the rush of water at the edge of her hearing—but she couldn't tell if it was coming from underneath, or from outside. That question was soon answered when the walls of Ryōzanpaku suddenly began to leak with water—a drip-drip-drip from one, then ten, then a hundred different directions. The leak soon became a trickle, and then a silent stream—
And finally, as the quaking reached a crescendo, yet more water spilled from cracks in the earth, flooding the field to knee-deep within seconds. Masumi was grateful that this sudden lake was more Solid Vision—her first, foolish thought upon realizing what Naumachia was doing to the battlefield was that she hadn't thought to bring a swimsuit.
Then reality reasserted itself, and she bit her lip. So now Markus can force our monsters to attack. That wasn't good—she couldn't think of a better monster for that Trap to work with than the Domitianus leering at them all.
Hokuto, however, didn't seem to care. "Sacred Hyades' effect!" he shot back. "Once per turn, by detaching an Overlay Unit, I can switch all monsters my opponent controls to Defense Position! And since that doesn't target your monsters," he added, smirking, "your Gladial Rejection won't be able to stop me from using it!"
And it got even better, an elated Masumi knew. As she watched one of the Overlay Units orbiting Hyades disappear in a blinding FLASH, and Hoplomus and Domitianus bending to one knee where they stood—snarling and growling all the while—she remembered that under the rules of a Battle Royale, everyone faced everyone else as an opponent, regardless of any alliances they formed. This meant Hyades wouldn't just switch Streiter's monsters to Defense Position, but hers and everyone else's as well. Hyades' effect, she realized, taking in the sight of Yaiba's X-Sabers digging their blades into the dirt and kneeling, followed swiftly by her Aquamarine, had been the perfect counter to the Kämpfer's combo!
There was a tradeoff, of course—unless Hokuto decided to manually switch his own monsters to Defense Position as well, that Naumachia card would just force him to attack a monster he didn't want. But even as Masumi looked on, Hokuto's smirk hadn't faded. Had he accounted for this too?
She blinked, and pumped a fist in silent delight. Yes. Yes, he did.
"Battle Phase!" Hokuto screamed. "Sacred Beehive—attack Gladial Beast Domitianus!" His monster crouched low, digging its feet into the dirt. Masumi heard the click-clack of the missile launchers on its shoulders right before they let fly with a BANG, firing four missiles right at Streiter's leviathan of a Duel Monster.
But Hoplomus sprang into action just then, flexing its thick arms and extending the ring of shields floating around its bulk. Masumi realized in that instant that the monster had 2900 DEF—and that Streiter must have used Domitianus' damnable effect to redirect Beehive's attack. There was a silver lining, however; as Beehive's ATK was now equal to Hoplomus' DEF, the only result of the attack was four missiles exploding harmlessly against those shields, too far away from Hokuto to have caused any harm, save perhaps to his pride.
But the Xyz ace did not stay chastened for long. "Now! Sacred Hyades—attack Hoplomus before Markus can tag it out!" he ordered. "And just to be sure, I'm going to activate Beehive's effect—if a Sacred monster battles," he explained, as one of the golden orbs surrounding his monster was seized in a claw and crushed into glowing dust, "I can detach an Overlay Unit from it, and make that battling monster gain 1000 ATK until the End Phase! GO!"
Hyades, thus empowered to an incredible 3400 ATK, held its massive twin swords aloft—and paused. The why was obvious enough: Domitianus was chanting again, but it was speaking louder this time—enough that Masumi could hear the individual words through its guttural growl. What unnerved her most, though, was that Markus' monster had fixed its gaze on Hyades, looming high above its gleaming armor … and appeared to be addressing it directly.
"Ille infirma es," it was saying. Masumi heard 'infirma', and immediately her mind went to 'infirmary'—sick. Was that Latin she was hearing? It made sense—Streiter's Gladial Beasts were based on Roman gladiators, after all.
"Ille infirma es." Domitianus leaned in close to Hyades. "Sed tu fortis es, et non merentur pugnare. In toto corde tuo, scis hoc esse verum." Its lipless sneer curled, exposing many fangs. "Ad fortes facti … expurgate in infirma."
Hokuto took a step back, bewildered. " … Masumi? What's going on here? What's it saying? How's it even—?!"
Masumi shook her head—she did not know Latin. But she could sense enough venomous intent in every word that she didn't feel like a translation. The notion that Duel Monsters even had the ability to speak—let alone in Latin—was unbelievable in and of itself. That Hyades had stopped in its tracks implied it could even understand it, too.
What happened next, however, she did not see coming.
Hyades gripped its blades tightly, and with a burst of speed, hurled them sideways—not at either Gladial Beast. Seconds later, she heard a muted cry of shock. Masumi whirled—and promptly felt the blood drain from her face.
Procyon had been sheared straight through the chest by one of Hyades' swords; both halves of the warrior lay in a heap of limbs and ruined armor, fading into nothingness. But the second blade had found its mark in Fuyu himself, and the Xyz Duelist had stumbled backwards from the force of the impact. He gazed down at the broad edge of the weapon buried in his chest as though he was only just seeing it for himself, while his LP gauge plummeted to 1900.
Masumi's scream lasted only a second before reason caught up with her, and she belatedly realized that the blade was only hard-light—it couldn't inflict real damage upon real targets. But the noise she made was so bloodcurdling that she could never have dreamed it had come from her own lungs. She managed to silence herself by clapping both hands to her mouth—but the sight and the sound had already been branded into her brain.
Yaiba had gone bone-white. "Hokuto, what the hell?!" he demanded.
But the Xyz ace didn't appear to have heard him. He stood rooted to the ground, shivering violently in shock; Hyades' blade might have pierced him instead.
"That wasn't me, Fuyu," he mumbled, looking ready to faint. "Oh, God—I didn't mean to … you have to believe—wait." He broke off, his jaw slack in utter confusion. "How did you lose Life Points from that? That's not possible … Procyon was in Defense Position—my Hyades can't inflict piercing damage! How do you have 1900 LP?!"
It was Hotene who figured it out first: somehow, she'd been the first to snap out of her horror, and she now stepped towards Streiter with childish rage in her eyes. "What did you do, Markus?!" she shrieked. "Tell us right now!"
The German ran a thick finger along the edge of his Duel Disk. "When all of you were distracted by the fact that my monster knows how to talk—excellent programming, by the way," he said matter-of-factly—"I used the opportunity to activate a second Continuous Trap: Final Attack Orders. And while this card remains on the field"—he raised his voice here, on account of the mutters and murmurs from the LID—"every face-up monster on the field is instantly switched to Attack Position … and neither its controller nor any card effects in their employ can change them back."
Freezing sweat broke out on Masumi's neck. Oh, no. Instantly she had realized what this card had allowed Streiter to do to their fields. She had heard of attack locks, after all—strategies that stopped monsters from attacking at all. But this seemed to be the reverse: a combination of cards that forced monsters to attack—yet without any choice of where that monster could attack!
"But why'd my monster go for Procyon?" Hokuto still looked lost—even as he saw the sword vanish from Fuyu's torso, and slumped in relief as his counterpart pressed a hand against unbroken skin. "Fuyu's fighting with me—he's my ally! It should've gone for one of your Gladial Beasts!"
"It certainly could have," Streiter admitted. "Once my Final Attack Orders was activated, Domitianus would have destroyed it for sure. But consider that its effect allows me to choose the targets for any attacks my opponent makes—and that you challenged me to a Battle Royale, whereby all of you are my opponents … and yours as well."
In other words, realized Masumi, the LID had made a terrible mistake in making this a Battle Royale at all. It didn't matter if they could fight as a cohesive team now—with just three cards, Markus Streiter had turned them all against each other. His field was now so powerful that Masumi couldn't decide which of his cards had to be taken out first.
"Such was the life of the gladiator, in ancient times," chuckled the Kämpfer. "For the pleasure of the masses, they would fight in single combat, or as part of a mêlée—and very often to the death, where they were spared only by a whim. Sometimes they would face animals—on rare and extravagant occasions, they might even battle on ships. And if they were prisoners or slaves, they would be starved and made to fight amongst themselves for the hope of survival—for what vow or alliance can stand against the chance to live another day, with food in your stomach, water wetting your lips … the cheers of the masses ringing in your ears?"
"Try us," Masumi growled through gritted teeth. "We've been through too much to be torn apart that quickly."
But Streiter shook his head. "No, you haven't," he said. "How many times must I say this is more than just a game? Did you truly think it was enough to simply become a team to defeat me—that strength in numbers alone might have made your victory more certain? Naïveté to the fullest!" he said with a snort. "As long as I control my Domitianus, you have no more power—and no less of it—than was held by the gladiators of old, and the soldiers of today. You will hold the power of life and death—to save, and to consign to oblivion—but you will have no choice of which to dispense. You will fight for your lives so that those who control your fate may reap the rewards, and enjoy the sport and spectacle. You exist only to serve the will of the people, now—to amuse, and to thrill."
The Kämpfer was no longer smiling now, and his voice, quiet as it was, rang like iron on the anvil. "When you are ordered to jump, I expect you to say 'How high?' When you are ordered to fight, I expect you to say 'How long?' And when you are ordered to spill the blood of those you love"—here, Streiter stole a long look at her and Yaiba, a glint in his eyes that the Fusion ace hoped never to see in any gem—"I expect you to say 'How much?'"
Masumi was shivering where she stood. Even when she looked back on it later, she could not decide whether this was due to the icy chill that had gripped her, or the sheer hatred that coursed through her veins with every word that dripped from the lips of the monsters—both of flesh, and of light made solid—that towered over her.
One fact, however, was crystal-clear to her: she had never felt more powerless in her life than she was right now.
Maiami City
"What do you mean, you can't read the tall one?!"
Emina Rika, having just dismounted from her Daigusta Falcos—then tucked, rolled, and unrolled her body into a Dueling stance in the time it took to draw breath—still had too much adrenaline pumping in her ears to immediately register the unknown girl's question. A quick shake of her head dispelled the tunnel vision from her eyes, though, and by the time Angel-IQ had floated up to her right, a silver Duel Disk of her own shimmering along her right arm, she had seen for the first time the girls that had been responsible for attacking Ryōzanpaku.
Her first thought was that they didn't look capable of attacking a kindergartner, let alone a school of upperclassmen. Both were a few years older than she was, perhaps as old as Hīragi Yuzu, and wore dirty brown tunics that made the more fashion-inclined parts of Rika's brain cringe in sympathy. But this thought swiftly passed; now that she could see them from this close, she realized Masumi had had a point—they did indeed look like Yuzu to some extent. The only difference was in the hair and the eyes—one girl's hair was sky-blue, and somehow managed to look messier and more tangled than the blonde mop of her best friend. Her companion—or sister? Twin sister? Rika wondered in confusion—had thick locks of scarlet that draped over the small of her back and tickled the tops of her hips.
It was their eyes, however, that set them apart from any girl Rika had ever met before. The first girl, standing right across from her, had eyes as light blue as her hair—wide, bloodshot, and never still for more than an instant. They would latch on to Rika, or Angel-IQ, or anything they saw make the slightest movement around them—and do so with such dizzying speed that the Synchro user wondered if those eyes were about to dance right out of their sockets. Her sister's eyes were, if possible, even stranger—they were so bloodshot that the whites had turned a uniform red. But they did not move as her sister's eyes did; in fact, Rika had yet to see her even blink, never mind to waver an inch from directly ahead. That allowed her to see the orbs of dull grayish-white that stared back—completely uniform, without any sign of irises or pupils.
These were, without question, the creepiest eyes that the Junior Synchro ace had ever seen—but creepy wasn't the same thing as evil. Perhaps they were just running because they were scared, she decided—because people had taken one look at them, assumed they were freaks, and started bullying them for no other reason. So Rika raised her voice, hoping they would understand that no harm would yet come to them.
"We don't want to fight you!" she cried. "We just want to know why you've attacked innocent people!"
"We don't have any choice!" the redhead yelled back at the unknown pair. She sounded much more desperate than she did scared, Rika thought to herself. "We can't go back—we know what'll happen if they find us again! And we won't take it anymore! We're through being chased! We're not going anywhere—not with you, or anyone else!"
They? Rika wondered.
The redhead's Duel Disk sizzled to life—a blue-edged, comma-like construction with a crimson blade shaped like a scimitar—and her twin followed suit an instant after that. The device she ignited was identical in every way but in the color of its blade—more blue in place of red—and how, like Angel-IQ, she wore it on her right wrist. She, too, must be left-handed, Rika realized; she'd met very few such Duelists in her fledgling career.
"If you've got a problem with that," the redhead challenged, "then you'll just have to go through us the hard way! DUEL!"
"DUEL!" As Rika and Angel-IQ echoed them—a forest-green blade slicing along the hologram's arm—the twins grasped each other's hands tightly. Then, as each of them drew their opening hands, they assumed a most unusual Dueling stance: they held their Duel Disks abreast as all Duelists did, but tilted upwards to better show the palms of the hands beneath their blades, and had locked their free arms together at the elbow as if preparing to arm-wrestle—
Rika tilted her head. There was something written on their palms—she was sure of it. Some kind of kanji, for sure—but she was only able to read one palm apiece, owing to the strange way they stood. The redhead's right hand had the triple-box glyph that meant "eye"—while she thought her twin's symbol translated to "brain"—
That was when something very strange happened: Rika had just taken in the meaning of these two kanji when the two girls pushed out slightly with the hands on which they'd been inked. Next moment, she'd screamed in shock as, for a split second, everything went black. The entire world had disappeared from her sight—the cards in her hand, Angel-IQ, the girls, the city, the sky … it was as though a black bag had been pulled over her eyes, blinding her …
Her sense of hearing had still been left to her, however, and Rika was able to hear her startled shriek, hear Angel-IQ calling out to her over her panicked shouting. She'd stumbled, corrected herself—
—and then, as quickly as it had begun, the blackness had passed. Light blinded Rika's eyes as she screwed them shut, warding off the suddenly oppressive sun. She was shaking, sweating profusely, and gulping for air as if she'd just finished an all-around gymnastics routine without stopping for any breaks.
"What the heck was that?!" she managed to gasp. Then the Synchro Duelist belatedly remembered Angel-IQ had called for her. She swallowed, attempting to explain what she'd seen—or not seen. "My eyes just … went black for a sec. I couldn't see you, the city … I couldn't see anyone else. Q, is there something wrong with me?"
The hologram's eyes flashed briefly, scanning Rika from head to foot. "No. Your hormones are somewhat above the baseline, but they are normalizing. However, I do not believe this is coincidence."
She nodded to the twins. "Do you see her eyes?" Rika followed her line of sight to the redhead. She was looking at her blue-haired twin, who was tapping the fingers of her entwined hand against her sister's skin.
Rika nodded. "Yeah. Those aren't normal eyes." It hit her then. "You think she had something to do with it?"
"I cannot say," Angel-IQ replied. "But you are correct about one thing—her eyes are not at all normal. That gray-white is characteristic of cataracts." A pause. "From their density, I would surmise that this girl is totally blind."
"Blind?!" Rika felt her jaw bounce off the asphalt. "How's she going to Duel us if she can't even see us?!"
"I cannot say." For the first time since meeting her, Rika thought Angel-IQ almost sounded worried. "There are no records of any Duelists with severe sight impairment in competitive Duel Monsters. It may be that she must rely on her sister, to tell her what cards are in her hand or on her opponent's field." She paused again. "I am reconfiguring the format of the Duel to compensate. Tag Duel mode online."
Immediately, the screen of Rika's Duel Disk changed to a familiar layout—the same one she had used with Hotene earlier today: 4000 Life Points between her and Angel-IQ, and the same field that one of them might normally use, with the same granted to these twins, who now seemed stranger and stranger to Rika with each passing second.
At length, she of the blue hair stepped forward, and began to swipe cards across her Duel Disk. Unusually, though, she remained silent throughout the entire process; Rika could only tell what she played by the order in which they manifested on the field as Solid Vision.
The girl began by discarding a pair of cards, then adding another pair from her Deck to her hand before promptly revealing one of them: a Spell of some kind that generated an ornate, golden-edged mirror between her and her sister, bladed at top and bottom but spreading into shining fins along each side. Rika peered at this mirror for a closer look—something was being reflected within, too big to look like her—only to stumble back with a squeak as that something suddenly filled its length and breadth, whooshing out of the glass with a rush of shadow.
The little girl felt even more fearful as the ugly monster took shape before her. What in the world is that?!
The best Rika could describe it was a cross between an anglerfish and a spider, with six spindly, low-slung legs; long spiny fins of many colors that framed six huge blue eyes, slimy black scales, and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth that looked like it could swallow her whole. Astride it was a girl—or maybe she was even merged with it, Rika thought; she could not see any sign of her legs—with the same blue hair as the girl who'd Summoned it, though clad in a black-and-gold costume, and brandishing a staff of purest gold directly at her (Level 6: ATK 2500/DEF 2000).
"Interesting," Angel-IQ said calmly.
"'Interesting?!'" Sometimes Rika wished computers could have the sensibilities of humans. "That's one of the most disgusting Duel Monsters I've ever seen!"
Apparently the blue-haired girl had heard her; she bared her teeth and began gesturing with her free hand.
"Kikyō doesn't like it when people call her Ritual Monsters ugly or disgusting!" said the blind redhead. "You tell her you're sorry before she makes you sorry!"
"Kikyō?!" Rika ignored her; she was repeating the name under her breath. For a moment, she'd even forgotten about the grotesque creature in front of her, as she was too busy committing this fresh identity to memory.
Then, a moment later, the weight of what she'd just heard had hit her like a train. "Wait—that's a Ritual Monster?!"
"Correct." Angel-IQ's gaze was now fixed, unblinking, on the monster's Summoner. "This girl, Kikyō, discarded two monsters—Vision Ritua and Shadow Ritua—which allowed her to add a Ritua Ritual Monster and a Ritua Ritual Spell, respectively, from her Deck to her hand. The Ritual Spell—Ritua's Ceremonial Water Mirror—was subsequently activated, and allowed Kikyō to Ritual Summon a Ritua Ritual Monster by Releasing Ritua monsters from her hand or field, whose monsters exactly equaled the Level of—"
"I know how Ritual Summons work, Q," Rika said impatiently. "Just tell me what she Summoned, and how."
Angel-IQ blinked. "Kikyō used her Level 4 Ritua Erial and her Level 2 Ritua Killer to Ritual Summon the Eviritua Mind Ogress you see before you. She then used her Mind Ogress' effect to target up to five cards in any Graveyard, and shuffle them into the Deck—in effect recycling almost every single card she played to start her turn."
Rika exhaled. Sometimes Angel-IQ made the concept of being a walking, talking computer sound much cooler than it already did. "Good thing you're around, huh? I'd have gotten lost trying to figure all that out on my own."
She pursed her lips, frowning. "Why didn't she say anything, though? Don't Duelists have to say what cards they play and what they do, so people who're watching can follow the Duel?"
"To a certain extent," agreed Angel-IQ. "But again, I am not certain she is doing this by choice."
"Choice?" It took Rika a moment—and then, suddenly, her jaw had gone bungee jumping again. The strange, deft movements of the girl's hand had just now registered. "You're saying she can't talk?!"
"I believe so. I have been analyzing her hand movements. Every one of them indicates that she is fluent in shuwa—Japanese sign language." Now Angel-IQ definitely sounded concerned. "This is also unprecedented in competitive Duel Monsters. These two girls, both together and apart, go against every way we know how to play the game."
Hard-light lips slimmed into a thin line. "How is it that they managed to bring an entire Duel School to its knees?"
Rika privately thought a better question to ask would be how these girls could Duel at all. So much of the game relied on how much a Duelist could see—especially in an Action Duel, when looking for the special cards they generated with every battle—and how well that Duelist could communicate. Taking just one of those things away put a Duelist at a severe disadvantage. Yet these two girls didn't seem to care in the slightest.
The Junior Synchro ace could feel her fingers start to fidget, so she turned her attention back to the Duel. According to her Duel Disk, Kikyō hadn't ended her turn just yet—there was still one more card in her hand, and she now swiped it across her screen. Rika was just barely able to catch the green edges of a Spell Card when, all of a sudden, a ferocious gale shrieked to life in the intersection. The chairs and tables of a nearby café toppled to the sidewalk, while road signs and traffic lights creaked dangerously as they swayed in the wind like so many blades of grass.
Then the smell hit. Suddenly Rika was choking where she stood; her eyes were watering in seconds. Whatever this wind was had also brought some form of foul-smelling miasma with it—yet even as she pinched her nose, and tried to breathe through her mouth, she felt the oppressive odor force itself inside her windpipe, and she immediately dry-heaved from the sheer strength of the stench. It was far and away the most horrid thing she'd ever smelled—like breathing the fumes from an ocean of vinegar—and she felt unclean just being within eyeshot of the single card.
Kikyō now signed something with her free hand, and then crossed her arms with an unmistakable look of smugness on her face. Rika, not knowing any form of sign language at all, was forced to look at Angel-IQ for any translation.
"She says this is what you get for calling her monster 'disgusting'," commented the supercomputer. "Continuous Spell: Deadly Poisonous Wind. While it remains on the field, all WIND-Attribute monsters on the field lose 500 ATK—and furthermore, no WIND-Attribute monsters can be Special Summoned whatsoever."
For the third time in as many minutes, Rika's jaw dropped—and at once she began spluttering in incoherent anger. Not all of it, however, was due to the acrid smell that pervaded the air and filled her lungs. For she knew her Gusta monsters relied on Special Summoning their companions, and set herself up to Synchro Summon. Yet this card had singlehandedly sealed off that strategy.
It's like that card was created just to ruin my whole entire Deck! she thought furiously.
She blinked. Wait a minute. Something was wrong here. How did Kikyō know I used WIND-Attribute monsters in the first place? I haven't even played a card yet—and this is the first time I've ever seen her in my life! She thought of Masumi—how the Fusion ace had only just seen these girls today for the first time herself—and how Akaba Reiji believed they were from the Fusion Dimension as well. So they can't have had time to find out about my Deck from anyone else. And somehow this girl just happens to have the one card that can shut me down completely?
Rika shook her head. Something was very wrong here. " … How'd she know about my Deck?" she mumbled. "Who is this girl?"
Angel-IQ, still gazing at Kikyō, did not seem to have a ready answer. "She has signaled the end of her turn, Rika," the hologram informed her a moment later. "Do you wish me to take the next move?"
Rika grit her teeth, staring at her hand. She had the means to take out Kikyō's Spell—but whatever she did after that hinged on whatever card she drew to start her turn. And there was still the blind girl to deal with—Rika had no idea what sort of tricks a Duelist like that might have up her sleeve—
Wait … tricks? Rika remembered how her eyesight had gone completely black just minutes ago—how it happened when she'd seen the kanji printed on the twins' hands. Then she'd found out one of them was blind—and moments later, Kikyō had played that Spell … played an entire turn without being able to even say one word …
She narrowed her eyes, staring at Kikyō and her sister. This is like trying to play connect-the-dots when you don't even know which dot to start connecting. "No," she said after a while. "I can take out her Spell for sure. Maybe even her monster—it depends on what I draw. You focus on the blind girl—we don't know what she can do yet. But I can handle myself for now."
And with that, she tensed. "My turn! Draw!" She pulled out her card with a quick flourish—please be good please be good please be good—turned it over—
Instantly, Rika wished Q had given them an Action Field—she felt like she could dance. "I'll start with the Spell Card: Cheerful Undertaker," she said, "which can send up to three monsters in my hand to the Graveyard!" She plucked two such cards from her hand, slid them into her Duel Disk—"Then I'll activate this other Spell Card: Contact with Gusta! This card lets me target 2 Gusta cards in my Graveyard and a third card on your field—by shuffling targets one and two-y, target three will go ka-blooey! So I'll return the Caam, Silence of Gusta and the Musto, Priest of Gusta in my Graveyard, and get rid of your smelly old Wind!"
Lightning crackled along her skin, and the gusts that tore through the crossroads seemed to reverse direction before dissipating entirely; instantly, Rika felt like she could breathe again. She took a moment to fix her ponytail—and then: "Now for a third Spell Card: Tuner's High! By discarding a monster, I can Special Summon a Tuner monster from my Deck whose Level is 1 higher than the monster I sent to the Graveyard! So I'll discard the Level 2 Gusta Grif that I drew to start my turn—and Special Summon this Gusta Gulldo in Attack Position!" With a quick spin where she stood, Rika ejected her chosen card, and by the time she'd rounded en pointe on Kikyō again, it was to see a hawk-like bird covered in armor as green as its plumage (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 500) floating in front of her.
But Rika wasn't done yet. "Gusta Grif's effect!" she cried. "When it's sent from the hand to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon a Gusta monster from my Deck! I Special Summon Wind, Priestess of Gusta in Attack Position!" And as one monster flew up from behind her—the ghost of a majestic-looking griffin as verdantly feathered as her Gulldo—and disappeared into the sky, another dropped onto the field almost from out of nowhere: a green-haired girl clad in humble tan and purest white, twirling a silver staff in her hand (Level 2: ATK 1000/DEF 400).
Twirling, too, was Rika. "Now for my favorite part of the game!" she yelled. "I'll tune my Level 3 Gulldo with my Level 2 Winda! LET'S GO!" Her two monsters took off without further ado—one at a run, another into the air—and bright green energy coursed over them both as Rika began to chant:
"Princess of the misty valley! Soar above the clouds with your newfound power!"
She brought her hands together, causing three glowing halos to burst forth from where they met. Before they had even washed over her two monsters, the little girl had taken off at a full run, contorting into a quick series of back handsprings, right as her Princess and Gulldo had drawn abreast with each other—they flared with light—
"Synchro Summon!" she yelled, at the apex of her vault. "Take flight! Level 5! Daigusta Gulldos!"
Rika spread her limbs to arrest her momentum—reaching out with her arms at the last possible instant before she would have felt a particularly not-soft landing—and just barely managed to hold on to the plumage of her newest monster as it bore her into the air. Gulldos had grown at least threefold now, and the spiky armor that covered its feathered bulk had grown with it—yet the enormous bird, ten feet long from beak to tail, and another ten at the wingtips, still carried itself and its Summoner into the air without any sign of strain (Level 5: ATK 2200/DEF 800).
Kikyō, she was pleased to see, did not look as though she'd been expecting this. She'd rounded upon her sister, weaving the fingers of the hand that wasn't clutching to her blind twin in clear agitation.
"We've gone too far to turn back now," Rika heard the latter to say. "At least it's not that strong."
The Junior Synchro ace couldn't help but scoff at that. Just for that, I'm gonna show her just how wrong she is! But first … "Gusta Gulldo's effect activates if it's sent from the field to the Graveyard," she explained, smiling, "and lets me Special Summon a Level 2 or lower Gusta monster from my Deck! I'll Summon another Tuner monster—Gusta Squirrel—in Defense Position!" She slammed her chosen monster onto her blade with rather more effort than she'd needed—with the end result being her having to massage her suddenly sore hand, while a cute, green-furred creature scurried under the shadow of Gulldos' wings (Level 2: ATK 0/DEF 1800).
But Rika was having too much fun to worry about a stinging palm for very long. "Now for my Gulldos' effect!" she crowed from on high. "By shuffling two Gusta monsters in my Graveyard into my Deck, I can target a monster my opponent controls—and make it go ka-blooey, too! So I'll destroy your ugly Mind Ogress! Thunder Gust!"
Gulldos brought its wings together with a noise like an enormous drumbeat, releasing a shockwave that tore through the street. At the center of it all was Kikyō's monster, writhing and roaring in agony before suddenly disintegrating into a billion motes of light—leaving both twins' field as empty as empty could be.
Perfect. "Battle Phase!" Rika stabbed the air with a finger. "Daigusta Gulldos—attack their Life Points directly!" Her monster let fly with a keening cry—and Rika only just remembered to hang on for dear life before Gulldos executed a corkscrew turn, dive-bombing the twins before either of them could move out of the way. They fell in opposite directions, only just able to hang onto their cards as their joint LP gauge dropped to 1800.
"Turn end." Rika crossed her arms, feeling just as smug—if not more so—as Kikyō had bare minutes ago.
She looked at Angel-IQ, hoping to hear the supercomputer praise her for turning this Duel around—only to groan in frustration: the hologram's eyes had not deviated from the twins in all the time she'd been taking her turn.
The twins, for their part, were behaving quite strangely: they'd scrambled to their feet, agitated, but raising the hands they'd locked with each other, moving them about as if trying to grasp for an invisible railing. This time, Rika was able to catch the kanji she thought she'd seen inked onto their palms as well: one read "both"; the other, "yes"—which together formed the word for "share", Rika knew.
Eye. Brain. Share? The Synchro Duelist frowned, and found herself wishing she had the brains of someone like Masumi. Hotene would always go on about how smart that girl was. I bet she would've made sense of this by now.
At length, the two twins had finally found each other's hands, and visibly relaxed as their fingers entwined around each other once again. Angel-IQ tilted her head, apparently intrigued by this display. Rika noticed that her digital eyes had been doing their flashy thing again.
After a moment, she decided to throw caution to the wind, and beg the question. "What is it?"
"While you were conducting your turn, I was attempting to analyze their neurokinetics," said the hologram. "By converting a portion of the Solid Vision generated by this Duel into a network of electrophysiological sensors—"
"That's way too many letters for way too few words, Q." Rika held up a hand to stave off the impending headache. "Just tell me if you found anything—and for once, say words I can actually understand."
If Angel-IQ took that as an insult to her intelligence, she did not show it. "Your direct attack caused Kikyō and her sister to stop holding hands for a brief period of time," she said. "In that period, I detected a seventy-three percent drop in their total brain activity. It returned to normal once they made physical contact with each other again."
That raised more questions for Rika than it answered. "What are you saying? Their brains just stop working when they're not next to each other?"
"Quite the opposite. Their brains, while they were apart, appeared to function just as normal as yours, Rika-san—but while in contact, they become supercharged beyond the ability of almost every human brain known to science."
"Meaning?"
Angel-IQ narrowed her eyes. "I would need more specific technology to be sure. But everything I have seen—and all that you have told me—leads me to only one conclusion," she said. "These girls are almost certainly psychic."
Psychic!
Akaba Himika, several miles safely removed from the Duel site, pushed back from her computer as she felt this latest revelation sink in. She'd been secretly recording the entire encounter through Angel-IQ, hoping to find out more about this mystery pair who'd vexed her since Masumi had first informed her of their existence—ever since Angel-IQ had told her of the Fusion Monster they possessed that supposedly had the strength of Z-ARC himself.
She had not been disappointed.
Psychic Duelists, she thought again—Duelists whose minds had developed so far beyond the norm that certain powers had been gifted them, to be used in any Duels they thought it necessary. The notion was far from welcome; Himika had had to deal with precisely one Psychic Duelist in her entire career as the headmistress of LDS—and the damage she'd helped to cause had nearly broken both her school and her company.
And now there are two more of them. Himika had been kicking herself for giving Q the authority to disperse the … lawful authorities in her quest to catch up to the two girls who'd taken down Ryōzanpaku's best. Psychic powers explained a great deal as to how they'd done it—but it had been her hope that Q could confront them herself. Why Masumi had thought it wise to have her bring Rika—an untested child—along with her, she could not fathom.
She still doesn't know, said a more rational part of her mind, and Masumi has enough on her plate without having to be told. She gazed at the other Duel that she'd been spectating. Markus Streiter's latest Fusion Summon continued to pulse on the screen like a pustule that had yet to be lanced, seeming to infect the very field over which it loomed.
The chairwoman bit her lip. She'll figure it out, she reassured herself. It's what she does. She has to.
"My turn." The redhead fanned her cards in front of her, then drew her card. She did so with surprising agility for someone who was blind; there was no jerkiness or hesitation in her movements at all—in fact, Rika didn't even see her feeling her cards at any point. She was young enough to have heard of Braille, after all, and she wondered if her cards used it in some way to account for her loss of sight—or if, as Angel-IQ had claimed, there were more psychic powers at work here.
"I'll start by Summoning Dance Princess of the Nekroz in Attack Position!" She did a double take: the red-haired magician her opponent had just Summoned looked eerily similar to her mistress (Level 4: ATK 1600/DEF 800). "Then I'll discard the Nekroz of Brionac and the Nekroz of Clausolas in my hand to activate their effects, and add another Nekroz monster and a Nekroz Spell or Trap from my Deck to my hand!" Rika saw her eject a pair of blue-edged cards from her Duel Disk, and swiped them up as quickly as her previous pair had been swiped inside it.
More Ritual Monsters? Rika thought this was oddly similar to the strategy that her sister had employed earlier—and it was because of this, perhaps, that the Junior Synchro ace knew what was going to happen before it did.
"Now," said the redhead, revealing one of her chosen cards, "I activate the Ritual Spell: Nekroz Demon-Summoning Mirror! By Releasing monsters from my hand or field, or banishing Nekroz monsters from my Graveyard, I can Ritual Summon a monster from my hand whose Level exactly equals the total Levels of the monsters I Released! So I'll Release my Level 4 Dance Princess—and banish the Level 3 Clausolas in my Graveyard—to Summon this!"
For the third time this Duel, an immense wind buffeted Rika and made her take a step backwards. Its source appeared to be another circular mirror, conjured between the girls and hovering in midair just like before, but this one was furnished with sleek, sharp blades of deep blue and gold. And though the winds that swirled around it were not the noxious fumes of Kikyō's Continuous Spell—for which Rika was inwardly thankful—even the slightest kiss of these gusts felt bone-chillingly cold against her skin. Indeed, ice was forming on the roads, forming slick black spots despite the warm summer's day:
"Graceful mage who wields the icebound armor of destruction, I humbly invoke your name!"
Dance Princess, meanwhile, had brought her hands to her breast, chanting under her breath in a language perhaps only she knew. Runes that Rika could not recognize glowed on the ground with cold light, surrounding the monster in perfect circles of glyphs that reached ten feet outward in every direction—
"Ritual Summon!" cried the girl. "Surge from the frozen sea! Level 7! Nekroz of Gungnir!"
An instant later, the Synchro user's eyes bugged as more ice began to coalesce on the woman's body, completely encasing her clothes and freezing them solid. And it just kept on coming from there; it piled atop her shoulders, unfolding into frigid, blade-like wings half as wide again as she was tall—it flowed down the small of her back, forming a long tail that swept from side to side with a mind of its own—and finally crowned her long scarlet hair with a helm shaped like the head of some primeval dragon, long lost to the ages (Level 7: ATK 2500/DEF 1700).
Gungnir's wings unfurled to their fullest, and it felt as though the temperature of this beautiful day had plunged ten whole degrees. Rika saw no warmth to the woman's stare; the light that brimmed from her ice-encrusted, blue-gold scepter invited a far more peaceful fate than whatever power resided in this unexpected Summon.
"They Summoned another Ritual Monster … " she heard herself say, under her breath. Even the act of talking out loud felt like being stabbed with frigid needles—but Rika was so taken by this sight that she paid no heed to the pain. Ritual Monsters, and any Duelist who made frequent use of them, were so rarely seen in this modern era of Duel Monsters—where speed and precision was the name of the game—that seeing two in one day, let alone in the same Duel, almost felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
"Now!" Gungnir's Summoner blasted Rika out of her reflection. "I'll discard my Nekroz of Catastor and Nekroz of Unicore to activate their effects!" Two more blue-lined cards were plucked from her hand, and slid into her device. "By targeting a Nekroz monster in my Graveyard, Catastor's effect lets me Special Summon that monster—and then, by targeting a Nekroz card in my Graveyard, Unicore's effect adds that target to my hand! So I'll Special Summon my Dance Princess—then return my Nekroz of Brionac back to my hand!"
By now, Rika was starting to feel her head spinning. That made five different Ritual Monsters this girl had used in a single turn. Such monsters were often considered dead draws without the corresponding Spell to cast them—and yet Kikyō had been able to get a high-Level Ritual Summon out of simply discarding them, and still recover some of the cards she'd expended in the process. It was enough to make her wonder if her hand had been nothing but Ritual Monsters when they'd started this Duel—if so, her Ritual Deck was more advanced than any like it she'd ever faced.
"Dance Princess' effect!" The redhead swept a hand over the monster in question, who'd since resumed her muted chanting. "While she remains on the field, my Nekroz Ritual Monsters can't be targeted with card effects—and my Nekroz Ritual Spells can't be chained to with any card effects! Then, by discarding a Nekroz card, my Gungnir's effect can target and destroy any one card on the field once every turn—even during your own!"
Rika gulped. "So I'll discard my Brionac again—and destroy your Gusta Squirrel!" The girl slid her chosen Ritual into her Graveyard slot—and a moment later, the icy blades of her monster's staff hissed with light, as if being heated by something from within. Then—almost without warning—Gungnir lashed out with that staff, swatting the luckless creature out of sight, and with such force that Rika winced.
"Next! I discard my Nekroz of Decisive"—how many more Rituals can one Deck have?! Rika thought wildly as her opponent slid yet another blue card into her Duel Disk—though thankfully the last card in her hand—"and activate its effect: until the End Phase, one of my Nekroz monsters can gain 1000 ATK and DEF! I target Dance Princess!"
The blue-gold blades that adorned Dance Princess' staff slid apart, and more of the same seemed to sprout from thin air along its length, then along the monster's arms, up to her shoulders. Spiked cannons unfolded atop her shoulders and pulsed with energy, sending Dance Princess' point gauge to 2600/1800—
"Battle Phase!" The redhead grinned—her eyes, though sightless and dull, still round as coins with the prospect of the fight she was about to wage. "Dance Princess—destroy Daigusta Gulldos!" And with a WHOOSH of light and sound, Dance Princess lashed out with staff and cannon alike, blowing Rika's precious monster to atoms—and more importantly, chipping away at the LP gauge that she shared with Angel-IQ.
But 3700 Life Points was survivable, Rika knew—even as her opponent's more powerful monster spread her wings, tensing in a battle stance of her own. "Nekroz of Gungnir," ordered her mistress, "attack their Life Points directly!"
With a flash of blue-white, Gungnir soared aloft, shrinking until she was a mere speck of red-blue amidst the skyline of Maiami City. What she was doing up there, Rika wasn't certain—but a moment later, she was forced to scramble for cover as a shower of enormous icicles, each a meter long and deadly sharp, rained down from the clear sky. She was too slow to escape them all—pain seared in her body as she absorbed upwards of a dozen impacts from the frozen missiles, sending her tumbling to the street, and her Life Points to 1100.
The Junior Synchro ace moaned, rolling onto her back. In the corner of her eye, she saw Angel-IQ pull back a hand, and wondered if the hologram had conjured enough hard light over her skin to save her from the worst of Gungnir's attack. It still hurt, though—Rika hoped fervently she'd be able to crawl into bed for the rest of the day after this.
"Turn end," said the redhead. "That ends my Nekroz of Decisive's effect, and returns my Dance Princess back to normal." And before the last word had dropped from her lips, so too had the blue-gold armor dropped from her monster, vanishing into thin air in the corner of Rika's eye.
"Please don't say you've had enough," the Ritual Duelist now told her, smirking. "We've got plenty more where those monsters came from, and we want a chance to use them all. All those people chasing us haven't lasted nearly as long as you have. If you give up now, it won't be worth the fight or the flight."
"Then it is fortunate we are not here to chase you at all," Angel-IQ said evenly, studying her hand unnecessarily. "If we could have avoided a fight, we would have done so. We just want to know why you have come here."
Kikyō signed something, baring her teeth. "Yeah—you think we'd tell the likes of you?!" her sister shot back. "The only reason we bothered fighting you in the first place is because when we defeat you—and we will—we're going to find out why my sister can see you—but why she can't sense you."
The hologram hovered a few inches off the ground. "That was the last piece I needed," she intoned. "Before your sister Kikyō had even played her first card, I was analyzing you, and every move you made or did not make. It is what you have not done that says substantially more about who you are, and quite possibly why you have come to this city. I saw the cataracts in your eyes, and deduced that you were blind. I recorded the signs your sister made with her hands, and concluded that Kikyō is mute. I detected the spike in your brainwaves every time you made physical contact with each other, I identified the Duel Disks you wear as belonging to the You Show Duel School of the Fusion Dimension—and I registered the radiation of the Fusion energy emanating from the high-Level Fusion Monster that one of you stores inside your Extra Deck."
Rika saw both girls trading glances, even though one of them had no sight to make any glances with. Kikyō's eyes were the wider of the two; they twitched frenetically in their sockets, and she looked to be fighting the desire to run.
"I submit that you are Psychic Duelists," Angel-IQ went on, freezing both girls in their tracks, "that are either native to the Fusion Dimension, or that have been enrolled or sought asylum in You Show Fusion. I further submit that the nature of your abilities correlates to the loss of one of your senses—and that you have been attempting to use these powers on myself, but have found considerably less success than when you used them on my partner."
Used them on—It wasn't just Rika's jaw that hit the asphalt; she'd plopped down seat first on the intersection in her shock. It felt as though she'd just flicked on a light bulb in her brain—all of a sudden, everything made sense to her.
"No wonder she played that Continuous Spell!" she blurted out, ignoring her aching bottom. "She knew there were WIND monsters in my hand!" Even a split second, Rika now knew, was all Kikyō would have needed to know that that one card would be worth playing. That must be why I went blind when the Duel kicked off, she thought—she must have seen through my eyes somehow with those powers of hers! She cheated!
Kikyō, for her part, was signing more frantically than ever. "Who are you?" her twin sister wondered out loud. "What are you?! The human hasn't been born that can just shrug off our powers like that!"
"And therein lies the root of your disadvantage against me," said Angel-IQ. "I am far from human—and to be quite technical," she added, "I was not born per se. More than that I will not say to any people I have not yet been given the authority to trust. Suffice to say for the time being that any powers you possess will do little good against me.
"Now." The supercomputer tensed, ready to draw. "Are you more willing to tell me why you have come to this city? My mistress is rather more adept at interrogation than I am—but as I do not wish to trouble her with such trivialities, I would be more than pleased to expedite the process myself, should you still prefer to not cooperate."
Kikyō and her sister drew back, hissing under their teeth in displeasure. "Do your worst," growled the latter.
Angel-IQ considered this for precisely one second. "As you wish," she said calmly. "Draw." The single card practically leapt into her left hand. She did not even look at it; the supercomputer was already placing two more cards on her blade.
"I use my Scale 1 Qliphort Disk and my Scale 9 Qliphort Access to set the Pendulum Scale," Angel-IQ began, keeping her voice level even as a pair of bright blue beams lanced into the sky from the streets on either side. The silhouettes of a flat, circular machine and something decidedly more organic-looking—almost squid-like with the number of tentacles that trailed from its body—were just barely visible in the lights.
"With this, I now have the ability to Special Summon as many Qliphort monsters from my hand as I please, so long as their Levels range from 2 to 8," she went on. "I may Special Summon no other monsters, and because of their effects, my Qliphort monsters become Level 4 if they are Special Summoned, with their ATK set to 1800."
Kikyō and her sister, who had heretofore been gazing at the unfolding field with visible apprehension, tilted their heads at this in growing confusion. Rika silently bit her lip. She'd done the exact same thing they had when Himika had told Angel-IQ to Duel her once—wondered why she was going to all that trouble to Summon weaker monsters than those she already controlled:
"Energy output nominal. Input projection parameters. Scale 1, Qliphort Disk; Scale 9, Qliphort Access."
As Angel-IQ's chanting resonated in her ears, Rika saw the hologram begin to levitate a little higher over the road, rising with her Scales. Blonde hair, digitally rendered, whipped silently in the air—she raised her hands aloft—
"Parameters accepted under pi-sigma protocol. Initiate resident program: Pendulum Summon. Specify: Level 6, Qliphort Archive; Level 6, Qliphort Genome."
Lightning crackled from Disk and Access, encasing Angel-IQ in snapping arcs. Rika had just enough time to ponder if this, being more Solid Vision, had the capacity to harm something that was also Solid Vision—and then she was forced to squish her eyes shut at the bright light that radiated from the entire scene. When next she chanced to open her eyes, it was to see the long, flat, beetle-like Archive, and the tubular spiral that was Genome, both looming so large overhead that they cast shadows over the entire field (2 × Level 6 » 4: ATK 2400 » 1800 » 2100/DEF 1000).
These shadows were thrown into sharp relief by the arcs that continued to snap and sizzle from either end of Angel-IQ's field. "Qliphort Disk's Pendulum effect causes all Qliphort monsters I control to gain 300 ATK," the hologram explained, sweeping an arm from one Scale to the other. "Conversely, the Pendulum Effect of Qliphort Access forces any monster my opponent controls to lose 300 ATK." And indeed, some of the more errant bolts had struck Nekroz of Gungnir, chipping some of the ice that formed her wings and dropping her ATK gauge to 2200. Dance Princess—now at a mere 1300 ATK—was faring even worse, having all but curled into a ball to escape the worst of the lightning.
"It is a pity," said Angel-IQ, "that I cannot end this Duel here and now. Your Gungnir is just strong enough to foil me here. Fortunately"—she levitated another card from her hand—"I do not want for alternative solutions. To that end, I Release my Archive and my Genome." As if her statement had been some arcane incantation, both monsters began to glow almost instantaneously, as if being heated by some unseen fire within:
"Specify parameters for Release," Angel-IQ stated. "Level 4, Qliphort Archive; Level 4, Qliphort Genome."
"Parameters accepted under alpha-sigma-two protocol. Initiate resident program: Advance Summon. Specify: Level 8, Qliphort Alias."
Rika covered her ears just in time—both of her ally's monsters exploded into so many clouds of fine mist, their remains fading from view before her eyes. Of this Alias she had Summoned, there was no sign—but again, Rika knew better. Plenty of practice with Hotene and those devilish drills of hers had done wonders for the amount of detail she could take in under duress—which meant she saw the winged, diamond-shaped distortion of empty space hovering above the field a good five seconds before Kikyō and her sister did (Level 8: ATK 2800 » 3100/DEF 1000).
When she finally saw the same thing, Kikyō stood slack-jawed for at least five more seconds after that. Then, suddenly, her free hand became a blur of sign language that Rika could only assume her blind sister was able to translate because of her psychic powers—assuming she even needed to translate it at all, and wasn't just reading her thoughts instead.
"She Summoned something that big with just a regular Advance Summon?!" the redhead was heard to say.
"There is more," Angel-IQ replied. "Qliphort Archive's final effect—if it is Released for any reason, I may target a monster on the field, and return it to the hand. As your Gungnir remains protected by the effect of your Dance Princess, I will target her instead." And before Rika could blink, a bluish-white laser beam had lanced from one of Alias' still-invisible wings. It touched Dance Princess for only an instant—and before the luckless maiden could cry out in surprise or in pain, it had simply vanished from sight.
"This removes your Gungnir's protection," continued Angel-IQ, the edges of a smirk lining her holographic mouth, "and permits me to use my Alias' own effect. In addition to being unaffected by any monster effects whose Level or Rank is inferior to its own, if it is Advance Summoned by Releasing at least 1 Qliphort monster, I may target 1 card on the field, and return it to the hand such that no card effects may be used in response to it. I target your Gungnir."
Rika heard a faint hissing noise from above; Alias must have used a smoke screen of some kind, judging from the gray clouds that had erupted out of nowhere. Within seconds they had obscured the field so thoroughly that Angel-IQ, Kikyō, her sister, and even Gungnir had all vanished from the Junior Synchro ace's field of view. But this did not last; as quickly as the fog had rolled in, the sun prevailed, and shone down upon a nearly empty battlefield—
She gulped. Gungnir had vanished along with the clouds, so silently that Rika could not believe it. The redhead who'd controlled her was even more disbelieving; she was clutching Kikyō tightly, livid with terror.
"Battle Phase." Angel-IQ pointed calmly at her two opponents. "Qliphort Alias, attack directly. Lock on target."
The sky shimmered, revealing—just for a moment—the glossy underbelly of Alias. Twin laser cannons swiveled to bear on the defenseless twins … and fired.
Rika stumbled from the blast. But that was nothing compared to Kikyō or her sister: for the second time this Duel, they were blasted in opposite directions, each tumbling to different corners of the crosswalk where they'd stood. Any noise of pain they might have made was drowned out by the shriek of their LP gauges, depleted to zero.
Angel-IQ, however, did not seem content with her victory. Before either twin had rolled to a stop, she had already reached out with both her hands. At once, the air distorted around both girls as the hologram commanded yet more Solid Vision to encase them fully, simultaneously cushioning them from harm and restraining them where they lay.
"Let go of us!" The redhead, even in defeat, was as fiery as ever. She struggled against invisible bonds, to no avail.
Angel-IQ gave her predicament only a passing glance. "One of you is blind," she called out to them. "The other is mute. But neither of you, I will hazard a guess, is deaf. You will therefore listen, before we suffer from any more lapses in communication than we already have. Once I have said what must be said, I will not only release you, but return you to your twin as well. You have the word of my superiors that you will come to no harm."
Silence. "Having said this, there will be no more running," said the hologram. "If you seek shelter from the entity I believe you are, then you may yet have found it. But you have still committed acts of aggression against the people of the Pendulum Dimension. If you wish to gain our trust, and be among friends, then you have a long road ahead."
Rika saw both girls clench their fists. Whether they were conscious of each mimicking the other, now that they were physically separated, she could not guess.
That was when her Duel Disk chimed all of a sudden, interrupting her focus. The Junior Synchro ace answered the incoming call almost on reflex—maybe it was Hotene, calling with some good news!
But it wasn't her best friend's voice that erupted from the speaker. "Are you two done yet?!" Every word Masumi spoke was shrill with desperation. "We need you back at Ryōzanpaku!"
"We have the girls," Angel-IQ replied coolly, "and we are questioning them right now. How is your Duel going?"
There was a very long pause. "How many ways do you know to say 'bad'?"
A/N: Dear, oh, dear. I have been taking some creative liberties with the game, haven't I?
So—story time. Back when (æ)lohim was in its infancy, I'd joined an RP to try and experiment with my writing style a little more. Sadly, this RP no longer exists, but I still remember that it featured several disabled characters—including someone who was blind, and a second person that I believe was either deaf, mute, or both; it's been long enough since then that specifics escape me. The nature of who they were, though, stuck with me for a while, and it got me to thinking about how I should write a disabled Duelist—and then, how I could turn this disability into something that could let such an OC not only play the game, but excel in it as well. Enter my Ritual-using psychic twins—who I'm looking forward to writing later on; I think ARC-V ought to have given Ritual Summoning more exposure, considering everything else it got up to.
As for Markus' Duel, I like the idea of Domitianus having the ability to turn a Battle Royale into an absolute clusterfrakk—just like how I saw Herakleinos as being able to turn the concept of an Action Duel against the opponent. The free-for-all nature of how Battle Royales (Battles Royale?) play out has always made me wonder what might happen if allegiances got thrown out the window, and every Duelist involved just threw up their hands and gave in to the utter chaos. I can only wonder if the gladiators of ancient Rome thought the same thing.
… Also, now that I think of it, "Expurgate in Infirma" would have made for one hell of a chapter title. Ah well.
Thanks for reading! – K