CW: This chapter contains child endangerment (non-graphic, but enough that I thought it merited this little blurb to be safe). – K
XVIII
Chūō City, Tōkyō
Of all the words that had been used to describe Akaba Himika, 'tempestuous' was near the bottom of the extensive list. Those few who had the rare honor of her repeated company more often described her as cold or calculating—a mastermind of business and politics who never let her emotions get the better of her. More than one publication had described her as the 'eye of the typhoon' in the wake of the Infernoid incident.
Truth be told, however, Himika did not prefer to be the center of attention as much as her peers had often claimed. She enjoyed being near it, that much was true—she enjoyed being the wall of the eye, where the storm was always the strongest. It gave her more of a feeling of control over the swirling storm, kept it from dissipating too quickly as it moved over the land. To be called its eye at all implied that she was always calm—that she was a constant force in the midst of the turbulence around her. Constant, to her, meant stagnant—and for any person in any position of power in a Duel School, she knew that being stagnant meant you wouldn't be enjoying that power for much longer.
Bills, the restaurant in which she was currently dining, was perfect in that regard: the office building that housed it was located roughly a mile from the Imperial Palace itself—the beating heart of the whole of Japan. But it afforded no views of the royal property; indeed, the view from Himika's window lay in the complete opposite direction. Not that she minded or cared—the headmistress cared much more about control when it stemmed from merits and sweat, than from antiquity and blood. To her, the skyline of the commercial heart of Tōkyō was a far more fulfilling sight.
At this late hour, Bills had been nearly empty even when they'd been shown to their seat. The three of them could have had their pick of sections here, Himika had mused as they moved past marble-topped tables, booths of velvet the color of autumn leaves, and finally directed to a private dining area. Only three other parties—a honeymooning couple in their thirties, four middle-aged gentlemen who looked well-dressed enough to be near the top of Mayor Sawatari's speed dial, and a group of foreign college students who struck Himika as the type to have more dollars than sense, judging from their casual clothing—could be seen in the restaurant, and all were being served by the same waiter: a harried-looking twenty-something who looked ready to keel over after a long day on his feet.
A burbling sound from off to her right distracted her from the view. She allowed a small smile to play over her lips as she watched the old woman opposite her hold a spoon of mashed fries to Reira's mouth, making airplane noises at every turn. They'd been doing this game for the past few minutes—the evidence still dripped from the baby's chin. Absentmindedly, Himika reached for a napkin, and waited until her counterpart of the Endymion Duel School had guided the airplane into its hangar before she wiped off her daughter's face for the umpteenth time.
The current Madame de Sorciere—for this was her title, and not her name, though she went by it often enough these days that even her inner circle at EDS addressed her by no other—looked very much like Himika if she'd aged a few decades. She was tall and stately, with iron-gray hair teased into a bouffant, and equally gray eyes that sparked with the silver glint of knowledge that transcended archives and libraries. One moment they could tease with all the allure of a Parisian socialite; the next, they could slice into the root of the matter like a Japanese-made katana.
When Himika had made this comparison in the beginning of their relationship, the Madame de Sorciere had giggled. She was not from Paris, she was insistent on saying, but rather Bordeaux—born to a Japanese mother and a French father before the marriage had soured and her mother had whisked her back to Japan. Her own luck with love had fared little better—after husband number three, the Madame had sworn off any intent of continuing or establishing any sort of family legacy, and thrown herself headlong into developing EDS into a powerhouse in its own right. No other Duel School in Japan had such an extensive library on its campus devoted to Dueling theory; every student who entered its doors was expected to contribute at least one book towards its collection before graduating or going pro—be it a discussion of tactics that had served them well in their career, a compendium of card designs they had made in their spare time, or simply a biography of a famous Duelist of ages past.
Himika had briefly, privately wondered if snapping them up would mean a book deal with the Lancers or the LID in the years to come. But she had squashed the notion after a matter of seconds—best we're around to write that book, she'd decided, and be on the right side of history when the time comes.
She carved up a small slice of the prime fillet on her plate, and chewed it thoughtfully as the Madame de Sorciere turned her gaze away from Reira at last—though not without one last coo.
"I come to think," she said airily, the vaguest of accents curving her speech like silk over flesh, "that this nasty affair with Ryōzanpaku means this is no longer your school's fight alone. All of Maiami City is in this, now."
"You Show was in this from the beginning, Madame," Himika pointed out, watching her counterpart smear a bit of her seared salmon in the dollop of mirin nori sauce it had been served with. "Without them, the Lancers would never have existed, let alone made a difference in fighting Academia."
"All the more credence to my point, Directrice," nodded the Madame. "It would be a greater show of solidarity by acquiring representatives from other schools to bolster the Lancers, and not merely your own."
"You understand that an organization of their reputation needs a rigorous vetting process to match it, yes?" Himika leaned back in her seat an inch—as far as propriety would allow her while inside a restaurant with a Michelin star to its name. "And this was before certain, ah … setbacks, mind you. I will freely admit that the Senior Lancer division was rushed in its creation, given the circumstances. And the oversight that allowed Dennis McField into the Lancers as well was inexcusable. To be sure, he did prove his worth in the long run, but … "
The headmistress of LDS sighed, and did not finish her sentence. "If I could see that far ahead, Madame, I'd be a very successful businesswoman."
"You are a very successful businesswoman," the Madame replied with a tinkling laugh and a knowing look.
Himika's mouth twitched. "Sometimes I wonder if I got too successful too quickly. The more standing you have in the world, the more you stand out in it. For some people, that's something to look up to. For others, it's something they want to match—to achieve with their own two hands. For others … well, it's something they want to topple. And lately I seem to be finding a lot of people like that crawling into my city. Too close for my comfort."
"Mais oui," agreed the Madame. "Then perhaps we should limit the schools that wish to send candidates to your bolstered Lance Defense Soldier force this time—schools that have distinguished themselves in their deeds of late. You Show, I imagine, would be at the top of the list?"
"And Ryōzanpaku as well." Himika waited for the Madame's eyebrow to return to its usual position. "No one can accuse me of being biased against them—even after everything that happened with Master Gōdagawa."
The Madame said nothing, but nodded. "Since you're here," Himika went on, "might there be any of your students that you might be willing to put forward for consideration?"
"If only. You know we're a recent organization, Himika." The Madame de Sorciere poked at her fish with a fork. "And moreover, Endymion has traditionally been a theory- and history-centered institution. Most of our alumni pride themselves on being closer to scholars—archivists and librarians—than actual Duelists."
"That could change," Himika said, watching the four businessmen settle the bill between them and take their leave.
"It may already be. I've been noticing rather more of my students embracing the more practical side of their studies in the hallways. All of them seem to have one thing in common. And I suspect that what this thing is may very well give us the edge in distinction we've been looking for to finally gain a foothold in the Dueling world."
"Go on."
The Madame de Sorciere leaned forward an inch, smiling knowingly—and then leaned to one side an instant later, staring past her. "Qu'avons-nous ici?" she murmured, her interest piqued by something over Himika's shoulder.
She turned to look, and was pleasantly surprised to see the waiter striding towards them. Several paces behind him was a young man in a black vest and bowtie that Himika assumed to be the restaurant's sommelier, judging from the bottle of dark wine he cradled in his hand, and the ceremonial silver tastevin that dangled to one side of his chest. Most of his raven hair had been slicked past his shoulders, save for two long cowlicks that dangled to the left of his pointed nose, framing a face that radiated self-assuredness, expertise—and the faint veneer of smugness; the face of someone who considered himself a true connoisseur.
"Bonsoir, mesdames," he spoke in flawless French. "The manager presents his compliments, and hopes that you are enjoying yourselves tonight." He proffered the bottle in his arms. "Château Mouton-Rothschild, vintage 2011."
In the corner of her eye, Himika spared a moment to see the newly wedded couple stand up from their seats—before exchanging a glance with the Madame de Sorciere. "Did you know about this?" she asked.
The Madame shook her head. "I assumed it was for you," she said. "A claret is rather a poor choice for fish, after all—even a Mouton-Rothschild," she told the sommelier, gesturing at her salmon, and then Himika's fillet. "Mes excuses, monsieur. On any other night, I would inquire as to your chardonnays. But business has only just begun, and I prefer to conduct it with my head clear. Please tell your manager merci beaucoup; we will be more than happy to collect his extraordinarily generous gift on our departure."
"The gift does not come from the manager, Mademoiselle," the waiter spoke up tremulously. Himika noticed he was holding a sheet of paper between his fingers. "A gentleman is present who wishes to deliver you a message."
Himika traded another glance at the Madame. "Ooh … does someone have a secret admirer?" she teased. But even as the Madame de Sorciere rose to take the note from the waiter's hand, she'd stolen another look around the room. The college kids had left their table by now, leaving far too much expensive food behind for the headmistress' taste, and there was no one else in the restaurant except for the three of them, and what little staff remained.
The slyness of her grin intensified a little as she watched the Madame open the note. "Well, if he couldn't be bothered to deliver it himself," the EDS principal muttered, "I must say I've a rather low estimation of him already."
"How do you know your paramour's a he?" Himika asked, as she wiped a bit of spit off Reira's chin. "These are different times we live in, after all. Perhaps husband number four need not be a husband at all?"
There was no answer. "All right, that was in poor taste," conceded the LDS head. "Far be it from me t—"
She broke off. The Madame de Sorciere's eyes were glued onto the note in her hand. Her face was white as chalk.
"Is everything—what's—" Wordlessly, the Madame pushed the paper into Himika's palm. Her makeup, she could now see, was starting to run with a cold sweat that had broken out over every pore of her skin.
Frowning, Himika unfolded the note, feeling the outlines of what might be a Duel Monsters card against her fingers as she did so, and began to read. Exactly what was making the Madame look so unsettled became apparent at once.
You are dining in Bills, on the twelfth floor of the Okura House, 2-6-12 Ginza, Chūō City, Tōkyō.
There is a sniper with eyes on your location, and a bomb primed to detonate in your current vicinity.
Put the phone on speaker and call the number on the card enclosed before we find out which one's faster.
Himika's chair seemed to sway under her weight. The empty restaurant suddenly felt a lot smaller. The very breath felt like lead in her throat, sinking well past her heart and into her stomach.
Her eyes alighted on the Madame de Sorciere, and she mouthed the unthinkable words. Sniper?! Bomb?!
Then she heard Reira burble again, and felt the lead in her chest drop further still as the horrible reality sank in. Before she was even aware of it, Himika's gaze had turned to her daughter, and she now noticed that Reira was pointing with a stubby finger, giggling at a small, glowing red dot she'd just noticed on her mother's hand. The dot moved upwards, very slowly, like an ant scouting out new territory, up Himika's arm … past her elbow … skirting her shoulder … and finally stopping right on her breast.
The Madame de Sorciere was shaking like a leaf; she'd seen it, too. Himika's eyes chanced a glance at the waiter and the sommelier. Had they? They'd been standing there for what felt like whole minutes—surely they had other duties to attend to—
She froze. Put your phone on speaker. No threat would be that specific unless … unless …
Very slowly—not daring to tear her eyes from either man—Himika slid a hand inside her purse. "If you wouldn't mind," she said, very delicately, "I think I'd like to see the bill … calculate my tip in advance. My phone's just in there … "
But she had no intention of pulling out her mobile. She chanced a quick glimpse at the Madame de Sorciere—hardly daring to wink for fear of the worst—and felt for something metallic and round, half as tall and wide again as a tube of lipstick. She swallowed, gripped it tight—
That was when many things happened at once.
As the Madame dived for cover, Himika leapt to her feet. She'd whipped out the canister of mace, and opened fire with a hissing spurt … and then the sommelier had moved like a blur, hooking the waiter by his apron and pulling him between him and Himika, using him as a human shield. The worst of the mace cloud hit the hapless youth in his left temple, which fortunately missed the more vital spots in his eyes—but the sommelier used his momentum to jerk the waiter back, reaching inside his vest with his free hand as he did so. Bare moments later, he'd somehow produced a familiar-looking gray device from within, shaped like an arrowhead … that spat a familiar, burgundy-edged black blade along his left forearm.
The waiter saw none of this—and by the time he'd heard it, it was too late. The blade slashed alongside his back at a diagonal—and instantly he was enveloped in a purple light, screaming in surprise and pain. His card never even touched the ground—the sommelier had deftly swiped it out of midair and into his breast pocket before Himika had even made sense of what had happened.
He leveled the Duel Disk point first at Himika, the blade inches from her skull. Nobody dared to move a muscle. The LDS headmistress could barely believe it—here, feet away from her and out of the blue, the Ædonai here—
The would-be sommelier, perhaps sensing that he now had the upper hand, clenched his fist. Himika heard a distinct ratcheting noise that sounded like it ought to come from a—
She bit her lip. "MP5K-PDW," said the sommelier, indicating what Himika now knew was a Duel Disk-turned-submachine gun on his wrist, and brandishing it at Himika now. "Issued to your JSDF Special Forces, I believe. It took some time to reverse-engineer."
He smirked, and gestured with his free hand as though this was all part of the show that came with the dinner. "S'il vous plaît, mademoiselle." His voice was gentle, but firm—every syllable dripping with malice. "Call the number."
At this last, he planted a cheap-looking mobile on the cold marble of the table. Himika immediately knew it was a drop phone—used most often to make a single call or series of calls, and then disposed of before it could be traced. She cursed, but she knew there was little she could do—using her own phone was too risky; if the authorities were alerted, this maniac might seal her and the Madame along with their waiter. She spent the next few seconds slicing the man to ribbons with the most venomous glare her eyes could deliver, and wishing all the while that looks really could kill, before she finally grabbed it in her hands.
The message did indeed contain a Duel Monsters card, she now saw—a Snow-Silver Sniper, appropriately enough, she thought with a frown—with a local phone number scrawled over the artwork. Himika put in the number, quickly put the device on speaker, and listened to the dial tone once … twice … thrice … her heart was practically buzzing in her chest, louder every time …
Finally the line connected. "Good evening. Thank you for calling."
If Himika had been feeling tense before, it was nothing compared to what this new voice instilled inside her spine. He was male, and European—but from there, all possibilities of deducing nationality or identity went cold. Colder still was the voice itself: an oily tenor that conjured images of acid rain frozen into snowflakes, with the dusting of a psychotic smile behind every word—as if the man on the other end of the line somehow found this situation funny.
"I'm glad you enjoyed your dinner tonight, ladies," said the caller. "That prime fillet looks particularly exquisite; I can see the marbling on the meat from here. And the Madame's salmon … " Himika heard a faint kiss. "Ooh—that Cartier on her neck suits her quite nicely, too. One of their Galanterie line, if I'm not mistaken—I'll hazard she just bought it, in the shop on the first floor. Dear, oh, dear—that sort of impulsive behavior can lead a woman to ruin."
The Madame de Sorciere looked too furious to even string two words together. She was gripping her pendant as if it were a dagger, and glared at the phone on the table as though it was a beating heart that she'd suddenly had an unconscious desire to stab.
"My compliments as well to Mr. Parker, for having the, ah … patience to wait in passing along my message," the caller went on. The "sommelier"—Himika did not want to dirty the profession by labeling this man as such—performed a stiff bow, Duel-Disk-turned-gun still trained on all in sight. "I didn't have it in me to ruin the chefs' hard work."
"Who is this?!" Himika had known this voice for less than thirty seconds and already wanted to throttle its speaker. "Give me your name at once!"
"Names mean nothing to people like me," said the man, quite calmly. "So it doesn't matter who I am—certainly not to you. What should matter more to you is who we are. Unum in multis. Multi in unum."
Himika had been bracing herself to hear those words from the moment Mr. Parker had made his move. They still made her heart plummet, like she'd missed a step going downstairs.
Then she heard the laugh. The caller was laughing—soft and slow, like he'd just read something mildly hilarious in a book—and instantly she felt her insides blaze with fury.
"Well, I hope it was worth it for your sick mind to see us sweat," she said acidly, "because I clearly don't find this as funny as you do." Her nostrils flared. "I'm hanging up this phone. And you may rest assured that I will refer this number to the police for verbal harassment and death threats. So I kindly suggest that you call off your crony before I start making some death threats of my own—and more to the point, making good on every single one of them."
Her finger had made it halfway to ending the call when: "If you hang up, you and everyone at your table will die."
There was no anger whatsoever—no snarl of would-be dominance, only a stark matter-of-fact statement. Gone was the humor. Gone was the smile. All that was left in the voice was the biting chill of nuclear winter.
Himika felt her index finger tremble. One more inch, and it would all be over—would have been all over, corrected a tiny, nasty voice in her head. She'd withdrawn it before she was aware of even doing it.
"That's good—very good," breathed the caller. "Obedience: the first step to survival. And if you want to survive the night, you're going to learn to obey me like my every word is gospel. I think you might even learn to enjoy it."
"I can name a few things I'd very much enjoy doing to your face, were it in my sight," hissed Himika.
"So can I," the caller said. "And it just so happens that yours is in mine right now."
Himika felt a chill race down her spine. She took a deep breath to steady her already wracked nerves. "So. Am I to assume I'm speaking with the sniper who's been spying on me, then?"
"From the moment you left the elevator."
"You talk too much for me to believe you," Himika sniffed. "Snipers are trained to kill their targets quickly. Not to bore them to a slow death."
SHKK-CHKK.
Entire seconds had passed before Himika had realized that her entire body, from the neck down, had gone as still as still could be from the moment the sound—so horribly familiar and ubiquitous to every human being, in movies, television, and sometimes even the harsher realities of life—had traveled from her ears to her brain. Not one muscle twitched—she dared not even breathe. The collar of her dress already felt wet with cold perspiration. Only her eyes moved, and then only a millimeter at a time, spending a fraction of a second leaping from one window to the next in her entire field of view, looking for the telltale sign of a man with a gun, aiming right at her—
"That's more like it." The smile was back in the sniper's words. "There's no other sound like it in the whole world, is there? Not even from an SMG … no, oh no. No better way to tell the hunter that she's being hunted instead." He laughed softly. "Barrett MRAD bolt-action custom—chambered for the match-grade .338 Lapua, with Leupold Mark 5HD optic. If I fired this right now, the exit wound should leave just enough of your head behind for the police to ID you."
It took every ounce of Himika's mental faculties to force that image out of her brain. "Ah … I never get tired of that look on their face. The frozen sweat that drips down their neck. The way their fingers twitch—their pupils shrink—when it all sinks in. They savor every breath like it's that steak on your plate. The last meal of a man condemned."
He laughed again. "Am I still boring you down there?"
The words stung—but the more this Ædonai sniper talked, the more Himika was convinced he wasn't here to end her life outright. Why that was, she couldn't yet say. The means were there. The pieces were exactly where he wanted them—she'd been put in check, but not in mate. He and Mr. Parker controlled the time and place of his theater as surely as he controlled the narrative.
So why not end it now?
The LDS headmistress risked a long sigh. "I figured this would happen sooner or later," she muttered grudgingly. "I'd just hoped that when my time came, it wouldn't be the work of some Whitman wannabe."
There was total silence from the phone. "Oh, come now—did you seriously think to catch me pleading for my life?" Himika sneered. "I have tasted my fill of war. That laser sight you're shining on me will do you little good in long-range precision shooting—and a Michelin-starred restaurant is hardly the playground of even an amateur sniper."
"You are in no position to insult my profession," the sniper said smoothly.
"Who's being insulting? You fire one bullet, and everyone within earshot runs screaming for the police," sniffed the LDS head. "This isn't New York City—and certainly not Austin, Texas. We in Japan actually tend to do something when some maniac with a gun decides to go on a rampage."
A snort. "A spree killer. Really. Is that all you take me for? Have you taken a good look at yourself lately? Who you are … where you are?"
Himika merely curled her lip as the gunman droned on. "People don't go to Michelin-starred restaurants just to fill their bellies. They go for the experience—because humans, by and large, are very social creatures. They want to notice, and be noticed—to gossip, and be gossiped about—because they believe it enhances their status in a world that honestly couldn't care less whether they existed or not. So they do tend to notice when a restaurant's sommelier parades a bottle of the most expensive wine on their menu. In the right hands, the right wine can be a message. And when the right crowd reads that message, it means it's more likely to have the right result."
Himika was distracted by a small intake of breath across from her; the Madame de Sorciere had found her voice at last. "You bought out the restaurant," she whispered. Her silver eyes were wide. "C'est audacieux … everyone in here with us—the honeymooners, the businessmen, all of them—they were expecting you to show up!"
"They were told to expect the Mouton-Rothschild," corrected the sniper with a laugh. "The final act of tonight's entertainment. Well—the show we advertised. Perhaps if they'd been offered a more generous sum, they'd have wanted to stay for the director's cut."
Himika's jaw went slack—only her highborn propriety kept it from dropping to the table. The sudden, unexplained departure of the other diners was instantly explained. That's something I'd have expected me to do, she thought blithely. She couldn't decide whether to be more insulted or impressed that the Ædonai had taken a leaf from her book—but neither changed the fact that she had been grossly negligent tonight. Nakajima might as well be light-years away.
"Would you like us to wire you a payment as well, Madame de Sorciere?" Mr. Parker now addressed her, smirking. "Anonymous, and as good as untraceable. If nothing else, we'd be willing to reimburse you for that Cartier."
The EDS head stiffened, rage writ in every line on her face. Himika remembered the analogy of the Japanese katana she'd used to describe her; the glint in her gray eyes looked orders of magnitude more lethal.
"How dare you insinuate my involvement in your sick joke," the Madame hissed, without turning round to address him. "Quand je reçois mes mains sur toi, je vais tirer colonne vertébrale de votre trou du cul et vous faire lécher propre."
Himika couldn't resist arching her eyebrows; she knew enough French to have received a very visceral mental image of the act that the Madame de Sorciere had just described. So did Mr. Parker, it seemed; he'd paled a shade or two, but kept his composure otherwise.
But the sniper only chuckled. "Très créatif," he conceded, "but anatomically impossible. If you're going to make threats, you need realism to reinforce them. That way, the other party knows they can make good on those threats. It's like wishing for a sandwich over an island. Pick the sandwich, and at least you know the wish will be granted."
Himika was beginning to tire of the repartee. "What do you want?" she asked, with no small bite of impatience.
"To play a game," the sniper responded. "With you, and you alone."
Himika blinked. Then, all of a sudden, she smiled. It was all she could do to not burst out laughing. Out of all the possible responses to her question, this should not have been the one she'd expected least.
"Funny, how it all comes back to Duel Monsters, doesn't it?" she mused out loud. "A pity that you seem to have caught me without either Deck or Duel Disk on my person. And I doubt your accomplice"—she threw the nastiest, most withering look in her arsenal at Mr. Parker—"will be so accommodating."
"Hm. Well, if that's you turning down my polite request," said the sniper, sounding quite unconcerned, "I suppose there's always the alternative. I've never had pets—or children. But I hear they love to play games, too. They're particularly fond of find-the-fairy."
And to Himika's horror, the laser dot that had heretofore been trained on her heart now moved with awful slowness towards Reira. The toddler let loose an exclamation in baby talk, waving her stubby hands as it traveled up her bib, before stopping square on her chest.
Oh, God, no …
"Ooh, that was quick—she's found it already," the sniper chuckled. "I don't know why I'm shocked. Eleven months going on eleven years, right? Akaba Reira—the world's smartest baby. She must have quite the brains in her."
Himika's teeth were clenched so tightly that they were in danger of being ground to powder. "You would dare—"
Mr. Parker cleared his throat. "You know … I once tripped and broke a bottle of 1959 Haut-Brion while presenting it to a client. I will take that shame to my grave." He bowed his head mournfully—before jerking it back upwards as though he'd been struck by a thought. "Did you know," he said, "that there's less blood in an infant's body than there is wine in this bottle?" He gestured to the Mouton-Rothschild, still sitting innocuously on their table, waiting to be uncorked. "Thankfully, such messy incidents have been few and far between in my line of work. But I have learned to clean them up when needed."
He leaned in a few inches closer to a suddenly petrified Himika. "You see?" he said smugly. "Realism."
"Very well put, Mr. Parker." She could practically hear the smirk in the sniper's calm words. "So what do you say, kiddo? You like this game? Would you like Mommy to play with you, too?"
Reira burbled, happily oblivious to the danger that had frozen the tableaux. Himika could not bring herself to say a single word; it felt as though the very air had crystallized inside her lungs, freezing them solid.
As a mother, her first natural reaction had been to break down in terror from the moment they had put her little girl's life in danger, or to lash out in rage for even the contemplation of such a monstrous act. Perhaps it would even have been justified, under the circumstances. But as a leader—the very face of the Pendulum Dimension's stand against Academia, and now the Ædonai—she dared not show weakness to her assailants, seen and unseen alike. To betray her emotions, even now, was—to put it mildly—not an investment that she would live to enjoy for much longer. And so she stayed resolute, her brain working at top speed—
—until something slid across the table, and nudged her in the chest.
She took her eyes off Reira for just enough to see what that something was: a native Duel Disk, snow white in color, and as finely polished a one as Himika had ever seen; it might have been carved from the same marble that lined the table. There was already a Deck inside as well; the cards inside looked only slightly more used than their vessel.
The LDS head spared an even quicker look at the other end of the table, where the Duel Disk had come from. The Madame de Sorciere was not moving, but eyed Himika in a very meaningful way. She nodded once.
For Himika, that was enough. "Why?" she could only say.
The Madame swallowed. "I knew nothing of this." Her voice was barely a whisper. "But that is no longer relevant. I made the reservation. I invited you here. And in doing so, I made a horrible mistake. All of this is on my head—donc je dois laver le sang de mes mains. I got you into this. It is only right and just that I help you get out of it."
"By giving me your own Duel Disk? Your own Deck?"
Another nod. "You have more at stake than I do." Her eyes flicked to Reira.
Himika stared at the Madame de Sorciere for a long time. Then, quite suddenly—as if the Duel Disk in front of her had belonged to her all this time—she strapped the device to her left wrist. She made a fist, and the violet chevron that lanced along her arm felt like an extension of her own body.
"It seems I owe you twice over," she murmured. The corners of her mouth twitched. "Shame about the colors."
"Well, if I'd known this would happen, I'd have brought something a little bolder to go with your dress," sniffed the Madame haughtily. "But, well, when was the last time Akaba Himika had to defend herself?"
Himika had no answer to that question. She stood up, and turned to Mr. Parker. "Name your terms, then."
But the man's smirk only grew wider. "Oh, don't look at me," he grinned. "That's not why I'm here."
Himika blinked—and then felt her spine stiffen as the simplicity of what he'd said sank in. "You mean to tell me," she said quietly, "that I'm to Duel an opponent I can't even see?!"
"Well, if you could see me," sniggered the man on the phone, "I wouldn't be a very good sniper, now would I?"
The screen of the Madame's Duel Disk—Himika did not yet want to call it hers—suddenly came to life, displaying a single speech bubble on the screen:
OUTSIDE ACCESS DETECTED (Χ-621)
SATELLITE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED
Himika frowned. "So that's how it's going to be, is it?" she mused out loud. "A long-range Duel over satellite?"
"Oh, it gets better," said the sniper. "My MRAD is custom-fitted with an RSV-compatible option, standard-issue for every chi-level operative in the Duel Hunters of the Kingdom of Misgarth."
Duel Hunters? Himika wondered.
"Think of it as a magazine where every bullet inside fires blank," the sniper went on, "only each blank carries a differently coded hard-light payload that corresponds to a card in my Deck. Layman's terms, I can shoot you with monsters, Spells, and Traps—and you get to watch each and every one of them come to life, right before your eyes.
"As to the terms—dinner and a show. That's it. That's all I ask. We've already had our little intermission; now it's on to Act Two—explosive plot twist and all."
A pause. " … I did mention a bomb, didn't I?"
The bottom dropped out from Himika's stomach. Amidst all her concern for Reira, she'd completely forgotten.
"Life Point gauge hits zero, that bomb goes off," said the sniper. "Simple. Tested. True. And if anyone interferes, Mr. Parker … kindly kill them on sight."
The fake sommelier bowed stiffly in obedience. "Now," his unseen superior hissed. "Shall we begin?"
Himika heard a faint clicking noise as she hefted her Duel Disk; the sniper must have converted his gun to a Duel Disk as well. Subconsciously, she brought herself as close to Reira as the aisles allowed her. As quickly as she could, she scrolled through the contents of the Madame de Sorciere's Deck, doing her best to memorize every card inside with the brief time she had, only faintly aware of Mr. Parker training his own Duel Disk, and the weapon it concealed, on the Madame herself … and with her, Reira.
Akaba Himika took a deep breath, held it … and then shouted, for the first time in her life: "LET'S DUEL!"
A/N: Well, well, well—look who just stepped up to the proverbial plate. This should be interesting.
The first Duel between Yūgi and Pegasus always intrigued me because of how it was conducted, and I think elements of that fight laid the groundwork for what I spent this whole chapter setting up. I've always been interested in making Duels that "break the norm", so to speak—instead of merely raising the stakes, I put a unique twist on the action that takes place within it: larger Life Point pool, Field Spells that trigger at the start of the Duel, and so on. In this case, it's the notion that the opponent is in a different physical location, and can't be seen, heard, or otherwise interacted with save for radio, phone, or TV broadcast signals.
Talking of which. I first conceived of this sniper-Duelist after listening to Kiefer Sutherland's character in Joel Schumacher's highly underrated 2002 film Phone Booth, and parts of its premise (a man gets trapped in a confined space with a gun to his head) got ported over here as well. Sutherland's voice alone can carry a picture, and so it did with Phone Booth; I strongly recommend you check it out if you have the time. I might have written this entire sniper character with his voice in mind.
My only regret is that I didn't find a better place to split these chapters up. I'd wanted to combine this block of words with the last one so that it didn't make the block after this one seem super-long in comparison. But that didn't really flow so well—the change in locations at such a point felt too jarring for me.
I quite enjoyed writing the Duel in the next chapter—I hope that means you enjoy reading it. Until then, rate and review if you wish, and thanks for stopping by! – K