XX
Château Pique-Diamant
Akaba Reiji knew something was wrong the instant Nakajima pulled up the front drive. Perhaps Nakajima himself sensed it, too; though he couldn't see his employer's face, the aide was scanning the surrounding area, frowning.
"No one to meet us?" And sure enough, not a single ninja from the Fūma clan was to be seen on the grounds. They were ninja, after all, and so preferred to be neither seen nor heard. But the clan's loyalty to the Akaba family was absolute to a fault—they would not have concealed themselves to a one unless they had express permission. And Grandmaster Ginkage had been given charge of security tonight—the entirety of the clan listened to him.
Nakajima turned to Reiji. "I thought you called ahead," he said warily.
"I did. At last report, everything was fine." Now Reiji was looking across the grounds as well—even checking the treetops. Nothing caught his gaze—nothing except … nothing. "This is … irregular."
He saw Nakajima tilt his gaze to the glove box of the Range Rover Sentinel, where he knew the aide kept at least one sidearm. "You don't think we caught them all asleep?" Nakajima wondered. "Every single one?"
Reiji knew what he was suggesting. The Fūma clan had been appointed as guards—and every part of any manned security system, anywhere in the world, implied the existence of a night shift. Tonight, however, it seemed that this particular night shift had opted to call out. Or perhaps …
All of a sudden, Reiji had opened the car door, and white sneakers hit the gravel with a crunch. "Stay in the car," he muttered to Nakajima. "I'll be back soon. Keep the engine hot—and be ready to leave at a moment's notice."
He paused only to grab his Duel Disk. Nakajima stared. "With or without me," Reiji added, putting just enough emphasis into the words that his aide understood the implicit order. He nodded, and shut the door.
Leaving Reiji, quite alone, to march up the steps that led to his father … and, he hoped, the knowledge he sought.
He'd activated the Disk on a whim, and spoke under his breath as he'd reached the door. "Q. Scramble code Alias." Then he waited to hear the click of a secure connection. "Review the résumés of every member of staff employed inside Château Pique-Diamant. Exclude any members of the Fūma Clan. Identify any remaining common factors."
"Working."
And as Angel-IQ went idle to work his request, Reiji stepped inside. If all went according to plan, five minutes was all he'd need to answer the questions he intended to pose.
Three minutes later, Reiji had answered precisely one of those questions—but it was the biggest among those he'd hoped to ask Leo. His trek through the eerily silent hallways had thoroughly convinced him that the Fūma clan hadn't simply just nodded off all at once. Indeed, it felt as though the entire villa was deserted.
Nonetheless, as he wound his way through its corridors, he could not shake the idea that something—someone? he wondered—was following him. He felt a need to find a more wide-open space—and so made for the ballroom.
"Reiji-sama." The Alias frequency reduced Angel-IQ's voice to a bare whisper, but it still felt deafeningly loud in the hallway. "I am detecting a low-level Solid Vision signal on this property. It does not appear to be sufficient to sustain a Duel, but its characteristics are similar to my own."
Reiji bit his lip. He knew there was no machinery in the household capable of generating that—Leo would have known of it by now. Even so … "Localize it." Perhaps following this signal would answer the rest of his questions.
But Q was not so forthcoming. "The source is not within the Château itself. It appears to be a satellite projection. I am attempting a trace program."
"Later." Satellites and Solid Vision meant little to Reiji right now. What concerned him more was tracking down Leo. Everything else could wait till then, he decided as he reached a set of grand double doors, and the ballroom that lay beyond. They swung open with barely a sound.
Even before the Lancers, Reiji had not been a person to spook easily. Which made his discovery all the more shocking to him: he'd closed the door as quietly as he could—and found he wasn't alone in the great hall.
A maid of the household was humming a tuneless song to herself, deftly dancing the edges of a feather duster across the frame of one of the many canvases that dotted the house. She was tall and lean—Reiji doubted there was either an inch or an ounce between their builds—with raven hair tied back in a ruffled bonnet, while a burgundy cravat and a white apron had been tacked onto the black dress typical of most maids.
This woman—late teens, early twenties, Reiji guessed—didn't appear to have heard him at first, but then, he had done his best to be discreet. So, being polite, he cleared his throat. The sound, quiet as it was, echoed in the great space, and immediately made the maid jump right out of her polished shoes with a hastily stifled gasp.
"Master Reiji—g-good evening!" she said breathlessly, her voice a-quiver. "Ah, forgive me—I-I did not know you would be here so soon!" Her accent was hard to place, even for Reiji—somewhere between French and German.
He pondered that for a moment before stepping forward. "Where is the Fūma clan?" he demanded.
"They are resting," said the maid. "It's been a very long day for them." Her eyes—green as the moonlit sea and as bright and round as coins—suddenly widened behind rectangular lenses, and she made a small "oh!" noise, as if she'd just remembered something. "How is young Miss Reira? We miss her so—Sari always enjoys playing airplane with her."
Reiji ignored the question. "The clan was given specific orders to prepare for my arrival tonight," he pressed on. "I did not see a single one of them on my way here. Why was that?"
"They are still loyal to you, Master Reiji." The maid's feather duster had moved to a nearby vase. Her eyes did not leave it for a second. "But they are still only human. Even they can only go so long without sleep."
"So am I," Reiji said shortly. "And so are you. By your own logic, should you not be resting yourself at this hour?"
A humorless smile flickered over her face, like the faintest flame of a candle. "A woman's work is never done."
Reiji pondered that for another moment. He knew something was definitely wrong here—this maid was acting far too blasé in the face of such a blatant deviation from schedule. One of the Fūma clan sleeping through his duties might be excusable. Two would warrant a conference. But all of them—up to and including the night shift?
The penny dropped. The sound, imaginary as it was, echoed in Reiji's ears as if that penny had just thundered upon the great hall's pristine marble tile. Sleeping through his duties. It was so obvious to him it was breathtaking.
He was saved from having to ponder further by a faint chime from his Duel Disk; Angel-IQ had finished her task. Reiji knew looking at it too quickly would betray his thoughts—and in any case, he thought as he slowly opened his device and examined the screen, it looked as though the supercomputer had just confirmed what he already knew.
There were only six images—each one showing a young woman—and bearing a name and age under each one. The youngest of them might have passed for Junior Division if Reiji didn't know better. The oldest was standing right in front of him, still dusting that same vase as if every speck of dust in the world had decided to congregate inside it. But Reiji was not interested in their ages—only where they'd gone to school. For beneath the name each picture possessed was a single highlighted line that sent alarm bells by the dozen clamoring inside his brain.
Kōrōmu Academy.
Forcing his expression to remain neutral—an act that was far tougher than usual—Reiji glanced at the screen for one last tidbit of information before he spoke again.
"Louise Schmidt." It was not a question, and only the feather duster made any sort of noise in the utter silence that followed. "That is your name, correct? You applied for the position of head housemaid in Château Pique-Diamant. Born in Zürich, Switzerland, fluent in at least six languages—and, for good measure, a pronounced aptitude at Duel Monsters. Enough to have caught the attention of one of the newest Duel Schools in Japan—Kōrōmu Academy."
The feather duster stopped dusting, withdrew itself from the vase, and—after a long moment—began to flick across the table on which the vase stood.
"That is correct." But Louise gave no other response—or indeed any sign of knowledge that Reiji had been rattling off her résumé with the calmness of someone who'd memorized its contents. "I was part of the institution's first-ever graduating class. At the time, I was also the only transfer student in my year. Several of the Academy's current students also serve in this household as well when school is not in session."
Reiji thought of the other pictures he'd seen along with Louise's. But he brushed them out of his mind—it was time to look to other matters. "Please take me to my father," he said, stepping forward and keeping his voice as level as possible. "I have some private business that I wish to discuss with him tonight. Alone," he added unnecessarily.
But Louise didn't even turn around to acknowledge him. "I'm afraid I cannot do that at this time," she said apologetically. "I was given strict orders that he not be disturbed."
The tone was genuine. That much Reiji knew. And it only made those alarm bells in his brain ring all the louder.
"Who issued those orders?" he demanded. He knew the staff of every mansion had a hierarchy—and he was speaking with the near tip-top of it right now.
Louise didn't answer. But the feather duster had stopped completely. She'd laid it on the table—a gesture of such innocence and deliberation that it dripped with guilt.
Reiji took a step forward. "You don't have to tell me their name," he went on. "I know who you really answer to. What I do want you to tell me"—he stepped forward again—"is how long he's been controlling you."
The silence in the room seemed to coalesce and expand between them—like the cold before the snowflakes before the blizzard. Louise's feather duster had been long forgotten.
"From the moment you confirmed to me that you were a student at Kōrōmu Academy," Reiji explained, adjusting his glasses, "I suspected you were not who you claimed to be. I had plenty of time to research the school on the drive over. Not that there's much to research—it is, after all, a recently founded institution. Too recent, I decided."
He narrowed his eyes. "Can you imagine how surprised I was," he said, "when it came to my attention that Kōrōmu Academy was established by no less a person than Gōdagawa Ryōzan himself? The headmaster of the Ryōzanpaku school—who just confessed from his hospital bed this afternoon to a secret alliance … with Academia?"
Louise blinked behind her own spectacles—slowly, languidly. Her pale green eyes shone with a light that seemed too unnatural to be human. She turned round at last to look at Reiji, face to face.
In that one small movement, Reiji's eyes had seen the subtlest of transformations unfold across the maid's entire body. She carried herself differently, now—her left shoulder had shifted by an inch, and her neck had dipped slightly inward by another. Her hands, once folded at her apron in the gesture of duty and obedience universal among maids of every profession, hung loosely by her sides, fingers tight and tense.
It had taken only a second, if even that. But in that second, the roles had been reversed. Prey had become predator.
"That sounds rather like a rhetorical question, Master Reiji. You don't seem the type to get surprised."
To the untrained ear, the timbre of Louise's voice hadn't changed at all; she was still the breathless ingénue of many a fantasy that many a man in power harbored within many a private thought. But the tremulous, nervous quaver that had heretofore laced her words no longer existed. The mask had been dropped; the disguise, having outlived its usefulness, had been shed in its entirety to reveal the full façade of what Reiji now knew was a seasoned hunter.
No … not a hunter, he thought. A blade-thin smile had flickered over her face—but it wasn't a human smile. He wasn't sure if it could even be called a smile—it looked more like the smirk of a tigress that had found fresh meat.
But Reiji still managed to keep his voice level. "I always did wonder why Ryōzanpaku never graduated a single female Duelist in its otherwise illustrious history," he said. "Perhaps Master Gōdagawa's reputation was enough to convince the general public that he believed girls were too weak for his school's training regimen—or that any girl who tried to endure it would inevitably wash out. But that's where Kōrōmu Academy comes in, doesn't it?"
Louise was a statue—she betrayed nothing but an apparent desire to allow Reiji to continue, and so he did. "A sister school to Ryōzanpaku, where those so-called washouts could be taught the same curriculum as its parent academy. But what he didn't know," he said, "was that certain of his pupils there had been administered—and, presumably, were planning to administer in turn—the same conditioning process patented and utilized by one Markus Streiter."
She blinked—but Reiji knew it was only to disguise her reaction. He'd seen how Louise's eyes had narrowed at the name, and instantly he knew he'd scored a hit. By now, every major news outlet would have reported on Streiter's fate, and even in this far corner of the world, it was only a matter of time before the story found its way here.
"One word out of his mouth would have been enough to reactivate the programming he put inside you. I assume he contacted you through a drop phone?" Louise made no move to answer. Not that Reiji needed one. "We have procedures for security and communications in this house, Miss Schmidt. Someone with the position and authority of its senior housemaid would know how to circumvent them."
Finally, Louise smiled. It looked far more human than her first one—but not enough to erase it from Reiji's mind.
"You're every bit as deductive as I was told to expect." Aggrandizing, but far from self-defeating. Minimizing the threat she herself posed to him, Reiji realized. It was classic lure tactics—she was drawing the fly into her web. "Grandmaster Ginkage always did speak very highly of you. Sealing him into a card was slightly less of a challenge than I expected." And those under him, Reiji knew she meant, as the pieces began to click together in his brain.
"Markus did indeed send a drop phone," Louise went on. "I remember how much it scared me at the time—a small package addressed to me, containing a phone that rang almost the instant I first held it in my hand." She giggled, as though she found the whole experience rather embarrassing. "But then I heard the Kämpfer's voice, and all became clear to me—I was to follow his final order to the letter, and ensure that all was prepared for tonight.
"Now that you have arrived, the final piece is in place. Before the dawn, I will have succeeded in my mission. And you and I"—Louise's glasses glinted with the light of the chandelier, and the sea-green eyes beyond them sparked with sinister intent—"will have concluded our business here."
Reiji felt his fingers tense. "Meaning?"
Louise blinked. For a moment, a trace of the senior housemaid had resurfaced—there and gone, a minor eddy in a vast sea. "Ah—forgive me, Master Reiji," she said, still smiling, "but I am not accustomed to repeating myself."
She stepped forward. "Your father is resting. And I was given strict orders that he not be disturbed."
Reiji bit his lip. Of course this couldn't have been a one-person job—or even a two-person one. He knew Markus had been an exacting and exemplary strategist in his time. But even he would have realized that infiltrating a house that belonged to any one of the Akaba family, regardless of how often they actually used it, would have required exceedingly careful planning, manpower to carry it out—and most of all, a cunning mind to ensure that all that manpower could carry those plans out to the letter. Which could only mean …
"Gwendolyn Grimm," he muttered. "So … she's already here, then?"
That changed things a great deal—Reiji, for all his intelligence, knew that Psychic Duelists commanded a level of brainpower even he didn't possess. And the particular power that resided in that brain … Yes, he thought; it appeared the Ædonai had finally made their move. Akaba Leo had been prescient as to the fate that awaited him.
Reiji, however, knew he could not allow that to be his father's ultimate fate—and so, he brought his Duel Disk to bear. With a flash of scarlet, the rhomboid blade slashed along his arm with a mechanical hiss, and auto-shuffle functions automatically rearranged the cards in his Deck.
Angel-IQ's cool voice permeated the great hall an instant later. "Action Field: Cross Over activated." Scores of hard-light platforms shimmered out of thin air, casting a hundred teal-tinged shadows through the enormous room.
Louise, however, did not even bother to mirror his movements. From her apron pocket, she produced a pair of fine white-and-black gloves, unrolling them along her arms as if she had all the time in the world. Slowly and fluidly, she smoothed the fabric along her skin until every inch hugged and curved with her.
"I am told," she said as she did this, "that time in dreams is perceived much differently as it is in real life, Master Reiji." Then—he tensed—she took out a Duel Disk of her own from that same pocket: black with dark red trim … and the same arrowhead-like shape as Markus and all of his minions had used before. "Knowing this … "
A sea-green sword snarled to life the moment Louise had clasped it over her glove and made a fist—but Reiji, in a first, was too distracted by what was happening around them to care. For it was no longer just the two of them here; indeed, in hindsight, he was now wondering if indeed they'd been alone from the first word of their conversation.
Four doors had opened into the great hall just then, one in each corner: each one the exit to a secret passage that only Reiji and a select few of the staff knew existed, to better facilitate the needs of the Château's occupants—willing or otherwise. From each of these passages stepped a person that Reiji' eidetic memory recognized immediately: ahead and to his right was a young girl with wide amber eyes, whose loose blouse billowed and flapped all around her; to his left, a tall, green-eyed redhead, whose long apron suggested a scullery maid. Reiji chanced a quick look behind him, and saw a third maid to his left, with girlish blonde twin-tails draped behind her shoulders—but possessed of a glint in her gaze that reminded him of his mother—and next to her, a doe-eyed teenager in a skirt and white leggings who made his stomach swoop … for he knew her to be the nursemaid who'd played with Reira just this morning.
Reiji knew them all, and knew their names, but he knew they did not matter here; he was certain the girls' identities were each as bald-faced a lie as the professions they'd led in this house. Each one had been named on his Duel Disk long before he'd put two and two together; Angel-IQ had pinned them all as students of Kōrōmu Academy.
All in this together, Reiji thought. He'd been caught in a gigantic trap; the only questions now were whether he was merely the victim or the bait … and whether he would last long enough to find out which one applied to his father.
"Knowing this," Louise said again, raising the flat of her blade to her brow in a fencer's salute, "will it take more time for Master Leo to awaken … than it will for you to overpower us all?"
Slowly, the quartet of maids closed in around her and Reiji, circling them and blocking all avenues of escape. If they carried Duel Disks, they made no move to take them out. Each one, however, wore the same smirk he'd seen on Louise's face for the briefest moment—one of excitement, of primal satisfaction … of bloodlust.
Reiji pursed his lips. So this is how it's going to be, is it? "I suppose I have no choice but to find out," he sighed, hefting his blade. The stakes were high, and the clock was ticking—to a time and tempo he could only guess.
A more reckless part of him knew he wouldn't have it any other way.
He took a long, deep breath—and exhaled. "Duel."
"Of course Kagemaru wouldn't send just one Duel Hunter," breathed Leo. "It wasn't just my wife and daughter—but my son as well."
He bit his lip. "Kappa-level infiltration units … unparalleled masters of disguise and deceit, even among the Duel Hunters. Gōdagawa Ryōzan would never have suspected a thing … certainly not in his own school … "
Dr. Grimm sniffed disdainfully. "That simpleton of a headmaster never truly understood how thoroughly we played him. To think he had the audacity to try and bring us to heel?" She shook her head. "Look where it got him now."
"He was nothing but a fall guy to you," seethed the former head of Academia through clenched teeth. "And all the while, as everyone oohs and ahs and gets in a tizzy about his shiny, brand-new Duel School, you and Markus make use of the kappa-levels already concealed within their membership, and sneak them into the mansion staff's rotation lists. New maids come and go frequently enough that no one asks questions. Hardly anyone recognizes anyone anymore. And to think"—he slumped where he stood—"that it was all done in the name of security … "
He looked up. "How long have they been under my nose, Wendy? I can only assume for long enough for them to get a good sense of the floor plan?"
His erstwhile student laughed. "Hardly. Just long enough for me to get a good sense of it. The head housemaid oversees the hiring process, as well as scheduling her subordinates. Installing Agent 552 in that position was easy enough. Once Markus activated her as his final sleeper, she altered the schedule to allow her subordinates access. All the while, I psychically tapped into them while they made their rounds—and then, while they slept, I combined their dreams and memories into the perfect floor plan for them to share. Our efforts have ensured that everyone involved knows who's where, what's where, and why it's there. Reiji and Louise will not be interrupted for quite some time, I can assure you that.
The Psychic Duelist smirked, and her eyes shone violet and green. "Her loyalty to our cause has already proved far more binding than so many sheets of paper. She and all those who serve her will be rewarded for their service."
"Enemy terrain program detected. Recommend extreme caution."
Angel-IQ's advisory was anticipated, but no less annoying. Reiji had heard of those élite Duelists at Academia, who used subroutines in their Duel Disks that allowed them to mimic Field Spells without a physical card—and more to the point, he had learned enough that he had begun to adapt his strategies to account for them as well as any Action Fields. The fact remained, he thought, as he studied his hand, that he'd never had to use those strategies until now.
"Before we begin," Louise smirked, "do you have a preference, Master Reiji?"
He frowned. "Preference?" Something told him she didn't mean whether or not he preferred going first.
The maid giggled. "Why, every little boy has his fantasy," she said gaily, "his favorite pleasure in life … even you. Mm … voulez-vous que je joue la délicate française?" She winked, right before adopting a shy blush and a high-pitched lisp. "Soretomo … asobigokoro no aru Nihon no aidoru ga sukidesu ka?" she pouted, a finger to her lips.
The ease with which the multilingual maid went from one flawless accent to another was frightening. Louise wasn't just changing accents as she moved from one tongue to the next—her voice would gain different timbres, lacing different emotions with every word, as though each language was a wholly new identity that she'd spent months, if not years, crafting to perfection.
"¿Quiere algo con un poco más de picante … para esas cálidas noches españolas?" she inquired huskily, gazing at Reiji through narrowed, glinting eyes. "O qualche grintosa succube italiana, per riscaldare il tuo letto durante quegli inverni alpini?" A smirk flickered over her face. "Glaubst du nicht, ich eine sehr begabte zunge, Meister?"
She licked her lips. Reiji didn't need to know all those languages to guess what her last question might mean.
"I think," he said, already cringing inside at his choice of words, "I would prefer facing whoever you really are."
"As the Master insists." Louise smiled, performed another flourishing curtsy—and then her Duel Disk was at the ready.
That was enough for Reiji. "I begin," he said, placing a single card on his blade, "with the Continuous Spell: Contract with the Hellgate, which allows me to add a DD monster from my Deck to my hand once every turn; but during each Standby Phase, I must first take 1000 damage. I will add"—a single card was ejected from his Deck—"and Normal Summon"—he swiped it up and onto his blade—"my DD Magical Savant Kepler." And in less time than he'd taken to act, the monolithic figure of Kepler (Level 1: ATK 0/DEF 0) had shimmered onto the field.
"When Kepler is Normal Summoned," Reiji went on, "I may activate its effect, and add a Contract card from my Deck to my hand. I add"—again he snatched up a card, and slid it across the blade—"and activate the Continuous Spell: Contract with the Devil King. Once each turn, I may use this to Fusion Summon a Fiend-Type Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck, by using monsters from my hand or field as the materials—but as with my Hellgate, I must again take 1000 damage during my Standby Phase. I will fuse my Kepler with the DD Lilith in my hand."
No sooner had he plucked the latter card out from his hand than Reiji felt a hot wind billow at his back. Candles shivered in their sconces, and the chandelier above swayed where it hung, but the noise was drowned out in short order by his sonorous chanting, magnified tenfold by the acoustics of the ballroom-turned-battlefield:
"Vamp of the dark night! The planets have aligned in a whirlpool of light, to give birth to a new king!"
"Fusion Summon!" Reiji announced. "Be born! DDD Flame King Temujin!"
Heavy, plodding footfalls shook the floor. Reiji felt the heat given off by his freshly Summoned monster before he saw it. Well over twenty feet tall, burning with anger, the rhino-like demon stepped over Reiji as if he wasn't even there, clutching a heavy sword and shield in its claws that each looked like they could split the mansion in half (Level 6: ATK 2000/DEF 1500).
"A third Continuous Spell: Contract with the Dark Demon World!" Reiji—not one to dawdle, even in the splendor of his own monsters—placed another card on his Duel Disk. "As with its brethren, I must suffer another 1000 damage during my Standby Phase—but once every turn, its effect allows me to place a DD Pendulum Monster from my Graveyard or my Extra Deck in my Pendulum Zone—such as my Scale 10 Magical Savant Kepler!"
From his Extra Deck, he plucked a single face-up card; Kepler—who had been sent there when Reiji had used it as a Fusion Material for Temujin—now reappeared to Reiji's left, somehow even more imposing than when it had been a monster. The last two cards in his hand—one of which he knew would pay off in spades next turn—were Set to his field just as swiftly.
His turn complete, Reiji stared Louise in the eye, and made a small gesture of by your leave. But the housemaid seemed in no rush to make her move; she drew her card, studied it intently, and smiled—all in roughly ten seconds.
"One Fusion Monster for another, then," she said daintily. "As it should be. I activate the Spell Card: Dragonmaid Changeover!" She slid three different cards across her Duel Disk and into the device. "With this card, I can Fusion Summon a Dragon-Type Fusion Monster, using monsters from my hand or field as the materials. I therefore fuse the Dragonmaid Laudry and Dragonmaid Tillroo in my hand!"
Several things happened then: the two maids directly behind Louise—they of the loose blouse and the long apron—took a knee and clasped their hands as if praying before an altar. Then, a wind much like the one that had heralded the arrival of Reiji's Temujin whipped through the great hall—although these gusts were cooler to the touch. And rather than blow from behind as with his monster, they instead swirled around Louise, whipping every strand of her black hair about:
"Maidens of the flowing river and the searing flame! Shed your earthly forms and soar into battle!"
But something else was happening to Louise—something more unexpected and unnerving than most sights Reiji had seen in a Duel, and that included his fight against Z-ARC. She was transforming—physically, and quite noticeably, too. It started off subtly at first: a sudden tightness in the jaw, then the pupils of her pale eyes slimming into catlike slits. But the longer he looked, the more she changed: parts of her fluttering hair froze in place, twisting and hardening into frills of scales and curved horns—her gloves bulged at the seams as ridges of bone burst from beneath—
"Fusion Summon!" Louise growled. "Behold your mistress—Dragonmaid Hauskee!"
"Growled" was the only word to describe the sudden shift in her voice; though something of the innocent-looking housemaid remained in her speech, Louise's pleasant tone had morphed along with the rest of her. Her lips—lined with fangs that definitely hadn't been there a second ago—were bared in a feral smirk, and translucent membranes blinked vertically across her now-reptilian eyes.
As if her metamorphosis had taken place in polite company, Louise curtsied to Reiji—and in doing so revealed the final touches of her sudden change: reddish-black wings that rested along her hips, a heavy, sinuous tail from under her dress, sweeping lizard-like against the floor—and, most unbelievably of all, a point gauge directly above her horns: (Level 9: ATK 3000/DEF 2000).
Reiji was experienced enough to not let it show, but he was stunned. Only once in his life had he seen or heard of any Duelist using this style of Dueling before. Louise Schmidt had done more than just Summon a Fusion Monster.
She'd become one.
When the dream had shifted, Leo was not sure. One moment, he and Dr. Grimm had been outside in the courtyard of Château Pique-Diamant, and he'd listened to her reminisce about days gone by … right before learning of a plot so insidious that even now, he could scarcely believe it was unfolding with cold efficiency—and colder finality.
Now, the erstwhile pair of student and teacher had returned to Leo's study. It was dark but for the moonlight that streamed in from the window, and he stood in that slice of light, unmoving, as it shone upon the center of the room. He felt distinctly small against the bookshelves on either side of him; they rose to such mountainous heights that the darkness above him seemed to swallow them in a gulp.
Dr. Grimm, meanwhile, was sitting in Leo's chair, daintily stirring the contents of her teacup with a spoon. Where precisely she'd procured either of them would have been a mystery to anyone else, in any other setting—but not to Leo, who knew the ins and outs of the Psychic Duelist's powers better than anyone.
"Have you ever stopped and just marveled at the technology that made our Kingdom—our Dimension—so powerful that you felt next to unstoppable?" she asked him. "I can only imagine what it must have felt like for you, Leo. To control an entire army of soldiers—each and every one of them possessed of tools that let them command an army unto themselves. Digitizing the human body into a card that kept their physical form intact. It all seems so … so science fiction. And yet you were instrumental in helping Academia make that fiction a reality."
A smile flickered over her face. "Imagine what someone of your genius could do with the resources of the Ædonai. The Duel Hunters of Misgarth—all their chis and kappas and who knows how many more Greek letters besides," she sighed. "The ability to strike out at your foes from any location on the planet. The strengths of your own Duel Monsters—not as servants, but as extensions of your very self. Is that not Duel Monsters at its finest?"
Leo shook his head. "A simple wooden table can sometimes do what a Duel Disk can't," he muttered. "Technology doesn't make a game. Only the game itself can make a game."
"And what of remaking it?" Dr. Grimm pressed on, sipping at her tea. "What of exploring the game and every bit of potential it holds? Were you not once possessed of such a visionary mind yourself?"
He did not want to admit it, but he knew she was right … to an extent. "If I allowed myself to get bogged down at every turn by details and dreams," said Leo, "I would never have had time for the Arc Area Project. Being a leader means setting goals for you and those around you, Wendy—and more importantly, it means sticking to them. So I left the imagination to less results-oriented minds—minds that wouldn't be so bogged down by the weight of their own brains. Minds like your own," he added.
His former student betrayed a tiny smile at the compliment, wiping at an oily black tear that trickled down her eye. "There's nothing wrong with taking a different look at the world around you, Leo. Daring to make the world what you want it to be isn't always the same thing as daring to see that world for what it could be."
Leo grimaced. "Yes, well … I suppose you and I saw a different world back then," he muttered. "I think I had good reason, though I can't speak for you. But I know what other people want to see this world become. And it isn't just Kagemaru, either. The Duel Hunters he's ordering about like so many packs of hound dogs belong to a past that has no future—and if I may be blunt, it should never have had a present. The world he wants scares the hell out of me. Snipers and changelings, masters of deceit and infiltration … Duel Monsters has no need for such people."
"But they still have need of it," Dr. Grimm replied. The smile on her face had vanished, replaced by something that might have been the result of a kick in the gut. "Just as I once had need of you."
"And just as Kagemaru and his Duel Hunters have need of me now, it would seem," Leo snorted.
The Psychic Duelist did not answer.
For a moment, Reiji had quite forgotten his strategy. Every iota of his attention was focused on the impossible Duelist-and-Duel-Monster that was standing where Louise Schmidt had been only seconds ago.
"That's new." The two words sounded a woefully inadequate thing for him to say, but Reiji—though he could still be shocked like any ordinary human—did not stay shocked for long; already he was beginning to regain his typical analytical composure.
"It would seem there's more holograms at play than for a mere Action Field." He allowed his eyes to rove up and down Louise's figure, taking in the shimmers from flesh and fabric alike. "I assume the technology behind this was derived from J.D. Crowley's work. A 'Solid Vision nanotech interface', I believe was his description?"
"Prototype technology," said Louise, inspecting her clawed fingers, "that he brought from Academia. On a mass-produced level, it would allow our soldiers more flexibility in their methods while carrying out the Arc Area Project to fruition. Agent 322 took the concept to its furthest possible extent by integrating the interface into his own body. However, we do not aspire to possess his level of … ambition. What we have to hand suits our needs just fine."
Reiji saw how Louise's clothes gleamed and sparkled, and suspected the interface had been woven into the fabric. Not quite so ergonomic as Crowley's design had been, but substantially easier to remove from her person. Much safer on top of that, he thought, recalling the grisly fate of the man whose—admittedly—bold plan to subjugate the Standard Dimension almost singlehandedly had been ultimately foiled by the LID.
Such an interface, he guessed, would allow for certain Duel Monsters to be generated by using the Duelist's own body as a template. It would be less labor-intensive on the part of the technology, which in turn would allow it to operate for longer periods of time without overheating or shorting out. He wondered how much Summoning energy such a streamlined procedure could produce—a Fusion Monster like Hauskee might stick out like a sore thumb to the scanners at LDS if it had been Summoned any other way, and thus risked Louise's plan being blown out of the water before it even started. This technology, therefore, might be much more essential to her than a mere gimmick.
Mater artium necessitas, he thought, remembering a phrase his mother had said once. Necessity breeds creativity. He bit back a curse; it seemed the intent of this satellite-based Solid Vision—and perhaps even its source—had finally been explained. Markus Streiter, even sealed into a card, had created a truly dangerous foe in the Ædonai—one who could strike from anywhere, any time, and in ways that defied all expectation and preparation.
But Reiji knew how to be creative himself, when necessity demanded he should. And so he returned to the Duel, making his move in no time flat. "Continuous Trap: Contract with the Valkyrie!" he cried, revealing one of the cards he'd Set last turn. "During my opponent's turn, all Fiend-Type monsters I control gain 1000 ATK!"
"And during your Standby Phase, you take 1000 damage in return." Louise giggled coquettishly—a strange sight to see and hear from a half-human, half-dragon hybrid Duel Monster—as above them, Temujin growled and flexed its bulk as its ATK rose to 3000, ready to take on Louise point for point. "Really, Master Reiji, there's no need to impress me. Plenty of people would move earth and sky to rescue the flesh and blood that gave them life. But are you truly willing to die to save your father?
"Or … " Her eyes flicked downward, sweeping across Reiji's field. " … Could you possibly have something else in mind? A small little thing, barely even a token … but designed specifically to save your own skin when the going gets tough? Perhaps … a card. No … "—her eyes had zeroed in on a spot of the floor—" … a Trap Card."
She smirked, perhaps sensing the look on his face. " … Lease Laundering. Isn't that what you called it?"
Reiji said nothing. Apparently that was enough for Louise, as she proceeded to titter again. "Don't act so upset, Master Reiji. All I did was what every good girl does in school—her homework. You were my assignment … and your DD monsters and their Contracts my final exam. I've memorized them inside and out—and you along with them. Certainly well enough to know that you wouldn't play any cards that forced you to take 4000 total damage without first having an escape clause. That might have worked when you faced Sakaki Yūya—but not with me."
She plunged a second card onto her Duel Disk. "I now activate the Spell Card: Dragonmaid Hospitality! With this card, I can Special Summon a Dragonmaid monster from my hand or my Graveyard in Defense Position, but I must also send a Dragonmaid monster of the same Attribute, but a different Level, from my Deck to the Graveyard! I choose to revive my Dragonmaid Tillroo!"
As if following some prearranged signal, the redhead with the long apron rose to her feet, and made her way towards Louise with a sway in her step. Moments later, Reiji suppressed a swallow as he watched the maid begin a transformation of her own: the pupils of her green eyes slimmed into needle-thin shards, while her fingers—their nails already elongating into sharpened claws—brushed aside the hair hanging over her temples, revealing spiky, aquamarine horns. Bladed gauntlets lined her forearms, crossed at her breast; scarlet wings stretched to their fullest before furling themselves tightly around her ribs, like a living corset—and a blood-red tail snaked out from underneath her dress and against the floor, its scales rustling against the cool marble.
By the time the maid reached Louise's side, her transformation into Tillroo was complete. A second Duel Monster now stared at Reiji—and from the last place he could have expected one to emerge (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 1700).
They must all have interfaces in their clothes as well, he thought, taking a long look at the other maids in the room. I wonder if Louise is using hers to control the others—otherwise this Duel would have been a Battle Royale from the moment we'd started. He was privately glad it wasn't.
"Dragonmaid Changeover's second effect," Louise smirked, in what must pass for Hauskee's 'voice'. "While it is in my Graveyard, I can target 1 Dragonmaid monster I control, and return both it and my Changeover to my hand. I return and then Normal Summon my Tillroo"—as Louise added the Spell back to her hand, the draconic appearance of the maid beside her shimmered briefly, before reforming just as quickly (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 1700)—"which, in turn, activates my Tillroo's effect: if she should ever be Normal or Special Summoned, I can add 1 Dragonmaid monster from my Deck to my hand, and send another Dragonmaid monster from my hand to the Graveyard." And without further ado, the costumed maid swiped a single card from her Duel Disk, inspected it with a small, knowing smile—and slid it inside a different slot of her device without comment.
She tittered. "It is so very tempting to attack you right now, Master Reiji," the costumed maid said breathlessly—as if this Duel was nothing more than a fun diversion from her typical menial duties. "But even if I wanted to defeat your Temujin myself, I cannot defeat you this turn—as I already mentioned, I have memorized your cards, and all the strategies that involve them. If your last Set card is not Lease Laundering, then you are not the Akaba Reiji I hoped you were. Brave you may be for intending to end this Duel so quickly without it, but you would be foolish for attempting to end it on your terms. Let alone," she added, smirking, "in such a self-destructive fashion."
My terms. Reiji frowned. "So that is your strategy?" he mused. "You have no intent of winning or losing against me—only to prolong this Duel to the extent that I cannot interfere with Gwendolyn Grimm's plans for my father."
He smiled, and crossed his arms. "You sell your bravery short, Miss Schmidt—and I'm sorry to say that makes you more foolish for it. Or did you think I'd be stupid enough to come to this place alone, without anyone to … "
His words slowed to a halt. "To help me … " he muttered, grimacing as the implications of what he'd said sank in.
He wasn't alone. But Nakajima was.
Outside, the aide was growing impatient. Already he'd opened the glove compartment, and secured a sidearm to his person. But every moment Nakajima waited out here took him further and further from the "soon" that his charge had promised. And his JSDF training was practically screaming in his ear that something was wrong—that Reiji might somehow be in danger. Nevertheless, Nakajima had been employed with LDS long enough to know that Reiji, as with just about anyone in his family, was capable of handling themselves—
BAM.
The car shook—not gently—and he jumped in his seat, startled. It sounded as though something big had fallen onto the roof. Frowning, he looked up, and saw to his shock that it had caved in a full six inches—
He saw the curved talons carving right through it right as the shriek of tortured metal filled his ears.
"The h—?!"
Nakajima got no further; the claws sank a few inches further into the custom-fit synthetic laminate of the roof—ten times stronger than ballistic steel—and peeled it back like it was nothing more substantial than a sardine tin.
Reiji's aide had time only to see the slice of night sky above him before something black, scaly, and more muscular than any human arm slithered under the ravaged roof of the car and around his neck, hauling him bodily out of his seat and into the air.
"Ya znal, chto kto-to ostanetsya pozadi … " whispered a woman's sultry hiss, so close he could feel the hot breath against his neck. He caught a glimpse of moon-pale hair. "Mm … teper' poigrayem, bol'shoy mal'chik … "
Reiji bit back a curse. He should never have left Nakajima by himself—that had been uncharacteristically careless of him. But even as he berated himself for his mistake, he had tried to look back with the benefit of hindsight—and even then could not have seen how his aide would have been any safer inside the mansion itself, even by his side.
"The good doctor thinks far too highly of Master Leo to allow anyone to interrupt their discussion," Louise told him. "That goes for you and those you include in your entourage, Master Reiji. As it was a near certainty that you would not come here alone, we deemed it prudent to station one of us outside, to deter anyone else from entering or leaving the mansion. No one comes in, no one comes out—not until the all-clear is given."
She stretched the arm that bore her Duel Disk, flexing her clawed fingers in admiration of the technology that made their existence possible. "I am sorry to have to tell you this, Master Reiji," she said, "but you fight a losing battle by fighting us at all. Even if you manage to overpower me, are you quite certain that you can fight Dr. Grimm and save your precious father?" She giggled again. "Because I'm not quite that confident you can do either."
She crossed her arms. "Turn end. Now"—she hissed, licking her lips (was that a forked tongue behind her teeth? Reiji wondered; Solid Vision truly was an instrument of limitless possibility)—"show me if you are truly Akaba Reiji. Show me," she smirked, showing every fang in her mouth, "whether you are a fool … or a coward."
The insult stung, but Reiji knew he was neither. Nor did he care about proving anyone right or wrong tonight. All that was on his mind was a single, overriding thought: get to Father.
"My turn, then," he said, drawing a card. He had just enough time to watch all four of his Contract cards begin to spark with energy—and for Temujin's ATK to drop to 2000 as Valkyrie's effect expired—before he acted.
"Trap, activate: Lease Laundering!" he cried. He ignored Louise's triumphant look. "By activating this card, I can destroy as many of my Contract cards as possible—and for each one, I draw a card and gain 1000 Life Points!" A shower of photons—then another, and a third and fourth just as quickly—exploded in quick succession directly in front of him as he slid all of his Contracts into his Graveyard slot. But he cared not for their loss—the four cards he had drawn were already far more of a payoff than his LP—now sitting pretty at 8000—would ever be this Duel.
"During my Standby Phase, the Pendulum effect of Kepler activates," said Reiji, "and reduces its Pendulum Scale by 2." A shower of sparks flared from Kepler just then; when they faded, the brief sign of a numeral eight was just visible from where Reiji stood—
"Dragonmaid Hauskee's effect," Louise cut in. "During the Standby Phase—either mine or my opponent's—I can target another Dragonmaid monster I control, and Special Summon 1 Dragonmaid monster from my hand or Graveyard in Defense Position, whose Level is 1 higher or lower than that target. I target my Tillroo," she crowed, pointing somewhere behind him—"and revive my Dragonmaid Parla!"
Reiji spun around to face the maid in question as she stepped forward. Even then she was already transforming: her straw-colored hair was turning a spring green, and she was twisting her twin-tails into rough buns and clipping them in place, presumably to give her neck more freedom to move. As her hands worked, they too began to grow claws, while green and gold leaf-like spines grew from her forearms and temples. Parla's white apron rustled and stirred as two green wings unfolded from its ruffles, and a final flourishing twirl—complete with a not-at-all-subtle wink in Reiji's direction—revealed her own scaly, spade-tipped tail as she flanked Louise (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 1700).
"Parla's effect activates when she is Normal or Special Summoned, and allows me to send a Dragonmaid card from my Deck to the Graveyard," said Louise, doing just that. "Then, by discarding my Dragonmaid Erde"—she plucked a card from her hand, slipping it into her Graveyard—"I can activate its effect during any Phase of any player's turn, and Special Summon a Level 4 or lower Dragonmaid monster from my hand. I Summon Dragonmaid Nusery!"
Reiji suppressed a swallow as he watched Reira's erstwhile nursemaid undergo her own transfiguration. Splashes of pastel pink shimmered over her skirt and hair as she adjusted her bonnet, perhaps to make room for the spiked horns that had just begun to curl over her head. More bony spines erupted from beneath her gloves as a pair of pink wings fanned out from her back, and the tail that completed Nusery's own transformation now curled catlike behind her as she struck a pose, giggling at Reiji (Level 2: ATK 500/DEF 1600).
"Nusery's effect activates when she's Normal or Special Summoned," Louise went on, "and allows me to target and Special Summon a Level 4 or lower Dragonmaid monster from my Graveyard!" She gestured towards the one maid in the ballroom that had yet to transform. "And so I'll revive my Dragonmaid Laudry!"
And sure enough, the maid in question scurried forward as Nusery beckoned in her direction, skipping in delight and nearly tripping over the hem of her blouse along the way. The pupils of her amber eyes took on a reptilian look as she reached into her hair—turning sky blue even as Reiji looked on—before revealing a stubby pair of antlers, like those of a deer, framed by vulpine ears. She crossed her gloved arms at the breast, and he saw teal claws growing along the knuckles—before her blouse finally billowed outwards, revealing no wings, but a furry blue tail that swept from side to side like a larger version of Louise's feather duster (Level 2: ATK 500/DEF 1600).
Reiji might have found the display irritatingly cute if he wasn't Dueling for his life—let alone his father's. Tonight, it was simply irritating—if, he conceded, visually and technically spectacular.
"Finally, my Dragonmaid Laudry's effect," continued Louise. "If she is Normal or Special Summoned, I can send the top three cards of my Deck to the Graveyard." She did so, smiling pleasantly all the while. It was a smile whose mere presence was starting to tire Reiji; though his mind still dwelled on his father, the prospect of wiping the smirk off this faux housemaid's face was becoming more and more of a driving force to make him win this Duel.
And Lease Laundering—whether Louise had anticipated it or not—had given him the tools to help him do just that.
"I Summon the Tuner monster DD Night Howling," Reiji said, watching a pair of scarlet, oversized jaws shimmer onto the field, snapping its gleaming fangs like a mantrap (Level 3: ATK 300/DEF 600), "and then activate its effect: if it was Normal Summoned, I can target and Special Summon another DD monster from my Graveyard, with its ATK and DEF set to zero. I therefore revive my DD Lilith!" A burst of shadow exploded in front of him, expelling a slender, pink-and-green figure that slithered onto the field an instant later. Its sinuous, twisting form somehow seemed to bridge the gap between humanoid, snake, and plant (Level 4: ATK 100 » 0/DEF 2100 » 0).
"Next, I place my Scale 1 DD Magical Savant Galilei in my remaining Pendulum Zone," said Reiji, as a second mountainous figure rose into the air next to Kepler, equal parts weathered rock and metal innards, with a giant lens where its chest ought to be. "This means I can now Pendulum Summon as many monsters as I wish, so long as their Levels range from 2 to 7!"
The statues of Kepler and Galilei clicked and hummed to life, now—their red eyes flashed in tandem, and arcs of lightning crackled between them. Reiji's sonorous voice, however, drowned them out only seconds later:
"Grand power that shakes my very soul, arise within me and become a new light that rends the darkness!"
"Pendulum Summon!" he cried, holding a single card aloft. "Come before me, DD Baphomet!"
Overly dramatic he might sound, to use such a revolutionary Summoning method to call forth only one monster, but Reiji knew that there was still so much more he could do this turn. And so he watched Baphomet materialize on the field in satisfaction: a three-armed and -winged chimera of fur, flesh, and metal (Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 1800).
"Next, I Tune my Level 3 Night Howling with my Level 4 Lilith!" he said, and a second later, his two monsters in question were next to rise towards the ceiling. Night Howling opened its jaws in a silent cry, and disintegrated into a trio of green rings that enveloped Lilith's snakelike form in moments:
"Howls that tear through the night. Gain the swiftness of a gale and become the cries of a newborn king!"
"Synchro Summon!" shouted Reiji. "Be born! Level 7! DDD Gust King Alexander!"
A veritable hurricane blasted through the ballroom. Somehow, the sheer force of the wind did not dislodge the great chandelier that dominated the room—though it still swung perilously in the air. Perhaps, just as it was Solid Vision pervading the Action Field that made this wind possible, it was the same Solid Vision that kept this space intact from the monsters that populated it.
The source of that wind now strode up alongside Temujin, taller only by virtue of the bladed crest that dominated its gleaming silver armor (Level 7: ATK 2500/DEF 2000). The miniature tornado Alexander's Summon had generated continued to billow its green cape—or was it the sword it held instead, that created and controlled this mighty gale?
"Temujin's effect!" Reiji threw out a hand. "If another DD monster is Special Summoned to my field, I can target and Special Summon 1 DD monster from my Graveyard! Be reborn, my DD Lilith!" And the serpentine monster slithered back onto the field as if it had never left it at all (Level 4: ATK 100/DEF 2100). "Then, my Alexander's effect—if another DD monster is Normal or Special Summoned to my field, I may likewise target and Special Summon 1 DD monster from my Graveyard! Be reborn, my DD Night Howling!" Mere seconds and a flash of light later, the scarlet, slavering jaws of his monster unhinged at a frightening angle (Level 3: ATK 300/DEF 600).
"Now for my DD Baphomet's effect!" Reiji went on. "Once per turn, by declaring a Level from 1 to 8, I can target another DD monster I control and make its Level into that Level! I therefore make my DD Night Howling Level 6!"
This part of his strategy was not necessary integral to its success, he thought, but Night Howling—now growling ominously as if to acknowledge its higher standing—was only one of a few Tuner monsters he had in his Deck. If he could take out enough of Louise's field this turn, the chances of that Tuner being used to bring out a more powerful Synchro Monster were that much more likely.
But first he had to make sure that his field was well protected. To that end … "And now," said Reiji, "I use my Level 4 Baphomet and my Lilith … to construct the Overlay Network!" Violet energy coalesced over his two monsters, rapidly brightening and shrinking in size until they resembled miniature stars in the multicolored galaxy that had erupted from out of nowhere, between Temujin and Alexander:
"In order to subjugate all that resides in this world, now, descend onto the peak of the world!"
"Xyz Summon!" Reiji bellowed. "Be born! Rank 4! DDD Wave King Caesar!"
The sword was the first part of the monster to show itself: razor-keen, impossibly tall and wide, it came dangerously close to gouging the ornate ceiling of the ballroom. Then the rest of Caesar stepped out from the stellar mass that had given it birth; surging blue energy radiated like heat from its thick plate armor, and though it was shorter than its brethren by a few feet, Caesar was far more broad and muscular in stature (Rank 4: ATK 2400/DEF 1200; ORU 2).
Reiji surveyed his field with immense satisfaction. It was too bad that Louise had memorized his Deck inside and out; he would have enjoyed seeing her reaction had she not known he was capable of utilizing all four Summoning methods known to Duel Monsters. She certainly seemed impressed regardless, however; at last, the smile had disappeared from the maid's warped face, and she'd taken a few steps backward as if getting ready to run—or, perhaps, to find an Action Card to turn the tide—
"Battle Phase," he said simply. It was long past time to put an end to this Duel; he had to reach his father yesterday. "Flame King Temujin, attack Dragonmaid Laudry!" And in the din that followed, he tried a little trick—one that would ensure that no further trickery from Louise would stop his monsters from seizing victory tonight. As Temujin rushed to meet Laudry, Alexander sallied forth to battle Nusery, and Caesar—minus one of the two blue lights that constantly orbited its spiked armor—made a beeline for Tillroo, a mere speck of a Duel Monster in comparison—
BOOM. The triple attack reverberated throughout the ballroom, and for a moment all that could be seen of the battle was a great cloud of dust. Reiji steeled himself right as the shockwave hit, and held the crook of his elbow to his face so as to protect his eyes and mouth—
But something was wrong. He felt it in his bones—his monsters should have returned to his side by now, their battles waged and won! Why were they still—?
Then the dust cleared—and for the second time tonight, Akaba Reiji was stunned against his will.
Tillroo, Nusery, and Laudry hadn't merely survived their battle with his Kings—they were blocking their blades without any sign of exertion whatsoever. All three of their faces were twisted in smirks, slowly but surely lifting the weapons that bore down upon them back towards the monsters that wielded them. But how was that possible? Reiji wondered—all of the Dragonmaids only had 500 ATK, and had all been Summoned in Attack Position to boot save for Parla, which was why he had not even bothered to attack her. Yet Louise hadn't even taken battle damage from the attacks—damage that would surely have defeated her—so even effects that would have made the Dragonmaids indestructible by battle couldn't explain this unexpected turn of events.
What was going on?!
Louise brushed a bit of dust off her otherwise immaculate dress. "I was hoping you'd be the first one to attack, Master Reiji," she said softly, smiling wider and wider with every word she spoke. "It means I get to show you what my girls and I can really do. So … let's begin."
Her tail rippled. "Let me show you"—she licked her lips again—"what we wished to bring to Kōrōmu Academy."
The aide had hit the gravel of the driveway face first, when his assailant had dropped him there so unceremoniously. Nakajima's JSDF training got him to his feet just as quickly—but the shock of the surprise ambush still reverberated through his body. He wavered where he stood, trying to right the proverbial ship as he rose to defend himself.
A quick shake of his head dispelled the blood and bleariness from his vision, and he saw his attacker in full for the first time: a young lady of twenty—give or take—with waist-length pale hair and eyes to match that lent an ethereal look to her in the night sky. The coal-black maid's dress she wore fell to her ankles, and its long sleeves had been smoothed out all the way to her wrists—one of which, Nakajima was quick to see, bore a black arrowhead of a Duel Disk that spat an iridescent blade along her left forearm.
This she raised to her breast in a sort of salute—and that was the only tell she betrayed. One moment after that, she was a blur, moving straight for the aide at the speed of night—
Nakajima didn't stop to think. He raised the device he'd clamped to his wrist after Reiji had stepped inside Château Pique-Diamant—identical to a Duel Disk in all but function—aimed … and made a fist.
BANG.
The report from the single gunshot shattered the night—just as the bullet fired from his cleverly concealed gun had shattered the Duel Disk on the woman's arm. She yelped—more out of shock than from the pain, for the bullet had done nothing to her body. But the shrapnel of her Duel Disk still lashed her across the face, causing her to stumble and skid to a halt, only meters before the blade would have found its mark in Nakajima's heart, and likely sealed him into a card. Flecks of destroyed cards fluttered silently to the ground in a strange imitation of falling snow.
The aide now took aim with his MP5K-PDW, leveling the stub of a barrel at the woman's head. "Don't make me do this," he hissed through his teeth, willing himself to keep calm. "Put your hands on your head, and lead me inside." Then, as an afterthought, "No sudden moves. I won't miss next time."
Slowly—almost painfully so—the young woman raised her hands. Only then did Nakajima see the other, smaller device on her right wrist, glowing with the image of a Duel Monsters card he didn't recognize.
But the instant of distraction had already cost him. The girl barely moved—Nakajima only saw a rush of shadow billow out from beneath her dress, lashing for the arm that bore his gun—
CRACK. Nakajima's weapon fell onto the gravel; smashed into a sparking, ruined hunk of junk from the force of the blow the girl's black tail had delivered—for this was the source of the shadow Nakajima had seen in the corner of his eye … and no doubt the thing that had seized him with such strength barely a minute ago.
And the maid did not cease to surprise him there. As he looked on in undisguised shock, the whites of her eyes had changed into pools of uniform white-gold, with snakelike slits in their midst that were so black as to feel like slivers of the void. The bonnet that framed her pale hair had given way to a pair of gleaming black horns that curved over her temples—and from her apron sprouted two bladelike wings, their feathers glowing with the light of the moon as their tips brushed gracefully against the driveway.
Something went slack in Nakajima's body. "You have got to be kidding," he heard himself say from far away. Had that device somehow turned this girl into a Duel Monster—without her even needing to Duel in the first place?
The maid giggled. "Davay, krasavchik," she whispered huskily. "Khochesh' prokatit'sya so mnoy?"
Even if Nakajima knew a lick of Russian, his brain would not have had time to translate the question. A malicious glint had crept into her pale eyes as she spread her claw-tipped hands—and without further ado, she was upon him—
It happened in a heartbeat. One moment, the three Dragonmaids grappling with Reiji's Kings had shifted positions, spreading their limbs and hunkering down, as if the weight of the blades they held at bay had won out at last.
Then, Reiji felt the breath catch in his throat as the maids began to transform even further. Fangs were sprouting in their mouths, sharp as needles and almost as long; scales erupted by the dozen over elongating faces and bodies; and claws, horns, and tails all grew in size and mass. Within seconds they were almost unrecognizable.
"The Dragonmaids on my field—save for myself," Louise explained, gesturing to each one in turn, "each possess a second effect: at the moment a player enters the Battle Phase, I may return each one to the hand, and Special Summon a Dragonmaid monster from my hand or Graveyard in its place, whose Level exceeds it by 5! From my Graveyard, I therefore Special Summon! Dragonmaid Erde!"
Nusery—by now a pink-white mass whose tail made her twice as long as she was tall—had dropped to all fours to compensate for her sudden change in height; the rest of the maids followed suit in short order. The wings adorning Reira's former nursemaid flapped once, and she threw back her head in a yowling, leonine snarl that had no right to come from an otherwise harmless-looking dragon (Level 7: ATK 2600/DEF 1600)—
"Dragonmaid Fluß!"—blue-white fur smothered Laudry completely; a splash of teal adorning her brow was all that remained of her original form beneath the beast she had become (Level 7: ATK 2600/DEF 1600)—"Dragonmaid Flamme!"—crimson wings spread from Tillroo's torso, growing tenfold in size along with her as blood-red scales and blue-green spines engulfed her body (Level 8: ATK 2700/DEF 1700)—"and Dragonmaid Luft!"—while Parla's horns and hair lengthened into a glistening green mane. Her dress and apron suddenly burst aplomb with white and black feathers, ruffling in the gusts her great wings created every time they moved (Level 8: ATK 2700/DEF 1700).
All four maids, now fully transformed, rose into the air with a single flap of their wings. Within moments, three of them were eye level with the Kings they continued to hold at bay; Luft, meanwhile, was growling at Night Howling as if determined to prove her jaws, and the fangs therein, were bigger. Reiji felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.
"When this Duel started," said Louise, "my Duel Disk automatically began enforcing the Field Spell: Dragonmaid Mansion—the terrain program I presume your Duel Disk warned you about. Per its effect, each time a Dragon-Type monster is Special Summoned by a Dragonmaid monster's effect during the Battle Phase, I can forfeit that monster's attack this turn—and inflict 100 damage to you for each Level it possesses in return!"
Reiji arched his eyebrows. Immediately he took note of just how many monsters had been Summoned this way, only barely hearing Louise continue to speak. "Furthermore, the Dragonmaids I Summoned possess effects that prevent them from being destroyed by card effects while I control a Fusion Monster. And thanks to my Dragonmaids' effects"—Louise smiled at Reiji, obviously noticing how he'd suddenly tensed up—"my Dragonmaid Hauskee's second effect now comes into play: whenever a Dragon-Type monster I control returns to the hand, I can target 1 monster my opponent controls—and destroy it!"
She spread her claws, smirking wider than ever. "Ready, girls?"
There was a chorus of feral roars and shrieks from her fellow maids-turned-monsters. "Rip them to shreds!"
They went to it with a will. It happened so fast that Reiji found his eyes hard-pressed to take it all in; one moment, Luft had pounced on Night Howling in a single bound, stamping her paws against its jaws and pressing down to the breaking point. Fluß, Flamme, and Erde had kicked away the blades of Temujin, Caesar, and Alexander, spinning them along the floor until they each hit a different wall with a BOOM … and then darted behind them with alacrity that no ordinary human being could have possessed—not, at least, without Solid Vision.
Then, in unison, the Dragonmaids twisted one final time—their tails wrapped around their targets' legs in a crushing grip—and in a suplex move that would have shamed anyone who called themselves a wrestler, all three of his Kings crashed to the field with a resounding THUD that toppled Reiji just as quickly. He hit the ground spine first, feeling the air driven from his stomach as he gasped in pain. Stars danced in his eyes, so many that he almost missed his LP gauge sliding to 7200—then 6500, and finally stopping at 5800.
By now, Luft had finished off Night Howling—the monster had been torn in half at the jawline, with pieces of both mandibles flung in different directions—and was presently rushing right for Reiji. A single flap of wings sent her airborne. Another flap sent an outthrust paw, and the golden claws that tipped it, right into his defenseless flank, bowling him over and into one of Cross Over's many platforms. Reiji heard something pop at the point of impact, and a sudden pain flared in his chest as his LP dropped further still to 5000.
The pain did not stop, even as he managed to climb to his feet a long moment later. Gingerly, he probed the tender area with a finger; Luft had torn a hole in his shirt when she'd struck him, and her claws had grazed him deeply enough that spots of blood could be seen on the wound. But the nature of the pain was what troubled him most of all. Yes … almost certainly a dislocation, he surmised with a grimace—right ribs eight through ten.
Right … he thought. This could be a problem …
A/N: oh no my inner weeb is beginning to show oh god what have I done AUGH
In all seriousness, I have my VRAINS story, Ø, to thank for this Duel progressing the way it did—if not perhaps the way it will next chapter. I've always nursed a soft spot for monsters that look just enough like people that it wouldn't be farfetched for the Duelist who used them to cosplay or even roleplay as one of their monsters—especially during a Duel. Louise Schmidt—just like my Sky Striker-using Rei character in that other fanfic—pretty much wrote herself in that respect. So did the (dragon)maids that work under her.
But it wouldn't do for me to just cater to the classic "kawaii meido" character trope and leave it at that. I'm a bit fond of its sister trope, the Ninja Maid—for which I blame Roberta and Black Lagoon—and almost from the very moment that the Dragonmaids made their debut, I saw an opportunity to play with them both in this series. Whether I'm playing with them the way they deserve to be … well. There's still the second half of the fight to come. Some of what I wrote in that made me cringe. That's probably not a good sign.
The good news is that it's largely done already—just a bit of fine-tuning and rest, and I'll have it out once I'm satisfied. Until then, rate and review if you so desire, and thanks for reading! – K
(P.S.: You have no idea how tempted I was to title the first draft of this as 'Master Reiji's Dragon Maid'. One more reason not to name my chapters, I suppose. :P )