XXI
"I have a confession to make, Leo."
Dr. Grimm daintily swirled a tea bag around the rim of her cup. "As brutish as the methods of Ryōzanpaku may be, Markus and I knew they would serve our soldiers well in the long run. We know our history, after all." She set the cup and saucer on his desk. "Did you know that the British army believed in all these rules during combat—and that they expected the other side to adhere to those rules as well?"
The Psychic Duelist giggled. "That didn't work out so well for them during the Revolution—it turns out Americans don't like playing by the rules. Markus knew it was only a matter of logic and time before the same thing happened in Duel Monsters. Sooner or later, our Dueling soldiers were going to have a crisis of occupation—were we fighting a war, or were we still playing a game?"
"So you offered to join forces with Ryōzanpaku," Leo frowned. He was starting to feel the pieces fall into place. "They had the audacity to do what other Duelists didn't … or what they wouldn't."
"Dennis' knowledge of the Maiami Championship proved invaluable," the Psychic Duelist nodded. "He was better-placed than Sora to see Kachidoki Isao's fall from grace. So Markus sent him to broker an alliance—with specific orders to appeal to Isao's sense of honor. Because out of all the Duel Schools in Japan, Ryōzanpaku was the one Markus wanted to emulate most. Isao and his classmates may well have been a prototype—but Kōrōmu Academy, and its own Skin Dueling style, would have been version 2.0. Louise and her team would have made sure of that."
Dr. Grimm took another sip of tea. "As kappa-level Duel Hunters, they'd become top of their class in no time at all. Every girl would wish to imitate them, none of them the wiser as to who they truly were. And from this imitation would come a wholly new interpretation of Skin Dueling—a contact sport both physical and psychological."
Her eye flashed, and a sphere of light bloomed between them, resolving into a distorted picture not unlike a fisheye lens. Leo felt his face drain of color when he saw what that picture was displaying.
No father liked to see their own son in pain—and Akaba Reiji, enemies in life though they had once been, was still no exception. Leo saw a dragon-like monster rush him down, knocking him to the ground and cluing him into the Duel even before he'd seen Reiji's Duel Disk was active. Reiji was holding his side, and wincing with every step, and instantly Leo could tell that the hit his son had taken had not been kind to his ribs.
"Those girls," Dr. Grimm smiled fondly as she watched the Duel unfold—though either blind or willfully oblivious to what Leo was thinking—"have been taught to use anything and everything at their disposal as a weapon—both in war and in Duel Monsters. Their wits, their fists … even the allure of their own bodies. By appealing to the ever-prevalent fantasy of subservience in the face of dominance—or vice versa—Miss Schmidt is particularly adept at infiltrating and subverting the upper echelons of any nexus of power she wishes to target."
She took another draught of tea. "I'm sure you agree that as one of Kōrōmu Academy's first alumnae, she's done a spectacular job tonight. Perhaps I should send her to the Sawatari household for her next assignment. A prominent Lancer and the city mayor, and living under the same roof at that? It'd be school sports day to her," she smirked.
Leo was too absorbed in the Duel to pay his former student's words any mind. Nor did he feel his hands tightening into fists until the nails had broken his skin.
You can do this, he could only think, past caring that Dr. Grimm could hear his thoughts. You have to help me …
Château Pique-Diamant
To his credit, Reiji had anticipated the Duel would take this turn sooner or later. He'd anticipated that any student of Kōrōmu Academy—a sister school to the infamous Ryōzanpaku—would borrow the Dueling style that had given that institute its infamy in the first place. He had not, however, counted on Markus' and Gōdagawa's training regimens blending together such that it formed a new class of Duelist: one who could not only use their extreme athleticism to overpower the opponent, but to make use of Solid Vision by way of the technology J.D. Crowley had developed, to enhance it further still—and in so doing, magnify the intensity of the blows the Duelist that used them delivered!
He had seen, with the Maiami Championship and Kachidoki Isao, how—even without the aids of Solid Vision, and with the safety systems inherent to Action Fields—even the hardiest of Duelists like Tōdō Yaiba had required medical attention after the walloping they'd received. With that Solid Vision, and without those safety systems …
Yes, Reiji thought again, feeling his sore ribs; this could be a problem. Fortunately—he glanced at the still-prone forms of his Kings—a solution might still present itself soon enough.
He had, after all, had the foresight to activate Caesar's effect …
Hauskee froze. Possibly Louise had seen it as well; the trio of Kings her cohorts had felled were climbing to their feet, grunting and growling all the while with exertion and rising anger. Night Howling's shattered mandibles were knitting themselves back together; every fang growing back inside its yawning maw …
"I see," the maid nodded slowly. "Wave King Caesar's effect. By simply detaching an Overlay Unit, any allied monsters destroyed this turn are resurrected at the end of the Battle Phase. The only drawback is that each revived monster costs you 1000 Life Points during your next Standby Phase."
Her smirk widened. "If they're still on your field."
Before Reiji could respond: "I activate the effects of my four Dragonmaids! At the end of the Battle Phase, I can return each one to my hand—and Special Summon 1 Dragonmaid monster from my hand in its place whose Level is 5 less than each returned monster's Level! And you know what that means … " she grinned.
Reiji did. He was already looking for any glints of light that betrayed the location of an Action Card—something he needed right now if his body was going to make it much further—
WHACK.
He'd looked too long. Nusery (Level 2: ATK 500/DEF 1600) had no sooner shrunk back from her disguise as Erde and risen to her feet, than she'd sashayed up to him, winked flirtatiously in his face—and lashed him across the jaw with a vicious backhand. If he'd been clenching it under any level of stress, Reiji might have lost half his teeth then and there. As it was, the blow was still hard enough that the monster's claws drew blood as they slashed his cheek, and the lower mandible scraped over his tongue, searing his mouth in pain and making him taste blood. Nusery's simpering giggle burned in his ears all the while as she leapt away.
The force of the blow spun him round like a top, sending his LP gauge to 4800—and Reiji recovered just in time to see a twisting hurricane of scales and fur fill his view. Fluß had just barely transformed into the billowing blouse of Laudry (Level 2: ATK 500/DEF 1600) when her arms had snapped inwards faster than the steel jaws of a bear trap, boxing his ears and dazing him. He was sent sprawling an instant later—stars still dancing in his eyes—by a pair of Mary Jane heels to his abdomen from the shockingly strong girl, driving the air out of his lungs completely.
Reiji, however, had landed with his eyes open, and no sooner had his LP slipped to 4600 than he saw Flamme soar into the air, like a falcon taking flight—and then morph right back into Tillroo (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 1700) as she aimed her legs and spun like a drill, straight down. But this time, he was ready; Reiji twisted left at the last moment, and the monster-maid's hard light-enhanced mass hit nothing but the marble floor. Tillroo, however, went with the momentum, crouching catlike for the briefest of moments before lashing out in a sweeping wheel kick—once, twice, thrice. Leg, tail, and leg aimed true—wham, wham, and WHAM again—and Reiji had no sooner jumped to his feet than he'd crumpled once again, this time from the force of the triple blow that had hobbled him at his ankles.
Amidst all of this, Hauskee was devastation incarnate, fighting all three of his Kings at once. Louise grasped Reiji's Night Howling as though it was an unwilling mace, slamming it against Temujin with such force that both monsters shattered into photonic dust. But even deprived of her weapon, she was proving no more of a slouch than her fellow Dragonmaids: a sweeping kick much like the one Tillroo had employed just moments ago laid Caesar low. Nothing broke his fall save the edge of his blade against his neck. Ignoring the beheaded monster, Louise sprinted right for Alexander, dodging the swinging sword effortlessly and leaping high into the air. Her thighs clasped against the warrior's head, dragging him downward with the sudden top-heavy weight—then further still; Louise had flipped backwards, carrying Alexander with the extra momentum. She landed on her hands—twisted her legs and tail—
SNAP.
Reiji only heard the sound of Alexander's neck breaking before the THUD that followed drowned it out completely. He had no time to see any of it for himself; he'd been hauled to his feet right as it happened, with his arms splayed and his LP at 4300. Laudry had deliberately aimed for his intercostal muscles—making it harder for him to control his breathing. She and Nusery now held him by an arm apiece. Tillroo tugged on one end of his scarf, constricting his throat, and he now heard Parla (Level 3: ATK 500/DEF 1700) walking up from behind after shifting out of her Luft form. She was close enough that Reiji felt her warm breath against his neck as she leaned towards his ear.
"Dō shita no, Reiji-sama?" she purred. "Mm … honmono no on'nanoko to tatakau hōhō o shiranai nodesu ka?"
Reiji tensed, freezing where he stood as he felt her body press against his other shoulder. He heard the maids giggling softly—mockingly—as fingers caressed the back of his neck, traveling down his spine, along his torso—
CRACK. Parla had driven her knuckles into Reiji's already-ailing ribs, and then kicked him back to the floor with a cruel laugh—sending a fresh burst of pain flaring through his side, and his LP back to where they'd started the Duel. More pain erupted from Reiji's left elbow; it felt as though Nusery had pulled hard enough that she'd yanked the joint right out of its socket. Sure enough, the arm carrying his Duel Disk flopped awkwardly at his side; moving it at any point tonight would be torture, even for him.
"Lektion Nummer eins—mädchen kämpfen," Laudry taunted him, arms crossed and grinning widely. "Lektion Nummer zwei—mädchen kämpfen schmutzig."
Reiji understood enough German that he found it tough to argue the point. That point got reinforced moments later, when he tried to climb to his feet—only to feel yet another stab of agony in his hand when Parla's shoe trod on his fingers. The sway in her step as she walked away from him was all he needed to know that she'd meant to do it.
"Está haciendo esto demasiado fácil," sniggered Tillroo as she and the others returned to Louise's side.
Nusery seemed to agree. "J'ai vu des chatons se noyer se battre mieux," she smirked, loud enough for Reiji to hear.
"No broken bones, ladies," Hauskee chided her fellow monster-maids—so casually that this Duel might have been some spur-of-the-moment game at a teen slumber party. She didn't even sound winded from singlehandedly annihilating Reiji's entire field. "Remember your orders—it isn't Master Reiji's body the good doctor wants out of commission. Dislocations only."
The knowledge that they weren't going to completely incapacitate him tonight proved the impetus Reiji needed to finally stand up. It was difficult, but his legs were still in one piece. As for his arm, a simple jerk of his free hand yanked his scarf from around his neck. This he used to make an impromptu sling for his damaged elbow.
Getting to his Duel Disk through that would be awkward, but what mattered was that Reiji could still use it—and he wasted no time in doing just that. "When you destroyed my Temujin and my Caesar, you activated their secondary effects," he said. "Temujin's effect allows me to add a Contract card from my Deck to my hand"—he produced a pair of cards from his Duel Disk with some difficulty—"while Caesar's lets me retrieve one from my Graveyard."
He exchanged this brace of cards with another, sliding them into his Duel Disk. "Two cards face-down. Turn end." Even saying the words felt exhausting to him.
Nakajima, he thought, wincing at every one of his half-dozen injuries, I hope you're having better luck than I am.
The fight unfolding outside the mansion itself was not dissimilar to the Duel unfolding within. As Dr. Grimm had said, wits and fists and bodily allure were the weapons of this particular team of Duel Hunters—and Nakajima was beginning to find this out at his expense.
The dragon-maid opposite him—snow-white of hair and skin, but black of dress and scaly tail—had wasted no time in rushing him down with a roundhouse kick that the aide was only just able to turn aside in time. He was a good head taller, and half as broad again at the shoulder—but this made little difference; the Solid Vision that had changed this girl's appearance also looked to be the source of her increased strength and speed.
She might as well be wearing a suit of armor, Nakajima thought, wincing as he rubbed away the last of the shocks from the blow he'd countered with his elbow. Belatedly, he recalled that this had been the same arm he'd broken when he'd made the mistake of facing the progenitor of this hard-light armor some months ago.
Armor. The word niggled at his brain for a moment longer than he'd thought it would. Was there something to—?
He ducked just in time. The ferocious haymaker that the monster-maid had sent his way would have shattered his glasses otherwise. Nakajima seized his chance before she could recover, and drove a fist into her diaphragm that sent her stumbling backwards. His soldier's sense told him to waste no time, and so he made to seize the maid by the corset of her dress, heave with all his might—and fling her bodily towards the Range Rover—
Two iridescent, bladelike wings fanned out from her dress, slowing her momentum enough for her to actually back-flip off the gravel and soar ten feet into the air. The hybrid of human and Duel Monster somehow even had time to pull off a full twist before she alighted on top of the SUV's torn roof. The suspension didn't even creak.
" … Um." Nakajima felt the curse die in his mouth. He hadn't considered that her costume might be functional.
The maid giggled. "Ooh … obozhayu, kogda oni grubo igrayut." She licked her lips—Nakajima kept himself from shuddering at the snakelike, forked tongue that slithered from one end of her mouth to the other—and fixed the aide with a stare that he hoped with all his might to never, ever see on anyone but his lawfully wedded wife for as long as he lived.
This girl isn't just toying with me, he realized then. She's having the time of her life taking me on.
That just made him more determined to end this fight right now—but the maid, it seemed, had other ideas. She was crouching catlike on the car now … and was Nakajima seeing things, or did she look a little taller?
"Ty tol'ko chto ustroil etot boy," she purred, stretching her arms and rearing to pounce, "namnogo veseleye … "
And before Nakajima could tense his body to counter, she flipped off the car—but behind it, and not towards him, as he'd been expecting. The maid disappeared behind the other side right as he realized he hadn't been seeing things after all—her arms and legs had indeed been elongating, expanding, and darkening with more sleek black scales. In the brief time he'd made sense of it, her wings, tail, and all the rest of her body mass had increased by half.
A cloud slipped over the moon just then—and the sudden change in shadows was what stirred his soldier's sense, and drove Nakajima to act. That was all that saved him from a certain, ignoble death: the instant he'd made to round the car and confront the maid, he heard the dull thud of crumpling metal—and the armored Range Rover was instantly, inexplicably airborne, hurtling towards him as though a huge, invisible foot had kicked it like a football. The split-second decision he'd made meant that the car missed crushing him by mere centimeters, crashing passenger-side first against the gravel and flipping over, before skidding to a stop, upside-down, near the edge of the driveway.
Christ, he thought.
But Nakajima soon forgot all about the car when he saw the figure crouching where it had once been idling. The moon-pale Russian who seemed to think fighting and flirting meant the same thing was gone. In her place was the jet-black dragon her Solid Vision costume had been hinting at from the first punch she'd thrown.
She wasn't as large as he'd been expecting—at best, maybe twice as long from snout to tail as the aide stood tall, with a wingspan to match—but Nakajima had been big and broad even before he'd been military. His tussle with J.D. Crowley had left him in no doubt that all this added hard light on her person was enough to treat armored cars like boxing bags, like he'd just seen—and boxing bags like grocery bags.
Reiji-sama, he had time enough to think before the dragon lunged for him, I hope you're having better luck than I am.
Louise Schmidt giggled loudly. Perhaps seeing the scion of the Akaba family in such a state excited her to no end.
"You should have taken up my earlier request, Master Reiji," she tittered. "You would not believe how many men in power such as yourself would kill for the pleasure I let you taste just now. To give it all up, just for a moment. But no … you just wanted to face me for who I was, and not who you wanted me to be."
"Power … " Reiji arched his brow. He was mildly surprised it didn't hurt to do so. "You … enjoy its reversal?"
The maid bit her lip. "Outside, they're giants," she breathed, "who just love to step on the little man … to crush him under the heels of their Armani shoes. But sometimes, they get an urge to be that little man—to be ground into the dirt and kicked like vermin. And who better to treat them like the little man … than the little man themselves?"
Light glinted off her glasses. "No one ever expects the sweet, dainty, innocent little maid to suddenly grow teeth."
Clicks of Hauskee's fangs echoed from her mouth, and the mouths of the monster-girls that circled around Reiji.
"Ooh … on va tellement s'amuser à te casser," giggled Nusery, snaking her forked tongue over her lips.
"Es ist schade," Laudry piped up with a wink, "dass wir nicht die ganze Nacht haben, mit dir zu spielen."
Parla purred throatily, gazing at Reiji through half-lidded cat's eyes. "Shikashi, kore o mōichido yaritai nonara—"
"—podríamos dejarte por el placer," finished Tillroo, blowing a fanged kiss at him, "y el dolor."
"Contain yourself, girls—you'll feast on the Master yet." Louise was grinning like a schoolgirl. "The good doctor has promised us this much, should we succeed. We need only entertain him for a little bit longer.
"My turn!" she sang, drawing her card with a twirling flourish. She was in her element, Reiji knew—content to toy with him until such time as her mission had been fulfilled. He tried not to think about what they planned on doing with him if Louise won—if Dr. Grimm had sanctioned it, odds were it wasn't good.
"I activate the Continuous Spell: Dragonmaid Welcome!" Louise trilled gaily, daintily slipping her freshly drawn card onto her blade. "While it's on my field, every monster I control gains 100 ATK and DEF for each Dragonmaid monster among them!" No sooner had she said this than a sparkling aura enveloped her and all her cohorts. Gauges appeared over their heads a few moments later: Hauskee's had risen to 3500/2500, Parla's and Tillroo's were each at 1000/2200, while Nusery and Laudry were grinning with glee at the 1000/2100 above each of their heads.
Reiji thought he might know how to wipe those smirks off their lips. "Double Trap Card, open!" he managed to rasp. "DD Recruit, and DDD Human Resources!"
The speed with which Louise's glee vanished from her face told Reiji she knew exactly what those cards did, too—but he decided to rub it in anyway. "With DD Recruit, if my opponent controls more monsters than I do, I can target DD and Contract cards in my Graveyard equal to the difference, and return them to my hand!" He did so with a level of pleasure that almost negated the pain in his side and arm, fishing out five different cards—nearly tripling the size of his hand. "Then, by activating my Human Resources, I can shuffle 3 DD monsters from my hand, field, Graveyard—or even my Pendulum Zones—and then add 2 DD monsters from my Deck to my hand! I will shuffle my Galilei and my Kepler!" He shuffled the Caesar in his Graveyard as well, just for the hell of it—and then added the former two back to his hand; he'd need some fresh Pendulum Scales next turn … if he could survive until then.
But Louise didn't stay sullen for long. "Dragonmaid Welcome's second effect: if I control at least two Dragonmaid monsters, I can target a Dragonmaid card in my Graveyard and return it to my hand."
She did so, and Set that card an instant later. "And now," smirked the maid, slowly taking off her glasses, folding them neatly, and slipping them safely inside the breast of her blouse, "I reactivate the Spell Card: Dragonmaid Changeover! I'll take the Dragonmaid Erde in my hand, and fuse her … with none other than myself!"
Reiji froze. Herself?! It took a moment for him to remember that she must mean Hauskee—but the roles of Duelist and Duel Monster had become so entwined tonight that he wondered if perhaps Louise had gotten lost in the role … as though, deep down, she truly believed she was the strongest monster of her own Deck.
And now Louise was changing further still—snow-white scales were already erupting from her chest as she dropped to the ground, like a sprinter taking her mark before the starting gun. Her wings bloomed in every direction, stretching to the ceiling and almost scraping the walls either side of her, while her tail coiled further out from her body, wriggling snakelike against the wall behind:
"Avatar of the verdant earth! Lend me your strength, that I—the maiden of the moonlit sky—may shed my earthly form and soar into battle!"
The muscles of the housemaid's thighs expanded, stretching her dress almost to tatters—but the garment shimmered into nothingness just before it would have ripped completely. Heavy claws raked the marble tile beneath as the monster rose from her haunches, growling with malicious intent—her voice was more guttural now, much deeper—
"Fusion Summon!" bellowed Louise. "Behold, the true form of your mistress! Behold: Dragonmaid Strahl!"
The new arrival dwarfed her fellow maids—both as maids and as dragons. Such was Strahl's size that her curved horns came within inches of grazing the chandelier, that great centerpiece of the ballroom. Something of Louise's playful streak remained in the black-and-white dragon's green eyes, but everything else about her had given way to the animal pleasures of cruelty and base destruction that had been hinted in her words and actions all night. Nowhere was this more evident than in the point gauge that had materialized in front of her breast (Level 10: ATK 3500 » 4000/DEF 2000 » 2500).
"Dragonmaid Fluß' second effect!" Louise boomed, wholly unseen within the bulk of the Fusion Monster that had swallowed her. "I can discard it, then target a monster in either Graveyard and shuffle it into the Deck! I return my Hauskee—which sends it to my Extra Deck instead—and then, I'll activate my Changeover's second effect again! I return my Parla to the hand, and my Changeover with it—and then I'll Normal Summon Parla back to my field!"
Parla's scaly skin shimmered briefly, but reappeared as quickly as it had faded from view (Level 3: ATK 500 » 1000/DEF 1700 » 2200). "Next, Dragonmaid Flamme's second effect! I can discard it and target a Dragonmaid monster I control to make it gain 2000 ATK until the end of the turn! I therefore target Dragonmaid Strahl!"
She—Strahl—bared her fangs in a smirk, her point gauge now reading a titanic 6000. "And now … Battle Phase."
Reiji bit his lip. He needed to look for an Action Card yesterday. Already he could see the four maids beginning to change even further, transforming into their full draconic appearances once again, just like Strahl. If he didn't put an end to this now, their effects—and the terrain program of Dragonmaid Mansion that governed tonight's Duel—would secure Louise the win, and without her even needing to declare an attack.
From the way she was tensing up, though, she was raring to try anyway. Injured as he was, she was not taking any chances with him at all. Fortunately, none of the maids had gone for his legs yet—though perhaps they were hell-bent on doing just that right now. The instant Reiji had broken his gaze with Louise-as-Strahl to begin his desperate search, the quartet had finished their metamorphosis—and with a storm of wings they charged for him head-on.
Erde (Level 7: ATK 2600 » 3100/DEF 1600 » 2100) got to him first—she butted him right in the stomach with her horned head, driving every last puff of air from his stomach. She thrust out with a leg, perhaps hoping to kick him right in his dislocated ribs again, but Reiji—summoning a quick burst of speed—dodged it in the nick of time. He wasn't quite quick enough, however; Erde turned on a dime with the momentum, and her tail slapped Reiji across the spine, right where Tillroo had kicked him the previous turn. He overbalanced, and barely saw his LP gauge tumbling to 3300 as he hit cold marble, and slid under one of Cross Over's platforms.
He wasted no time in regaining his footing, though it took an undignified scrabble to do so; no sooner had Erde pulled back than Fluß was right there in her place (Level 7: ATK 2600 » 3100/DEF 1600 » 2100), slashing with her heavy claws at Reiji's left hip. He turned just at the last second before the blow would have torn through flesh to the bone, but the weight of the maid's punch still hobbled him where it hit, slowing him down greatly. Fluß caught him in the stomach with a quick swing of her blue-furred tail, stopping him in his tracks and dropping his LP to 2600.
But Reiji forgot all about the pain an instant later—he'd just seen an Action Card barely fifteen feet in front of him, its twinkling form constantly buffeted by the gusts the Dragonmaids were leaving in their wake. As if the sight had rejuvenated him, he sprinted forward, never letting it out of his sight—he saw the shadow of Flamme (Level 8: ATK 2700 » 3200/DEF 1700 » 2200) loom overhead, saw her in the corner of his eye, silhouetted by the chandelier—
—and then Luft was directly in front of him (Level 8: ATK 2700 » 3200/DEF 1700 » 2200), ricocheting off the wall in a single mighty leap, head lowered in a full-on charge—she was going to reach him before he reached the card—
WHAM.
They'd veered off at the last moment—Luft left, Flamme right—and in an instant had raised their hands like swords, ready for a finishing blow. Their aim was straight, true, and almost perfectly timed; their forearms connected with Reiji's spine and throat at the exact same moment, clotheslining him in a feat of strength few wrestlers could imitate.
Had Reiji not made two split-second decisions, the double impact might have paralyzed him from the neck down: first, he'd slackened his whole body to the point that any blow he took would allow him to go with the movement. Secondly, he'd deduced that because the maid who'd assumed the role of Tillroo and Flamme was taller, and therefore must have more mass and weight to her than the girl playing Parla and Luft, the strength and force behind their assault would be greater coming from behind. So he'd also bent his knees just an inch, and was rewarded when the maneuver—instead of making Reiji crumple on the spot as the maids had intended—sent him falling forward—
—he saw his Life Points plummeting to 1000, right on the edge of the danger zone—he saw Louise-as-Strahl hurtling forward at last, fangs and claws displayed in full, ready to finish him off—
—and he saw the Action Card he'd spotted, tossed around in the slipstream of Luft, inside his outstretched fingers—
"Action Magic: Against Wind!" he managed to gasp, his voice much more hoarse from the double blow. A mighty gust rippled from the card, disintegrating it before his eyes—but the wind had done its magic already; all five of the transformed maids had stumbled where they stood, growling in agitation. "This card forces my opponent's monsters into Defense Position, and further causes them to lose 1000 DEF!"
Strahl roared, thrashing at the winds as if doing so would allow her to break free, but Reiji knew there was nothing the woman inside the dragon's hard-light shell could do. He watched point gauges appear over all five maids again, each one plummeting like a stone: Erde and Fluß to 1100 DEF, Luft and Flamme to 1200, and Strahl to 1500.
It would have felt more satisfying if they hadn't already done so much damage to his body—and if he didn't already know that more damage was yet to come. And so Reiji wasted no time resuming his search for another card.
Louise, however, had seen, and knew. "You think that will help you, Master Reiji?" she howled through the maw of Strahl, deliberately emphasizing the title with unmasked scorn. "Battle Phase, end! Bring him to his knees!"
Reiji was already running—but seconds later, it hardly mattered. With one final flap of wings, Erde and Fluß had put on a burst of inhuman speed as they shed their draconic disguises (2 × Level 2: ATK 500 » 1000/DEF 1600 » 2100). Laudry used her smaller size to contort into a handspring—which granted her even more momentum—and cannoned into Reiji's right knee with a single drilling kick. He heard a pop, and felt a stab of pain an instant later—that was that joint out of commission, too, he knew—and through some miracle of will he managed to remain on his feet, even as his LP dropped to 800.
But Reiji had no time to absorb this; Nusery was already airborne—giggling, catapulting, flipping, and twisting over a hard-light platform like a gymnast at the climax of her vault routine. She spread her legs—and in an instant Reiji's vision was filled with a blur of white leggings, pink skirts, and rustling tail-scales as Nusery turned and twisted over his torso. He felt her legs bend at his skull, the momentum carrying them both forward—her tail curled round his knees, hobbling him—he felt her arms wrap around his own, and a knee drilling into his spine—
SMASH. Reiji's nose was the first part of him to hit the marble floor, and the force of Nusery's jūdō-style takedown instantly shattered both it and his glasses. The lenses bounced across the floor in twenty different directions; several of the shards cut Reiji across his face, drawing blood and sending his Life Points to a mere 600.
But even as Nusery gleefully somersaulted to her feet, well out of arm's reach, Reiji still knew he had to power on through. For even as he felt the pain sear through his body, through half a dozen dislocated limbs and joints and who knew how many scrapes and scratches he'd endured tonight, his father's face burned in his mind all the brighter because of them. He would not lose tonight.
No, he thought; he could not afford to lose tonight.
"Stop it."
Leo was shaking his head slowly, looking for all the world like an old elephant trying to dispel a cloud of gnats. "Stop this now!"
Dr. Grimm's smile faded a millimeter. "Why?" she asked innocently. "I thought you might be proud of the work we were doing. You, Leo—of all people—should be applauding what we've set in motion tonight."
"Set in motion?" His hands ached, so tightly was he clenching them into fists. "You would assault my own wife and children—and think I was proud of you for attacking him like this?! This is not worthy of anyone's applause, Wendy, least of all my own—this is dishonorable!"
The Psychic Duelist did not move. "You only think that," she said, her tone even and placating, "because you think that the Arc Area Project was the only thing you thought was worth living for. Now that your daughter, Ray, has been reincarnated within Hīragi Yuzu, you further believe that your raison d'être has been realized. With your life's work thus fulfilled, you would go into that cold night without even raising a hand in retaliation. You would consign yourself to prison—to a slow death—without any defense whatsoever, believing you'd earned your sentence in full."
Her smile disappeared—and so did all veneer of restraint. "I will not have it." Every word was spat in a snakelike hiss. "I will not. I refuse to watch the closest person I've ever had to a father bow his head in surrender. I will not have it! Not when there is so much more to discover … so much more to be done!
"And not," she said, breathing heavily, "when there is still a whole other dimension that awaits us … if we only—just—win."
Nakajima's fight had taken a dizzying turn from the moment he'd seen the dragon take over the maid.
On top of the jieitaikakutōjutsu he'd learned in the JSDF, he'd learned multiple forms of hand-to-hand combat, both before and after his service. He'd been forced to employ as much of them as he knew over the past few minutes—Muay Thai, Krav Maga, even Greco-Roman wrestling. None of them had accounted for opponents who could change their size and form almost at will.
He'd learned that the hard way mere seconds after the dragon had charged him down, flooring him with a backhand that sent him skidding a good ten feet along the driveway. The gravel had torn the back of his suit jacket to shreds, revealing the Kevlar vest he'd taken to wearing underneath ever since his tussle with J.D. Crowley—but the impact cushioned his fall better than solid concrete. The thought of landing on that, Kevlar or no, made him wince.
But Nakajima had no time to be thankful for small favors. Against all reflexes, he'd kept his eyes open from blow to fall, and the night-black dragon had wasted no time. Before he'd even come to a halt, she'd flapped her wings, leapt into the air—and shrank back into the Russian maid with a rustle of black. Her reduced mass increased her speed, turning her into a winged cannonball. Nor did the elaborate dress she wore seem to slow her down; with seemingly zero air resistance, she twisted herself into a bullet, fists raised outward and minimizing the target she presented. Nor could Nakajima stop her head-on: his best bet had been to sidestep the maid a moment before she would have dive-bombed him like a falcon—then shoulder-check her to disrupt her momentum further still—
For an instant, he felt as though he'd gained the upper hand—but the maid was already changing back into her more bestial form before she'd even hit the gravel. It happened so fast that Nakajima wondered if the transformation had started even while she was airborne; within moments, he was face-to-maw with the black dragon once again—but a moment after that, she whirled where she stood, forcing the aide to dodge the thick tail that whipped his way—
That sent him on the defensive—and ever since then, the maid had been a tornado of chaos; she had wasted no time in taking advantage of his mistake. One moment, she was naught but growls, claws, and scales; the next, a blur of laughter, fabric, and flesh. Every few seconds saw her change from dragon to maid and back again—and every few seconds saw Nakajima stymied, as his blows and blocks either hit nothing but air—or nothing but hard light.
Were it not for this element of confusion keeping him on his toes, he would have taken this dragon-maid as a stunt fighter for a movie, or even a pro wrestler—someone who wouldn't have lasted long in a real, knock-down drag-out brawl. Her moves were far too flashy, her gymnastics far too telegraphed—and both, arguably, were far too reliant on technology. Moreover, her focus had not been direct submission of her opponent, but a prolonged struggle that would keep him from assisting Reiji—yes, he knew; if this dragon-maid was deliberately keeping him outside, then his young boss was almost certainly in similar trouble.
Maybe even more of it.
But Nakajima also knew that his boss could handle himself in a fight. Reiji had faced worse odds before—worse dragons, too, now he thought of it. But that still left the aide with a hell of a question that he wasn't yet sure how to answer: how to beat an opponent who was beating the very laws of physics even now?
Too reliant on technology, he thought again, narrowly dodging a right hook. Technology needed power. Interrupt that power … yes … he had a chance—and something in his car that might just help him.
If he could get there in time.
A single point of light, blurred as it was from the loss of his glasses, filled Reiji's vision now; quickly as he could, he propped himself up on the platform Nusery had used to take him down. He would only get one chance at this, with his body in the shape it was now—already he could see the twin green-red blurs of Parla and Tillroo (2 × Level 3: ATK 500 » 1000/DEF 1700 » 2200) in his peripheral vision; they were hoping to clothesline him again, and this time, they wouldn't make the same mistake of putting any more Action Cards in his hand under their own power—
At the last possible moment, Reiji lunged sideways, putting every last ounce of strength he could muster into his one good leg, and the maids pursuing him were forced to turn on dimes to match. But the instant of adjustment had cost them; Reiji felt his fingers just kiss the edges of the card as he fell to the floor once again—it was enough—
"Action Magic: Stand Up!" he rasped, rolling onto his back and holding the card aloft for all to see. "By activating this card, I can negate an instance of effect damage this turn—and then end the turn immediately!"
Strahl snarled defiantly—her ATK gauge shrinking back to 4000—but as Louise was bound within her Solid Vision avatar, so too was she bound to the mechanics of the game she had spent her entire career trying to bend, if not break entirely. He heard Tillroo hiss in animal frustration as she rejoined Nusery and Laudry next to their mistress.
Parla, however, was much closer to Reiji when he'd fallen. She regarded him for a moment, smirking and twitching her tail. "Mm … yawarakakusuru to," she crooned, loud enough for him to hear, "niku ga yori oishiku miemasu."
Nictitating membranes flicked over her green eyes. Then she laid the heel of her shoe against his throat, raised it—and stamped down hard on his already-broken nose, mangling the cartilage even further. Stars danced in Reiji's eyes as the pain redoubled in intensity. He barely heard his LP slip to 300 amidst the agony, and the sneering laughter of Parla as she walked away—but at last, it was over. There was nothing more Louise could do to him.
He wondered if she knew it.
Leo didn't remember rising to his feet. Nor was he sure how long it had taken him to process what Dr. Grimm had just said to him. Dream logic was strange like that. All he could say for certain was that it felt as if a great cathedral bell had tolled deep in his brain—its deafening, resonant peal shaking him head to toe, down to his very core.
"You mean to tell me," he said, very slowly and quietly, "that you wish to implement the Project again?!"
The Psychic Duelist only smiled. "Everything you've done in this city," Leo breathed, "Markus and Ryōzanpaku, the twins who fled You Show … even casting your lot with the likes of Kagemaru … all stepping stones to this?!"
Nakajima seized his chance the moment his kick had connected with the maid's chest—right as she'd shifted out of her high-tech dragon costume—and heard a groan that she'd hastily tried to disguise as a growl. But he knew better: he knew it had hurt her, wrong-footed her.
He knew he wouldn't get another opportunity like this again.
So he didn't stop to take satisfaction in watching her stumble back, swearing in Russian all the while—he'd rounded the remains of the Range Rover, and saw that the driver's side door was ajar, its hinges dented from where the maid must have kicked it towards him. Nakajima reached inside—a shadow flitted overhead as his fingers closed around something under the wheel—
A most undignified yelp escaped his lips as a clawed hand—as big around as both of his—seized him by his belt and flung him aside. Nakajima had time enough to register three things: the seat of his tailored pants tearing to the tune of fifty thousand yen—the searing agony as he felt his body slam against the unyielding stucco of the Château—
—and the object of his search clasped in his fingers; the only reason they hadn't sprung open on reflex as he'd hit the wall, even as he felt blood trickling down the back of his neck—
CRUNCH. The dragon-maid's clawed feet impacted the gravel either side of him with enough force to pulverize the pebbles beneath—and sent Nakajima sprawling before he could clamber into anything remotely upright. There was no time to recover; even as the dragon had shifted back into the pale Russian waif, she'd used her enhanced strength and mass to thoroughly pin him where he lay. Her wings spread against his elbows, her knees pressed against his hips as she squatted against him—
And a hand softly stroked his chin as he struggled to no avail. "Ya v dolgu pered toboy … za tvoy udar," she cooed, feeling at her chest where Nakajima had kicked her. "Etot dolg budet vozvrashchen."
Her fanged lips drew close to his face, and split in a smirk that lent new definition to the word predator. "No ne ran'she, chem ya zastavlyu kazhdoye izmereniye slyshat' tvoy krik … "
Nakajima—helpless, gun-less, and aching all over—had only one move to make, and he made it then and there.
The sight of his spit in her eyes was well worth the searing pain that came with the slash to his face an instant later.
Reiji's fateful leap had cost him much of his remaining strength. Slowly but surely, it was returning, but until then, there was little he could do but lay there and catch his breath. Even that was an arduous chore, with how many of his bones had been wrenched out of place by the relentless assault he'd endured tonight.
"It must burn you on the inside, to see me like this." The acoustics of the grand ballroom magnified Louise's voice into a low, sonorous rumble. Every word echoed for several long seconds, reverberating until it seemed that a full flight of Dragonmaid Strahls were speaking as one.
"First was the dreamer," gloated the dragon, plodding towards Reiji, her retinue of maids prowling along behind her, "and then came the hacker. Two people was all it took to convince you and your entire city that Academia could come to call at any time—any corner of the world, any walk of life. That the school no longer exists is irrelevant. Because the good doctor didn't lie to Masumi at all: we are everywhere. We are everyone. Everywhere you never thought to look—and everyone you thought could never betray you, for as long as you drew breath."
Louise bared Strahl's fangs in a sneer. "Just how many people in Maiami City do you think belong to our Ædonai, Mas-s-ster Reiji? Could it be everyone? Could it be anyone? Or," she flicked her long, forked tongue, dragging it hungrily along her lips and tasting the air, "could it be the one person—who, in that one s-s-small moment of your life—matters to you more than the whole … wide … world?"
It felt as though a bolt of lightning had crashed down on Reiji—as if millions of volts of electricity had surged through his body at the last word. He felt his muscles twitch, felt the agony of his dislocations and many other injuries flare up. Fingernails slowly dragged across mirror-polished marble, looking for purchase—but he didn't care. All at once, that bolt of lightning had opened entirely new vistas in his brain, whole worlds of possibility—
"So." As if the single, simple word had carried some immeasurable, miraculous magic, he felt his strength return then, enough that he could at least prop himself up to a sitting position.
"So," he said again, as if willing to believe he could access that magic a second time, and—with some vindication—managed to put some weight on his undamaged knee. " … It's Reira you want, is it?"
Louise stopped. Her dragon's face was entirely unreadable. Reiji took that as a good sign, and slowly willed himself to rise to his feet.
"You aim to recover … the fragments of Z-ARC," he said, "that still remain … inside Sakaki Yūya." He found talking difficult with a shattered nose; every so often he had to pause for a deep breath through his mouth. "That was why Markus kidnapped him … and Hīragi Yuzu … why he's been searching for the fragments of ARC-V, scattered through all the dimensions. By forcibly extracting the spirits of Yūto, Yūgo, and Yūri from Yūya … and then resealing them all inside Reira … which is why you're looking for Kiku and Kikyō, who can steal the sight and memories of others … yes."
He was standing up now. With extreme difficulty, yes—but he was standing. He bit his lip, closed his eyes—and with a SNAP and a burst of agony that he was just barely able to suppress, he'd realigned his bloodied nose, and instantly found it much easier to breathe.
"Yes … " he said again. "That's the true goal of the Ædonai." He looked Louise straight in the eye. "Tell me—"
"—I'm wrong."
Leo felt his fingers clutching the desk as though it might suddenly fly away. "I want you to look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong, Wendy."
He leveled the most accusing gaze he could muster at the woman he'd once counted among his most powerful of soldiers—his most loyal of subordinates. "You're not just trying to reunite the Dimensions," he growled. "You're trying to reconstruct Z-ARC! You're trying to go against everything I've ever worked for! Tell me I'm wrong!"
The silence stretched on for longer than any dream had a right to exist. Then, Dr. Grimm sighed.
And looked him in the eye.
"I'm disappointed in you, Leo," she said sadly. "I'm very disappointed. I thought you—"
"—were smarter than that."
Reiji blinked. What?
"Z-ARC already had his chance," boomed Louise. "But times have changed, and so must we. The Ædonai do not wish to reunite the Dimensions. We just wish to remake them—in our image. We don't need Z-ARC to make that happen—we don't even need Reira. If we have them in our possession, so much the better for our plans—but all we want are the parts of Z-ARC and Ray that matter to us. As far as we're concerned, the rest of him—"
"—can hang."
Dr. Grimm had risen to her feet with a swish of her patchwork overcoat, and an even more sibilant simper. "Aw … don't look so distraught, Professor," she soothed. "You wanted to restore an entire dimension yourself, not so very long ago. All we're doing is the same thing you attempted—but we're just using different means to different ends."
Slowly, the Psychic Duelist began to circle Leo. "This time," she whispered, "we already have the boy and the girl we're looking for. It's only a matter of time until we recover the twins, and use their powers to purge the inferior derivatives from their bodies. When that happens, the path to the new world you so assiduously wished to reclaim will be laid bare. When that happens, our benefactor's intentions for your universe will be made clear at last.
"And when that happens," she smirked, "the only Dimension that will be left standing … "
" … will be ours."
Reiji's labored breathing felt deafening in the silent ballroom. The echoes of Louise's last words had long faded from the walls, but never from his mind. He had locked eyes with the dragon that towered over him, layered over her body. The monster-maids that flanked Strahl no longer mattered to him. Everything he'd guessed about the Ædonai had been turned on its head.
What had troubled him from the very beginning was the notion that Kagemaru, a man who had fallen out with his father in the distant past, somehow shared the same goals as Leo after the school had been wrested from his grip. After all, Kagemaru, to the best of his knowledge, had fathered no children—certainly none that had been split into four different people. And yet the campaigns he had waged on the other Dimensions, funded by the same Kingdom of Misgarth that had sanctioned Academia, had been no different from those of the school except in their scale.
Now, however … He had a sudden mental image of the psychic twins, standing before Yūya and Yuzu—prone, bound, and gagged—and stripping away each boy and girl who lived inside their minds and shared their bodies. Without either to call home, they faded into oblivion—Yūgo and Rin, then Yūto and Ruri—until all that was left would be the former soldiers that Markus Streiter had since brainwashed, wearing Ædonai uniforms, brandishing Ædonai technology, and spouting Ædonai creeds: the reincarnation of a boy who'd destroyed an entire dimension, only to create a new one from the old Maiami City—
"No."
Reiji shook his head. "I cannot let that happen." He did not raise his voice—the strain on his body was too great—but the acoustics of the great ballroom amplified his words anyway. "I cannot—I must not."
He did not bother launching into some screed of why he thought what he thought; this was no time for rationalizing. The cards in his hand had never felt heavier, and it wasn't because he had more than he knew what to do with them all. In fact, the more Reiji looked at them, the more he realized he'd assembled a puzzle that was almost complete.
"My turn!" he said gruffly. "DRAW!"
He tugged at the Duel Disk beneath his injured arm, taking care not to jostle the joint too badly lest the pain dull his senses. The card came away easily—he turned it round in his fingers—
"Now!" And in that moment, the puzzle was complete. All the aches and pains of his body seemed to drop away from him—his mind and soul, reinvigorated with the promise of success and victory, surged through every bone, muscle, and neuron that made him Akaba Reiji.
He plucked a pair of cards out of his hand. "Double Continuous Spell, activate: Contract with the Hellgate, and Contract with the Grotesque Gods!" he yelled. "Contract with the Hellgate allows me to add 1 DD monster from my Deck to my hand every turn, though I must take 1000 damage during each of my Standby Phases—and an additional 2000 damage because of my Grotesque Gods!"
But the prospect of taking that much damage did not matter to him anymore, even as he added a fresh monster to his hand. "I re-Summon DD Night Howling in Attack Position," Reiji continued, watching the scarlet maw of his Tuner monster reappear on the battlefield (Level 3: ATK 300/DEF 600), "and then, because it was Normal Summoned this turn, I activate its effect and Special Summon 1 DD monster from my Graveyard, with its ATK and DEF set to zero! I target and Special Summon my Flame King Temujin in Attack Position!"
He bent his knees just in time: Night Howling had vomited a ring of energy upon the floor that darkened moments later into an abyssal portal. From this window of nothingness came an arm, a spiky suit of armor—and finally the entire form of the monster that Hauskee had so ignominiously destroyed, growling as if relishing a chance for revenge (Level 6: ATK 2000 » 0/DEF 1500 » 0).
"And now," he grunted, plucking two more cards out of his hand, and sliding them on either end of his blade, "by using my Scale 1 Galilei and my Scale 10 Kepler, I reset the Pendulum Scale!"
It was fortunate that Reiji had already braced himself: a mighty wind had erupted inside the ballroom, making the chandelier above his head shiver and shake dangerously from where it hung. Then, in the edges of his vision, he saw the mountainous forms of his two Savants, shimmering with blue light, and acted without a second thought:
"Grand power that shakes my very soul, arise within me and become a new light that rends the darkness!"
"Pendulum Summon! Come before me, DD Baphomet—and DDD Eulogy King Vice Requiem!"
As the last word of his chant bellowed from his lips, Reiji saw Strahl jerk her head in his direction; the smirk on her reptilian face was nowhere to be seen. Her maids were exchanging familiar glances as both of the monsters he'd brought to his field—one, the familiar misshapen form of Baphomet (Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 1800); the other, a giant conglomeration of spiky golden pincers, gleaming blue crystal, and heavy armor of both colors wrapped in dark lightning (Level 8: ATK 2800/DEF 2000)—emerged onto the field.
Good, he thought. I've got their attention. "Temujin's effect activates!" he yelled. "Because a DD monster was Special Summoned while it was on the field, I can target another DD monster in my Graveyard, and Special Summon it to my field as well! I therefore target and Special Summon my Gust King Alexander!"
Without warning, the air took on a greenish hue, and the winds that buffeted the ballroom now shifted the other way. They shrank, condensed around a single point—and then, as if birthed by the wind itself, the silver-armored bulk of Alexander was back on the battlefield as though it had never left it at all (Level 7: ATK 2500/DEF 2000).
Reiji flicked his good hand outward. "Now for DD Baphomet's effect!" he cried. "By declaring a Level from 1 to 8, I can target a DD monster I control, and—"
"Oh, no, you don't!" Louise shrieked through her monster. "Dragonmaid Strahl's effect! When my opponent activates a card or effect—any card at all—I can negate that effect and destroy that card!"
She flapped her black wings once. The force of the gust that followed sent Reiji skidding backwards, forcing him to cover his eyes with his good arm—but not before he'd seen Strahl hurtling straight for Baphomet, grabbing its horned head one-handed—and physically choke-slamming it onto the unyielding marble floor. The impact crushed his monster's skull as if it was little more than paper, and it disintegrated into a billion motes of light shortly after.
But even before the final photons of his monster had vanished, Strahl was shrinking before Reiji's eyes, her scales and wings retreating back into her body. "By using this effect," Louise was saying, "Strahl must return to my Extra Deck—but if it does, I can Special Summon a Dragonmaid Hauskee from my Extra Deck in its place!"
And sure enough, she resurfaced from her draconic disguise moments later, her human form still augmented by the wings, horns, and claws of the monster that clung to her in every way imaginable (Level 9: ATK 3000 » 3500/DEF 2000 » 2500). Diminished as she looked, the slits of her pale eyes still gleamed with danger, while her black tail coiled and undulated with a mind of its own … and, perhaps, another half a mind to strangle Reiji where he stood.
"Mm … naughty boy," Louise chided him, flicking her forked tongue in his direction. "You think I don't see what you're trying to accomplish, Master Reiji? Without that Baphomet, you can't use it to Xyz Summon your Caesar again—oh, yes," she purred. "My girls and I had a feeling you'd use your Human Resources Trap Card to shuffle it back into your Extra Deck, so that you could Summon it back with Temujin and Alexander—and then use its effects to bring them back to their full strength. And even if you didn't, we know you have other Xyz Monsters. Even we might not want to face that Duo-Dawn King Kali Yuga of yours."
"Ne suffit pas d'avoir une longueur d'avance sur nous." Nusery wagged a finger, giggling—then held up two more.
Reiji nodded, understanding. "Three steps. Good advice," he admitted.
And then he smiled. "What about four?"
Louise's smirk faded a little. Got her. "I activate a third Continuous Spell: my Contract with the Devil King," Reiji shouted, sliding yet another card onto his Duel Disk, "and use its effect to Fusion Summon a Fiend-Type monster from my Extra Deck, using monsters from my hand or my field as the materials! I fuse the Flame King Temujin on my field … with the DDD Death Great King Hell Armageddon in my hand, that I drew to start my turn!"
All five maids widened their eyes. "Armageddon?!" Laudry was heard to whisper fearfully.
If anyone answered her, Reiji didn't hear—not that he cared; he was too intent on bracing himself more resolutely than ever, on account of the intense energies from the portal that had erupted over his head. Dark fires leaped from its mouth, subsuming his Temujin in the blink of an eye as the shadow of a huge, crystalline entity hovered closer and closer to real-space:
"Transcendental deity that rules over all kings!" Reiji cried. "Become one with the king of raging infernos, and invoke your royal mandate on the world who would deny you your dominion!"
"FUSION SUMMON! Be born! DDD Super Death Great King Purplish Hell Armageddon!"
With a thunderous, sizzling noise, the swirling hurricane destabilized, exploding into multicolored energy as if the monster it had birthed was somehow too big to contain it. But even as Reiji looked on, this energy was seeping into every pore of the new, unthinkable monster he had Summoned: a gargantuan dragon, far larger and broader than Louise even in her guise of Strahl, borne by six leathery wings and mounted by an equally enormous demon, its crystalline body sizzling with dark energy and spreading great wings of its own (Level 10: ATK 3500/DEF 3000).
He saw several of the maids take a step backwards, their eyes betraying a silent, growing terror at what they knew to be his Fusion Pendulum Monster—one of the three strongest monsters in his entire arsenal. But he wasn't finished. "Gust King Alexander's effect!" he cried, feeling his voice grow louder and bolder. "Because a DD monster was Special Summoned while it was on the field, I can target another DD monster in my Graveyard, and Special Summon it to my field! I target and Special Summon my original Hell Armageddon!"
With one swipe of its blade, Alexander seemed to sunder the pristine floor of the ballroom, creating a chasm vast and deep enough that more dark fires leaped from its deaths. Seconds later, Armageddon's crystalline body rose from the abyss, its beady yellow eyes zeroing in on Louise with primeval hatred (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 1000).
"My Contract with the Grotesque Gods inflicts a greater amount of damage to me, as I have said," Reiji continued, "but the benefits it confers outweigh every disadvantage. If I Summon a certain card type of DDD monster from my Extra Deck, I can apply its second effect once per turn for each of those monsters Summoned! For Fusion Monsters, like my Purplish Hell Armageddon, I gain 1000 Life Points!"
The monster in question bellowed mightily, shaking the ballroom as if it had become ground zero for the dreaded Richter ten—and with one flap of its many wings, a golden haze shimmered from its body, raining down upon Reiji. The effect was immediate—the pain in his body was numbed, and though Reiji dared not stress himself further, the sight of his life gauge climbing to 1300 proved the impetus he needed to keep on going.
"Next! I Tune my Level 3 Night Howling with my Level 7 Gust King Alexander!" A single wave of his hand sent his chosen monsters high into the air. Night Howling disintegrated into three rings of light with a final yowling roar, engulfing both Alexander and the winds that surrounded it until—for only a moment—the ballroom fell silent at last:
"Howls that tear through the night!" Reiji bellowed. "Consume the swiftness of a gale, and invoke your mandate of light on the world who would deny you your divinity!"
"SYNCHRO SUMMON! Be born! Level 10! DDD Super Death Great King Whitest Hell Armageddon!"
FLASH.
He only just averted his eyes in time—the blinding glare of the monster's reveal might have rendered him blind if he hadn't been more careful. And even after the light had dimmed, the white-and-gold armor of Reiji's latest Summon shone more dazzlingly than a thousand chandeliers, turning the black claws of its disembodied arms into so many slivers of darkest night (Level 10: ATK 3500/DEF 3000).
"Whitest Hell Armageddon's effect prevents you from targeting any of my monsters with card effects!" he shouted at Louise, "which means that your Hauskee can no longer use her effects against my monsters!" The maids, he was pleased to see, looked severely shaken at this revelation.
"Now for Grotesque Gods' second effect! If I Summon a DDD Pendulum Monster, I may draw a card, then discard a card from my hand! Because Whitest Hell Armageddon is both a Synchro Monster and a Pendulum Monster, I therefore DRAW!" But Reiji cared not what he drew—he already had everything he needed … except, perhaps, the time to make sure it was all complete. So he discarded his card—only barely registering it as DD Rebuild—and focused his attention on the weakest monsters he controlled.
"Finally," he declared, casting his hand over each of them in turn, "I use my Level 8 Hell Armageddon and my Vice Requiem … to construct the Overlay Network!" In any other situation, he would have betrayed a grin at his fortune; for Louise had studied him too well—she'd reacted to his strategy too early. Caesar had not been on his mind in the slightest when he'd begun his turn—not even Kali Yuga. He needed something far more iconic than either.
And so both of Reiji's monsters shimmered into violet orbs of light, disappearing into the galaxy that had erupted over the marble floor of the ballroom. He pushed all else to the back of his mind, and put every decibel he could muster into his chant:
"Transcendental deity! All shall fall before your dirge of nothingness! Invoke your mandate of darkness on the world who would deny you your destiny!"
"XYZ SUMMON! Be born! Rank 8! DDD Super Death Great King Darkness Hell Armageddon!"
The galaxy shrunk before his eyes—though only by half: a wide, golden gateway, its edges etched with many runes, kept it from shrinking or expanding any further. Then, that gateway began to rise, its depths shimmering with sickly green energy—and a swirling, growing shadow deep within. Mere seconds later, that shadow burst into view with alarming speed: a gunmetal-gray abomination of scything claws, spiny mandibles, and writhing tails that gave it the air of a primordial throwback—a reject of creation that only the most deranged of gods would dare to unleash upon reality (Rank 8: ATK 3500/DEF 3000; ORU 2).
"I did not want to go this far," Reiji called out to Louise. "But because of you, my father, my city, and all who call it home, are in grave danger. I will stop at nothing to see them all safe and unharmed! The three Great Kings you see before you—my strongest portfolio of monsters—are proof of my devotion to him, and to all those I protect!"
He threw his hand aloft. "Darkness Hell Armageddon's effect prevents my monsters from being destroyed by your card effects!" he told her. "Furthermore, by Summoning it, I can now activate Grotesque Gods' effect once more: if I Summon a DDD Xyz Monster, I can banish 1 card from either side of the field—or either Graveyard! I therefore banish your Dragonmaid Welcome!"
"What?!"
It was all that Louise had time to say. All of a sudden, the runes of the golden ring that encircled Darkness Hell Armageddon had flashed once—and before they knew it, the point gauges of her and all four maids surrounding her began to drop like so many stones. Within moments, the sheen of light that covered Nusery, Laudry, Parla, and Tillroo had faded from view, while the bits of Hauskee that protruded from their ringleader looked even more diminished in comparison, as evidenced by the gauge of 3000/2000 above Louise's horns.
Reiji bit his lip to ward off a stab of pain. Time to finish it. "I activate the effect of Purplish Hell Armageddon!" he cried. "Once per turn, I can target an Attack Position monster my opponent controls, then destroy that monster—and inflict damage to my opponent equal to half its original ATK! I target and destroy your Dragonmaid Hauskee!"
The dark lightning that surged inside the monster's crystalline core flared outwards just then, rocketing straight for the maid. Louise pulled off a quick series of backflips to try and dodge it—not an easy thing to do, Reiji thought, considering the dress she was wearing, and the duress she was under—but it wasn't enough. Lightning exploded under her feet, engulfing her in smoke; when it had cleared, she was bent double in awful discomfort, her LP gauge reading 2500—and her body looking just as human as when Reiji had first encountered her.
"Now—the second effect of Darkness Hell Armageddon!" Reiji gestured to the leviathan overhead. "By detaching an Overlay Unit, I can target monsters my opponent controls, up to the number of Pendulum Monsters I control, and destroy each target! As I control three such monsters—my Fusion Pendulum Monster Purplish Hell Armageddon, my Synchro Pendulum Monster Whitest Hell Armageddon, and finally, my Xyz Pendulum Monster Darkness Hell Armageddon"—he gestured to each one in turn—"I therefore target and destroy your Parla, Laudry, and Tillroo!"
All three of the monster-maids he'd named froze where they stood. Reiji could not be certain if the fear had become too overpowering for them to even move—or if the Solid Vision layered over their bodies had turned against them, forcing them to endure their monsters' destruction. Either way, it did not matter: three explosions of dark lightning later, the bodies of three girls had hit the wall behind them—thud, thud, and THUD again—and crumpled in a heap, without a trace of draconic features amongst them when all was said and done.
That just left Nusery standing next to Louise, as Reiji turned his gaze to his trio of monsters once more. "My Vice Requiem's effect can be transferred to any monster that uses it as material for a Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz Summon," he explained. "Since it was used to Xyz Summon my Darkness Hell Armageddon, I therefore activate its inherited effect: by targeting any card on the field, and shuffling a Contract card from my field or Graveyard into the Deck, I can destroy that target, and gain another 1000 Life Points as well! Thus, I shuffle the Contract with the Grotesque Gods on my field … and destroy your Set card!" And as he gathered up his chosen card, replacing it into his Duel Disk, a whip of lightning sliced through the air from his monster, cleaving Louise's final defense in twain.
"Now—Battle Phase!" Reiji didn't even wait for his LP gauge to finish rocketing to 2300—there was no more time to waste. Already he could see Louise preparing to intercept his attack; Nusery, meanwhile, was already on all fours as she transformed into Erde once again (Level 7: ATK 2600/DEF 1600), ready to use the effect of Louise's terrain program to injure him as much as she possibly could. "Purplish Hell Armageddon, destroy Louise's last monster!"
By the time his Fusion Pendulum Monster had opened its jaws wide, and belched a torrent of lightning towards its foe, Erde had already launched herself forward, deftly dodging one arc after another as she flew towards Reiji—
THUD.
With a flurry of movement, she'd lashed out at his left leg, sending him off balance and forcing him to crumple onto the floor to avoid certain injury. It worked—but Reiji felt a sharp pain in his back, probably from further aggravating his ribs, and he did not get up until long after he'd heard his LP gauge drop to 1600 … and heard yet another flash of black energy moments later.
When at last he did get up, Erde was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Nusery—the young nursemaid who'd spent tonight roleplaying as the both of them had been cast against the wall, next to her companions. Her dress was smoldering slightly; the attack of Purplish Hell Armageddon must have connected while he'd been lying on the floor.
A strange gleam had settled into Louise's pale eyes by then. Reiji saw the small smile of bared teeth beneath them, and recognized at once the look of pure fanaticism that his Lancers and his mother's LID had seen many times over on the Ædonai. She no longer cared about the Duel—only in the success of the mission that had depended on stalling him.
"Whitest Hell Armageddon!" he ordered. "Attack Louise Schmidt directly!"
"Not yet!" screeched the maid. "She ordered me to make every second count, and I mean to do just that! I activate the Trap Card: Dragonmaid Clean-Up that your Vice Requiem helped send to my Graveyard! By banishing it from my Graveyard, I can target a Dragonmaid monster in my Graveyard, Special Summon it in Defense Position—and return it to my hand during the End Phase of the turn! I target and Special Summon my Hauskee once more!"
It only took a matter of seconds for Louise to finish her transformation into her favored monster (Level 9: ATK 3000/DEF 2000). The zealous shine to her eyes seemed to have increased tenfold.
"Come, then," she snarled, baring her fangs in a defiant smirk. "Do it. Finish it. We've already won the real fight!"
There is still more fighting to be done, Reiji thought, for you and for me. "Whitest Hell Armageddon! Darkest Hell Armageddon! Finish off the monster—then, finish off the maid!"
He waited for just one more second—"NOW!"
As the last word fell from his lips, many things happened at once—not all of which, it transpired, had been confined to the ballroom itself.
Whitest Hell Armageddon's arms launched straight for Hauskee like a pair of oversized missiles. One caught her in the stomach, sending her crashing against the wall despite her best efforts to dodge out of the way. Louise was still bent double when the second connected with her skull, shattering her horns and every fang in her mouth—and soon after, disintegrating the Duel Hunter's Duel Monster avatar with a thunderous BANG, once and for all—
Perhaps it had been this BANG that had distracted the Russian enough to tear her gaze from Nakajima. It could just as easily have been the unexpected gesture of spitting in her face. But it was still the latter of two critical mistakes.
The former had occurred the moment her hard-light wings had pinned Nakajima by the elbows—not by his hands.
He didn't stop to think. He didn't even stop to aim. The only pause that happened at that precise moment was the infinitesimal moment that passed in the time it took for the aide to pull the trigger, send an electronic signal—
And deliver the barbs of the taser—kept in a secret compartment under the Range Rover's steering column, just in case of emergencies—directly under the Russian's left shoulder.
The harsh, staccato t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t of a hundred thousand volts coursing through the maid's body was quickly drowned out by the wordless, high-pitched scream she howled to the night sky. All at once her hands and feet were suddenly preoccupied with something that didn't involve keeping him pinned to the ground, and he wasted no time in bucking her off, rolling to one side and onto his feet—and still he continued to keep his finger on the trigger as if doing so meant life or death to him. Her entire body lay on the gravel, writhing, contorting and sparking—sparking?!
No, Nakajima hadn't been seeing things; showers of sparks and even some clouds of acrid smoke had erupted from the maid. The wings and claws on her person were beginning to glitch in and out of view. He must have hit some electronic component of her costume—something that possibly controlled the Solid Vision that aided her. But still he continued to pour on the voltage—he wanted nothing left to chance after everything he'd been through tonight—
A second BANG tore through the night, loud enough to even drown out her screaming and cursing, as a puff of black smoke and a brief wisp of flame burst from between her shoulder blades. At this, the dragon faded altogether; the horns receded into her skull, and her tail simply evaporated into digital mist. And it didn't stop there—Nakajima instinctively closed his eyes as even the dress began to glow with blinding light—
Darkness Hell Armageddon opened its jaws and mandibles wide—and the ebon arcs of energy that coruscated forth snapped with deafening lethality. Louise Schmidt—defenseless, depowered, yet still as defiant as ever—could not have dodged them even if she'd wanted to. She had time for one last deranged sneer before the storm hit.
CRASH.
For an instant, Akaba Reiji's world was reduced to its most elemental state of darkness and light, and yet again he was forced to close his eyes to avoid blinding them. He heard a thump amidst the clamor and clangor—
—and then, almost before he could believe it, it was over. The assault of light and sound ceased as if commanded to do so—and by the time he had opened his eyes, there was no trace of the Duel save the five senseless girls slumped against the opposite wall, and a faint hint of ozone wafting from their bodies. The Duel Disk on Louise's wrist had shorted out—it did not even scream in defeat. Not that it needed to.
Reiji chanced a look at each of the five fake maids … and averted his eyes just as quickly. They were not injured—at least, not severely—but this was not the reason for his reluctance to stare. Angel-IQ, it seemed, had been correct about the Solid Vision she had detected before the Duel had even started, for even the dresses these maids had worn had been part of their costume. Their clothes had vanished to a one without a trace, leaving only bare skin covered by what Reiji could only describe as a high-tech leotard. The chrome-colored fabric was ripped and torn in places, exposing electronic innards, and burns—either from friction, battle, or more electronic shorts—were visible on their exposed flesh. Louise Schmidt bore the worst of them: her leotard had almost been shredded by the magnitude of the double attack it had survived. She wouldn't be stringing words together any time soon, Reiji suspected.
He stared for a moment, victorious, before suddenly slumping to the ground. He'd expended the last of his strength. And the pain that coursed through his body anew was too much for him to simply ignore. He was too badly hurt.
With one final movement, he brought his Duel Disk to his chest. "Angel-IQ." Even his voice felt ready to give out.
One second later, the cool, crisp voice of the supercomputer washed over his ears. "Yes, Reiji-sama?"
"Contact … the Ministry of Defense." Reiji had to force every other word out of his lungs. "The Ædonai … have compromised … the Château. Father's life … in danger … "
"I have alerted the local authorities and emergency services," Angel-IQ responded precisely one second later. "I further detect numerous contusions and dislocated joints on your person. Any further aggravation is likely to result in additional injury. Recommend you stay where you are."
"The hell I will." Reiji hadn't meant to let the curse slip from his lips, but he was far too aggrieved to care. "Put me through to Nakajima."
Angel-IQ—perhaps sensing the urgency in his voice—did not protest. There was the click of a secure line—
"Nakajima."
Nothing else but the voice of his charge could have given the aide enough strength to stand up. Even then, it was a near failure—so quickly had he jumped to his feet in spite of his condition that he nearly fell back to the gravel.
"Reiji?" Relief flooded through Nakajima's voice. "Reiji-san—are you all right?"
"Later." The aide heard the single word through the groan, and suspected the answer was no. "You were attacked?"
"I was." Nakajima turned back to see the Russian girl, spark out on the gravel amidst the cloud of smoke that still issued from her silver leotard. Her eyes were glassy and vacant, and every so often her fingers would twitch—the only movement her arms could make, owing to the fact that he'd bound her wrists with the wires connected to his taser—but she wouldn't be getting up for a long while. Of that he was certain.
That's what I call down bad, he thought, grimacing. He was not looking forward to telling his wife about tonight.
"They got to me, too … the maids … " Reiji soldiered on. Nakajima heard a long, pained grunt. "Lock onto my signal, Nakajima. I'm in … the ballroom." Another groan. "I may need … some help … getting to Leo … "
One last grunt, and then silence. The aide waited three full seconds to hear any further communication. By the time he realized none would come, his soldier's sense had returned—and ignoring the pain in his back, he rushed inside.
He hoped fervently that he wouldn't be too late.
A/N: Whew. I needed some time off on the Thanksgiving holidays to finish this up. Work got way too hectic this past month for me to keep up my usual pace. Add that to finally returning to the convention scene after COVID scrapped last year's plans, and I found it hard to muster a lot of energy to do anything creative at all.
Which was an especial pain because this chapter had to go through a whole bunch of revising before I was satisfied. Not just tinkering to help the words flow better, but I had to omit an entire subplot as well of the Duel site being rigged to collapse as a last-ditch effort by Louise. It came to a choice between keeping that or Nakajima's own fight to keep the chapter from getting too long, and the latter ultimately won out.
Having said that: man, this Duel and the fight that came with it were surprisingly fun to write—cringe moments and all. I mentioned earlier in the story that I'd like to explore the idea of a girls' equivalent to Ryōzanpaku, and this was what happened. Do I think every girl who goes there would fight the way these maids did? Doubtful. Toying with your opponents, like Louise & Co. were doing, can only work for so long.
But do I think ARC-V shied away from letting girls kick all sorts of butt all over the place? Absolutely.
Anyhow, the next chapter might be delayed because while I do have time off in the works, I'm still trying to figure out how to conduct the Duel inside it. My complexity addiction appears to be getting the better of me.
I'll do my best to update come 2022—hopefully it'll be along sooner. Until then, leave a like if you like, and thanks for reading! – K
A/N II: Oh hey it's an author-original card. Haven't had to make one of these in a while. The PSCT is going to look a bit jank for that reason, so apologies if it doesn't quite read the way it showed in the chapter.
Dragonmaid Mansion – Field Spell
During the Battle Phase, each time a Dragonmaid monster would be Special Summoned from the hand or GY: You can activate this effect; inflict damage to your opponent equal to that Special Summoned monster's Level x 100, but that Special Summoned monster cannot declare an attack this turn.
(It'll be hilarious—and a bit annoying—if the card game gives a Dragonmaid Field the same exact name but a whole different effect. – K)