XXIII
"Did you know what I was intending to Summon?" Dr. Grimm hardly sounded abashed that her infamous Shaddoll Fusion card had been dealt with so easily.
"Not really," Leo shrugged. Nor would it have mattered; Oneiromancy's other effect would have let him negate a Special Summon—and destroy the monster in the process—while Dream Magic Mirror of Darkness was in a Field Zone. Even though he had a strong suspicion of what the Psychic Duelist had attempted to Fusion Summon—and even though that Trap had sealed its fate either way—he had been less concerned with that than the aftereffects of whatever Summon she might have conducted otherwise. The Professor's Counter Trap, powerful though it might be, couldn't have negated any of those—and for that reason, he was loath to destroy anything on Wendy's field. Some snares simply couldn't be disarmed by way of brute force.
"It doesn't matter what I know about your cards or your Deck anymore, Wendy," Leo told her. "It just matters what I know about you. See, a man can learn everything there is to know in the universe—but his education only truly begins when he starts teaching that knowledge. It doesn't matter to whom—a thousand students, or only the one—because what they teach in return is far more valuable. And as you learned from me, so too did I learn from you."
He flexed his fingers, psyching himself up to begin his next move. "The more you and I got to know each other, the more I came to learn that your condition was more than what it appeared to be. The more I analyzed your uniquely specific variation of hyperallodynia, the more I came to believe that it was far from the weakness you'd spent every waking moment believing it to be. And the more you confessed this weakness to me—in all our Duels, all our lessons, all the time in between—the more convinced I was that I could make you one of Academia's strongest Duelists, of that day or any day.
"And you are strong, Wendy … so very strong. I would even say that you have become so strong"—and Leo bit his lip—"that Kagemaru is just as afraid of you as he is of me."
Dr. Grimm didn't show it, of course—but he saw the fingers tense, the pupil contract in her undamaged eye, and he knew, deep down, that his words had cut her to the bone. "He has no more reason to fear me," she whispered, in a shaky voice that might have been a snarl, "than I have to fear him."
"Then why are you here, and not Kagemaru?"
The Psychic Duelist hesitated. "Think about it, Wendy," Leo pressed on, sensing a thread he could tug. "If you win this, it's not only proof enough for Kagemaru that your loyalty to him is absolute, but it also gets rid of an old enemy and a possible thorn in his side. But if you lose, he will use that loss as a check on your strength. You will lose any favor you had with him—and whatever power you hoped to gain by joining his Ædonai will have been for nothing."
Leo looked her in the eye. "Either way, he's the true victor tonight, not you. At worst, he consolidates his power within his own organization. At best, he solves two problems at once." He pointed to him, and then to her. "That, more than anything I've ever done to you, should scare the hell out of you."
Dr. Grimm took a shuddering breath. "And what makes you think," she whispered, more softly and more feral still, "that either of you are the type to scare me?"
Leo did not hesitate. "Wendy, you of all people should know that just because you've conquered your fear doesn't mean you've dispelled it. Everyone feels fear. Everyone feels pain. And they always stay with you. Even when one goes, another comes to take its place. You just felt more of it than most."
He paused. " … Or was it that the fear went deeper still?" he asked. "Was it something so basic, so systemic, that your very existence owes itself to that fear?"
"You know the answer to that, Leo," said Dr. Grimm. "Fear and pain have shaped me since the day of my birth."
"I come to wonder how true that might be, Wendy," Leo said solemnly. "No doubt they did—but ten years is a long time for anyone. Anything can go wrong. Something could have gone wrong—in fact, with you, something should. And yet nothing did. Your condition was so inconceivable—your resilience so improbable—that I have to question if it really was some caprice of human genetics that made you who you are."
"I hardly think this is a time for theological debate, Leo," Dr. Grimm said dryly, a bite of impatience to her words.
But Leo shook his head. "Theology has nothing to do with it." He breathed in—out. "To be honest, this all makes me wonder, in hindsight … just how long the Wise Man has known you."
The Psychic Duelist froze—but only briefly. "Not as long as you might think." She smiled. "You'll always be one of the three people that made me, Leo. I was a crumbling mountain when I first met you, and Markus, and Yūri. I never believed at the time that the man I met that day was the sculptor who still had faith … that a beautiful work of art still resided within. But that's exactly what happened. Because of you, my debilitating weakness became a devastating weapon that was mine alone to wield. Far be it from the Wise Man," she added, "to steal your thunder."
Leo was not convinced. "You didn't answer my question. I didn't ask how long you knew the Wise Man. I asked how long he knew you. Did you discover him even before the Arc Area Project had failed?
"Or"—and he held his breath, gauging her reaction—"was he more careful than that? Did he know of you before you ever allied yourself with Kagemaru? Or was it before you even came to Academia? Before you even knew my name?"
Dr. Grimm, when next she spoke, sounded so very like the scared little girl Leo had once met that the notion scared him in turn. "Do you know him?" Her voice bordered on terrified reverence. "Did you see him?"
"Far less than I should have," Leo answered. "And far more than I can allow Kagemaru to find out for himself."
And in the instant of silence that descended on his words—as Dr. Grimm stood there in mute confusion, processing every last one of them—he pounced.
"My turn—DRAW!"
At a stroke, Leo felt the thrill of battle settle once more in his heart as he and the Professor gazed upon their cards in unison. "First! We Summon Traitor of the Dream Magic Mirror – Neiroy in Attack Position!" And between them both—half-in, half-out of the mirror that formed the backdrop to dream and Duel alike—there emerged a young boy of pale skin and dark hair. Four wings sprouted from his back, the upper pair little more than shriveled stumps, yet as he rose into the air, even as the miasma of Dr. Grimm's Shadow Prison settled over him and his companions, he did not waver a millimeter from where he had first appeared (2 × Level 3: ATK 1000 » 800/DEF 1000).
"Traitor's effect activates if it is Normal or Special Summoned," both Leos explained, mirroring each other's words and actions yet again, "and adds a certain monster from our Deck to our hand known as Apostle of the Dream Magic Mirror – Neiroy!"
CRACK. The noise rent the silent dream like a gunshot, although Leo did his best not to flinch. Traitor had brought both his hands together, his fingertips touching the surface of the mirror, sending hairline fractures in every direction like a spider spinning a web—a fracture in the thinnest of skins that bordered dream and nightmare.
"Quick-Play Spell: El Shaddoll Fusion!" Dr. Grimm hissed, revealing her Set card. "I can use this card to Fusion Summon 1 Shaddoll Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck, using monsters from my hand or field as material! I use my Shaddoll Roots' effect to treat it as a Fusion Substitute Monster—and fuse it with the Hedgehog on my field!"
Leo forced himself to keep on looking, even as the roiling, screaming jaws of Roots fell upon Hedgehog to a one—even as the gale that ripped in the middle of the ghastly scene forced him backward. The wind carried the mass of mutating shadow and puppet upwards, until they were near to bursting through the ceiling of the study:
"Dark heart of the otherworld," Dr. Grimm chanted, "bind the winds to your will!"
"Fusion Summon! Let those who bear witness scream in infinite despair! Rise now, El Shaddoll Wendigo!"
With one final hiss, the gusts of wind intensified and died, leaving a fresh cut on Dr. Grimm's arm from the effect of Leo's Darkness. But even the sight of her life gauge reducing itself further to 6500 gave him little comfort; the form of Wendigo had alighted before him at last. Though the dolphin-puppet that blocked his view of the Psychic Duelist didn't look like much at the moment—for which he thanked the twin Continuous Spells he and the Professor had on their field—the distorted, clicking cackle that burst from its toothy maw reminded him of its abilities all too well: (Level 6: ATK 200 » 0/DEF 2800 » 1800).
"Since Shaddoll monsters were sent to my Graveyard by a card effect," Dr. Grimm smiled, gently stroking the fin of her Fusion Monster, "my Field Spell: Curse of the Shadow Prison now gains a counter for each monster sent." She waited until a pair of shadows had sprouted from the ten monsters that stood between her and her mentor, reducing their ATK further still. "Furthermore, since one of the monsters I sent was Shaddoll Hedgehog, I activate its effect, and add another Shaddoll monster from my Deck to my hand. Then, because my Shaddoll Roots was sent to the Graveyard, I activate its final effect, and return a Shaddoll Spell/Trap Card from my Deck to my hand!"
"They won't help you," Leo said calmly. "Not now."
And he smirked. "Oneiric Shift!"
No sooner had the command left his lips—and the Professor's as well—than the reflections of Ikelos, Phantas, and Rpheus, dark and light alike, snapped to full attention. "Each of us activates the effects of our three monsters," both Leos declared, "to Release them while the Field Spells Darkness and Holy Light are in Field Zones, and Special Summon their counterparts from our Decks to our fields! And since each of us still controls our Dreamtelling Continuous Trap, Releasing our monsters will only return them back into our Decks! GO!"
All three of them went to it with a will. The Succubus, Demon Beast, and Black Knight had crossed the edge of the mirror and alighted upon Leo's field almost before he'd finished his discourse (Level 1: ATK 500 » 100/DEF 0, Level 4: ATK 1900 » 1500/DEF 900, Level 8: ATK 2800 » 2400/DEF 1000). His Maiden, Holy Beast, and White Knight had followed suit almost in lockstep with their darker selves—almost. No sooner had they taken their places before their Professor (Level 1: ATK 0/DEF 500, Level 4: ATK 900 » 500/DEF 1900, Level 8: ATK 1000 » 600/DEF 2800) than they rushed for their enemy with a single, wordless roar.
One—two—three blows with staff, paw, and sword later, and Dr. Grimm was reeling like never before this Duel, her Life Points whittled down to 5600 thanks to Darkness' effect. And Leo was still not done.
He made a fist with his free hand. "Finally … we activate the Quick-Play Spell: Dream Magic Mirror of Chaos."
With a single shared movement, he and the Professor smote their card against the wound in the mirror that Traitor had created. Leo had just enough time to see the look of horror that contorted both halves of Dr. Grimm's face.
And then—SMASH.
The mirror shattered. The study, the cloudless sky, the moon and stars beyond … everything shattered. In a single, deafening instant, the entirety of the universe Dr. Grimm had dreamed was but splinters and shards of day, of night, of memory and thought—all tumbling through lightless nothingness. Only the three combatants and the monsters they commanded kept their places—but even amongst them, there were participants slipping away into the void …
Namely, the reflections of Neiroy that hovered aloft on the field.
As Leo now explained: "With this card, we can Fusion Summon 1 Dream Magic Mirror Fusion Monster from our Extra Deck, using monsters we control as material! We therefore fuse the Traitor on our fields with the Apostle in our hands, and unite the light with the darkness—the dream with the nightmare!"
No longer did Leo and the Professor move as one; with the mirror that divided them collapsing, they were no longer bound by the dream-logic that had gone into its creation. None of this, however, was immediately apparent to him; the sight and sound that dominated the shattering dream-space would have been too much for any outside spectator to focus on the Duel at hand. Yet as the last word dropped from their lips, some of those shards froze in place, and swirled towards each other without a sound. First it was ten … then a hundred.
By the time they opened their lips to chant, it had become a thousand—
"Bliss and beauty! Loathing and rage! Combine your thousand faces, and give your creator physical form!"
"Fusion Summon! Come forth! Mara and Nightmare Demon of the Dream Magic Mirror – Neiros!"
Twenty thousand glittering fragments coalesced, dividing into two writhing clouds of light and shadow. Two vast, feathered wings bloomed from within the depths of each one—one of jet-black and mesmerizing violet; the other of bone-white and deep gold, and armored in their opposites—extending near five meters wide from socket to wingtip. The wings beat once, each dispelling the clouds in a trice, and revealing the monsters to which they were attached.
They might have been twins, for neither looked an inch taller or shorter, or an ounce lighter or heavier, than their polar opposite. But where Mara glided towards the Professor's other monsters with a gentle smile upon his lips, his pink, floor-length hair drifting weightlessly in his wake (Level 10: ATK 3000 » 2600/DEF 3000), Leo's Nightmare Demon sported an ominous smirk upon his face, framed by a mane as mercurial as the shades of gray that colored it, as he floated in front of Leo's shadow-infested field (Level 10: ATK 3000 » 2600/DEF 3000).
"Neiros' effect!" Once again, Leo and the Professor spoke in tandem—though in truth, they no longer needed to, having destroyed the very object that had allowed them to duplicate every move they made. "While each of them remains on the field, its Attribute is treated as both DARK and LIGHT at the same time!"
And since I still control my Darkness, he knew, watching Dr. Grimm cringe at the damage she knew was coming, Mara's Fusion Summon triggers its effect!
Mara seemed to be reading his mind. His wings flapped again, sending him aloft and conjuring a gale that knocked the Psychic Duelist flat on her back. She skidded along the dreamscape, sending her LP to 5300.
"Bit by bit, Wendy," Leo said through gritted teeth. "Bit by bit, again and again, until you come to your senses!"
He threw out his hand, not even waiting for Dr. Grimm to get up. "Now—Battle Phase! Since Demon Beast was Special Summoned by a Dream Magic Mirror monster's effect, I use its effect to attack directly this turn!"
The Psychic Duelist was halfway to her feet before the four-eyed monstrosity—having leapt over her monsters—fell upon her. She had no time to cry out; Leo heard her clothes ripping and tearing in his monster's claws and jaws.
By the time Demon Beast returned to his side, Dr. Grimm's already-tattered overcoat looked more woebegone than ever. Great chunks of the violet cloth were missing, as was a larger portion of her life gauge, now reading 3800.
That in itself gave Leo cause for relief—now that Dr. Grimm was below 4000 LP, it meant the nastiest of her usual tricks wouldn't help her here—and so he pressed on. "Next! Succubus—destroy Dr. Grimm's Set monster!" The one he knew full well was not her Shaddoll Falcon, he amended, as he watched his chosen monster spring forward. Succubus' scythe flashed once—twice—and he saw a shadowed, doglike creature (Level 4: ATK 1600 » 600/DEF 800 » 0) bisected, then trisected, before finally disintegrating into dust.
"Shaddoll Hound's Reverse effect!" the Psychic Duelist retorted. "When it is flipped face-up, I may target another Shaddoll monster in my Graveyard, and return it to my hand."
Leo cared little. Her other monster's own Reverse effect posed no threat to him this turn. "Black Knight—destroy the face-down Shaddoll Falcon!"
SLASH. The ebon-armored warrior moved almost as quickly as the very shadows that writhed around it. The keen edge of its heavy blade slashed down—and Leo saw, very faintly, the image of a puppet-bird split down the middle (Level 2: ATK 600 » 0/DEF 1400 » 400) before dissipating into oblivion.
"Shaddoll Falcon's Reverse effect!" Dr. Grimm seemed determined to speak above the noise at every turn. "When it is flipped-face up, I may target another Shaddoll monster in my Graveyard, and Special Summon it face-down—"
"—which triggers my Darkness' effect," Leo cut in, "and inflicts 300 more damage to you!" He'd barely spoken the number before an especially large dream-shard, spinning errantly through the shattered space, sliced past Dr. Grimm and left a clean gash in her right temple—barely an inch above her damaged eye—dropping her to 3500 LP.
"And finally! Nightmare Demon—destroy Dr. Grimm's El Shaddoll Wendigo! Final Embrace of the Void!"
Scarlet energy coursed over his Fusion Monster's fingers, congealing into a blood-red orb of jagged ice and furious, snapping lightning. Nightmare Demon became a blur, hurling its conjured missile aloft, straight for Wendigo—
"El Shaddoll Wendigo's effect!" Dr. Grimm cried. "Once per turn, during any player's turn, I may target a Shaddoll monster on my field, and prevent it from being destroyed by battle with a Special Summoned monster this turn!"
"That won't help you!" bellowed Leo. "Nightmare Demon's second effect! Once per turn, during anyone's turn, if a monster effect is activated while Dream Magic Mirror of Darkness is in a Field Zone, I can negate that effect!"
FLASH.
Leo had to look away from the impact, for the sake of his eyesight. When he turned back, feeling his heart float—
—he felt it sink right into his bowels.
Wendigo, he saw, was still alive.
"You're beginning to show your age, Leo." Dr. Grimm was shaking her head in pity. "Just because a Duelist wants to explain the effects of their cards doesn't mean that's when they choose to use them. The moment I Summoned El Shaddoll Wendigo to my field, I used its effect on itself—well before you brought out your Nightmare Demon," she smirked. Wendigo itself, if it was possible, seemed to be smiling even wider at Leo's error.
All Leo could do was scowl. "I end my turn," he muttered dully—though in truth he was far from despondent. His counterpart still had a turn to draw and attack—and the damage he'd dealt this turn might have opened the door for the Professor to finish this Duel!
He kept his face level as the Professor, freed of the mirror that created him, stepped forward to pick up where he had left off. "First, I switch Mara to Attack Position," he began, watching his Fusion Monster stiffen where he stood, "and then, each of us activates the effects of our Ikelos, Phantas, and Rpheus once more! Go—ONEIRIC SHIFT!"
This time, none of them disappeared into some gigantic reflection to reemerge on the other side. Instead, each trio of monsters—fairy, beast, and knight alike—merely crossed the other's paths at right angles in a sprint, switching sides and alighting on their new masters' fields as if this deadly dance of light and shadow had become routine for them (Level 1: ATK 500 » 100/DEF 0, Level 4: ATK 1900 » 1500/DEF 900, Level 8: ATK 2800 » 2400/DEF 1000; Level 1: ATK 0/DEF 500, Level 4: ATK 900 » 500/DEF 1900, Level 8: ATK 1000 » 600/DEF 2800).
The dance now reached a fever pitch as Darkness' effect triggered for the umpteenth time tonight—and quicker than it took for Leo to find the words to describe it, let alone explain it to his student, the Psychic Duelist was set upon by Maiden, Holy Beast, and White Knight yet again. But this time, Dr. Grimm wasn't knocked off her feet, even as her LP plummeted to 2600—even as cuts and bruises appeared anew over every exposed inch of her flesh.
In the seconds of silence that followed, as pieces of fantasies and nightmares drifted everywhere around them, Leo thought he had seen something different in his student. Nothing concrete—just sparks and phantasms, here and there. He could see she carried herself more defiantly than he'd ever seen—as a protégée or a paragon. She was eyeing him more fiercely, sneering at him more savagely—even to the point of baring her teeth like an animal.
… Wendy, he could only think, who did this to you? What on God's green earth could rouse this in you?
His first thought was Kagemaru—how he'd manipulated Leo's prized pupil into Dueling Leo himself, to either bring him under his heel or bring him down. But the more Leo looked at Dr. Grimm's face, the more he realized this feral fury was more familiar to him than he'd first thought. He'd seen the gleam in her eye when she'd returned from her undercover assignment at LDS—her only eye, after the debacle that had happened there—and realized with a jolt that Kagemaru, for once, had had nothing to do with this campaign against him … and the Wise Man less so.
For neither of them, as far as Leo knew, had made Wendy taste of failure as Kōtsu Masumi had done.
This wasn't a campaign, he knew. This wasn't even a vendetta, as he'd confided to Masumi herself.
It was hatred. It was malevolence so cold, so calculated—so calm—that it wasn't even personal.
It was duty.
She had to be stopped. Tonight. And the Professor, Leo thought, seemed to have understood the same thing.
"Battle Phase!" he declared at once. "First—my Demon Beast's effect! Attack directly!" And with a leap that sent him catapulting right over Wendigo by a good meter, the monster alighted right in front of Dr. Grimm—crouched—
—and struck home like black-and-scarlet lightning.
The Psychic Duelist, her life gauge now at 1100, bent double and dropped to the ground on one knee, using her free hand to staunch what looked like a severe wound in her side, where she'd been struck. Yet Leo saw no blood, just as it had been with the other injuries he'd dealt her, tonight and in ten years of tutelage alike. He'd wounded her—but he had yet to bleed her.
"Next! Black Knight! Destroy the face-down monster!" And as it had before, the night-black warrior sallied forth, hewing its target with a single blow—but Leo's heart nearly stopped when he saw the point gauge it had possessed:
(Level 4: ATK 1800 » 800/DEF 1000 » 0)
Dr. Grimm pounced before he could even loose a curse. "Shaddoll Lizard's Reverse effect!" she crowed. "I can target a monster on my opponent's field, and destroy it! Since Dream Magic Mirror of Holy Light protects your monsters from attacks or card effects, save the one with your highest Level … I target the Professor's Mara!"
Even as the reptile-puppet became just another cloud of dream-shards, it vomited a long, sticky tentacle of black from its mouth—but Leo was already acting. "Nightmare Demon's effect! If a monster activated its effect while Darkness is in a Field Zone, I can negate that effect!"
But scarcely had Lizard's fading tongue harmlessly bounced off Mara before Leo was swearing under his breath. He'd hoped to save that effect for when it counted most. Now there was nothing left to keep her from making her Wendigo indestructible in battle again—for none of his monsters, he reflected, had been Normal Summoned.
He decided to try anyway—"Mara, destroy El Shaddoll Wendigo!"—for he knew Wendy might think Wendigo's second effect made it worth destroying. But a second later, his hopes were dashed: Mara had soared aloft into the far reaches of the dream-space above them, and fired a burst of energy so blindingly bright it might have conjured the first rays of the morning sun. All it did to her Fusion Monster was make more shadows dance over its body.
Damn. "Battle Phase, end," he grunted. "I Set one card, and end my turn. During the End Phase, our Field Spells allow us to switch them out with our counterparts, by banishing them from our fields. I therefore banish my Darkness to activate another Holy Light from my Deck—"
"—and vice versa with mine," said the Professor. They swiped their cards over their Duel Disks … and in seconds, the millions upon millions of splintered fragments that had once been Leo's personal study now mended themselves; they might never have been reduced to mental shrapnel at all. All that differed was that it was Leo's side of the field bathed in sunlight and birdsong, now—while the Professor's field was as dreary and ominous as it had been when he had first activated that Spell.
Leo couldn't help but dwell on that, as he watched his former student begin her turn.
"I truly wish it didn't have to come to this," Dr. Grimm sighed, inspecting her card. "I will never forget the days I spent under your wing, Leo. Everything you taught me, everything you did for me. But you had to have known this day would come. A student that does not surpass her master cannot hope to be a master herself."
She bowed her head. "'There lies the port. The vessel puffs her sail. There gloom the dark, broad seas.'"
Leo blinked. "Tennyson's Ulysses," he mused, remembering the words, and the passage from which they had come. "'Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—that ever with a frolic welcome took the thunder and the sunshine—and opposed free hearts, free foreheads.'"
He shook his head. "'You and I are old,'" he said to Dr. Grimm—and he felt it, too.
"'Old age hath yet his honour and his toil,'" the Psychic Duelist seemed to agree. "'Death closes all—but something ere the end … some work of noble note … may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.'"
She smiled—perhaps hopefully. "''Tis not too late to seek a newer world,'" she smiled, cajoling him to continue.
But what is this newer world you wish to seek? Leo wanted to ask her. There were plenty of books of poetry in his study. Of all the ones he had read during his confinement, it had been this poem more than any other that had hit him so profoundly—that made him realize, at long last, he had neither the age nor the resolve to believe in the cause he had once championed.
A gray spirit yearning in desire, he remembered of one passage, to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought. He'd had to put away the book and sit down after reading that. It had taken him a very long time to accept that a man who'd died near a century and a half ago had summed up his search for Ray far better than he himself ever could.
"'For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset,'" Leo finally answered her, "'and the baths of all the western stars.'" Until I die, he did not feel the need to add. "'It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.'"
Dr. Grimm still smiled. "'It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles, whom we knew.'"
The Happy Isles … the Original Dimension. Leo had never known a happier place in all his life—and perhaps for that very reason, it had become a place to which he could never return. But the Wise Man was not the first person he would have compared to that Greek hero of old. Nor was he certain he deserved to be called a hero at all.
"'We are not now that strength … which in old days moved earth and heaven," he quoted. "That which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts.'"
"'Made weak by time and fate,'" answered the Psychic Duelist, "'but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find … '"
There passed a second that might have been an eon on Earth. «And not,» she finished, her lips sealed, «to yield.»
Leo sensed then that the time for poetry was ended—and indeed, not one instant later, Dr. Grimm became a blur.
"I activate the Equip Spell: Nephe Shaddoll Fusion!" she declared, slamming a card onto her sword-blade. "By declaring an Attribute, I can equip this card to a Shaddoll monster I control, and make it become that Attribute! I equip this to my Wendigo—and give it the Attribute of FIRE!"
It happened in a trice: orange flames licked at her dolphin-puppet's ceramic flesh—and her own as well. Even as Leo looked on in apprehension, he could see a thousand tongues of fire consuming his student, though they did not burn her—but with each passing moment, they grew in size until she seemed nothing more than a walking pyre.
Leo seized his chance—"Oneiric Shift!"—and in an instant, his monsters sprang into action, performing their dance with the Professor's own monsters one more time. They moved like the wind—fast enough to dispel at least some of the blaze that engulfed Dr. Grimm—but not all of it. Three gusts of wind were the only sign of Darkness' effect taking place, and each one made the Psychic Duelist stumble back three times—but she did not fall. Even as her LP plunged to 200, even as the fires dwindled to half, and even as each monster drew itself to its full height (Level 1: ATK 500/DEF 0, Level 4: ATK 1900/DEF 900, Level 8: ATK 2800/DEF 1000; Level 1: ATK 0/DEF 500, Level 4: ATK 900/DEF 1900, Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 2800), the flames sprang anew—and indeed, it seemed as though they were consuming her faster still.
The last bit of her to vanish beneath the inferno was her right eye—her damaged eye—and then: "Nephe Shaddoll Fusion's second effect allows me to Fusion Summon 1 Shaddoll Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck, using the equipped monster, and any monsters in my hand or field, as Fusion Material! I therefore fuse my Wendigo with the Shaddoll Beast in my hand!"
BANG. Before Leo could brace himself, Wendigo's body exploded; the shockwave nearly knocked him right off his feet and made his monsters stumble where they stood. The flames towered higher than ever, reaching the ceiling of the study—bright enough that Leo nearly missed a second shadow leaping inside them … but not so bright that he couldn't make out what was taking place inside the roaring conflagration:
"Dark master of the otherworld," the Psychic Duelist hissed, "bind the flames to your will!"
"Fusion Summon! Burn away the foes who dare to defy your power! Rise now, El Shaddoll Egrysta!"
Leo knew it was only part of the dream, but he could feel his face crisping as the gigantic foot stepped out of the hell that had been birthed before him. Half-melted armor sizzled and creaked as more and more of Egrysta took shape in front of him, its red-hot helm squirming with the yellowing heads of Roots, and shrieking its endless cacophonous noise. The flames that had spawned the monster now raced up its armor in dozens upon dozens of glowing threads, unfurling along its back like the wings of some giant moth (Level 7: ATK 2450 » 1450/DEF 1950 » 950).
"Curse of the Shadow Prison's effect." Leo had to strain to hear Dr. Grimm over all the noise. "For each Shaddoll monster sent to my Graveyard by a card effect, it gains another one of its counters—and I sent two to Summon my Egrysta. Furthermore, if El Shaddoll Wendigo is sent to the Graveyard for any reason, I may use its effect to target a Shaddoll Spell/Trap Card in my Graveyard, and return it to my hand."
She did so. "Next, my Shaddoll Beast's effect—if a card effect should send it to the Graveyard, I may draw a card!"
Leo felt it just then: the Psychic Duelist had drawn her card with all the grim finality of unsheathing a sword. In that instant, he could feel the Duel was about to take a turn for the worse.
"Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed," she grinned, swiping it over her Duel Disk. "The Spell Card: Magic-Effect Arrow. By activating this, I can destroy every Spell Card my opponent controls as possible—and for each one destroyed," she added, reveling in the sudden horror that had taken hold of Leo's face, "they take 500 damage!"
He had no time to react—Egrysta's thread-wings had flapped once, and loosed no less than four different arcane, glowing arrows, straight for the Field and the Continuous Spell on both his and the Professor's fields. Each flew straight and true—one, two, three, four—and buried themselves dead center through the very cards that had controlled this Duel from the start. The effect was as instantaneous as it was kaleidoscopic—hundreds, thousands, millions of cracks now shattered the dreamscape. Some of them lashed out at Leo with translucent tongues of flame, as though he was part of the dream itself, burning his forearms as though an entire colony of wasps had decided to sting him there.
By the time he'd recovered from that, his LP gauge had dropped to 3000—as had the Professor's, he noticed—and Egrysta, damnably, had stiffened to its full height … and its full ATK of 2450.
"You were right," Dr. Grimm whispered, her voice near inaudible as the landscape of the Duel continued to crumble around her. "You did train me too well, Leo. But it wasn't as a student—and not even as a Duelist. You trained me to always dream of something more—of being something more. So I have … so I am."
She waved a flaming arm—and as if by magic, all the flames were extinguished. Leo's breath caught at what they left behind: skin of pale porcelain; raw, rigid and shiny; a headdress of green-painted wood, waving and undulating as though it was her own hair; violet threads that streamed along her body and into the unknown—and a dead face with a single dead eye, with painted lips that creaked and clacked. Over the socket where her right eye should have been, there was only a patch of stretched skin, burning with a single flame of vivid violet and endless black—
—and within that, a single, scarlet sigil: two chevrons, enclosing a single vertical line.
"No … "
"Yes, Leo," Dr. Grimm said solemnly. "Kagemaru has fulfilled my wishes—and in a way even you never could. Now, I no longer need to merely control pain and fear. Now, I am puppet and puppeteer. I am pain. I am fear."
The sigil emblazoned on her puppet-face pulsed and glowed. "I am truth … and I am death."
For an instant, Leo could see the ancient Word that Masumi had branded onto her very being, so long ago. Then—
"Quick-Play Spell: El Shaddoll Fusion!" Dr. Grimm screamed—"and with it, I activate the effect of Shadow Prison! By removing three of its counters when I perform a Fusion Summon, I may use a monster on my opponent's field as one of the Fusion Materials! I fuse the Shaddoll Hedgehog in my hand … with the DARK-Attribute Succubus of the Dream Magic Mirror – Ikelos on your field, Leo! Opposition Fusion!"
Leo rounded on his monster—but the damnable power of the Psychic Duelist's terrain program had already taken hold. The shadows that constricted Succubus' legs now began to crawl upwards, inch by inch, turning clothing and flesh alike into a gangrenous black. She slapped away at them, fear on her face, as if it would stop the morass from consuming her—but it simply stuck to her fingers, and started consuming them, too. Within seconds her entire body was dark as pitch—inside and out, for even as she had opened her mouth to scream, the shadows raced down her throat, suppressing all sound and contorting her limbs and spine in angles that were surely breaking her bones:
"Dark threads of the otherworld," Dr. Grimm began to chant, "bind the shadows to your will!"
By now, nothing was left of Leo's Succubus save a squirming sphere of darkness—as if the monster within was still struggling to escape the fate that awaited her—and then, with a finality that made Leo's stomach turn, the wriggling mass went limp, and disappeared at last into the all-consuming vortex beneath it—
"Fusion Summon! Extinguish the light of hope in the hearts of men! Rise now, El Shaddoll Midrash!"
The shadows flared—and became great wings, bound by the same glowing threads that surrounded its commander. A maw of fangs leered from between them, and protuberant eyes above, supported by a long neck atop a body just large enough for someone to stand on. For indeed that was what Dr. Grimm was doing right now, using her freshly Summoned monster as her own personal mount, bearing into the air. Within seconds Midrash was eye-level with Leo, screeching a keening cry that made the hairs on the back of his neck go rigid (Level 5: ATK 2200/DEF 800)—
"Trap Card, open: Fantastic Story of the Dream Magic Mirror!"
For an instant, Midrash seemed to freeze in midair, and Dr. Grimm with it. It was hard to tell which of them had a more surprised look on their face—and for Leo, that felt more vindicating than he could possibly have hoped for.
"If I control a Dream Magic Mirror monster when I activate this," he explained, keeping his elation under control and just barely succeeding, "I can shuffle 1 each of my banished Dream Magic Mirrors of Holy Light and Darkness into my Deck—and then banish any one card on the field!"
There was no need to say which card he was targeting. Not that he would have had time to say it anyway; Midrash was already imploding from within by the time he'd pointed his finger right at the puppet. Dr. Grimm was only just able to dismount the Fusion Monster that had so briefly been her steed before it was deleted from the dream entirely, performing a decent back handspring that Leo vaguely remembered her needing the better part of a year to master in her younger days—before landing in a three-point stance some meters away.
He exhaled. That had been too close. With both Midrash and Egrysta on the field, his current strategy would have been useless; their restrictions on his Special Summoning formed a devastating duo. But Midrash, though its effect protected it from destruction by enemy card effects, didn't have the same defenses against cards that banished. And a major weakness of the Shaddolls, he knew full well, was that it had very few ways of recovering banished cards.
"Kagemaru's not going to be pleased with me," he heard the Psychic Duelist mildly say, "for letting such a talented Duelist go to waste. It's not every day someone gets that close to anticipating my moves."
Leo blinked. "'That close'?" He didn't like the sound of those two words at all.
And that was when he remembered, with a jolt of horror—but Dr. Grimm was already playing the very card he had come so close to outsmarting all Duel. "I activate the Spell Card: Shaddoll Fusion!"
He faintly felt his legs take a step back. "With this card, I can Fusion Summon 1 Shaddoll Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck, by fusing its materials from my hand or my field. Furthermore, if my opponent controls a monster that was Special Summoned from the Extra Deck, I can use monsters in my Deck as material!
"But it gets better still." The smirk on her face was so wide as to nearly split it in half. "My Shadow Prison still has three counters for me to use. And I'll use every last one of them right now … by fusing the Shaddoll Dragon in my Deck with the Maiden of the Dream Magic Mirror – Ikelos on your field, Professor! OPPOSITION FUSION!"
Spittle flew from her jointed puppet's lips—and the shadows that spread from the Maiden's legs now swirled round. In an instant, they'd clamped down on her like the jaws of a bear trap, and wasted no time in dragging their prey into the blackness that was their source—like a log sinking into a swamp. Maiden clawed and struggled, but to no more avail than her darker-hearted counterpart mere minutes ago. With one final, silent scream she vanished beneath the floor, leaving no trace of her existence save a few eddies of shadow from within the morass that had swallowed her:
"Dark threads of the otherworld," howled the Psychic Duelist, "bind the light to your will!"
"FUSION SUMMON! Blind the foolish eyes with the brilliance of God! Rise now, El Shaddoll Nephilim!"
There was no sign of the monster in the study—but Leo was not looking inside the study at all. His gaze was laser-fixed on the window outside, and the slice of eternal twilight that had been frozen in its panes.
Until about three seconds ago.
Now all that Leo could see was the toes of two colossal feet—for the monster that had been Summoned just now was far too large to fit in any house. Possibly it could not have fit in most stadiums, either—but something the size of Nephilim would not have let that become an issue. Even now, Leo heard a long, loud groaning noise from above, as though the very roof of the Château was being pulled apart like a pair of toy bricks.
Which was exactly what happened a second later.
With a thunderous CRACK that might well have split the earth itself, the rafters of the study peeled back, exposing splintered timber, crumbling stucco … and the titanic marionette of Nephilim at last: a face white as sun-bleached bone, the size of the very clearing in which this house had been built; mile-long arms that rose into the clouds as if daring to touch them, and thousands of glowing violet strings that threatened to go further still and touch the very face of the moon, waving and undulating, like so many feathers, with every caress of the winds that lapped at her gargantuan frame (Level 8: ATK 2800/DEF 2500).
Leo still remembered the surge of triumph that had surged through him, the first time he'd seen Wendy Summon this monster. It had been the culmination of everything that he'd planned for the woman Academia had called its "Golem": the face of a Duelist who had begun her journey in Duel Monsters as a mere husk of a girl, made hollow by a scarring of the mind never before seen in medicine. And she had not only fought it, but taken it into herself: made it part of who she was—and become something far more than her parts would have otherwise allowed.
But she'd kept at it, long after her training was done; she'd never stopped trying to become more than what she was.
She'd kept on growing; kept on evolving—and Leo, blind from the pride he'd felt for her and the results of his instruction, knew only just now that he hadn't just watched it happen.
He'd made it happen.
"El Shaddoll Nephilim's effect!" With the roof gone, the wind was free to shriek through the study—but Dr. Grimm shrieked louder still, her green hair whipping about as much as the puppet-strings that guided it would allow. "If she is Special Summoned, I can send a Shaddoll card from my Deck to the Graveyard!"
Her single eye burned with a fire that nearly outshone the sigil that served for its twin. "I send Qadshaddoll Keios."
Silence. Leo could feel his heart thundering against his ribs.
"Qadshaddoll?" he repeated, half to himself. He knew the contents of her entire Deck back to front—he knew how to exploit each card he'd made for her to use in a Duel.
This was not one of those cards.
Leo could only watch as a beam of light shone from Nephilim's chest, pale as the full moon. "Qadshaddoll Keios' effect," hissed the Psychic Duelist. "If it is sent to the Graveyard by a card effect, I may send a Shaddoll monster from my hand to the Graveyard—and give each Shaddoll monster I control 100 ATK and DEF times its Level until the end of the turn. I send … the Level 9 Helshaddoll Void!"
His mouth had gone dry. Helshaddoll. Leo would have remembered creating a card with such a sinister name—and certainly one with such a high Level. But no—this hadn't been one of the cards he'd given Wendy back then, either.
Where in the world could she have possibly—?
The answer, when it came, forced a curse upon his tongue that died on his lips, seconds from explosion. Kagemaru.
And now the ray of light from Nephilim had intensified, expanding into a roaring conflagration that had engulfed the field in seconds. What few shadows remained—through the Shadow Prison or otherwise—danced in the flames as if daring to be the shadows of fire itself. The darkest of them had gathered under the steaming armor of Egrysta, and surged up the strings of Nephilim, causing their point gauges to skyrocket to 3350/2850 and 3700/3400.
"Helshaddoll Void's effect." Dr. Grimm had drawn herself to her full height, standing so proudly that Leo thought she might be close to levitating. "If it is sent to the Graveyard by a card effect, I may send cards from the top of my Deck to the Graveyard, up to the number of different monster Attributes on the field. Since the only such Attributes are DARK, FIRE and LIGHT, I therefore send three cards."
She did so. Not once did her single puppet's eye waver from Leo. "When I was young," the Psychic Duelist told him, "my mother used to read to me, in hopes that her words would soothe me to sleep. They never did—how could mere words do that? But they stuck all the same, and I remember them even more clearly than I did then."
The breath shuddered from her lips. "I think it only more fitting that it's these words that come to mind tonight," she went on. "'When I was a child, I spake as a child … I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.'"
"'For now we see through a glass, darkly,'" Leo finished for her, his worst fears confirmed, "'but then face to face.'"
He bowed his head. In an instant of stunning clarity, everything made perfect sense now—even the very imagery of the dream that had laid the foundation of their whole Duel. Though he might have had enough knowledge to shape and mold its illusory surroundings, Leo was no psychic—there was no way for him to create them outright.
In all the time he'd gloried in the hold he'd created over Wendy's powers, he hadn't thought to consider the hold his student might have had over him.
Until now.
But now was too late. The primeval ballet of light against darkness that teacher and student had danced tonight had been decided before it had even started. Maybe before they'd ever met.
Before either of them had even been born.
The moment he'd claimed her, he'd already lost her. The brighter he shone, the blacker she burned. How could he defeat her in a Duel now, when the concept of Dueling itself had become just another weapon to the likes of her?
And yet … in that instant, deep in his despair though he was, Leo thought he saw a glimmer—one last chance.
Only one.
But if he was defeated tonight … then that chance might be gone before he had the time to seize it.
Dr. Grimm was silent for the longest moment of his life. "Akaba Leo," she finally said, "your time as my teacher is ended. I have surpassed you. I have outgrown you. I have no more reason to remain in your shadow."
She took a breath. "Battle Phase."
But Leo and the Professor were already moving. "Dreamtelling's second effect!" they cried in unison, their bellows drowning out even the fires pouring from Nephilim and Helshaddoll Void. "By sending it to the Graveyard, we can target a Dream Magic Mirror Field Spell in our Graveyard, and place it directly into our Field Zones once more!"
In an instant, the fires had frozen—and each tongue shattered as if they had suddenly become some fantastical yet fragile ice sculpture. With each shard and splinter, the light and darkness crystallized around them, forming once more the giant mirror that had split the Dueling field down the center.
"And since your monsters are attempting to attack us now," Leo added triumphantly, "that means the Dream Magic Mirror of Holy Light I reactivated can apply its effect! You can no longer target any Dream Magic Mirror monsters with card effects or attacks—save those with the highest Level!"
"Persistent to the end," Dr. Grimm huffed. "Perhaps your son did get that stubbornness of his from you after all."
And then she smiled. "Unfortunately … Trap Card: Shadow of Fusion."
His heart stopped.
No …
"When I activated Helshaddoll Void's effect, one of the cards it sent to my Graveyard was that very card." It was Dr. Grimm's turn to sound triumphant—and for good reason. "And as you know full well, Leo, if Shadow of Fusion is in my Graveyard, I can banish it—and turn any attacks my Fusion Monsters make this turn into direct attacks!
"GO!" Both her marionettes spread their arms wide, light and flame gathering in their hands. "El Shaddoll Egrysta! El Shaddoll Nephilim! Attack Leo and the Professor directly!"
Light, sound, heat—everything vanished, drained to nil. For a too-short moment, the cold void reached to Infinity.
Then, in the blink of an eye—
"ETERNAL SHADOWFLAME!"
—Infinity became Everything, and then Nothing.
And everything Akaba Leo had ever been in life became part of the Nothing, too.
A world away, and further still, Kōtsu Masumi jerked awake with a gasp.
" … Mm … Masumi?"
It took her a moment to register Yaiba, curled up in bed beside her—her bed, her bedroom—and resting against the inch-thick sliver of stomach that her shirt could not conceal. He looked like an incredibly spiky-furred cat.
"Was—what's wrong?"
Masumi wasn't sure. She thought it might have been a dream—but if it was, she could remember very little about it. "Bad dream," she finally settled on saying. " … Bad feeling. I don't know."
Yaiba leaned in a little closer, and wrapped his free arm around her chest. "I know something to help with that." And he pulled her into the covers, planting a kiss on Masumi's neck that nearly made her melt into the mattress.
But whatever she had dreamed still weighed on her, even as sleep overtook her once more. For some reason, she still had a feeling that something bad had happened inside her head … something far more terrible than her mind could properly grasp.
She did not know how much time had passed before her Duel Disk vibrated, and all her questions were answered.
Nakajima could only stand where he was.
Reiji still rested on his back—but the aide had felt the dead weight the moment after he'd crashed through the door, had made sense of the sight that greeted them both. He'd felt his own body slacken not long after. Cold fury licked at his insides, but a thick veil of confusion hung over the blaze, choking the tongues before they escaped him.
Tears trickled forever from eyes that could not see—or perhaps saw without seeing. Were it not for those, Nakajima would have thought their owner dead. He was reclined in his chair—a pen still in his hand; papers still on his desk, still fresh with ink and memory. The corners of his mouth were turned upwards, in a quaint, small smile.
He might have been like this for hours, or mere minutes; there was no way to know now. Time had no meaning in a dream, Himika had told him, not long after the Shaddoll incident.
Perhaps, he reflected now, it had just as little meaning outside of one, too.
"Nakajima," Reiji whispered. "Set me down."
He did so, but gently—depositing his charge into another chair, on the opposite end of the desk in the study. And in doing so, the aide saw something in the center of the desk—a sheet of paper, lying innocently in its exact center, yet whose writing vastly differed from the many volumes and drafts that surrounded it.
Nakajima seized the paper. It took him about ten seconds to decipher the cursive scrawl upon it.
Now I shall dream of him,
As ever he shall of me.
The former JSDF soldier needed only to feel the flare of the anger in his core—before his befuddlement squashed it once more—to know who might have sent this letter.
Nakajima left the room then—and his boss as well. He hadn't seen him grieve before. He wasn't keen to see tonight.
Of one thing, he was absolutely certain: neither dreams nor time were of any concern to Akaba Reiji right now.
And less still, he thought, than they would ever be to the man who had been his enemy … and his father.
A/N: WELP I can't wait to see what the reviews section looks like after this
Looking back on it now, I think either Leo or the Professor could have won at some point in this Duel, between their effects and all that burn damage they'd dealt over time—but with how often they were changing out their monsters, it might be they'd done all they could either way. (Even so, this is what they get for playing too cautiously. Remember, kids, sometimes you just have to take risks when you play Yu-Gi-Oh!—even if you're Dueling a dream-manipulating über-telepath who knows you like an old friend.)
I also think, on some level, that this is what makes the Duel such a tragedy for Leo in the first place—the fact that he should have done more, but never did, on account of some subconscious desire or other to see his student conquer the weakness of her youth. But then, who's to say he could have? Knowing how powers work might help you fight them, but it's not the same as possessing those powers yourself.
Okay. I think I need to tone down the more head-spinning parts of my Duels for the time being—it's become clear that this one got away from me big-time. The next battles I write, when they come, should be a little more straightforward; I still want some time to get back into my old habits after being so quiet these past few months.
Thanks for reading! – K
P.S. "Shadow of Fusion" first appeared in Chapter X of (æ)mæth, if you'd like a refresher of its effect. We'll see if it gets used again. – K