Chapter 161: Betting the Last Shred of Human Dignity
A genuinely bizarre sight: Kuroshio Nagi's Life Points had just been reduced, and she was doubled over in visible pain, one hand pressed to her midsection. But her one functioning eye had still not stopped filling up with little pink stars.
[Kuroshio Nagi] [Affection +1] [Affection +1] [Affection +1]
Why is it going up one point at a time?
More to the point, why is it going up at all?
Was it the recreation of the scene from his livestream videos? Or had the stomach pain become severe enough to produce some kind of delirium?
Either way, this girl was genuinely unusual.
But in all honesty, affection ratings were not what needed his attention right now.
This was a contest of human dignity. Amano committed to giving it everything he had.
Before enrolling at the academy, sweeping the field with Red Dragon Archfiend would have been close to his ceiling. But his deck had grown considerably since then.
He was carrying the power of a god in his hands.
"I activate the effect of Earthbound God Scarlet Nova from my hand!"
The god card delivered by recording the Soul Binder's professional identity was the most unusual and most ancient of the Earthbound Gods. To avoid a full social collapse at the school gate, Amano was not above calling on divine power.
[During your Main Phase or your opponent's Main Phase: You can banish this card from your hand or Graveyard; send 1 "Earthbound God" monster or "Red Dragon Archfiend" monster from your hand or field to the Graveyard. Then, apply 1 of the following effects: Special Summon 1 "Earthbound God" monster from your deck or Extra Deck. Special Summon 1 "Scar-Red Nova Dragon" from your Extra Deck as a Synchro Summon.]
The limitation was that Amano's deck contained no other Earthbound God cards apart from this one. But he had Red Dragon Archfiend on the field.
Under Red Dragon Archfiend / Right Red Mark's ruling, that card's name was treated as "Red Dragon Archfiend" while on the field or in the Graveyard.
"I banish Earthbound God Scarlet Nova from my hand and send Red Dragon Archfiend / Right Red Mark from the field to the Graveyard! And then!"
The Burning Soul Synchro sequence ignited from Amano's Extra Deck.
"King and demon, converge here in this moment! Burning soul! Let out the war cry that shook creation!"
"Synchro Summon! Arise!"
"Scar-Red Nova Dragon!!"
Amano drew the card from his blazing Extra Deck and placed the card treated as a Synchro Summon onto the Duel Disk.
[Scar-Red Nova Dragon] [Level 12 DARK]
[Dragon / Synchro / Effect]
[ATK: 3500 / DEF: 3000]
[2 Tuners + "Red Dragon Archfiend"]
Born from a thousand exploding supernovae scattered across the cosmos, Jack Atlas's ultimate monster from the 5D's anime: the Level 12 double-Synchro ace.
Under normal conditions, the requirement of two Tuner monsters would have been prohibitively strict for Amano's deck. But with Earthbound God Scarlet Nova in the equation, even a double-Synchro was within reach.
The genuine excitement of growing stronger temporarily overpowered whatever discomfort the Dark Game had been producing.
"Scar-Red Nova Dragon's effect: this card gains 500 ATK for each Tuner monster in my Graveyard!"
Amano's Graveyard contained two Tuners: Shiranui Spiritblade and Star Chalice Divine Child Eve.
[Scar-Red Nova Dragon] [ATK: 3500 to 4500]
A collective gasp from the assembled students: "That is ATK on par with Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon! That's absurd, that's actually absurd!"
"Battle! Scar-Red Nova Dragon, direct attack on the duelist!"
A 4500-ATK direct strike was enough to wipe out a duelist at full Life Points. Kuroshio Nagi was nowhere near full.
"Burning Soul!!"
The massive dragon wrapped in roaring crimson fire leveled itself like a living missile at Kuroshio Nagi's empty field.
"Continuous Trap Card, activate!"
Kuroshio Nagi snapped up her one remaining set card.
"Continuous Trap: Spirit Swords of Sealing Light!!"
[Spirit Swords of Sealing Light] [Continuous Trap Card: Once per attack declaration, you can pay 1000 LP to negate that attack.]
She bit her lip and activated it with the expression of someone committing to something unpleasant.
"I pay 1000 Life Points to negate Scar-Red Nova Dragon's attack!"
She had clearly weighed 1000 points of damage against 4500. The choice was not a difficult one.
Kuroshio Nagi LP: 2500 to 1500
Even so, at the exact moment her Life Points dropped, her stomach produced an audible and deeply unfortunate sound of protest right on schedule.
"I'm fine. I can handle it."
Her face was doing something difficult, the normal cuteness of her features twisted under the effort of managing accumulated internal distress.
The saving grace was that the damage always came in separate increments. The sensation was unpleasant in the same way that urgently searching for a bathroom was unpleasant: a pressure that kept building but remained technically manageable as long as no single hit exceeded a certain threshold.
As long as no single burst of damage took more than half her Life Points at once, someone as accustomed to Dark Games as Kuroshio Nagi could hold on.
"Why not just concede, Kuroshio?" Amano suggested, through some discomfort of his own.
"Absolutely not!" She pressed her free hand against her side, but her one visible eye burned with conviction. "You are my favorite streamer. Even if you cannot hold on, I would never judge you for it, because I have an idol bias. But I am just a nobody fan. That standard does not apply to me!"
The idol bias was beside the point. One person's lenient judgment was not going to make a difference here.
The crowd at the school gate was approaching one hundred people at this point. He could not guarantee all one hundred were personal fans.
"I set one card face-down. Turn end."
Including the first turn's set card he had not yet used, Amano had two set cards in the back row.
Combined with the original anime-version effect of Scar-Red Nova Dragon, this was the core of his anti-Kaiju strategy.
Against the all-consuming nature of Kaiju monsters, even the most fearsome effect monsters, even the deck centerpieces that commanded entire strategies, had nowhere to go but into the turtle's mouth. No matter how powerful an effect, it could be stripped away and repurposed.
But the original anime-version Scar-Red Nova Dragon was a different matter entirely.
"My turn. Draw!"
Kuroshio Nagi drew from her elaborately decorated Duel Disk.
The instant she drew, Amano pointed at Scar-Red Nova Dragon burning in the fog.
"During your Draw Phase, Scar-Red Nova Dragon's effect activates!"
[Once per opponent's turn: You can banish this card from the field. During the turn this effect is used, you can negate 1 attack from an opponent's monster.]
It was the same mechanic as the anime's Shooting Star Dragon. At any moment during the opponent's turn, at Speed 2, Scar-Red Nova Dragon could banish itself and leave behind a single attack negation as insurance.
In the anime, Jack had used this same effect to avoid having Scar-Red Nova Dragon absorbed by the Emperors of Yliaster's Meklord Emperors multiple times over. Compared to the real card's weaker print, which could only banish on an attack declaration, this version was considerably more flexible.
[Scar-Red Nova Dragon: Banished]
Scar-Red Nova Dragon roared once and vanished into the flames.
One of the key pillars of an anti-Kaiju strategy: never leave a monster on the field. Never give the Kaiju a target to consume.
With nothing on Amano's field, it did not matter how many Kaiju or how many Alpha, the Master of Beasts copies Kuroshio Nagi was holding: she could not summon any of them.
Kuroshio Nagi stared at the suddenly empty field, her eye blinking several times with something between disbelief and delight.
"This is the first time I have ever met a duelist who knew how to fight against my deck. You really are incredible, aren't you. Beating Kaiba Chiha was never the luck that the comment sections kept saying it was."
Yuma-senpai had told her something similar once: in dueling, everything was inevitable.
"But keeping your field empty is not a complete answer to me! Spell Card: Pot of Greed! I draw two cards!"
Among the academy's top-ranked duelists, having a copy of Pot of Greed was unremarkable.
Except that after shattering Professor Chronos's jar, Kuroshio Nagi had already drawn a second jar from the cards she took.
"And again! Spell Card: Pot of Greed and Avarice!"
[Pot of Greed and Avarice] [Spell Card: Banish 10 cards from the top of your deck face-down. Draw 2 cards.]
Two draws for a cost of ten banished cards. The distinction from ordinary Pot of Greed lay in that cost: cards banished face-down in Yu-Gi-Oh were effectively removed from the game in any meaningful sense, nearly impossible to recover.
Ten cards vanished from the deck like water draining.
Replenished hand in order, Kuroshio Nagi slapped a card into the Monster Zone.
"When I control no monsters, I can Special Summon Doomkaiser Dragon from my hand!"
"When I control no monsters, Bloodclaw the Beast-Warrior King Special Summons itself from my hand!"
[Bloodclaw the Beast-Warrior King] [Level 5 DARK]
[Beast-Warrior / Effect]
[ATK: 1900 / DEF: 1200]
A hulking beast-warrior gripping an enormous metal axe materialized on Kuroshio Nagi's field, summoned by the empty-field condition.
A single monster at 1900 ATK was manageable. Scar-Red Nova Dragon's banished attack negation could cover that cleanly.
"And I activate Spell Card: Interrupted Kaiju Slumber!"
[Interrupted Kaiju Slumber] [Spell Card: Destroy all monsters on the field. Then, Special Summon 2 "Kaiju" monsters with different names from your deck: 1 to your field and 1 to your opponent's field, in Attack Position. Monsters Special Summoned by this effect cannot change battle position, and must attack if able.]
The field wipe was simple and brutal, similar in structure to Dark Hole. But this was not just a Dark Hole. Interrupted Kaiju Slumber could only resolve its second effect after monsters had been destroyed by the first.
Through the dense fog, enormous silhouettes rose up behind both duelists.
Kuroshio Nagi selected two cards from her deck. She pitched one across to Amano and placed the other on her own field.
"I Special Summon Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju on my field in Attack Position!"
[Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju] [Level 9 LIGHT]
[Thunder / Effect]
[ATK: 3300 / DEF: 2100]
"And I Special Summon Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju on your field in Attack Position!"
[Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju] [Level 7 EARTH]
[Insect / Effect]
[ATK: 2400 / DEF: 2500]
Two colossal entities materialized through the fog, roaring at each other across the distance between fields. A three-headed thunder dragon sovereign and a monstrous spider crouched atop towering buildings: the visual could have been a kaiju film climax with two giants a moment away from a decisive clash.
Naturally, since she had her pick, Kuroshio Nagi had kept the stronger one for herself.
Thunder King's 3300 ATK already exceeded Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Kumongous at 2400 was around the level of Red-Eyes Black Dragon.
Still within Scar-Red Nova Dragon's one remaining attack negation. One attack could be stopped.
"And now I bring in the third monster for this battle!"
Kuroshio Nagi still had her Normal Summon for the turn. She placed a second monster card into the Monster Zone of her overdressed Duel Disk.
"I Normal Summon Scar-Red Familiar - Tau Isha in Attack Position!"
[Scar-Red Familiar - Tau Isha] [Level 3 DARK]
[Fiend / Effect]
[ATK: ? / DEF: ?]
A Level 3 Scar-Red Fiend hit the field through a Normal Summon.
Despite sharing the name "Scar-Red," it bore no connection to Scar-Red Nova Dragon in any mechanical sense.
Nanki'in Sakuya folded her arms and tilted her head, puzzled: "A monster with both attack and defense listed as question marks?"
Amano had explained earlier that cards banished face-down by Pot of Greed and Avarice were basically beyond recovery. Scar-Red Familiar Tau Isha was the exception.
"Tau Isha's effect: this card's ATK and DEF equal the number of banished cards I control, multiplied by 400!"
Kuroshio Nagi swept her hand across the field. The Fiend that had entered as something small immediately began to grow, expanding past human scale, past building scale, rising until its bulk surpassed even the two enormous Kaiju floating in the sky above it.
"I have 10 cards banished from Pot of Greed and Avarice!"
[Scar-Red Familiar - Tau Isha] [ATK: 4000]
A Level 3 monster that could be Normal Summoned without Tributes, now standing at 4000 ATK: equivalent to Obelisk the Tormentor.
"And my final card: Spell Card: Primal Force, activate!"
[Primal Force] [Spell Card: Target 2 face-up monsters on the field. Until the End Phase, halve the ATK of one targeted monster and add that value to the other's ATK.]
"I halve Kumongous's ATK and add that value to Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju's ATK!"
[Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju] [ATK: 2400 to 1200]
[Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju] [ATK: 3300 to 4500]
"And now you are inside my kill range, my favorite streamer!"
One at 4000, matching Obelisk. One at 4500, matching Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, with three roaring heads to match. Either monster pushing through Kumongous would deal combat damage sufficient to clear Amano's Life Points entirely.
"Attack! Scar-Red Familiar! Hellfire Blaze!!"
Four thousand points of infernal flame roared toward the ATK-halved spider Kaiju.
"Scar-Red Nova Dragon's effect: I negate this attack!"
The phantom of the banished dragon returned to the field just long enough to roar Burning Soul and absorb the blow.
"My favorite streamer! Can you stop the second attack as well? Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju, attack!"
"Ultimate Triple Burst Thunderstrike!!"
Three roaring dragon heads gathered a triple-layered explosion on par with Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon's finisher and hurled it at the spider Kaiju on Amano's field.
"I have been waiting for exactly this attack. Activating my face-down card!"
Amano's hand came up and flipped it.
"Trap Card: Phantom Tuning!"
[Phantom Tuning] [Trap Card: Conduct 1 Synchro Summon, using monsters in your hand as Synchro Materials. The Synchro Monster Special Summoned by this effect returns to the Extra Deck during the End Phase.]
"Let me make use of your Kaiju, Kuroshio!"
Amano revealed the Tuner in his hand.
"I tune Level 1 Tuner Cosmic Spell Rabbit from my hand with the Level 7 Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju on the field!"
A single Synchro ring erupted from his hand and drove through the massive spider's body.
Level 1 plus Level 7 equals Level 8.
"The king's tremor is revealed here and now! Witness the force that shakes the heavens and earth!"
"Synchro Summon! Wa-ga-ta-ma-shi!"
"Red Dragon Archfiend!!"
[Red Dragon Archfiend] [Level 8 DARK]
[Dragon / Synchro / Effect]
[ATK: 3000 / DEF: 2500]
Amano used the Kaiju itself as Synchro Material to call out the genuine Red Dragon Archfiend. The great dragon erupted from the pillar of Synchro flame with a roar that blew the surrounding fog apart in all directions.
Kuroshio Nagi's fang glinted as it caught the lightning overhead: "A monster sitting at the same ATK as Blue-Eyes White Dragon cannot beat my Thunder King! Keep going, Thunder King!"
She had no choice but to continue: that was the nature of Kaiju Special Summoned through Interrupted Kaiju Slumber. While able to attack, they were compelled to do so.
Which meant even though the Red Dragon Archfiend summoned through Phantom Tuning would return to the Extra Deck at the End Phase, Kuroshio Nagi still had to send this attack through.
That was exactly what Amano had been counting on.
He flipped his final set card.
"Trap Card: King's Resonance, activate!"
****
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