Chapter 214: Extra Deck Severed: Dogmatika's Judgment
In the dueling philosophy that Kuroshio Nagi lived by, if someone took something that was yours, you took it back. That was what Owner's Seal was for. She had strong personal convictions about interference in other people's business being exactly that: their business.
So in the face of the Kaiba sisters' silent standoff, Nagi made a quick and principled decision.
She put her head down and kept eating.
The rest of the table arrived at the same position within seconds. Even Rin Seiya, who had just finished delivering a fairly detailed psychological portrait of Kaiba Chiaki's control issues, elected to say nothing and find her soup more interesting than usual. The general sound level in the cafeteria dropped to the soft percussion of utensils and bowls.
Kaiba Chiaki broke first.
"Chiha. Have you eaten?"
The resulting silence had a specific quality to it. Amano recognized it as the silence of people suppressing an impulse.
"Sis..." Chiha started. The word came out before whatever wall she had been maintaining could catch it. She stopped.
Yui had not been following any of this. She had walked in from the transit gate looking for familiar faces and found one, and now she was looking around at the atmosphere with the particular alertness of someone realizing she had stepped into a situation she had not been briefed on.
Then she processed what she could see: Chiha's expression, and the woman Chiha was looking at.
Yui stepped forward and positioned herself in front of Chiha with the decisiveness of someone who grew up in a neighborhood where stepping forward mattered.
"So you are the one. The sister who pushed her out and left her to nearly starve in District 35."
The Kaiba Corporation president did not visibly flinch. She had not had to flinch at things people said to her in a very long time. But she looked at Yui with a degree of attention she had not been directing at the room generally.
"Who are you?"
"I am Chiha's new big sister."
There was a beat.
"Chiha has only one sister," Chiaki said, and the word 'only' carried the kind of weight that came from someone who had never needed to qualify it before.
"No." Chiha's voice was quiet, but it arrived before Chiaki could continue. "Yui-nee is my sister now. And Kaiba Chiaki." A pause, and then the words that hit harder than anything else she could have said: "I don't want to be your sister anymore. Being your sister is painful."
Painful. Not inconvenient. Not complicated. Painful.
Chiaki's mouth opened. Closed. She had been prepared, on some level, for anger. Anger could be managed and responded to and eventually resolved. This was something else and it showed, briefly and unmistakably, in an expression that the high Kaiba composure could not entirely suppress in time.
Then Chiha noticed Kikawayu standing at the back of the group.
The sequence of events replayed itself almost identically to the previous evening. Chiha's eyes went wide. Her feet moved. She was gone from the cafeteria in the space of three seconds at a speed inconsistent with the length of her legs.
Yui, to her credit, did not freeze this time. She went after her.
The cafeteria was quiet again. Kaiba Chiaki remained at the table. The expression on her face was doing several things simultaneously, and all of them were visible.
"Should we give it some space for now?" Amano offered.
"I am perfectly calm."
She stood, straightened her jacket, and walked out of the cafeteria. Two people's food trays went off their tables as she passed them. She did not look back.
Amano considered this for a moment.
"What a genuinely strange set of sibling dynamics," Sakuya said, which was perhaps the most neutral possible observation.
"Mine and my sister's relationship is completely normal," Masayo said quickly, with the energy of someone who wanted that established on the record. "Nothing like this. We are just two ordinary sisters."
Amano noted this down mentally as a data point that would later prove to be approximately correct in the worst possible direction.
*
The afternoon session was about to begin. Amano had registered for the Fusion Silver stage challenge and had time for a brief detour to the Xyz Academy arena before things got moving. He had a genuine and long-standing curiosity about the person sitting on Xyz Academy's Gold stage: Yuma Tsukumo, rank one in the entire city, a name he recognized from his previous life attached to a story that had taken place three thousand years ago in the eyes of this world's history.
Nagi, momentarily thinking she was about to be challenged, went visibly tense.
"My fan," Amano told her, "I am here to look at the Gold stage, not you."
"Look. At me." Her cheeks had gone pink. "You came here to see me."
"I came to see if Tsukumo-senpai has arrived yet."
Nagi settled. Then she straightened with the competitive dignity of someone who had been defending a stage all day and intended to keep defending it. "He hasn't shown up yet. Don't know where he is. Probably lost track of time somewhere."
She was not wrong. The Gold stage remained visibly unoccupied through the next several rounds of the Bronze stage defense. Amano waited out two more of Nagi's duels, watched her Kaijus absorb two more opponents' monsters with the efficient calm of long practice, and then his VSN buzzed.
[Sakuya: Emergency. Come back now.]
If it had been the Eva system calling him to the Silver stage, it would have come through the official terminal notification, not a personal message. So whatever was happening was something else.
He ran.
When he got back to the Fusion Academy challenge arena, he stopped.
Standing on the Silver stage, facing each other across the duel field with an atmosphere that had been dense before the duel disks even activated, were the two Jinguuji sisters.
The situation assembled itself in Amano's head in pieces. Masayo had registered in the morning. The Bronze stage had fallen before she was called. The registration was non-cancellable. When the afternoon session opened and the system needed challengers for the Silver stage, Masayo's name was at the top of the queue. Her probability weight was high enough that she had been drawn almost immediately.
Her opponent in the Silver stage was Jinguuji Ryoushuu.
Amano had arrived at exactly the right moment, or possibly the worst one. The duel had just started.
Ryoushuu was the same figure Amano had seen in the recorded data the previous day: confident, sharp-eyed, dark hair framing features that would have been called refined by anyone who had not also noticed the particular quality of the look she was now directing at her younger sister.
"What exactly are you doing here, Masayo?"
She had not lowered her voice for the audience of several hundred students watching from below. "As if embarrassing yourself daily was not sufficient, you have to do it publicly on a stage."
So this was Masayo's version of a normal sibling relationship. Amano updated his notes.
"My turn. Draw."
Ryoushuu had won the first-move advantage. Her opening hand went to the duel disk with the ease of someone who had executed this sequence enough times to stop thinking about it consciously.
"Normal Summon, Defense Position: Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous."
[Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous]
[Level 4 / LIGHT / Spellcaster / Effect]
[ATK: 1500 / DEF: 1500]
Effect 1 and Effect 2 can each be used once per turn. (1): If your opponent controls a monster Special Summoned from the Extra Deck, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. (2): When this card is Normal or Special Summoned, add 1 "Dogmatika" card from your Deck to your hand, except "Dogmatika Ecclesia." After this effect resolves, you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck until the end of this turn. (3): Cannot be destroyed in battle by monsters that were Special Summoned from the Extra Deck.
The silver-armored figure with the great hammer materialized, the mark on her forehead carrying a weight that suggested it had been there a long time.
"Ecclesia's effect. On Summon, add one Dogmatika card to hand."
The card that came from the deck was a Continuous Spell, and it arrived already active in Ryoushuu's grip. She placed it on the field and resolved its first effect immediately: search the Ritual Spell "Nadir Servant" from the deck and activate it directly.
[Dogmatika Nadir Servant]
[Ritual Spell / Dogmatika Ritual Monster required]
Tribute monsters from your hand or field whose total Levels equal or exceed the Ritual Monster's Level, OR send 1 monster of the same Level from your Extra Deck to the GY; Ritual Summon 1 Dogmatika Ritual Monster from your hand. After this effect resolves, you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck until the end of this turn.
Ritual Summons were rare at Academy City. Outside of Amano's own Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon, he could not recall seeing one outside of a specific entrance exam match. The Nadir Servant was playing the archetype's particular version of this, however: there was no need to gather tributes from the hand or field. Instead, Ryoushuu reached into her own Extra Deck and extracted a card, sending it to the Graveyard as the offering.
"I send Level 8 Titaniklad the Ash Dragon from my Extra Deck to the Graveyard as tribute. Ritual Summon!"
Eight brilliant stars peeled away from the Fusion card as it dissolved into the ritual sigil, each one a stepping stone for what came next.
"Lead the struggle and the resistance, Dogmatika's corrupted light! With a desecrated holy blade, let what is already desecrated be burned away!"
"Ritual Summon, Level 8: Dogmatika White Knight!"
[Dogmatika White Knight]
[Level 8 / LIGHT / Spellcaster / Ritual / Effect]
[ATK: 500 / DEF: 2500]
[Requires "Nadir Servant" for Ritual Summon]
Effect 1: While this card is in the Monster Zone, neither player can Special Summon from the Extra Deck. Effect 2 (once per turn): When the opponent activates a monster effect, Spell, or Trap: send 1 monster from your Extra Deck to the GY, then look at the opponent's Extra Deck and send 1 monster from it to the GY. This card's ATK increases by half the combined ATK of all monsters sent to the GY in this way, until the End Phase.
What appeared on the field was a female knight clad in silver armor shot through with something that was the wrong color to be called holy, her blade radiating the same uncomfortable light, already positioned at Masayo's side of the field as though the duel had already been decided.
The White Knight's own ATK was minimal. The rest of it was not minimal at all.
"White Knight's first effect," Ryoushuu said. "While this card occupies the Monster Zone, neither player can Special Summon from the Extra Deck."
She was locking herself out too. She did not appear concerned about this.
Next: the Continuous Spell's separate once-per-turn effect activated, with the White Knight now present to enable it. Ryoushuu looked at Masayo's Extra Deck. Identified the starting point of the Mayakashi chain. The contaminated blade descended.
"I send your Level 3 Synchro Mayakashi, Fogwheel, from your Extra Deck to the Graveyard."
A sharp collective exhale from the crowd. Most of them did not understand what had just been removed. Amano did. The Mayakashi's hundred-ghost parade moved in a continuous sequence from Level 3 upward. Pull out the foundation, and the entire chain could not begin.
"My turn ends."
End Phase: Titaniklad the Ash Dragon, sent to the Graveyard this turn as Ritual tribute, triggered its own parting gift.
"Titaniklad's effect. This card was sent to the Graveyard this turn, so at the End Phase I can add one Dogmatika card from my Deck to hand or Special Summon it directly."
She did not add it to hand.
[Dogmatika Fleurdelis, the Knighted]
[Level 8 / LIGHT / Spellcaster / Effect]
[ATK: 2500 / DEF: 2500]
Effect 1: If you or your opponent controls a monster Special Summoned from the Extra Deck, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. Effect 2: When a "Dogmatika" monster you control declares an attack: all "Dogmatika" monsters you control gain 500 ATK until the end of this turn.
A second figure arrived on Ryoushuu's field, this one uncorrupted, white sword shining with the clear light of someone who had not yet been touched by whatever had changed the first. Two Dogmatika monsters. One stage entrance completed. One key Mayakashi Synchro already gone.
"Done already, Masayo," Ryoushuu said, not as a question.
Her sister's Mayakashi deck and its hundred-ghost parade had never been a mystery to her. She had watched it enough times to know exactly which thread to cut first.
*
Masayo was not done. She was going to make Ryoushuu earn it.
"My turn. Draw." She activated Foolish Burial first, loading Dakki the Ghost Mayakashi into the Graveyard. Then: "Normal Summon, Shafu the Wheeled Mayakashi!"
[Shafu, the Wheeled Mayakashi]
[Level 3 / EARTH / Zombie / Effect]
[ATK: 1200 / DEF: 400]
Effect 1 (once per turn): When this card is Normal or Special Summoned, target 1 Mayakashi monster in your GY; Special Summon it in Defense Position with its effects negated. Effect 2: While this card is in the Monster Zone, you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck except Mayakashi monsters.
"Shafu's effect. When summoned, Special Summon a Mayakashi from the Graveyard. I summon Dakki the Ghost Mayakashi from the GY, Defense Position."
The chain of three stars was assembled: Level 3 Shafu as the Synchro non-Tuner, Level 2 Dakki as the Tuner. If the Level 3 starting point was gone, she would start from Level 5 instead.
She would not get the chance.
"White Knight's effect." Ryoushuu extended her hand. The defiled blade moved in response to the activation of Masayo's monster effect. "I send one monster from my Extra Deck to the Graveyard, then look at yours and send one monster from it to the Graveyard."
From Ryoushuu's Extra Deck: Blaze Bomb Beast, a Fusion Monster burning with a short fuse. Into Masayo's Extra Deck: Tsuchigumo, the Poisonous Mayakashi, the Level 5 Synchro she had just tried to route toward.
The Level 5 start of the chain was gone.
Blaze Bomb Beast, landing in the Graveyard, was not content to arrive quietly.
"Blaze Bomb Beast's effect. When this card is sent to the Graveyard, I target one monster on your field with 1900 ATK or less and destroy it. Shafu the Wheeled Mayakashi."
The explosion bloomed across Masayo's side of the field. Shafu was gone. Dakki remained, Defense Position, effects negated, 0 DEF.
"And you take 1200 damage."
The heat from the blast reached Masayo's face even through the holographic field.
[Masayo LP: 4000 to 2800]
With nothing left to work with, Masayo set two cards face-down and ended her turn. Behind her eyes, visible even from where Amano was standing, the calculation that this had been running since she saw Fogwheel leave her Extra Deck was completing itself.
"I was disappointed," Ryoushuu said on her next turn, drawing without ceremony. "I thought you had more respect than this."
She activated Heavy Storm. The face-down cards Masayo had set revealed themselves for just long enough to be identified before being destroyed.
Dimensional Prison. Macro Cosmos. Both gone.
"Attack."
Fleurdelis's effect triggered on attack declaration: all Dogmatika monsters gained five hundred additional ATK. The White Knight moved first, its defiled blade finding Dakki's unguarded Defense Position and reducing it to nothing. Then Ecclesia's silver hammer and Fleurdelis's silver sword completed the sequence in two direct attacks that left no room for a dramatic last stand.
[Masayo LP: 2800 to 300 to 0]
The counter hit zero. Masayo's knees met the stage.
"Get off the stage."
Masayo looked up at her sister. Her teeth were pressed against her lower lip hard enough to turn it white. There was something behind her eyes that was working very hard to stay where it was.
"Ryoushuu, I..."
"I said get off. Are you going to make this worse?"
She stood. She walked down the platform steps without making the eyes in the front rows work any harder than they already were. She was holding everything together, but it was close.
Nobody at the group knew quite what to do with it. The full accounting was in everyone's heads simultaneously: publicly crushed by her own sister, threatened with removal from the family register, and the whole sequence had been started by an agreement she had made in good faith.
Nanki'in Yukki spoke first, and unusually for her, the voice that came out had neither an edge nor a hidden angle in it.
"Ryoushuu probably doesn't mean the removal threat. She would not actually do that to her own sister. It was said in the heat of the moment."
It was such a plainly kind thing to say that for a second no one quite knew how to respond to it either.
Masayo pressed her fingers against the corner of her eye. "Of course it was an exaggeration. She is not the family head yet. She does not have that authority." She managed a small, contained version of her usual composure. "I knew from the beginning I could not beat her. I am fine."
"She was still too harsh."
Sakuya said it quietly, but with enough weight in her voice that the people nearest her went still. It was genuinely unusual to hear that degree of feeling from her. The displeasure was partly on Masayo's behalf, and partly something else: in one declaration today, Ryoushuu had announced her intention to sever the relationship between the Jinguuji family and the Nanki'in family entirely. A relationship that had sustained both houses for the better part of a century. Benefiting from that history for a generation and then cutting it when it became convenient was not, in any meaningful sense, honorable behavior.
Masayo, who had been holding the line successfully until that moment, heard the plainness in Sakuya's voice and could not keep the line anymore. She stepped forward and put her arms around Sakuya and did not try to be quiet about it.
The crying from the stage and the crying in the crowd had merged into the same sound.
This was not the moment for a speech. The Eva system's announcement of the next challenger cut across the noise, and the name it read was Amano Rei's.
The Eva system's sense of timing was either impeccably random or deeply deliberate. He had no way of knowing which, and it did not change anything either way.
He had just watched the exact nature of Ryoushuu's strategy deployed in real time, against a player who had known it was coming and been unable to stop it. He had seen which card she cut first, what she traded from her own Extra Deck, how the control locked down the entire board in one turn.
He thought about what his own Extra Deck looked like from the outside, and what it looked like from the inside, and where those two pictures diverged.
He did not say anything encouraging to Masayo. He did not announce anything about putting things right. Speeches of that kind were things other people were better at.
He turned away from the group, raised one hand without looking back, and headed for the Silver stage.
"I will be back in a minute."
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