“My turn.
Draw!” The equation for victory had been complete for quite some time.
Jamie had possessed the basic route to winning with this Deck from the very beginning.
The only problem was that the path from the starting point to the finish line required an absurd detour.
He technically no longer needed his newest draw to begin the final sequence.
Then he looked at the card.
Jamie paused.
He quietly added it to his hand and Set a different card instead.
Arkana noticed immediately.
“Oh?
Starting your turn by Setting a card?
I suppose you didn’t draw anything particularly useful.” “No, no.” Jamie raised one finger and waved it back and forth.
“Actually, the moment I Set this card, your fate was sealed.
You’re about to be swallowed by the darkness.” Arkana’s expression stiffened slightly.
Jamie continued before he could respond.
“But first, I’m going to activate the card I just drew.
If I use this, I won’t even need to enter the Battle Phase.” “Hehehe…
hahahahahaha!” Arkana started laughing again.
“You can’t possibly be planning to defeat my Mystic Tomato with that 1500-ATK Token and rely on the pain of this Shadow Game to make me collapse, can you?!
Hahahahaha!” Arkana seemed to have forgotten a basic pattern that had repeated throughout this Duel.
The happier he sounded while laughing, the more desperately he tended to panic a few moments later.
Jamie did not mind letting him enjoy himself.
After all, this might be Arkana’s last genuinely happy laugh for quite some time.
‘Go on.
Laugh.
Keep laughing.
Laugh yourself to death if you want.’ Arkana’s theatrical laughter continued echoing through the darkness until Jamie placed a Spell Card onto his Duel Disk.
“I pay half my Life Points and activate the Quick-Play Spell Cybernetic Fusion Support!” Jamie raised his hand with entirely unnecessary enthusiasm.
“Restoring the glory of Cyber Dragon is a duty none of us can shirk!” [Jamie St.
James LP: 1400 → 700] “For the rest of this turn, the next time I Fusion Summon a Machine Fusion Monster, I can banish the Fusion Materials listed on that monster from my hand, field, or Graveyard and use them as Fusion Material.” Arkana’s eyes widened.
“You can Fusion Summon using monsters in your Graveyard?!” His attention immediately snapped toward Jamie’s Fusion Deck—or Extra Deck, as Jamie would call it.
Fifteen cards filled every available slot.
Was there actually a Machine Fusion Monster hidden among them that could overturn the Duel?
Arkana began working through the possibilities aloud.
“If the effect only works for Machine Fusion Monsters, then your newly Set card must be Polymerization, and the other card in your hand must be one of its Fusion Materials!” Jamie shrugged.
“Unfortunately, wrong again.” There was a card in his Extra Deck capable of turning the situation around immediately.
The problem was that Jamie had removed the Spells required to summon it.
Those Spells happened to be Numeron Network and Numeron Calling.
The reason was simple: Jamie’s Extra Deck consisted of twelve Numeron Gate monsters and three copies of Number 100: Numeron Dragon.
“All right.
We’ve been having this wonderfully ‘back-and-forth’ Duel for long enough.
I think it’s about time we ended it.” Jamie revealed the last Spell Card in his hand.
“I activate Reversal Quiz!” Arkana’s eyes narrowed.
“To activate it, I send every card in my hand and on my field to the Graveyard.
Then I declare whether the top card of my Deck is a Monster, Spell, or Trap.
If I guess correctly, you and I exchange Life Points!” The moment Reversal Quiz resolved, every card remaining on Jamie’s field was swept into the Graveyard.
His hand emptied with them, leaving him with absolutely nothing.
Not a single card remained.
“After all the cards I’ve played over the last few turns, I don’t think I need to make this difficult.” Jamie pointed toward his Deck.
“I call Spell!” The top card flipped over.
Pot of Greed.
At the same moment, the second part of Reversal Quiz resolved, and the Life Points displayed beside the two Duelists instantly switched places.
[Arkana LP: 3900 → 700] [Jamie St.
James LP: 700 → 3900] Because their Life Points had been exchanged directly rather than lost through damage or a payment, the Shadow Game did not react.
Arkana had abruptly fallen to a precarious 700 Life Points, yet instead of panicking, he became noticeably calmer.
Years spent performing dangerous stage magic had trained him to focus when his life was genuinely on the line.
Seven hundred Life Points was dangerously low, but he still had Dark Magician with 2500 ATK and Mystic Tomato with 1400 ATK on his field, while Jamie had no cards in his hand or on the field.
Even if Arkana drew absolutely nothing next turn, the advantage was still overwhelmingly his.
Or so he thought.
Before he could finish considering his next move, several shuriken suddenly erupted from Jamie’s Graveyard and shot across the dark space.
They passed straight through Arkana’s chest.
Only afterward did he hear what would be the last sentence addressed to him in this Duel.
“Fuhma Shuriken has an effect.
When it’s sent from the field to the Graveyard, it inflicts 700 damage to my opponent.” Arkana’s eyes widened.
[Arkana LP: 700 → 0] …
High above Domino City, a uniquely designed helicopter cut through the sky.
Inside sat Seto Kaiba, white coat draped over his shoulders as he stared coldly at the information displayed on the screen in front of him.
Mokuba had sent the data to him not long ago after detecting an unusually powerful and inexplicable Duel before Battle City had officially begun.
Mokuba had intended to investigate personally.
Kaiba, being as fiercely protective of his little brother as ever, had immediately rejected that idea and decided to handle the matter himself.
“Winged Kuriboh…” Kaiba’s eyes narrowed at the battle record.
“A weak little monster like that somehow produced power exceeding Blue-Eyes White Dragon?” For a moment, Yugi came to mind.
“Was that you, Yugi?
No…
you wouldn’t Duel like this.” Memories of Duelist Kingdom surfaced against his will.
His mighty Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon had once been stopped by Yami Yugi using the pathetic Kuriboh together with Multiply.
Cornered by Yugi’s strategy and desperate to save Mokuba, Kaiba had ultimately resorted to the humiliating tactic of threatening his own life in order to force Yugi to surrender the attack.
His fist tightened.
It remained one of the most disgraceful moments of his life.
Until the day he defeated Yugi fairly with his own power, he would never allow himself to forget it.
Now, in Battle City—the continuation of everything that had begun at Duelist Kingdom, the tournament Kaiba had created to seize all three Egyptian Gods and finally defeat Yugi—another disturbingly similar incident had appeared.
Kuriboh and Multiply.
Winged Kuriboh and Berserker Crush.
Both involved an absurdly weak monster borrowing overwhelming power from a Spell Card.
The similarities were impossible to ignore.
The last time something like this had happened, Pegasus had been holding Mokuba prisoner.
Was this new incident also connected to Mokuba?
Or perhaps to KaibaCorp itself?
“Hmph.
Whoever you are, and however many of you there are, now that you’ve entered my city, don’t think I’ll allow you to interfere with my plans.” Kaiba’s gaze hardened.
“Whether you’re connected to the Rare Hunters or not, my invincible Blue-Eyes—and Obelisk—will crush you.” His eyes then shifted toward another name in the Duel record.
“And you, Wheeler…” The opponent Jamie had defeated was Joey Wheeler, a third-rate Duelist Kaiba had always dismissed as beneath his notice.
Yet after watching Joey lose to Winged Kuriboh, Kaiba had experienced the deeply irritating sensation that there was something faintly similar between that mutt and himself, the wielder of Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
“Ridiculous.” Kaiba pulled one of the mighty Egyptian God Cards from the top of his Deck.
His fingers brushed across Obelisk the Tormentor before he closed his eyes and leaned back to rest.
A short while later, one of the pilots spoke.
“President Kaiba, according to the information we received, the target disappeared somewhere around this area.” “I understand.
Put me down at the nearest landing point, then leave.” “Yes, sir.”