Yushin declared, “I Normal Summon Assault Pterosaur!” A dragon with what looked like a pair of scissors built into its neck burst onto the field, wings spread.
It was the very card Yushin had looted back in the ritual cavern.
[Assault Pterosaur, ATK 1800] “A Level 4 monster with 1800 ATK?” Itagaki’s expression shifted.
“You actually have a card like that?” A Level 4 with 1800 ATK was already a solid, competitively viable beater back in the early era of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
You could only imagine how rare something like that was in the Satellite.
Yukine was quietly startled too.
As far as she knew, her brother’s deck hadn’t even had a single Effect Monster in it before.
When had he gotten his hands on something this rare?
Yushin said, “Next, the Equip Spell Foolish Axe, equipped onto Assault Pterosaur.
This card raises the equipped monster’s ATK by 1000.” [Assault Pterosaur, ATK 1800 → ATK 2800] Itagaki felt a fresh jolt of alarm.
“An Equip Card that boosts ATK by a full thousand points in one go?!” Going from 1800 to 2800 was enough to turn a low-Level monster into something that could hold its own against most Level 7 or 8 monsters.
Not even the Fang Gang as a whole had an Equip Spell capable of a boost that big.
Of course, a broke nobody like Fujishiro Sakuma would never have owned a “quality” Spell like this to begin with.
This was another card Yushin had “picked up” from the ritual site.
“That said, Foolish Axe’s boost doesn’t come free,” Yushin said.
“The equipped monster’s own effect becomes negated.
And on top of that, the equipped monster’s controller takes 500 points of damage during their own Standby Phase, every turn.” Losing the monster’s effect on top of the ongoing life-point drain made this card completely outclassed by other Equip Spells with similar functions, like Axe of Despair, which naturally tanked its market value.
Even so, in the Satellite, it still counted as a highly sought-after, powerful card.
Yushin declared, “Assault Pterosaur, attack Dark Elf Luna!” Freshly buffed, Assault Pterosaur instantly became the strongest thing on the field, and with one casual strike, blasted the slender, long-legged, possibly-succubus-type demon into fragments.
Itagaki grunted, crossing both arms in front of himself to brace against the impact.
[Itagaki, LP 1900 → LP 700] The lackeys cried out in alarm.
“Boss!” But Itagaki held his ground and waved a hand, signaling them to hold off.
Itagaki glanced up at the freshly buffed Assault Pterosaur and let out a mental scoff.
Whatever this kid had scraped together in terms of a strong card combo, a rookie was still a rookie.
He’d apparently chosen to attack Itagaki’s lower-ATK Dark Elf Luna just to greedily grab some extra damage, and that greed was about to sow the seeds of his own defeat.
Itagaki glanced at the last card left in his hand.
The Spell Card Spell Removal, capable of destroying any one Spell Card on the field.
Of course, this was a Normal Spell, meaning he couldn’t activate it during his opponent’s turn.
But once his own next turn came around, he could use it to destroy Foolish Axe, and then finish off Assault Pterosaur with his 2500-ATK Mimic Illusionist instead.
Even if Yushin attacked and destroyed Mimic Illusionist first instead, Assault Pterosaur’s base 1800 ATK, once Foolish Axe got destroyed next turn, would still be higher than Dark Elf Luna’s, keeping the advantage on Yushin’s side either way.
Itagaki figured his opponent was thinking one step ahead while he himself was thinking two, and watching what looked like a missed opportunity for victory, he couldn’t help feeling smug about it.
But barely a second later, that smugness got completely shattered by Yushin’s next card.
“Activate the set card,” Yushin said, pointing at his back row.
“Trap Card, Equip Ejector.
This card lets me move an Equip Card from a monster on my field onto an opponent’s monster.” Itagaki froze for a second.
What kind of trap card was this even?
Handing his own Equip Card over to the opponent?
Wasn’t that just suicidally gifting the enemy a free buff…
Wait.
Itagaki’s eyelid twitched hard, and it hit him all at once.
Foolish Axe really was a powerful Equip Card that raised a monster’s ATK by 1000, sure, but that boost came with the side effect of negating the equipped monster’s own effect.
And his ace, Mimic Illusionist, had every last point of its ATK riding entirely on its own effect.
Its actual, printed ATK stat was zero.
Which meant, if Foolish Axe got sent over onto Mimic Illusionist…
Yushin held up Foolish Axe once more, a bright grin spreading across his face.
“Here, have a powerful Equip Card.
No need to thank me.” “A whole thousand points of ATK, all at once!” Itagaki: “…….” No.
He didn’t want this thing.
Get away from him.
Stay awaaaay!
Of course, in the face of the cold, unfeeling process of card effect resolution, his protests meant absolutely nothing.
All he could do was watch helplessly as the “powerful Equip Card” landed on his own Mimic Illusionist, boosting his ace’s ATK by a full thousand points…
while wiping out every last point of ATK it already had.
[Mimic Illusionist, ATK 2500 → ATK 0 → ATK 1000] And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
This idiot Foolish Axe was also going to burn its controller for 500 damage every Standby Phase.
With only 700 Life Points left, two more turns of that and Itagaki would just outright die from the damage alone…
So the buff went to Yushin and every last drawback landed squarely on him, huh.
Itagaki gritted his teeth.
Sneaky little brat.
But it didn’t matter.
Next turn, he’d just use Spell Removal in his hand to destroy this cursed Equip Card…
Yushin went on, “And once Equip Ejector’s effect transfers the Equip Card, the two monsters involved are forced into battle.” Itagaki: “…….?” What was that?!
Forced battle too?!
His eyes went wide, filled with a deep, existential doubt about his life choices.
“Second strike,” Yushin said.
“Assault Pterosaur, attack Mimic Illusionist!” Assault Pterosaur lunged out once more.
The Illusionist, which had been disguised as Summoned Skull, seemed to have forgotten how to use its own ability entirely thanks to that idiot axe, and reverted back to its true form, feebly swinging the axe around in a hopeless attempt to defend itself.
But there was no way that was going to hold anything back.
Assault Pterosaur flashed past, and the Illusionist’s axe and mirror both exploded into fragments together.
[Itagaki, LP 700 → LP 0] Itagaki staggered, looking down at the zeroed-out Life Points on his Duel Disk, then up at the holographic projection now fading away in front of him, feeling for a moment like he was caught in some kind of dream.
Yeah, exactly like a dream…
a pretty absurd one, at that.
Him, the Fang Gang’s own local boss, the strongest fighter in the crew right below the top man himself, actually losing to the single most unremarkable, low-life nobody in the entire district…
…Why would he even have a dream like this?
Still dazed, he lifted his head, and the instant he laid eyes on the boy across from him, he froze completely, forgetting to breathe for a moment.
Because right in the instant of his defeat, the boy who’d stood there looking perfectly ordinary a second ago suddenly seemed, to Itagaki’s eyes, like something else entirely.
Thick, unbroken darkness churned around the boy’s whole body, his outline stretching endlessly into it, as if he’d transformed into some towering shadow blotting out the sky itself.
The instant their eyes met, Itagaki felt an overwhelming, irresistible terror seize his very soul, choking the breath right out of him.