Chapter 146: Data Extraction - God Cards!
The Dark Game that opened inside the soul room looked nothing like any Dark Game Amano had seen before.
No black cage barriers rising from the ground. Instead, a ritual magic circle materialized beneath his feet, dense with interlocking symbols that had no readable pattern.
"The Soulswindler. The divine domain."
He looked down at the bizarre ritual beneath him, then back at the figure wearing Rin Seiya's face.
Not the Puppeteer. The Soulswindler. What exactly was the distinction?
And what was this business about the Puppeteer's card being out of commission because of his girlfriend?
The person who had fought the Puppeteer last was Kikawayu. That was not a girlfriend situation. That was a childhood friend situation, possibly with complications he was electing not to examine right now.
The miniature Rin Seiya had stopped following the logic of the Dark Game entirely.
"Amano, when did you get a girlfriend! You never told me! Why didn't you tell me!"
Senpai. This is a Dark Game. Happening inside your soul room. Can we establish priorities.
On reflection, Rin Seiya had never actually met Kikawayu. The usual shorthand he could use with Sakuya was not available here.
"I don't have a girlfriend. The Puppeteer misread the situation. That person just looks a bit feminine. Actually male."
"Male?" The miniature Rin Seiya went into search mode. "Is that the person who dueled against you in the joint tournament?"
"Exactly." Smart people were a pleasure to talk to.
The Soulswindler laughed.
"Ha! Male? Amano Rei, the lies surrounding you outnumber anything I could manufacture as a professional deceiver. Quite entertaining."
"You're a liar by trade. Naturally I'm not believing a word you say."
"Then try sorting truth from fiction. Your friend Kikawayu is not male. She is a girl who loves you more deeply than you can imagine."
"Predictable lie," Amano said without hesitation.
He had seen Kikawayu without trousers as children. He had no uncertainty on that subject.
"Sometimes the truth looks more like a lie than any lie does. That's the pinnacle of deception."
The Soulswindler raised one arm. Amano noticed then that the figure had no Eva Terminal on its wrist. In place of the standard terminal, a Duel Disk had materialized from nowhere.
"Amano Rei. This time there is no puppet between us. I duel you myself."
No puppet, but you are still wearing someone else's face. He kept that observation to himself.
He was beginning to wonder what the Soulswindler actually looked like underneath.
"Eva Network. Data extraction. Designation R-1: God Cards!"
The moment the words left her mouth, something massive converged at her fingertips, data assembling from somewhere vast and unseen, condensing under visible pressure into a single card. Just holding it seemed to distort the air around it.
"Eva Network. Administrator mode. Double extraction!"
A second wave. Another card of the same presence materialized.
The Soulswindler slotted both cards into the Duel Disk. The automatic shuffle ran.
Amano watched this and thought that "Soulswindler" was frankly underselling the situation. "Conjurer" would be more accurate.
"Now then. Begin! Dark Game!"
The ritual circle beneath their feet activated like a switch had been thrown. A gravitational pressure radiated outward from the symbols, locking the participants in place.
"This is my soul room! I'm not letting you fight alone in here, kouhai!" The miniature Rin Seiya reached for the card case on her thigh, found nothing, and patted the same spot twice more in disbelief. "Where's my deck?"
The card case had disappeared along with her adult proportions.
"I'll handle this, senpai."
Amano deployed his Duel Disk.
Rin Seiya's soul was already fragmentary and her physical body was running a high fever in the real world. The last thing he was going to do was send a chibi-sized version of his senpai into a Dark Game in this condition. If the dark dimension's feedback knocked out whatever brightness remained in her personality, that was a problem he did not want to create.
The Soulswindler smiled at the exchange.
"It doesn't matter which of you goes in. Once the duel starts, you'll understand what I mean."
[Forced Duel Initiated]
[Duel Mode: Dark Game]
Amano received first turn.
"My turn, draw!"
He looked at the cards.
He stared at the cards.
Whose deck was this?
His own cards were in here. Rin Seiya's cards were also in here. Both decks had been merged into a single randomized pool.
The Soulswindler's comment made sense now. Whichever of them had gone in, they would have drawn from the same combined deck. Same hand. Same opening.
He had never encountered this in any previous Hacker Invasion duel. Every prior use had given him full control of the target's standard deck. Something about operating inside a space where neither of them fully controlled the body had scrambled the system and merged the two collections.
"Reading the confusion correctly," the Soulswindler said pleasantly. "You're sharing an account login. Of course there would be a bug like this. Don't blame anyone else for dead draws."
Dead draws. Two decks with completely different archetypes merged into one was statistically a disaster for consistency.
But Amano's deck was famously compatible with everything. It had been called a pile by people who did not understand it and called versatile by people who did. Adding Rin Seiya's Synchro engine to his vanilla and Dragon lineup was not necessarily a weakening. It might actually be an improvement.
Five seconds of analysis.
He had a plan.
"Junk Forward's effect activates from my hand! When I control no monsters, this card can Special Summon itself!"
He slammed the card onto the Duel Disk. Rin Seiya's card. Coming from the merged pool into his field.
Junk Forward. Level 3 EARTH Warrior Effect Monster. 900 ATK / 1500 DEF.
"Hey! That one's mine!" The miniature Rin Seiya had clearly identified it from the sideline.
"Next, Normal Summon from hand: Steam Synchron!"
Steam Synchron. Level 3 WATER Machine Tuner Effect Monster. 600 ATK / 800 DEF.
"That one too!" The miniature was keeping score.
The locomotive-shaped Tuner materialized and expanded into three overlapping Synchro rings that passed through Junk Forward's body.
"I tune Level 3 Tuner Steam Synchron with Level 3 Junk Forward!"
Three stars plus three stars.
Dark Game or not, the Synchro light came first, and ahead of the light came fire.
"Dragon wings roaring with the soul of blazing flame! Witness this form that sets the very earth alight!"
"Synchro Summon! Red Wyvern!!"
Red Wyvern. Level 6 FIRE Dragon Synchro Effect Monster. 2400 ATK / 2000 DEF.
The crimson-winged dragon burst through the Synchro light with both wings burning.
"That one's NOT mine!" The miniature Rin Seiya had been tracking the ownership of every card and this result genuinely delighted her. "That's Jack Atlas's Synchro! You used my cards to Synchro summon Jack's monster! That's such a meaningful connection, Amano!"
The running commentary was significantly more energetic than usual. The age reduction seemed to have loosened something in her.
This was a serious Dark Game.
As expected, the merged deck could access his Dragon-type Extra Deck. The combined pool unlocked his full arsenal. Red Wyvern was Level 6, not the ceiling, but Synchro Summoning this card on the first turn carried a specific utility that going straight for Red Dragon Archfiend would not.
While this card is face-up on the field after being Synchro Summoned, once per turn, you can activate this effect during either player's turn: if a monster with higher ATK than this card exists on the field, destroy the monster with the highest ATK on the field.
A quick-effect destruction trigger. If the opponent summoned Blue-Eyes White Dragon at 3000 ATK, Red Wyvern would respond and eliminate it on their turn. An interrupt capability in a format where Amano rarely had access to one.
Rin Seiya's Synchro material was genuinely more useful than his own vanilla monsters for this application.
"I set one card face-down. Turn end."
The turn passed to the Soulswindler.
"My turn. Draw."
She looked at her hand, selected a card, and in a gesture entirely unnecessary and clearly performed for the miniature Rin Seiya's benefit, ran the tip of her tongue slowly along the card's edge.
"This card will be your end, Amano Rei. Thrilling."
"Stop using my face to make that expression!" The miniature Rin Seiya was scarlet. "I understand now. This is why I've been having all these strange thoughts for the past few days. You've been inside my body interfering with my thinking! You've corrupted me!"
"Be quiet, Rin Seiya," the Soulswindler said flatly. "Your repression is your own problem. Don't blame it on me."
"She's bullying me, Amano."
Senpai. Dark Game. Please.
The Soulswindler opened the Field Zone of her Duel Disk and placed the moistened card inside.
"Field Spell: Black Garden, activate!"
The pure white space and the dark ritual circle transformed simultaneously. Thorned black rose vines spread in every direction, carpeting the ground, climbing the air. A garden of darkness materialized around all three of them.
"Black Garden's effect reduces the ATK of every monster summoned or Special Summoned to half, and each time a monster is summoned or Special Summoned, a Rose Token is Special Summoned to the other player's field."
"That's the weird field spell Crow used," the miniature Rin Seiya noted.
The standard use case for Black Garden was deployment late in a turn to disrupt the opponent's monsters. Opening with it in the Draw Phase meant it would reduce the ATK of whatever the Soulswindler summoned herself this turn. That was unusual.
"Next, I activate two Continuous Spell Cards simultaneously: Card of Safe Return and Card of the Netherworld."
Amano registered Card of Safe Return immediately.
Card of the Netherworld was manageable. Card of Safe Return was a different category.
In the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, Card of Safe Return combined with Slifer the Sky Dragon had produced one of the series' most infamous deck-out sequences. The draw acceleration it enabled was not comparable to ordinary card advantage.
Card of Safe Return. Continuous Spell Card. Each time a monster is Special Summoned from either player's Graveyard, draw three cards from your deck.
"Next, Trickster's effect from my hand. Discard one card to Special Summon this card from my hand!"
She discarded Glow-Up Bulb. Trickster materialized, a question-mark-festooned Spellcaster that wore its own confusion as a design feature.
Level 5 WIND Spellcaster Effect Monster. 2000 ATK / 1200 DEF.
"But because Black Garden is active," the miniature Rin Seiya said loudly, "that monster's ATK is halved!"
"I know."
Trickster ATK: 2000 to 1000.
"And since I Special Summoned a monster, Black Garden places one Rose Token on Amano Rei's field!"
A black rose bloomed on Amano's side of the field, against the background of the dark ritual circle, producing an atmosphere that was genuinely unsettling.
Rose Token. Level 2 DARK Plant Token. 800 ATK / 800 DEF.
"Next, Glow-Up Bulb's effect from the Graveyard. Once per duel, I can mill the top card of my deck to Special Summon this card from the Graveyard!"
Glow-Up Bulb emerged from the darkness. Level 1, 100 ATK reduced to 50 by Black Garden.
"Which places a second Rose Token on your field. And because a monster was Special Summoned from the Graveyard, Card of Safe Return activates. I draw three cards."
Revive, bloom, draw. The pattern was running, and Amano could not yet see where it was going.
"My Normal Summon this turn. I Tribute Glow-Up Bulb to Tribute Summon: Skull Bone Ghoul Pack!"
Skull Bone Ghoul Pack. Level 5 EARTH Zombie Effect Monster. 0 ATK / 2000 DEF.
"When Skull Bone Ghoul Pack is successfully Tribute Summoned, I can Special Summon one Level 4 or lower monster from my Graveyard. I bring back Glow-Up Bulb from the Tribute I just used."
Revive again. Bloom again. Draw three again.
The Soulswindler's slender finger pointed to the last two empty Monster Zones on Amano's side.
"Two more summons just occurred on my field. Two more Rose Tokens to your field."
Four Rose Tokens on Amano's side, plus Red Wyvern. Every Monster Zone on his field was occupied.
"Sufficient."
She opened the Field Zone again. Black Garden had served its purpose. A new card was going in.
"Field Spell: Shrine of the Binding Gods, activate! Replacing Black Garden!"
The aesthetic changed completely. One moment a garden of black thorns. The next, a sky churning with storm clouds and dark lightning. Three massive stone pillars erupted from the ground, each one bound in heavy chains, rising against the white space while the ritual symbols below them pulsed in response.
"Kneel before the majesty of the divine, Amano Rei!"
The Soulswindler raised the card in her hand and hurled it upward.
"Spell Card: Double Summon activates! I gain one additional Normal Summon this turn. And I offer every monster on my field as Tribute!"
The storm clouds swallowed the cards the moment they were thrown. Something vast and formless wailed from somewhere within the darkness. A sound that had no identifiable origin and no identifiable quality beyond its wrongness.
The miniature Rin Seiya curled into herself instinctively.
Skull Bone Ghoul Pack, Glow-Up Bulb, and Trickster were consumed simultaneously by the Tribute's darkness.
Three monsters offered. Amano could count on one hand the cards worthy of a three-Tribute Summon.
The Soulswindler's voice rose into something that crossed the boundary between chanting and laughing.
"All falsehood ends. With breath, erase matter. With sight, incinerate history!"
"Awaken from the darkness, supreme evil that destroys all reality!"
"I call upon a god! The Wicked Eraser!!"
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