Chapter 244: Blue-Eyes and Dark Magician - Cut Through the God
As president of Kaiba Corporation, Kaiba Chiaki had always felt herself moving through life under invisible chains.
The chain of responsibility her parents had left her before they died. She had to protect the glory of the Kaiba family name, a legacy stretching back across a thousand years.
The chain of excellence that came with being the highest authority of Kaiba Corporation. She had to be exceptional enough to lead the people under her and fight her way through an Eden Tower built on a deeply unusual power structure, surrounded by century-old families and corporations all maneuvering against each other at every turn.
And the chain of strength that came with holding three copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon. She had to be powerful enough that no one could reasonably dispute her right to lead.
Kaiba Chiaki's life was like walking alone across a burning wasteland with those three chains weighing on her shoulders. She did not know where the road ended. She only knew that if she stopped moving because the weight was too much, the fires sweeping the wasteland would consume her completely.
Then one day, without warning, one of those chains was severed.
(Amano Rei: "It's over, Kaiba!"
"Ultimate Soul Impact!")
The chain that demanded she be strong enough and undefeated had been cut by a young man named Amano Rei, in the final blow of a duel.
That duel had taught Kaiba Chiaki something she had not understood before: she did not need to be invincible. Kaiba Corporation could keep moving forward even if she had losses on her record. Even her ancestor Kaiba Seto, after all, had not been unstoppable.
After shaking free of one chain, her relentlessly busy life had offered her the briefest opening to breathe.
She had grabbed Amano Rei and the two of them had spent an entire day going head to head against the strongest dueling AI in the system. They had been beaten flat repeatedly until deep into the night, but it was the first time Kaiba Chiaki had ever done something purely because she wanted to, with no considerations of profit or reputation anywhere in the equation.
But that was only one chain. She was still Kaiba Corporation's president. She still had to carry the weight of the company and everyone's expectations, and keep walking.
Yet today, entering this Chronicle, Kaiba Chiaki had made a discovery that genuinely surprised her.
Inside here, she was not the Kaiba Corporation president anymore.
Even borrowing someone else's body. Even existing only in a data world, fleeting and insubstantial as a dream made of foam.
Let herself enjoy it for a little while, then. The feeling of moving without chains.
"You seem like you're actually having fun in there, Chiaki-senpai."
"Oh? I suppose I am, a little."
With his field cleared out by three Kuriboh, Tenma Yako's expression had visibly darkened.
Mokuba offered his read from the sideline: "It feels strange, but also somehow like exactly the kind of duel Amano would put out."
After watching his Skill Drain play get dismantled at speed, Tenma Yako drew another card and slid it into the Duel Disk. "I set one card face-down. Turn end."
"My turn! Draw!" Kaiba Chiaki drew. "I still have two Kuriboh on the field. What now?"
"Tribute one of them," Amano said.
"As I thought." Kaiba Chiaki slid a Spell Card into the Duel Disk. "Spell Card, Graceful Charity, activate!"
[Graceful Charity]
[Spell Card]
[Send 1 non-Effect Monster you control to the GY. Draw 2 cards.]
"I send one Kuriboh from the field to the GY and draw two cards from my Deck!"
The middle Kuriboh took a bone to the head, turned to white light, and became draw power.
The other two Kuriboh pressed their tiny hands flat against their equally tiny chests in relief at having survived, only to be wrapped in the glow of Tribute in the very next moment.
"Hey!!"
"Ha ha ha ha ha! I Tribute both Kuriboh!"
"Bow before my pride and my soul! Crush every enemy before you with absolute power!"
"Tribute Summon, the radiance that shakes the very depths of the soul!"
"Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!"
[Blue-Eyes White Dragon]
[Level 8 LIGHT]
[Dragon / Normal]
[ATK: 3000 / DEF: 2500]
The white dragon descended on Kaiba Corporation's rooftop, bathed in absolute radiance, and stood before Kaiba Chiaki.
Even working through Amano Rei's deck, Chiaki had still drawn Blue-Eyes White Dragon and summoned it.
Blue-Eyes White Dragon's ATK was 3000. Tenma Yako, having activated Skill Drain and paid 1000 Life Points, had exactly 3000 remaining.
Kaiba Chiaki raised her fist forward. "Mightiest of dragons, crush every opponent before you! Direct attack! Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
"Burst Stream of Destruction!!"
All 3000 ATK poured from Blue-Eyes White Dragon's jaws in a torrent of destructive light that tore the air apart and drove straight toward Tenma Yako's empty field.
"Activate the face-down Continuous Trap!" Tenma Yako flipped it open. "Call of the Haunted!"
[Call of the Haunted]
[Continuous Trap]
[Target 1 monster in your GY. Special Summon that target in Attack Position. When this card leaves the field, destroy that monster. When that monster is destroyed, destroy this card.]
"A mere Blue-Eyes White Dragon already fell to me once before. You are no different."
The cry of revival rang across the rooftop sky, and a monster matching Blue-Eyes White Dragon's ATK erupted from beneath the helipad's surface, lance raised to meet the incoming attack.
"I Special Summon Beast King Barbaros from my GY in Attack Position!"
[Beast King Barbaros] [ATK: 3000]
Three thousand ATK against three thousand ATK. But Blue-Eyes White Dragon's Burst Stream of Destruction showed no intention of pulling back.
"Press the attack on the revived monster, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
"You're asking for it! Counter, Beast King Barbaros!"
Barbaros swung its lance. The metal tip met the light of the Burst Stream head-on, and the collision erupted across the rooftop in a shockwave of force.
"You're the one asking for it, Tenma Yako! Before damage calculation, I activate a Quick-Play Spell from my hand!"
From behind the white dragon's radiance, Kaiba Chiaki drove a card into the Duel Disk, reversing what should have been a mutual destruction.
"Quick-Play Spell, Shrink, activate!"
[Shrink]
[Quick-Play Spell]
[Target 1 face-up monster on the field. Until the end of this turn, that target's original ATK is halved.]
Hit by the Spell's effect mid-charge, Beast King Barbaros shrank to half its normal size during the battle itself, its ATK halved along with its body.
[Beast King Barbaros] [ATK: 3000 to 1500]
The miniature Beast King let out a thin, high-pitched wail and was swallowed whole by the white dragon's destroying light.
[Beast King Barbaros: destroyed]
Tenma Yako LP: 3000 to 1500.
The light erupted and the smoke cleared. Tenma Yako's field was empty again.
Mokuba could not help himself: "Amano's been completely dominant today. It's like he's been pushing Tenma Yako back the whole time."
Kaiba Seto was as composed as ever: "Do not let your guard down. The God card hasn't appeared yet."
After clearing the field with Blue-Eyes, Kaiba Chiaki did not wait for Amano's instructions this time. She sent two cards from her hand face-down to the Duel Disk on her own.
"I set two cards face-down. Turn end."
"My turn! Draw!"
As Tenma Yako drew his opening card, a sharp, malicious smile spread across his face.
"Enough playing around. Time to show you what real fear and despair feel like."
"Spell Card, Pot of Greed, activate! I draw three cards from my Deck, then discard two from my hand. Then I activate the effect of the monster I just discarded, Fluff Token Dandelion!"
[When this card is sent from the hand or field to the GY, Special Summon three Fluff Tokens (Plant / WIND / Level 1 / ATK 0 / DEF 0) in Defense Position to your field. The turn this effect is activated, you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck.]
Like seeds scattered by a gust of wind, three white cotton Fluff Tokens drifted out from Tenma Yako's GY and settled onto the field.
[Fluff Token] [DEF: 0] x3
Three Tributes assembled in an instant. Tenma Yako then flipped the card he had set on his very first turn.
"I activate the face-down Trap Card, Dark Bribe! All cards I discarded this turn through Pot of Greed are returned to my hand!"
The card Tenma Yako recovered to his hand was unmistakable: alongside the Dandelion that had just resolved, there was a Level 10 monster card.
Tenma Yako raised it overhead. Above Kaiba Corporation's rooftop, the sky churned with the terrible thunderclouds that heralded the descent of something divine.
Tenma Yako screamed at the sky: "I Tribute the three Fluff Tokens to Tribute Summon Kami!"
All three Fluff Tokens were swallowed in an instant by an absolute darkness that seemed to have come from the bottom of the abyss itself.
"Sink into a despair deeper than despair itself, and let your soul be devoured by fear!"
"Feel the terror of absolute dominion ringing through the heavens!"
"Evil God Summon! The Wicked Eraser!!"
[The Wicked Eraser]
[Level 10 DIVINE]
[Fiend / Effect]
[ATK: 4000 / DEF: 4000]
The massive Evil God materialized above Kaiba Corporation's rooftop, its pale bone-white armor plating encasing the body that embodied the very source of fear.
Of the three Wicked Gods, the first to descend was The Wicked Eraser, whose existence represented the root of all dread in the human heart.
Kaiba Chiaki frowned. "Wait. I thought this card was in the hands of one of the card combat specialists."
This was precisely why the scenario had been rated SSS: fourteen consecutive duels, including two card combat specialists wielding Wicked God cards, before even reaching Tenma Yako himself.
"Oh? You knew about the specialists?" Tenma Yako's smile turned ugly. "Did you think I would entrust the real God cards to subordinates? What they carry are counterfeits. Replicas of the divine."
"A counterfeit Wicked God still functions just fine," Amano noted. "No lightning strike for blasphemy, apparently."
That said something interesting about the Wicked Gods versus the three Phantom Gods. The Phantom Gods were notoriously temperamental with their wielders. The Wicked Gods seemed content to lend their power to anyone willing to pay the Tribute cost, knockoff included.
Tenma Yako drove the successfully summoned Evil God card into the monster zone with a sharp crash.
"Feel the dread that spreads across the entire field. This is The Wicked Eraser's effect!"
[While this card is in the Monster Zone, all other monsters on the field have their ATK and DEF halved.]
[Blue-Eyes White Dragon] [ATK: 3000 to 1500]
Mokuba watched Blue-Eyes White Dragon drop toward the ground, his voice tight with alarm: "Even Blue-Eyes White Dragon is being suppressed."
"Ha ha ha ha ha! Blue-Eyes White Dragon is nothing. Against an Evil God, your ending will be no different from Kaiba Seto's. Fall before divine power!"
Kaiba Chiaki's eyes moved to the face-down cards on her back row.
"Not yet," Amano said. "We have to hold, Chiaki-senpai."
"I know."
The pale bone-white claw of The Wicked Eraser swept outward and closed around Blue-Eyes White Dragon in one hand.
"Take this! Abyssal Terror Blast!!"
[Blue-Eyes White Dragon: destroyed]
Watching Blue-Eyes White Dragon shatter into data fragments inside the Evil God's grip, Kaiba Chiaki felt a pain in that moment that seemed to echo from somewhere much deeper than the virtual world.
"This is a Dark Game!" Amano said.
He had sensed something wrong the moment The Wicked Eraser appeared. The duel had shifted the instant the Evil God descended: what had been a standard Chronicle duel had become a Dark Game, the kind that could cause real damage to the duelists involved.
"A Dark Game. Something like that can't actually exist." Even biting back the pain through gritted teeth, Kaiba Chiaki was not about to admit it out loud.
The Wicked Eraser's ATK was 4000. Blue-Eyes White Dragon, halved by the field effect, had been at 1500.
Tenma Yako spread his arms wide in triumph. "Absorb the full wrath of the Evil God, Amano Rei!"
Amano LP: 4000 to 1500.
"Now, Chiaki-senpai!"
"Activate the face-down Trap Card!"
"Useless! Trap Cards have no effect on a God!"
"The card I'm activating is Dark Corridor!"
Beneath Kaiba Chiaki's feet, the covered card slowly revealed its face.
[Dark Corridor]
[Trap Card]
[Can only be activated when you take battle or effect damage. Special Summon 1 DARK Spellcaster-Type monster from your Deck with ATK equal to or less than the damage you took.]
"I just took 2500 points of battle damage. So I can Special Summon a DARK Spellcaster with 2500 ATK or less from my Deck!"
Not a single moment of mourning for Blue-Eyes White Dragon's defeat. The one coming to carry its will forward onto the battlefield was different in every way.
"Thousand-year destiny and fate intertwined, inherit the covenant of the soul, descend from the dark corridor!"
Kaiba Chiaki pulled the card from the deck and slammed it onto the Duel Disk.
"Special Summon! Dark Magician!!"
[Dark Magician]
[Level 7 DARK]
[Spellcaster / Normal]
[ATK: 2500 / DEF: 2100]
[The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense.]
Kaiba Chiaki had summoned Dark Magician with her own hands.
Before entering this Chronicle, Amano had not imagined for a moment that things would unfold with this kind of fateful symmetry: the two legendary Normal Monsters, rivals across a thousand years of Yu-Gi-Oh! history, appearing together in the same Chronicle, summoned one after the other by the same hand.
"Oh, Yugi Muto's signature monster following Blue-Eyes White Dragon?" Tenma Yako laughed. "No monster matters here. Before The Wicked Eraser, everything is worthless! Accept the suppression!"
[Dark Magician] [ATK: 2500 to 1250]
"I set one last card face-down. Turn end."
"My turn!"
Kaiba Chiaki pressed her fingertip to the top of the deck.
The Wicked Eraser was a card whose very existence embodied the source of human fear. Ordinary people felt the terror building in their hearts just from being near it, before it ever made a move.
The mid-level district had once been thrown into chaos simply by The Wicked Eraser manifesting in the area.
But Kaiba Chiaki, staring it down across the field right now, was not feeling that terror.
When you have faced something close to a hundred times, even the most frightening thing in the world becomes just a troublesome monster with an unsettling design.
"Draw!!"
The drawn card tore through the churning dark thunderclouds rolling overhead.
"Chiaki-senpai," Amano said, "use that card to..."
"Cut through the God," Kaiba Chiaki finished.
"I activate the Continuous Spell Card, Dark Burning Magic!"
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