“Seto, I’ve got eyes on MacKenzie.”

Kaiba tossed a scornful glance around the office from where he stood in front of a set of shattered wooden doors. The room was completely dark and lifeless, just the way it had been when he’d kicked the door down. Literally.

“Where’s the dirtbag now?” He eventually responded.

Kaiba could hear Mokuba sucking his breath in hesitantly over the phone.

“Erm… he’s rampaging around the city on a motorcycle while dueling that Phillip kid, who’s in hot pursuit in a company car with some strange lady I’ve never seen before. She’s the one driving.” Mokuba added that last part as if he was slightly relieved that a student wasn’t dueling and driving at the same time.

“I see.” Kaiba curtly responded. His lips curled upward in disgust as he gave the principal’s office one last look over before turning and leaving. "And the status of their duel?"

Mokuba paused for a second. His voice became faint as he began to speak with another person, most likely Roland. “Seems pretty even so far.” Mokuba’s voice eventually grew louder. “Though I think you’d be interested in seeing this duel, big bro.”

There was something in Mokuba’s voice that made Kaiba pause halfway through stepping over the shattered remains of the secretary’s desk positioned right outside of MacKenzie’s office.

“Oh?”

One word was enough to show Kaiba’s interest. He continued to walk out into the hallway, past the crumpled form of the secretary in the corner and the crackling electricity that danced over her duel disk, which was cleanly split in half. Her face was practically covered by a thick mask of blood, while the duel disk struggled to continue displaying the life points of her final shadow duel.

Kaiba: 4000 Kate Foo: 0

“Yeah.” Mokuba’s voice actually contained a fair amount of interest as well. “It seems that MacKenzie and your boy Phillip found a new summoning method. Couldn’t get close enough to confirm the details, but Roland managed to read their lips for a little bit. Apparently, it's called 'Synchro Summoning'. Similar to fusing, but with slightly different requirements. The jury’s still out on what exactly those requirements are. I got some videos, too. It’s already been sent down to the boys at the lab. I’ll let you know what they find out about it.”

That was hardly much information to go off of. Still, Kaiba could feel it. A stirring in his blood. A quickening in his heart rate. How long had it been since he’d felt like this? His hand ghosted up to touch his lips, to see if the bloodthirsty smile across his face was real, or if it was just a particularly vivid memory.

"Heh heh. Ahahahaha!” Kaiba’s voice began to rise with laughter. He could feel it for sure. It was just like the old days. When everyone had their veins filled with the molten flames of ambition and had nothing other than the desire to prove themselves in the greatest arena known to mankind – the Duel Monsters arena. “Interesting. How interesting!”

"Yeah, I thought you'd say that," Mokuba replied with a wicked laugh of his own. "I'll let you know when there’s a winner and we can work the problem from there.”

Kaiba nodded wordlessly and closed his flip phone to end the conversation. How interesting indeed.

“Now it seems the only matter left…” Kaiba muttered and darkly chuckled, before turning toward the two people leisurely walking down the hallway toward him, “is to decide what to do with the hunting dogs of MacKenzie that keep yapping around my feet, looking for attention.”

“Aw, just as merciless as the gossip says you are.” A calm voice offhandedly remarked. The owner of the voice, a tall woman clad in a form-fitting black cloth from head to toe, leisurely patted the shoulder of the person walking next to her, who didn’t respond to the gesture. “Sorry, but I’ve got orders to stop you here. And…” The woman slightly pulled away the cloth that covered her face to reveal her mouth. She stuck her tongue out and pouted while pointing at the body of the secretary behind Kaiba. “Did you really have to kill the secretary? You know how hard it is to find good help around here? She even knew dark magic! That stuff makes paperwork disappear before it’s even seen!”

Kaiba sneered mercilessly in response. “If the secretary didn’t want to die, she shouldn’t have challenged me to a shadow duel. That’s the problem with you mages. Always trying to use magic to solve every problem you see. Even if it’s like forcing a square peg into a round hole.”

"Hm, fair enough." She nodded, appearing to take Kaiba's words into some amount of consideration. "Well, time to solve another problem with magic."

A quick snap of her fingers caused the abrupt, sharp sound to echo down the otherwise unoccupied hallway. Not even a second later, several thick steel walls shot out of the floor to slam into the ceiling, completely blocking off the rest of the hallway behind Kaiba and behind the opposing pair.

“Ah, I suppose it would be polite to introduce ourselves. I’m called Nan. I like to think of myself as a pretty darn cool ninja. This big, silent fella next to me…” Nan continued with a sly grin, “he’s called John. Don’t mind him, he doesn’t talk much anymore. It has something to do with parts of his throat missing, I think.”

Kaiba flicked his eyes over to size up the man that Nan had called John. There was something… off about the man. A feature that became all the more apparent as the two drew closer to him and flicked out their duel disks to a ready position.

His eyes widened minutely as Kaiba realized precisely what was wrong. The man wasn’t wearing a strange, red shirt.

He just didn’t have any skin. John’s torso, head, arms, hands, feet, and presumably legs (under the pair of battered jeans he wore, of course), all lacked a single scrap of skin to cover them.

“Cute, isn’t he?”

Kaiba’s eyes refocused on Nan, who’d completely tossed aside the cloth that had once covered her head. She grinned fearlessly at him, almost as if she was enjoying the minute reaction Kaiba had made out of surprise and disgust.

Nan continued to speak with a strange sort of joy to her words. “I swung by the infirmary to grab him, just for you. Oh, and what a sacrifice it was! I could have stayed and watched those cute siblings murder each other on the roof, but, you know, boss’s orders and all that. I need to keep you from causing too much damage before the principal comes back to deal with you.”

Quite honestly, it appeared to Kaiba that the woman was going to prattle on endlessly. Yet his eyes could see there was something more to this. Her hands almost seemed like they were shaking. Kaiba narrowed his eyes and looked closer. Definitely shaking. Nan was either scared or nervous. Was that due to some other factor, or was she worried about dueling him? Kaiba wouldn’t fault Nan for fearing him. It was natural in life for the weak to fear the strong. But if she was scared, then why challenge him? Was the objective really just to stall, as she implied, or did Nan think that there was some sort of advantage she held to get the upper hand?

Perhaps it was because of that man next to her. No, more like a magical abomination at this point. Now that the pair was closer to him, Kaiba could tell that the man, John, was dead. Certainly dead. There were no movements from his chest that signified he was breathing. In fact, there wasn’t a single movement coming from his body at all, other than an initial shift in posture to ready his duel disk. There was also a thick smell of iron in the air, one that made Kaiba unconsciously wrinkle his nose in distaste.

That itself told Kaiba one thing. Magic bullcrap was afoot. He didn't even know why he was still surprised. By this point, it seemed that most of the faculty and a quarter of the student population were involved with dark magic in one way or another. It was utterly ridiculous.

Still, he could only take care of one thing at a time, and as Kaiba glanced up and down the now-sealed hallway, there hardly seemed to be much else he could do other than crush the two third-rate duelists in front of him. There were ways he could deal with those barriers, of course, but all of those methods would be quite annoying to put into practice when there were two morons right down the hall trying to stop him from leaving.

“Whatever. Let’s make this quick.” Kaiba harshly interrupted Nan, who was still rambling about this and that. “Two versus one. Four thousand life points for me, four thousand between the two of you.”

Kaiba smirked upon seeing the clearly visible flash of fear dart through Nan’s eyes. Yup. Forget fear. She was positively terrified of him, and his confidence regarding dealing with two opponents at the same time whilst only having the standard 1v1 life points was enough to almost send her running for the hills.

“Fine!” Nan eventually shouted back. “Don’t come crying to momma if you start regretting this after a few turns. I’ll take the first turn, too!”

"Of course," Kaiba replied, letting an utterly vicious smile grace his lips to further put mental pressure on his opponent. "Though I'd rather say in this case, instead of ladies first, it's third-rate duelists first! Muahahaha!”

Kaiba: 4000 Nan and John: 4000

“I draw!” Nan shouted with visible anger toward Kaiba’s mockery. “Taking me lightly will see you full of regret by the end of this duel, Kaiba! I summon Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo (1800/1000) in attack position, activating his effect to add one Ninjitsu Art card from my deck to my hand. Come to me, Armor Ninjitsu Art of Rust Mist! I then place two cards face down and end my turn.”

Kaiba immediately brushed past her words with a domineering glare. The ninja deck definitely fits the duelist. The only question…

“Is can your ninjas even withstand looking at my glorious dragons!” Kaiba let out a mighty bellow so powerful that even the black-clothed ninja on Nan’s field shuddered under its effects.

“I begin my turn by activating the spell card Painful Choice! It allows me to take five cards from my deck. You’ll then select one of those cards to add to my hand, while the rest of them will be dispatched to my graveyard. I choose Totem Dragon (400/200), Keeper of Dragon Magic (1800/1300), Keeper of the Shrine (0/2100), Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon (2500/2500), and Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500)!”

Nan carefully eyed the five cards that Kaiba held in his offhand, eventually choosing Keeper of the Shrine to be the card added to his hand. Kaiba smirked and immediately dove into his next move.

“Wrong choice.” He muttered with a sing-song voice. “See, the thing about my dragons, is that they are far too powerful to be restrained by a simple thing like ‘death’. I activate Monster Reborn to resurrect Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon (2500/2500) from my graveyard in attack position! Then! Effect activate!”

“And that triggers the effect of my trap card!” Nan’s voice rose to combat Kaiba’s own yell. “I activate the trap card Armor Ninjitsu Art of Rust Mist! Every time you special summon a monster while I have a Ninja monster on my field, the attack of that monster will be halved permanently!”

Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon (2500/2500 -> 1250/2500).

Kaiba rolled his eyes and continued his turn. “I add one Polymerization from my deck to my hand, courtesy of the effect of Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon. After that I place one card face down and go to my end phase, which activates the effect of Abyss Dragon once more! I add the level eight Dragon Spirit of White (2500/2000) from my deck to my hand.”

John’s body lurched into movement, like a rusty vehicle starting up after decades of being left alone in a back lot to weather the elements. The cartilage, which was all that was left of his throat by this point, bobbed slightly as he opened his mouth. A few halted syllables dropped out of his mouth like a complex machine conducting startup tests to see which parts of it worked and which parts didn’t.

And then John screamed. The bones of his skull flashed under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway. He screamed a choked, hoarse cry, and his body writhed to the point that he was hardly able to stay standing. The screams bounced around the closed-off hallway, hitting the steel barricades, the barred windows, and the white-painted walls.

“I!” John croaked out. His lidless eyes spun around, with the orbs gradually stilling and focusing on Kaiba with a deathly glare. “I! Discard Immortal Ruler from my hand to add the field spell Zombie World to my hand! Activate Zombie World, changing all monsters on every field and every graveyard to the zombie type! Activate Instant Fusion, paying 1000 life points to special summon the level three fusion monster Zombie Warrior (1200/900)! I! Summon Plaguespreader Zombie (400/200), then I send the level two Plaguespreader Zombie tuner with the level three Zombie Warrior to synchro summon the level five Scarred Warrior (2100/1000)!”

“What!” Kaiba’s eyes widened as both of John’s eyes popped like grapes being crushed in the palm of his hands and a brand-new monster was summoned. It was just as Mokuba had mentioned earlier. A method of summoning he’d never seen before… though one that seemed extremely taxing on the body of the user, Kaiba noted. Though John didn’t even flinch at the damage done to his eyes from the summon, that seemed to be more because the man appeared to be a corpse controlled by dark magic instead of the effects simply being manageable.

Still, John wasn’t done yet. His mouth opened again to let out another hoarse scream before he continued to speak.

“I! Activate the effect of Plaguespreader Zombie in the graveyard. One card from my hand is placed on top of my deck to special summon it back to the field. Then! I send the level two tuner Plaguespreader Zombie with the level five Scarred Warrior to synchro summon Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon (2400/2000)!”

As soon as the rotting, ghostly corpse of Red-Eyes Black Dragon shambled onto the field, a blue-tinged mist floated up from the fields and graveyards of all three duelists, converging in a heavy cloud around the zombie’s body. Meanwhile, John’s body shuddered again, and Kaiba watched several of his bones, which were clearly visible on the man’s body, break into multiple pieces in real time.

“It! Gains 100 attack and defense points for each zombie monster on the field and in the graveyards.” John explained in a halting, almost raw manner.

Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon (2400/2000 -> 3400/3000).

“Attack! Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon!”

The blast of rotting energy and ghostly flames that spewed from the mouth of John's synchro monster was enough to make Kaiba take a half-step backward. It was his only outward response to the pain that washed over his body. Still… “Ha! On your attack declaration, a trap of my own is triggered! The Ultimate Creature of Destruction! I target one Blue-Eyes monster on my field. Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon, of course. For the rest of this turn, it cannot be destroyed by battle and it is unaffected by other card effects. Furthermore, your monster will be destroyed at the end of the damage step!”

“But you still take the damage!” Nan sharply cut in. Kaiba nodded in affirmation. No need to waste words on a sentence as idiotic as that one.

Kaiba:1850 Nan and John: 3000

Once the damage was calculated, the ghostly form of Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon faded away into John’s graveyard with one last unearthly cry of rage.

Nan began her turn by hastily plucking the top card off of her deck and adding it to her hand. “I summon Aqua Armor Ninja (800/1600) in attack mode! Now! Ninjas, strike toward my opponent! Hanzo, you deal with the dragon. Aqua Armor, attack directly.”

Kaiba stood tall and received the backlash from Hanzo’s sword strike with a stoic, stoney look. However, once the blue-armored ninja reared back a hand to throw a batch of shuriken, Kaiba opened his mouth with a fierce glare.

“You gave me this card earlier, so feel regret for that mistake! Since a dragon monster was destroyed by battle, I special summon Keeper of the Shrine (0/2100) in defense position!” He stared right into Nan's eyes as if to silently ask 'Is that all you've got?'

Kaiba: 1300 Nan and John: 3000

“Yeah. That’s all.” Nan replied to the unasked, mocking question. “And you can drop the arrogant façade. The blood on your coat betrays your weakness!”

Kaiba glanced down at his white coat, now splattered with a few spots of his own blood drawn from the attacks he’d weathered so far.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Oh, this?” He offhandedly remarked and drew a card. “This is nothing compared to what I’ve endured in the past.” As if to reinforce his point, Kaiba brushed the back of his hand against his coat to flick off several of the red droplets that hadn’t fully sunk into the cloth yet.

“And this is nothing compared to what I’m about to show you. Now I admit that your usage of Zombie World to shut down the effect of my Totem Dragon in the graveyard wasn’t bad. But when I say that, I mean in terms of a third-rate duelist! Ahahaha! I activate Ancient Rules, a spell card that allows me to special summon one level five or higher normal monster from my hand. And fun fact, Dragon Spirit of White is always treated as a normal monster while it resides in my hand or graveyard! I'll summon it in the defense position. Furthermore, when Dragon Spirit of White (2500/2000 -> 1250/2000) enters the field, I can banish one spell or trap card my opponent controls. Say goodbye to your Zombie World!”

The blinding bright light suddenly lit up the hallway as a beautiful, pure white dragon dove from the sky high above the academy to burst through the ceiling, obliterating a large chunk of the metal roof in one brutal action. Then, right as the dragon was still in mid-air, a dazzling beam of light was spat out of its mouth to crumble John’s field spell into nothingness.

“Next,” Kaiba continued, leaning to the side slightly as the dragon curled up around him like a very large destructive cat. “I activate Stamping Destruction. Because Dragon Spirit of White is once more a dragon-type monster after the destruction of your field spell, I can destroy a spell or trap card on the field and inflict 500 points of damage to the controller. My target is your idiotic rain card!”

Kaiba: 1300 Nan and John: 2500

The building shook as Dragon Spirit of White thumped one of its legs against the floor to scatter the downpour of rain summoned by Nan’s ninjas. “And now that both your field spell and the continuous trap card are out of the way, I activate Ultimate Fusion! By shuffling my Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Keeper of Dragon Magic from my graveyard back into my deck, I fusion summon the ferocious engine of destruction, Blue-Eyes Tyrant Dragon (3400/2900)!”

What little that was left of the roof was instantly vaporized in a flash of yellow light while a massive blue dragon with shining, yellow wings settled in next to Kaiba. All around him, the walls of the administration building crumbled as the ferocious creature heaved its terrifying bulk into the building and found the available space greatly wanting.

“Blue-Eyes Tyrant Dragon, you possess the ability to attack each monster on the field once each! Slaughter Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo! Tear through Aqua Armor Ninja!”

The dragon leaped toward Nan's monsters like a starving tiger presented a slab of tuna the size of a train, moving so fast that Nan barely had the time to flip over a trap card in response.

“Not so fast!” She yelled. “I activate Armor Ninjitsu Art of Freezing, which I can flip face up to negate this attack and end the battle phase!”

Right as the slavering jaws of Blue-Eyes Tyrant Dragon were about to close around the cloaked ninja’s waist, Hanzo pressed his hands together to make a series of strange signs that transformed the air around him into several layered walls of thick ice, which worked together to stop the charge of Kaiba’s fusion monster before it could hit any of Nan’s creatures.

“Hmph. Nothing but cheap parlor tricks.” Kaiba snorted. “I place two cards face down and end my turn.”

John’s skull jerked upwards to attention as his turn began.

“I! Draw.” His eyes, still completely deflated from the damage he’d taken when synchro summoning earlier, pulsed along with the motion of his arm creakily moving the top card of his deck to his hand. “Activate! Foolish Burial, sending Heavy Knight of the Flame (1800/200) from my deck to the graveyard. Then! Activate! Book of Life, banishing Totem Dragon from your graveyard to special summon Heavy Knight of the Flame.”

It was the most animated Kaiba had seen him be since the beginning of the duel. Each action was precise, as if John had practiced that combo over and over again – and also as if he was still alive. Was it the last remnants of his personality leaking past the dark magic that controlled him? The barest signs of a duelist’s instincts? Either way, Kaiba could at least appreciate that one of his two opponents seemed to be actually trying to challenge his might.

“Now! I normal summon Heavy Knight of the Flame to unlock its full gemini effect, and go to battle! Heavy Knight attacks Blue-Eyes Tyrant Dragon! Since the fusion monster was special summoned, Heavy Knight of the Flame’s effect activates in the damage step to banish your monster!”

An action that only served to remove his fusion monster from the game. Yet Kaiba could feel his own dark grin growing in response as John ended his turn.

“Ah… this might not have been too bad if we’d dueled while you were alive.” Kaiba unconsciously muttered. Though his opponent was no King of Games, it was interesting to see unconventional tactics such as this. That, and the strange new summoning method.

“-sacrifice Aqua Armor Ninja and Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo!” Nan’s voice broke Kaiba out of his musings. He glanced toward her part of the field with an unimpressed eye.

"With two sacrifices made, I tribute summon the icy planet of majesty gifted to me by my lord Tragoedia! The Suppression Pluto (2600/2000)!”

“One of those planet cards. Huh.” Kaiba offhandedly commented as he looked at the blue, fiendish monster on Nan's field up and down. "Those seem to keep popping up, don't they?"

Kaiba shot a glance backward, toward where he remembered MacKenzie’s secretary falling lifelessly to the floor after the attack of his Blade Knight. She had used one of those monsters, right? Oh… what was it again?

He snapped his fingers as the realization hit him, completely ignoring Nan beginning to declare the effect activation of The Suppression Pluto. That’s right. It was The Tyrant Neptune. The one with the effect that could copy other effects. It had potential, but not when the opposing duelist was playing a fourth-rate deck.

“-and I declare Polymerization!” Nan triumphantly pointed toward Kaiba, breaking him out of his thoughts for the second time in a row. How irritating.

“Idiot.” Kaiba shot back in a flat, emotionless tone. “That’s not in my hand anymore.” He flashed the cards in his hand to his opponent to back up his words.

“So then it’s one of your face down cards…” Nan muttered in consideration. “Well, whatever.” She snapped her fingers and pointed towards Kaiba’s Dragon Spirit of White. “Destroy his dragon monster!”

Sure enough, the knife-sharp claws of Nan’s planet monster tore Kaiba’s defending Dragon Spirit of White to ribbons.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The entire building began to shudder and sway while three duelists cautiously stared each other down.

“Gecko…”

Adrian hid his own nervousness and nodded calmly back to Anastasia. “I know.” Right beside him, Samui was in a limp heap on the floor, the last of his strength long spent after his eyes had taken on that confused gaze he’d had back in the security office. Perhaps it was for the best. Adrian had a bad feeling that Samui still wasn’t fully in control of his own actions.

Still, even with the numerical advantage they held in the 2v1 duel against Bon Lectro…

It wasn’t looking good.

Adrian and Anastasia: 200 Bon Lectro: 4000

The last attack had almost been their end. Even now, Adrian was fighting his own body to stop himself from blacking out, and Anastasia had a sort of glassy, unfocused look in her eyes after taking a nasty direct strike from one of Bon Lectro’s ritual monsters.

“And that wraps my turn up.” Bon Lectro adjusted his spotless blue jacket. Each movement the cloth made caused the golden-yellow words of ‘security’ written all over the cloth to flash unpleasantly in their eyes. “Though, like usual, during my end phase the effect of my continuous trap card, Labyrinth of Nightmare, triggers. That means The Grand Jupiter (2500/2000 -> 5000/2000) and Magikey Mechmortar – Garesglasser (2000/2800 -> 2600/2800) both go right to defense position!”

Truly, Adrian wasn’t sure which monster was worse news for them. The Grand Jupiter had splashed onto the field with a bombastic entrance, instantly stealing Anastasia’s defense position Prediction Princess Bibliomuse (2500/2500) to use as an equip spell, boosting the planet monster’s attack by 2500 points.

Meanwhile, Bon Lectro’s ritual monster, Garesglasser, had been a constant presence since the very first turn of the duel, where it laid down a terrifying suppressing bombardment that was able to negate a monster effect each turn, provided the monster was the same attribute as at least one of the monsters in Bon Lectro’s graveyard. Of course, its attack and defense were nothing to scoff at, either, since the mortar gained attack for each different attribute in their opponent’s graveyard.

And all of that was combined with a trap card that let Bon Lectro go on the offensive on his own turn, and then switch his monsters to defense before Adrian and Anastasia could strike.

Adrian shot a pained glance toward his own graveyard. One single mistake was all it took to remove his greatest win condition, a piece of Exodia, from Adrian’s grasp. The fact that it had happened in the first place was an absurd piece of luck on Bon Lectro’s side. Using the spell card Exchange to take his Left Leg of the Forbidden One?

Sure, it had been a strategy used by the King of Games, but Adrian was always under the assumption that only the king could pull something as crazy as that off.

“I… draw.” Adrian started to gasp out the words that would lead into his desperate attempts to rebuild their shattered defensive line when something changed. Like an electric current slicing through the air with the force and lethality of an executioner's axe. Bon Lectro stiffened from where he stood, one ear cocked into the air as if he was listening to an invisible presence speak.

The man stayed frozen for a few seconds longer, seconds that felt more like hours for how they dragged along in Adrian’s brain.

And then the utterly terrifying head of security, the same man that had dominated the duel from start to finish, bolted to the side of the hallway, jumped through a glass window, and disappeared from sight.

“…What?”

Adrian and Anastasia could only look at the shattered window that their opponent had disappeared through with their mouths opening and closing like a pair of surprised fish.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Before Kaiba could even draw a card to start his turn, Nan stood bolt upright, looking out of the shattered wall to stare at the city in the distance.

“What… impossible!” She breathed; her voice thickly laced with fear. “That…”

Kaiba began to open his mouth, but Nan was faster. She made two lightning-fast hand signs and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. He glanced down at his duel disk. The life point counter had already changed.

Kaiba: 1300 John: 2500

“Coward.” Kaiba spat a thick wad of saliva onto the floor to accentuate his displeasure. He looked at his remaining opponent. Unlike Nan, John showed no signs of wanting to flee. Admittedly, he also didn’t show many signs of conscious thought, but at least that meant Kaiba could finish what he started.

“I draw!” Kaiba glanced at his card. He didn’t even need it, but the movement satisfied his curiosity. “Now, prepare yourself. This is the last turn! I activate my face down quick-play spell card, Rage with Eyes of Blue! By banishing my spell, and as many cards as possible from my hand, field, and graveyard face down, I can special summon up to three copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my deck to my field. Of course, since I used Ultimate Fusion earlier, that means there are now three copies of my ultimate monster residing in my deck!”

Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500).

Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500).

Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500).

The three pure white and blue dragons circled like a trio of buzzards in the sky above, if buzzards were actually the strongest monsters in the world and the manifestation of Seto Kaiba’s strength.

“Even though I cannot summon any other monsters for the rest of my turn, I don’t need anything else.” Kaiba sneered and pointed a finger toward John. “But don’t worry. Give me a few years, and we’ll be able to have a proper rematch. Until then, be a good boy and wait in Hell for me! Blue-Eyes White Dragons! Show my wrath upon the world!”

The sky was dyed white. Nothing else but pure white. Such was the power of three Blue-Eyes White Dragons unleashing their breath weapons on a single target at the same time. Kaiba took a deep breath in and out, reveling in the stench of ozone that littered the air as the building around him crumbled into dust. Right as the floor underneath his feet disappeared, his fall was halted before it could even begin by a metallic tail that appeared under his shoes, brought forth by one of the three dragons coiled around him.

As soon as Kaiba was lowered to the ground by the shining tail, he brushed past the rows of students who stood watching the utter destruction of the administration building with wide eyes and opened mouths.

“Heheh. Now I wonder where that worthless principal is now…”

Several teachers rushed past Kaiba. They completely ignored him in their haste, shouting for all of the students to get away from the building before it collapsed further. Meanwhile, the suited figure of one of Kaiba’s men came to a halt beside him. The man doubled over, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“Status.” Kaiba coldly questioned.

The man took several ragged breaths before he was able to string a complete sentence together.

“Mr. Kaiba sir! We were successful in evacuating the administrative staff and keeping students from entering the building.”

An eyebrow rose on Kaiba’s face. “Did any of them know what the principal was up to?”

“Only one that we know of.” The man replied. His voice took on a tinge of sorrow. “Professor Miller. But we found out too late. He took out poor Takamori with a sneak attack. None of us can duel real well, so…”

“So you shot him.” Kaiba nodded, tucking the information away in his head for future reference. “His power must have been lacking as a mage to fall to bullets like that. Give the body of the dead mage to the lab. And make sure Takamori’s family is taken care of.”

“Yessir.” The man saluted and fell away to join a group of similar suit-wearing men in the distance, who were gathered around a group of protesting administrators and professors.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Phil liked to see himself as a man who was always up to try something new and interesting.

But walking through the New York City sewer system? While the waters were high enough to cover his ankles, even on the ledges made for city workers to safely walk on?

Yeah. Not on his bucket list. Lumina was a little better off. As soon as Phil had slipped into an alley and found the manhole, she’d called a number on her phone and a fluffy cloud appeared next to her. It was a pretty decent-size cloud. Like something a turtle would float on so it could harass an Italian plumber. But Lumina was no turtle, so she simply hopped on top of the cloud, blasted the manhole cover open with a burst of light magic, and gestured for Phil to do the gentlemanly thing and go first.

Admittedly it was also partially his fault. After the pair had stumbled out of the Lada, he had spent a precious few seconds confirming the death of his opponent, and almost a minute rifling through the guy’s pockets like a criminal to take the Shiranui deck and any loose synchro cards that Phil definitely didn’t want to fall into the wrong hands.

While he was doing that, Lumina finally gave up on trying to revive the Lada to be their getaway vehicle. It was, as Phil liked to put it, ‘fucking obliterated’. The fact that it had lasted the entire duel and kept up with Tragoedia’s motorcycle (for the most part) was a miracle in itself. So with police cars and firetrucks skidding around the corner, Phil and Lumina could only dip into the nearest alley and enjoy a fragrant trip through the sewers.

“A full day in a steaming-hot shower. Just standing under the water while I try to forget about all of this.” Phil grumbled. A mystery item bumped against his ankle under the water, but he no longer flinched. He hadn’t since the fifth time that had happened.

Lumina’s lips curled in disgust while she examined her formerly white dress with a critical eye. “Forget bath bombs. I’m going to need a bath nuke to deal with this. And a special cleaning service. Do you know that this dress lasted me through multiple corporate wars? Magic. Fabric. Durable enough to withstand a soul grenade detonating five feet away. But a sewer in the middle of summer? Jeez. Next time the Gemini Company acts up and dispatches a PMC to cut some heads off, I’ll just tell Ryko to send some interns to this world and fill up some buckets with this crap. Give me a battalion of imps armed with squirt guns filled with this sewer water and there would be peace across the spirit world in a week tops.”

Phil nodded along to Lumina’s rants, barely even listening to her words while his left hand moved up to his head with robotic motions to grab a rat the size of a small child that had dropped onto his hair from the roof of the tunnel with a thick ‘splat’.

“Sure would.” He idly responded. Phil squinted, winding up his arm to chuck the rat into a far-off wall like a baseball pitcher. The rat squealed and slapped into the wall. The impact stunned it for a full second, but soon enough it wiggled around and disappeared into the murky waters.

“Say.” Lumina looked at the ripples the creature left behind. “That was a freaking massive rat.”

“Rodents of unusual size. Some people say they don’t exist, but looky there.” Phil gestured vaguely at the wall. “If that ain’t of unusual size, then I don’t know what is.”

“Do you think that rat could take you in a fight?”

Phil scratched his chin and glanced over his body. Even back on Earth, he was pretty skinny. Here? He could probably count his ribs without even trying.

“Yeah. It probably could.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The mayor of New York City looked at Mokuba.

Mokuba looked right back at the mayor of New York City.

“A freak chain of gas explosions?” The man asked again to confirm, as if he didn’t fully understand what Mokuba was saying.

“Yes.” Mokuba let a kind smile slide across his face as he looked at the mayor. The man was nothing more than a puppet for Kaiba Corp interests. Bought and paid for before he even stepped foot in office, just like his predecessors. “Kaiba Corp will compensate the families and we’ll rebuild the infrastructure to make sure nothing like this happens again. All medical bills relating to the incident will be paid in full by us as well.”

Whether or not it was actually a gas explosion was only so the newspapers could at least say something on the matter. As long as it wasn’t the truth. The actual truth couldn’t be revealed. Not that Seto was particularly hellbent on protecting his reputation, or the reputation of the student that had been a part of the whole ordeal. That was just a side effect. No, the important part was that a new method of summoning had been discovered. When Mokuba had first seen it through his binoculars, he’d been impressed.

But when Seto had called him after the dust had begun to settle and mentioned his own encounter with it? Sure, his brother had let his opponent get away with a few more moves than usual out of pure curiosity. But even so, those synchro monsters packed a punch that managed to lower Seto’s life points under 2000. That didn’t happen often.

The brothers both knew what would happen if the summoning method was revealed this early in the game: An arms race. One potentially more dangerous than the nuclear race between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

All it would take was for one of the multitudes of utterly batshit insane mages in the world to master synchro summoning, and the powder keg would be lit. It would give them the power to ignore the rules, or at least the power to withstand the inevitable backlash that would come by breaking those unspoken rules. To overcome the fear that Seto Kaiba had twisted into the gut of every mage in the world worth a damn. Hell, Tragoedia had already done exactly that with his shadow duel in broad daylight.

No, better for the whole thing to be kept under wraps for many years, long enough for the damage of its release to be controlled. A precise detonation instead of a nuclear warhead being dropped on every country in the world simultaneously.

A hand nudged his shoulder. Mokuba half-turned to catch Roland in the corner of his eye.

“Those two managed to escape before the scene got too hot. They took the sewers.”

Mokuba waved away the anxious mayor with his hand and the man turned to go suck up to someone else. Mokuba hardly cared who that was.

“Sewers, huh? Crazy kid. Taking a route like that takes guts. This is a bad time of the year to go down there.” He murmured. “If Phillip’s smart, he’ll blend in with the local bums and give you a discreet call when he gets the chance. He has your number, right?”

Roland nodded in affirmation. "Yes sir. It's how he contacted me about the student who passed away."

Mokuba winced at that reminder. Seto’s fury from that incident was still like an active volcano. Molten hot and ready to explode in the face of anyone who gave him a reason. Mokuba’s feelings were slightly more restrained. Only slightly. It was just that he knew by now that it would be better for Seto to sort that bit out.

“Okay. That’s workable. What about leaks, then? I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning to hear about a certain Duel Academy student in the news. Questions about Phillip could lead to questions about the duel, which would mean people talking about magic. Inevitably that means getting to topics we’d all like to avoid, such as synchro summoning and a crazy mage roaming the streets of New York City while committing mass vehicular homicide, getting brought up on Channel Five News. Then boom, the arms race starts.”

“About that, sir.” Roland tossed the broken remains of several cameras to the ground. “Only a handful of journalists got through the security cordon. I took the liberty of sending some muscle to ‘talk’ to that handful. They’ve been ‘persuaded’ to forget about the incident and are currently enjoying nice relaxing vacations at our secure resort. The one in the Bahamas.” Roland specified.

“Persuaded?” Mokuba asked.

“Sam only had to shoot one of them in the kneecap before the others obliged.”

“Hm. Not bad.” He nodded in satisfaction. “A kneecap’s an easy price to pay to stop the world from imploding.”

“Agreed, sir.”