Chapter 326: Kikawayu's Scheme, the Sun God vs Yubel [7K Bonus Duel Chapter]
[Remaining Eva Points: 0]
Lying on the couch in her apartment, Celestia let out a heavy sigh.
"What am I even supposed to eat?"
For an entire week now, Celestia had remained completely broke, without a single point to her name.
Because of the infinite debt hanging over her, any money Celestia managed to scrape together from anywhere, by any means, would always automatically flow straight back into Amano Rei's own pocket.
Which left Celestia, once a wildly popular professional duelist, simply giving up entirely, abandoning every last money making job and settling into a full time career of lying flat at home doing nothing.
She'd been lying there for five days straight now.
The food stocked in her apartment had finally run completely dry.
Honestly, Celestia didn't have much of an appetite to begin with.
Two more days, and her debt deadline would be up. In other words, she'd be exiled from Eden's Tower.
Kaiba Chiaki hadn't hidden anything from Celestia either. Nobody could guarantee the success rate of this unprecedented rescue expedition outside the Tower.
Maybe, two days from now, she'd end up a corpse rotting somewhere out in the wilderness.
Given a situation like that, anyone would lose their appetite.
But feelings were feelings, and her body still had its own demands to make of Celestia. After all, maintaining a body at Level G still required a certain minimum of nutrition.
"Guess I'll head to the convenience store."
Even completely broke, the young lady working the register at the convenience store downstairs happened to be a fan of Celestia's dueling career, so trading on that goodwill for a cream cake on credit shouldn't be a problem.
Throwing on her signature pale yellow tracksuit, zipping it up just enough to cover her chest, Celestia rode the elevator down and left her apartment.
Everywhere she looked in Eden's Upper District, everything seemed wealthy, brimming with hope.
For someone like Celestia, who'd never really experienced the poverty of the lower districts, Eden felt like the most beautiful home imaginable.
And in two days, she'd be leaving Eden behind entirely, heading out into conditions even worse than the lower districts had ever been.
Honestly, Celestia had regretted, more than once, not taking President Kaiba up on her offer, paying someone to take on her Overkill debt for her, which would at least have let her rest easy.
But she was part of the tomb-keeper clan. If she offloaded her own suffering onto someone else's fate like that, how would she be any different from that one ancestor her own family recorded as a cautionary example?
Hands in her pockets, on her way to the convenience store, Celestia gradually began to sense something was off.
The Upper District might not have a huge population, but during the midday break, there should still have been plenty of pedestrians out on the streets.
And yet, the further Celestia walked, the more she noticed, with growing alarm, that there wasn't a single person around, and that the clear midday sky had somehow, without her noticing, become blanketed in dark, gloomy clouds.
Her body reacted before she even consciously registered it, her hand drifting to the card case at her hip, the same way a police officer's hand might once have drifted to a holstered gun at the first hint of danger.
Sure enough, at the corner of the street, a figure stepped out, as if they'd been waiting for her the whole time.
And Celestia found herself, oddly, already familiar with this particular person.
"You're..." Celestia's golden eyes flickered, taking in the girl who'd suddenly appeared in front of her in this eerie atmosphere. "You're always hanging around Amano, but..."
Familiar, yet not quite matching the image Celestia remembered.
The person in her memory should have been a boy, roughly the same height as Amano Rei.
But the figure standing in front of her now, while similar in appearance, had a build that, as long as Celestia still had any common sense left, there was no way she could possibly associate with the word "boy" anymore.
"You don't need to know too much, big-chested woman. I'm here to settle the score with you~"
"Settle the score?"
"I saw it with my own eyes, that thing where you buried Rei's face in your chest earlier. For that..."
Kikawayu snapped her pale, slender fingers with a crisp click, and the sky, already blanketed in gray clouds, went instantly, completely dark.
"For that, you get treated to a Dark Game."
Celestia found herself surrounded by a black barrier without warning, and by the time she came back to her senses, she was already pulled into the Dark Game unfolding right in front of her, with no way to escape.
Getting challenged to a Dark Game purely for seeing Amano Rei bury his face in her chest once?
What level of yandere even was this?
Celestia couldn't help but sigh. "Amano boy, your future's not going to be an easy one. But then again, a Dark Game! Bring it on!"
A golden Duel Disk unfolded across her arm, and Celestia drew the deck from the card case at her hip, slotting it into place.
"Trying to drag the sun itself down into darkness. What a foolish thing to attempt."
"Then you'd better not disappoint me, big-chested woman!"
"Duel!" Times two.
Kikawayu took the first move, drawing her card.
"My turn ends."
Facing Kikawayu's blindingly fast turn end, Celestia, moving second, hadn't even fully processed what happened before it was already her turn to act.
"Not using a single card? I feel a little insulted, honestly. I Normal Summon Ra's Disciple!"
[Ra's Disciple] [Level 4 LIGHT]
[Angel/Effect]
[ATK: 1100] [DEF: 600]
"And when Ra's Disciple is successfully Summoned, I can Special Summon the remaining 2 copies of Ra's Disciple from my Deck to my field!"
Sacrificial disciples draped in the sun god's own golden vestments, all three instantly assembled on Celestia's field.
"Next, I activate the Spell Card Ancient Incantation!"
[Ancient Incantation] [Spell Card: Add 1 "Winged Dragon of Ra" from your Deck or Graveyard to your hand. This turn, you gain 1 additional Tribute Summon during your Main Phase, on top of your Normal Summon.]
"I add Winged Dragon of Ra from my Deck to my hand, and using the extra Tribute Summon Ancient Incantation grants me, I tribute all three Ra's Disciples for an Advance Summon!"
The three disciples of the sun god transformed, in that instant, into three streams of light, surging toward the golden sun floating above Celestia's head.
"Spirits sing, ancient power governs all things!"
"Its life, its soul, down to its very bones. As heaven and earth converge, open the ritual to Summon the sun god itself!"
"Camino Summon! Descend, Winged Dragon of Ra!"
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [Level 10 GOD]
[Phantom Divine-Beast/Effect]
[ATK: ?] [DEF: ?]
The golden sun unfurled and transformed, its colossal body wreathed in divine flame, radiating brilliant golden light through the Dark Game and driving back the darkness itself. Winged Dragon of Ra had descended onto the field, on the very first turn, going second.
"Winged Dragon's ATK equals the combined ATK of the monsters tributed for it!"
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [ATK: 3300]
"And now, I add my entire Life Point total on top! I pay my Life Points down to just 1, boosting Winged Dragon's ATK by that exact amount!"
Celestia LP: 4000 to 1
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [ATK: 3300 to 7299]
Even inside a Dark Game, Celestia's signature one-point Life Point lockdown play remained unshaken.
This wasn't a Riding Duel, but a standing duel. Fused soul to soul with Winged Dragon, Celestia stood directly atop the dragon's own head.
Right after paying down her Life Points, though, Celestia noticed something strange.
"What kind of Dark Game is this, exactly?"
By all rights, even with a god's own protection, paying her Life Points down to 1 inside a Dark Game should have come with some genuinely unpleasant physical sensation.
Celestia had already braced herself to tough it out.
And yet, instead of any discomfort at all, she actually felt, if anything, kind of good.
Kikawayu grinned wickedly. "This is a Dark Game that also happens to be a nice, relaxing massage~"
"Like I'd believe that for a second!"
No discomfort was always better, though. Bathed in the flame crowning the sun god's head, Celestia swept her hand forward.
"Fight, Winged Dragon! Direct attack!"
"Divine Might Blazing Cannon!"
Facing a completely empty field, Celestia unleashed the sun god's single strongest attack straight at Kikawayu.
"Heh. The instant you declare your attack, I activate the effect of the Spirit of Yubel from my hand!"
[Activate when your opponent's monster declares an attack. Special Summon this card from your hand.]
Kikawayu stared straight into the wall of solar flame bearing down on her and flung a card onto the Duel Disk.
"I'm counting on you, Yubel!"
"Kikawayu, are you sure about this?"
"I don't have any way back left."
[Spirit of Yubel] [Level 10 DARK]
[Fiend/Effect]
[ATK: 0] [DEF: 0]
Spirit of Yubel materialized in front of the sun god's flame, arms crossed, spreading her wings to seal off the heat, hot enough inside a Dark Game to burn a soul to ash, from ever touching Kikawayu at all.
Celestia said, startled, "A Level 10 monster, Summoned that easily?"
A Level 10 monster's effect could already reach up and touch a god.
Kikawayu continued declaring her effect. "When Spirit of Yubel is Special Summoned, I can activate an effect!"
[Activate when this card is Special Summoned. Add 1 Spell/Trap Card that mentions "Yubel" in its text from your Deck to your hand, or Set it on your field.]
"I add Nightmare Pain to my hand."
Once the on-Summon effect resolved, Winged Dragon's flaming attack collided with Spirit of Yubel, and neither side dealt any damage or destruction, ending in a complete stalemate.
"Spirit of Yubel cannot be destroyed by battle, and any battle damage from battles involving her becomes 0."
"Using her as a wall, then? In that case, I set one card. Turn end!"
Celestia's opening hand was practically a miracle draw, so even inside a Dark Game, she still felt fully confident.
"My turn, draw!"
Drawing her card as her turn began, Kikawayu opened the Duel Disk's hidden Field Zone and placed a card inside it.
"I activate the Field Spell Card Nightmare Throne!"
The darkness that had just been driven back by the sun god's flame the turn before was now blanketed once again, this time by an even denser aura of gloom.
[Nightmare Throne] [Field Spell Card: As a resolution of this card's activation, the following effect may apply. Take 1 Fiend monster with 0 ATK and 0 DEF from your Deck, and either add it to your hand or destroy it.]
"By the Field Spell's activation effect, I destroy Yubel from my Deck! Then, activating Yubel's own effect for being destroyed, I Special Summon Yubel - Terror Incarnate from my Deck!"
[Yubel - Terror Incarnate] [Level 11 DARK]
[Fiend/Special Summon/Effect]
[ATK: 0] [DEF: 0]
[This card cannot be Normal Summoned. Can only be Special Summoned by the effect of "Yubel."]
A grotesque, twin headed demon dragon Special Summoned straight out of Kikawayu's own Deck, Level 11, surpassing even the gods themselves, left Celestia breaking out in a cold sweat.
"And now I activate the effect of Hell Graveyard Crawler from my hand!"
[Activate during either player's turn, if you control a Fiend-Type monster. Special Summon this card from your hand. After that, you can destroy 1 "Yubel" monster you control, or one whose card name mentions it.]
"I Special Summon Hell Graveyard Crawler from my hand in Attack Position, then destroy Yubel - Terror Incarnate on my field!"
[Hell Graveyard Crawler] [ATK: 0]
Using a Level 1 monster to destroy a Level 11 monster on her own field left even Celestia scratching her head, unable to follow the logic.
"Heh. When Yubel - Terror Incarnate leaves the field, I get to Special Summon, from my Deck..."
Kikawayu drew out the final evolution form from her Deck, flinging the highest Level demon of them all onto her own Duel Disk.
"This is the purest expression of my love for Rei! Special Summon, Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare!"
[Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare] [Level 12 DARK]
[Fiend/Special Summon/Effect]
[ATK: 0] [DEF: 0]
[This card cannot be Normal Summoned. Can only be Special Summoned by the effect of "Yubel - Terror Incarnate."]
A colossal, terrifying dragon of sorrow, its sheer size rivaling even the burning sun god itself.
Even with the sun god's own protection, Celestia was genuinely rattled by the towering dragon of sorrow now standing on Kikawayu's field. "Level 12, and a Main Deck monster at that?"
Plenty of Level 12 monsters existed in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh, but the vast majority of them belonged to the Extra Deck.
Among Main Deck monsters, even the three Egyptian Gods and three Wicked Gods only ever reached Level 10. A Level 12 Main Deck monster, without exception, represented the absolute pinnacle of its own domain.
"Heheh. Fight, Yubel~"
The wickedly seductive smile Kikawayu wore in this instant very nearly enchanted even Celestia herself.
"Attack Winged Dragon of Ra with Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare!"
"A monster with 0 ATK, attacking a god?" Celestia found herself once again plunged into confusion and unease.
If it were purely a matter of 0 ATK, that would be one thing. But the monster in front of her was a Level 12 with 0 ATK. Who wouldn't feel uneasy about that?
"Big-chested woman, I'll only warn you once. Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare cannot be destroyed by battle, and battle damage from battles involving her becomes 0. But your own monster will be destroyed after the battle, and you'll take damage equal to its ATK!"
Facing that battle advisory, delivered with a uniquely bewitching charm by this stunningly beautiful girl, Celestia very nearly found her own heart skipping a beat.
But now wasn't the time to get flustered.
"Winged Dragon of Ra's effect, discarding the Quick-Play Spell De-Fusion from my hand to set Winged Dragon's ATK to 0, and recovering Life Points equal to the amount its ATK dropped!"
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [ATK: 7299 to 0]
Celestia LP: 1 to 7300
Releasing her fused form with Winged Dragon, Celestia tumbled right off the bird's head.
The very next instant, the dragon of extreme sorrow roared and detonated against Winged Dragon, now sitting at just 0 ATK after the fusion was undone.
Given both sides technically sat at 0 ATK, by the rules, this shouldn't have caused any battle destruction at all, and yet Winged Dragon was destroyed and left the field regardless.
[Winged Dragon of Ra] destroyed
"I use the Quick-Play Spell Card Rushing Advance to boost Winged Dragon's ATK, and reflect that ATK back to destroy the god!"
That confirmed Kikawayu's earlier warning hadn't been a bluff after all. Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare, a Level 12 monster capable of touching gods, really had activated its own effect to destroy the god outright.
"Still, I still have another god ready to fight!"
Celestia's opening hand had been an outright miracle draw, since both of her god cards had landed right in her hand from the very start.
"When a monster is destroyed by an opponent's battle or effect, I can Special Summon, straight from my hand, the infinite serpent god!"
An aura of darkness, every bit a match for the one already gathered on Kikawayu's field, erupted from Celestia's side of the duel.
With the sun having fallen, this Dark Game had, in a single instant, become a clash between two absolute extremes of darkness.
[Divine Serpent Geh] [Level 12 DARK]
[Reptile/Special Summon/Effect]
[ATK: infinite] [DEF: infinite]
Another Level 12 Main Deck monster, Divine Serpent Geh, with infinite ATK and DEF, standing opposite Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare's own 0 ATK and 0 DEF, seemed like two opposite extremes in the entire history of dueling itself.
But if these two monsters actually fought each other, there was no question the loser would be the Serpent God, and Celestia along with it.
Despite its infinite ATK, the Serpent God had no resistance to destruction whatsoever. Battling the dragon of extreme sorrow would deal Celestia infinite damage.
But Celestia's opening hand truly was an act of divine providence. Beyond the two god cards in her hand, the set card in her back row was the Trap Card Destructive Remedy.
It could destroy her own Serpent God directly, instantly recovering her own infinite Life Points in return.
With a hand this flawless, Celestia genuinely couldn't imagine how she was supposed to lose this Dark Game.
"You really haven't disappointed me at all, big-chested woman!"
Kikawayu's smile only grew more brazen, and somehow, more bewitching still.
"That's exactly the god I've been waiting for. Getting it out this fast just saves me the trouble of wasting any more time here with you."
Kikawayu swept a hand forward, her flickering heterochromatic eyes locking onto the infinite ATK Serpent God like a predator sighting its prey.
"Attack Divine Serpent Geh with Hell Graveyard Crawler!"
Once again facing an attack from a 0 ATK monster, Celestia found herself confused all over again.
Did this Level 1, 0 ATK monster have some kind of damage reflection effect too?
"Nope, it doesn't." Kikawayu grinned wickedly.
"I don't believe that for a second!" Celestia said.
Attacking an infinite ATK monster with a 0 ATK monster, and you're telling me it doesn't do anything?
There was no way she'd trust a word out of this wicked woman's mouth!
"I activate the Trap Card Destructive Remedy, destroying my own Divine Serpent Geh to recover Life Points equal to its infinite ATK!"
"Told you, it doesn't do anything!" Kikawayu flung a card from her hand. "Counter Trap Card, Red Reboot, activate!"
[Red Reboot] [You can also activate this card from your hand by paying half your Life Points. Activate when your opponent activates a Trap Card. Negate that activation, and set that card face down instead. Then, your opponent can set 1 additional Trap Card from their Deck directly onto their own Spell/Trap Zone. After this card resolves, your opponent cannot activate any Trap Cards for the rest of the turn.]
Kikawayu LP: 4000 to 2000
Paying half her own Life Points, Kikawayu pulled the trigger straight from her hand, negating Celestia's Trap Card activation entirely.
[Destructive Remedy activation, negated]
Watching the monster charging straight at her, her own protective Trap Card negated right out from under her.
Celestia's mind went blank with despair for a single moment. "I'm done for!"
Unable to bring herself to watch the final result, Celestia plopped straight down onto the ground, squeezing her eyes shut.
Was she really going to die right here, inside a Dark Game?
Dying at the hands of a beauty this gorgeous, though, honestly wasn't such a bad way to go, was it?
The 0 ATK Hell Graveyard Crawler collided with the infinite ATK Divine Serpent Geh, dealing infinite battle damage.
Kikawayu LP: 2000 to 0 (-infinite)
"Eh?" Opening her eyes again, Celestia found the entire dark, game-warped environment around her had completely dissolved.
The clear afternoon sky was back, and under the sunlight, Kikawayu's brilliant smile looked even brighter than the clear sky itself.
"Done!" Kikawayu rolled her shoulders, feeling considerably looser and more relaxed.
She really hadn't been lying. This genuinely had been a nice, relaxing massage of a Dark Game.
"Sh, she really wasn't lying." Sitting on the ground, Celestia stared at Kikawayu's own Life Points, drained completely to zero, unable to believe it.
That final 0 ATK monster really hadn't had any reflection effect at all.
If anything, everything Kikawayu had told her throughout this entire duel had turned out to be the plain, unvarnished truth.
Could it be that the person standing in front of her wasn't some wicked woman after all, but a genuinely good one?
But then, why?
Deliberately jumping out to challenge her to a "nice, relaxing" Dark Game, only to end up on the receiving end of an Overkill herself...
It was right about then that Celestia finally put it all together. "Infinite Overkill!"
Because Kikawayu had rammed a 0 ATK monster straight into the Serpent God herself, her own infinite debt had, of course, transferred directly onto Kikawayu instead.
She'd come here to save her?
She really was an incredible, saintly woman after all!
"Hey. Big-chested woman." Kikawayu warned Celestia.
"If Rei asks about this later, tell him you got scared about leaving the Tower, and asked me to take your place. Everything else that happened here today, you're not allowed to breathe a single word of it!"
"Why do I need to say it that way?"
"If my affection score drops any further in Rei's heart, my whole position gets shaky. So I have to keep playing the innocent, pure hearted white lotus act, and I absolutely cannot let his impression of me get any worse. Otherwise, once he's back from outside the Tower, I won't have any way to make my move at all."
"Huh?" Celestia still didn't quite follow.
"Anyway, since I'm the one who just saved your life, don't go causing me any extra trouble either. I'll be honest with you: if you'd actually gotten exiled from the Tower, the odds of you coming back alive were basically nonexistent."
Crouching down, Kikawayu gave her a light flick with a folding fan.
"Understood?"
"Un, understood..."
Meanwhile, back at the dueling platform in Academy City's central plaza.
"Waaaah, big sister, you weren't actually violated by this guy after all! Thank goodness, thank goodness!"
Now that she knew the truth, Chiha, sobbing and clinging to Kaiba Chiaki, had completely stopped caring how she looked in front of the entire watching crowd of students.
"Amano told you that?" Even while holding the sobbing Chiha in her arms, Kaiba Chiaki shot Amano Rei a look sharp enough to kill.
You told my own little sister I'd slept with you in the president's office, and made her stand outside the door listening in?
"That's Chiha's own misunderstanding. What I meant was, having her listen outside while we played cards."
He genuinely hadn't said a single word implying anything of the sort. It was purely that Kaiba Chiha, having played way too many gal games, had jumped straight to filling in the blanks with those particular scenes on her own.
As for Amano Rei, all he'd done was lean, just slightly, into the little brat's own gal-game-corrupted imagination.
Looking at it now, though, the end result had worked out pretty well.
Watching Kaiba Chiha cling to Chiaki, comforting her like this, the two sisters clearly weren't going to keep up their cold war the way they had before.
Turned out that, in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh, there really was no relationship a good duel couldn't fix.
Honestly, there hadn't even been much to fix at all. Chiaki simply hadn't known how to express her love for her own little sister, and Chiha had just been sulking, when in reality, she cared about her sister more than anyone else.
Sisters who'd grown up watching each other's backs since they were kids, how much of a real blood feud could there actually be between them?
Amano Rei had just given them the opening they needed to thaw things out.
Which meant this particular task of his was more or less complete.
"Amano..." The shame and fury slowly fading from her eyes, Kaiba Chiaki, gently stroking the head of the little sister still buried in her arms, finally spoke. "This time too, I owe you one. Thank you."
"The best thanks you could give me would be for you two to stop dragging me into your fights from now on."
Even though he was technically an employee of Kaiba Corporation, this was already the third time Amano Rei had been roped into a headache like this.
[Kaiba Chiaki] [Affection +1] [Affection: 89]
Patching things up between the sisters bumping Kaiba Chiaki's affection up was well within Amano Rei's own expectations.
[Kaiba Chiha] [Affection +5] [Affection: 74]
What actually caught him off guard was how much Kaiba Chiha's own affection had jumped, all at once.
If anything, thinking back on it, Amano Rei had already found it a little strange how her affection hadn't dropped at all, even after he'd played the villain and mocked her that hard.
Watching Chiha bury her face in her own sister's chest, whining for comfort, as a fellow descendant of the Kaiba family, carrying Kaiba Seto's own genius bloodline, maybe the little brat wasn't quite as simple on the inside as she looked on the surface.
Speaking of which, with Chiha's affection back up past 70, didn't that mean...
[Kaiba Chiha's affection reached 70, unlocking a brand new Dueling skill: One Ladle from a River of a Thousand Blossoms]
[Choose and unlock any single card from your entire Extra Deck. This skill can only be used once. The unlocked card is permanently added to your Extra Deck.]
Three months later, and this particular skill had made its return.
Any card at all, from the entire Extra Deck, no exceptions. Whether he wanted to open up Gundam or fuse in Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Amano Rei could have his pick of absolutely anything.
Honestly, that excited him a lot more than any amount of money or ranking points ever could.
The Kaiba family really did have a knack for handing out skills that were anything but ordinary.
And just as Amano Rei found himself torn between opening up Tyranno's Hyper Librarian or Typhon, Eva's own notification chimed in right on cue from his wrist terminal.
[Debt Transferred]
[Final Debt Holder: Kikawayu]
[Debt Amount: infinite]
"???"
Best friend, how did you go and get yourself killed like this?
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