Chapter 77: Why Am I Always the One Getting Hit?
Fresh from the ranked shop. Still practically warm.
Chosen by the Star Chalice — a four-star, 1800 ATK Normal Monster that Amano had exchanged for a thousand points barely hours ago — stood on the field in Attack Position, ready to earn its keep.
The problem was that Amano knew exactly what he was up against. Bart Scar's deck wasn't some first-year showcase build. Ranked eighteenth in the academy, a fourth-year duelist who had gotten through the joint duel selection on merit alone — that wasn't a deck built around 1800 ATK beaters bumping into each other. One aggressive stance was probably all it would take to watch Chosen by the Star Chalice get turned into scrap.
He'd promised Rin Seiya he'd hold on.
"Normal Summon — Yuyu, Defense Position."
[Yuyu] [DEF: 100]
Adding a 100 DEF wall to a 1800 ATK attacker was not, objectively speaking, an intimidating board state. But Amano wasn't building toward intimidation. He was building toward a specific threshold.
Two Normal Monsters on the field. One of them a Star Chalice monster.
He swept his finger across the monster zones, and both cards lit up with a quiet constellation of light.
"I tune my two monsters together!"
"So it's that move." The voice from Bart's mouth had the Puppeteer's recognition underneath it. "The Synchro Summon without a Tuner. I heard about your duel with Kaiba Chiha."
The Puppeteer was a student. Finesse's investigation had narrowed it down to Academy City, and the knowledge of that specific duel confirmed it. Someone who had watched from the stands, or followed Mizuki's stream, or heard about it afterward through the usual channels.
"Chosen by the Star Chalice acts as Tuner. Level 4 plus Level 1 — tune!"
4 + 1 = 5
"Light that guards the night, break through the darkness!"
"In the name of the Divine Child, attune the radiance of the stars!"
"Synchro Summon! Level 5 — Star Chalice Divine Child, Eve!!"
[Star Chalice Divine Child — Eve] [5-Star / WATER / Spellcaster / Tuner / Synchro / Effect]
[ATK: 1900 / DEF: 2100]
Star fragments erupted between the buildings, scattering across the dark space between the club towers. Eve materialized in her Divine Child form, one bare foot touching down lightly, the crystal axe catching what little light the night had to offer.
Eve: "Oh! I didn't even need to be one of the materials this time to get summoned. Synchro really is something else."
"Set one card. Turn end."
Amano breathed slowly. Bart was running a top-twenty ranked deck with no summoning restrictions and a Puppeteer supplement. The Divine Child's 2100 DEF was a reasonable defensive wall, but whether it was enough depended entirely on what Bart's opening hand looked like.
He was genuinely uncertain he could win this one cleanly.
The first Dark Game he'd fought, he'd been using Finesse's body as a buffer. The psychological pressure of the Dark Game hadn't registered the same way. Now, in his own body — even with Eve's card spirit presence serving as some kind of spiritual anchor — he could feel the constant low-level intrusion the Dark Game imposed on conscious thought. Like static that slowly built toward white noise.
Staying in it too long, even without taking hits, had consequences.
"Stalling is useless, Amano Rei!"
Of course the Puppeteer had spotted it.
"No one breaks out of a Dark Game barrier from the outside. My turn — draw!"
The Puppeteer tapped a hidden zone on Bart's Duel Disk, and a card slid into the field slot.
"Field Spell — Geartown!"
The environment collapsed and rebuilt in seconds. The club building district dissolved, replaced with a landscape of steel gears and interlocking mechanical architecture — massive, industrial, the visual language of Ancient Gear decks translated into a physical space.
"Continuous Spell — Ancient Gear Castle!"
A fortress of iron and clockwork materialized within the gear-covered streets, its towers grinding upward with the sound of enormous mechanisms.
The field was already overwhelming, and there wasn't a single monster on it.
"Spell card — Heavy Storm!"
[Heavy Storm] [Spell: Destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on the field.]
Blunt. Efficient. Expensive. The kind of card that didn't require a complex setup to be devastating.
Amano had known it was coming the moment he saw the two Spell cards go down. You don't deliberately set cards you know Heavy Storm will destroy unless destroying them is the whole point.
Eve squinted at the Puppeteer's field.
"He put down two Spell cards and then played Heavy Storm? He's going to blow up his own cards. Is he an idiot?"
He knows exactly what he's doing.
The storm swept the field. Amano's Set card — Mark of the Dramatic Battle — caught in the effect and shattered into fragments. And across the field, both Geartown and Ancient Gear Castle crumbled, the mechanical fortress collapsing in on itself, the gear-covered streets buckling and breaking apart.
But inside the collapsing ruins, two pairs of red eyes opened.
"When Geartown is destroyed, I can Special Summon an Ancient Gear monster from my Deck. When Ancient Gear Castle is destroyed, I can Special Summon an Ancient Gear monster from my hand."
Two cards hit the Duel Disk simultaneously.
"Special Summon — Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon! Ancient Gear Dark Golem!!"
[Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon] [8-Star / EARTH / Machine / Effect] [ATK: 3000 / DEF: 2000]
[Ancient Gear Dark Golem] [8-Star / EARTH / Machine / Effect] [ATK: 3000 / DEF: 3000]
The two enormous machines pulled themselves out of the rubble, shaking debris from iron shoulders. Combined field ATK: 6000 points. First turn. No Fusion, no Extra Deck, no setup beyond a three-card sequence.
Eve looked down at her own DEF stat.
"...This is going to hurt, isn't it."
"Ancient Gear Dark Golem's effect — I search two Ancient Gear cards from my Deck, then discard one."
The card Bart searched out and added to hand hadn't shown up in yesterday's joint duel. It carried a distinct residue of something that didn't belong in a standard duelist's collection. Another Puppeteer contribution, slipped into the deck alongside Bart's obsession.
"Finally — Normal Summon, Ancient Gear Flying Dragon!"
[Ancient Gear Flying Dragon] [4-Star / EARTH / Machine / Effect] [ATK: 1700 / DEF: 1200]
"When Ancient Gear Flying Dragon is Normal Summoned, I add one Ancient Gear card to my hand!"
More cards. More resources. The field kept accumulating without any pause, and Bart hadn't touched his Extra Deck once. Total field ATK was already past 7700 and climbing.
"Battle! Ancient Gear machines — attack!"
The Dark Golem moved first. One enormous fist swung toward the Divine Child.
[Star Chalice Divine Child — Eve — destroyed]
Eve: "(>_<) OW!! I knew it was going to hurt but it REALLY hurts! Dark Games are brutal! I'm retreating, Amano — you're on your own!!"
She hit the Graveyard crying.
"There goes your wall," the Puppeteer said through Bart's voice. "Nothing left to protect you. Prepare yourself, Amano Rei."
"Who said it was my wall?"
"Star Chalice Divine Child, Eve — effect activates!"
[When this Synchro Summoned card is sent to the GY: Special Summon 1 "Star Chalice" monster from your Deck or GY, except "Star Chalice Divine Child — Eve."]
Amano snapped the card down.
"Special Summon — Priestess Who Receives the Star Chalice, Defense Position!"
[Priestess Who Receives the Star Chalice] [DEF: 2100]
Eve materialized again in her Priestess form, arms raised defensively, expression caught somewhere between resigned and betrayed.
Eve: "(O_O) Wait — I'm still the one taking hits?!"