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Chapter 435 - Gift

After the Duel, Hikaru slid his Duel Disk off and walked toward the Tyler sisters.

Grace was propping up her sister. Between the overtraining, the high-intensity matches, and fighting inside an "arena" that gnawed at your mind as much as your body, Gloria could hardly stand.

Hikaru came over and offered a hand.

"Ha...thanks." Gloria wasn't the coy type; she didn't turn down help.

Once he'd made sure she was alright, Hikaru checked the time and started to take his leave.

"Wait."

He had only taken a few steps when Gloria called after him.

Whoosh

Hikaru turned, swept his right hand through the air, and plucked a card out of the moonlight as if it had flown straight to him.

He looked down.

Amazoness War Chief.

He glanced back up. "War Chief?"

It wasn't exactly proper to hand off a card that carried a resident spirit… was it?

A shadowy figure, War Chief's silhouette, rose beside Gloria and said, "Take it, Amagi Hikaru. This is our wish."

War Chief wasn't a high-tier spirit, but as the Amazon tribe's second-strongest "ritual" warrior at this liminal moment, she could just barely maintain two bodies. She'd chosen the sisters not only because she felt their passion for the tribe, but because she expected things of them, she'd always been an Amazon instructor at heart.

And tonight, Hikaru had woken Gloria up, and moved Grace as well. In War Chief's eyes, that was the finest lesson.

Giving up half her power was a price worth paying.

The card's strength spoke for itself. Amazoness War Chief, the piece that Sets from the Deck when it hits the field, carried an extra perk: her Set effect dodged Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring entirely.

When this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can Set 1 "Amazoness" Spell/Trap (or Polymerization) directly from your Deck. For the rest of this turn, you cannot declare attacks with non-"Amazoness" monsters.

That restriction didn't bother Hikaru; and as for "Amazoness" Fusions, he already carried Amazoness Pet Liger. If he saw War Chief going first, all the better, his list even ran three copies of Polymerization.

"Then… thanks, Gloria." Hikaru turned to go.

"Wait."

Gloria stopped him again.

"…?"

Hikaru turned back, puzzled.

Gloria drew a slow breath and managed a wry smile. "Do you remember what we talked about last time?"

'Last time.'

Hikaru's brow twitched.

Beside him, Tierra spread her hands. "Your agreement at the Amazoness camp: as long as you keep beating them, they'll help spread your Fusion doctrine, remember?"

Her dueling still lagged behind, but Tierra's memory never missed.

Hikaru remembered too. He just didn't think this was the moment to bring it up.

After one duel, he could already tell that the Tyler sisters were no longer the kind of people who would hunt bored students from other schools and turn them into cards.

There was no need to sour the air now.

"Do you know… the Gladiator Beast Dimension?"

Hikaru's eyes widened.

"Could it be..."

Gloria leaned into Grace; Grace fished a card from her pocket and flicked it forward.

Hikaru snatched it out of the air.

Gladiator Beast Dimension.

The homeland Gladiator Beast Andal had always longed to return to, and the one place where Hikaru hadn't been able to draw any new cards since then.

"This is the covert unit's sector in the Gladiator Beast Dimension," Gloria said quietly. "Even during the raid on the X Dimension, the Gladiator Beast corps didn't deploy at first. Their stockpiles, their prep, their headcount, they're the most complete."

She held his gaze. "I know you've been trying to disrupt Professor Akaba's organization. This should help you… right?"

Hikaru nodded.

"Thanks, Gloria. This is a big deal for me."

He took the emerald notebook from his belt, slid the card carefully between its pages, and closed it with a soft snap.

He waved to the sisters, then finally turned to leave.

Watching his back recede, Gloria seemed to deflate all at once, her strength draining away.

"Why didn't you call out to him again, Sister?" Grace asked in a small voice.

"Gr–Grace?!" Gloria flushed with embarrassment at her sister's bluntness.

Grace didn't mind. She eased Gloria into a chair, twirled a strand of hair as she thought, and murmured, "If we told him now we want to join the Fusion Department, he'd definitely welcome us. Then we could stay by his side and watch him Duel whenever we want. That's what you were thinking too… right?"

"Grace!!"

Gloria shouldered her lightly.

Truth was, the Gladiator Beast program was a prized asset inside the Fusion Army. Ever since the Gladiator Beast strike on Hikaru failed, every special unit that ran the theme had been slowly pulled back. After that, the only people at Duel Academy who were allowed to use Gladiator Beasts were the teachers loyal to Professor Akaba.

The brass knew exactly how dangerous the archetype was. So the cards were tightly controlled, and because Gladiator Beast spirits were so easy to discipline, train, and weaponize, the army guarded that fighting force even more fiercely on the inside.

Strictly speaking, if you could find the Gladiator Beast training grounds, the Fusion Army's real base wouldn't be far away.

By handing Hikaru that kind of secret, the two sisters would be marked by the official units sooner or later, maybe even hunted.

Compared to an "outside enemy" like Hikaru, "traitors" like them would face far worse hostility from within.

Hikaru knew that, too.

That's why, even after their Duel, he hadn't brought it up himself.

But since Gloria had given him this lead, he wouldn't waste the favor.

Up to now, Hikaru had only one copy of Gladiator Beast Domitianus in his collection, and Andal, the "one-eyed" gladiator, had never stopped worrying about his friends. Now that he finally had a point of entry, he might be able to track down more Gladiator Beast cards over there. 

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