Chapter 71: Left Punch, High Damage. Right Punch, High Damage.
First week of the new semester. The three academies' very first joint duel of the year—and nobody had expected Xyz Academy to be the one sent home early.
If it had been a clean, straightforward match, people could have lived with the result.
But this? The scheming was written all over the stage for anyone paying attention.
Fusion Academy and Synchro Academy had teamed up.
Every Xyz Academy duelist waiting in the wings for later rounds felt a cold sweat creeping down their spine. The unspoken arrangement—that Fusion and Xyz would lean on each other and keep Synchro in check—had just been shredded in front of the whole venue. With that balance gone, Synchro Academy was walking away from this duel with everything to gain.
"So, uh... what do we do now, Rei?" Kikawayu murmured, voice low enough that only Amano could hear. "I could just concede. Would that work?"
"Don't." Amano shut it down immediately. "Conceding outright is too much."
This was a duel fought on behalf of their academy. Walking away without a fight would stick to Kikawayu like a reputation he'd never shake off. Amano didn't care about politics—but he couldn't just leave his best friend to deal with that fallout alone.
"Keep going, Yuu. Show me what you've got."
Taking on the three Sacred Beasts with a Normal Monster. And the opponent across from him was Kikawayu Yuu, of all people. A month ago, Amano could never have dreamed up a scenario this strange.
"I'll end my turn."
He declared it plainly. No plays. No tricks.
Kikawayu blinked, visibly thrown off.
Two Sacred Beasts were sitting on his field. Both with massive ATK scores. And Amano just... passed.
"This is your chance, Kikawayu-kun!"
"Just swing! You've basically already won!"
The Fusion Academy students in the back hadn't even waited for Kikawayu to draw before they were cheering him on, practically lifting him off his feet.
"My turn, draw." Kikawayu glanced across the field. "I'm really going for it, Rei. You sure?"
Amano grinned and beckoned him forward with two fingers.
"Go all out."
"I activate the Spell card Foolish Burial Goods!"
[Foolish Burial Goods] [Spell: Send 1 Spell/Trap from your Deck to the GY.]
The budget cousin of Foolish Burial. Still a precision tool for loading the Graveyard—but limited to Spells and Traps, which made it a fair bit narrower than the real thing.
"I send the Continuous Trap Code of Honor to the GY. Since the number of Continuous Traps in my Graveyard just increased by one, Uria, Lord of Searing Flames gains 1000 ATK!"
[Uria, Lord of Searing Flames] [ATK: 3000 -> 4000]
Both Sacred Beasts on Kikawayu's field were now sitting at 4000 ATK.
"I'm done holding back! Uria, Lord of Searing Flames—attack! 'Inferno Shockwave'!"
Four thousand ATK worth of divine flame hit God Slime like a wall collapsing.
Amano Rei LP: 4000 -> 3000
The crimson blaze tore through God Slime's gelatinous body and kept going, the heat washing over Amano in a rolling wave. The glow caught his features—the flash of it oddly striking through the scorching light.
Kikawayu's cheeks went a shade pinker than he would have liked to admit.
"...Rei's going to be okay, right? If I attack again?"
She hesitated. She genuinely didn't want to win.
And then the Slime—which had just been incinerated one second ago—quietly reformed on the field the next.
"Yuu." The heat had faded but Amano's confidence hadn't moved an inch. "You've known me our whole lives. How many times have you actually beaten me at anything?"
He gestured to his monster.
[God Slime: Cannot be destroyed by battle.]
Their whole lives.
Cards? Amano won every hand without trying.
Wrestling around as kids? Amano always ended up on top, sitting on Kikawayu until he tapped out.
Catching fish in the river? Amano finished first, then got bored and started causing problems.
For as long as either of them could remember, Kikawayu Yuu had never once come out on top in a contest against Amano Rei.
"—'Paradise Lost Thunder'!"
The memory surfaced faster than Kikawayu could push it back down. Face now thoroughly red, she threw herself into Hamon's attack animation just to have something dramatic to hide behind.
Four thousand ATK smashing into a monster that couldn't be destroyed by battle still produced the same result it always did.
One thousand damage to Amano. Nothing else.
Amano Rei LP: 3000 -> 2000
"My turn."
Amano cut through the thunder and lightning like they weren't there, seizing the momentum back.
No one else in the venue knew Kikawayu's deck the way he did. Those Sacred Beasts looked terrifying from the outside—and against most first-years, they were. But the summoning cost was brutal. Kikawayu had burned through her entire hand just to keep both Sacred Beasts on the field. No cards left. No follow-up.
The Sacred Beasts themselves, for all their 4000-ATK intimidation, had one weakness Amano had spotted the moment he saw them.
They were Level 10.
"My turn, draw."
"Haven't had a chance to pick on you in a while, Yuu."
He slapped the monster down onto his Duel Disk in Attack Position.
"Normal Summon—Priestess Who Receives the Star Chalice! Attack Position!"
[Priestess Who Receives the Star Chalice] [2-Star / WATER / Spellcaster / Normal] [ATK: 0 / DEF: 2100]
Eve: "(o_O)? Amano, I think you made a mistake. You were supposed to set me face-down. Horizontally. You know, Defense Position. That thing."
Even Eve hadn't imagined the day she'd be Normal Summoned in Attack Position, staring across the field at two monsters that could each snap her in half without noticing.
"I didn't make a mistake. You're fighting the Sacred Beasts."
"I—what. I'm fighting the Sacred Beasts?"
"(ง•̀_•́)ง Fine! Then I need to Synchro Summon immediately! Let me evolve into my Divine Child form!"
"You don't need to."
Evolving would actually make this harder, not easier.
What Amano needed was her Normal Monster status and her low Level. Both of those disappeared the moment she Synchro Summoned.
"Equip Spell—Rebellion!"
[Rebellion] [Equip Spell: Can only be equipped to a Normal Monster. When the equipped monster battles a monster with a higher Level, during damage calculation, the equipped monster gains ATK equal to the difference in their Levels x 500.]
Normal Monsters only. The golden, eyeball-shaped ring locked onto Eve's right hand.
Eve was Level 2. The Sacred Beasts were Level 10. That was a difference of 8 Levels.
8 x 500 = 4000.
One Equip card was already enough for Eve to go toe-to-toe with a Sacred Beast.
"Next—Spell card, Left Arm Offering!"
[Left Arm Offering] [Spell: If you have 2 or more other cards in your hand, you can activate this card by banishing your entire hand. Add 1 Spell from your Deck to your hand.]
Amano had four cards in hand. All of them hit the banish pile in one sweep, traded away for the precise card he needed.
Because there was exactly one card standing between him and the win.
One Rebellion made Eve a match for the Sacred Beasts.
Two Rebellions?
The glow from Left Arm Offering faded as Amano reached into his deck.
"I banish my entire hand—and add the second Rebellion from my Deck to my hand. Equip!"
In the Tower's ranked shop, Rebellion cost 800 points per copy. Even a second one only came out to 1600 total.
Cheap.
Brutal.
The second golden eyeball ring slipped onto Eve's left hand.
Eve: "(>﹏<) I have everything I could ever want right now!!"
Left punch, high damage.
Right punch, high damage.
With two Rebellions equipped, every single Level of difference between Eve and her target translated into 1000 ATK instead of 500. Eight Levels of difference times two rings.
[Priestess Who Receives the Star Chalice] [ATK: 0 -> 8000]
"Attack target: Uria, Lord of Searing Flames." Amano looked across the field at his childhood friend. "It's been a while. Brace yourself, Yuu."
"Wai—hey!!" Kikawayu stumbled backward, arms flailing—but there was a faint, unmistakable flicker of excitement crossing her face.
Pale blue energy gathered at both of Eve's fists, crackling and building. The Priestess's slight frame—which had no business radiating this kind of pressure—filled the entire center stage of Academy City's cyber arena with something that made everyone watching hold their breath.
Eve: "'God Hand Impact'!!"
So you wanted to shout that one too.
The flat-chested girl with 8000 ATK swung—and Uria's enormous serpentine body crumpled from the impact, blasted clean through from head to tail.
[Uria, Lord of Searing Flames—destroyed]
"AAAAAHHH!!"
Kikawayu Yuu LP: 4000 -> 0
Amano wasn't about to collect the overkill bonus off his best friend's back.
Four thousand points of damage—exactly enough to bring the Life Points to zero. Not a single point over.
[BATTLE ROYALE CONCLUDED]
[WINNER]
[AMANO REI]
Kikawayu lay flat on the stage floor, one hand covering his face.
"Aww, Kikawayu-kun looks really upset!"
"Don't worry! You'll get him back next time!"
"That was way too brutal over there!"
A pretty boy losing so thoroughly always had a way of pulling at people's heartstrings.
What the crowd couldn't see—and what Kikawayu was very carefully hiding behind that hand—was the massive, absolutely unhinged grin spreading across his face.
"Heheh. Getting wrecked by Rei after all this time... I missed this so much."