Yugioh [882-884] (Patreon)

Chapter 882 – The Abducted Spirits

“An ultra-rare spirit?”

As a professional Spirit Hunter, Trapper’s keen hunter’s instincts immediately flared. His eyes lit up.

So the rumors were true!

They all said the Duel King had spirits swarming around him. There were even rumors that he got along so well with Kaiba Seto that they could wear the same pair of pants, and that his relationship with Industrial Illusions was anything but ordinary.

Any monster that came from the Duel King’ hands—no matter which one—had to be worth a fortune.

Thinking of this, a look of eager malice crept across Trapper’s face.

Come on then. Show me your spirit.

Your spirit is pretty good—but soon, it’ll be mine!

“I activate the effect of Matriarch of Nephthys.”

Kira had already begun his next sequence of plays.

“Matriarch’s effect: I target 1 Level 4 or lower ‘Nephthys’ monster in my GY,” Kira said. “I destroy 1 card in my hand, and then Special Summon that targeted monster from the GY in Defense Position!”

Kira drew a card from his hand.

The Matriarch chanted a spell, and a plume of flame rose from Kira’s hand, instantly engulfing the card he held. The card was wrapped in fire and burned to ash.

He raised his Duel Disk, and the Graveyard zone flared with golden light. A rocket of fire shot out, the burning arrow slamming into the ground and blossoming into a massive fireball. From the rolling inferno, flames surged and twisted together into a humanoid form.

“I revive Defender of Nephthys from the GY!”

A silver-haired girl appeared, wielding a greatsword blazing like living fire. She too wore golden armor representing the Nephthys faction, a crimson cloak fluttering behind her, her figure bathed in flames.

[Defender of Nephthys – DEF 200]

“However, any monster Summoned by Matriarch’s effect has its effects negated,” Kira added.

Trapper studied the newly arrived girl for a moment, resting his chin on his hand.

Obviously, this one wasn’t a spirit. In other words, this was just set-up for a spirit to be summoned later.

A Nephthys deck… Don’t tell me…!?

Trapper’s eyes flashed. “The Phoenix God!?”

“Huh?” Kira blinked. “What?”

“Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys—that’s the rare spirit you were talking about, isn’t it?”

Trapper could no longer hide the feverish joy in his eyes.

Phoenix God was already a rare card to begin with. If it were a spirit, its value would be impossible to estimate. This could practically be the lifetime dream of a Spirit Hunter.

But Kira just laughed.

Trapper frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Kira said, still smiling. “But the spirit I meant isn’t Phoenix God.”

“I Tribute Matriarch of Nephthys and Defender of Nephthys to Tribute Summon!

From the Planet Series, the ruinous machine—

—The Big Saturn, come forth!!!”

Planet Series!

Those few words exploded in the Spirit Hunter’s ears like rolling thunder.

The legendary set modeled after the nine planets—each card utterly unique, only one copy existing in the entire world—super-ultra-rare cards!

And now, one of those nine planets descended: a gigantic machine fully encased in white heavy armor, landing with earth-shattering force, like a steel mountain dropped from the heavens!

[The Big Saturn – ATK 2800]

Trapper’s eyes were full of longing.

It was like his whole expression said: “Dad, I want this one.”

Kira obligingly granted his wish at once. “Battle. The Big Saturn, attack Malice Doll of Demise!”

Saturn had only just begun gathering power when Trapper burst out laughing.

“You’ve fallen for it again, Duel King!”

The Dark Scorpion gang, watching tensely nearby, went: “NANI!?”

“You thought that just because I didn’t Summon a Lure Phantom this time, attacking would be safe, didn’t you? You underestimate us Hunters far too much!”

Trapper laughed loudly and swept out his hand.

“I activate the Trap Card: Capture Snare!

If there’s a card on my field with a Prey Counter, I can activate this. I negate the attack of 1 of your attacking monsters, then that attacking monster is also captured into my back row—and I place a Prey Counter on that card too!”

The Dark Scorpions suddenly understood.

“Crap, last turn the Storm Caller he abducted had a Prey Counter on it…”

“That’s right! Because I had a card with a Prey Counter on my field, I used Storm Caller as bait to lure Saturn in!”

Trapper laughed uproariously.

“Get over here!”

Saturn was captured as well. Its massive body was sealed inside a gigantic net and hoisted up into Trapper’s Spell & Trap Zone.

“You damn bastard!” Zaloog roared. “I knew he’d steal other people’s monsters again!”

Trapper was overjoyed.

Another catch.

And this time, not just a Tribute monster, but a spirit—a heavyweight, one-of-a-kind Planet Spirit unmatched in the whole world!

Yes, that was also a trait of Spirit Hunters’ cards. Spirits caught by their cards in a duel weren’t just holograms bound in place—the real spirits would actually be temporarily trapped inside the Traps.

“Stealing my monsters again…”

Kira sighed in mock helplessness.

“All right. In that case, it’ll be dangerous if you get to attack next turn. I activate the Spell Card One Day of Peace. We each draw 1 card. Until the end of your next turn, all damage either of us would take becomes 0.”

“So you’re going to cling on for one more turn like this? That’s not really befitting of the Duel King.”

Trapper let out a smug chuckle.

“My turn. Draw.”

He glanced at the card he drew and snorted again.

“I can’t take advantage of this turn to attack. But it’s only this one turn.”

He revealed a monster card from his hand.

“I Normal Summon Battle Ox!”

[Battle Ox – ATK 1700]

It was just a minotaur swinging a battle axe. Nothing particularly special, but it suited the image of a Hunter whose profession was wrangling beast-type spirits.

“I Set 1 card and end my turn.”

Trapper’s face radiated confidence.

The set card was Capture Snare No. 2.

In other words, the moment the opponent attacked again, history would repeat itself and even more of his monsters would be captured.

Come, Duel King! Show me even more of your rare and precious spirits!

“My turn. Draw.”

Kira drew, but didn’t even bother to look at the card—as if he didn’t care what it was at all. He simply raised his head and said calmly:

“There are some people who are already dead. They just haven’t realized it yet.”

Trapper paused.

“…What?”

“Last turn, you seemed pretty eager to see Phoenix God,” Kira said lazily, slowly raising his Duel Disk. “So I’ll indulge you.”

As he spoke, actual flames burst from his Duel Disk, billowing skyward and surging into a solid shape.

Trapper’s eyes grew even hungrier. “Oooh… that’s…”

“Last turn, when I activated Matriarch’s effect, I destroyed a card in my hand. That card was this one.”

Kira’s voice was indifferent.

“Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys. When this card is destroyed by a card effect and sent to the GY, during your next Standby Phase, you can Special Summon it from the GY.

Reborn in the flames of nirvana and take flight once more—

—Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys, come forth!”

The blazing flames formed vast, outspread wings, a proud head, and a golden body radiating endless light, shining like the scorching sun itself.

[Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys – ATK 2400]

“So it really is Phoenix God… Hmph. A shame it’s not a spirit, but it’s still a powerful, rare monster.”

Trapper flashed a dangerous grin.

“After this Duel, that card’ll be mine too.”

“I told you, there are some people who are already dead. They just haven’t realized it yet.”

Kira’s tone was flat.

“When Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys is Special Summoned by its own effect, all Spell and Trap Cards on the field are destroyed.”

Trapper: “!”

Damn it! If his back row was destroyed, he wouldn’t be able to activate Capture Snare, and his Minotaur couldn’t corral Phoenix God…

“Tch.”

Trapper clicked his tongue.

Even so, he still had two monsters on the field, and his LP was untouched at 4000. Clearing his back row didn’t mean Kira could necessarily OTK him this turn.

“The Storm Caller and Big Saturn you stole from me are currently in your Spell & Trap Zone, so they’ll be destroyed along with everything else when Phoenix God’s effect resolves.

And both of those cards have their own effects.”

Kira paused, then calmly explained:

“When Storm Caller is destroyed by a card effect, its controller takes damage equal to its ATK—so 2300.”

“And The Big Saturn’s effect: when a face-up Big Saturn controlled by your opponent is destroyed by your opponent’s card effect and sent to the GY, both players take damage equal to Big Saturn’s ATK—2800.

Of course, since you took Big Saturn, from your perspective, ‘your opponent’ is me.”

Trapper: “…”

It all happened too fast. The Hunter’s brain momentarily crashed; he couldn’t process it.

Kira paused, then gave Trapper a gentle smile, kindly elaborating:

“So if those two cards are destroyed together, thanks to Big Saturn’s effect, I’ll take 2800 damage.

As for you, you’ll take the sum of both their ATKs—5100 damage total.”

Trapper opened his mouth wordlessly, as if something was lodged in his throat, leaving him speechless. He stared at his own back row—at those two monsters that he’d thought he’d so cleverly captured.

He looked at Storm Caller.

Then at Big Saturn.

His expression twitched.

So in the end…

…he’d caught two undercover traitors for himself?

The flames unleashed by Phoenix God swept across the field in a vast tide, devouring everything. Storm Caller and Big Saturn both detonated like massive powder kegs, erupting into the most dazzling fireworks against the night sky with two earth-shaking blasts.

“Uwaaaaaaah—!!”

[Trapper – LP 4000 → LP 0]

Chapter 883 – Don’t Provoke the King

“Storm Caller… Big Saturn…”

Trapper lay on his back, staring up at the deep, endless night above Duel Academy.

As a professional Spirit Hunter, he had spent his whole life plundering. He’d taken so many spirits, so many cards, that even he couldn’t keep track anymore.

But having stolen cards backfire and kill him—that was a first in his entire career.

He lay there on his back for a while, then a face swam into view above him.

A face that was absurdly handsome, yet in the moonlight seemed veiled in shadow. Eyes that seemed to hold blades—cold, razor-sharp—and yet, faintly mocking.

“You…”

Trapper forced the words out.

“You knew… from the start…”

“You knew I would steal your monsters. You purposely summoned Storm Caller and Big Saturn. Those two monsters were traps from the very beginning… Your plan from the start was to make me steal them…”

At this point, the truth was already glaringly obvious.

Who else would use self-destructing monsters like that as their ace?

Storm Caller burned its own controller when it was destroyed. Big Saturn’s burn effect was basically a living Ring of Destruction, but it required the very specific condition of “being destroyed by the opponent’s card effect while under the opponent’s control.” A setup that screamed deliberate intent.

In short, when Trapper looked at Kira now, that sinister face might as well have had one word written all over it:

Targeted.

Storm Caller and Big Saturn had been two giant pits dug openly right in front of him. He had leapt into them without hesitation, even patted the dirt in over his own head and planted a gravestone there himself—then strutted around, convinced he’d struck it rich.

Looking back, this duel had been a trap from the moment it started. From Kira’s perspective, Trapper must have looked like a total clown the whole time—smug, and utterly unaware.

But Kira only gazed down at him, looking relaxed yet cold, and said evenly:

“That’s right. That was my plan. I know you Spirit Hunters’ methods; I know your tactics. The outcome of this duel was decided from the beginning—just like the fate awaiting you, and every other Spirit Hunter.”

Trapper frowned. “What?”

Kira smiled.

“You people plunder so many spirits. Did you really think you could dodge retribution forever? That the spirits would never turn on you?” Kira said. “This duel is a mirror of your destiny.

You rob and control using filth—violence and technology—but in the end, all of it will explode in your faces.

Those who cannot approach spirits with the right heart have no right to keep walking the path of a duelist.”

Trapper sneered at that.

“The right heart? So you’re that kind of boring duelist too, Fujiki Kira?”

“You think I never tried? You think I never wanted to walk that bright, open path you’re talking about?”

“I can’t!”

His emotions flared. He tried to push himself up, but his limbs were limp. In the end he collapsed again, fists pounding the ground.

“Someone like you would never understand! What it’s like to be betrayed by your own cards! To be rejected and abandoned by the very cards you hold! Humans were never worthy of opening their hearts to spirits in the first place!

Duelists with that so-called pure and righteous heart… they don’t exist!”

Mid-rant, Trapper’s pupils suddenly constricted. His mouth dropped open like he’d just seen something horrifying beyond words.

From his perspective, that was exactly what had happened.

He saw spirits.

Not just one or two, but countless spirits, endlessly appearing before his eyes. A huge crowd—spirits flooding his vision, staring at him with cold or hateful gazes.

He recognized them.

They were all spirits he had hurt. Spirits he had captured.

“No… no…!”

For the first time, Trapper began to panic.

He flailed his arms in front of him, shrieking:

“Stay away from me!”

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Don’t…!”

But it was useless. All those spirits—spirits he had imprisoned, now freed by his defeat—suddenly seemed to dissolve into pure energy. That energy condensed into blinding white light and shot into his body, one beam after another.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH—!!”

Trapper let out an inhuman scream. His body twitched violently. Energy wrapped completely around him until even his body itself seemed to turn into pure white light, slowly dispersing bit by bit.

Kira only watched with an expressionless face.

Even Meanae seemed unsettled by the scene and couldn’t help whispering, “Um… boss… should we stop this? Or, uh…?”

“No.”

Kira’s reply was calm.

“He chose to be a Spirit Hunter. He should have understood what that meant. The moment he started plundering spirits and hurting them, he should have known this day could come.”

He paused, his tone turning slightly darker.

“This guy was born with Spirit Affinity too. As a duelist, he should’ve known the rules of being a duelist. Once you make your choice, you have to understand the price.”

In the end, the lights formed by all those spirits completely swallowed the Hunter, then scattered into countless motes that drifted away on the wind.

Watching from behind, Adrian swallowed hard.

As the top spy of the Gecko Conglomerate, Adrian naturally knew that spirits possessed power beyond common sense. Otherwise the conglomerate wouldn’t have sent him to Academy Island to investigate the mysterious spirit in Professor Viper’s possession.

But even he had never personally witnessed a human being killed by spirits like this. It was his first time seeing the lethal side of their power up close.

Sure enough, relying on technological devices to constrain and control spirits, like the Hunters did, was playing with fire. Their underlying logic was disturbingly similar to that of Franz, the genius engineer at Industrial Illusions who had overseen the Winged Dragon of Ra project.

The only difference was scale. The Hunters only captured ordinary spirits, but Franz had aimed straight for a God Card.

If Kira hadn’t snuffed out that line of thinking in its cradle, the weeds on Franz’s grave would probably already be several meters tall by now.

Kira stepped forward and pulled the deck from the Duel Disk the Spirit Hunter had left behind.

Not stopping there, he searched the Hunter’s body as well, feeling around thoroughly. Sure enough, he found more cards.

Most of them weren’t powerful. Many were Level 1 or 2, and some had virtually no use in serious duels. But no matter how weak, minor, or unremarkable they were, they all shared one thing in common:

Every last one of them housed a spirit.

The spirits began peeking out of their cards, floating in the air around him—eyes, one by one, turning to Kira.

“I know most of you were stolen,” Kira said calmly.

“I’m not a Spirit Hunter. I’m willing to take in any spirit… provided that’s what you want.

And for those who wish to return to their original masters, I’ll use my resources to help you find the duelists you used to belong to—and send you home.”

He paused, sweeping his gaze over all of them.

“So. Does anyone want to leave?”

The spirits looked from one to another, but none showed any inclination to go.

Adrian swallowed again.

Most of the spirits here weren’t strong individually, but their numbers were staggering—this was practically an army.

He glanced at where the Spirit Hunter had been—now reduced to a lone Duel Disk. The image of the Hunter being annihilated by spirits flashed through his mind again…

Adrian shook his head.

If there was one thing he’d taken away from tonight, it was this:

No matter what happens—

—never provoke the Duel King.

Otherwise, the outcome might be beyond imagination.

Chapter 884 – The Rise of the Yellow Dorm

Duel Academy’s new-term opening banquet went off without a hitch. The Academy had gone all out this year, laying out a lavish feast for its teachers, students, and guests from afar—so extravagant that the visiting students from other schools couldn’t help but gape.

Jesse Anderson, the owner of Rainbow Dragon, munched on a big shrimp as he curiously asked the new friends he’d just made: “So, uh, is your main campus usually this loaded? A banquet on this scale… back at our campus, that’d be downright unthinkable.”

Standing next to Jaden, Misawa said quietly, “You probably can’t even imagine how much the main campus made last year…”

Everyone at the main campus had felt the changes over the past year. The Academy felt richer from top to bottom—benefits and stipends, every new wave of card stock in the school’s warehouse, the discounts, the facilities…

In almost every aspect you could tangibly feel the upgrades. The Academy was getting better literally by the day.

And everyone in the entire school knew why. All of it had started after the arrival of one particular presence, someone everyone both revered and feared, who was as loved as he was resented.

Along with that, another unprecedented change had come—quite possibly for the first time since Duel Academy had been founded: the Ra Yellow dorm had begun to overshadow Obelisk Blue.

In the past, this school championed elite education and enforced a strict hierarchy among students. Yellow dorm students would automatically lower their heads and move aside when they met Blue dorm elites in the hallway. Everyone had a very clear understanding of where they stood.

But that foundational rule, unchanged since the Academy’s founding, was starting to crumble. Yellow dorm students now walked tall wherever they went. Even Blue-uniformed elites no longer dared strut or act superior in front of them.

Seats in the classroom that had once been reserved only for Obelisk Blue students were no longer exclusive; no Blue elite dared arrogantly hog prime seating just because of the color of their jacket.

This year’s incoming class even saw something unheard of: among the middle-school elites who’d been guaranteed direct promotion into Obelisk Blue, fully half voluntarily gave up that privilege and asked to be placed in Ra Yellow instead.

It was the first time Obelisk Blue had suffered such a massive outflow of talent, and the elite teachers of the Blue dorm could do nothing to stop it.

Meanwhile, buoyed by top students—and the presence of a certain unmentionable Lord in Yellow—Ra Yellow’s facilities and perks had been continually upgraded. At this point, the dorm’s overall standard was almost on par with Obelisk Blue.

On campus, people had even begun openly pointing out something that everyone had always known but never said out loud: the three dorms’ colors and names came from the three Egyptian Gods, and every wannabe dueling kid knew that among the three, the supreme deity was The Winged Dragon of Ra.

So why was the Blue dorm ranked above the Yellow dorm that represented Ra? That made no sense at all.

Sure, no one had brought this up before, but everyone understood it was basically an unspoken rule Seto Kaiba had laid down when the Academy was founded.

What, you don’t accept Obelisk outranking Ra Yellow?

Fine. The President says, “Beat the cards in my hand, and then I’ll agree with you.”

And so Obelisk Blue became the Academy’s top dorm.

But now, Ra Yellow had brought forth a Lord in Yellow. That person refused to leave Ra Yellow and go up to Blue, and had practically become the dorm’s figurehead. More importantly, he had actually beaten Seto Kaiba.

The long-ignored contradiction in the hierarchy was finally thrown onto the table as a weapon to attack Obelisk Blue.

The Lord in Yellow himself had zero interest in dorm rivalries and had no intention of coming forward to compete for anything—his silence was actually the only reason the Blue dorm hadn’t already been completely trampled. But even with him saying nothing, just having his sun-bright name hanging over the Academy like a second sun was enough to put all of Ra Yellow above everyone else.

At this point, it looked like Ra Yellow overtaking Blue was just a matter of time. Most people believed the change in top-dorm status would happen within this very term.

Originally, there was supposed to be an exhibition duel at tonight’s banquet: a friendly match between visiting Professor Viper and the Academy’s own student and Duel King, Fujiki Kira. But it was abruptly canceled right as the banquet started.

Not because Kira backed out, but because Professor Viper flaked.

Many students who’d been looking forward to seeing the Duel King in action were disappointed. The burly professor was famous at his own branch campus; rumor had it he was a top-tier duelist with a terrifying card at his disposal.

The students had expected to see a clash of titans tonight. Sadly, they wouldn’t get the chance.

In a single night, the rumor that Professor Viper had been hospitalized—and put in the ICU, no less—after a clash with the Lord in Yellow over conflicting, overly harsh teaching philosophies spread even further. Everyone drew a sharp breath, and the image of the Lord in Yellow wielding absolute power over the Academy as a student was seared even deeper into their minds.

Kira didn’t mind.

He’d already contacted KaibaCorp’s recon teams and had them covertly come to the island to help investigate. They had gathered evidence of Viper’s intent to hold duels to the death and harvest students’ life energy for some nefarious scheme, and they were now assisting in the search for the missing spirit, Yubel.

In a couple of days, once the evidence was made public, the entire Academy would see Viper’s true nature clearly—and they’d also realize that it had been Kira who saw through his plot in time and saved all their lives.

Of course, the fact that an outside professor who’d only set foot on the island a single day, whose evil plan hadn’t even begun, could be pre-emptively beaten into a vegetative state by the Lord in Yellow… that would make Kira’s image as the Academy’s de facto absolute authority even more unshakeable.

Kira had no issue with that either. If mere reputation could scare off petty villains and make anyone with designs on the Academy think twice, it would only make his life easier.

And if, even with such a fearsome reputation, someone still had the confidence to challenge the Lord in Yellow’s authority, that was also fine.

Because if someone was that confident, it probably meant they were genuinely strong, and had something truly valuable in their possession. To Kira, such people were basically walking care packages waiting for him to sign for.

Like the generous Mr. Trapper he’d just met, who had gifted him an entire army of spirits.

Even counting the many Kira had promised to send back to their original masters, the spirits that remained with him were already a considerable force.

And then there was the even more generous Professor Viper, who had kindly sent him a heavyweight like the Vennominaga-tier god serpent.

That god-serpent was difficult to control, but Kira already knew exactly which rare deck he’d received as a parting gift from the swordsmen of Doma long ago would sync perfectly with the venomous package Viper had just delivered.

Worm.