"Seven Star Synchro Monster—Stardust, Flashy Track Star!" Studying paid off. Julie had heard of this card in an advanced duel analysis class. Too much time had passed for her to remember its exact effect, but she vaguely recalled that this monster could deal piercing damage!
Hara Shichi's LP was now hanging by a thread. As long as she used Stardust to attack the owl or Pudding Princess, she would be the winner of this duel!
The road to victory had opened before her. All she needed to do now was move the boulder blocking the middle of the path.
Although she did not own this Synchro card, she had a Synchro-exclusive Duel Card she had exchanged for with a huge number of points from the academy store. Under duel rules, it could be used in a duel, and newly printed Extra Deck monsters were even encouraged!
"I tune Varon Gaus and Growing Flower on the field! Come forth—Stardust, Flashy Track Star!" Julie suddenly raised her head and shouted.
"This is bad. I'm about to get turned around!" As a seasoned card player, Hara Shichi naturally knew Flashy Track Star's effect. With only 400 LP left, he could not withstand a single hit from Flashy Track Star!
Silver Synchro Particles began gathering, wrapping around Gaus and Growing Flower, and then... nothing happened.
The Synchro Particles lightly curled around the two monsters like a breeze before dispersing, as if they had never existed at all.
"..."
"Damn it! I've practiced this so many times. Why won't they obey my control?!" Julie clenched her fists tightly, her sharp nails digging into her palms as a trickle of blood ran out.
"I Synchro Summon Gaus and Growing Flower! Synchro Summon!" Julie tried again. This time, not even the Synchro Particles appeared. The only response she received was the echo ringing through the empty stadium.
"Synchro Summon!"
"Synchro Summon!!"
"Synchro Summon!!!"
Julie's voice was nearly hoarse from shouting, yet the Synchro Particles did not even flicker.
"Her Duel Power is neither pure nor immense. Besides, the card in her hand isn't even a Synchro Monster, but a Synchro-exclusive Duel Card. She was lucky the Synchro Particles responded even once," Ai said pityingly as she watched Julie attempt Synchro Summon again and again.
"Why don't you help her?" Hara Shichi could not quite bear to watch Julie looking so miserable.
"I can help her once, but I can't help her a second time." Ai spoke indifferently. "Having no talent is hard to accept, but if she refuses to face that fact, she'll never grow."
"That's why I hate it. How could this kind of talent-obsessed dueling possibly bring everyone happiness?"
Ai sighed sadly.
The Genesis Land.
Only after shouting until her voice went hoarse did Julie finally accept reality.
She accepted the fact that she simply could not control Synchro Particles.
So she silently removed her Duel Disk and walked up to Hara Shichi like a living corpse. In a low voice, she said, "I lost. Do whatever you want with me now."
"Mm. Then come with me first." Hara Shichi did not say much. Comforting words would be superfluous; strictly speaking, he and Julie were not that familiar with each other.
"Where are you taking me?" Julie asked with her head lowered.
"I'm dragging you to my dorm, closing the door, and eating you clean." Hara Shichi raised an eyebrow.
"You're lying. The boys' dorms aren't this way." Julie stopped walking and looked around. "This is the road to the infirmary."
"I'm helping you get some throat lozenges from the teacher. It'd be bad if it got inflamed." Since his joke had been exposed, Hara Shichi simply explained.
"I don't need your pity... cough, cough..." Julie could not stop herself from coughing.
"It's not pity. It's an order." Hara Shichi glanced at Julie. "Didn't you say I could do whatever I wanted with you?"
"Even if you do this, I won't give you anything in return," Julie suddenly said.
"Are you telling a joke?" Hara Shichi looked at Julie with disdain. "What could a defeated opponent who has lost to me twice possibly give me?"
"You! You bastard!" Julie flushed as she tried to argue, but after stammering for a long time, she could not come up with anything to say. She could only sulk by herself.
The two arrived at the infirmary, where a young female teacher in a white coat received them.
"Ah~ Open your mouth and let me take a look." The teacher spoke gently to Julie.
"Ah~" Julie opened her small mouth slightly.
"Open wider." The teacher's tone remained gentle.
Julie looked at Hara Shichi standing beside her and frowned slightly.
The teacher then waved Hara Shichi away. "You go outside first. Come back in later."
"..."
Hara Shichi helplessly walked out of the infirmary and leaned against the wall outside the door.
"What's wrong? You look so listless." Although Ai said that, her own mood was not much better.
"Didn't you say you wanted me to help turn dueling into an ordinary game?" Hara Shichi looked at Ai's silver hair and once again recalled the scene of their first meeting that day.
Silver hair shining like the bright moon, a delicate little face like that of a doll, and those clear, ethereal deep-blue eyes like crystal.
A little girl who seemed to have stepped out of a fairy tale had appeared before him as a god. Even now, Hara Shichi still found it unbelievable.
"Yes. That's my wish—my ideal, more or less." As Ai spoke, she pursed her rosy lips. Her previously tense face relaxed as the corners of her mouth curved upward.
Only a few days had passed, yet it felt like it had happened ages ago. Time really was a wondrous thing.
"Then can you tell me exactly what I need to do?" Hara Shichi asked.
Ai sighed, and a trace of melancholy crept onto her cute face.
"I originally planned to tell you after we had accumulated a little more, but since you're asking now, I'll tell you." Ai fell silent for a moment before speaking.
"The answer is—make a wish to me." Ai pointed at her flat chest.
"Huh?" Hara Shichi looked at Ai suspiciously. "Are you serious?"
"Let me finish." Ai gestured for Hara Shichi not to be impatient. "The me I mean isn't the me here. This me is only an avatar. The real me is still all alone in The Genesis Land."
The Genesis Land—or rather, the dwelling place of gods.
It was a vast alternate space that opened to the outside world only once every three years. Only powerful duelists were permitted to enter The Genesis Land, display their duels before the gods, defeat opponent after opponent, and in the end, the last duelist standing would gain the chance to meet a god.
That person was known to the world as the Duel King.
"So, as long as I become the Duel King, I can make a wish to you?"
"It's not that easy." Ai shook her head. "That only earns you the right to meet me."
"If you want to make a wish to me, you have to duel me. Only by defeating me can you have your wish granted. But if you merely want to ask a question, I can still help answer it."
"But that applies to everyone else. If one day you reach that point too, I'll definitely go easy on you and let you win. Then you can make a wish to me." Ai clapped her hands. "When the time comes, you can wish for dueling to become an ordinary game, and our goal will be complete!"
"That sounds pretty simple." Hara Shichi rubbed his chin. "I just need to enter The Genesis Land and beat everyone else, right?"
"Yes. Before that, we need to slowly grow stronger." Ai nodded. "And we also need to find a way to get tickets into The Genesis Land."
"Didn't you say only powerful duelists can enter The Genesis Land?" Hara Shichi asked in confusion.
"You don't think that once you get strong enough, a red mark will appear on your arm and tell you that you've been chosen and should hurry to The Genesis Land, do you?" Ai pouted.
"Isn't that how it works?" Hara Shichi asked doubtfully.
"What are you thinking? That's an opportunity to meet a god! How could greedy humans allow something like that? In truth, the sixty-four slots for entering The Genesis Land were divided among the major powers five hundred years ago." Ai grew somewhat angry as she said this. "Back then, a bad woman tricked me, saying that a great god like me shouldn't personally handle the tedious little task of allocating slots. She told me to hand the slots over to humans for distribution."
"You agreed?" Hara Shichi asked in shock.
"I thought what she said made a lot of sense at the time..."
"You couldn't see such an obvious power grab?" Hara Shichi twitched the corner of his mouth.
"Ahhh, that awful woman! Don't let me run into her descendants, or I'll do this and that to them..."
"Enough. Do you know how to get a slot, then?" Hara Shichi asked.
"I'm not sure about the others, but Duelist Academy gets two slots every time." Ai pointed at the academy beneath Hara Shichi's feet. "That's one of the reasons I had you come to Duelist Academy."
"The slots will definitely be assigned to teachers, won't they?" Nafili's figure appeared in Hara Shichi's mind. "There's no way something like that would fall to me."
"Wrong. If you can rise rapidly within just three years, the academy might extend an olive branch to you."
"When the time comes, we can negotiate slowly."
The Right and Reasonable Way.
"There's nothing seriously wrong, but try to speak as little as possible for the next few days. As for duel practice class... hmm... I'll write you a medical leave slip." The teacher seemed long accustomed to such things. She skillfully opened a drawer, took out a stack of leave slips, and signed one while speaking softly. "Students always hurt their throats because they get too worked up during duels. Having spirit is a good thing, but don't get too fired up."
"Mm, we understand. Thank you, teacher." Hara Shichi accepted the leave slip and a pack of throat lozenges.
"If the lozenges don't help, come back and see me." The teacher waved her hand, signaling that they could leave.
The two left the infirmary. Hara Shichi walked in front while Julie followed behind, maintaining a subtle distance between them.
"Are we really going to your dorm?" A soft, sweet voice rang out. Hara Shichi turned around in surprise and looked at Julie suspiciously.
"Were you the one who just spoke?"
"Of course it was me! Who else could it be? Cough, cough..." Julie began coughing violently the moment she raised her voice, so she could only speak slowly and softly. "Of course I was the one talking."
"So you have such a gentle voice too." Only then did Hara Shichi properly examine the girl before him—a girl with short light-purple hair, dark-red eyes, flawless skin, and a delicate face that was astonishingly beautiful. Her white uniform wrapped around her graceful, youthful figure. A girl like this would be a dazzling pearl anywhere.
Except in this world.
"But... you really are a girl after all," Hara Shichi said.
"What do you mean? Wasn't I a girl before?" Julie gritted her teeth.
"If you're a girl, you should take good care of yourself. Don't use yourself as a wager." Hara Shichi looked at Julie's white skirt, and those pale, tender thighs appeared in his mind again.
"Don't look!" Julie tightly covered her skirt with both hands. "Besides, do you think I wanted to do that? It was all for your Tiramisu of the Tiara!"
"Is it really that important? Tiramisu of the Tiara might be an indispensable trump card to me, but to you, it's just a powerful card, isn't it?" Hara Shichi asked in confusion.
"Just... Heh, how ironic. I threw away my dignity and even specifically exchanged points for a card meant to counter Xyz cards, yet in your eyes, it's just 'a powerful card'?" Julie suddenly grabbed Hara Shichi by the collar, suppressing the urge to roar. "Then tell me, if I don't do this, how am I supposed to get powerful cards? Will you give them to me?!"
"If you want one that badly, I could give you one." Hara Shichi took out the card named Invader. "My entire Marincess deck is Earth Attribute, so I can't use this card at all. Do you want it?"
Julie stared blankly at Hara Shichi, then suddenly slapped his hand away. "No, idiot!"
"You... aren't you some young master from a dueling family?" Julie sighed. "Don't casually give powerful cards away like that."
"But this card isn't mine either. It belongs to Yukikaze," Hara Shichi explained. "Her deck is all Water Attribute, so she gave it to me."
"That's because that idiot likes you!" Julie said irritably.
"Hey, don't tell me you don't have any friends?" Hara Shichi looked at Julie pityingly. "It's perfectly normal for friends to give each other cards."
"I... I..." Julie desperately wanted to curse and tell this fool that even friends did not give each other Xyz cards, cards that were priceless even on the Black Market—but the problem was, she really did not have any friends!
Tch!
"You really are the child of some dueling family," Julie concluded. She pulled out her Dragon Doom from her deck. "What do you think of my trump card?"
"It's pretty good. Cool and powerful," Hara Shichi said.
"Tell the truth!" Julie snapped.
"Oh. Other than its high ATK and its ability to Special Summon tokens, it's not very useful." Hara Shichi could only tell the truth. "It'd be different if you had Super Polymerization to pair with Zombie World."
"How could I possibly have a card like Super Polymerization?!" Julie felt that talking to Hara Shichi was truly exhausting. At this rate, her lungs were going to explode from anger.
"That's right. Just as you said, Dragon Doom isn't very useful beyond its high ATK and its ability to Special Summon tokens." Julie naturally knew that. "But do you know how much this card sells for on the Black Market?"
"How much?"
"Ten million," Julie said flatly.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Hara Shichi frowned.
"Most people will never come into contact with a card like Dragon Doom in their entire lives. Many people don't even have their own Polymerization Monster. That includes many people here, including students at our academy." Julie looked coldly at Hara Shichi. "Originally, that included me too."
"Originally?" Hara Shichi sensed something. "Didn't you buy this card?"
"Please, I'm no rich kid. I'm just from an ordinary family." Julie laughed bitterly. "I only know the price because I once wanted to buy this card."
"But I had no money. That was ten million. Even if I sold myself, I wouldn't be worth that much." Julie lowered her voice. "Until that woman, blazing like fire, appeared before me. She gave me hope."
"Who?"
"The academy's strongest student, the embodiment of invincibility. A woman so arrogant she did not even respect the teachers, who founded the Crimson Lotus Society to seize other students' decks, and whom everyone privately called a demon—Crimson Lotus." Julie's expression became complicated as she spoke of her.
"She stood before me, held out her hand, and said..."
"Those weaklings don't deserve to use such powerful cards. Let's take them for ourselves!"
Before you continue