Duelists Never Surrender!

"Mhm."

"Well then..."

"Duel!"

"Duel!"

Yukikaze: 4000 LP

Nero: 4000 LP

Beep!

"I'll take the first turn," Yukikaze said, holding up her blue Duel Disk.

She had always received help from Hara Shichi. This time, it was her turn to help him!

"I'm entering my Main Phase. I'll Normal Summon Rosemary of the Six Flowers." Yukikaze placed the card in her hand onto the Duel Disk, and soon a little girl with long blue hair, holding a flower-like umbrella, appeared on the field. "Next, I activate the effect of Rosemary of the Six Flowers. I add Snowdrop of the Six Flowers from my Deck to my hand."

"Then, I activate Snowdrop of the Six Flowers' effect. I Tribute Rosemary of the Six Flowers on the field, and from my hand, I Special Summon Heather of the Six Flowers and this card to the field."

The blue-haired girl on the field was sent to the Graveyard, and in her place, two beautiful young women appeared.

"I'll set one card, and end my turn."

"Wow!" Mina exclaimed, looking at the two monsters on Yukikaze's field. "Summoning Heather with 2400 ATK and Snowdrop with 2600 DEF on the first turn, just like Yukikaze! I'd like to see how this kid plans to respond."

"Ah, you're mistaken," a sigh sounded from beside Mina. She turned her head and saw her childhood friend, Aoshi, standing beside her with a grumpy look on his face.

Without a word, Mina jabbed Aoshi hard in the ribs with her elbow. "What do you mean by that? Are you deliberately trying to contradict me?"

"Stop, stop! No violence!" Aoshi quickly pleaded. "You guys are making too much of a commotion. It's not just me; a lot of people have gathered."

Mina then noticed that everyone around them had stopped practicing and had slowly gathered.

"Won't the teachers mind them gathering like this?" Mina asked irritably. She knew how annoying crowds could be, with all sorts of nasty things being said.

"The teacher said that if it's Nero.Arisa's duel, they'll definitely benefit greatly from it," Aoshi said helplessly.

"What? Someone with such a terrible personality, no matter how cute she is or how well she duels, I don't want to watch her duel!" Mina huffed angrily.

"This is Duelist Academy, after all," Aoshi said, knowing his childhood friend's temper. He quickly patted her back. "Just turn a blind eye."

"Fine, what did you mean by 'mistaken' just now?" Mina narrowed her eyes.

"The strategy is wrong," Aoshi's dark green eyes stared at the dueling field. "From the information I've gathered, this Arisa's little girl seems to focus on going second. Yukikaze choosing to go first plays right into her hands."

"Going second? What kind of Deck is that?" Mina asked blankly.

"Did you forget? Arisa comes from a Ritual family," Aoshi said, as if he could already foresee the outcome of the duel.

"Don't talk in riddles!"

"Ahem! Soulbird. Her Deck is Soulbird!" Aoshi raised his hands in surrender. "If Yukikaze had gone second, she might have been able to quickly defeat her with high attack power. But with her going first... she'll probably just get OTK'd."

Perhaps due to his excitement, Aoshi's voice reached the ears of others, and even the dueling arena.

"Soulbird? What kind of Deck is that?"

"Never heard of it... Wait, I remember a professional duelist's Deck was Soulbird?!"

"No way! A student using a professional duelist's Deck?"

"..."

"Soulbird?" Yukikaze asked, confused by the unfamiliar term. She hadn't heard of this Deck before.

"Someone actually knows my Deck?" Nero murmured. She was indeed using a Soulbird Deck, albeit a incomplete version for certain reasons. But against students... it was enough.

"My turn. Draw."

Nero casually drew a card and inserted it into her black Duel Disk. "I'm entering my Main Phase. I activate the Spell Card—Preparation of the Rites."

"Its effect is to select 1 Ritual Spell Card from your Deck, and then select 1 Ritual Monster from your Deck or Graveyard whose name is written on that Ritual Spell Card. Add those 2 cards to your hand." As she spoke, Nero continued, "I'll add Ritual of Descension and Hane-Kujaku, the Soulbird God to my hand."

"Tsk, a cheater," Aoshi couldn't help but say. "Here it comes."

"I activate the Spell Card—Ritual of Descension. I send Thunder King Rai-Oh from my hand to the Graveyard, and Ritual Summon from my hand—Hane-Kujaku, the Soulbird God." Nero calmly placed the Ritual Monster in her hand onto the field.

But unlike her calm expression, a dazzling and massive mysterious green light appeared on the dueling field. Following that, a man in peacock attire, holding a sword, appeared on the field.

"This... this is Ritual Summon?" Mina's small face was filled with surprise.

"She easily summoned a monster with 3000 ATK... No, the ATK isn't the key." Yukikaze felt an invisible pressure from the monster on the field. There was no mistake, this feeling... this monster must have a powerful effect!

"Next, I activate Hane-Kujaku, the Soulbird God's effect..."

"When this card is Ritual Summoned: You can target up to 3 monsters on your opponent's field; return them to the owner's hand. After that, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Soulbird" monster from your hand, ignoring its Summoning conditions."

Chapter Thirty-Five: There Is No Fairness in Duels

"Chain!"

Just then, Yukikaze flipped over her Set card. "I activate the Trap Card Breakthrough Skill, targeting Hane-Kujaku, the Soulbird God on your field, and negate its effects!"

"That was close!" Mina, watching from the side, almost had her heart jump out of her chest.

She hadn't expected it to have a non-targeting bounce effect like Tiramisu. Combined with its 3000 ATK, if its effect successfully resolved, the opponent would have almost no way to resist.

"It's not over yet," Aoshi couldn't help but interject. "Don't forget, she's only used two cards from her hand so far. She has five cards left in her hand, and Hane-Kujaku doesn't have a 'once per turn' clause. If she Ritual Summons another Hane-Kujaku..."

"There's more than one of those powerful monsters?" Mina's eyes widened.

"Those powerful cards of that strength... are only powerful to us," Aoshi said calmly. "For the Arisa family, Hane-Kujaku is probably not considered a powerful card. It's possible she has three of them."

Nero didn't play three Hane-Kujaku. To avoid the risk of a dead hand, she only included two.

But sometimes, a dead hand happens anyway. Nero looked at her hand and frowned slightly. "I'm entering my Battle Phase. I'll use Hane-Kujaku to attack Heather of the Six Flowers."

Yukikaze: 4000 LP → 3400 LP

"Next, I end my turn."

"Could this situation be... a dead hand?" Aoshi asked suspiciously, watching Nero's play.

"A dead hand? Serves her right!" Mina grumbled. "She's definitely done too many bad things, so she's getting her comeuppance!"

"Uh, I don't think... dead hands have anything to do with that," Aoshi said, his expression a little unnatural as if he'd remembered something.

"Then why doesn't anyone else get a dead hand?"

"..."

While the two were discussing, the duel on the field had already reached Yukikaze's turn.

"My turn, draw." Yukikaze's eyes lit up as she looked at the card she drew and immediately inserted it into her Duel Disk. "I activate the Spell Card - Terraforming, to add the Field Spell Card Marincess World to my hand!"

"Next, I activate the Field Spell Card Marincess World. All Water monsters on the field gain 500 ATK and lose 400 DEF!"

"Then, I Normal Summon Lone Fire Blossom. I Tribute Lone Fire Blossom to Special Summon - Rikka Princess from my Deck!"

"Thanks to Marincess World's effect, Rikka Princess's ATK rises to 3100!"

"That ATK is higher than Hane-Kujaku's!" Mina exclaimed happily, waving her little fists.

"It's not over yet!" Yukikaze said, inserting a card into her Duel Disk. "I activate the Normal Spell Card - Dark Hole!"

"Its effect destroys the monster with the highest DEF on the opponent's field!"

As Yukikaze's voice rang out, the onlookers who had been whispering erupted in an uproar.

"Huh?!"

"Wait, Dark Hole?!"

"In that case... could this be lethal?!"

"Is an upset brewing?"

"I see, the little girl from the Arisa family isn't all that. I could win easily too."

"Yukikaze... has a card like that?" Mina blinked, surprised. She'd known Yukikaze for so long, how come she didn't know she had such a powerful card?

Of course, Yukikaze didn't have this card before. It belonged to that guy in black, number one, but now it was Yukikaze's.

"Since you only have Hane-Kujaku on your field, Hane-Kujaku will be destroyed and sent to the Graveyard."

"Next, I change Snowdrop of the Six Flowers on my field to Attack Position, and then... I enter my Battle Phase!" Yukikaze turned Snowdrop of the Six Flowers on her Duel Disk to Attack Position.

3100 + 1700 = 4800. I've won this duel!

"I use Snowdrop of the Six Flowers and Rikka Princess for direct attacks on you!"

The massive impact surged towards Nero's frail body, kicking up a cloud of white smoke across the vast dueling arena.

"We won!" Mina couldn't help but shout.

"Wait!" Aoshi quickly grabbed Mina, who was about to rush onto the dueling field. "The duel isn't over yet!"

Yukikaze, who thought victory was assured, suddenly felt something was off. As the smoke cleared, she saw the small figure opposite her still standing perfectly straight.

Nero: 4000 LP.

An eerie silence filled the training room until finally, someone couldn't help but ask:

"I say, isn't something wrong? Her LP shouldn't be zero, right?"

"I don't know. She has nothing on her field. Wait, what's that monster? When did a monster appear on her field?"

"I don't know! Could it be Hane-Kujaku's last words?"

"As expected of the Arisa family, I suppose," Aoshi said, a bitter smile appearing on his face as he saw the monster on Nero's field, instantly understanding the situation.

"What's going on! Yukikaze should have reduced her LP to zero, so what's with the monster on that girl's field?" Mina asked, utterly confused.

"No monsters on the field, no Set Cards... in this situation, the only thing that can be activated is that," Yukikaze realized, after all, she had seen it with her own eyes.

Just then, Nero spoke, "When you declared your attack, I activated Battle Fader from my hand. Its effect can be activated when your opponent declares a direct attack. This card is Special Summoned from the hand, and then the Battle Phase ends. This card, Special Summoned by this effect, is banished when it leaves the field."

"So it was a hand trap," Yukikaze gritted her teeth, looking at Battle Fader on Nero's field with unwillingness. She was so close to winning, yet all her efforts hadn't even touched the opponent's LP?

"With only 4000 LP, isn't it natural to include attack declaration traps in the deck?" Nero didn't understand why everyone around her looked so surprised.

I'd love to include them, but I don't have the cards!

Aoshi couldn't help but inwardly complain.

"She can activate an effect from her hand..." Mina had never witnessed a hand trap firsthand and hadn't recovered from the shock. "Didn't they say only professional duelists, or even top duelists, have such powerful cards? Why does she, a student..."

"Mina," Aoshi said, taking her hand. "Some people are born at the top. There's nothing that can be done about it."

"But... but isn't this too unfair to Yukikaze? This is a duel between students! Why would cards of this power level appear?!" Mina couldn't understand.

Aoshi didn't know how to explain it to his childhood friend. In a way, he and that Nero.Arisa were cut from the same cloth.

As the second son of an old Red-Eyes family, even though the family had gradually declined, the assets passed down through generations had given him many rare cards that ordinary Duelists couldn't obtain. He started dueling at five, mastered Fusion Summon at seven, and learned Synchro Summon at twelve. In a few more years, once Xyz Summon became widespread, he would likely master that as well.

None of this was due to his exceptional talent. It was the result of his family constantly pouring resources into him. Without his family's help, he might not even have a single Fusion Monster right now.

Therefore, under Mina's confused gaze, he gritted his teeth and said helplessly:

"There is no fairness in dueling."

Chapter 36: I'll Give It My All!

"You shouldn't have any usable cards left in your hand, right? Can we end the turn?" Nero asked Yukikaze calmly.

A skilled Duelist must constantly calculate the resources they and their opponent possess to plan their next move, even predicting the opponent's strategy. Right now, Yukikaze had no cards in her hand. The two monsters on the field were both Level 8. Even if one was a Tuner monster, it was impossible to Synchro Summon a Level 16 monster. The only resource in the graveyard was a Breakthrough Skill.

In this situation, other than Xyz Summon, Yukikaze had no way to retrieve resources.

"I... end my turn."

Just as he expected, she couldn't perform an Xyz Summon.

A hint of disappointment flickered in Nero's eyes.

"My turn. Draw."