We still have to duel / A wolf in sheep's clothing

"I stopped doing that a long time ago." Julie crouched down to meet Sera's eyes. "I came to you because there's something important."

"What is it?"

"Let's crush the Crimson Lotus Society together!" Julie said seriously.

"What?!" Sera's green pupils shrank. "You actually..."

"Became a traitor?!"

"That woman Crimson Lotus isn't someone to mess with. Be careful she doesn't do this and that to you..."

"I've already made up my mind." Julie cut her off.

Sera froze slightly. The blanket slid down from her body, revealing her rumpled pajamas, fair collarbone, and smooth shoulders. She looked at Hara Shichi, then at Yukikaze, and let out a sigh.

"You're not planning to take two first-years and fight that group of third-years, are you? There's no hope."

"Besides... why should I, someone you're close with, help you do something like that?" Sera waved her cute little hand. "Go back where you came from. I won't hold it against you for breaking my door."

"Heh." Julie sneered. "Tell me, don't you have something wrong?"

"I remember that a club needs at least five members, right?" Julie gently pinched Sera's chin, her voice turning devilish. "You not only forged member information to make it look like the Game Club had lots of people, but you've repeatedly skipped class, and you haven't returned to the dorm on time for at least three months... What do you think would happen if I told the teachers about all that?"

"Huh? What are you talking about...? I don't think I really understand..." Cold sweat poured down Sera's face, and she did not dare meet Julie's gaze.

"Playing dumb, are you?" Julie kneaded Sera's little face as she said viciously, "Then don't blame me for being rude. Come on, we're going to the office!"

As she spoke, Julie moved to drag Sera out from under the blanket.

"Wait! I surrender! I surrender!"

Sera let out a miserable cry.

"Isn't it just taking down the Crimson Lotus Society? As your best friend, of course I'll help you!" As Sera spoke, her eyes sharpened.

"However, since I agreed, you should at least show me what gives you the confidence to do this."

Still Need to Duel

"Confidence? What do you mean?" Julie asked with narrowed eyes.

"To be honest, I've long been sick of the Crimson Lotus Society too." Sera puffed out her cheeks angrily. "Before, I could use the school funding to buy game discs, and even have money left over for snacks and drinks. On weekends, I could go shopping and buy clothes. But! Those people from the Crimson Lotus Society didn't leave me a single bit of funding!"

"Not a single bit!"

Hugging her blanket, Sera cried, "Poor me, I can't even afford the newly released Hero Versus Demon Dragon III and Bird x Poem. I haven't bought the newest anime disc, Golden Soul, either..."

"..."

"But! Even after being oppressed to this extent! I still didn't raise the banner of rebellion!"

"..."

"Because I knew that I couldn't defeat that evil group on my own." Sera pointed at Julie. "And you, whose dueling skill is evenly matched with mine, have even less hope of doing it."

"So what exactly gave you this confidence? Did you recently get some powerful cards? Awaken some special ability that lets you see your opponent's hand? Or are you... just brainless?"

Sera questioned Julie. If Julie was simply getting carried away by hot-blooded passion, then what would helping her accomplish? Wouldn't they just get slaughtered without even a scrap of armor left?

"It looks like you've been holed up here for too long and know absolutely nothing about what's happening outside." Julie stood, hooked an arm around Hara Shichi's neck, and pulled him forward. "My proof of sincerity is... this guy!"

"Hm?!"

Sera furrowed her cute brows and climbed out of her blankets. This allowed Hara Shichi to finally see her whole appearance: the girl had waist-length green hair, and her body, which resembled that of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old child, was wrapped in loose pajamas. She looked like a doll that had accidentally been dressed in the wrong outfit, with adorable bear patterns printed on her white pajamas.

As Sera slowly approached on her tender little feet, Hara Shichi could even smell a faint milky fragrance.

"Hm..." Sera's green eyes examined him from top to bottom. She occasionally wrinkled her nose, and finally came to a conclusion.

"A honey trap? Not bad. It has some potential. As long as we make that woman Crimson Lotus fall for him, we'll have an opening!" Sera nodded.

"Huh?!" Yukikaze cried out. "So that's what we're doing?"

"We're absolutely not doing that!" Hara Shichi said, twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't worry. I've played at least a hundred romance games. With the guidance of a romance master like me, taking down a woman at Crimson Lotus's level will be easy!" Sera patted Hara Shichi's shoulder. "Leave it to me, junior!"

"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?" Julie pinched Sera's little face. "This guy is a very strong duelist."

"Huh? A first-year duelist... Other than Nero, is there anyone else worth paying attention to?" Sera asked with an adorably blank expression.

"You really don't know anything about what's happening outside." Julie pointed at Hara Shichi. "Let me formally introduce him. This guy... ahem, student Hara Shichi, is a transfer student who just enrolled recently. He uses a Marincess deck, and his ace is... Tiramisu of the Tiara."

"Marincess? Isn't that the deck popular among little aristocratic girls?" Sera said disdainfully. "As for Tiramisu of the Tiara, I've never heard of it."

"It's an Xyz Monster, so of course you haven't heard of it."

"Oh, an Xyz Monster. Isn't that just Xyz..." Sera suddenly choked on her words. After a moment of silence, she asked in a low voice, "What kind of monster did you just say?"

"An Xyz Monster," Julie said calmly.

"Really?"

"If I'm lying, then my chest will become as flat as yours." Julie said dismissively.

"Although I'm reluctant to admit it, I can feel your sincerity..." Sera stared fixedly at Hara Shichi. "So you can perform Xyz Summons?"

"Of course I can." Hara Shichi answered confidently. Ai could do it, and he could do it. Was there a difference?

There was no difference.

"That's amazing! You're clearly a junior, yet you've mastered a summoning method I haven't! What about Polymerization and Synchro? Can you use those?" Sera asked in shock.

"Uh... I can, but I have no use for them."

"My teeth suddenly feel a little sour... May I ask one more presumptuous question? Junior, are you from some prominent family?" Sera covered her mouth.

"No."

"Damn it! So you're a genius?!" Sera staggered back two steps and collapsed onto her floor bedding.

"Stay away from me! I hate juniors with more talent than me the most! Damn it! Crimson Lotus too, and you too—why do I have to live in the same era as people like you?!" Sera clutched her head and rolled around on the bed.

"I think that if you stopped playing games and seriously studied dueling, Senior, you could definitely become stronger," Yukikaze suggested timidly, raising a hand.

"Impossible! If I don't play games, am I still me? Wouldn't I become a walking corpse, an empty shell without a soul?!" Sera retorted.

"Yukikaze, don't bother with her. Sera's talent as a duelist is no worse than anyone else's. She's just lazy by nature," Julie said. "She's clearly a duelist, yet instead of practicing dueling all day, she plays games. I really don't understand what she's thinking. Could those games possibly be more important than dueling?"

"Actually, they're all the same to me." Sera blinked. "Isn't dueling itself a type of game? Since they're both games, how could one be more important than the other?"

"Huh? What are you talking about? Dueling is..." Julie raised her brows, ready to argue, but Sera quickly interrupted her.

"Ah! I'm not arguing with you! I'm not arguing with you!" Sera clearly did not want to continue the topic. She raised a slender arm, and a green Duel Disk attached itself to it.

"Even if you can perform Xyz Summons, that doesn't represent your actual dueling level. I think it's still necessary to test you personally." Sera curled her lips as she looked at Hara Shichi. "If you lose, you'll have to follow my command and conquer that woman Crimson Lotus!"

At the thought of playing a galgame in real life, Sera's fair little face immediately flushed red with excitement.

In her view, so what if he had mastered Xyz Summoning? At the end of the day, Xyz Summoning was merely a summoning method. It could not represent a duelist's actual skill. And Marincess... there was no way she could lose to a deck that relied on being cute!

"So we're dueling after all?" A silver Duel Disk appeared on Hara Shichi's arm.

Perfect. He could see just how skilled this Senior Sera was.

Then two voices rang out within the clubroom.

"Duel!"

"Duel!"

Hara Shichi: 4000 LP

vs

Sera: 4000 LP

"Beep!"

"I'll take the first turn." Looking at the lit-up Duel Disk, Sera slapped a monster from her hand onto it.

"I enter the Main Phase and Normal Summon—Traptrix Tributing!"

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

"I activate Traptrix Tributing's effect. When this card is successfully Normal Summoned, I can add one 'Hole' Normal Trap Card or 'Trap Hole' Normal Trap Card from my deck to my hand."

"I choose to add the Trap Card—Bottomless Trap Hole—to my hand."

Sera added the Trap Card from her deck to her hand. Looking at her cards, she revealed a sly smile. "It's still not too late to surrender, junior. My hand is surprisingly good."

"What a coincidence. My hand is incredibly good too. How about you surrender first, Senior?" Hara Shichi said calmly.

"In that case, I'll show you the terror of a heavy Trap lineup." Sera inserted four cards from her hand into her Duel Disk. "I Set four cards and end my turn!"

"She Set four cards?!" Yukikaze said in surprise. "Could they all be Trap Cards?"

"I'd like to think it might be a bluff, but as far as I know, nearly half the cards in her deck are Trap Cards." Julie spoke calmly. "That's also why I said she has talent."

"Huh? What does that mean?" Yukikaze did not understand. Did playing lots of Trap Cards mean someone was talented?

"Just wait. You'll find out soon enough." Julie clicked her tongue. From beginning to end, the only person without talent had been herself.

"My turn, draw."

"Mm, this is a little troublesome." Ai looked at Hara Shichi's hand. "If all four of her Set Cards are Trap Holes, it really won't be easy to deal with this situation."

Hearing Ai's voice, Hara Shichi realized that she had somehow floated to his side again.

"You're here," he said quietly.

"I was always here. I just didn't show myself." Ai put her hands on her hips. "After all, you were getting too close to those two behind you just now. If I spoke to you, wouldn't they think you were talking to yourself for no reason?"

"That makes sense."

"But even if you don't speak, I still want to see Ai." Hara Shichi looked at Ai's silver hair and sky-blue eyes.

"I'm not going to disappear... Well, do whatever you want. But this is a duel. Is it really okay for you to chat with me like this?" Ai looked at Sera. "That little girl restrains you in a sense."

That was right. For a deck like Marincess, which could start plays with one card, getting hit by a Trap was actually very unpleasant.

"It's fine. I have a way to deal with it in my hand." Hara Shichi inserted a card from his hand into the Duel Disk. "I enter the Main Phase and activate the Spell Card—Terraforming, adding Mewfeuille Castle to my hand."

"Next, I activate Mewfeuille Castle!"

A massive castle appeared on the duel field. However, due to the room's ceiling height, the castle made of sweets was somewhat small.

"That dessert castle is actually edible," Yukikaze quietly told Julie.

In response, Julie gave her a look as though she had seen a ghost.

"Mewfeuille Castle's effect raises the attack and defense of all Marincess monsters on the field by five hundred points," Hara Shichi suddenly explained.

"Don't casually tell your opponent that kind of information!" Yukikaze said in surprise.

"Next, I Normal Summon Madolche Madeleine." Hara Shichi had drawn Madolche Madeleine again and again and again.

Thus, the overworked Miss Madeleine once more appeared on the field with a forced smile.

"When Madolche Madeleine is successfully Summoned, I can search one Marincess monster from my deck. By the way, Madolche Madeleine's attack is 1400, but due to Mewfeuille Castle's effect, it becomes 1900."

Hara Shichi kindly explained again.

"I see, a straightforward open scheme." Sera's hand moved toward one of her Set Cards. Her opponent's intention was obvious: he wanted to trade one monster that had already used its effect for one of her Traps.

If she did not make that exchange, the Traptrix on her field would be directly attacked and destroyed.

Although she had also Set an Attack Declaration Trap, using it against just one monster would be...

"Very well, as you wish. When your Normal Summon succeeds, I activate the Trap Card Bottomless Trap Hole, changing your Madolche Madeleine on the field to face-down Defense Position. A monster changed to face-down Defense Position by this effect cannot change its battle position."

Sera flipped open the Trap Card that Traptrix Tributing had just searched.

"I chain Madolche Madeleine's effect and add Madolche Puddingcess from my deck to my hand."

The chain resolved. Madolche Puddingcess was added to his hand, and Madolche Madeleine, who had long known she would step into a trap, silently sighed and turned face-down.

"Next, I Set three cards and end my turn." With that, Hara Shichi ended his turn.

"You're no less excessive than I am... But... you're far too naive! During your End Phase, I chain and activate the Trap Card—Dust Tornado! On the turn this card is activated, I cannot conduct a Battle Phase. Then, I can destroy up to two Spell or Trap Cards on the field!" Sera sharply flipped open her Set Card and pointed at Hara Shichi's Mewfeuille Castle. "I choose to destroy your Mewfeuille Castle and the Set Card in the middle!"

"Tch, I didn't expect her to have a card like that too." Ai frowned slightly.

"It's not a big problem. The destroyed cards weren't particularly important." Hara Shichi sent Mewfeuille Castle from his Duel Disk to the Graveyard. The Mewfeuille Castle towering on the field instantly collapsed and vanished.