#except for daemon lets focus our hatred towards him

[nonbinarylesbianherb]

why are the rhaenicents and rhaesarias fighting again on twitter ☹️

we all have the same end goal: daemon dead and rotting

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Rebirth of Kaiser:  chapter 29

From where they stood, Ryou couldn’t get a look at what cards Tesni drew. From the way her eyes widened and the grin that broke across her features, however, he suspected it was a far better draw than she’d expected. He glanced to where Ruin stood only paces away from her champion, still looking as calm and refined as she had before.

She had no idea. But despite the fact Tesni only possessed a hundred life points at the moment, she held the advantage in cards, and Ryou didn’t doubt for a heartbeat that she would win.

All that remained to be seen was how. Once the dust settled from that, Ryou looked forward to a very long conversation with Yuusuke about dueling to find out things about him. Preferably before Yuusuke didn’t any actual dueling.

“I activate Treasure Cards of Fate! One dice roll determines how many cards I draw and that same number from the top of my deck will be removed from play.”

Gaap tilted his head back to stare at her. “Do you really think that there’s anything that you can do to win this? One strike is all it will take to finish you and you can’t summon anything strong enough to stand up to Daemon’s Advent.”

“Don’t make assumptions!” Tesni declared as six tiny clouds, each of them marked with a number, appeared before her. A tiny flame glittered at the first one. “Now, let’s see!” The flame whirled and spun, bouncing from one of the clouds to the other. On both sides, everyone watched, tense and worried. Despite Tesni’s brave words, gaining just one card wouldn’t necessarily win the duel for her.

Even gaining six might not. It would all depend on what those cards were.

“There!” The flame came to a stop, resting on the cloud with a six inscribed on it. Tesni drew six cards from her deck, the next six removed at once. Nine cards were in her hand now. She glanced down, eyes brightening even more. “Time to finish this.”

Gaap didn’t seem even remotely impressed. “You are aware that my Daemon’s Advent cannot be destroyed in battle, unless it battles a Ritual Monster. And no monster you wield against it can use its effect on mine, unless it’s a Ritual Monster. And what Ritual do you have that could defeat him and take out all of my Life Points?”

“This one.” Tesni separated four cards from the others in her hand. “With the effect of Sprite’s Blessing, and using Hail Cyber and Shine Angel as the offerings, I Ritual Summon Cyber Angel Izana!”

The moment that Tesni uttered the name of her monster, Ryou stiffened, memories flashing back in the corners of his mind. He didn’t remember that monster; perhaps he’d never seen it. But he’d heard people – one person – summoning Cyber Angels before. A strong duelist, a powerful and skilled fighter, with a will of tempered steel and a dedication towards walking her own path no matter what…

Asuka…

There were moments when he hated having amnesia. These were those moments, when a returned memory struck so deep into him that he couldn’t keep his focus on what happened around him. He tried to pull his attention back to what happened on the field before him.

From the center of the field Cyber Angel Izana rose, all silver and blue armor, four powerfully muscled arms, the lower two of which held a blue and gold trident, while one of the top arms wielded a battle axe and the fourth arm glowed with raw mystical power.

Gaap sneered. “Oh, I’m sure she’s very impressive. But their attacks are still equal. Twenty-five hundred each. Do tell me what you think you can do.”

“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.” Tesni chose another card from her hand. “I equip Izana with the Sword of Dagla!” She glanced towards Ruin. “Which I’m sure that you remember.”

“That I do.” Ruin all but hissed the words, hatred bubbling up in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Winning the duel, if you hadn’t guessed. The Sword of Dagla increases Izana’s attack strength by five hundred points: and whenever I inflict battle damage to my opponent with the monster using the Sword, then I gain life points equal to the amount of damage.”

Gaap looked as if he were about to say something else when Tesni interrupted. “Battle! Let’s put an end to this, Izana!”

At her command, Cyber Angel Izana leaped forward, first striking with the battle axe, then the Sword of Dagla., knocking Daemon’s Advent back and sending it up in a shower of sparks. Five hundred points of damage dropped from Gaap’s total and rose up on Tesni’s.

“Not that easy!” Gaap declared. “When Daemon’s Advent is destroyed by battle, he calls a friend to stand in his place! Come out, Summoned Daemon!”

Before them all, with a bloodcurdling roar that shook the ground quite nearly as much as Daemon’s Advent had, a demon appeared, bones and muscle and clawed hands that reached out for Izana without touching. Tesni didn’t flinch at all.

“When Izana destroys a monster by battle, then she can attack another one. And that will be another five hundred points of damage to you.”

Again Izana struck, this time with the trident held in her lower arms, and Summoned Daemon fell back, shrieking as if this defeat were far too much to bear. Another five hundred points fell, another rose up. Gaap, pushed back a few paces, now started forward, eyes blazing in rage. Tesni didn’t so much as blink.

“You still won’t win this duel. I have no more monsters, but you have no more attacks. You still only have eleven hundred life points and I have eighteen hundred and fifty. And I have the exact card I need in my deck to finish this all in my favor.”

One of Tesni’s eyebrows quirked. “And what card might that be?”

“Premature Burial – I can Special Summon a monster from my graveyard at the mere cost of eight hundred life points. And one of those that’s been sleeping there since I discarded my hand will finish you!” Gaap grinned widely, eyes sparking with an evil glee that Ryou hadn’t seen in many folk. “Deep in my graveyard there sleeps Red-Eyes Lightning Lord – Evil Daemon. Do you know his effect?” His smile became even worse. “Once a turn, I can destroy all of your monsters that have a defense lower than his attack. And his attack is twenty-five hundred.” He laughed, so very low and twisted. “Which means your precious Cyber Angel Izana will be done for, and so will you!”

Tesni snorted at that. “Sure. Then I suppose it’s in my best interests to make certain that you don’t actually play that.”

“This should be good,” Gaap taunted. “How are you going to do that?”

“By defeating you before you get another turn. I activate Angel’s Sacrifice! At the cost of a thousand life points – which I only have because of my previous attacks – a targeted Fairy-Type creature on my field can attack one more time!”

Izana drew herself up to her full height as a glittering winged angel appeared over her, hands outspread, and gestured towards the battlefield as if granting permission. Izana leaped forward, all weapons ready and aimed, and struck Gaap harshly across the face with each one of them in a rapid series of blows. He screamed, falling to his knees, as the last of his life points drained away.

He stayed where he was for a few moments, fingers crushing the dirt beneath him, drawing in ragged breaths. He slowly turned to stare at Ruin, who stared back at him.

“My queen...” He began to reach for her, even as he began to glow ever so faintly. “I failed you...”

“Fear not, my devoted champion. There will be vengeance. Sleep now.” Ruin’s smile might almost have been described as gentle if Ryou didn’t know better. Gaap tilted his head back and vanished into a stream of light that faded away a few heartbeats later.

Ruin turned to face them. “That was quite intense, wasn’t it? So you’ve won, Tesni.” Her gaze hardened. “Which means I should turn over everything that I claim as mine to you. It was our agreement, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but I don’t expect you to keep that. You’ve never kept a promise in your life, especially not to me.” Tesni folded up her duel disc. “I’ll settle for all of you leaving and never coming back.”

Ruin waved one hand. “That would be impossible, even if I wanted. I promised that shadow mage a duel as well – not with me,, of course. He’ll battle someone of my choosing, in three days’ time.” A single step toward Tesni. “Can you guess who that someone might be?”

Tesni stared at her, sweat trickling down all over and eyes wide. Ryou didn’t like a word of this. He took a step forward, a deep sense of protection stirring within. Ruin moved even faster, though.

“You’re right. I don’t keep promises. Except the ones that I choose to keep. And I promise you all this: you’ll wake up unharmed and in your own lands. But when you see Tesni again, she’ll be at my side. Never expect to see her anywhere else, ever again.”

One hand raised, quick as a thought, and fingers snapped. Ryou started to reach himself, but a wave of magic that he couldn’t counter swept over them all. He had time enough only to see Yuusuke and Honest and Shine Angel collapsing, eyes as closing as a wave of sleep crashed in. A heartbeat later, he could keep his own eyes open no longer.

When he finally did drag them open again, for a few seconds he thought time had somehow rolled back, because Juudai sat next to him, just as he had all those years before when he’d first woken up. The difference was that they were in his room at the Hail Cyber fortress, he could see Yuusuke when he turned his head, and Juudai looked a lot more serious than he’d ever seen him before.

“What happened?” Ryou asked, shifting himself up. Everything seemed more or less all right. But with Ruin’s final words still echoing in his head, he couldn’t believe that it was.

“You’re awake. Good. First things first – until further notice, you’re going to lead the Hail Cybers. None of their other high-rankers trust each other to do it right against Ruin and you’re the one who can protect them the most.” Juudai sounded as if he were on the verge of rage. “Second, you’re going to need to train yourself in dueling all over again. New deck, new strategy, new everything. And do some battle training, too. Ruin won’t just confine herself to dueling against you of all people. And that goes double for whoever she knows who wants to kill you.”

Ryou rubbed the back of his head. Everything seemed so strange, as if he were somehow one step removed from reality and everything that he knew.

“Last of all: I didn’t want to do this, but it might help. You have friends from your old life. A lot of them are amazing duelists and every last one of them would come help you if you want. Is that what you want?”

Ryou blinked for a few times, trying to work through that. He glanced at Yuusuke, who still hadn’t opened his eyes. He’s my friend. He came here looking for me.

Making the decision wasn’t as hard as he might have thought it was. “I want to see them. I want to get to know them again.” He wanted to remember them. Just like seeing Cyber Angel Izana sparked memories of Tenjoin Asuka and seeing Yuusuke brought back memories of Obelisk Blue and so much else, meeting these people would bring back others. “I want them to decide what it is that they want to do.”

Three days. Three days until Yuusuke would duel to find out who wanted to kill him. Who knew how long until this entire mess was sorted out. And he had a small army he had to figure out how to lead.

Ryou wasn’t sure if he’d never been happier in his life or if he wanted to take a third option and never see any of them again.

Notes: Two points: the monster that Gaap referred to wouldn’t have won him the duel. Izana’s DEF is higher than Evil Daemon’s attack, so the effect wouldn’t work. He was basically trying to throw Tesni off her guard. Not that it worked.

Second point: Angel’s Sacrifice is a card that I invented. I needed a third attack and nothing I could find really felt right for one reason or another. The fact Sword of Dagla increases your life points just made it better.

Final note: One chapter until the end!