The dog leapt forward and became three rings of hard green light. The Golem walked into them without hesitating, and the rings closed around it, and its body broke apart into eight stars.
"Ancient iron of a forgotten war, take the oath of this city's law. Become its hands. Where order has no voice, became it's voice!"
The sky over the Duel Palace turned the color of rust.
"Synchro Summon! Pass judgment! Level 11! Ancient Gear Goyo Magistrate!"
It came down out of the rust-colored clouds like a falling cathedral.
A giant knight of bronze and black steel, taller than the Golem had been, its armor patterned with the white circuitry. Gears turned in its chest like a clock tower's. It carried a jitte in one hand as long as a lamppost, and in the other, a heavy set of scales whose pans were made of shields. Where its face should have been, there was only a smooth iron mask with a single slit of red light.
[Earth / Machine / Synchro / Effect/ Level 11 / ATK 3800 / DEF 3300]
The Duel Palace went completely silent.
Up in the Tops boxes, glasses stopped halfway to mouths.
"W... what is that," Melissa whispered into her mic, and then remembered herself. "A Level Eleven Synchro! Ancient Gear and Goyo! Duel Chaser 227's true ace!?"
...
In her suite, Celina had both hands flat. "That's... that thing has Academia's... But it's a Synchro. Who would make a monster like that?"
...
In the dark of his own room, Shun Kurosaki stopped breathing for a moment. "Fusion technology... fed into Synchro," he muttered. "Someone in this city is experimenting with the enemy's weapons."
...
In his office, Roget smiled, and rolled a new white pawn between two fingers.
...
"Magistrate's effect," I said. "Because it was Synchro Summoned using an 'Ancient Gear' monster, when it attacks, my opponent cannot activate Spell or Trap cards."
No Action Spells. No Set card. Not for him. Not this time.
"And once per turn, I can destroy one monster my opponent controls. My Magistrate gains ATK equal to the destroyed monster's ATK until the end of this turn, and my opponent takes 500 damage." I raised my hand. "Hi-Speedroid Chanbara. Sentence: destruction."
The scales in Magistrate's hand tipped. A pillar of red light came down on Chanbara, and it was simply gone, no explosion, no sound, only a burned disappearance.
[Ancient Gear Goyo Magistrate: ATK 3800 → 6200]
Yugo LP: 1200 → 700
Yugo jerked in his seat as the damage hit him.
He had Darumaknocker and Terrortop, low ATK points each, and one face-down card that I had been staring at for two turns.
I knew what it was. I'd known since he set it.
The crowd had stopped shouting.
I don't know why I spoke then. Maybe because the Palace was so quiet. Maybe because I had 1000 Life Points and a monster with 6200 ATK, and the boy across from me was hunched over his handlebars, breathing like a beaten dog, and I knew that breathing. I had breathed it, behind a textile mill, in the rain.
"Yugo," I said, and my voice carried it to every corner of the stadium. "I know how you feel."
He looked up.
"You think I don't. You think I was born in a clean uniform. I wasn't." I kept my eyes on the road. It was easier than looking at him. "I was born in the south drainage district. I wore plastic bags for shoes until I was ten. I watched my best friend die because nobody in this city thought a Commons child was worth a bed."
The silence in the stands changed. I could feel it, the way you feel the air change before a storm.
"So I swore I would rise. I swore I would become something. That I would do something, so no child in this city would ever have to stand in an alley and wait for help that wasn't coming." My grip tightened on the throttle. "But I was powerless alone. My shoulders were too small to carry what I wanted. I studied, I trained, I put on this uniform, and I was still just a number. Two hundred and twenty-seven. Then you beat me on the highway, and I wasn't even that anymore.
"You think this is a duty someone ordered me to do. You think I'm just the bad guy in your story. It's not just my duty. It's my responsibility. It's my everything. You might think justice is a stupid dream. For me, it's a holy grail. The only thing I've ever had that was worth holding."
I touched the side of my Duel Disk, where the Deck sat.
"When I had lost every bit of faith I had in myself... the Director put his faith in me. He called me, when everyone else had written me off, he gave me these cards. He trusted me to use them. I would never have turned them down. Not from the only man who still believed in me."
I finally turned my head and looked straight at him.
"That is why I can't lose. That is why I won't lose. I have given everything, and I will keep giving everything, to defeat anyone who stands in way, and bring justice to this city!"
For one second, nobody in the Duel Palace said anything.
Then Melissa's voice came, trembling. "Ladies and gentlemen... the heart of a true officer of the law! Born in the slums, rising by his own two feet, serving this city with every breath! Duel Chaser 227!"
And the Tops stood up.
Not all of them. But all along the glass boxes, nobles in silk and velvet rose to their suit applauded the man from the drainage district, because his story sounded very much like the one they told about their own city. Anyone can rise. If they work hard. If they follow the rules.
In one box, the nobleman in the velvet frock coat did not stand. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, swirling his wine, looking more bored than anything.
"Touching," he murmured. "He'll make a fine statue, if he wins. And a fine example, if he doesn't."
Beside him, his twin son and daughter sat on the edges of their seats. The boy's blue-green hair hung in his eyes, and he didn't brush it away. His sister's hands were clenched. Their gray-gold eyes were locked on the track, on the two riders. Not blinking.
"Father," the girl whispered, "he's... he's not lying, is he?"
Their father took a sip of wine and didn't answer.
Down in the Commons tiers, people were murmuring. Some nodded. Some looked at their feet.
"Drainage district..." Someone whispered. "He's from the drainage district."
In the lower slumps, in from of old electronic store, a little girl tugged at the Sister's sleeve.
"Sister... is the policeman a bad guy?"
The Sister looked at the screen for a long time.
"I don't think there are any bad guys on that track today," she said softly. "Only two boys who have been hurt very badly."
# Battle Phase — 227
"Ancient Gear Goyo Magistrate, atta—"
"I've been waiting for this!" Yugo's hand slammed hard. He said before 227 could declare attack. "Trap card, OPEN! DICE ROLL BATTLE!"
The card flipped up, red and blue dices spinning on its face.
"There it is."
"I banish one 'Speedroid' Tuner from my Graveyard! Then I can banish monsters I control and Synchro summon without tuner monster! I banish Speedroid CarTurbo!"
A small engine flickered out of his Graveyard and into nothing.
"I tune my Level 3 Speedroid Terrortop with my Level 4 Tuner, Speedroid Darumaknocker!"
The daruma bounced into the air and burst into four green rings. The spinning top flew through them and broke into three stars, and the stars lined up, and the sky over the Palace turned white.
"Spread your wondrous and beautiful wings, and strike down your enemies at the speed of light!
"Synchro Summon! Come forth! Level 7! CLEAR WING SYNCHRO DRAGON!"
The dragon came out of the light the way it had on the highway: wings like glass, a body of pure white plating, a cry so high and clean it made my visor hum.
[Wind / Dragon / Synchro / Effect / Level 7 / ATK 2500 / DEF 2000]
"And by Dice Roll Battle's effect, all of your monsters have to attack the monster I summoned! With this, your magistrate's effect activates to negate all spell and trap cards from being activate, and Clear Wing negates that effect and destroys it!"
It was exactly the same. The same card. The same timing. The same dragon. The move that had thrown me across the highway and taken everything I was.
"I told you once, Yugo." My voice was calm. It was the calmest I had been all day. "You won't have your way."
I hit my last face-down card.
"Trap card, open. P-Proto Case File: Highway Precedent. When my opponent Special Summons a Synchro Monster during my Battle Phase, that Synchro Monster's effects are negated while it remains face-up, and I can end the Battle Phase."
Red light pulsed out of my trap, and dozens of transparent files appeared in the air between us.
"That card is named after you. It's the lesson I learned the night you beat me."
Yugo's mouth opened.
And then it twisted into something that wasn't quite a grin.
"Then I guess I learned something too! From my Graveyard, I activate Speedroid Rubix Kuriboh's effect!"
Out of his Graveyard slot, the little cube tumbled into the air again, spinning. Its eyes flicked from red to a deep, cold blue, and its faces rotated, click, click, click, until the blue side faced me.
"Blue face! Once per turn, when my opponent activates a Trap card, I can banish one WIND monster from my Graveyard, and negate that activation and banish it! I banish Hi-Speedroid Chanbara!"
In blue darkness, Chanbara was banished.
My trap card cracked down the middle and disappeared.
"His counter has been countered!" Melissa screamed. "Dice Roll Battle is still active! Magistrate has to attack Clear Wing!"
The cube spun once and dropped back into Yugo's Graveyard.
"Red. Blue." My mind was racing. "How many more?"
Magistrate turned. The giant took one step, and the whole road shook.
"Ever time when Ancient Gear Goyo Magistrate declares an attack, its effect activates. It gains 1000 ATK—"
"I knew it!" Yugo roared. "Clear Wing's effect! When a Level 5 or higher monster activates its effect, Clear Wing negates it and destroys that monster! Then Clear Wing gains ATK equal to the destroyed monster's ATK! REVERSE REVENGE!"
Clear Wing spread its wings, and they lit up from inside.
I had been waiting all duel for this exact second.
"From my hand. Quick-Play Spell." I didn't shout. I didn't need to. "P-Proto Final Verdict."
Yugo's head snapped toward me.
"When an opponent's monster activates an effect that targets a Level 5 or higher monster I control: I negate that effect. Then that monster's ATK becomes zero."
Iron bars fell out of the sky.
They came down around Clear Wing in a ring, a cage forged from black steel and white circuit lines, and they slammed together over its back.
[Clear Wing Synchro Dragon: EfATK 2500 → 0]
[Ancient Gear Goyo Magistrate: ATK 6200 → 7200]
The Magistrate raised its jitte.
7200 ATK. Against a dragon with zero. Against a boy with 700 Life Points.
The silence that fell over the Duel Palace was total.
Thousands of people, and no one breathed at this moment.
...
In the Tops box, the twins were both standing now. The girl had grabbed her brother's arm. Neither of them noticed.
...
In front of old electronic store, a little boy had both hands over his eyes and was peeking through his fingers. Another girl had her hands clasped, as if praying.
...
In his office, Roget leaned back in his chair and set the white pawn down on the board, very gently, as if he'd already won.
...
On the track, I looked at Yugo, and I felt no joy.
That surprised me. I had dreamed about this moment. And all I could see was a boy with his head down over his handlebars, very small, inside a cage named helplessness.
"It's over, Yugo," I said, and I meant it as kindly as I could. "You fought well. At least let the city see you face it standing."
He didn't hear the crowd.
He heard 227's words still ringing in his head. Holy grail. Responsibility. The Director gave me these cards.
Something inside him that had been bent all day snapped back up straight.
He raised his head.
His eyes, behind the helmet, were burning. Not with tears. With a fury so clean and white that 227, meters away, actually leaned back on his D-Wheel.
"You know how I feel?"
His voice came out low. Then it rose.
"You don't know a damn thing about how I feel!"
He pointed at his left arm, where his deck was jointed.
"See this Deck!? Every card in it, I won! Street duels in the junkyards! Alley tournaments where the prize was a sandwich! Fights under the overpass against guys twice my size! I don't have one strong card or one fancy card someone gave me! Every single one of these, I earned them!"
His voice cracked, and he didn't care.
"Maybe you came from the slums. Fine! But the second you climbed out, everything got handed to you! The uniform! The D-Wheel! A Director who just hands you a Deck with monsters nobody's ever seen! You say you did everything on your own strength, but you took all of it for granted! You got all of it for free!"
227's hands tightened on his grips. He didn't answer. Maybe he couldn't.
"I've been on my own since before I could read! Me and Rin built this D-Wheel out of trash! Out of parts we buyed with so less money we had and parts we begged for! Every inch I've climbed out of that dump, I climbed with my own hands, using up the last bit of strength I had, and I'm gonna climb higher! Because there's a dream! The one I and she dreamed together!"
He was shouting now, so loud the speakers distorted.
"Someone who can only go on about duty and loyalty will never understand what it means to live on by yourself! That dream is way beyond anything someone like you can get! It's beyond your stupid holy grail!"
And in that moment, the green circuit in his head closed.
The current he'd seen earlier, lit up again. It ran through the caged dragon. It ran down, into his Graveyard, into the little cube still turning slowly.
The last face clicked into place.
Green.
"...So that's what you were waiting for, Kuriboh."
The palace was silent.
"From my Graveyard," Yugo said, and his voice had gone quiet, and that frightened me more than his shouting, "I activate Speedroid Rubix Kuriboh's other effect."
The cube rose out of his Graveyard again. Its eyes flicked from blue to bright, blazing green, and its faces spun so fast they blurred, all nine squares on every side turning the same emerald color at once, until the whole cube was a single solid green jewel.
"Green! During either player's Battle Phase, I banish this card from my Graveyard, and I can Synchro Summon using it, along with monsters I control! And that monster automatically enters in battle!'
A Synchro Summon during my attack. Again.
"I tune the Level 7 Clear Wing Synchro Dragon with the Level 1 Rubix Kuriboh!"
The little cube flew into the cage. It burst into one single green ring, and the ring cut through the iron bars like they were made of glass. Clear Wing rose up out of the broken cage, its body cracking open from within, and inside the cracks was light.
"Shine your crystal wings, freed from every chain! Become the light that shatters every cage!" Yugo's voice went through the Duel Palace like a bell. "Synchro Summon! Come forth! Level 8! CRYSTAL WING SYNCHRO DRAGON!"
The dragon that came out of that light had wings of crystal so clear they bent the floodlights into rainbows across the whole stadium. Its body was white and silver. When it cried out, winds answered.
[Wind / Dragon / Synchro / Effect / Level 8 / ATK 3000 / DEF 2500]
My Magistrate was already in the middle of its swing. The forced rule dragged its jitte off Clear Wing's empty cage and swung it toward the new target.
I looked at the numbers.
7200 against 3000.
It made no sense.
"It's a bluff." The officer in me said. A last gesture. Let the attack land.
There was nothing else to do. The attack had to land.
"Magistrate," I said. "Carry out the sentence."
The giant brought its jitte down with the full weight of the law.
"Crystal Wing's effect. When it battles a Level 5 or higher monster, during damage calculation only... Crystal Wing gains ATK equal to that monster's current ATK!"
The world went very slow.
I watched the numbers on my visor change, and I understood, all at once and far too late.
[ATK 3000 → 10200]
"CRYSTAL REFLECTION!"
The dragon's wings caught my Magistrate the way a mirror catches the sun, and threw them back.
The jitte shattered first. Then the scales. Then the giant iron mask with its red slit of an eye cracked. I saw, for one strange second, only gears: old, patient, gears, turning in the dark for someone else's purpose.
The explosion lifted my D-Wheel off the road.
227 LP: 1000 → 0
...
I remember the sky. It was very blue, and very far away.
I remember the wall coming toward me, and thinking, with total calm, this will hurt.
It did. More than just physically.
...
WINNER: YUGO.
The words burned across every screen in the Duel Palace in golden letters ten meters tall.
For a long moment, nobody made a sound.
"He... he won," Melissa whispered, and her voice carried across the whole city. "On Duel Chaser 227's own turn. Yugo... has won."
She looked down at the smoking wreck against the wall, and her voice dropped even lower.
"Such a pity," she murmured. "He fought with everything he had. He never touched a single Action Card. And again... he fell short."
In the Tops box, the nobleman set down his glass and gave three slow, lazy claps.
"There's nothing to pity," he said. "He chose honor over results, and honor makes a lovely speech and a very poor shield. A tool that can't win is just scrap."
"Is that true, Father?" The boy's voice was rough. His blue-green hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat, as if he'd been the one on the track.
"Victory and honor are different things, son."
The boy's eyes were still fixed on the D-Wheel at the bottom of the track.
"...Yugo is amazing," he said finally, so quietly only his sister heard.
His sister didn't say anything. But she wasn't looking at Yugo. She was looking at the white machine against the wall, and at the man still lying beside it, and her hands were still clenched.
...
Down in the Commons tiers, the silence broke.
It didn't break into cheers.
"What the hell was that?!" A chubby man was on his feet, his face purple. "That cop was one of us! He was from the drainage district! He never touched an Action Card! He fought clean!"
"And Yugo grabbed at every scrap off the walls like a rat!"
"He beat a man from the slums, and he spat on him while he did it! Took everything for free — he doesn't know a damn thing!"
"Shameless! Traitor!"
"Citizens, please!" Melissa's giant hologram spread its arms over the stadium. "The Friendship Cup is about unity! Please, remain in your seats!"
Nobody listened.
Yugo stopped his D-Wheel right in front of the loudest section. He didn't take off his helmet. He didn't bow. He flipped his visor up, and the face under it was pale, bleeding at the nose, and furious.
"SHUT UP!"
The front rows flinched back.
"He made his choice and I made mine! I didn't get on this D-Wheel for the Commons, and especially not for you people! I'm here for Rin! I don't owe any of you anything! If you want to convey anything than build your own D-Wheel and do it yourself!"
His voice cracked on the last word. He slammed his visor down before anyone could see what was in his eyes, and he hit the throttle, and he was gone, into the dark tunnel under the Palace.
But his response made the riot more chaotic.
...
In front of old electronic store, the children were jumping on the chairs, screaming his name, laughing and crying at the same time.
The Sister didn't cheer. She stood with her hands clasped and watched the screen, where the camera had drifted, without anyone telling it.
"Come home safe, Yugo," she whispered. And then, so softly nobody heard, "And someone... please help that poor man up."
# 227
I was lying on my back in a puddle of coolant. It was warm, and it smelled like burned oil.
My sunglasses were gone. One lens was a few feet away on the track, reflecting the lights. Without them the light was too bright, and I had to squint, and I could feel the wetness on my face, and I told myself it was coolant.
Somewhere above me the crowd was screaming. I couldn't tell if they were screaming for me or at Yugo, and I found that I didn't care.
"Took everything for free."
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to tell him about the plastic bags in my shoes, and the barracks.
But the Deck at my hip was still warm. And I hadn't built a single card in it.
I pushed myself up onto one elbow. My left arm didn't work right. I used the right one to unzip the inner pocket of my uniform, the pocket over my heart.
The silver whistle was still there.
It was years old. The paint had worn off it a long time ago. There was a dent on one side from where an eight-year-old had bitten down on it too hard, blowing and blowing and blowing in a corridor where no one came.
I held it in my shaking glove and looked at it for a long time.
My earpiece crackled.
It wasn't the Director. It was a voice I didn't know, flat and bored, reading off a screen.
"Duel Chaser 227. By order of the Director, you are relieved of your number, effective immediately. Remain where you are. A unit will collect you."
Collect.
Not escort. Not assist. Collect, like a piece of equipment.
The line went dead.
From the entrance, two bulky figures were coming, with stretcher in hand, in no hurry. But my vision blurred.
I closed my fingers around the cracked whistle and held it against my chest, and for the first time in fifteen years, I did not try to stand.
I could hear the rain falling. Cold like drumming on tin.
All I could see was a eight-year old boy, still weeping, still being poured by rain.