Phil could feel his heart come into tune with the pulse of the nightclub’s music. The further in he walked, the faster it was. The room containing the dance floor was massive, utterly dwarfing the initial waiting room in its size. If he had to make a guess, it almost seemed larger than even the underground duel arena. It was like a yawning cavern trying to stretch up into the heavens themselves, filled with throngs of people awash in sickly blue light dancing the night away. A hand drifted down to brush against his. Phil looked to his right. Jean was there as always. He had a pensive look on his face – one that had been present since they’d first entered the building and encountered the poor dead woman. His usual carefree and calm look was nowhere to be seen. In the dim blue light, Phil could see Tilla’s hand clutched in Jean’s.

  “See anything obvious?” Phil had to keep his voice just a hair beneath a flat-out yell to be heard over the pounding techno music, even as close as he was to Jean and Tilla. Jean shook his head. No obvious neon signs pointing downward with a yakuza boss standing underneath. Sure, there were plenty of people who certainly looked like yakuza scattered around the dance room. Two men by the emergency exit on the other side of the room, a man in a rasta cap by a flight of stairs going upward to their far right, a set of stairs to their far left going down flanked by two men smoking crack, and one hallway behind the DJ booth that disappeared into darkness. That hallway was also guarded by a frowning yakuza thug.

  In other words, three possibilities. Phil could tell Jean had reached the same conclusion himself, his friend’s sharp mind already grinding through the different choices presented before their small group of three to hopefully find the best one.

  “We don’t have much time!” Jean said loudly back. The implication behind his words was obvious. That strange frog spirit hadn’t left a body behind, but Chet’s disappearance would eventually be noticed. Even if no one came to the conclusion that Phil and Jean could be involved, one of their men disappearing at his post had a pretty high chance of putting the yakuza on high alert.

  Phil clicked his tongue in irritation. Time, time, time. Why was it always time?

  “Fuck it, let’s split up!” Phil said decisively. Jean and Tilla responded with resolute nods of their own. However, before anyone could move away, Phil gripped both of their shoulders.

  “I talked it over with the big guy!” He said loudly in their ears. “Jean, you’re my brother, so he’s willing to give you the family discount! You duel, you get his backing. That means shadow duels. Any yakuza fuckwad tries something with you, you can use this to protect yourself! Tilla, I asked him about you, but he said you already have backing!”

  Tilla firmly nodded. “Yes!” She shouted back, “Vampire’s Curse!”

  Phil gave each of them a fierce grin, followed by several hearty slaps on the back for good measure. Jean responded with his usual roguish smile, first drawing Tilla into a hug, followed by an attempt to crush Phil’s ribs with the same. Phil was given no chance to rest. After Tilla kissed Jean on the lips for good luck, she surprised Phil by turning and giving him a quick hug.

  “You’re Jean’s brother, so that means you’re my brother too!” Tilla explained with a soft smile, “Don’t go dying on us!”

  “Goes for the both of you too!” Phil shouted back.

  And then they split. Jean moved toward the DJ booth. Tilla turned her gaze toward the stairs descending into the darkness. Phil took the ascending stairway.

  The dance floor continued to buzz with activity, its denizens unaware of the conflict going on behind closed doors and the murders of the evening. They danced, throwing their cares to the wind to sink deeply into the excess of alcohol, drugs, and each other.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Jean’s heart had always been filled with a sense of wanderlust for as long as he could remember. Even as a very young child he’d traveled the beautiful French countryside with no food nor money, just an insatiable sense of optimism for what adventures might lay ahead. The necessities of life were always found through his wits and charm, and even if he had to go without for a night or two, well, it was simply a test of his willpower as a man. His parents never really minded – not that they were purposely neglectful in any sense, but the care of his fifteen brothers and sisters consumed much of their time. C’est la vie, he knew. C’est la vie. He did not mind it much. Like every good little French boy, Jean took up smoking unfiltered cigarettes and drinking black coffee at the age of six years old. It had been a long, cold night huddled inside a barn under a haystack a few miles outside of Paris. The cigarettes helped him keep warm and the coffee (given to him by a kindly nun the next morning) put some pep in his step.

  Further and further away he found himself, at first leaving France for nearby countries such as Germany or even Britain. As he grew older, he grew bolder. He set his sites on such lofty destinations it would have made his mother faint in fear, if she wasn’t so busy taking care of his many siblings. At the age of ten he was mugged by a six-fingered man in Spain. A lesson, he took it. A hard lesson, but Jean was a devoted student of life and the world was his classroom. A day later Jean witnessed that very same scoundrel mugging an innocent woman. Another lesson, he assumed, as he made his disagreement with the scoundrel’s ungentlemanly actions well known through the medium of a knife borrowed from a gentleman down the street. Jean did not regret the life that had ended at his hands that day. There was even less of a reason for him to feel regret afterward, once the nice woman had planted a kiss on his cheek in thanks and, upon mistaking him as a vagrant by lack of choice, offered him a place to stay whenever he needed it (the gesture was appreciated and occasionally taken up on, but Jean preferred to consider himself a vagrant by choice for the most part).

  Letters bearing postmarks from such places as Mongolia, India, and even Egypt found their way to the Dubois family residence over the years. Jean never waited around for a response. Not out of malice or any other negative emotion, but out of a simple desire to continue traveling. Even two days standing still was far too much to bear, much less the large amount of time it would take for any response through the mail to arrive.

  On his 12th birthday Jean went home for a visit. The reception was amicable enough, but home no longer felt like… home, if that made sense. His siblings (whom he still cared for deeply) hardly remembered him. His parents were far too busy trying to make ends meet for such a large family as the Dubois family, and such were unable to do much more than confirm he still drew breath before they were required to head back to work.

  C’est la vie, he knew. C’est la vie.

  His 16th birthday arrived when he was in America. His goal at the time was to walk from one end of the country to another with only a French-to-English dictionary and a dream. The dream came to its peak at the end of his walk, in New York City near Broadway, where he got into a… disagreement with the local mafia over how they conducted their business in an underground casino and was forced to make a swift exit to stage left through the medium of a hurriedly stowing away on a boat in the middle of the night. He could still remember how the faces of those Italian mobsters had looked, shouting at him from the dock while Jean’s boat floated merrily away into the distance.

  On his 18th birthday, Jean found himself in Egypt once more. Here he was taught how to play Duel Monsters by a strange man who always seemed to wear a dark hood which left his entire face covered in thick shadows. That experience seemed to make his life all the more exciting. A Duel Monsters tournament in Prague that ended in murder, escaping the police in the British Library after he was framed for a stolen manuscript, and many more adventures such as those filled up his life like a great basin of water. He even managed to hitchhike his way to Antarctica!

  It was not until his 27th birthday that Jean found his feet beginning to slow down. Japan. The 90s. He'd scrounged up enough money for a plane ticket to get to the Narita International Airport in Tokyo. Upon landing, his passport and wallet were stolen. No matter. C’est la vie. His wallet had only been with him for four months anyway. His passport, for much longer. Yet for some odd reason, Jean found himself slowing down in this country. He strolled from town to city to town, completely ignoring the French embassy in Tokyo that could have assisted him with his passport troubles. Unable to understand a single word of Japanese, he smiled, waved, and laughed his way across the country.

  And then one fateful night, under a bridge in Domino City, Jean heard the tongue of his homeland once more. An overpowering sense of crushing nostalgia filled his heart. Within minutes, he’d found a brother. C’est la vie. Within days he encountered the most beautiful woman in the world, who he was lucky enough to see return his affections. C’est la vie.

  Jean no longer felt any sense of that oh-so-familiar wanderlust now. Was it, he pondered, because all his life he’d been unconsciously searching for his true home, and he had finally found it after 27 consecutive years of existence? If that was the truth, it would be such a sweet truth indeed.

  Now he was here. 27 years and he was in Domino City, standing relatively unnoticed behind the DJ’s booth, staring at an unlit hallway that descended into a darkness that felt quite unnatural, almost evil in nature. That sense was no doubt caused by the filth and degeneracy within the nightclub, of such great amounts that even he felt disgusted upon seeing it.

  The DJ was a scraggly man, his clothes, body, and hair in far worse disrepair than even Phil and Jean's had been in their worst days underneath the bridge. His focus was entirely set on his equipment, allowing Jean to simply walk past him and slip down the hallway with no issues.

  The further he made his way down the featureless dark hallway, the more the music faded to become similar in volume to how it had been in the waiting room, though it was still more than enough to obscure the sound of his shoes against the tiled floor.

  Jean’s eyes were locked onto the very end of the hall, of which there was a door covered in cracked and peeling paint. It hadn’t been visible before he entered the hallway, nor was it particularly visible at this moment. The only times Jean could actually see his target was whenever a faint amount of blue light from the moving lights on the dancefloor washed across the hallway, granting a brief respite from the choking darkness that otherwise surrounded him.

  There was no one else in the hallway. The DJ still played away obliviously at his booth. There were no side doors, no break rooms, no freezers, nothing other than the door at the end of the hallway.

  The DJ finished his set and started up another round of pulsing techno music. This new song was loud, far louder than the ones before. Its sounds spread across the hallway like a virus, causing the walls to slightly shake and Jean’s bones to shiver as the beat pounded through his body. A headache began to build up in his forehead, but Jean merely blinked his eyes and shoved the pain to the back of his mind.

  Finally, the door was within reach. Now that he was close, he could see the door was painted in the same cracked and peeling paint as the front door to the club itself had been. Jean clicked his tongue. The door gave off a feeling of rather depressing neglect. Had he found a dead end? Would this spit him out in some back alley? In all honesty, it mattered little. If it did, he would simply turn around and reinforce either Tilla or Phil. In all likelihood it would be Tilla. Not out of any disrespect for her ability as a duelist, but because she was far more beautiful to the eye than Phil was.

  Jean’s hand turned the doorknob. It twisted easily in his palm, well-greased and well-used. However, it did not open into any back alley, but instead revealed a room filled with various glass beakers, pots, pans, and tubes, all of extremely dubious cleanliness. Each of these items rested casually on counters as if this was some sort of kitchen repurposed for innocent chemistry experiments, instead of the meth lab it actually appeared to be.

  Sitting in a folding chair in the center of the room was a man. This man looked rather proper in appearance, a sight that looked completely and utterly out of place in the middle of the meth lab. His hair was close-cropped, steely and gray to Jean’s eyes. He wore a simple three-piece charcoal-black business suit, one that was completely free of wrinkles. On the lapel of his suit was a small pin around the size of an ordinary button that was in the shape of a blue flower. A blue rose, in fact, if Jean was seeing it correctly. On the man’s knee, which was crossed over one of his legs in a casual resting position, was a western-style cowboy hat that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a John Wayne movie.

  Jean stared at the man. The man stared at Jean.

  "Well, I'll be darned." The man eventually said, breaking the stalemate with practiced ease. “You are aware this is an ‘employees only’ area, are you not?”

  To top off the oddity that was a man in a suit with a cowboy hat in a meth lab near the back of a Japanese nightclub, the man spoke English with a mild Czech accent.

  Jean let out an easy smile. “Je suis desole, I must have missed the sign.” While he spoke, he kept his eyes locked right on the man’s face, letting his peripheral vision cover the rest of the room’s layout. Behind the man was another door, but the door appeared rather ordinary in nature. It could be nothing… but it could be everything. He couldn’t risk leaving his path fully unexplored. Not when their goal was the boss and their time before Chet’s disappearance was discovered was limited.

  “Hey, no worries,” The man shrugged, “It happens to the best of us. It’s a shame. You seem like a decent fella.”

  “A shame?” Jean questioned.

  The man lifted the cowboy hat off his knee, placed it on his head, and rose all in the causal manner of a man about to stretch his limbs after sitting still for several hours at a time.

  "I can't let you go, fella. Not after you've seen this. Can't have the cops be called, if you understand my meaning." He gestured broadly at the meth lab. Then the man removed a Bowie knife from his belt and placed it on the nearby countertop. An eight-inch blade, as sharp as could be. The threat was clear as day.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Jean nodded in understanding. He could see a deck box strapped to the man’s waist.

  “Of course.” Jean said. He dipped his hand into his right pocket, moving slowly so as to avoid causing the man any alarm. The suited man in the cowboy hat watched Jean’s every move with eyes that were like those of a hawk studying a piece of particularly juicy prey on the ground below.

  “Shall we settle this like gentlemen?” Jean said, pulling his hand out of his pocket to reveal a stack of 40 cards in his palm. He gestured with a hand to a small folding table in the corner of the room.

  The man’s eyes narrowed at first, but soon they widened in surprise and an incredulous smile spread across his face.

  “Why not!” The man exclaimed, opening the deck box at his waist, “Guriko ain’t ever said I have to instantly deal with anyone walkin’ in here without permission. Might as well have some fun before the end, don’t you agree?”

  The Frenchman and the suited cowboy both took a seat at the small folding table. Jean moved a beaker off to the side to make room for his elbows, and then let his eyes settle across his opponent.

  “May I have the honor of knowing my opponent’s name?”

  The man in the cowboy hat gave a two-fingered salute in response. “You may call me Mr. Lint.”

  “And I am Jean Dubois,” Jean said as politeness required a gentleman to respond to an introduction with one of his own.

  As soon as their decks were placed on the table, Jean produced a grubby 1-yen coin.

  “Heads.” Mr. Lint declared.

  “Tails for me.” Jean acknowledged.

  The coin spun into the air.

  Tails.

  Mr. Lint tipped the edge of his cowboy hat in a casual salute toward Jean’s luck.

  Jean: 4000 Mr. Lint: 4000

  Jean spoke quickly. He could not afford to take this duel lightly. Mr. Lint hadn’t appeared to notice it yet, but Jean could see shadows gathering around the room. In the darkest corners, he could hear whispers, he could see countless malevolent pink eyes gazing at the duelists. However, he also could not afford to let the duel drag on. Every minute spent here was a minute that Chet could be found missing.

  “Draw card! Monster card summon, Monk Fighter (1300/1000)!”

  Jean’s next words were cut off by a gasp of surprise not just from his own mouth, but from Mr. Lint’s mouth instead. The darkness around the folding table had thickened to the point that most of the meth lab could not even be fully seen anymore, and from the darkness stepped a grey-haired muscular man wearing an orange martial arts uniform. He looked like an exact copy of the man in Monk Fighter's card art!

  Mr. Lint muttered a curse in a language Jean did not understand, stumbling backward in his chair in response to the sudden arrival of the man. His moment of surprise allowed Jean to master his alarm. No matter. This was hardly different than the battle box itself, only instead of technology, it was magic.

  “This is a wide world we live in, Monsieur Lint. Many fantastical sights can be found merely waiting in the next corner, hidden from sight but still there nonetheless.”

  “Solid vision?” Mr. Lint muttered back, his eyes scanning the monk from head to toe. “Like that Kaiba feller was working on. I thought it needed to be in a box of some sort, largish and very obvious. Are you some sort of tester for a mobile version?”

  Jean’s only reply was a mysterious smile.

  “I place two cards face-down and end my turn.”

  Mr. Lint shot one last glance at Monk Fighter before drawing a card from his deck to start his turn.

  “Sheesh. Could’ve warned a guy before pulling something like that,” He grumbled. “Summoning right onto the field, Gray Wing (1300/700)! Following that, I activate my field spell, Rising Air Current. While it remains on the field, all wind-attribute monsters gain 500 attack points, though in return they will lose 400 defense points.”

  Gray Wing (1300/700 -> 1800/300).

  A black-scaled dragon with wings resembling that of a grasshopper’s lunged out from the shadows, while the air around the room picked up pace to batter and whip across the faces of the two duelists. Strangely enough, the wind did not seem to affect their cards. Those remained stable, without blowing all across the room like they should have in a windstorm.

  “Gray Wing’s effect activates,” Mr. Lint sternly commanded, “By discarding one card from my hand to the graveyard, I can give him a second attack this turn. I discard One-Eyed Shield Dragon. Then, because the card I discarded was a wind-attribute monster, I can banish the One-Eyed Shield Dragon from my graveyard to special summon Silpheed (1700/700) in attack position!”

  Silpheed (1700/700 -> 2200/300).

  Behind the black-scaled dragon was a warrior sporting a spikey green haircut and a sharp axe that looked to be made from greenish-white feathers. His skin was completely purple, contrasting sharply with his clothes of pure white.

  Jean couldn’t help himself. Despite the serious situation he’d found himself in, he let loose a whistle of admiration. In one quick combo, his opponent had summoned not only a 1800 attacker that could strike twice, but also a monster with 2200 attack points.

  “You yakuza really don’t slack around!” Jean said in admiration.

  Mr. Lint clicked his tongue. “Nope, we sure don’t partner. Battle phase! Gray Wing attacks your monster!”

  Right as the dragon reared its body to attack, Jean flipped over one of his two face-down cards.

  “Sorry monsieur, but allow me to reveal the true power of a monk! Trap card activate, Lone Wolf! While this continuous trap remains on the field, and the only monster I control is Monk Fighter, my monster cannot be destroyed by battle!”

  Mr. Lint made to speak with a smug expression on his face, but he was quickly forestalled once Jean held out his hand.

  “Not only that, but Monk Fighter’s effect completely nullifies all battle damage from any battles it is involved in!”

  It was as Jean said. Gray Wing furiously attacked the yellow-robed monk, but each swipe of its jaws was rebuffed by a defense that was as solid and formidable as a mountain – no, an entire mountain range!

  With his resources spent, Mr. Lint was forced to allow Jean to take his turn.

  Jean merely grinned. “At the start of my turn, I activate my second trap card, Rock Bombardment! By sending one rock monster from my deck to my graveyard, 500 points of damage will be inflicted to your life points!”

  Jean: 4000 Mr. Lint: 3500

  Mr. Lint was unable to retort to Jean’s sudden effect damage. Out of nowhere, an invisible force struck his body, causing a small string of blood to fly out of his mouth and hit the side of a glass beaker nearby.

  “I spoke truly, Monsieur Lint.” Jean said, observing the reaction of his opponent through casual eyes. This may have been his first-ever shadow duel, but the world was wide. If magic truly was real, then all Jean could do was accept the fact and move on. Cowering before it wasn't his style anyway. "This world of ours is a fantastical place.”

  "Damnit!" Mr. Lint fully lost his easy-going composure. His hand darted over to the counter and snatched up his Bowie knife to slam its tip into the table. "Call whatever the fuck this is off!"

  Jean did not need to respond. Instead, a displeased croak sounded out from the darkness, followed by the blade of the Bowie knife disappearing into thin air.

  “There are rules here, Monsieur Lint.” Jean spoke softly. He did not enjoy this very much, but at the same time he felt no pity for the man, who was a yakuza, a scoundrel, and an all-around villain. Those types were all the same no matter what part of the world one encountered them in. Cowardly, vile, and murderous. “We must solve our dispute through a gentleman’s duel, by our wits and our cards alone. And in the end, only one of us will walk away from this table alive. That is what you have agreed to, Monsieur Lint.”

  Mr. Lint’s hand drifted up to touch his bottom lip, where there was still a smudge of scarlet liquid.

  “Motherfucker… you crazy bastard!” He stared at Jean as if this was the first time he’d seen the man in his life. In a way, that might have been the truth. Before the duel, Mr. Lint only saw Jean as prey, no more than a brief spot of entertainment amidst his activities in the meth lab. Now? Jean was a fellow carnivore.

  “Crazy? That’s for sure!” Jean laughed back. Then he revealed a spell card in his hand. “I activate Foolish Burial! To join the Minomushi Warrior I sent earlier through Rock Bombardment, Foolish Burial allows me to send Moai Interceptor Cannons from my deck to my graveyard! After that, I place one card face-down and end my turn.”

  A bead of sweat dripped down Mr. Lint's cheek. “You rat! Hiding behind your Lone Wolf combination, do you plan to chip my life points away bit by bit?”

  “I wonder!” Jean laughed in response.

  “You plague rat!” Mr. Lint roared. His fear had sunk deep into his mind, causing a wild panic mixed with extreme rage to flow through the suited cowboy’s very being. “I place a card face-down and summon Sangan (1000/600) in defense mode. My turn ends!”

  Jean spared a glance at the green-armed, three-eyed furball toddling onto the field with unsteady legs. Was the man shoring up his field, or did he hope Jean would kill the Sangan so he could search for a monster to deal with the Lone Wolf combo?

  Well, there was little use thinking about it. Triggering the Sangan could be done in so many ways it wasn't worth trying to tip-toe around the card.

  "From my hand, I activate an equip spell card, Legendary Black Belt. By equipping it to Monk Fighter, whenever he destroys a monster by battle, damage equal to the destroyed monster’s defense will be inflicted directly to your life points! Monk Fighter, destroy Sangan!”

  The experienced monk could easily see the vulnerability before him that Sangan represented. So, with a mysterious black belt surrounded by an ominous red aura, the orange-robed Monk Fighter walked up to Sangan, grabbed it by the face, and ripped out its three eyes one by one to dash against the ground.

  Jean: 4000 Mr. Lint: 2900

  Mr. Lint staggered in his seat from the backlash of the black belt’s effect, but he quickly gritted his teeth and declared the activation of Sangan’s effect.

  "From my deck to my hand, I can grab any monster with 1500 or fewer attack points! Come to me, Tornado Bird (1100/1000)!”

  Jean tilted his head slightly, but try as he might, that card was not one he was familiar with. Perhaps Phil would know, with the surprising amount of game knowledge tucked inside his brother’s head, but Jean did not.

  By placing one card face-down, Jean ended his turn.

  Mr. Lint let out a wet cough. He briefly took the cowboy hat off his head to wipe off a thick bead of sweat.

  And then he smiled. The smile was bloody, but vicious all the same.

  “You sure are one dumb customer! I’ve never seen no magic show before, but to survive in the criminal underworld is to wade through an endless sea of blood, grime, and cigarette smoke! I’ll bite and claw my way through this, just like every other damned close sticky situation in my life so far! On my turn, I summon Tornado Bird (1100/1000). He won’t be sticking around for long, because you’ve activated my trap card! Spiritual Wind Art – Miyabi! By sacrificing my wind-attribute Tornado Bird, I can target 1 card you control to place on top of your deck!”

  Jean didn’t miss a beat. He’d known for several turns now that the attack values Mr. Lint had at his fingertips were formidable, and that was even if he didn’t have another monster similar to Silpheed he could special summon.

  “In response, here’s my quick-play spell, Emergency Provisions!” Jean shouted back, “By sending Lone Wolf, Legendary Black Belt, and my face-down Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell to the graveyard, it allows me to gain 3000 life points!”

  Jean: 7000 Mr. Lint: 2900

  Jean knew full well this was only a brief respite. Mr. Lint was aware as well. With a mocking smile, the suit-wearing cowboy activated the effect of Gray Wing once more, discarding a Sakuretsu Armor trap card to give it two attacks.

  “Battle phase.”

  No matter how Jean braced himself, it was impossible for him to completely grit his teeth through the pain. The first attack from Gray Wing destroyed Jean’s Monk Fighter. There was no damage dealt from that battle due to the monk’s special ability. The second attack was far more vicious. The teeth of the black-scaled dragon tore into Jean’s side, leaving it ragged and bloody like an uncooked flank steak. Silpheed’s attack hit even harder, the axe of the purple-skinned warrior sinking deeply into Jean’s shoulder.

  Jean: 3000 Mr. Lint: 2900

  Pain was no stranger to Jean. Yet, that fact was nowhere near enough to allow for his back to straighten and for his next card to be drawn as Mr. Lint announced the end of his turn.

  But there was something that did. The memory of sweet Tilla's good luck kiss lingered on his cheek. It was as if an angel – no, the goddess of victory herself had blessed Jean with the strength to power through. There was no mistake. His goddess of luck allowed him to stockpile the fuel that saved him from Mr. Lint's otherwise lethal 4000 points of damage.

  If he perished here, how would he be able to seek Tilla’s hand in marriage?

  “Draw!” Jean laughed his way through the pain. “A good strike. A good strike! Allow me to return a strike of my own! But first, the scene must be set. Three rock monsters reside in my graveyard, but not for long! By banishing all three, I summon Megarock Dragon (?/?) in attack mode. It gains attack points equal to the number of monsters banished to summon it times 700.”

  Megarock Dragon (?/? -> 2100/2100). It won’t have enough attack, so here’s Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy your field spell!”

  In a quick sequence of events, a gigantic wingless dragon made entirely from jagged rocks rose from the ground, just as a stormy typhoon of water and lightning tore apart the air currents whipping around the room to restore the atmosphere to one that was calm once more.

  Gray Wing (1800/300 -> 1300/700), Silpheed (2200/300 -> 1700/700).

  “Megacrock, display your dominance over the land! Destroy Silpheed!”

  It happened before the final word left Jean’s mouth. The windy warrior, once mighty and cocksure, was crushed into pieces by one blow of the stoney dragon’s jagged tail.

  Jean: 3000 Mr. Lint: 2500

  “And Silpheed’s effect is useless.” Mr. Lint said through clenched teeth, looking right at Jean’s now-empty hand. “Upon its destruction, he would have discarded a card from your hand.”

  “Looks like it.” Jean agreed, ending his turn.

  Mr. Lint didn’t pause a single moment, going from his draw phase right into his main phase to summon a monster. “That’s a nice dragon you’ve got there, partner, but how about a bigass bird! Flying in from the distant peaks, by sacrificing my remaining Gray Wing I tribute summon Roc From the Valley of Haze (2400/1400)!”

  It was no sooner than the Roc finished diving onto the field that it attacked, tearing apart the rocky body of Jean’s dragon with a pair of mighty talons. Several sharp stones raced through the air from the force of the blow to tear gouges into Jean’s cheeks.

  Jean: 2700 Mr. Lint: 2500

  The rapid back-and-forth continued, neither player pausing to even catch their breath. Mr. Lint’s turn ended and Jean’s turn began.

  “Spell card, Smashing Ground!” Jean declared, revealing the card taken from the top of his deck. “It destroys the monster on your field with the highest defense points!”

  The giant, red-feathered bird was struck from the sky by an equally massive glowing golden fist.

  “Draw!” Mr. Lint replied, starting his turn the second Jean ended his. “I place a card face-down. Turn end!”

  “Mystic Tomato (1400/1100) in attack position!” Jean cried out, but no sooner than the monster formed on the field, that Mr. Lint’s face-down was revealed.

  “Ring of Destruction!” Mr. Lint roared in response. “It destroys your tomato and deals damage equal to its attack to the both of us!”

  Jean: 1300 Mr. Lint: 1100

  A ring of grenades formed around the face of the demonic tomato, but Jean had already ended his turn before it could detonate, causing Mr. Lint to draw his card in the middle of being peppered by shrapnel.

  Mr. Lint’s movements finally slowed. No longer was his face self-assured, nor was he snarling in rage or even determination. His face was drained of blood.

  “I pass my turn.”

  “Draw.” Jean muttered. He looked to Mr. Lint. “Monsieur Lint. It appears I have won the top-deck competition. I summon Chu-Ske the Mouse Fighter (1200/0).”

  Mr. Lint made to rise out of his seat, shouting words Jean could not understand, but there was no mercy in Jean’s eyes. He could see it in Mr. Lint’s face. When had the suited yakuza ever given mercy to his enemies?

  “Chu-Ske. Finish him.”

  The mouse fighter who looked oddly similar to a mouse version of Jackie Chan leaped forward to strike Mr. Lint down with a fancy roundhouse kick, one with enough force to knock the man backward into the shadows.

  Jean: 1300 Mr. Lint: 0

  Mr. Lint didn’t even have enough time to scream before a green, amphibious hand covered in warts swiped out from within the darkness, removing the man’s head in one swift movement. Two frogs lurched out from the shadows soon after. One looked like an ordinary green frog, other than the deep sense of malice emanating from its pitch-black eyes. The other frog was yellow, with red patterns across its skin and two devil-like horns atop its head. Working together, the frogs each grabbed one of Mr. Lint's arms. Making a ‘heave-ho’ sound, they dragged the yakuza’s body away into the darkness, never to be seen again.

  Jean nearly collapsed backward into his seat from exhaustion, but the knowledge that Phil and Tilla were still facing their own unknown dangers in the nightclub brought him to an unsteady standing position. He turned toward the door at the end of the room, the very same one Mr. Lint had prevented him from getting to before their duel. He stepped forward, turned the handle, and moved through the doorway.

  The first duel in Blue Friday had come to an end with the victory of Jean Dubois.

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