Chapter 22: Advent of the Third God
Nagisa had just gotten back to her dorm room. Her head was still pounding and she was still full of rage. Nagisa took a quick glance around the room and saw that Tamao was in her bed, already asleep. The sight of the sleeping bluenette made Nagisa absolutely sick. She wanted to storm over to the bed and start clubbing Tamao with her duel disk. Nagisa held back however. She would make Tamao pay soon enough.
Nagisa decided to try to get some sleep. After she had washed up and changed into her pajamas she climbed into her own bed. Sleep would not come to the redhead however. Her head hurt too much, it was as if several drills were burrowing into her skull. In the end Nagisa decided that trying to get to sleep was a pointless effort. She needed to work on her deck before the morning came anyway. She also needed to find a new outfit too. The red dress that Miyuki and that pathetic Tamao had picked out for her to wear to the tournament just wouldn’t do.
* * *
The final day of the tournament had arrived. Once again almost everyone on the island had crowded into the Spica stadium to see the duel that would decide the next Etoile, and once again Jaden and his four friends from Lilum were in the skybox with Pegasus and the head mistress. Everyone was ready for the duel to begin. There was a problem though, the duel was supposed to start at noon, but twenty minutes passed and the duel had not gotten started. The reason was because Nagisa had not shown up. The crowed was becoming restless. Miyuki had left the stadium to go find the missing redhead.
Outside, Tamao was waiting in front of the doors to the stadium. She was terribly worried that something bad had happened to Nagisa. Tamao looked around frantically one more time and at last saw Nagisa approaching. There was something different about her though. Mostly the difference was in what she was wearing. Instead of the red dress that Nagisa was to wear during the tournament, she was wearing a short-skirted black dress with a black leather corset over it. Nagisa was also wearing knee-high high-heeled boots, and black gloves that went up to her elbows. Her mint-green Miator duel disk seemed quite out of place with the outfit. Nagisa’s hair was done up in its usual style, except that it was tied up in a thick black ribbon.
“There you are Nagisa! I was so worried!” Tamao exclaimed as she ran up to the redhead. “We were supposed to start the last duel of the tournament about twenty minutes ago. Hey, why aren’t you wearing the red dress I picked out for you?”
“…Shut up.” Nagisa said before hitting Tamao with her duel disk arm and knocking her to the ground.
“Oww, why did you do that Nagisa?” Tamao asked as she started to get up. “That really hurt!”
“I said SHUT UP!” Nagisa yelled as she kicked Tamao in the stomach before the bluentte could get to her feet. “The sight of you makes me sick!”
“…What’s gotten into you?” Tamao asked as she finally got back to her feet. “Why are you doing this my Nagisa?”
“Don’t CALL ME THAT!” Nagisa yelled as she hit Tamao again with her duel disk. Tamao managed to keep herself from falling to the ground that time however. “How dare you keep saying that I’m yours?”
“I-I’m sorry.” Tamao said as tears started coming to her eyes. “It’s just… well I love you so much Nagisa.”
“Well I don’t fell the same way about you!” Nagisa shot back. “How could I love a pathetic girl like you? You’re nothing but a weak lonely little worm who started to cling on to me the second I got here. Do you think I wanted you as a roommate? All you are to me is a waste of space.”
“B-but…” was all that Tamao managed to get out.
“What’s worse is that you and that cast-iron witch Miyuki forced me into the Etoile Tournament with the twisted idea that I would fall in love with you!” Nagisa continued, giving a short sarcastic laugh. “How much more pathetic can you get?”
“…I’m sorry Nagisa.” Tamao said as she regained a little of her composure. “I guess I never really considered your feelings.”
“Gee, you think?” Nagisa asked sarcastically.
“If you want… we can just drop out of the tournament now.” Tamao offered.
“You’re not getting off that easily.” Nagisa replied. “I want to have a rematch with you, just to show you how pathetic you truly are.”
“…Alright, but if I win we go back to the tournament.” Tamao said as she activated her duel disk. “I still think that we can become closer if we became Etoile.”
“Whatever.” Nagisa replied as she activated her duel disk in response. “There’s no way a spineless girl could beat me.”
* * *
Back in the skybox, Jaden and the others were still waiting for the duel to start; unaware of what was happening outside.
“This is boring!” Pegasus exclained. “If I had know that there was going to be such a delay I would’ve brought one of my favorite comic books to read.”
Suddenly Jaden felt a sense of great danger like he had never felt before. It was like the feeling he got when he was around the wielder of a Wicked God but much stronger. Winged Kuriboh suddenly appeared before Jaden making a fuss. Something was terribly wrong.
“Um, if you’ll all excuse me, I just remembered that I have something really important to take care of.” Jaden said just before he got up and quickly followed Winged Kuriboh to what they were both sensing. Realizing that something was going on, Chikaru and the other three Lilum girls followed Jaden.
“I wonder what’s got them all worked up?” the kindly old head mistress asked.
“Whatever it is, it’s probably more exciting than what’s going on in here.” Pegasus replied.
* * *
Back outside, the duel between Nagisa and Tamao had just begun. Nagisa had the first turn.
“I set one monster on the field and end my turn!” Nagisa announced. Tamao drew her first card.
“I summon Maiden of Macabre in Attack Mode!” Tamao announced. The scythe wielding kimono girl appeared on the field. “Maiden, attack Nagisa’s monster! Scythe of Shadows!”
With a swing of her scythe, Maiden of Macabre sent a blade of dark energy that split Nagisa’s monster in half. The monster in question was a semi-transparent purple sphere with a smaller black sphere in the center. It was like a giant single celled organism. Suddenly a shockwave of some kind suddenly emanated from where the single celled creature was destroyed and hit Tamao. Tamao felt an actual impact as her life points dropped from 4000 to 3500.
“When my Giant Germ is destroyed, it inflicts 500 points of damage to my opponent!” Nagisa explained. “Plus I get to summon two more Giant Germs from my deck!”
Two more giant single celled organisms appeared on Nagisa’s side of the field.
“Fine, but don’t forget that my Maiden of Macabre gains a Spell Counter every time she destroys a monster in battle!” Tamao announced. “Also, her ATK rises from 1700 to 1900 thanks to that Spell Counter! I set one card and end my turn!”
As Nagisa drew her next card, Jaden, Chikaru, and the other three Lilum girls arrived to witness the rest of the duel. Upon seeing Nagisa, Jaden was certain that the terrible feeling that he was getting was coming from her. Winged Kuriboh started growling (or rather made a sound that approximated growing), at the redheaded duelist, and Kagome had started hiding behind Chikaru.
“Does Nagisa have…?” Chikaru asked, though she could not bring herself to finish her question.
“The third Wicked God? Yeah.” Jaden answered.
“First I summon Archfiend Soldier!” Nagisa announced. A horned demon wearing grey armor and a green cape appeared on the field. “Next I activate Double Summon! Now I can perform one more Normal Summon this turn, so I tribute Archfiend Soldier and my two Giant Germs to summon The Wicked Avatar!”
The demon soldier and the two Giant Germs shattered and a column of purple light shot up into the sky. When the light vanished, floating in the sky was a gigantic sphere that looked like a pitch-black sun. The creature seemed to give off a feeling that Jaden could only describe as pure hatred. In fact, Jaden could faintly hear a cold inhuman voice speaking from inside the sphere.
‘Kill… destroy… kill… slaughter… destroy… kill… kill…’ was all the voice kept saying.
Suddenly the black sphere that was The Wicked Avatar shrank and twisted until it was standing on the battlefield in the same shape as Tamao’s Maiden of Macabre. The monster itself was still completely pitch-black, but it was in the general shape of the monster.
“The Wicked Avatar’s ATK points are 100 points stronger than the strongest monster on the field,” Nagisa explained, “but why settle for the shape of your weak Maiden of Macabre? I activate Ancient Rules, which lets me Special Summon from my hand, Gogiga Gagagigo!”
Appearing on the field next to the Avatar was an evil version of the humanoid lizard that Nagisa had played in her last duel with Tamao. It was twice the size of the original Gagagigo and far more muscular. The lizard’s chest, shoulders, claws, waist, lower legs, and parts of its face and tail were covered in grey cybernetic armor. In an instant, The Wicked Avatar swelled up and changed into Gogiga Gagagigo’s shape.
“That monster has 2950 ATK points!” Kizuna exclaimed. “Which means that The Wicked Avatar has… let’s see.”
“3050 ATK since Gogiga Gagagigo is the strongest monster on the field.” Remon responded.
“Gogiga Gagagigo, attack Maiden of Macabre!” Nagisa commanded. “Giga Slash!”
“I activate my Trap, Mirror Force!” Tamao announced, but as she pushed the activation button on her duel disk, nothing happened. Nagisa began to laugh.
“Nice try, but when The Wicked Avatar has been summoned, my opponent can’t activate any Spell or Trap cards until the end of their second turn after its been summoned.” Nagisa explained with a cruel smile.
Gagagigo charged forward and slashed Maiden of Macabre to ribbons. Tamao’s life points fell to 2450, and she was wide open for another attack.
“Wicked Avatar, attack Tamao directly!” Nagisa commanded. “Dark Giga Slash!”
The dark god charged forward and slashed Tamao across the chest with its pitch-black claw. The shock from the impact caused Tamao to fall to the ground unconscious has her life points hit zero. With the duel over, Nagisa’s two monsters vanished. Jaden calmly walked over to the unconscious Tamao.
“What’re you doing here?” Nagisa asked in an irritated tone.
“I’ll deal with you in a minute.” Was Jaden’s only reply as he bent down and picked up Tamao.
Jaden walked back to the stadium entryway where Chikaru and the others were standing.
“Look after Tamao for me while I take care of this.” Jaden told the four Lilum girls as he gently set Tamao on the ground in front of them.
“You’re going to duel Nagisa, aren’t you?” Chikaru asked, though she didn’t need the answer.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” Jaden answered as he turned to leave.
As Jaden was walking back towards Nagisa, he saw his cat, Pharaoh, walking towards him. It was quite a surprise to him since he left Pharaoh at the mansion. The stripped cat meowed and a ball of gold light flew out of his mouth, changing into the ghost of Lyman Banner.
“Mr. Banner, how’d you and Pharaoh get here?” Jaden asked.
“Well, I sensed that there was something big going on, and I have been learning to communicate with Pharaoh from inside him. Although getting a cat to do what you tell it to is no easy matter.” Banner explained. “Anyway, I managed to get Pharaoh to come here and he was able to get out of the mansion fairly easily. It’s a good thing that you forgot to shut the door to your guest room all the way, and that the mansion is so close to this stadium.”
“So why exactly did you come here?” Jaden asked.
“I came to warn you that there is an incredible evil power about to rise.” Banner answered.
“If you’re talking about the third Wicked God, it’s already appeared.” Jaden replied.
“I think there might be something more.” Banner responded. “Just be careful for now.”
“I will.” Jaden responded. “Now you and Pharaoh go wait over there with Chikaru and the others.”
Banner nodded and went over to the entryway to the stadium. Kizuna quickly went over and got Pharaoh, since the cat just sat there and started licking himself. Jaden continued walking towards Nagisa.
“I don’t have time to mess with you Jaden!” Nagisa said in an irritated tone.
“Too bad.” Jaden replied as he raised his duel disk arm.
“What’s going on here?” a voice suddenly asked. Jaden looked to his left and saw that it was Shizuma. “I saw that entire duel. Nagisa, what was that strange card you played? More importantly, what’s come over you Nagisa? You definitely aren’t acting like yourself.”
“Shizuma, Nagisa’s mind is being affected by that monster you saw her use against Tamao, The Wicked Avatar.” Jaden explained. “The only way to bring Nagisa to her senses is to beat her in a duel.”
“…I see.” Shizuma said calmly as she walked over. “I still don’t understand what’s going on, but if the only way to help Nagisa is to beat her in a duel, than I’m the one who’s going to do it.”
“You can’t! It’s too dangerous!” Jaden told Shizuma. “You don’t know the kind of power that we’re up against!”
“All I need to know is that it’s making Nagisa crazy.” Shizuma replied.
“I can’t let you put yourself in danger like that!” Jaden argued. “You saw what happened to Tamao!”
“It’s a risk I’ll have to take.” Shizuma calmly argued back. “There’s no way you can talk me out of this Jaden.”
“ENOUGH!” Nagisa yelled. She had grown frustrated with Shizuma and Nagisa arguing, and her constant headache wasn’t helping. “Stay out of this Jaden! This is between Shizuma and I anyway!”
“I won’t.” Jaden replied. “I don’t want Shizuma getting hurt.”
“I’m not going to stand by and do nothing!” Shizuma told Jaden.
“FINE! Why don’t you both duel me?” Nagisa angerly suggested. “That way you can stop arguing and we can get this over with! I get 8000 life points though!”
“Fine by me.” Shizuma agreed.
“I guess there’s no other choice than.” Jaden responded. “It’s two against one.”
With that, the three duelists activated their duel disks and prepared to face off.
