Scrap Dragon's appearance did not seem to change in any obvious way, but Yusei let out a soft sigh and murmured,
"It's over already."
"Huh? Over already?" Crow looked confused. "But Jack still has that card in his hand, doesn't he? It shouldn't end this fast."
"I activate Scrap Dragon's effect!"
Dio did not give Jack any more time to think. He issued the command decisively.
"Once per turn, I can target 1 card I control and 1 card you control, and destroy them!"
He pointed first to his own back row, then to the demonic dragon on Jack's field.
"I choose my own Smoke Grenade of the Thief and your Red Dragon Archfiend as the targets. Scrap Bombardment!"
Scrap Dragon opened its jaws and spat out a small smoke grenade, then immediately launched it forward.
The grenade traced an arc through the air and struck Red Dragon Archfiend squarely through the swirling mist around its body.
The explosion was not especially violent, but its effect was absolute.
The mist from Mist Body was blown away, and Red Dragon Archfiend's imposing form collapsed apart in the blast.
"Red Dragon Archfiend?!"
Jack stared at his suddenly empty front row in disbelief.
His ace monster had just been dismantled so easily, and in such a way.
Instinctively, he clenched the one remaining card in his hand tighter.
It was fine. As long as that card was still there, he still had a chance. Next turn—
"And then Smoke Grenade of the Thief's effect activates as well."
Dio's merciless voice cut straight through Jack's train of thought.
"When this card is destroyed by another card's effect while equipped to a monster, I can look at your hand and choose 1 card for you to discard."
"!?"
Jack had never expected that inconspicuous, almost inexplicable Equip Spell to hide such a vicious follow-up effect.
And the condition to trigger it—being destroyed by another card effect—was absurdly strict.
It did not boost attack. It did not offer protection. It existed solely to trigger that effect.
In a normal duel, a card like that was almost impossible to use. Even if your opponent did not know what it did, no sane duelist would waste precious spell-and-trap removal on an Equip Spell that looked useless.
To make use of it, you needed a monster like Dio's—one that could actively destroy your own cards.
Or you had to blast it yourself with your own Mystical Space Typhoon.
"Let me see."
Within the holographic display, the information on the card in Jack's hand became visible to Dio.
Just as expected.
"So it's Battle Fader."
Dio understood at once. Just as he thought—Jack had been holding onto a defensive option.
"Then let's discard that."
The lifesaving hand trap in Jack's hand—the one that could Special Summon itself and end the Battle Phase—dissolved into specks of light and vanished.
"Now every obstacle is gone."
Dio pointed at the completely open field in front of Jack.
"Scrap Dragon, direct attack! Scrap Roar!!"
Scrap Dragon raised its head, the pipes in its chest venting violently, and a storm of scrap metal blasted straight into Jack.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH—!!!"
Jack LP: 1500 → 0
Jack's Duel Disk gave its signal announcing the end of the duel, and the holograms slowly faded away.
Jack dropped to one knee, gasping for breath. His face was filled with frustration, but even more than that, with the despair of having his tactics seen through completely and being left powerless to reverse the outcome.
A total defeat.
An utterly complete defeat.
Dole could not help sighing. In front of Dio, Jack had turned out to be no different from him.
"Good—what a satisfying duel!"
Kiryu strode forward, breathing hard. "Next one's mine!"
To be honest, dueling was exhausting.
Just holding up that Duel Disk made of solid iron parts was tiring enough for Dio, and on top of that, summoning monsters in this world apparently required all kinds of dramatic motions too.
Still, if someone invited him, there was no good reason to refuse.
Dio had just opened his mouth to agree when his Duel Disk suddenly began crackling under strain. Then, with a sharp hiss, it started smoking.
"It broke..."
Crow patted Kiryu on the shoulder.
"Unlucky."
"This doesn't satisfy me at all!"
"Looks like it overloaded," Yusei concluded after taking a quick look. "The fact that it held together until the duel ended was already a miracle."
That meant the "second entrance test duel" Dio had been looking forward to against team leader Kyosuke Kiryu could not be carried out in the usual hologram format.
"This doesn't satisfy me at all!" Kiryu repeated, clutching his head.
Reality, however, was cruel.
In Satellite, Duel Disks were valuable equipment, and even repair parts could take days to find in the endless mountains of junk. Just gathering the needed materials might already take several days, never mind the time and tools Yusei would need to actually repair it.
They could have borrowed someone else's Duel Disk, but aside from Kiryu—whose entire brain was clearly made of dueling—everyone could tell Dio was already tired, so no one brought it up.
"No helping it, Kiryu." Crow patted his captain's shoulder. "We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way."
So the old table in the middle of Team Satisfaction's base, which had originally been piled with junk, was cleared off. A relatively clean sheet of canvas was spread across it and pressed into service as a makeshift dueling field.
Dio and Kiryu sat across from each other, each placing their deck beside them.
"...Can't be helped."
Kiryu still wore a sullen expression, but the instant his eyes fell on Dio's deck, the burning fire in them reignited.
"Then we'll just make do with this! But don't think that means I'm lowering my standards, Dio!"
"Of course."
Dio nodded and began shuffling his deck.
And yet, the result of the duel turned out to be one-sided.
In the opening stages, Dio actually got off to a decent start. He launched his offense smoothly enough and successfully brought out his ace, Scrap Dragon.
But Kiryu's response was terrifyingly calm.
Using traps and monster effects, he skillfully destroyed Scrap Dragon, and the low-level Fiend he summoned afterward had an effect that gave Dio a tremendous headache: any monster it destroyed by battle would be banished instead of going to the Graveyard.
When Dio's key Tuner monster, Scrap Beast, was banished by that effect, it felt as though a wedge had been hammered straight into the core of his deck's engine.
His graveyard resources could no longer be recovered. The chain that enabled his Synchro Summons snapped apart.
It was not as if his deck had no answer to that sort of thing—Premature Burial could have helped—but luck was not on his side this time, and the key card never showed up.
In the end, under Kiryu's relentless pressure, his Life Points were reduced to zero.
"...I lost."
Dio let the remaining cards in his hand fall to the table and slowly exhaled. If only he had other Tuner monsters, this would not have felt so awful.
"That was satisfying enough, at least!" Kiryu declared once the duel ended.
"I see..." Jack stood nearby with his arms folded, lost in thought. "Using banishing effects to cut off a graveyard-reliant deck's engine... a very targeted strategy."
"Anyway!"
Kiryu abruptly sprang up from his chair, his voice tinged with a trace of madness.
"Dio, the dueling skill you've shown is already more than enough to earn recognition. Welcome to the Satisfaction Alliance!"
From somewhere, he produced a neatly folded piece of clothing and snapped it open with a flourish.
It was a dark leather vest, the same style as the one worn by Kiryu, Jack, and Yusei, with pale fur trimming the collar and armholes that looked genuinely warm.
"Here—this is Team Satisfaction's uniform! From today on, you're one of us!"
Kiryu held the vest out to him.
"Oh... thanks."
Dio accepted it with a hint of surprise.
As his fingers brushed over the soft fur trim, a very practical question rose to mind.
"By the way, Kiryu... what exactly does Team Satisfaction do? What are we gathered together for?"
"Goal?!"
Kiryu's eyes lit up with frightening intensity. Throwing his arms wide, he declared in a voice bordering on theatrical recitation,
"Why, to stain all of Satellite—no, one day even lands far beyond it—with profound darkness!"
Dio: "???"
"Ahem... well... how do I explain this..."
Crow rubbed his forehead. After thinking for a long moment and still failing to find the right words, he finally looked to Yusei.
Receiving Crow's silent plea for help, Yusei calmly spoke up.
"Dio, do you know what duel gangs are?"
Dio shook his head.
"In Satellite, there are groups made up of skilled duelists. They rely on strong dueling ability—and violence outside of duels as well—to control certain areas, extort protection money from residents, monopolize resource trading, and bully the weak. Those are duel gangs."
So even a slum like Satellite had things like that...
"And our goal," Yusei continued, glancing at Kiryu and Jack, "is to challenge and defeat every one of those duel gangs, and break their control over Satellite."
"That's right!" Kiryu nodded forcefully and took over. "Only that can bring the ultimate satisfaction!"
Jack merely snorted. He did not say anything, but everyone knew exactly what he thought.
As Dio listened, the picture gradually became clear.
"So basically," he concluded, "our 'Team Satisfaction' is an organization that goes around challenging people to duels?"
Crow scratched his head and considered it for a second.
"Well... when you put it like that, I guess that's not wrong?"
"That actually sounds pretty interesting."
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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