The following sunrise saw Phil and Jean back in the underground duel arena. After a good night’s sleep in a space sheltered from the biting wind, both men looked much less worse for wear, though they still were surrounded by a general air of shabbiness that was mostly in part due to their threadbare clothes and ragged beards. It was a problem that could only be solved by, in Lumina’s words, a shopping spree and a decent haircut.
For that same reason, it had also been put off by the men to a later, unspecified date for when they had both the extra money and the time to waste on such a pursuit. Why solve a problem, they thought, that hardly mattered? Shabby clothes would not bar them from entering the parlor, their usual thrift stores, or even Burger World, which they had returned to as paying customers several times after their windfall the previous day (both to enjoy the delicious coffee and to profusely thank Tea Gardner for her kindness).
Like most other days, the arena was bustling with activity. A lengthy queue had formed, and after about an hour of waiting, Phil found himself next up to bat once the current duelists in the battle box finished their game. Jean, as unfortunate as the Frenchman was, found himself much further back in the queue. Nearly twenty people were between himself and Phil.
“Right there!” Phil snapped his fingers as he stared daggers at the screens above the battle box, “My eyes aren’t lying. Jim had a Hyozanryu (2100/2800) in his hand. I saw it briefly, nothing more than a flash, but I recognized the card. One of my old buddies back in the day fucking loved using it. I know that for a fact. If he woulda’ sacrificed his Fairy Dragon (1100/1200) and Lizard Soldier (1100/800) to summon it, Jim woulda’ won right then and there. Daiki had nothing on his field that could have stopped it. No face-downs, no big beaters.”
Jean rubbed his scraggly goatee in thought. “A mistake? Or something more, do you think?”
"I don't know," Phil said. He leaned back, stretching like a long, skinny cat in a patch of particularly delightful sunlight as he prepared to move out once the game ended. “You’d need to be dumb as dirt to make that mistake. It’s possible, but I’ve only met one or two people in my life that would fit the bill. Does he just not care at all about winning? Hard to believe since this is a for-profit format.”
“Unless…” Phil leaned forward and rubbed his beard. His eyes took on a sharp gleam. “This place is all about gambling. Did someone pay Jim off to take a dive?”
Jean shot a wary glance toward the betting table. Now that Daiki had performed the finishing blow to reduce Jim’s life points to zero, the table was going wild with spectators running up to collect their winnings. Several less fortunate gamblers had broken down into incoherent sobbing messes on the floor after losing every penny to their name.
“Merde! You might be right. Good thing we’ve only been betting on each other.”
“Damn right!” Phil clapped Jean solidly on the back, and then his grin widened. “Eyes up Frenchie, your girl’s in the house!”
Jean quickly licked his palm to start smoothing out his hair as Tilla began to make her way from the elevator to their location.
“Quick! How do I look?” Jean whispered hurriedly.
“Like a scruffy French rapscallion seconds away from knifing me for my wallet in a back alley,” Phil replied with a shit-eating grin.
“Good! Tilla likes the roguish types.” Jean smirked back. Shooting to his full height, Jean wolf-whistled over to Tilla, waving her over to take a seat next to him. “Beautiful woman! Good morning, good morning!”
As Tilla gracefully sat down next to Jean, Phil hopped to his feet and began his march to the battle box now that the previous set of duelists had finally cleared out. Jean had already reserved a bet on Phil’s game, placing their remaining chips (consisting of four blacks and five blues) on Phil winning. No bets were made on ending life point values, as they had a feeling the duelists today would be a little bit more prepared to face them than the day before.
Within the battle box it was business as usual. Phil stuck the electrodes onto his arms, sat down on the painfully uncomfortable steel chair, gave his deck a quick, yet thorough shuffle, and shot a curious glance at his opponent. So far, both he and Jean had faced an interesting variety of duelists. From screaming madmen like Mac N' Cheese, to composed beauties like Saint Seven, to ordinary Japanese salarymen like Taka.
The man who walked into the battle box to sit opposite of Phil was hardly any different. Introducing himself as Amachi to Phil’s cheery greeting of ‘wassup’, the man had a wide enough grin that it looked like his lips were attempting to break out from his face and run for the hills. His clothes were ragged, to the point where they were filled with more holes than even Phil’s coat was. The skin that poked out from under the cloth was pale, almost sickly looking. That sickly look seemed to permeate both the man’s body and his every action, infecting his movements, his smile, and even his dull grey eyes. Nor did the man appear to be used to moving at all. Each stretch of his arms, each gesture of his hands, was stiff and awkward. His fingers were clumsy as he shuffled his deck, and his lips moved like they were infused with lead with each word he spoke.
Nando began his usual introduction to the audience. “Introducing.” He began in a lower voice and worked his way to louder volumes with each word. “An ordinary salaryman who refuses to give us any more information about his daily life. AMACHI! AND! In the other corner, a man whom I have been informed has moved out from under the bridge to an apartment. PHIL!”
As before, a hologram of a coin flickered to life in the middle of the table, spinning up into the air and landing on the edge of the table.
“HEADS!” Nando screamed. “AMACHI GOES FIRST, PHIL TAKES SECOND! BEGIN!”
Phil: 4000 Amachi: 4000
No words spilled from Amachi's mouth, the man taciturnly setting one card face-down and ending his turn.
Phil drew a card and cooly considered his options. Since he was going second, it was unusual for Amachi’s strategy to still be unknown. The face-down had told him exactly jack and shit about any sort of playstyle or preferences. That meant, in this era of slower play and random blowout cards, moderation mixed with caution would be key. It wasn't like he could take advantage of the opening at this moment anyway.
“Good to see some old friends in my hand. I set one monster in face-down defense position and one card face-down. Pass.” Phil said in simple words, arcing an eyebrow in curiosity over what he would see from Amachi.
"Draw," Amachi said creakily with a voice that hardly seemed to be used often. “In my standby phase, my face-down spell card activates. Curse of Fiend! Your defense position monster will be changed to attack position!”
Phil sucked in a breath. Interesting indeed. Usually, a normal spell card would be impossible to activate during the standby phase, but Curse of Fiend was one of the few spells in existence that possessed a special caveat in its text that not only allowed its activation in the standby phase, but flat-out required it.
“Fine by me. Say hello to my flea-covered friend, Bubonic Vermin (900/600), which will get its flip effect activated to special summon another vermin to my field in face-down defense position!”
A tiny hamster squeaked in surprise as it was abruptly forced to reveal itself under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the arena.
“In my main phase, I activate Call of the Mummy. This continuous spell will allow me to special summon one zombie monster from my hand to the field if I control no monsters. Then, following that I activate Pot of Greed to draw two cards. Using my spell’s effect, I special summon Corroding Shark (1100/700) in attack position! Then I normal summon Decayed Commander (1000/1500), which possesses an effect to special summon one Zombie Tiger (1400/1600) from my hand.
“A TRUE ZOMBO COMBO!” Nando roared, standing up onto the bleachers to hype up the crowd with his every word.
In quick succession, three zombie monsters sprang to life on Amachi’s field. The first, a rotting great white shark, floated silently in a sphere of water. The second, a zombified samurai, stood at attention, its broken sword at the ready. The third and final was a massive, mummified sabretooth tiger, with bits of brown fur poking out from rotting bandages.
“Tiger’s union effect activates. By equipping itself to Decayed Commander as an equip spell, my commander will gain 500 attack and defense points.”
Decayed Commander (1000/1500 -> 1500/2000).
“Attack! Commander destroys the vermin in attack mode!” Amachi said. Even though his voice had taken on a tone of excitement, his words were still monotone and rather dull.
Phil: 3400 Amachi: 4000
Right as Phil was about to speak, his voice became distorted with pain as a feeling akin to a mule kicking him in the chest roared through his body upon taking the battle damage from the first Bubonic Vermin’s death. Belatedly he realized it was a similar electrical shock to what he’d experienced the previous day, but several times worse – to the point where it actually managed to test his pain tolerance. His arms twitched, black spots covered his vision, his hearing faded briefly, and he could even feel his heart skip a beat.
"Both commander and tiger will activate their effects! When inflicting battle damage, Decayed Commander discards a random card from your hand! When the monster it's equipped to destroys an enemy creature, Zombie Tiger discards a random card from your hand!"
His hand shaking, Phil powered through the pain to flip over his face-down card amid a burst of his own wild, pained laughter. “In response to the discards, my continuous trap card activates! Forced Requisition! From now on, each time I discard from my hand, you must discard the same number of cards from yours! We’re both going down in flames!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Lumina’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. That time, Phil had actually cried out in pain. Moreover, she could see a small fleck of blood on his lips. It was small, for sure. Nothing the audience could see. But from where she was, leaning against the inside wall of the battle box to entertain herself with a close-up look at the game, the tiny crimson smear was as plain as could be.
Something was wrong.
A glance over to that ‘Chet’ man caused her suspicions to deepen. The yakuza was watching Phil’s every action with a smirk on his face, as if he was savoring her friend’s pain. It didn’t take a genius for Lumina to put together the pieces – someone had increased the voltage on Phil, and Chet was in on it.
In the back of her mind, a reckless voice urged Lumina to tear out the man’s throat with her bare hands. Another voice, one more reasonable, mentioned lightly that doing so in front of about 50-odd witnesses could cause problems.
In the end, Lumina went for caution. Only after she and Phil figured out the situation in its entirety, could any sort of vengeance be done. Besides, it wasn’t like she was the only one who was capable of vengeance. Phil had quite a talent in that field as well. Perhaps if the situation called for it and he played his cards right, that vengeance could also be used as fuel for D.3.S. Frog.
“Phil. Something’s wrong. Chet’s looking over here as smug as a cat with a fish in its mouth. I think he jacked up the voltage on you for some reason. Either that or someone he knows did."
"Yeah," Phil said, masking the words with a groan. "I figured."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Two holographic dice spun out onto the table to decide which cards would be discarded from Phil’s hand, even as Amachi’s Corroding Shark tore into his face-down Bubonic Vermin, activating the hamster’s effect to summon the third and final copy from Phil’s deck in face-down defense position.
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Hane-Hane and Sengenjin were both lost to the graveyard through cruel, cruel RNG. Even so, Phil hardly paid the losses any mind. Chet. For some reason, the asshole fucked with the electricity. Was it to get more of a reaction from Phil to hype up the crowd? Or was it something else?
No matter. The turn passed to him, and Phil forcibly subdued his shaking hands to draw a card. So what if each hit felt like it would stop his heart? He’d gone through worse before. His ribs had been snapped. His skin had been flayed. He’d been burned. Stabbed. Sliced up. Shot. Hit with a truck. Hell, he’d had an insane eldritch abomination screaming in his head for a full night.
Getting electrocuted was nothing compared to that.
“Draw!” Phil shouted, wasting no time in getting to his next action. “Thunder Dragon’s effect activates! Discarding one copy to add one copy! Forced Requisition triggers to rip a card from your hand!”
This was another of the small strategies baked into the deck Solomon built. Each one was capable of meshing together like gears making up complex machinery, or working alone to get the job done. Here, Forced Requisition would rip a card out of Amachi’s hand each time he discarded to use Thunder Dragon’s effect – and the best part was, Phil could choose to search either one Thunder Dragon, or both Thunder Dragons from the discard effect. Usually there was no point in grabbing one at a time, but with his trap card in play and no Polymerization in hand, the situation was different.
“Then for the extra fuck you, Thunder Dragon’s effect activates again! Discarding my second copy to search up the third! Forced Requisition triggers!”
Starting with one Thunder Dragon, Phil had completely emptied what was left of Amachi’s hand.
“Sacrificing my face-down Bubonic Vermin, I tribute summon Thunder Dragon (1600/1500).”
A long green dragon with no arms or legs soared onto the field, with miniature bolts of lightning crackling in the air around it.
“Battle phase! Thunder Dragon, attack Decayed Commander!”
Even as the dragon tore into the zombie warrior with electrified jaws, Amachi held up a hand.
“Zombie Tiger’s union effect activates. If Decayed Commander would be destroyed while it is equipped, I can destroy Zombie Tiger instead.”
Phil: 3400 Amachi: 3900
A spurt of electricity surged through the electrodes attached to Amachi’s chest, so much so that the man’s skin smoked.
Yet, Amachi did not even blink. He made no such move that would suggest that he’d just been shocked by a dangerous amount of electricity.
“Pass.” Phil said. As much as it hurt, he had no traps or useful quick-play spells to set this time.
“Draw card.” Amachi said. Even now his voice was still in a monotone. “Sacrificing Decayed Commander, I tribute summon Ryu Kokki (2400/2000).
Phil’s eyes shot wide open. Now this, this was a familiar card. Used often by zombie-type decks in GOAT format, it was a powerful level six monster that possessed an effect to instantly destroy any warrior or spellcaster monster it battled at the end of the damage step. That last bit hardly mattered at the moment, but its 2400 attack points certainly did. It far outclassed Phil’s Thunder Dragon.
Phil braced himself as the grinning creature made from countless numbers of fused skulls raced screaming toward Thunder Dragon, disemboweling the dragon with one flick of its razor-sharp claws. Right after that raced the jaws of Corroding Shark, slicing right into Phil’s life points.
Phil: 1500 Amachi: 3900
This time Phil was ready. With only the faintest of groans escaping his lips, Phil clenched his teeth and tightened his muscles to weather the blast of electricity. Once more he could feel his heart skip a beat, and the taste of warm iron spread over his lips.
“WOOHOO! WOAH MOMMA!” Phil shouted out, pounding his fist against the table. “I tell ya’ that’s the stuff to fucking wake a guy up, that’s for sure. Either that or to fry his balls. Damn well stronger than a cup of coffee, a smile, and a punch to the face.” Spouting such cocksure words, Phil was almost able to completely banish the pain to a forgotten corner in his head, to be completely ignored.
“I draw!” Phil said. Three cards in his hand, no cards on the field. It would be difficult for him to rebuild his board presence. Meanwhile, Amachi had no cards in his hand and two monsters on the field. It would be difficult for the man to regain card advantage if Phil broke his board.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Phil’s taking the hits hard today.” Jean leaned forward with a frown. “Something’s wrong. He’s a strong man. He should be able to shake off those jolts like they’re nothing.”
Tilla fell silent, her head between the battle box and the betting table like it was on a swivel. Then, she spoke, almost hesitantly.
“I wonder… this is only hearsay, but the Mori Family might be laying some groundwork here.”
“Groundwork?”
“It’s different for me. The group I claim membership to, the Duel Professors, has an agreement with the Mori Family. We duel like usual and the crowds come in based on our reputation alone. But… I have heard rumors of the Mori Family pressuring duelists without any backing to take the occasional dive.”
Understanding dawned on Jean’s face. “Did they increase the voltage to give Phil a taste of what would happen if he says no?”
Tilla serenely nodded. “Possibly. One can only know for certain if they send a representative to speak with Phil, or both of you, after this game. It could also be a technical mistake, or your friend simply waking up on the wrong side of the futon this morning.”
Jean tilted his head in consideration and then shook his head. "No. Phil’s like me. A simple shock is nothing to us.”
“Then we shall see.” Tilla hummed in thought. Then, she paused, saying a few more words as if in afterthought. “It is a shame our group is full. You two would make fine Duel Professors.”
Jean’s face brightened and he swooped in to plant a big kiss on Tilla’s cheek, causing her to faintly blush. “Beautiful and thoughtful! But no matter, if the rumors are true, then we shall find a way out of this bind ourselves, without sinking so low as to play at any level other than our full strength!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil powered through it all. Glancing at his hand, he let out a wild cackle and set one monster in face-down defense position.
“You don’t even know what I’m laughing about!” He laughed all the more wildly. “Dawg you’ve got half a GOAT deck that’s gimped to hell and back! Any zombie deck worth its salt shoulda’ killed me by now! Where’s your Vampire Lords? Why no Pyramid Turtles? I should be shitting my pants in fear right now, not laughing my ass off!”
“Draw card.” Amachi tonelessly replied, Phil’s taunts falling on deaf ears. “Spell card, Remove Trap, activates to destroy your face-up trap card. Then, my battle phase will begin.”
Phil cleared off his Forced Requisition with a casual shrug. It had done its job of clearing out Amachi’s hand quite nicely, and now that his Thunder Dragons were gone, it was not of much use.
“Corroding Shark attacks your face-down!” Amachi sternly commanded, causing Phil to let out a shit-eating grin.
“Sorry dude, but it’s Nimble Momonga (1000/100)! And when my funny flying squirrel dies, I gain 1000 life points and pull out two more copies from my deck in face-down defense position.”
Amachi said nothing to that, other than to order his Ryu Kokki to clear off another one of the Nimble Momonga.
Phil: 3500 Amachi: 3900
“Now it’s all coming together.” Phil said, drawing a card while perfectly maintaining his shit-eating grin. “First, let me sweeten the draw by activating Pot of Greed to draw two! Now, an actually good zombie deck could shrug off something like this next play. Key words being ‘actually good’. Summoning Sangan (1000/600) in attack mode, I activate Share the Pain! This spell card will force both of us to tribute a monster on our field. My choice is Sangan.”
Amachi wordlessly sent Corroding Shark to the graveyard while Phil resolved the effect of Sangan to add a Giant Rat to his hand.
"Yes, yes. I know." Phil mockingly waved a hand in acknowledgment. "Big zombie boi is still on the field. Well, guess who just got a dark monster in his graveyard? And guess what needs a dark monster in the graveyard? It's the one, it's the only, it's Chaos Sorcerer! By banishing my light-attribute Thunder Dragon and my dark-attribute Sangan, I can special summon Chaos Sorcerer (2300/2000) from my hand."
Phil had done this countless times in the past back on Earth. Yet, this was the first time summoning the menace of GOAT format had elicited such a reaction from the spectators. Once the black-cloaked and pale-skinned sorcerer floated onto the field, the crowd went wild.
“CHAOS SORCERER?!?!?! OUR VERY OWN NEWBIE SUMMONS A VERY ADVANCED MONSTER! DUELISTS, IF YOU’RE STILL PLACING YOUR BETS, YOU’D BEST RECONSIDER, BECAUSE THIS MONSTER HAS ONLY BEEN SEEN IN SERIOUS ADVANCED LEVELS OF PLAY, AND THIS MAN AIN’T NO CARD PROFESSOR! HE DOESN’T HAVE A SINGLE TITLE WIN TO HIS NAME!”
“Yeah…” Phil glanced at his monster, “Advanced. Or something like that. I keep forgetting this place is in the fucking stone age. Anyway, Chaos Sorcerer’s gonna use his effect to banish your Ryu Kokki, though he won’t be able to attack this turn.
And Amachi’s field was cleared of all obstacles. To the impassioned roars of the crowd, Phil flip-summoned his remaining Nimble Momonga and ordered it to strike his opponent directly.
Phil: 3500 Amachi: 2900
“Draw.” Amachi creakily said once Phil ended his turn. “One monster face-down, turn end.”
Now the flow of the duel was becoming quite clear to even the barest observation – with Amachi’s board broken and his hand emptied, the tempo was squarely in Phil’s control.
“Well, Chaos Sorcerer can’t banish face-down monsters, so I’ll summon Giant Rat (1400/1450) in attack mode and go right on to battle! Chaos Sorcerer, clear out the face-down!”
A glob of white and purple magic splashed onto Amachi’s card, revealing a bandaged mummy leaning against a chipped gravestone.
"Poison Mummy's (1000/1800) flip effect activates. You take 500 points of damage."
Phil winced but powered on, ordering Nimble Momonga and Giant Rat to attack directly.
Phil: 3000 Amachi: 500
Amachi’s body jerked and writhed from the electricity pumping through his skin, but still the man made no pained gasps or shouts. He was silent, eerily silent.
Amachi drew a card as Phil’s turn ended. He stared at the one card in his hand. It was all he had, other than the Call of the Mummy spell card on the field.
And then, he placed his hand flat on his deck to indicate his surrender. The crowd went wild, half of them shouting insults at Amachi for, in their words, ‘pussing out’, while the other half screamed themselves hoarse to celebrate Phil’s victory.
“No shame in scooping.” Phil shrugged as Amachi wordlessly got up. Amachi, however, did not respond. Lurching out of the battle box, either from stiffness or exhaustion, the man simply left.
Then, as Phil wrenched the electrodes from his body, one of the two doors to the battle box opened behind him. There was something… off about Amachi, but he couldn’t quite get his finger on what exactly that was. It was a gut feeling.
Before Phil could think about that any longer, a tap on the shoulder grabbed his attention, and he glanced over his shoulder to look at the man behind him. It was one of the sleazy yakuza fellas that normally hung out at the betting table.
“Chet wants a word.” The man jerked his head to redirect Phil’s attention over to the side of the underground arena, where Chet was leaning against a door with a grin on his face. Upon seeing Phil’s gaze, Chet mockingly waved his hand. Phil shrugged, exiting the box and waving Jean over.
“You think this is about the voltage?” Lumina whispered, falling into step next to Phil.
“Probably.” Phil murmured back soft enough so that the yakuza couldn’t hear him. “He better have a good fucking explanation.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
In a deserted alley not so far away from the duel parlor, Amachi’s slow, measured steps came to a halt. The alley was filled with snow several inches deep, and stinking trash bags lined the walls around dumpsters that clearly hadn’t been emptied since the snowstorm began. Amachi's body shivered and then shuddered. A fly crawled out from behind his eye to skitter across his skin, tasting the surface with its proboscis. His mouth opened wide to almost impossible lengths, his jaw cracking and splintering as it popped out of its hinges. No clouds of foggy breath billowed out from his mouth. In fact, the man did not appear to breathe at all.
A smokey substance began to leak out from between Amachi’s jaws as a dark shape took form above his head. Then, Amachi fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Quickly, the shape twisted and swirled in the air until it took on an appearance similar to that of the upper body of a skeleton. Its torso and up were made from that smokey substance, formed into the barest suggestion of bones. Its head, which became slightly blurred by every gust of wind that raced through the stinking alley and across the grimy bricks forming the alley walls, looked like a semi-melted skull.
Grasping its skeletal hands together, the strange spirit rose high into the air and then dove forcefully downward to disappear under one of the trash bags. For a moment, all was silent aside from the howling wind, but then the trash bag shifted. A man, once hidden under the trash bags, silently emerged. His eyes were lifeless. No pulse thrummed away on his neck, and inside his chest, his heart was still. The body – or perhaps, to be more accurate, the corpse, cracked its neck and wasted no time digging its hands into the snow, bringing a clump of the fluffy white flakes close to its mouth to breathe scorching hot air onto.
The snow melted almost instantly to form a small puddle of water in the corpse’s hands. Then from the corpse’s mouth a cluster of arcane words that had not been heard in the world since ancient times long forgotten was issued. The water in its hands swirled by itself, first going clockwise, and then counterclockwise. The corpse’s hands then brightened as several glowing red hieroglyphs carved themselves into his palms.
And then, from within the puddle of water in its hands, a voice spoke.
“Report.”
The corpse opened its mouth, speaking in the same monotone voice as Amachi once had.
“Red Summer, I have news. The key and scale have left Domino. The ritual failed to locate the pendant and the ring.”
The voice in the puddle fell silent for a few seconds, and then Red Summer replied with a calm, yet forceful tone.
“Indeed. Scrying countermeasures are to be expected on artifacts such as those." Then, as if he was only speaking to himself, the voice continued with a thoughtful tone. "I wonder… if it is the materials used or another factor?”
The corpse creakily shook its head. “We used the best available. There is another matter to bring to your attention.”
Red Summer’s voice took on an air of curiosity. “Speak, Pink Winter.”
“A duelist with a soul that does not match his body. Moreover, the soul has traces of divinity left on it. As if at one point it was touched by a higher existence. His talent is not bad.” The corpse by the name of Pink Winter replied.
“Does he know of your full strength?” Red Summer’s words sharpened, but immediately dulled after Pink Winter’s response.
“He does not. I purposely hid the true strategy of my deck.”
“I see. Look into the matter later. For now, clean up the loose ends and return to the sanctum. My auguries have confirmed my suspicions – our chance to take the eye draws near.”
Pink Winter touched a stiff hand riddled with rigor mortis to his forehead in a sign of acknowledgment.
“One step closer to divinity.” Red Summer said, and Pink Winter echoed those words before letting his palmful of water run off onto the ground.
His task done, Pink Winter turned a stiff head toward the corpse of Amachi. His hand dipped into Amachi’s pocket, pulling out his deck and withdrawing a card from the center.
“Sparks.” Pink Winter said, revealing a spell card of the same name. The card showed a picture of a roaring flame jumping into the air. And, for a moment, the air was silent – until with a roar the air ignited. Fire filled the alley, rushing around the space to consume everything in its path, only deviating from its task to avoid Pink Winter’s stoic form. Trash bags burned to a crisp, metal dumpsters melted into slag,
And within it all, going almost unnoticed, the body of Amachi was burned to a crisp to leave nothing behind. Not even ash.
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