The Ultimate Move

“Gotcha!! That was a fun duel!”

“Have you ever asked me whether I’m also having fun?”

I rested my chin on my palms, and threw the duel cards I had in my other hand towards my opponent. For a rookie like me, winning against Ono Tsutomu, the Duel King of Hoshijo High was an impossible feat.

Speaking of the school…it was connected to Sakuraya Elementary school and junior high. It stood near Shiroyama Park, the elderly’s favorite getaway.

From the school windows, we could see a castle atop the 66-meter hill. The castle on top of the hill belonged to the Satomi clan that ruled southern Chiba, but it was torn down by the Tokugawa shogunate. It was only rebuilt thirty years ago. From there, you could sometimes see Mount Fuji on days where the weather was good enough.

Even with this historical landmark, Tateyama was not a tourist town.

Back to the duel.

“Come on, I only had 1000 LP left this time. You’re getting better.” Tsutomu laughed, carefully stacking his cards up.

“I thought everybody’s playing Vanguard or Battle Spirits nowadays. You guys are still playing Yugi cards?” Our LP calculator spoke up.

Her name was Izayoi Shou. She performed the calculator duty every time Tsutomu dueled, and never made a mistake (but you have to be patient while she read card descriptions. You can never bend the rules and cheat when she’s around).

“I won’t be doing this if Tsutomu doesn’t pay me a hundred yen per game.” She once said.

“Tch, Izayoi, are you looking down on the spirits of my cards?!” Tsutomu banged the table. Yo, chill, nobody’s trying to talk shit about your Blue-Eyes White Dragon or Exodia or whatever’s in that deck.

“You’re just a Duel King in a school where nobody duels! So what? Are you going to duel on a motorbike next? Sure, let’s go, Jack Ass-last.” Izayoi shrugged.

“I don’t want to hear anything from somebody that greeted their big brother with Big brother, I know you’ll come! You Seiya trash!” Tsutomu shouted back.

“What, you want some Pegasus Meteor Fist?!”

“At least I’m not such a weeb that I changed my name to match the heroine of a spin-off manga!”

“What? I hate my name. Hana sounds so generic. Shut up or I’m going to unleash my Equuleus Meteor Fist on you!”

The two kept on their noisy conversation. I finished stacking up the cards and handed the deck back to Tsutomu.

“How was your last draw of fate? You were gone for a week.” Tsutomu took the cards.

“I almost died.” I wanted to throw the deck at him. He was always so carefree, unlike his father, who owned a business in driving a glass-bottom boat in the sea. His father was the very definition of an Asian parent, but that had no effect on our Tsutomu.

“Are you alright, though?” Izayoi asked. “If there is anything this Izayoi Shou can do to aid you, please do not hesitate to say it. My cosmo is for Athena, and my life is for my nakama.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I replied, recalling how I almost didn’t make it out alive.