Chapter 42
[Ding -- Bastion Misawa's Emotion Value +300!]
The pleasant system chime put an even sunnier edge on Rowan's smile.
In the observation area, Alexis, Syrus, and the others took a moment to process what they'd just seen -- and then their expressions grew progressively stranger.
Two of the three set cards Rowan had laid down at the start were both Nightmare Wheel.
Nobody had seen that coming. Not one of them.
Looking back, that small curl of his mouth when he'd drawn his opening card during the first turn... that had probably been the moment he'd seen the second Nightmare Wheel in his hand.
"Even so, the field looks fairly even now," Alexis said, the faintest smile crossing her face as she watched.
Bastion had paid half his LP to activate Solemn Judgment and negate the first Nightmare Wheel.
That left him at 2000 LP. His hand was completely empty.
The only thing on his field was Water Dragon, bound inside that torture machine and liable to break free at any moment -- still a meaningful advantage, but a precarious one.
On Rowan's side, there were no monsters at all. Besides the Nightmare Wheel locking down Water Dragon, he had only one remaining set card.
But his LP was untouched at 4000, and he still held two cards in hand.
Combine that with Nightmare Wheel draining 500 LP from Bastion at the start of every turn, and he had his own foothold.
If Bastion couldn't destroy the second Nightmare Wheel within four turns -- or destroy Water Dragon himself to end the drain -- then the win would go to Rowan.
Simple arithmetic.
But if Bastion managed to break the Nightmare Wheel quickly enough in the turns ahead, Rowan would still have to deal with a field that included those revived Hydrogeddon and Oxygeddon.
That wouldn't be comfortable.
Alexis worked through it quietly in her head.
"My turn -- end!"
With an empty hand and only a restrained Water Dragon on his field, Bastion had nothing to work with.
He held Rowan's gaze for a moment and passed, unable to do anything else.
"My turn. Draw!"
Rowan pulled a card. His smile didn't waver. "At this moment, I activate Nightmare Wheel's second effect!"
The skeletal machine gripping Water Dragon lit up with an arc of crackling current.
"Ah!"
The electricity lanced across the field and reached Bastion with a sharp, stinging jolt.
His LP ticked down by 500, settling at 1500.
Bastion's expression tightened.
At this rate, he had three draws left before it was over.
The silver lining was that his deck held several cards capable of solving this problem.
He just needed to reach one.
"I set one monster face-down in Defense Position, then set one card face-down. Turn end."
Rowan placed another monster face-down and added a second set card beside it.
His field now showed one horizontal monster card and two set cards waiting in the back row.
"Another face-down monster," Bastion muttered, eyebrows drawing together.
"Though I'll admit, this kind of play genuinely messes with your opponent's reads. I'm taking notes."
He straightened. "But the victory in this duel is still mine. My turn -- draw!"
He drew carefully, deliberately.
One look at the card, and his confidence snapped back into place.
"The card I need to turn this around is in my hand, Rowan!"
A ripple of curiosity moved through the observation area. Students who had drifted over from other matches leaned in. Crowler straightened up.
Alexis, Syrus, Jaden -- all of them fixed their eyes on the card in Bastion's hand.
"Quick-Play Spell -- Mystical Space Typhoon!"
Bastion held it up.
"This card destroys one Spell or Trap Card on the field. And what I'm destroying is the Continuous Trap Nightmare Wheel that's been holding Water Dragon in place!"
"Break free -- Water Dragon!"
A whirlwind tore from the Mystical Space Typhoon card and slammed into the Nightmare Wheel on Rowan's side of the field, ripping it apart and scattering it into nothing.
"ROOAAR!"
The skeletal machine that had been binding the great blue dragon shattered from within as Water Dragon's roar shook the field.
It tore itself free in an instant, enormous and furious.
"Letting Water Dragon loose would be a bit of a headache, so... activate face-down -- Continuous Trap, Fiendish Chain."
Rowan raised his Duel Disk arm like he'd been expecting this all along.
One of the two remaining set cards on his field flipped up, revealing its image: a mass of dark chains wrapped tight around a shadowy demon figure.
"Target one Effect Monster on the field. As long as this card remains, that monster cannot attack, and its effect is negated while it's on the field."
Chains erupted from thin air across the field.
And just like that -- one after another, link by link -- they coiled around Water Dragon all over again, binding it completely before it could take a single step.
"Again?!" Bastion stared.
He looked at Water Dragon, thrashing helplessly in its new restraints, and felt something shift inside him for the first time in a duel.
Something he wasn't used to feeling.
[Ding -- Bastion Misawa's Emotion Value +500!]
"..."
Even the watching students had gone quiet.
Alexis, Jaden, and the others stared at the field with expressions that had moved past shock and into a kind of numb exhaustion.
The Nightmare Wheel was gone.
And he'd just pulled out chains.