However, the unexpected happened to Ryunosuke; Masuzu once again flipped her face-down card, which turned out to be Interdimensional Matter Transporter. This card immediately banished Gandora-X the Dragon of Demolition to another dimension, indirectly bypassing the effect that would have forced it into the graveyard at the end of the turn.
With this, on the next turn, Gandora-X would reappear on the field.
"This is bad!"
Ryunosuke mused anxiously. All of his minor plans had been tightly locked down; there was no more room left to turn the situation around.
Furthermore, Masuzu stated it bluntly.
"Among my five face-down cards, three of them are Interdimensional Matter Transporter. This means I can summon Gandora-X to the field three times!"
"You don't have the slightest chance of winning!!! Ryunosuke!!!"
Beads of sweat the size of peas appeared on Ryunosuke's forehead. This time, he was truly at a dead end. He had run out of ideas...
Dark Magician Girl glanced at her master with a slightly worried look. However, she remained standing tall, staring at the enemy in front of her; she believed that her master would surely find a way out...
Ryunosuke's breathing was now ragged, his heart pounding erratically. He clutched his chest, which felt tight due to the overwhelming pressure. He no longer knew what to do.
(That table-turning dragon can be activated three times, whereas in my deck, there isn't a single card that can reverse this victory.)
(A person is the one who knows their own cards best; in his deck, there truly were no cards that could defeat the opponent!)
"What should I do?"
Masuzu ended her turn calmly. To her, she had already won. She remembered every one of her opponent's cards clearly; there were no more cards left that could change the situation.
She looked at Ryunosuke with a pitying gaze. "I'm sorry, you no longer have a chance to win. But, if you agree to join the Yu-Gi-Oh tag-team tournament with me, I can return your cousin's cards."
Ryunosuke refused firmly!
"This isn't about cards anymore! This is about a life!!!"
Masuzu felt puzzled. "This is just playing cards, why bring up lives?"
Masuzu didn't know that the source of Ryunosuke's pressure was the prize money for the winner of this Yu-Gi-Oh tournament. That money was to be used to save Yuki's life! Regarding Yuki's mother and older brother, Ryunosuke unconsciously ignored them... A distant relative is no better than a close neighbor; that was roughly his principle. Compared to the lives of his mother-in-law and brother-in-law, he naturally prioritized the life of his wife...
At this moment, Ryunosuke's mind was filled with thoughts of Yuki. If he lost this match, would Yuki die?
The immense pressure blanketed his heart; even the finger that was about to draw a card trembled violently. He could not bring himself to draw the card for a long time. Ryunosuke was putting far too much pressure on himself.
Now it was Ryunosuke's turn. Seeing that her opponent had yet to draw, Masuzu reminded him kindly.
"Are you all right? It's just a game, there's no need to take it that seriously, right? If you lose, then you lose."
But Ryunosuke did not think so. With a bitter face, he said, "I have a reason that makes it so I cannot afford to lose in the slightest~"
"Oh, really..." Masuzu maintained her indifferent attitude. She didn't understand why the other party was so obsessed, considering this was just a Yu-Gi-Oh match. "I've also been defeated by you twice..."
Masuzu murmured softly. However, the man in front of her did possess a certain charm. Don't misunderstand; she wasn't in love with Ryunosuke, she simply admired someone with the same interests. Had she not been sneaky and frequently cheated, she might have lost from the very beginning.
From sabotaging the opponent's deck to memorizing all of the opponent's card information; no matter how the opponent shuffled, she remembered the positions of those cards clearly. To Masuzu, this was the same as seeing the opponent's cards face-up. If it weren't so, how could she repeatedly play the exact cards needed to counter the opponent? This was no coincidence, but a meticulously planned conspiracy.
She had used the hand-replenishing tactic earlier to discard Gandora-X to the graveyard as an emergency preparation. And those three Interdimensional Matter Transporter cards were the stroke of genius that ensured the opponent could not rise again. There were no cards left in the opponent's deck that could face her—unless the opponent could perform "on-the-spot card printing" like Yugi, otherwise, don't hope to win!
On Ryunosuke's side, the atmosphere turned into a chilling silence. His finger was still resting on the deck, but he could not draw. It felt as heavy as thousands of tons. He could feel it; what card was this? He would not be able to win this Yu-Gi-Oh match with that card.
For some reason, he had that premonition. Ryunosuke's soul seemed to fall into eternal darkness. There was no one here, pitch black, nothing to be seen. He was trapped in his own cycle of negative thoughts and could not get out.
Right at that moment, the replica Millennium Puzzle hanging around Ryunosuke's neck glowed for an instant and emitted a chime that lit up the space. Before Ryunosuke could realize what was happening, a voice he knew very well echoed from behind.
"Yo! Adult version of me, you seem to be suffering quite a bit, huh."
Ryunosuke suddenly turned around and found the figure of himself when he was still a child. Dressed in tattered clothes, looking exactly like a little beggar. The boy greeted him cheerfully. Little Ryunosuke hopped in front of him and mocked him.
"You're really useless. Why is it that the adult version of me is living a life that's regressing like this?"
"If it were me, I would win for you."
"Don't act like you know everything!" Ryunosuke immediately grabbed the collar of his younger self. "What do you know about me?!"
"Don't you know how desperate I am right now?!"
"If I lose, Yuki is finished too! You know that?!"
However, little Ryunosuke simply sneered.
"You're just too concerned with your dignity."
"Throw away your pride, go ask for help from your girlfriends—those dozen or so women. You ask just one person who has power and wealth, they could surely gather those billions, right?"
"For instance, Arisu, Hiyori, Masumi, Suzune, or even one of the five Nakano twins—they could all surely do it, right?"
"You're just too in love with your own self-respect."
"I'm not like you."
"I've lived a hard life since I was a kid and had no memories of a past life. To me, pride has no value; a plate of rice is worth more."
Ryunosuke was instantly silenced and released his grip. Little Ryunosuke did not let him off and continued to lecture him.
"Just because you recovered your past-life memories, you were influenced and ended up with this vague sense of pride. Throw it away, and you can still save Yuki."
Ryunosuke seemed like a small child being scolded by his younger self; he couldn't argue back in the slightest. Finally, Ryunosuke snapped out of it and looked toward the space of darkness.
"Forget it, you're right. If I lose, I lose."
Seeing that Ryunosuke understood, the little one felt satisfied, but suddenly his tone changed.
"Dammit, you said if you lose, you lose?! I won't stand for it!!!"
This sudden change in atmosphere left Ryunosuke stunned. Little Ryunosuke stood with his hands on his hips, stepped onto a stool that appeared out of nowhere, and then pointed at himself with his thumb.
"Win for me! My adult self!"
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