Chapter Thirty-Five: The Game at the End of the Road

The monster Hayato had entrusted to him possessed negligible attack power, yet if its effect were to resolve, it could effortlessly destroy even a formidable creature like the Blue-Eyes.

Had he drawn that card? Detecting something in Yugi's gaze, Hayato nodded and shouted, "Go, Yugi! Let Kaiba witness the power of my soul!"

Yugi did not remark on the fact that Hayato’s "souls" seemed to be multiplying; instead, he nodded seriously in response and refocused his attention on the duel.

"Unlike you, who stands alone, I possess the strength gifted to me by my friends. This is the power of trust born from the resonance of our hearts!" Yugi declared, launching into his rebuttal as he slammed a card onto the field. "This is the power of the heart. I will prove to you right now that I can surpass your simple, pathetic strength."

"I set one monster face-down. Turn end!"

"Hahahaha! Fine words, yet in the end, you are still just clinging to survival, aren't you? My turn!" After glancing at the card he had drawn, Kaiba let out another excited laugh. "It seems even destiny is on my side, Yugi. I have drawn the second Blue-Eyes!"

Violent gusts of wind erupted as the dragon’s wings unfurled, sweeping across the field without restraint. The powerful Blue-Eyes White Dragon appeared once more, and now, two of them stood upon Kaiba’s side of the field.

"With this, no matter how many walls you summon, I can easily crush them all. Attack that monster, Blue-Eyes!"

The Blue-Eyes launched its attack again. A blue-white beam of light engulfed the monster Yugi had just summoned. But before Kaiba could continue his mockery, a pair of insect pincers suddenly emerged from the thick smoke surrounding the spot where the monster had been destroyed.

"You've walked right into my trap, Kaiba!" Yugi smirked. "The monster I set was this: Man-Eater Bug! When it is flipped face-up, its effect activates. It allows me to choose any monster on the field and destroy it."

"What!? Impossible!"

"That’s right. The one I am destroying is the Blue-Eyes on your field. Accept the resentment of the monster you destroyed and sink into the graveyard, strongest of dragons!"

The Man-Eater Bug crawled out of the smoke. Its lower body had been vaporized by the Blue-Eyes' attack, yet thanks to the immense vitality inherent to insects, it remained active.

Though it was merely a 2-star monster with a frail physique of 450/600, this tiny insect possessed the courage to challenge even the mighty Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

The massive white dragon’s throat was severed by the remaining pincers of the Man-Eater Bug. Its holy form crumbled into fragments that drifted into the graveyard. Due to this attack, Kaiba’s Life Points dropped from a comfortable 1,800 to a mere 300.

"Damn you, to think you’d destroy my Blue-Eyes!" Kaiba glared at Yugi, gnashing his teeth, and let out a cold snort. "Hmph, so you destroyed one of my Blue-Eyes, but what of it? Not only do I still have another on the field, but a third Blue-Eyes White Dragon also slumbers within my deck!"

"And how many more times can you summon such annoying monsters?"

Yugi had no retort for Kaiba’s words; the adrenaline that had surged from defeating the Blue-Eyes quickly cooled.

He was right. Although he had used Hayato’s power to destroy one Blue-Eyes, another still loomed menacingly on Kaiba’s field. And there was even a third one waiting in the deck.

Simply keeping his monsters in defense position was not a long-term solution. Even though he currently led in Life Points, a single strike from a Blue-Eyes would finish him. He had to find a way to break the stalemate!

Yugi glanced down at his hand, the worry between his brows refusing to fade. He had five cards, but aside from Gaia the Fierce Knight, which was reasonably strong, and a pathetic "normal" monster with less than 2,000 stats, the other three were monsters that seemed entirely... meaningless.

*What on earth was Grandpa thinking? He had access to monsters far more powerful than these, so why would he put these specific cards into the deck?*

*Please, Grandpa, if you are watching, show me where the possibility of victory lies!*

"My turn, draw!" He flipped over the card from the top of his deck: the Spell Card, Swords of Revealing Light!

"I activate Swords of Revealing Light!" Yugi played the card. Three blades glowing with holy light descended from the void above the remaining Blue-Eyes White Dragon, trapping it within a sword formation. "Kaiba, your Blue-Eyes White Dragon is now trapped for three turns and cannot battle!"

"Useless, useless, useless! The Blue-Eyes White Dragon is the strongest monster card; even if it cannot attack, your monsters have no way to break through this wall!" Kaiba laughed confidently. "A futile struggle! Even if I give you three turns, what could you possibly do?"

"I believe that my deck will respond to my heart!" According to the rules, if he had no monsters on the field at the end of his turn, he would lose immediately. Yugi summoned Gaia to the field and ended his turn.

"Hey, Yugi!" Suddenly, Yugi heard Hayato shouting at him from the sidelines.

"Hayato?"

"Yugi!" Hayato cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at Yugi, who stood on the elevated platform. "Trust in your deck! No monster is truly useless! You can never guess what the final image will be until the puzzle is complete!"

"A puzzle?" Hayato's shout reminded Yugi of what had happened earlier that day.

After Honda had finished writing his confession on a puzzle, Jonouchi had picked up a single piece and said: "Looking at just this one piece, there's no way to tell what that guy Honda actually wrote."

"Because with a puzzle, the individual pieces aren't very interesting on their own. It only gains meaning once the puzzle is complete," Anzu had said to Jonouchi at the time.

*Could it be that these cards are...* Yugi suddenly recalled Grandpa telling him that there were special monsters in Duel Monsters that could only unleash their true power when gathered together.

"My turn!"

Kaiba could not know what Yugi was thinking. He simply drew a card from his deck. Seeing the Ankh—the symbol of resurrection—on the card, Kaiba laughed triumphantly. "Hahahaha! You’re finished, Yu-gi!"

"I activate the Spell Card, Monster Reborn!"

"The effect of this card is to revive one monster sleeping in either graveyard. Naturally, I will revive my own monster!" Kaiba wore an arrogant expression as he shouted the monster's name:

"Return to my field, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!!"