Chapter 206: King's Resonance! Majestic Shooting Star!
The pillar of light that burst from Amano Rei's raised fingertips stretched endlessly into the sky. The beam drove straight through the clouds and came back down carrying something enormous in its wake, something that had no business existing on any ordinary track.
Majestic Shooting Star Dragon descended.
As a Level 11 Synchro Monster, the card came with conditions that should have made it nearly impossible to summon mid-duel: Majestic Dragon as the Tuner, a Dragon-type Synchro non-Tuner as the second material, and no shortcuts allowed. King's Resonance dismissed all of that. The trap had its own rules, and those rules were simple: if the monster was a Synchro, it was coming out.
The saving light blazing through the heavens caught Scar-Red Nova Dragon's killing strike and swallowed it whole.
Over in the Team 5D's prep area, Crow nearly fell sideways off his seat.
"Yusei." He grabbed his partner's arm. "Why does Amano have that card? Isn't Majestic Shooting Star Dragon Stardust Dragon's evolved form? That should be yours."
"No." Yusei Fudo answered honestly. "The Majestic Shooting Star Dragon Amano is using is stronger than anything I have summoned. And he has used Stardust Dragon before as well."
He left it there for a moment before he continued.
During the Fortune Cup Riding Duel Tournament, before he and Jack had reached any real understanding between them, Kiryu had ambushed him the night before the race. The injuries put him out of the competition. Unable to ride, Yusei had entrusted Stardust Dragon to Amano Rei.
The bond between Amano and Stardust Dragon had been forged in that moment. The card placed in his hands that night became the deciding factor when Amano brought Jack Atlas down in the Fortune Cup final.
"So it is the same setup as back then."
Watching Majestic Shooting Star Dragon take shape above the track, Jack Atlas felt the Fortune Cup final crash through his memory like a wave hitting a wall. That duel had looked like a guaranteed win for his Red Dragon Archfiend, right up until Stardust Dragon appeared from nowhere and cut everything short.
The voice from that day still stung. "I activate Stardust Dragon's effect, negating and destroying Red Dragon Archfiend's destruction effect. The duel is yours to lose, Jack Atlas."
And here, standing in the same position that Red Dragon Archfiend Tyrant had just vacated, was Majestic Shooting Star Dragon. A different evolution of the same stardust lineage. The same wall thrown up between Jack and the finish line.
"Don't make me laugh!" Jack's voice rang out over the wind tearing between their D-Wheels. "A king does not crash on the same road twice! Even if you have a brand-new Stardust form up there, Scar-Red Nova Dragon still has the higher attack points!"
That was accurate enough on paper. Scar-Red Nova Dragon sat at 4500 attack points, a full five hundred above Majestic Shooting Star Dragon's 4000.
But this turn, Scar-Red Nova Dragon's attack had already been negated by King's Resonance. It could not strike a second time.
"I set two cards face-down. Turn end."
Jack's D-Wheel roared past. The turn changed. Amano accelerated into the space the other had just cleared, the track shining silver beneath the light trailing off Majestic Shooting Star Dragon's wings above him.
"My turn. Draw!"
Speed Counters: 4 to 5.
His draw was exactly what he had been waiting for.
"I activate Speed Spell: Angel Baton. And I simultaneously activate Double Speedcast from my Graveyard, the trap that Red Dragon Archfiend Tyrant destroyed earlier this duel. I banish it from the Graveyard to copy a Speed Spell's effect once."
Two Angel Batons fired in a single move. A small angel's offering stacked into something approaching a divine one.
"Resolving both, I discard Yuyu and Protector with Eyes of Blue from my hand."
The two cards slid into the discard slot. He drew four fresh cards and held them for a moment without playing a single one, staring at the dragon soaring ahead of him through the rushing air.
"I activate Majestic Shooting Star Dragon's effect. Light of Salvation."
The great dragon spread its luminous wings and turned the full force of its starlight on Scar-Red Nova Dragon. The effect was precise: once per turn, select one of the opponent's Effect Monsters and negate its effects. With Scar-Red Nova Dragon's effects shut off, its attack points would fall from 4500 back to its base of 3500, dropping it below Majestic Shooting Star Dragon's 4000.
"Not a chance." Jack did not pause for even a breath. "I activate Scar-Red Nova Dragon's effect! This card banishes itself from the field until the End Phase, and in exchange, one attack this turn is negated!"
The anime version of Scar-Red Nova Dragon carried an ability the printed card had never seen. On the opponent's turn, at Quick Effect speed, the dragon could slip into a separate dimension and take a negation with it on the way out.
"Not a chance," Amano said, his voice carrying the exact same weight Jack's had a second before.
Majestic Shooting Star Dragon's second effect activated. When the opponent activated a card or effect, the dragon could banish itself from the field until the End Phase, negate that activation entirely, and remove the source from the game.
The chain locked into place.
Majestic Shooting Star Dragon surged with a burst that scattered starlight across the full length of the track. In the instant before Scar-Red Nova Dragon could reach the dimensional rift it was racing toward, the silver dragon closed around it and hauled it back. There was no escaping the chain. The activation was negated. The banishment was negated. Scar-Red Nova Dragon remained on the field with nowhere left to run.
"Scar-Red Nova Dragon has been caught!" Crow was on his feet, both hands gripping the railing. "What kind of effect is that? It can negate any activation at all?"
In the spectator stands, Rin Seiya was watching the sky above the track, where Majestic Shooting Star Dragon and Scar-Red Nova Dragon faced each other in a stalemate that had already gone further than any version of this duel she had studied. Then her gaze shifted.
A green-haired girl was sitting not far from the outer railing of the audience section. Her arm was wrapped in a faint red light that pulsed steadily, like something waking up.
"Is that Luna? And Leo beside her?"
She recognized them at once. Siblings, both tied directly to the events surrounding the Crimson Dragon's legacy in this era. And Luna's arm was glowing with a Dragon Mark.
And it was not only Luna.
In the prep area, Crow looked down at his own arm and went quiet. Yusei Fudo studied the Dragon Head mark on his wrist, listening to something. Even Jack, still racing, glanced sideways at the crimson light tracing across his skin.
Amano felt it too. A dry heat in his left arm, somewhere above the wrist, spreading inward. He had no name for what it was or what it meant, but it was real.
The Crimson Dragon was reacting. Something in the clash of burning fire and cold starlight happening above this track had stirred it awake.
Jack stared at Scar-Red Nova Dragon, pinned in place by Majestic Shooting Star Dragon, unable to move or escape.
The Dragon Mark blazed on his arm.
"Do not think this is over." He reached to the side of his D-Wheel and flipped the face-down card he had set at the end of his last turn.
"The burning soul does not stop burning just because something grabs hold of it. Evolve beyond everything, surpass even the Majestic Shooting Star! I activate the trap card: Assault Mode Activate!"
Assault Mode Activate. Tribute one Synchro Monster you control, then Special Summon one Assault Mode monster sharing that card's name from the deck in Attack Position.
The tribute cost was paid the instant the trap activated. Scar-Red Nova Dragon was released from Majestic Shooting Star Dragon's grip not through any effect of its own, but because it ceased to exist on the field as a valid target. A cost was not an effect. A cost could not be negated.
Majestic Shooting Star Dragon, its own body temporarily banished as the price of its counter-effect, could do nothing about it.
Something cold settled in Amano's chest.
"Wait." He ran the thought again, quickly. "Assault Mode Activate. Scar-Red Nova Dragon. Is this right?"
He could not place it. He had watched 5D's enough times in his previous life to remember its major beats, and he did not recall any Assault Mode variant for Scar-Red Nova Dragon ever appearing on screen. Not once.
The Chronicle was not recreating the original story. It had left the rails of established history and was writing something new.
His left arm burned hotter.
"Transcend the king and the demon both!" Jack's voice rose above the engine noise and the wind and everything else on the track. "A new form born from an explosion of burning soul! Shake heaven and earth with your roar!"
He slammed the card against his D-Wheel with enough force to rattle the frame.
"Special Summon! Descend! The ultimate Assault Mode!"
The D-Wheel shuddered as the new monster arrived.
"Scar-Red Nova Dragon, Assault Mode!!"
Where Scar-Red Nova Dragon had once burned with open crimson fire, this form wore that fire as armor. Heavy interlocking plates the color of cooling magma encased it from shoulder to tail, every seam between them glowing like the inside of a forge. The creature's roar rolled across the full length of the track like a thunderclap coming up from the ground.
Level 12. DARK attribute. Dragon type.
Attack points: 4000.
Exactly equal to Majestic Shooting Star Dragon.
History had not simply repeated itself. It had taken a step that no version of the story had ever recorded, and from here it would find its own ending.
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