"Hard to say—the game’s not over yet!" Her voice curled like incense under storm clouds.

The yokai miko’s finger dropped like a petal—yet it didn’t land on the four cards in hand.

She tapped the [Grand Miko of Heritage] lying in the graveyard, like nudging a sleeper under frost.

"I activate [Grand Miko of Heritage]'s other effect; from the deck, I send [Mikanko of the Jewel, Kori] to the graveyard," she said, like tossing a white pebble into a dark well.

"Another miko...?" The name flashed like a fox’s eye at dusk.

"I activate [Oohime the Mikanko] in my hand. I add [Mikanko Dance - Bewildering Bird] from the deck, then discard it straight to the graveyard," her words fell like measured drumbeats.

"Search a card only to throw it away?" The thought rippled like drawing water just to pour it back.

She’s shaping something in the mist… but the exact text sits behind glass; I can’t even tell if the graveyard’s open, like river fog hiding its banks.

The yokai miko smiled, a blade catching moonlight.

"With that, the equation for victory is complete," she murmured, beads clicking on a prayer string.

—?!

Menreiki clearly held the edge, yet her tone felt like winter claiming spring.

"I trigger Bewildering Bird in the grave; I revive Kori and equip it. Then I play [Mikanko’s Fire-Dance] from hand; I revive Hare and equip it. Hare’s effect: I search a Mikanko Spell," her moves flowed like lanterns drifting down a river.

"I chain [Joruri P.U.N.K. Dangerous Gabu] to negate—" The words leapt like a spark toward oil.

Menreiki froze, a drumbeat cut short.

She found she couldn’t target either miko; Kori’s equip wrapped them in a continuous ward, their outlines shimmering like heat haze.

"I get it!" the tengu exclaimed, wind clearing fog from his eyes. "She could’ve fetched Kori with Oohime at the start, yet she took the long road. Kori had to hit the field already wearing an equip to gain resistance; a normal-summoned Kori gets blanked by Dangerous Gabu like a fly in amber!"

"Can you say that in a dialect my brain speaks?" The plea thudded like rain on a tin roof.

Yekase finally felt the sting others felt when she lectured about gadget guts; she swore, like carving a notch on bamboo, to mend her ways after this.

"Battle phase!" The gong boomed like thunder rolling off mountains.

The yokai miko’s small hand cut down like a falling guillotine.

"Two monsters with zero ATK—" The words fluttered like paper tigers above a bonfire.

"Kori attacks [No-P.U.N.K. Amazing Dragon]!" A paper knife tapped a steel gate.

"Are you suicidal? A zero-ATK unit ramming a 3000—" His voice skidded like wheels on ice.

[Menreiki LP 4400→1400]

"—What?!"

"Standard Mikanko text. With an equip, they aren’t destroyed by battle, and the damage I’d take gets handed to you," she said, voice clear as a temple bell. "Next—Hare attacks!"

[Menreiki LP 1400→0]

[Winner: The Yokai Miko!]

...

Heian-kyo erupted in cheers, like a forest of banners snapping in a fresh wind.

"That was glorious!" "I can’t wait to see what deck I get!" "Is the anomaly solved already?" Voices rose like sparrows at dawn.

Yekase had thought they’d lost their way out of the Land of No-Where; she expected at least a hush, if not a riot. Instead the air heated like a festival night.

Yokai streaked toward the castle keep, circling the two duelists like moths around a brazier. Even the tengu tossed Yekase an apologetic look and arrowed away like a swallow.

"Easy, easy! Line up, one at a time, everyone gets a share—no pushing," the yokai miko called, her voice a fan that calmed hot coals.

They formed a neat queue in the sky, from the keep all the way back to the mountain-top torii where Yekase had entered. Not one slipped through to the outside, as if Spellcard Duel 2 lured them stronger than a world exiled for a thousand years.

If they went out… to do what?

The outside no longer left room for yokai; you could taste that truth like iron on the tongue. Housing, food, power, the hunt by onmyoji—every step would be on thorns.

For them, why not skip the bruises and let the miko’s new barrier weave a deck of one’s own, then ride this wave for decades, like surfing a long summer tide?

Kneeling nearby, Menreiki watched in silence; her expressionless face dimmed like lacquer under dust.

"Tengu, then. Take this—Yosenju," the yokai miko said, dealing like wind dealing leaves.

"Thank you, Lady Miko!" His bow cut the air like a gull.

"Kappa… how about Wind-Up?"

"My machines beat toy springs any day!" His protest chirped like a kettle.

"Sure, sure. Yuki-onna, take Mayakashi."

"Thank you…" Her breath drifted like snow.

"Mermaid spirit… Tearlaments."

"Is that strong?" Her doubt was a ripple under moonlight.

"I don’t know. Play two duels and see." Her shrug was a drifting cloud.

The yokai miko worked with care, handing out decks born from the Spellcard Duel 2 barrier; recipients peeled off in pairs to clash, filling the city with holiday warmth, like fireflies in a paddy field.

The great giveaway ran into night, lanterns blooming like oranges on boughs.

Yekase felt a tug of interest, but she feared if she took a deck she’d get dragged into duels like a coat snagged on thorns. If she missed the state of the dimensional veil and the Fujiwara clan repaired the outer gate, the joke would be on her like a bucket of cold water. So she wandered Heian-kyo instead, strolling old streets like reading a scroll from a thousand years ago.

A tap on her shoulder broke the quiet, a drop on still water.

She turned. The yokai miko stood there in red-and-white robes, bare shoulders and confidence like a rising sun.

"I knew I sensed a stranger’s breath in Heian-kyo," the miko said, nose lifting like a fox testing wind.

"Ah, hello, I’m—"

"An envoy from the Fujiwara clan, right? You’ve seen the mood here. What do you think? Even with the gate open, they won’t step out," she said, eyebrows a small arch bridge.

She handed Yekase a steaming paper cup of oden, heat curling like ghosts.

Yekase glanced in: knotted kelp, shrimp balls, a fish-roe pouch—each piece a little island in broth.

"...Not bad," she said, the warmth rolling through her like tea through chill bones.

"No bullying, no oppression, no death… and no future," the miko said, eyes steady as still water. "That man built this place with that arithmetic. ‘Raise’ yokai, let daily peace file their claws down… until the day this barrier can’t hold."

"Mm." The sound settled like a pebble in a bowl.

Lose struggle and threat, lose the drive to grow… Fujiwara really found a way to erase yokai, like tide scouring footprints to nothing.

Yet the stories of stagnant utopias always hide a big boss in the rafters. Yes, conflict breeds evolution, but that truth gets twisted into worship of pain, a banner for villains to wave—though the world already tests us, like weather that never stops.

The hidden boss might be a star-faring empire or a rotted steward; the cosmos is vast, and eyes in the dark are normal. If they invade, the pampered die like candles in a gale—yet Yekase believed this: even with full bellies and cola to sip, some will still push into the unknown, step by step, until the day the last riddle of the universe opens like dawn—because the unknown waits like a mountain. As long as such people exist, humanity won’t lose its horizon.

The yokai miko didn’t ask what Yekase pondered. They simply stood together at a street-corner, a patch of summer shade cut from the roaring lantern sea.

"Seen enough?" the miko asked, voice a soft fan.

"Enough," Yekase said, her answer a nod like falling dew.

"Before you go, take a deck as a keepsake. It’s a kind of divination, like omikuji, different road, same shrine," the miko said, smile like a crescent blade.

"Eh? I won’t have anyone to duel…" The protest fluttered like a moth.

"I said it’s a keepsake." Her tone closed like a door.

She traced a white ring of light in the air; it bloomed like a full moon. She took Yekase’s hand and slid it through.

Yekase’s fingers brushed something hard, palm-sized, a few centimeters thick—like a stone tablet cut for the pocket.

She drew out a deck.

A stack of cards, maybe forty or fifty. The bottom card had a red frame: [Skill Drain]. She flipped two more; [Skill Drain] again, like a refrain. The fourth finally changed.

[Unchained Soul Lord of Yama]

[Dark/Fiend/Link]

[ATK 3000/Link-4]

[2+ monsters including a Link Monster. You can use this card’s ①②③ effects once per turn each.]

[① If a card effect, other than this card, would destroy a card on the field: target 1 card on the field; destroy it.]

[② If another monster is destroyed by battle: target 1 card on the field; destroy it.]

[③ During either End Phase: target 1 card on the field; destroy it.]

"—Why is it nothing but destruction? You look so gentle; are you a hidden violent type?" the miko yelped, hopping back two steps like a sparrow. "Omikuji needs an offering, but forget the coin—just don’t go on a rampage here!"

"‘Unchained’… it really says ‘Unchained,’ huh," Yekase murmured, the word ringing like a bell in a factory hall.

"...?" The miko tilted her head, a fox at a crossroads.

"Out there, people call me ‘Mechbreaker.’ I’m good at breaking machines," Yekase said, a wry smile like a blade’s nick.

"That’s the whole connection?" The miko’s blink was a raindrop.

"I can also seal the Infinite Power in an area," Yekase added, casual as a cloud.

"That’d be [Skill Drain], basically," the miko said, lips curving like a fishhook.

Yekase flipped a few more and found a trap named [Wailing of the Unchained Souls]; laughter slipped out like steam.

Rules and deck lines poured into her head like a sudden rain. In this deck, monsters and Spells and Traps all replace themselves when destroyed; they even blow themselves up on purpose. It was a style that tossed dignity aside like a broken mask—and it fit Yekase to a tee.

"What a spell. My hand went in for a heartbeat, and it read my life like lines on a palm," she said, admiration wrapped in smoke.

"Sounds like you’re not really complimenting me…" the miko muttered, side-eye like a cat.

Yekase tucked the deck into an inner pocket to avoid yokai challengers flocking like sparrows, then finally dug into the oden.

"I’ll tell the Fujiwara clan this: the Land of No-Where no longer needs sealing. The yokai won’t return to the present world to make trouble. Use the chance to bring them fresh trinkets from outside," she said, voice steady as a path-stone.

"Thanks," the miko said, bow light as a reed.

"And Menreiki… what’s her story?" Yekase asked, gaze a lantern.

"When this place was built, she’d just been born. She’s a tsukumogami, her true body the sixty-six masks of Noh. Because of that, she’s extra curious about human feelings and tales—about the human ‘heart’," the miko said, words like brushstrokes.

"Really can’t let her go see?" Yekase asked, tone a drifting leaf.

"Even if she goes out, she’ll face a thousand difficulties and stumble. Will you watch over her?" the miko asked, eyes clear as a winter sky.

"I don’t have time…" Yekase finished the broth, warmth lingering like sunset. There was no trash can nearby; she slipped the still-warm cup into her storage device, a pocket of night.

"...But I have someone. Patient, kind, a lonely soul who’ll walk all of Japan. Let her follow that person and see this world. What do you say, head of the Fujiwara clan?" Yekase’s smile set like dusk.

"How did you tell?" the miko asked, surprise a silver fish.

"Because you assumed I was a messenger, not Fujiwara blood," Yekase said, words soft as rain.

The miko smiled faintly, a crescent boat on ink.

"Very well. Let her go look," she said, assent like a seal’s stamp.

"See with her own eyes. Judge with her own ‘heart.’ Even if she returns here in the end, the road won’t be meaningless. Yes… that’s how it should be," the miko said, voice drifting like night wind through pines.