Yami ignores Kaiba's grimace in his direction to point at their opponents with a smug grin. He's also surrounded with countless Kuribohs, telling Shorty and Tallie that he and Kaiba are both protected from their attacks. He also mentions that Kaiba is familiar with this move.
"Yeah Kaiba, you remember this right? That time that you were prepared to jump off a building if you lost to me? Remember?"
Balls, Yami, that was a dick move.
Tallie asks Yami how he can dare put up a wall of weaklings, while Kaiba stares in shock at all the floating tribbles around him. He's expression devolves into indignant rage, fuming that Yami's card saved him. He turns back to Yami to tell him that he doesn't need his help, but Yami doesn't even give him the courtesy of looking at him when he reminds him that this is a tag-team match and if either one of them goes down (literally), it's over. Kaiba seems rather affronted at the suggestion that one person can't win it alone, but Yami tells him that the two guys they're up against have one advantage, and that's their teamwork. With mutual support and two decks that compliment each other well, they're working like a well-oiled machine.
He wrinkles his nose and scoffs, looking forward again obstinately. Shorty giggles some more, insisting that teamwork or not, Yami and Kaiba won't beat them. He throws in his catchphrase, too, just to make sure they've got the message. Oh, I don't know if anyone has. Wanna say "got it?" about 500 more times before this duel is finished?
So here the four of them are, Shorty and Tallie leading the game with 4000 points each, as Yami and Kaiba lag behind with 3500 and 2100 points respectively. It's looking pretty rough for the latter, but Tallie is still worried about all the Kuribohs, which will pose quite an issue. Shorty tells him not to worry, because he's got an idea. Still no sign of those microphones.
Kaiba announces it's his turn and draws a card, which turns out to be a Blue Eyes White Dragon. He knows that the rules dictate an eight-star monster like this requires two sacrifices, but since the Mask of Restrict card is hovering menacingly in front of him, Kaiba is officially cock-blocked from summoning it OR his god card. Sucks to be him. Yami glances over at Kaiba to find that he's still sweating pretty hard before Kaiba himself realizes he's got no other choice but to slap a face down card on his Duel Disk and play a little something else to help him sleep at night.
Shorty draws a card and makes sure everyone knows it's his turn. Cackling and waving his arms in the air, he asks if Yami wants to come out and play. Dude, I think it's a pretty clear message when a guy puts up a wall of any sort between you:
Yami's Multiply card starts to issue virtual smoke in front of his eyes, right before the mask sporting a terrible drooping frown attaches itself to it. The Kuribohs then start dissolving into thin air, all except the original, which looks sheepish now that it's alone. Yami gapes and the single monster he has now in place of the thousands it used to be. Shorty meanwhile explains that he'll lose 300 points every turn from the "Curse of the Mask". Wait, was that the other thing he was losing points from or is that a brand new thing? I guess we'll find out soon.
Yami is freaking out again, knowing it's only a matter of time before Shorty and Tallie begins attacking he and Kaiba directly without the Kuribohs there to defend them. He wonders what it is he should do.
Yami ducks as Kuriboh is killed by the "Death Curse", little x's in place of its big pupils. He looks over his other shoulder at his Magnet Warrior, rendered inert by the Mask of Accursed, and grimaces at the fact that he's wide open for attack. Sucks to be him.
Shorty despairs that this is all he can do for his turn, but he's gleeful when he tells Yami not to forget that he's losing 800 points at the beginning of his. Yami sarcastically thanks him for it, his life points leaving him in streams of virtual mist. He's down to 2700 now, still better off than Kaiba, though. Looking at his hand, it's clear that he has no monsters below 5 stars, so he's unable to summon any of them. He draws a new card which he finds is a trap card, "Chain Destruction". Yami puts it with the other cards in his hand and rearranges them, looking contemplative.
He thinks he could play another "destruction" card he has in his hand, this one called "Card Destruction", which would compel everyone to discard their hands and draw new ones. Yami looks at Kaiba, concerned that he doesn't know what cards he has, though, and forcing him to redraw and discard an important one might fuck up everything. He gives up on the idea, uncomfortable with the idea that Kaiba might never trust him again if he messes up the strategy, especially when he needs Kaiba's help right now. He sighs and hangs his head.
Of course Kaiba takes this moment to chuckle at him and ask him sardonically what's wrong. He asks if he only has high-level monsters right now, even when he's defenseless if he doesn't play something this turn. Yami regards Kaiba out of the corner of his eye while Kaiba continues, wearing a shitty little smile, saying it can't really be helped if Yami only has the high-level cards at the moment.
Yami looks over at Kaiba's area, noticing the face down card he has there, and suddenly understands what Kaiba wants to do. Shorty interprets Kaiba's remarks and Yami's lack of response as fighting and assumes that it's every man for himself on the opposing side. Tallie agrees that they don't make much of a team.
Kaiba thinks a question at Yami about whether or not he understands, and Yami is sure that he does. Yami ends his turn after setting a card face down. Tallie gloats that Yami has no monster out, and lets out a sinister chuckle, telling him he knows what this means. Not ice cream, I'm assuming. Yami sweats up a storm, because this is quite the gamble he's pulling here.
Tallie declares his turn, and right away that he's going to use a spell card. Well, SOMEONE is impatient. It's a ritual card called Curse of the Masked Beast, which elicits a reaction equal parts confusion and wide-eyed horror from Yami and Kaiba opposite. The ritual requires one monster from light and one from darkness, surprise surprise, so Shining Abyss and Grand Tiki Elder are surrounded by whirlwinds and replaced entirely by... well it's a bit difficult to describe.
Yami is more concerned with those attack points than its appearance, and they're giving him the sweats like woah. Tallie laughs about Yami's lack of defenses, and orders his Masked Beast to destroy the boy. The Masked Beast lurches forward, staff extended to whap Yami something good, and Yami shuts his eyes with a weak mental protest. But there's nothing he can do.
But you know who CAN do something? Kaiba's Gadget Soldier jumps in front of the blow from Masked Beast, much to Yami's surprise. Tallie's too, because he's in disbelief that KAIBA'S monster was there to intercept the blow. Kaiba is smiling smugly, and talking about how it'll do as a shield. Yami half-smiles and half-gapes at his teammate, who shoots at him with a renewed sour look that now they're even.
Shorty giggles, pointing out that now Kaiba's monster has bitten the dust too, and the Masked Beast is free to annihilate either one of them on the next turn. Kaiba is smirking again when he says that they'll see about that. Yami is ready to go, so he reveals his face down card, Card Destruction, which gets our normally unflappable villains upset. They gape, unhappy with the prospect of giving up their hands. Must have been some REALLY sweet cards in there.
Kaiba wastes no time, announcing that he's gotten rid of all his cards. Then he starts pontificating on how advanced players of the game can get around the sacrifice rule for high-level monsters while he draws a new hand. He offers to show his opponents an advanced technique right now, revealing Monster Reborn from where it was lying face down on his Duel Disk before. With an inspiring statement that sometimes a trip to the graveyard is just a stop on the way to the battlefield, he brings out good ol' Blue Eyes.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Usually you can at least KIND OF get an idea of what the chapter title was getting at, but every once in a while I'm left scratching my head. Are the "monsters" in this case Yami and Kaiba. I wouldn't necessarily disagree if they were meant to be, but something tells me that wasn't what the title was trying to evoke here. Did KT just not know what to call it, so he settled on a vague phrase that sounded kind of cool?
Regardless, this was a pretty solid chapter. There were still problems with knowing whether or not characters were speaking out loud or thinking, but it wasn't nearly as confusing as in the last chapter. At least a big CHUNK of the dialogue wasn't in such an ambiguous area. And it was clear that Kaiba and Yami couldn't speak openly before Yami could put down his card of destruction, making Kaiba's attempt at communication through sarcasm really fun to see. You get the impression that he wasn't just trying to manipulate the opposing team, still attempting to take a dictatorial role in the duel when it comes to Yami as well, even if it ended up being a less obvious route to that end. And of course evening out the score so that he's not in debt to Yami anymore served a similar secondary purpose.
I'm still curious as to where this aversion to teamwork is coming from. I mean, I understand the guy has pride and an overly pronounced sense of independence, but even for that, his reaction to acting in a teamly manner with Yami was just way overblown. This boy has no chill.
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