"Let's go back, Mokuba!"
Yugi shouted anxiously toward Mokuba's back as the boy struggled forward against the storm, nearly swallowed by the yellow sands.
But Mokuba, desperate to save his brother, only shook his head stubbornly, his voice breaking apart in the wind and grit.
"No… I have to… save my brother…"
Just then, Joey squinted against the stinging sand and pointed toward a massive shadow looming on the horizon.
"Hey! What the heck is that?!"
A colossal sand tornado connecting heaven and earth was rolling and expanding at terrifying speed, carrying with it a crushing, destructive force like a giant desert beast charging straight toward them!
"It's a tornado—!!"
Yuto's roar was torn apart by the shrieking wind.
"Ahhhhhhh!!"
Mokuba's face went pale as death under the sheer force of nature.
"Run!!"
Yugi shouted instinctively—but the next instant, despair overtook him.
"No! There's no way to outrun that!!"
At the very brink of disaster, Yuto acted purely on instinct. He tore a card from the deck mounted on his left arm and bellowed with all his strength:
"Come forth! [RX-75 Guntank]!!"
Vrrrrrmm—!!
With a thunderous mechanical roar and a violent tremor beneath their feet, a massive red-and-blue war machine materialized from thin air!
It wasn't a normal tank—its upper body was humanoid, with twin arms and two thick cannon barrels mounted on its shoulders, exuding a powerful, mechanical presence.
"Quick! Get inside!!"
Without hesitation, Yuto slammed his fist down on a prominent red emergency release button on the machine's side.
The hatch hissed open with a sharp shhhk, and he yanked out the virtual pilot—a Duel Energy projection—from the cockpit without a second thought.
There was no time to care about details at a moment like this!
"Move it!"
Practically shoving them in, Yuto stuffed Yugi and Mokuba inside first, and Joey scrambled in after them, limbs flailing.
The group squeezed into the narrow cockpit—clearly built for a single operator—just as the hatch slammed shut with a heavy clang, cutting off most of the howling storm outside.
But in its place came a deafening clatter of sand and gravel hammering against the hull. The entire Guntank shook violently, as though about to be torn apart and carried away at any moment.
"Unbelievable… Yuto, I didn't think your Machine monster would be this huge once it materialized!"
Even through the turbulence, Joey's eyes gleamed with awe as he examined the tight space filled with panels and levers. Curiosity got the better of him, and he reached out to tug one.
Whirr!
One of the Guntank's massive mechanical arms jerked upward, startling him so much he nearly screamed.
"Now's not the time to experiment!"
Yuto's heart was in his throat.
"What worries me more is… since there's no defined enemy target, it might disappear any second—just like your [Flame Swordsman] did before!"
"Yuto!"
Yugi's terrified shout snapped his attention to the front of the cockpit—where the monitor used to be.
The very walls of the cockpit were beginning to fade from the edges inward, dissolving into countless motes of light like burning paper!
Outside, the raging sands and towering wind pillar became visible once more, and the roar of death filled their ears again.
"Damn it!!"
Yuto could only curse as the collapsing "safehouse" disintegrated around them.
The next instant, the group was swallowed whole—tossed into the roaring vortex like leaves in a storm, consciousness shattered by the violent spinning and impacts…
...
No one knew how much time passed.
Blinding sunlight forced Yuto's heavy eyelids open.
The furious winds were gone—replaced by the faint murmur of voices… and birdsong?
He jolted upright, every inch of his body aching, mouth, nose, and ears all packed with sand.
He coughed hard, spitting out a mouthful of gritty air.
Looking around, he froze.
Familiar houses. Familiar faces.
They were back—in the same town they'd departed from!
"Cough…cough cough… We… got blown back here?"
Joey struggled to sit up as well, looking like a sand sculpture himself, staring blankly at the surroundings.
Yugi and Mokuba soon came to, exchanging dazed looks—they were alive, but barely.
"We're still alive…"
Yuto wiped the sand from his face. Feeling the warmth of the sunlight and the ache in his body, relief washed over him in a wave.
"…That's a miracle."
"Hahahahahaha…"
A sudden, jarring laugh broke the silence of their narrow escape.
On a bench in the plaza sat an old man, his beard white and wrinkled face creased deeply, laughing so hard he nearly doubled over.
"Trying to cross the desert, are you?"
He chuckled between words, his cloudy eyes glinting with something unreadable.
The question dropped like a stone into still water.
Joey sprang up from the ground and rushed to the old man, gripping the bench's armrest.
"Gramps! You must know how to cross the desert, right?! Please, tell us!"
The old man stroked his beard, speaking slowly in a sing-song rhythm.
"To cross the desert… you must use the [Niwatori] card…"
"[Niwatori]…?"
Joey blinked, then smacked his forehead.
"Ah! That card! I remember it now!"
Yugi stepped forward, asking calmly,
"Then, sir, could you tell us how to obtain the [Niwatori] card?"
But the old man didn't seem to hear him. His smiling expression never changed as he repeated, in the exact same tone and rhythm:
"To cross the desert… you must use the [Niwatori] card…"
"Huh?"
Joey was dumbfounded. That didn't even answer the question!
Like a wind-up toy, the old man repeated a third time, perfectly identical to the last:
"To cross the desert… you must use the [Niwatori] card…"
By now, Yuto had walked over, rubbing his sore arm.
Watching the bizarre loop play out—and catching sight of the man's frozen smile and vacant eyes—he understood instantly.
"Great…"
Yuto sighed and muttered just loud enough for his teammates to hear.
"Looks like we've run into a textbook repeating-NPC. Trigger the keyword, and he just loops one line of preset dialogue. Don't bother asking for anything else."
...
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