084 Father: To defeat a trap, one must use a trap!

"...I am Malik, and Malik is me. Not to mention, I possess one of the Millennium Items—the Millennium Staff."
Silenced by shock, Rashid, whose skin was even darker than the siblings Isis and Malik, spoke in a genuinely hoarse tone.
He reached behind him and drew out an object shaped like a 'T', with an eye-like orb at the top of its handle, appearing in Rashid’s hand.
"The Millennium Staff..."
As another bearer of a Millennium Item, Yugi, at the very moment Rashid produced the Millennium Staff, exchanged control of his body with the other soul dwelling in his heart—the Dark Yugi.
'Why is it that I sense not even a trace of power from this so-called Millennium Staff?'
The more Yugi stared at the staff in Rashid’s hand, the greater his suspicion grew; he could not feel any aura similar to the power contained in his own Millennium Puzzle.
"Whether you admit it or not makes no difference, for truth cannot be falsified, and falsehood cannot become truth!"
Yugi cared little for Rashid’s reply, as it was well within his expectations. In the original animation, this dark giant kept claiming to be the real Malik right up until he fainted from the fake Winged Dragon of Ra’s divine punishment.
"What matters most now is who will claim the last spot in the quarterfinals!"
With that, Yugi unfurled his duel disk from his arm, reached for the deck box strapped to his right thigh, and mentally connected with the system on his phone, prompting it to materialize his pre-prepared deck and transfer it to his deck box.
"..."
Rashid tucked the counterfeit Millennium Staff into his waistband, likewise unfurled his duel disk, and adopted his dueling stance.
"Duel!"
Rashid: 4000 LP
Yugi: 4000 LP
"Am I going first?"
Muttering to himself, Rashid drew his opening hand, glanced at his cards, and, without hesitation, set four trap cards face-down in his back row.
"Four cards set, and then I’ll set one monster face-down in defense."
The sudden appearance of five cards on Rashid’s field—four traps and one face-down monster—left all but three people astonished: Yugi, who knew Rashid’s character in advance, and Isis and Malik, who were familiar with Rashid’s deck.
Setting cards during a duel is normal; laying traps and spells can bolster your own turn or disrupt your opponent’s strategies.
But this is just the first turn—four traps and a set monster right from the start! Isn’t that a bit much?
Even Yugi during the Kingdom arc, especially in the final four, wasn’t as defensive as Rashid!
'A set monster... That’s a slight deviation from the original animation.'
In the original, during Rashid’s duel with Jonouchi, aside from the "Sacred Beast Serket" as a false divine offering, he never played another monster card.
Yet now, opening against him, there’s already a defense monster on the field.
"Spell card 'Pot of Greed'... I draw two cards. My turn ends here."
[Rashid: 4000 LP, hand: 2, Monster Zone: 1 face-down defense, Spell/Trap Zone: 4 face-down]
"My turn, I draw!"
Trap tactics, relying on various trap effects for a counterattack, are the core strategy of Rashid’s entire deck.
But for Yugi, who possesses the full OCG card pool, such trap tactics are far too easy to handle!
"I activate the spell card 'Localized Hurricane' from my hand!"
Just as in the original animation with Jonouchi, Yugi’s opening move was to sweep the field—let’s see if Rashid will activate any of his set cards in response!
"That’s Yugi for you! Starting with a Hurricane!"
Seeing Yugi’s move, Jonouchi cheered, knowing that if the dark giant didn’t have a counter spell set, he’d be forced to watch all his cards blown back to his hand!
"I knew there’d be a spell to clear the back row."
Rashid had anticipated the Hurricane; his straightforward trap tactics were obvious enough that anyone would expect a field-clearing spell as the first move.
Thus—
"At this moment, I activate the counter trap 'Magic Seal'."
The famous counter trap "Magic Seal" instantly blocked the Hurricane that sought to sweep away Rashid’s set cards.

"I discard a spell card from my hand to negate and destroy your Hurricane. Furthermore, you cannot use the destroyed Hurricane or any cards with its name for the remainder of this duel."
With just one Magic Seal, he could not only nullify his opponent’s Hurricane, but also lock out the remaining two Hurricanes in their deck, rendering all three Hurricanes useless in this duel!
As expected, the Hurricane could not succeed!
Yet even though it was blocked, Yugi was unconcerned; he had never pinned his hopes on Hurricane. The core tactic of his new deck lay in a continuous spell—a card uniquely crafted by the system, based on Rashid’s character and deck, and one that did not exist in the OCG pool.
"I set four cards face-down, then activate the last card in my hand—the continuous spell 'Trap Synchronization'!"
As Yugi played this system-original card, faint energy lines appeared around the four set cards, all linking to the only face-up continuous spell, "Trap Synchronization."
Though Rashid couldn’t understand the nature of these lines connecting to the continuous spell, the card’s name alone sounded suspicious, prompting him to hastily activate his second counter trap against spells:
"Second counter trap against spells, 'Magical Extraction' acti—what?!"
He hadn’t even finished saying "activate" when Rashid, usually so stoic, was stunned by what unfolded before him.
The counter trap "Magical Extraction," half revealed, showed blue currents on its 3D card projection, and as if shocked, it was forced shut and set face-down again.
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
The duel disk emitted an alert, and Rashid looked down to see the score display flashing a string of English words:
[Trap Card Cannot Start!]
"Trap card cannot activate? ...Why!"
Reading the display, Rashid, now visibly shocked, turned to his opponent, Yugi.
"Sorry, the continuous spell I activated is immune to the effects of any card."
Having witnessed the entire sequence, Yugi smiled calmly at his opponent’s question.
Trap Synchronization, after all, was a card created based on your character skill, and in the previous world’s Link Duel, there had never been a case where a character skill failed to activate or was interrupted!