It was a cloudy November day. Even though the wind didn't blow, the cold air, darkened sky and leafless trees reminded everyone that winter was approaching. Upon a certain city from a certain prosperous country in the year of 2101, it seemed that life was finally backed to normal. The city had had to endure two attacks from giant supernatural monsters from another world in the same year, but no matter what happened, once the attacks were over the capital would send them help to rebuild their giant high tech buildings and streets and things would just be alright once again.
At the yard of a school located in the center of the city, the long awaited break had finally come. The younger students were all sitting at tables and playing cards. What they were playing wasn't Poker or some other betting game; they were playing a trading card game that was known as Duel Masters.
The game was rather simple – it required a 40 card deck, a dueling table (or in certain cases two dueling tables), some strategic planning and a bit of luck. The dueling table had two black lines which were separating the so called 'zones'. Behind the first black line was the mana zone. Between the two black lines was the shield zone, but they were set on the left and middle parts of the zone, for the right part of that zone was destined for the deck and the graveyard. And finally, passing the second black line was the battle zone. A normal dueling table had both sides shaped like this and the middle of the table was the largest part, the huge battle zone where the match actually took place.
To begin a duel, one has to shuffle their deck, put the top 5 cards of it face down on the shield zone, draw 5 cards and shout 'duel start!'. In order to win, one must manage to break all of their opponent's shields and then give a direct attack with a creature. In order to summon creatures, one must have enough cards in their mana zone. And thus the game gets more and more complex and fun. However, the children playing in the schoolyard would soon find out that what they were playing was more than a game.
"I summon Twin-Cannon Skyterror!" a blonde 11 year old boy said while putting a red card which resembled a reddish orange dragon with two cannon on its shoulders on the battle zone. "Twin-Cannon has speed attacker, so it attacks right when it is put in the battle zone. Go, Twin-Cannon Skyterror, break his final shields!"
His opponent took the two cards from his shield zone into his hand.
"Nice try, but you see Johnny, since you have no more shields, you already lost." the opponent, a brown haired 12 year old, replied. "I summon Polligon, Adventure Faerie!"
"Haha, how can that weakling help you win?"
"I also evolve Polligon into Startdash Buster, Divine Hero Mech!" the boy continued and put on his green card a rainbow colored card that pictured a green armored humanoid wielding huge guns. "And since evolution creatures also don't have summoning sickness, I finish you off with Startdash Buster, todomeda!"
"Aw, no fair, Chad, I lost again!" the blonde complained.
"That's because I'm the best duelist of Hakuoh-sama's class, and none of you should ever doubt it!" the victor spoke full of himself.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that!" a third boy intervened.
The duo turned their heads and saw a 10 year old boy with dark red hair that was raised up to make it seem like a flame. He had green eyes, wore a white martial arts kimono and on his face was the excited smile of a kid that had just been introduced to dueling.
"Oh look, it's that brat Tamma." Johnny mockingly spoke. "What do you want, kid? Go back and play with your other 10 year olds in the dirt and leave us pros duel!"
"One day I'll show you what I can really do and then you'll be sorry!" Tamma threatened.
"Well then, let's see how good you really are, hot shot!" Chad said and showed his deck to Tamma. "With that pathetic fire and darkness deck of yours, you shouldn't be that hard to beat."
Tamma took that as a challenge which he gladly accepted. But the young duelists were unaware that a few feet away from them, at the opened schoolyard gates, a strange figure dressed in a short-sleeved black T-shirt and dark blue jeans was walking by and had heard their little discussion. The stranger got interested and stopped from his way to watch the duel.
"I summon Vorg, Brawler of Hell!" Tamma said after tapping the two cards in his mana zone.
"I summon Taiga, the Warrior Savage!" Chad said. "Taiga has speed attacker, so I now break one of your shields with it!"
Chad's card fired a wave that pushed one of Tamma's shields up in the air, but the boy quickly grabbed the card. It seemed that things were starting to get interesting for him. Tamma drew, charged mana and then put a black card on his battle zone while saying:
"I summon Heehaw, Catterpillar Rider! Vorg, attack Taiga!"
Tamma tapped his multicolored card and a wave came out of it that hit Chad's card and pushed it in the air as well.
"Interesting, I didn't know that someone like you had managed to discover their dueling powers." Chad surprisingly complimented young Tamma. "Still, that won't make this match yours! I summon Pyrofighter Magnus, go and break his shield!"
Another shield of Tamma's was blown in the air and the boy happily took it in his hand.
"That stupid smile will wear off pretty soon!" Chad assured Tamma and then took his Magnus card back into his hand. "Pyrofighter Magnus is not only a speed attacker, but it also returns to my hand at the end of my turn, making it unreachable to your creatures."
"Haha, it's cool, but not really that impressive." Tamma innocently laughed.
"What did you just say?" Chad shouted with indignation. "Let's see you pull something better, you showoff!"
"My pleasure, I evolve Heehaw into Wrath of God! Valborg Now!"
Tamma placed a red card on the black one, this new one shining with a rather bright red light. For a moment, a shadow of what seemed to be a mechanical being appeared behind Tamma, but quickly faded.
"Go, Valborg Now and Vorg, break his shields!" Tamma ordered and Chad watched amazed how 3 of his shields went down quickly.
"Shield trigger, I cast Natural Snare!" Chad said after showing to his opponent a card that was in his shields. "Send Valborg Now to his mana zone! Don't you think that you've won yet, pal! I summon Bronze-Arm Tribe and the top card of my deck goes into my mana zone. Afterwards I summon Taiga, the Warrior Savage! Go break his shield, Taiga!"
"Shield trigger activate, I cast Super Flaming Hell's Scrapper!" Tamma exclaimed enthusiastically and showed the spell card to his opponent.
Chad stared with shock at how the card shined with another bright red light and made his two creature cards pop into the air and land in his graveyard.
"I've got you now!" Tamma said and then he turned to the other kids to have them see how great he is.
However, while looking around, Tamma saw the strange figure sitting at the entrance gates of the schoolyard and was amazed. The boy wore the darkness civilization symbol, a mask with 4 horns, on his black T shirt. Also, his black hair was pretty big for a male, the hair on the back reaching his shoulders. His eyes were brown and their stare was rather mysterious. As for the age, he was around 18.
Tamma's eyes widened with amazement and in his mind there was only one single phrase was being repeated:
"It's him!"
However, Tamma was soon brought to reality by a rather annoyed Chad:
"Come on, do your turn already! I don't want to waste my time with noobs like you!"
"Fine, but you asked for it!" Tamma replied and then placed another multicolored card on the one that was already in his battle zone. "I evolve Vorg, Brawler of Hell into Ogre Beater, Infinite Fist!"
All of a sudden, a bright purple beam came out of the card and rose into the sky. Everyone else's attention turned to their duel. The dueling table broke in two and the halves moved at a significant distance from each other. Tamma's last two shields and Chad's last two shields materialized as blue rectangles. Also, behind Tamma appeared a giant humanoid dressed in a thick red armor. The humanoid was wielding black cannons and had a purple X on its chest.
"Impossible! You just… turned our duel into a kaijudo duel!" Chad exclaimed with fear.
"I did? Wow, it's so awesome!" Tamma cheered happily.
"No, it's not awesome; people can actually get hurt in this kind of game!" Johnny tried to intervene.
"Details, details… Ogre Beater, break his final shields!" Tamma ordered.
The creature aimed for Chad's last shields and fired powerful lasers from its cannons, taking both down. Chad took cover and the shield shards hit him. When the attack was over, the shield shards united into two cards which went into Chad's hand. Unfortunately for him, in his hand there were only weak speed attackers and 1 cost creatures. Nothing he could throw at Tamma could help him win the game or destroy that 7000 powered creature of his.
"Alright, alright, I admit it - you're a much better duelist!" Chad pathetically wept while falling on his knees. "Whatever you do, please don't hurt me!"
Thus the shields and creatures disappeared, meaning that the duel had ended. The whole crowd in the schoolyard cheered the victorious Tamma, for most of the youngsters had had enough of Chad's arrogance and felt that it was high time somebody taught him a lesson.
But Tamma didn't care for their cheers. He turned his head to the gates and saw that the raven haired figure laughed and then walked away.
"No, he can't go!" Tamma exclaimed, and then packed up his cards quickly.
"Huh? Who are you talking about?" a random boy asked.
"Subaru Geki, the chosen darkness duelist, one of my idols." Tamma explained and then ran away while putting his deck in the kimono's pockets.
"Subaru Geki? Isn't that the chosen duelist freak that used darkness cards?" a voice was heard from the group.
"Yeah, and I think that I saw him riding on a Volg Tiger while the city was being destroyed recently." another voice spoke.
"What's wrong with Tamma? Why would he be going after a crazy bastard like that Subaru in the first place?" a third voice asked.
Tamma ignored all the mean things that were said about the person he idolized and quickly rushed out of the schoolyard. He looked around and for a moment taught that Subaru was gone. However, he managed to spot him entering a nearby hospital. Determined to not lose him, Tamma ran in the direction of the hospital, but he soon heard a girl's voice call out for him:
"Tamma, the break is almost over! Hakuoh-sama will be angry if you come late to his class!"
Tamma turned around and saw that the one calling him was a teenage blue haired girl dressed in a yellow pullover with stripes and a long blue skirt. Her blue hair was reaching her hips and her blue eyes were being covered by a pair of small glasses.
"Tell him that I got a problem and left home, Luna!" Tamma shouted back and then kept running.
In a few moments, Tamma crossed the street and managed to reach the hospital. Once inside, he had the luck of being ignored by the grown up doctors that were already busy with other cases. Still, there was no trace of Subaru anywhere. The red haired boy walked around the corridors, passing rooms in which he could hear sick people's moans of pain. A normal 10 year old would've been scared by that, but Tamma didn't pay attention, for he was concentrated on finding that strange boy.
Meanwhile, in one of the hospital rooms, a blonde teenage girl with crystal blue eyes dressed in a red dress was sitting on a chair, near a bed where a brown haired boy of her age with bandages on was lying. Suddenly, she heard a door knock.
"Come in." she said.
The one that opened the door was Subaru. Upon seeing him, the girl's eyes got filled with tears and she threw herself in her arms while crying.
"How is he, Tsugumi?" Subaru asked her.
"It's awful! The doctors said they did their best, but…"
"But what?"
"Edo is paralyzed! 90% of his body can't move anymore, the only things that weren't affected being his vital organs!" Tsugumi wept.
"No…" the boy with rather long black hair murmured. "That means…"
"That he'll be a vegetable… for the rest of his days."
Subaru's eyes widened and tears began to fill them as well. The boy let go of Tsugumi and rushed to the bed where the paralyzed Edo was lying.
"Edo-kun, you can't… EDO-KUN!" Subaru screamed in pain and fell on his knees while letting the tears wet Edo's sheets.
Tsugumi sat back on her chair and wept as well. In a few moments, thanks to Subaru's scream, Tamma managed to find him, but he was amazed of what was going on in the room. Just as the red haired boy was trying to understand why someone as cool as Subaru was crying, a mysterious figure appeared right next to him. The person was wearing a red jacket, had red eyes and black hair that was long on the left side, but short on the right side.
"Step aside, kid, I got some business to discuss with the guys in this room." the strange person coldly spoke and then entered the room.
"Shubham, what are you doing here?" Tsugumi asked and got up from her chair.
"I've come to talk with Subaru. It seems that he's been through a lot lately." Shubham calmly answered and at the hearing of his voice Subaru stopped crying and got up on his feet. "Heh, how the mighty have fallen. Once you were the powerful chosen darkness duelist, but now you're nothing but a wimp."
"Shut up, you know nothing about me!" Subaru spoke straightly.
"Oh, is that so? Then do you at least have the guts to face me?" Shubham arrogantly asked and took out his glowing deck from his pockets.
Subaru stared at him angrily, though the sadness did not disappear from his eyes. He took out his deck and accepted Shubham's challenge. The two duelists walked outside the room and headed outside of the hotel. Tamma secretly followed them until they all reached a hill.
There Subaru and Shubham were sitting in front of each other without saying a word. Their decks glowed with bright purple auras and two dueling tables rose from the ground. The players put their decks on them, set their cards and with the shout of 'Duel start!' their ten shields rose in the air and their match had begun.
Tamma watched everything with amazement from behind a tree. It was the first time he had seen this kind of kaijudo duel. Never in his life would the boy expect to see decks glowing or dueling tables rising from the ground by just a shout. Also, he never expected to have a front row seat at one of his idol's kaijudo duels.
"I summon Atsuto, Duel Hero Strategist!" Subaru said and a black haired teen dressed in a dark blue suit with a large red collar, two black skin gloves on his hands and a rose in his right hand and a pink lollipop in his right hand appeared right next to him.
"Let's see how I can fabulously help you today." Atsuto said, then drew two cards for Subaru, gave them to the chosen darkness duelist and looked in his hand. "I suggest you discard these."
"I agree." Subaru replied and discarded Aqua Naruto Surfer and Liger Blade, Fierce Tiger.
"I summon Bella, Corrupt Ghost Princess!" Shubham said and a red eyed blue ghostly princess appeared behind him. "With Bella's effect I reveal the top 2 cards from your deck and put one in your graveyard!"
The top cards of Subaru's deck were Cebu Aquman Jr and Inferno Sign.
"Heh, I send Inferno Sign to your grave." Shubham said with confidence.
"Not very fabulous." Atsuto commented.
"I don't care… I summon Jenny, the Suicide Doll and destroy it!" Subaru said and discarded Hyperspatial Gallows Hole from Shubham's hand. "Atsuto, break his shield!"
Atsuto ran from his place to Shubham, then jumped in the air, made a kung fu move and took down with one of his hands. Then he calmly walked back to Subaru.
Tamma watched everything with amazement and then spoke to himself:
"Wow, now I'll never regret skipping Hakuoh-sama's class!"