Author's note: cards played will be listed under every chapter. Inspired by the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, this fanfiction show games of many different board games outside of duel monsters. those boardgame's names and rules will also be listed under every chapter (although the rules will also be explained by the characters inside of the story, but it's easier to understand the actual rulebook so i thought it'd be more practical to add that)
Despite the heavy heat on this 27th of March, a great number of teenagers were amassed under a gigantic Dueling dome waiting for their turn at the practical exam. This was the last barrier separating them from entering Akopy, although let's be honest it was a barely average dueling school. They all knew that this exam would determine their rank in the hierarchy and how they would spend their first year, and no one wanted to belong to the ever so humiliated Red.
As the last series of duel ended, the holograms started disappearing as some tearful teens left the battlefields. The voice that had been regularly calling students resonated once again :
"To dueling field #1, Mauld Sumia. To dueling field #2, Clara Sommer and to dueling field #3 Caesar Kaneko."
A young man suddenly got up, his black and spiky hair with red tips immediately attracting attention, and the arrogant gaze of his golden eyes piercing every teen that dared to look at him. His eccentricity and smug smile had an aura of annoyance. He was fiddling with some dies, but quickly shoved them into a ragtag repair of what once was a pocket. With a swift motion, he made his tattered patched cloth fly in the wind :
"Listen well INSECTS ! You'd better pay attention to the great Emperor Caesar, the faster you come bowing down to the master of darkness the less you will suffer when I rule this place !" He exclaimed before erupting in a hyena-like laughter that failed at being threatening coming off as more ridiculous than anything, and fled the scene in an attempt to create dramatic effect and avoid criticism.
"didn't know we were at a circus", a student on the other side mumbled, before being interrupted by a small girl who, after removing her hand from her ears, pulled at the black haired maiden's long peculiar dress to ask a question.
"Hey, what names did they call ?"
Mauld saw this as the perfect opportunity to put her cold reading techniques to the test, she quickly looked at the blonde haired girl from head to toe, an oversized hoodie and high socks, a big case that wasn't closed properly with a lot of board games and two wide blue eyes. She decided to go with a more direct approach, a failure wouldn't be too big a deal anyway.
"Your name is Clara right ?"
The foreign girl stared at her, mouth wide open in amazement
"Woaaaah ! How do you know ?!"
"Let's just say I'm a medium ! You 're called to the dueling field 2 ! Good luck" she couldn't hide a little devilish grin from her face
Mauld and Clara both walked to their dueling fields, but all the attention was on the third one:
"The Great Emperor of Hell refuses to play against a weak exam deck ! Cards in those decks belong in the trash! unworthy of being stomped by my fiendish army !" Caesar's voice resonated around the stadium, making the teachers, jury and spectators cringe. While Caesar almost seemed oblivious to all of this, a slight air of satisfaction could be seen in his grin. "Battle Ox, Hane-Hane, I played these cards when I was 4 years old, or maybe even then I didn't bother with them!"
Caesar clenched his fist before pointing at his would-be opponent and the other teachers in a dramatic manner.
"Their place is in the trash, and it would be an insult to an Emperor such as myself to go so low as to fight such garbage!" He claimed, making sure the whole stadium could hear him brag.
the student had been nagging his teacher for several minutes, and she had started to become tired of him. She inserted her real deck into her duel disk, sighing heavily:
"Don't come crying when you get crushed…"
Caesar smirked:
"I don't intend on doing so… Women first!"
His opponent started under curious looks from teachers and other candidates.
"I normal summon Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands! With its effect, I add to my hand a ritual monster or magic card. I choose Shinato, King of a Higher Plane!"
The woman took the card that was delicately placed in one of her monster's hands and then quickly slammed a magic card on her duel disk:
"Ritual magic: Shinato's Ark! I sacrifice Performance of Sword and Happy Lover in my hand to summon Shinato! King of a Higher Plane!"
Descending from the skies, the archangel took place behind the evaluator, surrounded by a divine aura. This was only the first turn, and Caesar was already facing a monster with 3300 ATK points, nevertheless, the arrogant grin on his face hadn't disappeared. The ritual summon was powerful, because it could tribute monsters from the hand rather than the field, but it had been costly in card advantage. Caesar drew his card:
"For starters, I'll activate the magic card Pot of Desires! I banish 10 cards from the top of my deck to draw 2 cards! I'll need naught but one synchro monster to defeat you!"
His opponent stayed stoic as he removed 2 cards from a purple and green pot.
"Exactly what I needed! I'll set two cards face-down and summon Dicelops! Its special ability lets me roll a dice! On a 1, you'll have to discard 1 card, while any other result but 6 lets me discard a card of my choice from my hand!"
The young man grabbed a dice, fiddled with it, and threw it to the ground. The dice spinned before stopping…
The result was a 6!
Caesar bended backwards, dramatically placing his hand on his forehead, overplaying lamentation while all the cards in his hand burned.
"Aah! Curses! Misery! Calamity! I must discard my entire hand! Woe is me! What will become of the Great Emperor Caesar?!"
placing his palm before his face, he bended forward, seemingly sobbing, his shoulders shaking at every word.
Most of the spectators were laughing at how ridiculous the situation was, and the evaluator started mocking Caesar:
"Well, well, well, where did your attitude go?"
She was however interrupted by the rising sound of Caesar's voice, whose sobs had transformed to a devilish laughter as the Manju exploded and a small fiend appeared next to the candidate, whose hand was now placed on his deck, adding a new card from it to his hand.
"At this moment, the Doors to Darkness have opened!" He exclaimed. "My cards have effects when discarded! the special ability of Kahkki destroys Manju, my Broww lets me draw a card, and next, The Fabled Lurrie comes back from the dead!"
The spectators were once again silent, and the evaluator, bewildered, could only retort:
"So what? you have not destroyed Shinato, and the monsters on your field don't open access to any type of summon!"
"Silence! The Emperor has not finished!" Caesar cut her in an authoritarian tone. "You seem to forget the two cards I had previously set! First activation! Summon Dice! I shall once again roll a dice, although I have no monster in hand, so only one out of three chances of getting a favorable effect, if the dice rolls a 3 or a 4…" He once again rolled his dice, and got a… 3!
"Luck smiles to the audacious, but fate submits to The Emperor! I summon from my graveyard the Dark Resonator! It's time! I only need one monster to take everything from you… Synchro summon! Level 8! It's time for a creature of legends to enter the battlefield! "
The tuner monster ringed its tuning fork, and Caesar's monsters were caught in a scarlet light. He clenched his fist as hard as he could and pointed at the sky:
"The Sovereign's heartbeats shall now echo! Behold! The power that defies creation!"
The evaluator was shocked, as the spectators finally understood what monster Caesar was referrencing:
"My Heart and Soul! Red Demon's Dragon!"
In a firestorm, the imposing dragon appeared, accompanied by Caesar' diabolic laughter.
"I activate my last magic card! Your fate is sealed!"
He flipped his last card:
"Falling Down! As long as I control a Demon, this card will make your Archangel fall to the realm of darkness and under my control! A king's place is below that of an Emperor Hahahaha… And finally, I equip the Axe of Fools i just drew to your fallen angel to make it a most loyal servant! Double direct attack! Corrupted Knowledge! Absolute Power Force!"
Blown away by the power she was facing, the evaluator held on with 700 life points. Caesar had realized a most spectacular of turns, and the people still doubting his talent could be counted on the fingers of a hand.
The evaluator, however, knew everything was just shiny powder to the eyes as long as her last life point had not fallen, especially since her opponent had committed a crass mistake, surely trying to assemble the largest monster he could, but that placed on his field two weaknesses, that if exploited would destroy all "The Emperor" had built up.
At the start of his opponent's turn, Caesar grabbed his chest theatrically as Falling Down drained him of 800 of his life points, making him drop to 7200 life points.
"I activate my field magic: Ritual Sanctuary, and with its effect, I send Metalfoes Fusion from my hand to my graveyard to add Machine Angel Ritual! But that's not all, Thanks to the effect of my Metalfoes Fusion, by returning it to my deck, I can draw an additional card."
All these maneuvers were vain to Caesar, but seeing his opponent struggle to cling onto her last breath seemed to amuse him much.
"I drew the Upstart Goblin, I offer you 1000 life points and draw a new card!"
"Thank you very much, I appreciate your contribution to paying the cost of my Fallin Down fufufu!" But his opponent seemed to be smiling once again.
"By sending back the Upstart Goblin and Shinato's Ark from my graveyard to my deck, my field magic lets me bring back Happy Lover!"
Bells rang in the battlefield as the small monster came back.
"And what do you even intend on doing with such a small monster against my army of darkness!?" Caesar mocked her.
"It is quite the weak army you have Caesar. Battle Phase!"
Caesar was befuddled by this sudden decision.
"You will not…?"
"Happy Lover attacks Red Demon's Dragon! Love Love Beam!"
"P-pardon?"
But as the small angel finally came up to the way too powerful enemy, the evaluator slammed a card on her duel disk.
"Instant magic! Enemy Controller! By sacrificing Happy Lover, I take control of the Red Demon's Dragon!"
"I… But Shinato is much more powerful, so why?"
The dragon joined his opponent, followed by the angel still equipped with the Axe.
"Huh?! But how?!"
"Look at the field Caesar! Your control of my archangel depended entirely on Falling Down, but Falling Down couldn't exist on the field without a Demon. You let your army be vulnerable to two very simple moves, and now you will pay the price! Direct attack!" The two monsters that guarded him moments before now rushed towards him, reducing his life points to 900.
"Luckily for you, at the end of the turn, you will get back your dragon, but with no other cards, I doubt you can run over my Shinato!"
She was right, Caesar thought as he looked at the card he just drew with a vicious smile, he couldn't get over the Shinato, but maybe he wouldn't need to.
"During my Standby Phase, Axe of Fools inflicts 500 points of damage to you! I set a card face-down and end my turn! Amuse me more!"
the evaluator wasn't naïve, she knew that simply attacking would be too easy and that Caesar's face-down card was certainly here to prevent her from doing so. Nevertheless, she still intended on reducing to nothing all chances of Caesar getting back into the duel, and this meant suppressing his dragon.
"I activate my ritual magic! Machine Angel Ritual! By sacrificing Shinato, I summon Cyber Angel Dakini!"
the 6-armed warrior stood on the field, and with a ferocious aura, pointed her weapons to Caesar.
"But she's weaker than Shinato!"
"Yes, but she has a special ability! When she is summoned, she forces you to get rid of one of your monsters!"
Caesar had no choice left, it was impossible for him to obtain victory, but he could at least remove it from his opponent's grasp;
"Reverse Card! I would rather reign in hell than serve in paradise! The Emperor shall never fall! I activate Ring of Destruction! By destroying Red Demon's Dragon, we will both suffer 3000 points of damage! HAHAHAHAHA!"
The ring wrapped around the red dragon's neck who laughed following its master, and a huge explosion ensued.
Clara yawned and clumsily rolled her 4 dies again.
She had fallen asleep while playing against one of her cards and the explosion had woken her up. She was however grumpy, because her Number 88: Gimmick Puppet Destiny Leo, for which she rolled the dies and took the decisions, seemed to be winning the game.
"Hey, kid!" an arrogance-tinted voice challenged her. "What did you think of The Emperor's duel? Not bad eh? hehe."
She raised her dark circled eyes and recognized the patched-up cloth of her interlocutor.
"You are a cheater!" She accused him, pointing at him, although her small fingers barely came out of her sleeves.
"I beg your pardon?" Caesar answered. "The Emperor doesn't appreciate such baseless accusations!"
"I saw you!" Clara reacted swiftly. "You cheated! You cheated with the dice and you're a big cheating cheatyface! Cheater!"
She pulled out her tongue at him while he was dodging her accusative look.
"All these accusations are obscene! I obviously just had a lot of luck! Fate smiles to The Emperor!"
Clara grimaced, incapable of answering to such bad faith, then she had an idea:
"Prove it!"
"What do you mean, 'prove it'?"
"Prove to me that you're lucky! Play against me and prove you're lucky!"
Caesar observed Clara's game board. He didn't recognize the game, but evidently, it was dice-based. His victory was guaranteed.
"But, because you're a cheating cheater, I'll be rolling the dies for you!"
Caesar worried for a moment that the girl could too manipulate the dies' results, but this doubt quickly quit his mind as he watched her clumsily pick up the game pieces, making more fall than she was picking up.
He sighed with a slight smile.
"If that's what you prefer… So, tell me how it works!"
Clara took a deep breath and started explaining the rules of the game:
"Okay, so basically there's this mountain with 11 tracks, and we have 3 hikers each, and you have to be the first one to climb up 3 tracks. Each turn, you roll 4 dies to know where you're allowed to climb. You take the results of the dies and make groups of 2 to obtain 2 results between 2 and 12. For example:"
She rolled the dies:
"So I have a 3, a 4 and two 6, so I can do 3+6 and 4+6 or 6+6 and 4+3"
she re-rolled the dies under Caesar's attentive look.
"Now I have a 2, a 4, a 5 and a 6, so I can do 2+4 and 5+6 or 2+5 and 4+6, or 4+5 and 2+6. Ok?"
Caesar nodded "and-"
He was interrupted by Clara who, not waiting for an answer, continued her explanation.
"Let's say I take 2+4 and 5+6, that means I'll take 2 of my 3 hikers and put them on tracks 6 and 11"
She took 2 of the big black pawns and placed them at the bottom of tracks 6 and 11.
"And then I reroll the dies!"
"Wait, it's still your turn?"
"I have a 2, a 3, a 5 and a 6… I can do 11 and 5. I could also do 7 and 9 or 8 and 8, but I have only 1 hiker left, so if I chose 7 and 3, I could only climb either 7 or 3. Here I can put my last hiker on 5 and make the one on 11 climb 1 tick, or make my last hiker climb two ticks on 8, but I'll choose 5 and 11."
She placed her last pawn on the game board and moved the one on track 11.
"And now I can choose if I play again or stop my turn! If I play again, and I can do none of the tracks where I have my hikers, there's an obstacle and they have to get down, but if I stop my turn, they can plant a stake to start again from where they stopped on the next turn! Okay?"
"I see! So it's a test of courage!"
Clara removed the pawns from the game board.
"You can start if you want!"
"My pleasure! But you're committing a grave mistake!"
Clara rolled the dies for him, and he chose to climb tracks 7 and 9, then added his last hiker to track 6 while advancing the one on track 7.
"Do you stop or continue?" Clara asked.
"A foolish question! I continue!" Caesar exclaimed.
The dies rolled 2, 3, 3 and 5.
"Hahaha! Another victorious turn for The Great Emperor! My minions will climb tracks 6 and 7!"
Clara moved Caesar's pawns.
"Say…" she then asked, getting out of the game. "Why did you throw cards in the trash?"
"Hm? I don't know what you're talking about! Roll the dies! I want to continue my ascension!"
Clara violently threw the dies that bounced on the table and one fell behind one of the seats.
"You said you threw Battle Ox and Hane-Hane in the trash! Why?!"
Clara's look was of a severity that contrasted with her otherwise soft and innocent traits.
"I… I only said that as provocation… I didn't even have cards when I was a child… Besides…"
He placed his hand on the ridiculously tall pile that was his deck.
"I could never…"
His throat tightened, but he forced his theatrics that the girl's question had so easily made disappear.
"Every soldier, every minion, every servant, every card in my army of darkness deserves my consideration! Separating from any of them would make me unworthy of being the Infernal Emperor of the Demon World!"
Clara's face lighted up as she took back the dice that had fallen out of the game and gave it to Caesar.
"Okay! I trust you!"
A large smile illuminated her childish face.
Caesar took the dice. In front of him were a 1 and two 4. Everything was reliant on the last dice roll, he needed either a 2, a 3, a 5 or a 6. 2 out of 3 chances were lower than his usual 100%, but he refused to use any cheating and rolled the dice normally.
"Oh! You should have stopped before, you were too reckless…"
a 4.
He had rolled a 4.
Clara took the dies and swoop the hikers out of their tracks, erasing all progress his opponent had over her.
Caesar smiled. Maybe this time, he would really have fun.
Cards Used:
Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
Shinato, King of a Higher Plane
Shinato's Ark
Performance of Sword
Happy Lover
Pot of Desires
Dicelops
Kahkki, Guerilla of Dark World
Broww, Huntsman of Dark World
Axe of Fools
Fabled Lurrie
Summon Dice
Dark Resonator
Red Dragon Archfiend
Falling Down
Ritual Sanctuary
Metalfoes Fusion
Machine Angel Ritual
Upstart Goblin
Enemy Controller
Cyber Angel Dakini
Ring of Destruction
Games Used:
Can't Stop (available for any player on boardgamearena)
Rules
On each turn, the player rolls the four dice, then divides them into two pairs, adding up each pair. (For example, a player rolling a 1, 2, 3, and 6 could group them as 5 and 7, 4 and 8, or 3 and 9.) If the neutral markers are off the board, they are brought onto the board on the columns corresponding to these totals. If the neutral markers are already on the board in one or both of these columns, they are advanced one space upward. If the neutral markers are on the board, but only in columns that cannot be made with any pair of the current four dice, the turn is over and the player gains nothing. This is generally called 'going bust.'
After moving the markers, the player chooses whether or not to roll again. If the player stops, they put markers of their color in the location of the current neutral markers. If the player restarts this column on a later turn, they start building from the place where they previously placed their markers. If the player does not stop, they must be able to advance one of the neutral markers on their next roll, or lose any advancement made this turn.
When a player reaches the top space of a column and claims it then this column is won, and no further play in that column is allowed. A player claims three columns to win the game.
The official rules merely say "If you can place a marker, you must...", not stating if that applies before or after a player decides how to subdivide the four dice. This rule is potentially confusing for the following reason:
Suppose the player has a neutral marker in the 7-column, with two un-played. The player now rolls 2-2-5-5. Of course, the player wants to declare two sevens. The player still has an unplayed neutral marker, so is the rule interpreted such that the player must place their remaining two neutral markers, playing on 4 and 10? The rule may have only been intended to apply to requiring that all die-pairs be played, if possible. For instance, if the player rolls 3-4-1-2, they may choose to make a 7 and a 3, advancing their 7 marker, and they must also place their 3 marker even though they would prefer to hold it in reserve.
-Wikipedia