Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V
Day 12: Casino
War was like gambling. No matter how much you have planned, there was always the unknown, the X factor, the random chance, that one unexpected event that would somehow change all your plans and strategy. That X factor could either be something the gambler could benefit from or what could destroy him. And Akaba Reiji knew that right now he was playing a game on the most dangerous table, with everything at stake and two Jokers hidden in his deck.
One of those Jokers was Sakaki Yuya. The boy was at least interesting. At times Reiji could not help himself but see the teenager as a test subject. Pendulum summoning on its own was a wonder; a strange power that had originally only been granted to that boy, by unknown means, forces and methods. The boy at first could not conceive the full magnitude of his discovery? Invention? and yet in a matter of days the boy had found with his own strength what was beyond the Pendulum.
Pendulum summon was the very essence of Standard itself, a summoning method specifically designed for the sake of accessing all the other summoning methods, created in a dimension where every duelist could choose any kind of deck and use any kind of summoning method they wanted, but they could never touch the ideal of the other dimensions just like a pendulum would reach the closest point possible but never touch.
Only that Sakaki Yuya had touched that ideal. His XYZ summoning was right on the point of perfection. The summoning energy was at the very top of the scale, the power levels stable and the force behind it tangible on one's skin. Akaba Reiji had no doubt that the boy's XYZ could deal real damage without the help of Real Solid Vision. And while it was true that Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon was a card from the XYZ Dimension, the origin was not the cause. Akaba Reiji knew that the bond which created Pendulum XYZ was the one Sakaki Yuya shared with the man named Ute. But still, that did not explain the raw power, the strange red light that illuminated within the boy's eyes as he summoned the XYZ Pendulum Dragon that broke all rules of logic and almost all rules in the game.
That strange, possession-like state that Sakaki Yuya entered into once enraged… There was something simply unnatural about it, like the teenager possessed some mystic, dark power that he had no control over. A power that made him smile as he summoned that one monster that he knew it would beat the life out of its victims… But the boy was slowly learning how to control it. And there was no telling what he would be capable of once in control.
The second Joker Akaba Reiji played with was – completely unexpectedly – the Synchro Dimension duelist. The man who looked identical to Sakaki Yuya, like Ute had before him, had introduced himself as Hugo, had entered this dimension out of the blue and disappeared into thin air. He was not working with the Academia, but that was the extend of information they had on him. Purpose: unknown. Motives: unknown. Whereabouts: most probably somewhere in the Synchro Dimension, but that could be anywhere. And Hiragi Yuzu was with him.
All Akaba Reiji had on Hugo was the total of less than two minutes caught on camera. And all those two minutes had told him was one thing; that the Synchro Dimension duelist was unpredictable. There was no telling what he would do next, and Akaba Reiji, despite his ingeniousness, could not predict the plans of someone who apparently had no plans in the first place, nor he could predict the orders the Synchro biker would be given when said Synchro biker was literally "him against the world".
Yes, Akaba Reiji gambled on the most risky tabletop with all the money in the deal and two Jokers hidden somewhere in his deck. And he knew that those two Jokers would either bring triumph or destruction.