Hello new reader! I am your friendly neighborhood Reaper and welcome to my story! Now the thing to know about me is that I love Yu-Gi-Oh. From the anime, to the TCG, to even the fanfics I love it and I've been meaning to write a fanfic about it for YEARS but I never got around to it because of High School and all that.

But now I am free from my bindings from stupid school and I can now write more and more! There a few people I wanna speak for inspiration for this story, I doubt they'll ever read this but I just wanna say these people and the fics they have written have inspired this little gem of a story!

PandoraJail: This is a fellow Arc-V fic writer and in my opinion are incredibly creative with their stories. If you haven't read Trading Game I highly recommend it if you enjoy what I make! I don't really enjoy Meta cards in Anime fics but they absolutely make it work and it's a joy to read!

Emblemfan1: I just found this guy out like…. Two days ago and their story is already one of my favorites. Staying in the Background is an incredibly fun take on the Self Insert trope and I'm going to be nabbing some of his ideas into this story because I fucking love it. Hope you don't mind!

Diabolic Tracer: One of the OG's when it comes to Arc-V fics. Arc-Tracer and Arc-Twins are some of the stories that I think started out my obsession with these kinds of stories. From their creative original created decks to the characters that they make, I believe they are one of the most creative when it comes to OC stories.

Now with THAT out of the way, I believe it is time to start this story! Ladies and gents, hope you all enjoy!

"Anaconda, pitch Red-Eyes Fusion?"

Fuck.

"Bring out Dragoon?"

Shit.

"Uuuuuuh, pass?"

I sat there in silence as I had just watched the man in front of me combo off and then end with the most broken and somehow not banned card currently in the game, Red Eyes Dark Dragoon. I looked through the three cards I had in my hand…. One for One, Zombie World, and a Vampire Domain which I just drew. God if I had one monster I could at least bring something out but it would probably just get negated by Dragoon. I looked to my cards, hoping that something would just appear into my hand but sadly I was stuck with this.

"Well I guess I'll set one and-"

"Time in the round!" And before I could even put down a card, time was called and that meant that was that. I currently had 3200 life points while he had 6000.

"Oh GG my guy. You should really look into buying some hand traps."

"Yeah Good Game. Not much I could do after Dragoon hit the field. And I would, trust me I would but those cards are so expensive."

I'm a casual player. I grew up with the anime and was that kid who first showed up to locals having their deck in a tiny paper bag without sleeves, thinking that the mish-mash of cards would be enough to win. Surely I grew up and got better cards, sleeves, and all that but I guess that child like wonder of watching the anime still never left.

Plus Casual dueling was just more fun. More pure decks still had that anime feel that locals lacked. I tried using more meta cards but trust me… I'd much rather stick to pure.

I began to gather up my cards when I finally turned on my phone since I got into the shop. I usually turn off my phone here because I get distracted rather easily. As soon as I turned it on the phone lit up with around 30 notifications. "What in the-"

Mom: 'I just got a call from your teacher'

Mom: 'I am very disappointed in you-'

Mom: Missed Call

Mom: Missed Call

Mom: Missed Call

That went on for a while….. I have a looooong sigh as I looked to my cards and began sorting them back into the pile when the game shop owner walked out of the back with the round sheet for the top 4. I knew I didn't top this week but it wouldn't hurt to try and look. And hey if I don't that means it gets me extra time to get done the like…. 10 homework assignments I have to get done.

….god I hate class work.

Standing up from my chair I began to walk towards the sheet and gave a long drawn out sigh as I looked at the names. Yup… I was right. Didn't even make podium

I turned on my heel and began to walk back to the table and then I noticed something. My cards weren't there. Did I drop them on the floor?

I looked around the table, around the chairs, around anything I could find near where I was sitting earlier but I came up short. How did I lose a small box of cards!? Ok…. I was slightly panicking as I tried to retrace my steps. Let's see I got up…. Walked over here… and then-

In the corner of my eye I saw a hooded person walking out of the store rather quickly. In his hands were new packs of cards…. And a purple deck box.

"Oh you son of a- HEY! STOP!" I yelled as I began to run towards the man but as I went to bolt towards the card thief he took off running out of the shop and into the parking lot of the shop.

"Mother fucker THERES NO EXPENSIVE CARDS IN THOSE-! ONLY SENTIMENTAL ONES MY GUY." Opening the door I raced out of the shop, spotting the man who was hauling ass down the road. Didn't seem he had a car… but getting in mine would take too long, as it was a piece of absolute shit so I decided to start run. Run as fast as I could to try and catch up with him.

It was around Late Fall getting almost to winter and almost 9:00 PM so it was extremely cold right now, the cold wind made my eyes water and my nose run but I kept running. Now I wasn't the most athletic person alive, not by a long shot so while I kept running my lungs began to burn, my breathing becoming wheezy…

We got to a crosswalk, the man pushing people out of the way and running out to the other side. Without staring at the crosswalk sign I bolted after him, trying to reach the other side but as I got halfway there the light turned green….

A car raced through the road, not slowing down….

The next feeling I felt was as if my whole entire body was nailed by a cannonball… I felt bones shatter, cold and hard pavement connect with my skin, and warm blood begin to flood through my hoodie. I was flung off my feet, being launched back by the force of the car…. I tried to scream but no sound came out.

I could feel my consciousness begin to fade. I was there in thee moment but I felt dizzy and light headed. I could hear people scream in horror and I could hear footsteps of strangers running out to check on me. Blurry faces of people I've never seen before stood around me. Trying to speak to me. I heard voices but they were muffled and inaudible.

"I'll….. I'll just rest for now….." I muttered to myself as my eyes began to grow heavy. Having no energy at all I closed my eyes… for what I assumed to be the last time.

"GAH-" My whole body jolted awake as if I woken up from a nightmare. I was out of breath, my lungs were burning, and my entire head was pulsing in pain. Expecting to be in my room and the whole thing that just happened to be a dream my hands began to feel around my surroundings as my eyes were to blurry and unfocused to take in my surroundings.

But instead of soft blankets and pillows I was met with cold, wet, ground and….. was that a garbage bag?

"I'm.. I'm alive…?." My heart was still racing as my eyes began to focus. Was that a dream… Couldn't be cause I feel like I went three rounds with fucking Mike Tyson. But there's no blood? My bones are fine?

I went to clutch my chest to see if the blood was still there but…. These aren't my clothes. Not even clothes. These are more old makeshift shirts and pants and they smelt like shit. Good god was I fucking robbed?

As my eyes slowly became less blurry I could see that I was in some sort of… alleyway?

Now I am no drinker. Never wanted to try any of that stuff but would that explain this…. Cause I don't remember sleeping in some dank, sketchy, alleyway.

Finally raising to my feet the first thing I tried to do was find my phone and my car keys. God my mom is probably worried sick. Judging by the night sky it was probably like what….. midnight? Probably later? She's never gonna believe me that I generally don't know what happened. Hopefully if I'm not to far from the card store I can ask them to lend me a phone.

Spending about 10 minutes looking for my phone and keys, and having no luck, I began to make my way out of the alley in a slight panic. I don't have enough money to buy another phone!

"I couldn't have gone that far. Not like a car could hit me across the country-"

I don't recognize this place.

Going in more of a panic I began to look around. Instead of the simple city I lived in my entire life, I was fucking blinded by bright neon signs on stores, giant buildings reaching high up into the sky, and a line of cars stuck in traffic. This whole place was brighter than any city I have ever seen.

I began to hyperventilate.

"Oh good god where am-"

[You have received one new Message]

[Opening Message…]

A small, blue box appeared in front of my face like a tiny info screen in a video game. No…. No this isn't happening right now.

So little known fact about me that I don't tell a lot of people. I used to read a LOT of fanfics. Most of them of which being Isekai style Gamer fics. You know the fanfics where some average dude bro gets offed by a car or truck and ends up in the world of there favorite anime or something with the powers of a MMORPG style system.

Most of them were shit but come on we all have our guilty pleasures. Now the true question is which world am I in?

Taking a few steps into the alleyway my vision was blocked by one giant pop up of text.

[Greetings Mortal! I hope the drop off didn't mess you up that much! Anyway you may be asking why you are here. Well! I need test subjects for a tiny experiment regarding the souls of mortals like yourself. So I killed you! How fun!]

[Now don't worry I got permission to do this from the Big G himself to do this so think of this like… weird restart. You know those silly little stories you love to read? Well I dropped you in one of those scenarios. Now I won't bore you with the whole Tutorial thing cause I bet you know how that goes. Just say menu and go from there.]

[Oh! And one last thing! Don't fuck up the time line here to much. You can change some things but I would hate for this whole thing to have erase you! So no offing anyone important that doesn't need to be offed! Ta Ta!]

[XOXO JJ]

….

…..

…..

I sat there in stunned silence as I read the entire message. This left me with more questions than fucking answers but beggars can't be choosers. But still for someone to be so casual at…. Well death. Taking a deeeeep breath in I slumped against the wall of the alleyway which was a bad idea since it was all grimy and wet but at this point I don't care.

"Think… think on the bright side…" I muttered, trying to think of a upside to this situation. Well those homework assignments I had to do aren't a problem anymore. And work as well.

Oh right. I don't have any money.

At least I don't think so? Most gamer systems have a currency counter to prevent thieves jacking your stuff so maybe…

"Menu."

[The Gamer Menu]

[Stats]

[Store: Locked]

[Messages]

[Free Duel: Locked]

"That's a rather…. Small menu."

Going down the list I looked at the different selections, with two looking a bit out of place. The Store and Free Duel. Stats was most likely the most obvious one, be it your normal strength and dexterity stats. Messages was already used but the last two. And why where they locked? That's a bit unfair don't ya think?

"Stats."

[STATS]

[Name: Enter Name Here]

[Age: 14]

[LV: 0]

[Title: Street Urchin]

[Deck: N/A]

[Ace Monster: N/A]

[DP: 0]

Wait a minute… Looking at the stats closer I slowly began to realize what world I might be in. A world that changed me for life. A world where instead of violence and destruction brought by how much sway you have over people, but your skill in a children's card game. And that's when a giant grin spread across my face.

Immense dread was immediately replaced by joy as all of my worries and doubts were pushed aside. What fan of the anime wouldn't be ecstatic in this situation? Characters that I loved growing up and still love to this day have basically become real.

I'll take being aged down a few years. I'll take being a street rat! If I can get a deck and win a few duels then winning money should be a snap! Now the only question is… which world am I in?

[Main Quest Line]

[Quest Name: A World of Cards]

[Quest Objective: To play in a world ruled by a card game you will most likely need a deck of cards to play. Head to the nearest Card Shop and get a deck and a duel disk by some means. Your journey has just begun.]

[Quest Completion: A deck of Duel Monsters cards. Store Unlocked. Free Duel Unlocked.]

[Quest Failure: Not an Option]

If my grin could go wider it sure did. Getting off the disgusting wall I began to head out into the city around me. Where to go first… How about…

And now I'm lost.

I have been walking for what has been…. 20? 30 minutes? I don't really know at this point. What I do know though is that if I don't eat then I'm going to die and dying from starvation in a world where any other way of death is cooler I'd rather not be spawn killed.

But in the thirty minutes of walking I did think up various plans for each world. Very simple actually. DM is probably the simplest one. Don't enter Battle City. I can meet the characters, I can see whoever I wanna see but stay away from the Battle City tournament. If I don't alter anything then Marik will lose, Yugi will win, and I am not on jeopardy of having my soul taken. GX is around the same. If I'm in GX then there is no chance in hell I'm not going to Duel Academy. But I'll just… blend into the background. Side characters are always the best characters in my opinion.

5ds is a problem. Satellite would explain the absolute rags I am wearing but this city is to bright to be it. I could be in the fancy place and this JJ person just hates my fucking guts. Dark Signers is gonna be trouble though….

Zexal isn't THAT bad. XYZ is my favorite summoning mechanic and the World Duel Carnival should be fine as long as I don't get a number card. If I do however I feel like dodging Kite like the plague would be helpful. Maybe I could shadow Yuma and see how long that could keep me alive? But the Barian Arc is tricky since Don Thousand is… well Don Thousand.

I'm fucked if I'm in Arc-V. Man, Women, Child, all of them catch the hands of Academia in the XYZ dimension. I can probably survive longer if I'm in Standard or Fusion itself but I don't know how much time that would buy me honestly. If I don't piss anyone off in Synchro I can probably survive. It's pretty much the same idea as 5ds.

Now Vrains, Sevens, and Go Rush I have no clue since I haven't really seen all of them. I should be fine in the last two but Vrains from what I know is the MOST serious Yugioh series. Shit I really should have caught up with that series…

With a long sigh I began to go at the task at hand. Card Shop…. Or food. Food is most likely the most important since I can't do the quest if I'm dead.

The sun rose earlier luckily and people were out and about now. Some were heading to work, some were just up to be up, but that meant it was easy to people watch. Seeing these peoples hair was an insane sight though. Like… it was Anime hair but real. Defying gravity, multicolored, anime hair.

Anyways, peoples hair aside. Some people who were talking about the latest clothes, some were talking about a bet they made, while some were just keeping to themselves. Eventually I spotted someone throwing a piece of food into a garbage.

I could feel my stomach rumbling…..

"Oh…. No… Ugh-"

….

….

…

I am disgusted with myself. Thoroughly and utterly disgusted with myself. But at least I'm not starving as much. I want be surprised if I get sick and throw up from this though.

But luckily in my disgusting attempts to get food and prevent myself from dying got me a big clue though! See! Upsides! In that disgusting garbage can was a map of the city! A bit sad that this Gamer ability didn't come with a map feature built in but hey, I'll take what I can get. Now this city isn't the biggest. Not by a long shot but it's still a sizable city. But it did have a name though.

Silvona City.

Doesn't ring any bells for any of the anime cities that I can remember so it doesn't help a lot. But thankfully this map takes note of every card shop in the city. There was a few around but the closest was called the Silvona South Peak Game Shop. A mouthful.

Making a break for this shop I began to run through the crowd of people, hearing scoffs and 'Hey!'s from the people I accidentally bumped into but I simply ignored them. For I was on a quest! And I wasn't being stopped.

I ran until I got tired. The sun was higher up than before and it felt like summer or spring from the heat of the sun. And thus… I finally saw it. A small brown and orange-ish building with big words spelling out SPGS across the building. Tables and carts of different pack lined the outside with adults and children swarming for said cards. It was an incredible sight to see. So many people having this crave and fascination with this game… it was a way of life.

I guess the shop just opened? It was still pretty early in all honesty so it makes sense. Arriving at the crowd I looked around, trying to peer over peoples shoulder but I was to short. God is this how short people feel? I sighed as I tried to walk into the shop but I was met with shoves and almost disgusted looks.

"Back off! I want those cards!"

"No I was here first!"

"Oh that's Bull! You know I was here first."

"You calling me a liar?"

God this crowd is insane. Stumbling to my feet I dusted myself off and looked at everyone. This is Black Friday shopping all over again.

The sea of people were silenced by a older looking woman as she began to walk out from the inside of the store. She was a tan-skinned woman, around late 20's early 30's with sandy brown hair that was pulled up in a tight ponytail. She wore a brown, ripped, crop top that exposed some very muscular abs and a pair of these dark orange jeans that had holes in them. She looked at the sea of people and sighed as if she had done this multiple times before.

"QUIET EVERYONE! YOU WILL GET YOUR CARDS IN A SECOND!" She called out, making the swarm of people stop in their tracks. "Now if you would please enter the shop calmly and not like animals than we can hopefully get you all what you want."

And just like that the people listened. The swarm became a neat kind of line that was going into the shop. As people filed in, I tip-toed around the crowd and entered the shop. Now this shop was wall to wall cards. Packs and boxes of Yugioh cards lined the entire store with prices ranging from insanely cheap to like…. 5,000 DP.

How in the world am I gonna buy this stuff-

"Hey! Give me back my cards!"

That broke me out of my thoughts. Looking out the window back outside I saw a group of around 3 boys… around 13-14 all around a much smaller boy. The boy had bright green hair that fell right to his shoulder and these big glasses that pressed up against his face. He seemed around their age as well but much smaller.

"Oh come on Four Eyes! You are gonna jump higher than that for them!" Called a much taller boy that was holding the cards. He had blonde hair with the tips dyed red. Or what I think is dye because Anime hair is hard to pin point. He wore a jacket with the sleeves ripped off, a shirt that looked oddly like the Jurassic Park logo, and just looked like a stereotypical delinquent

The small boy kept leaping for the cards but the taller boys kept playing keep away with the deck of cards that were in a bright green deck box. Okay that's just messed up. Should I do something about it? This may be a key plot point or some sort of split in path of where I can go. Taking a deep breath I tried to puff up my just as much as I could and make my way to the group of kids.

"Hey-" Voice Cracked. "Ahem. Hey! Could you please put the deck of cards down? You're being kind of a jerk my guys." I said as all of them just froze and turned their attention towards me. Even the boy being bullied blinked in just straight confusion before all of the bullies blurted out in laughter.

"Are those….. rags? Hahahahahahaha! Who even are you?" The one holding the deck of cards cackled, gesturing to my clothes. Okay ow that stung a bit.

"I am….." Oh shit I have to choose a name. God I've been shit with names for the longest time. Alastor? Nah that doesn't work. Simon? Come on I'm in a anime world that's to simplistic. Wait…. Wait I got it!

"My name is Tyrian… and again. Please give the cards back, I'm giving you a warning." Giving a sigh I made my way to the group and tried to just grab the cards but the boy tossed it to one of his friends.

[Congratulations! Name selected as: Tyrian! No last name selected]

Not now Gamer-

"Oops. Gotta be quicker than that Flea Bag." He said as he shoved me a bit. I stumbled a bit before realizing what he said. I glanced at a nearby window and saw that my body wasn't only insanely dirty and filthy but I looked… different.

My skin was a dark tan which stayed the same from my previous life but my hair which was once curly and black was now a shaggy, long, black-ish mess that fell to my shoulders. My eyes were these deep red but my clothes were these dirty raggedy clothing that seemed to small for my already small body.

"Please just give the cards back so none of this has to end in conflict." I said, trying my best to keep my composure. Trying to grab the cards again he tossed them to his friend who tossed them back to the main dude bro.

"Oooooooo~ So scary. Tell ya what flea bag. If you beat me in a duel then it's all yours." He said with a smirk. A small crowd began to gather around us like a fight at school. The smaller boy finally got up to her feet and looked at me with a worried expression.

"Hey um…. You don't have to do this…." He said rather quietly. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. "I would duel but don't have a deck or duel disk to duel with."

His expression deflated a bit, now realizing that I had no way of getting their cards back. He just looked sad… and I could tell these cards meant a lot to him. Turning to the small crowd that was around us I looked at some of the duelists.

"Do any of you guys have a deck that I may borrow for one duel? Promise to make it quick." I said with a small smile as silence filled the crowd. Eventually a voice called out. I couldn't see the face but they chucked a odd looking tablet at me. Which nailed me in the face.

"Here! Take this to due- Oh god sorry!" The voice called out as I held my face in pain.

"It… it's fine- Thank you-" So much for trying to be cool. I turned my attention to the boy who had the biggest smile on his face.

"Look at you. Flea Bag has some courage. But that won't help a lot." He said as he took a stance. I quickly fidgeted with the large tablet sized duel disk in my hand, trying to turn it on. It was finally activated. Coming from the size of this purple tablet was basically a duel disk made of hard light with a a purple edge around it.

Oh…. Oh fuck it's Arc-V…