I wanted to write a Yugioh fic, so I'm writing a Yugioh fic. The idea for a Yugioh gamer fic has been bouncing around in my head for a few years now and since I recently started writing my own shit I decided to go for it. Don't expect frequent updates. My main fic only gets updated once a month at this point and this fic is nowhere near my main priority.
I should also note that I'm going to be using more than a few anime-only cards and maybe a few custom cards to pad out an archetype. Like, you'll see three or four custom cards at most and with the exception of a card I might not even use, they'll all be based on Speed Duel skill cards or something like that.
Alright, with that out of the way, let's get this shitshow started
Yuji Rengoku
DE (Duel Energy) – 0 (+10 every day)
DP (Duel Points) – 0
BP (Bond Points) – 0/5 (250 DE to upgrade)
Stars – 1 (500 DE to upgrade)
Mind – 0
Body – 0
Will – 0
That was the first thing I saw when I woke up in this world. A stat sheet straight out of a video game and a name that wasn't my own. I had memories that weren't my own, lived in a house that I wasn't familiar with and had parents that I'd never met. Even my name was different! I was an aspiring actor from the United States, not an aspiring Duelist from Japan!
My new face was a shock to the system too. Before I died I was a 5'10" High School Junior, but now I'm a 5'5" Japanese Middle Schooler with wild, neck length black and brown hair that hangs in front of my eyes like I'm a hentai protagonist. You know the ones, the self-insert types that lonely dorks can easily project themselves onto because they can't see their eyes?
At least I've got that signature two-toned Yu-Gi-Oh protagonist hair. Hell, I even have 'Yu' in my name.
Still, once I got over the initial shock, I remembered the last thing I saw before I woke up here, a man with a knife running at me because I knocked him down while he was robbing a store. In my defense, once I kicked his gun away, the clerk was watching over him while I called the police, so if anything, it's his fault I died.
So, this turned out to be one of those isekai thingies my friend was always going on and on about.
At least I was in Yu-Gi-Oh, which is something I was very familiar with. I wish I could say Yuji was familiar with it before I assimilated him, but oh well, you win some you lose some.
Yuji's deck was... Mediocre was too nice for the disgustingly bland Warrior deck I found. I saw what the kid was going for, but an equip Beatdown deck with Sword Hunter as an ace wasn't going to cut it, even in GX, which was where I found myself.
Seriously, he ran fucking Dust Tornado and Reinfocements. I'm probably being too harsh on Yuji, though. His win record was 85% and he was one of the best duelists in his middle school. A lot of his strategies revolved around goading his opponents into attacking and then using cards like Shrink, or Rush Recklessly to make them bounce off of his monsters which was an impressive strategy for a middle school student in the anime.
Hell, Yuji might have even been able to get into Central Duel Academy... As a Slifer Red student, and not the Jaden Yuki kind.
His last duel was proof of that. He was staring down a Doom Dozer that had just taken down his Sword Hunter with nothing but an Obnoxious Celtic Guard and a Judge Man on his side of the field. His opponent only had 700 life points left and Yuji had 1300.
So, when this kid draws an Unstable Evolution, what does he do? Does he equip it to the Doom Dozer, bring it down to size and attack for game? No, he switches his monsters to defense mode and was confident that he'd be able to turtle up until he drew something good.
He lost on his opponent's next turn when he used Dark Hole to wipe the board and attacked for game with a fucking Giant Flea.
That's right, Past-Yuji lost to someone that ran Giant Flea. I knew I had to change his deck completely and thankfully, I had some good cards to choose from, most of the monsters were warriors and that was the only kind of deck I could construct with what I had available. Still, it was better than what I had before.
With the deck I constructed out of my leftover cards, I entered a local tournament that was offering up a playset of Poker Knights, a Royal Straight and a Royal Straight Slasher to the winner. With my new deck I completely swept the competition and won
Side note; Did you know that Speed Warrior has a different effect here? Not only does his effect work on the turn he's summoned instead of Normal summoned, but his ATK also becomes double instead of double his original ATK during the battle phase of the turn he's summoned.
Why is this important? Well, when you destroy your final opponent's only face down with Mystical Space typhoon, use Shrink on her Vampire Lord and load Speed Warrior up with Mage Power and Malevolent Nuzzler... Yeah, you get the picture.
And that's how I OTK'd my opponent in the final's and won 5 new cards along with 5000 DP.
DP is a way to encourage aspiring young duelists to play in as many official matches as possible. KaibaCorp implemented the system 8 years ago and it's practically a currency of its own at this point, with it being treated as legal tender in any KaibaCorp owned or affiliated business, which was about 45% of all large businesses in Japan. Kaiba Land? You can pay for tickets with DP. Affiliated game shops? DP.
Hell, most banks even exchange DP for money! There's an entire economy based around it!
How does KaibaCorp maintain a profit off when they're pretty much giving money away? Simple; entrance fees. DP is only put into circulation through official KaibaCorp sponsored Duels, mostly tournaments and you need to offer up some cash to enter. I spent 5000 Yen to just to get into the elimination matches, as did the 30+ other competitors.
5000 DP? It's worth about 50,000 Yen, or 500 USD. Nowhere near the 150K+ Yen KaibaCorp got from the small local tournament. On top of that, you need a duel disk and a KaibaCorp network account to register, which cost about 25000 Yen and 4000 Yen a year respectively.
For every point of DP that goes into circulation, KaibaCorp makes more than 10 times as much off of the duelists who fought for it.
The Duel Disk is self explanatory, but the Network account more than just some monetization scheme. It's how Duel Disks are able to project solid vision constructs without the projectors that would shoot off from it.
A KCN account links your Duel Disk to the satellites that KaibaCorp uses to power their solid vision system and project duels across the world, while also updating Duel Disks to recognize and display new cards.
KCN accounts, Duel Disks, entrance fees, Duel Monsters cards, which KaibaCorp is the worlds biggest seller of, along with their other technology and entertainment based business ventures has made KaibaCorp the Disney of this world.
Seto Kaiba has more money than God and creating/running a satellite system that handles enough data to completely overwhelm every super-computer in the world combined?
Running that for a year costs less than he personally makes in a month.
That ludicrous amount of money is why no one in the world questioned his motives when he opened up 4 boarding schools across the world where every duel counts as an official KaibaCorp sponsored one without even asking for a dime in tuition. He simply has so much money that the costs don't even register to him and televised duels are sponsored to the extreme, so even then he's still making money.
I was determined to profit off of the system that was making some rich douchebag even richer, so I started entering local tournaments like crazy, using the DP I won to keep buying cards and upgrading my deck.
It only took a few months for me to build up a card library big enough to make multiple functioning decks out of. I even managed to get my hands on two more Royal Straight Slashers, its summoning card and a playset of Arcana Knight Jokers, which drained me of nearly 7000 DP altogether.
That's right, I spent the equivalent of 700 USD on 7 Duel Monsters cards and that isn't even a tenth of what I've won these past few months.
My parents were overjoyed that I was already making a living off of Duel Monsters of course. I also became a bit of a local celebrity in my area, with challengers coming out of the woodwork to duel me. Eventually there were so many that I imposed an Ante rule to keep too many people from bothering me. That way I could actually gain something from the constant challenges.
So far I've won an Ushi Oni, a Serpent Night Dragon, a Jinzo, the entire Masked Knight set from a repeat challenger, and a Gilford the Lightning, the last of which I promptly added to my Poker Knight deck.
All things considered, I was more than ready to take on the practical exam with any one of my decks.
I could use one of my tried and true decks, but where's the excitement in that? No, today calls for something special. Duel Monsters is a fun hobby, but my true passion has always been the performative arts and today I was going to put my admittedly limited acting experience to work.
With that in mind, I put together a brand new deck, one that was perfect for the role I set out to play.
The written test was a breeze. All it was there to do was make sure you actually had some knowledge about the game, with a few harder questions to separate the potential higher ranked students from the Slifer Reds.
I placed second overall, which was a bit humiliating, but in my defense, the only question I got wrong was the DEF points of Fucking Gokibore.
I'm not mad.
The duels I watched while waiting for my turn were interesting enough. Syrus barely beat his examiner and made quite a few misplays along the way.
"Is this seat taken?" Someone asked from behind me. Turning around to get a look at the guy who asked I was shocked to see none other than Bastion Misawa.
"Not at all, feel free to take it. I'm Yuji Rengoku by the way. Feel free to call me Yuji." I introduce myself to the wiz-kid.
"So informal." He whispered, astonished before shaking himself off. "Thank you Yuji-San, my name is Bastion Misawa. Please, call me Bastion if you'd like." He introduced himself stiffly.
"A pleasure. So, not that I mind, but is there any particular reason you decided to sit next to me, Bastion?" There were plenty of free seats in the gigantic stadium we were in, so I had to ask.
"My reason is probably the same as yours, my friend. The view from this part of the stadium is perfect! Far enough to see every duel, yet close enough to make out what's happening." I never even thought of that, but if it inflates his opinion of me, then who am I to tell him otherwise?
"I see I'm not as subtle as I thought." I told him, playing along.
"It doesn't seem anyone else had the same idea as us, so don't worry about anyone thinking you're transparent, my friend." Bastion assured me. He was right, too. Everyone was either down near the duel fields watching the action from up close, or way up high, acting like the cliched anime edgelords they were.
"Aww man, I'm getting a low score for sure!" A wimpy voice whined. I didn't even need to look before I knew who it was.
Syrus Truesdale
"Cheer up." I began as he took his seat directly in front of us. "You passed didn't you? That makes you better than most other duelists our age. You should be proud of yourself, besides, the whole point of going to duel academy is to get better at the game, isn't it?"
I'm no Shonen protagonist, but I'm not heartless either. You don't need to have a bleeding heart to cheer someone up.
"He's right, you know. Winning your exam proves you belong in Duel Academy." Bastion chimed in support.
"You think so?" Syrus asked, hopeful.
"I know so." I told him.
"Would Examinee # 79 please go to Duel field #2!" A female voice announces over the intercom.
"Well, that's me!" I excitedly tell Syrus and Bastion, ready to give everyone here a good show.
As I walked through the hallway to the duel field entryway, I quickly got into character and pulled out my deck, taking a moment to look at the monster on the front.
Battleguard King
Level 8
EARTH, Warrior
3000 ATK/1100 DEF
EFF: Once per turn: You can Tribute any number of Warrior-Type Monsters, except this card; for each Tributed monster, this card gains 1 additional attack during each Battle Phase this turn.
Let's crush the the competition.
(Bastion)
Watching his new friend walk onto the duel field, it was almost like he had become a completely different person. He walked with an almost harsh look on his face. Nerves, perhaps? His proctor also commented on this before taking the first turn.
"DRAW!" The proctor announced, drawing a card.
"I activate Ancient Rules, which lets me special summon one level 5 or higher normal monster from my hand! I special summon Twin-Headed Fire Dragon in attack mode!" The proctor burst right out the gate with a strong monster.
"Next I activate the Field Spell, Molten Destruction, which increases the ATK points of all FIRE attribute monsters on the field by 500 points! Next I set two cards face down and end my turn. Your move, rookie."
A strong starting move. The examiner was able to end his turn with a monster that had 2700 ATK points and two face down cards for protection.
"I'll have fun blasting through your field! DRAW!" This is new. Before Yuji seemed amicable, friendly even, but now he was talking down to his opponent?
"I activate Heavy Storm! Now every spell and trap card on the field is destroyed! Say goodbye to your backrow!" And just like that, the proctor's biggest advantage was lost. If Yuji manages to bring out a monster strong enough to climb over that dragon, then he'd have the advantage.
"Next, I play Pot of Greed, letting me draw two cards! Then I'll activate Dark World Dealings, letting us both draw a card, so long as we discard a card after." He paused to look at the cards he drew before sending one to the graveyard as his proctor did the same, Yuji's cards must have been quite good if his vicious smile was anything to go by.
"Now, I summon Granite Battleguard in attack mode, and when he's normal summoned I can Special summon one Boulder Battleguard from my hand, or deck!" Battleguards? Doesn't seem like the kind of deck Yuji would use at first glance, but appearances can be deceiving.
"I activate Monster Reborn to bring back my Battleguard King in attack mode." When did he-? Ah, of course! He discarded Battleguard King after after he activated Dark World Dealings!
3000 ATK too! Bastion wondered if it had an effect. The only Battleguard monsters he was aware of up until this point were Swamp and Lava Battleguard, so going by their effects, perhaps Battleguard King gains ATK points for every Battleguard monster on the field?
"Now that the King is on the field, his minions have to do their part! Battleguard King's effect lets me tribute any number of Warrior monsters on the field, and he gains an extra attack for each monster tributed by his effect! GO! Warlord's conscription!" Battleguard King didn't conscript the other monsters, rather, he consumed them whole.
It was disturbing to watch.
That effect wasn't what Bastion was execting, but he was impressed nonetheless.
Wait, Twin-Headed Fire Dragon only has 2200 ATK points. Battleguard King has 3000, AND can attack three times this turn, so that means...
"Great Scott! He's going to OTK the proctor!" Bastion shouted once he realized, drawing the attention of a goof portion of the other examinees and faculty to Yuji's duel.
"Battleguard King, smash that dragon into the dirt! King's kanabō!" Battleguard King jumped into the air and came down on Twin-Headed Fire Dragon like a ton of bricks, flattening the red dragon like a pancake before it shattered completely, bringing the proctor down to 3200 life points before it slammed into him twice more at Yuji's command, ending the duel.
"Incredible..." Syrus whispered and Bastion had to agree. Although, as impressive as an OTK was, it was an incredibly basic strategy. Annihilate your opponents backrow, summon a powerful monster, and let the rest play out on its own. That discard play with Battleguard King was admittedly ingenious though.
It spoke to Yuji's competency, at least and Bastion was sure he was going to be one of the best in their year, but devising a strategy to beat him wouldn't be particularly difficult.
(Mindy)
If there was one thing Mindy was good at, it was spotting a cutie, and despite his ugly monsters, that Yuji kid was downright adorable! She can spot an act from a mile away, but the reason he put one on? Who knows?
All Mindy knew was that Yuji was seriously embarrassed for some reason. His body language totally screamed 'oh my god, what did I just do?'.
She needed a second opinion on this one.
"So, what did you think of the Battleguard guy?" She asked the girl beside her.
"He was alright I guess, but nothing special. That graveyard play was neat, though." Her friend Jasmine responded. Between the two of them, Jasmine was the better duelist by far. Mindy's focus was always on card design rather than dueling, but she still went to prep school and made it into Obelisk Blue, so she's no slouch.
Jasmine was just that good. In fact, the only other students that consistently scored better than her were Jun "Chazz" Manjome and her rival turned friend, Alexis Rhodes.
In any other situation, Mindy would take Jasmine's word for it when she said someone wasn't that great, but she felt like her friend wasn't seeing the bigger picture.
Oh well, she'll have plenty of time to figure that Yuji guy out once they get to the academy. Mindy already knows Jasmine or Alexis will challenge him at some point. Despite her dismissal of him, Jasmine will definitely challenge him to a duel, even if it's just to prove herself right.
Still, what could make a guy that can OTK a proctor so embarrassed?
-The Greatest Showman-
As I was walking back to my seat, I thought back to my performance.
I'll have fun blasting through your field? I knew I was gonna ham it up in there, but even that surprised me. Oh man! I can't believe I said that, now everyone's gonna think I'm a Chuunibyou or something!
And I just kept making things worse! Warlord's Conscription?! He didn't conscript the other Battleguard's, HE FUCKING ATE THEM! Way to go off-script, Battleguard King!
*Satisfaction*
Oh, you smug motherfucker!
…At least the audience seemed to enjoy it. Oh, who am I kidding they probably think I'm a hack!
Heading back to the stands, I prepare to face the music.
"That was amazing!" Oh? At least Syrus seemed to enjoy it. The kid was downright beaming up at me like I was a celebrity.
"Why, thank you! I always aim to please the crowd." Even if he was the only person to enjoy it, I'd still consider my debut a success.
"The crowd? Huh, you know, I never even considered just how many people watch duels, especially in the pro leagues." Syrus reflected with a shudder.
"I used to have stage fright too, you know?" I told him, and it was true. I was so afraid of standing in front of a crowd that I couldn't even do presentations in class, but a friend had me sign up for acting class with him, and the rest was history.
"How'd you get over it?" Syrus asked, eager to learn how to overcome his beta-ness.
"Easy, just force yourself to perform in front of progressively larger crowds until it doesn't phase you anymore. It also helps if you're doing something you enjoy." That's really all it took for me to come out of my shell and from that point on, I was a social butterfly.
Good times.
"Oh, Bastion's up, neat." Seeing Bastion's DARK deck in action was interesting, a lot of his strategy revolved around blowing up his opponent's field whenever he could while minimizing his own losses.
Hell, before the last few turns he summoned Gandora and used it to wipe the entire field, losing only one card in the process while the duel proctor lost 5. That eventually let into the Vorse Raider/Ring of Destruction play that won him the duel.
"Hey, that guy's pretty good!" Oh cool, another person I don't know sneaking up on me. Turning around to get a good look at the guy, I find none other than Jaden Yuki, former protagonist of Yu-Gi-Oh GX.
"You said it. You should have seen what Yuji here did, he won his exam in a single turn!"
Syrus told the newcomer, gassing me up even further.
"No foolin'? We should duel sometime! I'm Jaden Yuki by the way!" He introduced himself.
"Yuji Rengoku, how's it hangin?" I introduce myself in return.
"Eh, slightly to the left." Ha! That was actually pretty funny.
"Slightly to the...?" Syrus repeated, confused, before he realized what Jaden meant and went red in the face.
Bastion came back shortly after. He and Jaden got acquainted and soon enough, Jaden went down to duel, humiliating Crowler, who got what he deserved for power-tripping on a 15 year old.
When I got back home, it was only 2:30 and since no one else was around, I checked my character sheet, having turned notifications off a while ago.
Bringing up my game window, a yellow screen made entirely of light appears before me.
+150 DE
That's the most I've ever gotten from a single duel.
Yuji Rengoku
DE (Duel Energy) – 1040 (+20 every day)
DP (Duel Points) – 14360
BP (Bond Points) – 0/10 (500 DE to upgrade)
Stars – 2 (1000 DE to upgrade)
Mind – 0
Body – 0
Will – 0
Right, so where to begin with this fucking thing? I guess I'll just start from the top.
Duel Energy, or DE for short, is exactly what it sounds like. It's the energy let off during duels. I get some after every victory. What does it do? Well, I have a shop that lets me bring cards that haven't been created yet into existence, like, for instance, Rainbow Dragon, which Pegasus been able to create yet. For the low, low price of 70,000 DE I can create the boss monster of an entire archetype and cards I create even come with duel spirits.
I can also bind duel spirits to cards I already own, like my Battleguard King, which cost me 5000 DE, nearly everything I had at the time since I was already pretty much drained from the other spirits I bound to my other important decks.
Duel Energy acts as a way for spirits to cross over into our world, which is why places like Duel Academy was teeming with them. The spirits I call on are more than willing to duke it out on behalf of a competent duelist who can bring them glory and power, or just like being used by someone that can actually interact with them.
What? You thought draws that good happen naturally? As if, if you're not using Duel Spirits to stack your deck for you, then you're shooting yourself in the foot. I'm pretty sure even Kaiba, who spat on magic, had a lot of his draws influenced by the spirit of his Blue-Eyes cards.
It isn't even cheating, hell, it's how Duel Monsters was meant to be played.
My character sheet tracks DP, which is nice, but I can't really do anything else with it.
BP; Bond Points, are the points I use to bond with spirits. Weak spirits that don't have any significance, lore, or aren't part of an archetype, like Watapon for instance, will cost next to nothing while more significant spirits will cost more, even if they aren't particularly powerful.
Petit Moth is weak as shit, but because of it's lore, which has it become the Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth, it'll cost more Bond Points than Watapon, even though Petit Moth is a weak Normal Monster.
A card like Battleguard King? The boss monster of an entire Archetype, even if it's a small one?
50 Bond Points. I can't imagine what a card like Blue-Eyes must cost to bond with.
Stars represent the highest leveled duel spirit I can bond with. Right now I can bond with a level 2 duel spirit. It's not much, but it's something. I've been more focused on actually getting spirits in my decks than I have been bonding with them, which is something I hope to change soon since I'll be dueling stronger duelists and will most likely be getting more DE from them.
I also get 10 DE every day for every star I have. I'd have upgraded my star count way more by this point, but I wanted to have an easy way to win duels, so deck-stacking duel spirits was the way to go for me.
Mind, Body and Will are my actual stats. I've started working out when I could, leading to some impressive gains for a 15 year old, but so far I haven't gotten a single star for it. My current theory is that I'll start seeing gains once I bond with some duel spirits.
I hope.
Beyond that? My duel spirits are usually pretty quiet unless I'm working on whatever deck they're in, or they just feel like talking, which is rarely. Even then, some Duel Spirits are incapable of speech as we know it, like Battleguard King, who speaks in monster noises or something, but I can still tell what they're feeling so that's good.
Battleguard King was glad he was able to show off in front of a crowd and enjoyed the meal he made out of his underlings.
Since I'm already here...
Yuji Rengoku
DE (Duel Energy) – 40 (+30 every day)
DP (Duel Points) – 14360
BP (Bond Points) – 0/10 (500 DE to upgrade)
Stars – 3 (2000 DE to upgrade)
Mind – 0
Body – 0
Will – 0
There! Now I'll at least be able to make bank while doing nothing for the next week before I get shipped off to Duel Academy Island.
Bet you weren't expecting to see Battleguard King when you started reading this, huh? We engage in a bit of toomfoolery around these parts as you can no doubt tell. I think the chapter went well. The part I enjoyed writing the most was either the KaibaCorp world building or the duel.
Let me know how you guys feel about the Duelist System and the fic in general. If I made any mistakes let me know.
~Get Creamed On~