Arc 1: The Canon Begins
Chapter 1: Formerly LDS
"Action Duel was born when the generation of matter was implemented as a feature into Solid Vision."
Fields, monsters, and duelists become one during these duels, and the crowd goes crazy for them!"
Yuuki's POV
Is what I would say to an introduction of the opening chapter of my life. It is also fitting when I am Isekaied and reincarnated into this world, Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, the fifth installment of the entirety of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. I would like state that I thoroughly enjoy my time here and plan to make the most out of it. The reason to it all is that firstly, I had a very prestigious job in this world, essentially, I am rather loaded. Secondly, I must also admit that I got a bit of a reputation myself, the positive ones. However, the most important of them all is that I get to touch the monsters I summon!
Now admittedly, when I regain my former incarnation's memories, I took a lot of time to adjust myself. By that, I mean adjusting to all of my environments, which of course includes a few experimentation that can be considered both "curious" and "dirty" so to speak. To elaborate, during my free time, I took to understanding how the Duel Monsters' responses are.
Firstly, they cannot be summoned normally and can only appear in a duel. Next, you cannot duel yourself, as in if you have two duel disk and try to assume both roles, the system would not register it as a duel. This is frankly quite disappointing for any roleplays so to speak. By roleplay, I mean I tried using the so-called card game to satisfy my curiousity. As I try to pay homage to the old "touchscreen" games, I was interested to try it out on the Duel Monsters I summoned. Unfortunately and much to my disappointment, unless I have a co-partner in crime, this isn't going to happen any time soon.
In any case, to summarize everything, life is good.
As of now, I was observing a duel going on in a certain school. Allow me to describe the scene.
Moon glow in night sky.
A duel between friends to show
epic Action Duel.
In other words, on one side of the field, we have a giant of a boy bringing out a large robotic samurai and is prepared for a fight. On the other side of the field, we have a rather flamboyant kid bringing out… dancing samba hippos.
I sigh with amusement at the scene while the person sitting on the chair and operating the machines is not. In a fit of frustration and presumably embarrassment, she grunted "Geez, play seriously, Yuuya!" and proceeds to slam her fist on the most abused peripheral of all technology in every world, the keyboard. However in doing so, she seem to have caused a system shock that ended up blowing up the machine in smokes and into our faces. There were no survivors- Just kidding.
Wiping my face and glasses and then combing my gravity defying two toned hair, I gave an amused chuckle at the blunder.
"What happened!?" A concerned voice came bolting into the room and it belongs to the girl's father and also my boss of this school.
"I'm sorry dad." The girl admitted, her tone shifted from frustration to panic and guilt from the result of her outburst. I understand the feeling all too well, especially when it is a common occurrence of bad teammates or saltiness.
"If this thing breaks, my hot-blooded coaching will…"
-be over. Is what I assume he is going to say. However, I know how passionate he teaches and therefore with or without the machine, his "coaching" is not going to be over.
"Calm down, Hiiragi-sensei." I called out, "If anything happens, I can fix it up."
"O-Oh yeah, man you're really an angel, Kyou-sensei." Hiiragi-sensei was relief when I reminded him of my skills.
Upon coming to this world, I did not only learn about the cultural differences but also the machineries there are in this world. With my free time, which is little considering the amount of work I decided to dedicate myself into, I learned how to operate and even fix machines like the one the girl just broke.
The machine in question is called the Solid Vision System, a state-of-the-art machine that brings dueling to realism. By that, I mean one is capable of interacting with the duel itself like touching, smelling and even interacting with the duel. By duel, I mean the field and the monsters, if you know what I mean. I have my reasons to learn about the machines and we will leave it at that.
After fixing the machine, and covered in soot, I proceed to the hall of the school. The school is called You Show Duel School and is one of the most important setting in the first season of the anime. Other than that, the school is unique in that it teaches Entertainment Dueling, which is also why a certain flamboyant kid is fooling around.
"I fixed the projector of the system, but the circuit board…" I brought out and raised a large flat piece of metal that connects the majority of the system. It had two dents on it. The girl was cringing at her mistake but was remorseful nonetheless. "There's no fixing this."
With that verdict in mind, my boss has literally turned pale white and I could see an image of his soul leaving his body. He fell to his back and onto the couch and started ranting as I made a mental preparation to brace for the impact.
"MY HOT BLOODED COACHING! The Solid Vision System's broken, all the perspective students who came here just left… My You Show Duel School is over!" He clutches his head and shake very hard.
He wasn't wrong, there was like 6 to 7 children, with their parent(s), came to this school to observe and have try outs. Unfortunately, we must send them away due to the machine breaking down.
"Aw man, I could have made them laugh even more if you didn't break it, Yuzu." The flamboyant kid accused as he puts on his goggles.
The girl, now named Yuzu, argued, "That was because YOU were messing around, Yuuya! And look at me when you're talking to me!" the girl was about to hit him when he dodges away and slams his face into another person. That person was the big boy who was his opponent in the duel earlier.
He groans in pain and acknowledge him, "You're still here, Gongenzaka."
"That boy wasn't laughing." He stated sternly.
Yuuya, being the flamboyant kid, shrug it off and responded, "Come on, he was cracking up."
The nonchalant response only infuriated the other and he replied in a sterner and louder tone, "There's a huge difference between someone laughing with you and laughing at you!"
Now normally, you would assume that the bigger boy is insulting the other, however, as I have taught them personally, he is concerned for Yuuya and as a "man" he has an "honour" to uphold and couldn't bear to see his friend being treated like a fool.
"Now now kids," I called out, "Settle down. You're all missing the point here." I approach Yuuya and place my arm around his shoulder, "This is You Show Duel School, and in this school, we duel by having fun."
"I know, but still sensei…" Gongenzaka replied but with a gentler tone.
"Besides, we all know how bad Yuuya duels so he can't help but to make a fool of himself." I can see a large arrow with the word "bad" piercing through Yuuya's heart and he did an anime style comical drop. "Not only did he ever finish and submit his homework on time, not only did he ever stay awake in my class, but overall, he's not a bad boy, personality wise." The floodgates seems to have loosen itself as Yuuya's demerits came flashing back to me like it happened just yesterday.
I observed the damages I did and Yuuya looked worse as I could see more proverbial arrows pierces his spirit with each demerits being reminded.
"You sure don't hold back, sensei." Yuuya groaned but sighed with acceptance as he looked at me with a dejected smile.
"Of course, I'm your teacher after all, and its my job to fix and improve kids like you." Lets say the atmosphere takes a refreshing change as Yuzu and Gongenzaka's frustrations are forgotten.
However, the scene would not last as the door opens. Our attention is then drawn to the person opening the door. I recognize this man as we have worked with each other way back when. In fact, he is easily recognizable not by his yellow and black striped uniform, nor his orang sunglasses, nor his middle aged balding gelled hair, but his constant smile that comes with his name and his moustache. Originally due to his face, I almost accidentally called him "Hit" but then remembered that he is –
"-Nico Smiley." He spoke in a business like but enthusiastic tone as he rubs his hands like some of the Japanese businessmen in suits I've seen in anime, "I'm the manager-slash-promoter of the current champion of Action Dueling, Strong Ishijima." After the introduction, he made a courteous bow.
The name Strong Ishijima is the name of the current champion and will be forgotten for future references like most Yu-Gi-Oh! side characters. In fact, I turned to Yuuya as I recall that Yuuya will have an important duel and breakthrough with him.
"Oya," he called out suddenly, "Kyou-kun, it's been a long time!"
I blinked at the end of his sentence and honestly, I rather not see him again for some personal reasons, "Oh, right, yes. Nico-san. Still as smiley as ever I see."
"This is where you're working now? It's quite unexpected considering you used to-"
I cut him off before he could say anything else, "Where I work is none of your business. Besides, isn't Yuuya you're here for today?"
"Well yes, but-"
"I'm not presentable right now, so Hiiragi-sensei, I'm going to need to request a small break to be prepared if you don't mind." While I'm unsure what the kids might think of my underlying tone, Hiiragi-sensei on the other hand, could grasp my meaning and simply allow me to borrow the bathroom, aka, avoid the conversation.
"Oh very well then," was Nico's response before he sit down and explain the situation to the others while I promptly left the room.
Closing the door behind me and then leaning against it, I sighed with relief as I manage to avoid it once more. I can already sum up what is about to happen with the conversation.
I am back at my humble home right now. My home is basically the standard typical Japanese Anime Apartments with two stories and rows of rooms. In summary, it is like the Osiris Red dormitory from the GX series. Contrary to the exterior, the interior is actually bigger than it looks.
I enter the front door and leave my shoes at the genkan, which is the porch where we leave our shoes before entering our home. Immediately, I can identify and am already in the living room of my home. To my left, sharing the same space as the living room is the kitchen, which also happens to be right next to the entrance. Going further, to the center of the living room, I turned right and encounter two doors. To my left, is my bedroom-slash-study and to my right, is my destination, the bathroom.
Changing into my birthday suit, I take a dip inside warm waters. While it is not like the healing properties of an onsen, the warm waters at home has more than enough rejuvenation for my appearance. After all, nothing beats the comfort of returning home and enjoy the comforts within the confines of your own territory.
Home…
As I soak in the waters, occasionally I couldn't help but reminiscent my previous life and how my family are. To think, it would take me dying once to start appreciating my family more. As the only child of the family in my previous life, I am sure that they would be devastated when they bury me. After all, no parent in would want to bury their own children.
Then, my mind drifted back to Nico Smiley, a man whom I previously worked with on a few occasions regarding duel events. After all, I was once a teacher of LDS, and the strongest duelist amongst the teachers. Oh, who am I kidding, considering my gifts, I can confidently say that I am the strongest person in the entirety of Arc-V. This really brought back a memory from when I decided to retire.
Where do I start?
Let's start with an election. On a certain day, when one of our senior teachers was promoted to a different position in LDS, they hold a little tourney so to speak. Like you would expect in every Yu-Gi-Oh! scenario where they solve world hunger with playing card games, they decide to elect their new leader by dueling.
Of course, at the very same time, we also happen to have some new teachers interning under some of the senior members. I happen to have a cute junior of my own at that time. But in any case, all the senior teachers were in immediate agreement that I should be the next person to be the leader or representative of the teacher in LDS, depending on whose asking. Originally, I was thinking of accepting but, I happen to remember a certain scenario from a different anime.
With that said, during that speech where we give out to express our gratitude for this election or victory, I decided to drop the bomb. In fact, let me recite the things I said.
"Ahem, everyone. I am your 17th chairman, Kyou Yuuki. This may seem sudden but I have an announcement to make. I, Kyou Yuuki, appoint Ibi Richua as vice chairman, and hereby resign as chairman and from work."
The aftermath of it all, let's say a certain vowel had never been stretched this long.
The people who have worked with me were the most gobsmacked of them all while the newcomers were more confused but as equally astonished at the former. Of course, I did not go out peacefully. Well, let's say that the higher management of LDS did not take my abrupt resignment well and proceeded to send their "black ops" to subdue me, in a duel. Not just any duel, a battle royale. To those who are wondering, a battle royale styled dueling essentially boils down to having multiple opponents in a duel. One is capable of forming an alliance with other opponents. In that same battle royale, I was up against 3 of their black ops.
A year ago
I was packing my belongings from my table. Some of my colleagues thought I was joking around like some of my occasional jokes and pranks. However, they were disappointed and shocked to hear that I am serious. This was an even graver news to my junior whom I taught and mentored. In fact, she took it the hardest when she realized my seriousness. Even teared up in front of everyone.
Some students, whom I have taught for some time, upon seeing my departure were devastated. In fact, I heard from the grapevine that six or so students drop out of the school the following day after my retirement. While the numbers itself isn't big, it was quite an impact to LDS.
However, the most important event comes during the time when I was about to leave through the front door. Three men. There were three men, wearing the blue uniforms that matched the elite team. I do not know who their names were therefore, I will refer to them as "Steves". Marik reference.
I unfortunately could not remember the whole conversation but it boiled down to this and I quote.
"Reconsider."
"Why."
"Don't leave."
"Our orders."
"Stop you."
Of course, as one expected, we have a disagreement and I attached my duel disk. You would think that upper management would keep track of their own employees, but just like everyone else who think they are superior just because they in the upper echelons of the food chain, they never bother with the bottom feeders, unless it involves them.
In any case, skipping ahead of the duel where the best part is:
"I summon Night Express Knight (Level 10/EARTH/Machine/Effect/3000/3000)" I declared and a huge train appear out of a large portal. It had a giant knight with a shield and sword as its locomotive.
Some of the observers were confused for many reasons but the most obvious ones were from the observers wondering as to how I managed to summon a Level 10 monster and to that I answered, "I can Normal Summon this card without Tributing, but by doing so, its original ATK becomes 0." And thus, a display shows that its attack did deplete (0/3000).
"Next, if all monsters I control are EARTH Machine monsters, I can Special Summon this card from my hand. Super Express Bullet Train (Level 10/EARTH/Machine/Effect/3000/0)." Another portal appeared and this time a blue train with a bullet motive as its locomotive aligned itself next to the knight locomotive train.
Pause for a moment as I recalled bits and pieces of commentary that struck out among my peers. Namely:
"Trains?"
"I've never seen him use those cards before!"
"He brought out 2 Level 10 monsters just like that!"
"Wait, 2 Level 10 monsters… can he be-"
Those were some ego boosters, not going to lie. But it was the last line that I followed on, "I construct the Overlay Network with the Level 10 Night Express Knight and Super Express Bullet Train." The two trains at my side turned into silver and blue energies and entered into a glittering swirl. "From beyond the railway, arriving here and now, alongside the tremors of the earth. Appear, Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Gustav Max (Rank 10/EARTH/Machine/Xyz 2/Effect/3000/3000)" Another train appeared and this one has long and imposing barrel trained directly as my opponents. In fact, the sheer sight of it is more than enough to intimidate them.
I don't blame them, after all I would be scared too if a large cannon is pointed straight at me, real or not real. Of course, it is only one monster and with three opponents, they realized that while one may be taken down, they have numbers as their advantage. With that reminder, I responded with:
"If you think that is the extent of Xyz summoning, then my dear superiors…
.
.
YOU HAVE SEVERELY UNDERESTIMATED MY INFINITE STRENGTH!"
.
.
"XYZ CHANGE!" My train retracted its long barrel and then large mechanical arms appeared. Each of them holding separate pieces of armor, assembling them onto the train. "I can Xyz Summon this card by overlaying it with 1 Rank 10 Machine Xyz monster I control as material and transfer its material to this card."
"From beyond countless battlefields, lay waste to everything in your tracks. The war reignites once more, Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Juggernaut Liebe (Rank 11/EARTH/Machine/Xyz 3/4000/4000)" As I finished the chant, the assembly was completed and in the place of a single miniscule but still large train, was now a giant monster. If the former is considered a giant, the latter is that of a behemoth with a bigger and equally as imposing black long barrel aiming directly at my opponents. Moreover, the behemoth of a train has several battery turrets, which are as imposing as they are numerous, aiming at the same targets.
"Xyz… change?"
"What is this?"
"I didn't know you can do that!"
"Sensei, what is Xyz Change?"
On and on, more and more questions came flooding in. My former co-workers were equally as confused as their students. In fact, those who specialized in Xyz classes were also none the wiser.
"I activate Juggernaut Liebe's effect," yeah, no way am I going to speak his full name, considering its on the list of monsters with very long names, "I can detach 1 overlay unit from this card and it gains 2000 ATK and DEF but for the rest of this turn, I can only declare an attack with this card." Right on cue, the barrel of my train glowed with a red hue and is also steaming. "Prepare yourselves, Juggernaut Liebe's next effect, during each Battle Phase, this card can attack plus as many monsters as to the number of materials it has. Right now, it has a total 2 Xyz material after removing one, therefore it can attack 3 times."
"One Thousand Ton Blitzkreig"
End Flashback
Now that, is what I call a dynamic exit.
Looking at the time hanging on my living room wall, I quickly got out as I have overstayed my bathing session. Time really do fly by fast when one is enjoy themselves. I quickly change into my clothing, which consists of a black turtleneck and a grey leather jacket with blue hexagonal patterns. The water has drenched my wing hairstyle and considering that I lack the time to tidy myself, not that I need to, I dry my hair and allow it flow freely after a simple swipe leftwards. Putting on my glasses, I decided to head to the main event, the Maiami Duel Stadium.
Locking the doors, I decided to walk at a jogging pace as the venue is considerably far. That was my original intention, however, I am afraid to say that I must make some impromptu changes as something more important than watching my student duel came up.
"Irashaimase!" called the shopkeeper of the ramen store that I am a regular. "Oh! Yuuki-sama!" This has always been his call sign for me every time I visit the store.
"Ittsumono," is what I always respond with to tell him that I wanted the usual and I would always sit at the usual spot. Speaking of the usual spot, it is at the bar at the end of the restaurant where a modest sized flatscreen TV can be viewed clearly. The TV was broadcasting the duel, to no surprise, as it involves the champion after all.
"Ara, what a coincidence."
…
Indeed. Who would have thought that a series of coincidence would occur. After all, I was reminiscing the past earlier in my showers and how my trainee was tearing up at my departure…
To think that I would meet her again right here.
"Richua." This is my former junior, now representative of the teacher's department of LDS. I have not seen her for a year and comparing her to the day I last met her, she has definitely refined a lot.