ASPIRATIONS OF A DUELIST

The two duelists stood facing each other in the holographic coliseum. The score stood at Seto Kaiba with 1200 life points, Yugi Moto with 1500. On Kaiba's side of the field was the powerful Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, a Fusion monster made from the three Blue-Eyes White Dragons that Kaiba owned and had a massive 4500 attack points. On Yugi's side of the field was the Red-Eyes Black Dragon and the recently Fusion Summoned Dark Paladin, a Fusion of Dark Magician and Buster Blader, with 2400 and 3900 attack points, respectively. Yugi also had one card, the quick-play spell De-Fusion, face down on the field, while the only other card Kaiba had on the field was his face up Final Attack Orders trap card.

It had been a rough duel, with both players going back and forth with their most powerful monsters, including the legendary Egyptian God Cards - Obelisk the Tormentor for Kaiba, and Slifer the Sky Dragon for Yugi. As the final duel in Kaiba's Battle City Duel Monsters tournament, it was expected that both duelists, who were among the top ranked in all the world, would be dueling each other and giving it their all.

It was Kaiba's turn, and he was preparing to announce his attack, the attack that would finish the duel.

"Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, attack!" The three heads of the Ultimate Dragon each prepared a powerful blast, a blast that would destroy all of Yugi's monsters and wipe out the last of his life points.

Yugi stood, stoic and rigid, as the dragon fired its attack. Each head spewed forth a beam of energy; the three beams combined and coalesced into one, heading straight for Yugi's monsters.

"Now I activate my face down card, De-Fusion!" Yugi announced. The holographic card on the field flipped itself face up, revealing itself to Kaiba. Kaiba stared in horror, knowing exactly what this meant. "This spell card splits up your Ulitmate Dragon into the three original dragons you used to form it," Yugi explained.

Kaiba could only stare in silent shock as the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon separated into the three vanilla Blue-Eyes White Dragons. Each one was powerful, to be sure, with a whopping 3000 attack points for each one, but Yugi's Dark Paladin was the most dangerous monster on the field; it gained 500 attack points for each dragon on the field, and now that there were three, that meant it was gaining 1500 attack points.

"No," Kaiba muttered. "No! This can't be happening!"

"Now, Kaiba," Yugi said as De-Spell finished taking effect. "With three dragons on the field instead of one, my Dark Paladin is now the strongest monster in play." Dark Paladn's attack points went up to 4900. "Now it's time for my final move."

Kaiba rolled his eyes; he knew he'd lost, so why was Yugi prolonging it by talking? "Just go," he scoffed.

"I will," Yugi said as he drew the final card from his deck. "The card in my hand will conquer the darkness that now surrounds your heart. I play my final spell card, Diffusion Wave Motion! You're finished. All I have to do is pay 1000 life points, and this spell card enhances the attacking capabilities of my Dark Paladin. Now my monster can attack all three of your Blue-Eyes White Dragons at once! This duel is over." Yugi's life points dropped to 500 as the effect of Diffusion Wave Motion activated.

Dark Paladin let out a battle cry as the glaive it carried brimmed with magical energy.

"No!" Kaiba yelled indignintly. "I will not be defeated at my own tournament!"

"Too late," Yugi said. "Dark Paladin, attack!" Waves of energy shot out from the glaive, slamming into the dragons. One dragon's head was completely severed, before all three dragons exploded in a shockwave that rocked the two duelists and dropped Kaiba's life points to 0.

"You lose, Kaiba," Yugi announced.

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That duel took place one hundred years ago, but even to this day, it was a duel that was still studied, analyzed, and there were several attempts to replicate it, though with the Egyptian God Cards disappearing some time after that duel, replicating it was impossible. Still, it was a duel that Yuka Rumiko found herself going back to all the time; it was one of the best she'd ever seen. The back and forth between the two duelists was incredible, and at times quite tense.

Yuka had been dueling since she was young, less than ten years old. Since then, whenever she had a chance, she would always go online to look for some past duels to watch and see how the game was played when her grandparents were children. Her grandfather, Yucudo, even participated in Battle City, but was eliminated pretty early on.

Yuka had a remnant of those old days, the old Battle City duel disk, which was handed down to her by her father Haru, who got it from his father. It didn't work anymore - the hologram emmiters stopped working decades ago, and KaibaCorp stopped updating these duel disks when the newer models were introduced. Every time she looked at it, every time she wore it, she was reminded of her father. She had always been close to him, and was devastated when he died in a car accident three years ago.

The duel disk could still come together, the two halves swinging around and connecting to form a single duel board. When Yuka was younger, she liked to wear it and pretend she was a real duelist. But now that she was seventeen, she didn't pretend as much anymore, if at all. Rather, she only wore it for sentimental reasons.

Yuka took the duel disk off her shelf and brushed some dust off it with her hand. It was once pristine red, white, and blue, but over time, those colors had faded and dulled. While the red and blue still looked like they used to, the white had grayed in some places and yellowed in others. Her father always talked about wanting to get this old thing working again, especially with the creation of the Duel Monsters Championship League.

The DMCL was a relatively recent addition to the world of Duel Monsters. Once someone reached the age of seventeen, they were eligible to sign up and enter the competition. The cutoff age for the competition was twenty-five. The point of the competition was to travel the county, challenging the various Duel Gym leaders to earn a mark, sometimes referred to as a badge, and once a duelist had earned a total of eight, they were able to compete in a final tournament for the chance to challenge the current reigning champion.

Dilan Holdt was the current Grand Champion, and had been for the last five years. It was every duelist's dream to challenge Dilan; even if they didn't win, just dueling against him was a privelage.

The sound of music reminded Yuka that she still had the video site up on her computer. She put the duel disk back on the shelf and closed the tab, catching the brief glimpse of a music video from a rock group called the Canis Cavaliers. She liked their music, but had other things to worry about, like making sure her dueling deck was ready for tomorrow.

Yuka was going to start the Duel Monsters Championship League challenge tomorrow, and needed to be sure she was ready. Now that she was seventeen, she was eligible to compete in the challenge, and needed to be sure that her deck was built the best it could be. Ever since Battle City, Industrial Illusion - the company that made the Duel Monsters card game - created hundreds of new cards, and by popular demand, made more copies of cards like Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Originally, there were four copies in the world - three of which were owned by Seto Kaiba - and despite the abrasive and arrogant personality of their original owner, Yuka was always drawn to the cards for their power and their majesty.

So when the opportunity came to build a Blue-Eyes deck, she took it. The deck was composed of not just three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, but also several variants like Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon and her personal favorite, Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon, along with a number of supporting monster and spell cards. The Main Deck was comprised of forty cards, and the Extra Deck was comprised of fifteen cards. She also had a small, ten card Side Deck, cards that she could swap out with cards from the Main Deck between duels if she felt she needed to.

Yuka looked through her deck, making sure all the cards she needed were there, before shuffling the deck and drawing a test hand of five cards: The White Stone of Ancients, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a second White Stone of Ancients, Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon, and Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon.

"Not a bad starting hand," she mused.

"Yuka, are you still up?" her mother, Taka, asked from the hallway. She was looking in through the open door of Yuka's bedroom. "It's quarter to midnight."

"Wait, really?" Yuka asked. "It's that late?" She looked at her clock. "Holy cow, it is. I didn't even realize."

Taka stepped into the room. "Can't say I'm surprised. You've been excited for this for a long time. I guess the excitement for tomorrow's keeping you awake."

"Maybe," Yuka admitted. She put her deck back into the deck box and stood up from her desk. "Guess I'd better get to bed."

"Yeah, you'd better. You've got a big day tomorrow, and you need to get an early start." Taka glanced up to the duel disk on the shelf. "You know, your dad always wanted to do this, but by the time this contest was implimented, he was too old to compete. But I know he'd be excited for you, just like I am."

"I know, Mom." Yuka pulled her mom in for a light hug. "Well, like you said, I've got an early start tomorrow. See you in the morning, Mom."

"Good night, sweetie," Taka said as she left the room, closing the door behind her, allowing Yuka to get changed for the night before turning in.

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The shrill beeping of the alarm clock snapped Yuka awake. It was quarter past seven in the morning, meaning she had less than an hour to get to the local duel shop to register for the competition. Fortunately, Initiis Town wasn't very big; if she got dressed and left now, she'd be at the duel shop in about forty-five minutes.

This would mean that Yuka wouldn't have time for breakfast until after she got registered, but it would be worth it. So she hurriedly got dressed into a pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and a sky blue sleeveless vest, and rushed out of the house, heading down the street towards the duel shop. She ran as fast as she could, dodging and weaving through the people on the sidewalk.

Yuka had to slow down to a brisk walk after about twenty minutes of running, but before long, the duel shop came into view. The shop was run by a man named Taliesen Jaffe; his son, Atreyu, was a friend of Yuka's, though he was also admittedly not much of a duelist despite working at a duel shop.

"Mr. Jaffe!" she called, half out of breath as she approached. "Looks like I caught you just in time."

"Hey, Yuka," Mr. Jaffe greeted her. "Atreyu's inside still getting things set up for the day."

"Cool, but I'm not here to visit," Yuka said. "I'm here to get started on the DMCL challenge."

"Really? Well, come on in and we'll get you set up." He led Yuka inside. "Hey Atreyu! We need a duel pad!"

"I'll be there in a moment, Dad!" Atreyu called from the back room. There was the sound of rummaging from the back room, objects being moved and shuffled around. A couple of minutes later, Atreyu came out into the main floor of the shop. He could always be seen wearing jean shorts and a shirt depicting a music group of some kind; today's band was an old music group from back in the late twentieth century called Metallica. "Oh. Hey, Yuka. Didn't know you were stopping by."

"Just for a bit," Yuka said. "Getting started on the challenge today. You know the one."

"Oh, right. Hence the duel pad." He was carrying what looked like a wireless tablet, square with a six inch screen. It was dark red in color and about four inches thick, with a slit on one side and an attachment that looked like it could fit a deck of cards. "Here you go, Dad." He handed the tablet to his dad.

Mr. Jaffe pressed a button on the face of the tablet. It hummed to life. As it finished starting up, he turned to Yuka, showing her the display screen of the tablet.

"Okay, Yuka, this is your duel pad," he explained. "It's a brand new type of duel disk; just debuted last year."

"I remember reading about that in Duel Monsters Monthly," Yuka said.

"I forgot you were subscribed to that magazine," Atreyu said.

"Not anymore," Yuka replied. "The subscription ran out."

"So you know how it works," Mr. Jaffe guessed. "Your duel pad has information on every card in the game, as well as a hard light projector for the duel field. When you play a spell or trap card, it goes into this slot on the side closest to you. This slot on the right houses your deck, this slot on the left holds your Extra Deck, and the Graveyard is right here behind where the duel board is projected. Your duel pad is also your registration for the Duel Monsters Championship League. It contains all your information as well as track the badges you've earned. You'll need this for when you're ready to enter the tournament after getting all eight badges, so whatever you do, don't lose this."

"I got it," Yuka said as she took the tablet from Mr. Jaffe. The screen was currently set up for Yuka to put in all her information - first name, last name, birth date, starting town, dueling deck. Yuka took a few minutes to input all the information, after which she was greeted with a new screen, which looked like a digital deck list. "Guess I have to fill out what cards I'm using, huh?"

"You can't be a registered duelist without a deck list," Mr. Jaffe explained.

"I'll have to go home to do that," Yuka mused.

"You didn't bring your deck with you?" Atreyu asked.

"I was in a bit of a rush to get here, so no, Trey, I didn't," Yuka answered. "Besides, I kind of skipped out on breakfast, and Mom wasn't too happy about that. That, and I need to pack up for this trip. It's gonna be a long one."

"Unless you've got a vehicle," Mr. Jaffe said. "But you don't, right?" Yuka just shook her head. "Thought so. So it'll be at least two days before you get to the first Duel Gym in Equus City."

"That's fine," Yuka said as she strapped the duel pad to her arm. She pressed a button on the pad. With a quiet whoosh, a duel board materialized, black in the center and dark red at the rim. Yuka tapped it; it was made of light, yes, and it felt solid, like it was actually there and not ethereal. "Okay, that's pretty cool."

"It sure is," Atreyu agreed. "The pad itself is also a holographic projector, so it can still work like the old duel disks. Give it a try when you can."

"I will. Thanks, you guys." Yuka turned off the duel pad and left, turning to head home.

A couple of hours later, after a breakfast of eggs and pancakes, Yuka was packing a backpack of supplies that she would need for her trip. She gathered up some hygenic supplies - wet wipes, a tooth brush and toothpaste - a med kit, sleeping bag, two bottles of water and drink mix, and a few bags of trail mix, just to get her started. Her mother also gave her two hundred dollars in cash for hotels and extra supplies if needed.

"Just promise me two things," Taka said as Yuka got ready to climb onto her bicycle. "One, you'll be careful. And two, you'll have fun."

"I promise, and I promise," Yuka said as she clicked her bicycle helmet straps together. "Next time you see me, Mom, I'll be ready for the championship."

"And I'll be here to be proud of you," Taka said as she hugged her daughter.

Mother and daughter shared one last goodbye before Yuka pedaled off.