Defeat smells like wet cardboard.
While enhanced with magic, duel monster cards are nigh indestructible, pristine regardless of whatever misfortune might befall them. Once spent, however, theirs is the same fate as Dorian Grey. A starred duelist would have the resources to keep their cards charged. A casual duelist might never reach a point where they were in danger.
You are neither. You haven't had the luxury of being careful with your cards. Nobody in District 500 does. Not even the academy's goons. If they did, they wouldn't be so desperate to keep their stranglehold on the card shops. Proselytising over treating your cards well is all well and good for those who live in the city proper, but it's a pipe dream outside. Unfortunately, without such care, you sometimes simply run afoul of your current situation.
Spread across your kitchen table, is what remains of your deck. In the evening gloom of your cramped apartment, the sight
All forty cards sludged. Not a single one remains.
You could feel them fading during your last duel, pushed far past their breaking point, unresponsive to your will. Three duels in such quick succession was just too much. Though they got you across the finish line, the result was nothing if not pyrrhic. You can still see the academy goon's sneering face. Down on one knee, winded, yet triumphant as you pushed past him. You might've won the duel, but it didn't matter.
It's not the first time you've been ambushed by the jerks, or even the tenth. They've been antagonising you ever since you turned down their 'enrolment offer' and let them know you knew exactly what they were.
A bandit academy.
A gang with a fancy piece of paper.
A small fish in a tiny pond, content to throw their weight around as much as they're able to without attracting the attention of anyone even approaching dangerous.
Even in the context of the district, they're nothing special. If they were, they'd probably march up to your door and really put the screws to you. They wouldn't need to be so circumspect.
And yet, in trying to ruin you, they've ultimately been successful.
It's not the cards themselves. Though many of the cards had been with you for years, you bear little sentimentality for any of the cards in your deck.
No, the problem is the timing.
You slam your fist on the table.
Of all the times.
Of all the times for this to happen, it had to be the day before the exam tournament. The event all your efforts had been leading towards. The first since you'd reached the eligible age of fourteen.
You're sure that, years ago, if someone had told you of your eventual fate, you would've cried. Today, there's only exhaustion, tinged with a vague feeling of regret.
Once again, that traitorous little voice whispers in your ear.
Was there another way?
All those days spent in the arena.
All those cards won in wagers, now only fit to be thrown in the garbage.
All these risks taken.
Where could you have been, if only you'd played it safe, taken it slow, done the 'smart' thing?
It's a stupid question.
Every time you linger on the question, you come to the same conclusion.
You were never going to stand a chance if you didn't take one.
Oh, if you'd taken the safe path, if you'd collected cards where you could, traded favours for table scraps, kept your head down, kept out of the way of bigger fish in your tiny pond, maybe some lesser academy would've deemed you worthy of their time. After a couple of years on the bottom of the totem pole, maybe you could've used your influence to get yourself a decent deck. Maybe that could've been a jumping off point to become a decent duelist.
Which is to say, a failure.
Many would be content with being a respectable duellist. A hometown hero, even.
If someone were to tell you that such a thing was their dream, you're sure you'd be happy for them. It'd certainly be a step above what your future currently promises.
But you can't dwell on that.
And as terrible as your current situation is, as comforting as it might've been to have failed
less, as much as you would've loved to have zigged when it was proper and zagged when it was not, your overall plan wouldn't have changed. You have no interest in any plan whose best case scenario is still a failure, no matter how respectable.
Ultimately, even knowing this, it doesn't change the facts. Once again, you have been met with failure. And now, you will never have another chance to right it.
Right?
Surely, there has to be a way to fix this, right?
…Well, no, obviously not. There doesn't
have to be. You aren't
owed a path forward…But there's no way to know unless you try, right?
The beginnings of…well, not a
plan per se, but a rough sketch of something similar. Options to consider. Few of the possibilities you consider are worth more than a moment's thought before you discard them, but the process centres you. You no longer feel unmoored.
There's still a chance for things to come together tomorrow, if you have a deck.
Therein lies the rub.
It'd be so much easier if you could just borrow a couple cards off someone you could count on. Unfortunately, you don't
have people you can count on.
Not any more at least.
As for someone you're less familiar with doing you a solid? Comically unlikely. You aren't exactly well liked by the general community of district 500, unfortunately. Certainly not enough to lend you a hand in a scrape. You have committed the cardinal sin of District Five Hundred.
You have a reputation as someone with ideas above their station
To the people who frequent the card shops in the area, you are someone who thinks they're too good for District 500. You're trying to improve your duelling skills? Trying to get a position at one of the bigger academies?
Don't kid yourself, you ain't better than us. You don't deserve to escape.
Suffice to say, getting anyone's help on such short notice?
Well…
CHOOSE ONE
[] They'd laugh in your face. Most of your peers are…maybe it's arrogant to say, but envious of you. You are the tall poppy. Everyone knows you're a skilled duelist and seeing you laid low would just make their days. (Boy)
[] Condescension would be the least terrible response. Most of your peers see you as a novelty, at best, and a prize at worst that can somehow be 'won' if they beat you in a duel. Approaching from a position of weakness? Hell no. (Girl)
You are, as always, on your own.
But, as you start to feel with renewed confidence, things don't have to be hopeless.
You look over to the lone shelf in your single room apartment, stacked sloppily with the chaff that you've collected (and mostly dismissed) over the years. You move, at first ponderously, but slowly accelerating, as the gears start turning. Ideas pour through your head as you sift through your collection.
None of them are ideas you'd be considering if you had better access to cardboard, to be sure. You placed all these cards aside for a reason.
You're not sure you can make a
good deck out of what remains.
But you might just be able to make an
effective deck.
The deck you bring tomorrow doesn't necessarily need to follow the same philosophy as your normal deck. It doesn't need to be
robust. You're aiming for the best chance at the best result.
The exam's in the form of a tournament, right? You've never seen the specifics, but you can guess. You're not sure how many people will turn up for it, but it's only over a single day. So a couple rounds of pools, followed by a top eight, probably? You can pull something together for this.
It won't be pretty. Not in the slightest.
Tonight, you'll do the best you can to rebuild your deck. You'll practise the lines and test against yourself. You'll figure out what works. You'll make something that might not be pretty, but it'll get—
You freeze. Your hand brushes over a familiar, old deck box.
It's been a long time since you've looked at it.
The final gift from your grandfather, the man who taught you how to duel, who taught you most things, before he left the city, never to return.
Inside, lies a single, blank card.
Hazily, you realise the deck box has been discarded and you now hold the card in your hand. It calls to you.
"Can't say I know what it is, but I've only ever heard of good things coming from blank cards. One of these days, I'm sure it'll come in handy."
You've always wondered what he meant. And, to a lesser extent, why he didn't leave you with something more immediately practical.
You stare at it for a moment, coming back to yourself. Still a blank, white rectangle. There's a twinge of disappointment. For a moment, there was a spark of desperate, irrational hope. That, in your darkest hour, your grandfather's gift would finally reveal itself. You wonder if the issue is with you. That there's something you're missing, or some deficiency within your character that holds the card out of your reach.
Irrelevant. More pointless doubts and once again, nothing that hasn't plagued you before. You put it out of your mind.
Except…
You still feel
something.
The smart thing would be to leave it in the relative safety of your apartment, as you usually do. There isn't really a good reason not to. Not one that you could articulate, at least.
But you'll bring it with you tomorrow anyway. On the off chance it'll 'come in handy'.
As that thought crosses your mind, for just a moment, you swear you can pierce through the veil and glimpse the true form of the card:
CHOOSE ONE
[]
A monstrous beast, bearing the heads of three different creatures.
[]
A noblewoman on horseback, a contrast of harsh steel and elegant flowers.
[]
A great machine, the last of twelve, armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry.
[]
A towering aquatic titan that drowns countries with each step.
[]
A dragon corrupted by evil spirits, clad in bone and armed with chains.
[]
A young shrine maiden, bearing the spirit of a wrathful god.
But it's gone so soon, you can't be sure you saw anything at all.
x X x X x
Finished my last day of work at my former position on Friday. Been wanting to get back into writing a Yugioh quest more or less since MD dropped and this is more or less my first time having the energy to write something in months.
Why yes, the only reason I included Saryuja is for the sake of symmetry and every generic ritual or pendulum monster that could be considered a 'boss' monster is either Light or Dark. Why did you ask?
