490Chapter 1:
The chance to live in a world of one's own choosing. A world one has knowledge of; not only about what will happen but also the rules of said world, isn't that something everyone has thought of at least once? To swoop into your favourite franchise, living the dream of exploring a world of fiction, with the power to impact it significantly and be the hero of your own story. To be inserted close to the heroes of that universe, born wealthy, or powerful or even related to the original main characters – any of that, as long as it enables oneself to live a good life and witness the plot unfold first-hand.
That is how it should have been, but not how it ended up in this case.
Blake Yamamoto woke up with a splitting headache that only turned more severe the moment he got up from his mattress and found himself rather small. A quick look into the broken mirror, hanging loosely on the wall of the tiny storage room he had found himself in, answered the question he had in mind. He looked younger, as if he only just entered his teen-years; smaller, paler and especially thinner, malnourished even, than he remembered himself to look like. To enhance his growing confusion, his hair colour was now two-fold; his sides had a raven black colour, while the top was in a clear silver colour with a few black streaks among it, even though his hair were supposed to be a simple, monotonous black.
Trying to make any sense of this, he stumbled out of the room, his right leg hurting from what felt like a big bruise on his thigh. He found himself in a messy apartment that stank of smoke, alcohol and substances he couldn't place. Several empty bottles and cans were laying around a worn couch and on an adjacent table an ashtray with a still burning cigarette stomped out.
His headache only got worse, trying to figure out this mess, when a clearly drunk, rude voice interrupted his thought process. "Brat, bring me another can!", the man he tried to ignore the first time bellowed. Sitting on the couch in a dirty white tank-top that did nothing to hide the man's beer belly and with nothing else but his boxers on was one of the two people Blake hoped to never see again; his father.
Although gene-supplier would be a more appropriate description, as that man had never been a father figure to anyone. This was only proven the moment the man reached for the belt next to him as he shouted "Now!"
Blake hobbled over to the minifridge that stood basically next to the couch, grabbed a can and reluctantly gave it to the man. Apparently unsatisfied with the look on the boy's face, the man struck out with his belt, leaving a stinging red mark on the boy's face, who fell to the ground because of the sudden pain. "Don't look at me like that boy. Next time you better move your ass immediately, or else."
Much to Blakes dismay, things went further downhill from there. After scurrying away in search for a toilet to throw-up into, the bathroom showed him the second person he could've lived with not existing; a slender, pale woman with ruffled black hair, surrounded by empty cans and needles. At least this one didn't notice him, as she blankly stared ahead, not reacting to the sounds outside or him entering the room.
Carefully stumbling around the sharp and broken objects on the ground, he finally got the sweet release of throwing up into the toilet. His mind was turning as much as his stomach. What the hell was going on? His 'parents' died two years ago; his mother finally succumbing to her drug addiction while his father was the sole casualty of his own drunk driving. But now he found himself in his about ten-year-old body, with both of them back to make his life a living hell.
'This has to be a nightmare', Blake thought as he emptied his stomach. 'One I'll hopefully wake up from rather sooner than later.' He couldn't remember the last thing he did before waking up, but at least emptying what little was in his stomach lifted the headache. 'If I'll have to go through this again, I hope that a bus will hit me the first time I cross the road.'
Back in the living room, Blake did his best to be quiet and find something eatable, to no avail. He found some rotten fruits and more alcohol, but unless he wanted to chew on pills of questionable origin, he was screwed. The sound of an empty can get crushed spurred on his ingrained task of bringing over a fresh one before he even noticed that he had moved. This time he wasn't hit, at least.
He ruffled his hair, trying to find a way out of this, when the man in front of him switched channels on the tv. What he saw there made his heart skip a beat.
"Once again victorious, the King of Games defends his title! A big applause for this magnificent duel and our reigning champion: Yuuuuugiiiiii Muuuuuutoooooo!" The sharply dressed announcer with a giant pompadour shouted as the audience shown erupted in cheers. With the camera swaying over the scene, an older King of Games was shown as he shook hands with an equally older looking challenger in the form of his best friend, Joey Wheeler.
'This … didn't happen in the show', Blake thought to himself, his mind racing from what he had just seen. The channel showed a quick compilation of key moments during the duel between the two, showcasing cards that weren't even made by the time of the original show, like the Magician Girls that Yugi used during the 'Dark Side of Dimensions' movie.
A faint hope popped up in his mind and led him to one of the closed off windows. He peeked through the shutters onto the street and his heart skipped once again. His eyes were drawn to the massive 'Kaiba Corporation' building that towered over the nearby buildings, then to a card shop just on the other side of the street, followed by a glance over to the nearby riverside where two teens played a game of Yugioh on seemingly real duel disks. One of them slapped down a card on the device on his arm, which caused an armoured knight to appear out of nowhere.
Blake stumbled back and fell on his butt, trying to process what he just saw. 'Either this is a really bad dream or I'm going completely crazy.' He remembered that in his infinite boredom of having to travel on the train for hours, he had taken the plunge into dangerous territory to entertain himself: fanfiction. Finding a story that kept him reading on for hours was like finding a needle in a haystack, but many shared a common theme of putting a character back in time or into another world completely – for better or worse.
Setting aside the hopes of this just being a bad dream he has because of whatever reason, Blake tried to put down some facts. Firstly, he was ten again – sadly without a cool wristwatch that let him transform into a variety of overpowered beings from outer space – and his horrible parents were back as well. Secondly, the Yugioh cardgame – or was it 'Duel Monsters' now? – was not only a hobby game here, but its whole reason for existing was real. Thirdly, the timeframe he found himself in now must be after the original story, presumably around or even after the latest movie 'Dark Side of Dimensions', if Yugi's cards were anything to go by.
So, he found himself in a world that was more or less dictated by a children's card game, one which he was a moderately competent competitive player of. Judging by the moment in time he had witnessed on tv, it was safe to say that the plot of the original's sequel – the GX-era – was bound to happen in the near future. This he could work with, hopefully. Now, he only needed to get away from his parents, desirably by getting the authorities on their most likely highly indebted asses. An orphanage would be a blessing in comparison to what would await him here. But first, he wanted to take the chance of maybe wringing some money out of these people.
Blake tried not to choke on the disgusting feeling he had when addressing the man like this. "Dad, I got a question." The man didn't even glance in his direction as he angrily shouted back. "Can't you see I'm busy?! The hell do you want?!"
If this version of the man was anything like the one he knew, then there were only two things he cared about and that Blake could exploit. "There's another letter telling you to pay your debts." The man he knew had been as addicted to gambling as he was to alcohol, two things that didn't go well with a full purse.
As Blake expected, the man exploded in anger. "Those fuckers will get their money when I have it! I only need to make a little plus and then …" he stopped as the winnings of the latest Duel Monsters tournament were announced – pretty big sums altogether, even for those that only managed one round. This came up just as planned and only reinforced Blakes idea of making it big by playing childrens card games.
What he didn't expect was the man to turn towards him, looking like he just had a genius idea. "Brat, this game … every child plays it nowadays, right?" This was either really good or really bad for him. If he was supposed to make money winning tournaments, he'd need cards, which he didn't have. So, getting cards in the first place was good. But having to give away all winnings to these people wouldn't get him anywhere, as long as it didn't cause an early grave for them.
"Yeah, everyone at school plays it, even if they're bad at it", Blake answered, wondering where the man would be going with this.
Getting the underlying statement, the man continued. "And you can play? Better than the others?"
Blake nodded. "I don't have any cards, though. I just borrow them at school." That was a lie but hey, if it helped him, that'd be fine.
The man scratched his chin in thought, before a creepy smile appeared on his face. "Good, good. I think I have an idea how to get money quickly …" Blake shuddered at the sight and quickly made his way back into the storage room he had woken up in. He hoped that either this nightmare would end soon or that he'd get a chance to get away. Either way, things couldn't get much worse.
Things got much, much worse, and Blake wanted to hit himself for thinking that anything good could ever come out of these disgusting people. So, here he was, sitting in a small, badly illuminated room, a small table with a cardboard box full of Duelist Kingdom era cards in front of him.
No, his 'father' hadn't bought him some cheap cards somewhere and entered him into a junior tournament. No, he wasn't allowed to pick out his own cards to be bought, which would have assured him to win against every child his age. Buying cards? Aiming for the low prices of junior tournaments? None of that. Even if Blake never saw the prizemoney from these tournaments, the exposition would've helped him tremendously in getting in contact with important people if he was lucky, but no.
What this absolute piece of human filth did topped everything Blake could remember to ever happen. Apparently, there was a ring of underground arenas in Domino City. It sure was nice to know that he was in the city where all the major stuff happened and where important people often times happened to be. But that didn't really help when he was sold off to a manager of those arenas and whatever he'd manage to win split 50/50 between the man that brought him here and the woman that made him that offer. The man did his best to butter her up, praising how amazing Blakes skill were but due to them not having any money, he couldn't afford the cards he needed to sweep the competition. The woman was having none of that, as only Blake seemed to notice, but made the offer nonetheless.
Apparently, there are some sick fucks that like to see children scream from the pain that these underground duels would provide. Because all of these duels included a set of shock collars that the duelists would be wearing, simulating pain according to the life points they lost.
'I'm completely fucked. My body is that of a ten-year-old, there's no way I can take these shocks, if I even survive a heavy hit in the first place.' Blake told himself, searching for anything remotely useful in the box in front of him, which the woman had so gracefully bestowed him with to build his deck. 'There's no way I can get anywhere with this pile of garbage either. If my opponents have anything remotely modern in their decks there's no way I can win.'
He put together a terrible deck that might've worked in Duelist Kingdom, if he had a field power bonus. It was a miracle that there even were cards besides normal monsters in there, and not even those monsters were any good. He did manage to find three somewhat acceptable cards for what he hoped would be GX-era opponents.
His strongest monster was a Swordstalker, though the 2000 attack points beat-stick required a tribute. The overall best monster he got was a Dark Blade, with 1800 attack points and no tributes. The last one was more or less his win condition; a copy of Tremendous Fire, which would hopefully allow him to close games before he got overwhelmed by better monsters. The rest of his deck consisted of vanillas and very specific equip spells that his best monsters couldn't even benefit from, and some crappy fusion monsters that were worse than most of his monster. To say that he had high hopes of winning would be as accurate as saying that Seto Kaiba was a humble man.
And there he stood, wearing a dirty grey t-shirt and an old pair of pants that was shredded down to only covering little further than past his knees, along with way too large shoes. On top of that, his legs, arms and neck were encased in black metal collars and his left arm was adorned by a first-generation duel disk.
On the opposite side of the arena stood a boy in his late teens; scrawny, unkempt hair, his clothes in about the same condition as Blakes, and a look of fearful determination in his eyes. When he entered, he shot Blake a surprised and almost apologetic look, but the moment the collars were attached the teen steeled himself for what was coming.
Blakes manager put a plain black baseball-cap on his head before going off to the side, not meeting his eyes as she did so. She was a tall woman with flowing raven-black hair that almost reached her butt, but he had no idea who she was and didn't hear her name either. The only thing he noticed about her, aside from her being an attractive woman in her mid to late 20s, was that she seemed somewhat interested in him, or rather how he would perform.
The duel was announced, which activated the duel disks as well as the shock collars. As he was the newcomer everyone wanted to see hurt first, Blake got the first turn. He drew his cards and grimaced at his draw for the turn, as his hand was loaded with nothing of value. Reluctantly, he put down a Basic Insect (500/700) in face-down defence position and passed.
His opponent drew, looked over his hand and summoned a Celtic Guardian (1400/1200), whom he promptly attacked with, destroying Blakes insect. Blake was at awe, seeing the cards come to life as holograms like this. Sure, he saw them from afar and through a tv screen before, but being the one interacting with them was a dream come true.
It was kind of ironic, that the first duel he had would start with one of Yugi Mutos cards against him, even if it was a weaker, less popular one. Drawing a card, he was relieved he actually draw something that helped him, otherwise he'd be in for a world of pain next turn. He had no intention of making a show out of this, so he silently summoned Dark King of the Abyss (1200/800) in attack position, following up with putting his Dark Energy equip card on it to make it strong enough to win. (1500/800)
Blake ordered the attack, which resulted in the destruction of his opponents' monster, causing the shock collars on the other boy to light up and electrocute him. The loud scream the teen let out made the crowd cheer and Blake shiver. If even 100 points of damage made him scream like that, how strong was such a weak shock? (Blake 4000 / ? 3900)
He found out soon enough, when his opponent drew and summoned his Skull Red Bird (1550/1200). 'The power creep is real' was the only thing he could think off when the bird ripped apart his fiend and consequently activating Blake's collars. He screamed out and fell to his knees as the electricity coursed through his body. It took him so long to get back to his feet that the announcer threatened him with additional shocks if he didn't get up immediately, which he somehow managed.
Blake drew his next card with a shacking hand and realised that he couldn't protect himself. The Witty Phantom he drew might've been one of his stronger monsters but without an equip spell he couldn't stand up to the bird. He set down his Ryu-Kishin (1000/500) and prayed that his opponent somehow didn't have any monsters he could play.
His prayer was discarded instantly as his opponent summoned his Silver Fang (1200/800) and proceeded to destroy his defence with the bird, followed up by a direct attack from the wolf. The resulting shock was so strong that he dropped his cards as he screamed, before it knocked him out completely.
Hello everyone and thank you for reading. This is the first part of a four-part introduction, which will deal with what happens before the MC gets to Duel Academy. I know that this won't be everyones cup of tea, so I tried to keep this introduction short and to the point. Maybe I could've backloaded everything that happend, but I thought it important for the MCs motivation and character, although I admit that it takes away some mystery as opposed to doing it the other way around. That said, it nevertheless helped me finding my way to write this story, and with this being my first one I can only try and learn to do better in the future.