A Heart to Duel For; Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagonists x Reader

Chapter 3: A Sickening Assumption

Yusei started his move, drawing a card from his deck. He looked at his cards carefully. I wondered what kind of deck he had. It could be anything. Maybe something with dark attribute monsters? He sort of seemed like he'd have a scary deck. . .

"I activate the spell card One for One!" Yusei spoke up, putting a halt to my predictions. "I send Quillbolt Hedgehog from my hand to the graveyard, and now I get to special summon a level one monster from my hand or deck. I choose Jet Synchron!" A blue and white jet engine appeared on Yusei's field.

"Quillbolt Hedgehog's effect activates from the graveyard. Since I have a tuner on the field, I can special summon him back, but he gets banished once he leaves the field again," he explained. "Now I'll normal summon my Synchron Carrier to the field. He allows me to special summon a Synchron monster from my hand, so here's my Junk Synchron."

"Those are tuners." I found myself voicing my thoughts out loud.

"I tune together my Jet Synchron with Quillbolt Hedgehog and Synchron Carrier," Yusei said. "And I'll synchro summon Jet Warrior!"

I looked on eagerly as the three monsters rose in the air, forming a vertical line as white rings surrounded them. The monsters disappeared, now replaced with five large orbs, each emblazoned with a large star. The orbs then collided together, and a black airplane looking figure with arms and legs shot out.

"Jet Warrior has a special effect," Yusei told Yuya. The other boy tilted his head in response. He looked so innocent. I chuckled softly.

"You seem to be having a lot of fun." The short boy who I spoke to a little earlier looked at me with a smile.

I felt a bit embarrassed that he noticed how excited I was to watch the duel. "This is the first tournament I've ever seen live," I said a bit shyly to him.

"Oh, really?" The boy asked. He was slightly surprised, but not in an offended way.

"Yeah, this is my first time wearing a duel disk too." I gestured to the duel disk on my arm. "We don't usually have this kind of stuff around here."

The boy seemed thoughtful. "Dueling is probably something people take for granted. I've never considered that there were duelists who couldn't access dueling equipment. All the duelists back in Domino have one."

He seemed to suddenly realize something. "Oh! I'm not sure if you heard from the announcement but I'm Yugi," he said. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier."

"It's fine. I'm (Y/n)," I smiled back at him. "It's nice to meet you."

Yusei had used Jet Warrior's effect to return Odd-Eyes Absolute Dragon to Yuya's extra deck. The effect was to return to the hand, but since it was an XYZ monster it returned to the extra deck instead. I saw he still had his Junk Synchron on the field.

"You think he's gonna do something with that?" I asked Yugi, pointing to the tuner monster.

"He could," Yugi said, analyzing the field. "His Jet Warrior's a level five monster. Added with Junk Synchron's level would make a level eight monster."

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, we heard it.

"I synchro summon once more! Using Jet Warrior and Junk Synchron, I tune them together to form Stardust Dragon!"

The blizzard white dragon emerged from the bright light that resonated from the field. It flapped its huge wings and they spanned out, nearly reaching all the way from the middle of the stadium to where we were sitting. Glittery dust rained down from them, glinting in the light.

"Woah. . ." I murmured, staring at the dragon in awe. Yusei was smiling up at the dragon. Was this his ace card?

"Alright Stardust! Time to attack! Take out Performapal Corn!"

The dragon swooped over to Yuya's field gracefully, and its claws reached out, sinking into Performapal Corn. The card shattered into fragments as it was destroyed. Yuya let out a small grunt from the impact. His life points were safe since his monster had been in defense position.

"I'm ending my turn with a facedown!" Yusei said. "Back to you!"

"Thanks!" Yuya drew a card. He grinned, a small bounce in his step as he did a little cheer for whatever card he drew. I found it endearing that he was looking so happy despite his predicament.

Yuya's having lots of fun, I thought. It's kind of cute.

I felt my cheeks flush slightly at the thought, but who could blame me? He was pretty cool, summoning three dragons on his first turn, even though Yusei managed to get rid of the XYZ dragon. What else could this childish boy do?

"Here's Performapal Silver Claw!" Yuya introduced. A wolf with comically long claws and a bow tie pounced up next to Performapal Uni.

"Here's a hint on what's coming next," Yuya winked. "I have two level four monsters on the field. Like to take a guess where this is going?"

"Another XYZ summon?" Yugi wondered.

"Let's get to the surprise!" Yuya clapped his hands once. "I overlay with Silver Claw and Uni to XYZ summon Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon!"

The bright light emitting from Stardust Dragon dimmed as Yuya's black and purple dragon took to the field.

"Dark Rebellion comes with a cool effect," Yuya said. "I can detach both of its materials, and now we can have some fun!"

Stardust Dragon's light dimmed even more, while Dark Rebellion's purple aura became brighter.

"What happened to Stardust?!" Yusei asked.

"Once I detach Dark Rebellion's materials, your monster gets its attack points cut in half," Yuya began to explain. "And Dark Rebellion gains the attack points that Stardust Dragon lost. This brings him up to 3,750 points!"

Looking at his dragon, Yuya moved into his battle phase. "Attack Stardust Dragon!"

The two dragons clashed, claws meeting claws, but Stardust was way too weak. Yusei let out a groan, staggering to his knees from the heavy blow that was dealt to his life points.

"Yusei!!" I cried out and jumped out of my seat instinctively. My hands gripped the railing that separated the seating area from the stadium field. I leaned forward, craning my neck to try and see him better. "Is he okay?!"

"He's fine." I heard Yugi. "Don't worry (Y/n), it's not dangerous."

I turned to him sharply. "He's hurt!" I insisted. "He just. . . he just fell down!" I felt bile in my throat. My heart was racing, and only then did I realize how heavily I was breathing. I saw some of the other duelists looking at me in concern.

"(Y/n)? What's wrong?" Jaden's voice sounded distant and warped. My head felt funny, like as if everything was fuzzy and dream-like.

"I. . . I need to use the bathroom," I stammered out. I turned on my heel and ran as fast as I could out of the stadium.

"(Y/n)! Wait!" Yugi's shouts echoed behind me.