Chapter Text
Seto Kaiba has only started his afterlife Duel with the Pharaoh and is staring down “Palladium Oracle Mahad”, who stands strong against him. As the Pharaoh's opening turn ends… Mahad looks back to the Pharaoh. Something seemed to be forming underneath his ruler, prompting Mahad to try to come to his aid. “Pharaoh!”
“NOOOOO!” Kaiba jolts forward, “I didn't spend so much time and money for this just to lose you again!”
By the time the CEO reached the Pharaoh, he had dropped into a rift, causing Kaiba to grasp a whole lot of nothing as the hole closed. He glances towards back, noticing all the guards accusingly pointing their spears at him. He knew immediately that this wasn't at all like the time the Pharaoh returned to save Yugi. Mahad holds a hand out towards the guards, who promptly stand down and back away.
Kaiba has some deep thoughts about how to handle this scenario. Last time he had to put a Duel on hold was because of a happening on his side, but now this time it seems to be someone else interfering with his life's work! The CEO of the Kaiba Corporation wasn't about to let this kind of thing fly!
“Obviously, our Duel is on hold,” Kaiba looks back towards the way he entered for a moment, an intense determination in his eyes as his gaze returns to Mahad, “But wherever the missing Pharaoh may be, with the genius of Seto Kaiba, I will find him. I will return him… And we will finish this Duel!”
A white ‘DUEL LOG SAVED’ shows on Kaiba's dueling holographic display as his side of things re-initiates, and he immediately draws two cards.
“And I know just who to start with; your disciple,” Kaiba shows his cards: “Lullaby of Obedience” and “Mausoleum of the Emperor”.
“Save your ba, Kaiba,” Mahad responds as he starts to glow more purple, returning(?) to his form as “Dark Magician”, “You have a long journey ahead of you.”
Casting “Bond Between Teacher and Student”, he calls forth his student, “Dark Magician Girl”.
“Huh? We’re clearly not in a Duel…” the younger magician seems to immediately recognize Kaiba, “To think you’d be the one calling for my help for once.”
“So you did tell him about the Atlantis incident,” Kaiba remarks, “Unfortunately, where you took me then is my only lead.”
“You know about the Spirit World?”
“Let’s just say one of KaibaCorp’s branches had its own run-in with real monsters.”
“I’d be able to notice if he was in one of those dimensions. I just hope he’ll be alright… wherever he is…”
♪ The Ground’s Color is Yellow
In some far-off Eastern mountains, a run-down shrine sits atop a hill watching over a wide region to its west. Roughly mid-afternoon, the shrine’s maiden has just returned from her day’s extermination with a prideful look on her face.
“Quite the haul today,” Reimu Hakurei cheerily tells herself, “I might actually get to have a suzu made if I can hang on to this!”
Around this time is when a familiar rift in fantasy tore open and unceremoniously deposited a rather regal-looking young man in a large purple cape onto the shrine grounds. The three different colors of very spiky hair didn’t look like any Gensokyan, but the man’s aura seemed to be a bit off for your typical Outsider either. It loosely reminded her of Kanako Yasaka, the goddess of the rival shrine to her own.
“That sage is gonna get an earful when I see her,” Reimu grumbles as she floats over to the new guest.
“Who would… dare disrespect a Duel like that,” he asks to himself as he gets up, all the gold along with his off-white outfit and purple cape more visible.
“At least nothing seems to have broken,” the shrine maiden says in a rather neutral manner, “Of course I shouldn’t expect a broken item from the spiriting away of a divine spirit.”
“The what? And how did you know that already?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve seen one. Also, spiriting away is what we call it whenever a certain someone decides to drop someone from the Outside World into this place.
“Mercifully, you were deposited right at the Hakurei Shrine,” Reimu’s voice becomes cheerful again, “I’m Reimu, the shrine maiden of this place.”
“Pharaoh Atem, unfortunately flushed out from the afterlife.”
“Well, that explains the ankhs and Eyes of Wdjat.”
“A Shinto shrine maiden knows about the symbols of Egypt?”
“I don’t know much, but I know a couple folks that do. I take it you’re seeking a way back?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I won’t be able to do it the normal way,” Reimu sighs, motioning with her gohei to make a tear of her own in fantasy that clearly leads to the Outside World, “using this gap to return the Outsider home… But of course, that’s not your home.”
The shrine maiden then closes the gap she just made, “To get you back to the correct afterlife, I’ll need to get us to the Yama so she can guide you to it.”
“Yama?” the Pharaoh asks, “Is that your God of the Dead in this world?”
“You could say that. However, there is one thing I’ll need to get taken care of before we go…”
Reimu gradually floats a little, only a couple centimeters. “Gensokyo is inhabited by dangerous beings known as youkai.”
“Gensokyo, huh,” Atem notes.
“Youkai prey on humans like me, and I can’t assure they’ll stay away from you. You’ll need to know how to defend yourself, Pharaoh, and that’s what the rules of the land allow us to do.”
“Are you saying ‘It’s time to duel’?”
“Not yet. Gensokyo has an intellectual, beautiful game for settling disputes known as the Spell Card Battle. I plan on showing you the ropes on how it works before we actually start our journey.”
♪ The World is Made in an Adorable Way
“First, let’s address the elephant in the room; my flying,” Reimu starts off, “This isn’t just my special ability. Everyone can fly in Gensokyo, even you! It’s a natural feature of fantasy itself!”
It takes the Pharaoh a surprisingly small amount of thought to take to the air and maneuver about in all directions.
“Don’t worry about being sloppy at first,” the shrine maiden smiles approvingly, “Even I needed an aid in my first few flights.
“While flying at walk speed is easy, at run speed is a bit harder to control,” Reimu makes a dash upwards with some steering, repeating it with other directions of dashing and steering, “You won’t be able to turn or stop on a coin.”
It proves quite simple for Atem to follow suit.
“Some patterns’ solutions require going full speed past something, so that’s an important trait to remember.
“But just blitzing around all over the place will get you shot,” Reimu seemed to form a visible sphere inside herself while making slow, highly controlled movements, “Focus for finer evasion.”
This took a little longer for Atem to figure out, mostly due to him focusing on the sphere at first instead of simply fine movements.
“Do be careful, though. Some patterns take advantage of a habitual focuser! Managing between these speeds is key.
“And that’ll settle it as far as movement is concerned,” both of them gracefully float back down to the ground, “which is all you need… if you want to be a pacifist; not recommended. Which leads us to the Spe—”
“Yo, Reimu! Let’s play!”
A witch in black and white came speeding in on a broom from the forest downhill, coming to an air-skidding stop just beside the shrine maiden.
“Can you pipe down,” Reimu laments, “I have a visitor from an afterlife.”
“So who’s our guest this…” the witch retorts as she looks towards the Pharaoh, “time…”
“Atem, this is one of those friends of mine that knows Egyptian,” Reimu points to the witch, “Don’t know how good her knowledge is, though.”
“Marisa Kirisame,” she introduces herself with a tip of her oversized hat, “an ordinary magician.”
The Pharaoh wasn’t sure how to take that kind of title, “Ordinary Magician? An unusual title to say so proudly.”
“Most magicians here are youkai,” Reimu fills the Pharaoh in, “including some who were initially human.”
“But not yers truly,” Marisa boasts, “I carve my own fate!”
“You sound like a billionaire with a grudge.”
“And you’re both stalling my teachings!”
“Wait, you were teachin’ him somethin’?”
“Just flying and Spell Card Battles,” Reimu responds, “Maybe it’s better to just show it.”
With a snap of the fingers, one of the komainu guarding the shrine gains color and springs to life in a more humanoid form, “A!”
“You want me to walk the dog!?” Marisa barks out.
“You could say that,” Reimu smirks, “Just play with Aunn to show the Pharaoh how it’s done.”
Reimu then turns to the Pharaoh and points her gohei at him, “And you, take notes, because we’re up right after.”
Marisa and Aunn take to the air and start casting bevies of bullets at each other, each bobbing and weaving about the other’s patterns. Each of them seemed to have a theme to their patterns, something the Pharaoh doesn’t let go unnoticed.
“Usually, this is the kind of thing a ka or Duel Monster would do,” he muses aloud, “however they can’t easily avoid attacks like that.”
“A what now,” Reimu looks suspiciously at Atem.
“This isn’t the time for explanation.”
The magician and komainu’s battle reaches a point where Aunn casts something:
Dog Sign “Stray Dog's Walk”
犬符「野良犬の散歩」
“That must be a Spell Card,” Atem quickly deduces.
“Right,” the shrine maiden assures him, “Each battle, whenever someone gets hit, or their pattern runs out of time, they move on to the next. A card can be one to three patterns, usually two. Three patterns make a less attractive card but more hits to take, while a single pattern makes a beautiful card at the expense of being unable to take a hit.”
“Then what of Aunn’s first pattern?”
“That would be the card’s nonspell. Most cards have a nonspell to start, and all patterns must have both an intended solution and a meaning to the user. Without both, it becomes little different from actual battle. Each side chooses the same number of Spell Cards; in this case, two. Clearing a spell without taking a hit or, usually, it running out of time is a capture.”
“Usually?”
“Some cards keep the user out of bounds or makes them otherwise unhittable, known as a timeout spell. You only need to last until time runs out to capture one. Very few have what it takes to make those, however.”
After a couple minutes of heated danmaku combat, Marisa emerges victorious just before running out of time on her first spell, causing Aunn to burst with bullet energy.
“And whoever uses up the chosen number of Spell Cards first… loses.” Reimu concludes.
“So yeah, ya basically fight one-on-one like that,” Marisa heads back to the shrine maiden and Pharaoh.
“But before we get there…” Reimu points to Atem again, this time the gohei is basically right in his face, “Ka. Duel Monsters. Explain yourself.”
“Maybe it’s better to just show it,” the Pharaoh throws Reimu’s own words back at her as the eye of his Millennium Puzzle glows. A stone tablet, a carving of a winged demon with huge claws, erects behind the Pharaoh, prompting the shrine maiden to hop backwards. A light of energy emerges from the stone tablet, manifesting a bony white-and-purple monster with blue wings, “such as with this monster, “Summoned Skull”!”
“I exterminate such monstrous youkai on sight,” Reimu yells as she makes a massive Yin-Yang Orb and kicks it at the monster, “Yin-Yang Asuka’i!”
““Summoned Skull”, counterattack! Lightning Strike!”
“Summoned Skull” surges with electricity as it calls a bolt of lightning right on Reimu’s head as it’s decked by the giant orb. The bolt makes Reimu bounce off the ground, but the Yin-Yang Orb strikes with enough force to make “Summoned Skull” blow up as well.
“A double KO!? That’s a surprise.”
“You’re telling me. Usually someone just flexing their power like that is beyond the bulk of Gensokyo in power, if not all of it.”
“All right, Reimu. Let’s not delay this test longer than needed,” Atem starts floating himself, “If I win, I’ll be battling alongside you on this journey back to the afterlife.”
“Depending on how well you do,” Reimu smiles, “I might let you even if you lose. Normally we call ‘Let’s Fire!’ to start a bout, but in this case…”
❓ ““IT’S TIME TO DUEL!”” ✌️
As the two were declaring, the Pharaoh pointed two fingers towards Reimu as if choosing Scissors in a Rock-Paper-Scissors bout.
“What was that for,” Reimu shrugs, “There’s no need for turn order here.”
2-Spell Battle
楽園の素敵な巫女 博麗霊夢
Reimu Hakurei, Wonderful Shrine Maiden of Paradise
VS
Atem, Ancient King of Games
古代遊戯王 アテム
♪ Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Breed & Battle – Yami Yugi
The Pharaoh starts with several spills of what looks like a drink flowing about. It looks almost too easy for the shrine maiden, especially compared to all the ofuda she’s spreading out. But one thing sticks out pretty quickly. Whenever an ofuda meets the liquid, that liquid ignites and spreads a fire quickly, making a much more difficult pattern with the effective range increase.
“Russian vodka is 90% alcohol,” Atem smirks as he weaves about Reimu’s ofuda waves.
“That stuff goes in people’s mouths, not a danmaku field,” this seemed to really anger the shrine maiden, less about the flammability of the substance and more about the fact that he’s wasting perfectly good booze! Trying not to let it get the best of her, the shrine maiden eventually manages to slap a seal onto the Pharaoh’s shoulder.
“Got a little lucky there,” Reimu sighs in relief, “wouldn’t want to mess with the hair.”
“It’s taken worse spills than that,” Atem responds as this wing flap (DiaDhank) spreads from his wrist and imprints what looks like a man on his knees with a bunch of fragments of a hollow sphere around him.
Penalty Sign “Mind Crush”
罰符「マインドクラッシュ」
Two… no, three concentric white spheres formed around Reimu, forming two rings of jigsaw-like danmaku with several interlocking points around them. The Pharaoh points his hand at her, causing the pieces to shatter all over the place… but not inward. In fact, the pieces reforming together didn’t seem to reach Reimu, either.
“This has to be the simplest spell since I—”
As soon as the two rings of pieces reassembled, the center became active and locked Reimu in, causing a buffeting all over her body!
“You were saying,” Atem smirks after showing Reimu wrong.
“Okay, I was just asking for that,” Reimu tries to shake off the rather embarrassing capture failure.
Dream Sign “Evil Sealing Circle”
夢符「封魔陣」
The shrine maiden starts firing a big circular spread of amulets and other bullets, with multiple fast lines of amulets restricting where the Pharaoh can move. Reimu’s pattern gave Atem a small field to work with against normal-sized danmaku, whereas Atem’s requires her to get out of the safe spot around her in a hurry, navigating large 3D jigsaw piece danmaku.
The shrine maiden ends up getting clipped a second time after a while, a returning piece catching her sizable backside from behind. Reimu’s Spell Card launches over to the Pharaoh that captured it!
Reimu down! Last Spell!
“Huh, so that’s what a capture entails,” he muses aloud.
“They’re worth a lot in Incidents,” Reimu rights herself, “but that’s another can of worms.”
“We can talk about that on the journey.”
Reimu starts chucking Yin-Yang Orbs about, finally managing to get a piece of the Pharaoh’s leg and making him slip! His device stopped showing “Mind Crush”.
Atem down! Last Spell!
“You don’t feel like the type to crush minds, honestly,” Reimu inquisitively notes.
“I was so for a while,” The Pharaoh sighed, clearly regretting that part of his past.
“That definitely feels familiar.”
The Pharaoh’s device started showing multiple monsters on it that were showing around him; a few swords-beings charging at Reimu, a few flame-spitting dragons giving cover, and a few fiends just causing mischief. Hectic, but relatively simple, at least until the elven swordsman of the bunch, “Celtic Guardian”, manages to get a piece of her arm. Reimu is down to her final hit!
“You see any pathetic cards in this set,” Atem almost jokingly asks.
“I wouldn’t know, I never really heard of Duel Monsters before now,” Reimu answers as she brings out her signature spell.
Spirit Sign “Dream Seal”
霊符「夢想封印」
Multiple Yin-Yang Orbs surround the shrine maiden, and she fires rings of bullets as the orbs spew surges of amulets. The amulets seem to stop and aim at the Pharaoh multiple times on their way, making him have to constantly be on the move. While his monsters can take a few shots for him, it actually throws off his flow and gets him an amulet to the face!
“It may well come down to this, Atem,” Reimu winks.
“Time to end this duel!” he retorts as his monsters return and fade from his device.
Spirit “Dark Magic Attack”
精霊「黒・魔・導」
(Ka "Black Magic")
The name threw Reimu off for a bit before seeing another stone tablet and the visage of what is definitely a powerful monster.
“My ever-faithful companion, “Dark Magician”!”
Mahad/“Dark Magician” seemed… rather out there, not to mention glowing reddish.
“He can still reach out to us,” Mana/“Dark Magician Girl” cheers.
“The Pharaoh better have some good intel on his whereabouts,” Kaiba scoffs.
The way Atem called upon his ace with such fervor left awe in Reimu’s eyes, not to mention the arcane look and fancy staff his servant rocked. But she had no time to be caught in beauty, as the “Dark Magician” takes aim at her location. She knows better than to stay there this time around and quickly bolts away, hearing the loud crackle behind her as an orb of dark energy blasts at where she was initially at. Keeping a steady pace as the Pharaoh steadily weaved his way about her own signature spell, the shrine maiden notices some lingering danmaku where the blast was.
Keeping mindful of where she had been before and using nearly the whole Duel Barrier… *BWIP* she knows time is not *BWIP* on her side. *BWIP* With one last bevvy *BWIIIIP* of seals, she *BWIIIIP* finally nails Atem cleanly in the torso with but 00.08 seconds left, her other seals fading away just afterwards! A card from Atem flies to Reimu, his spell captured!
The “Dark Magician” seemed to shatter into pieces just like “Summoned Skull” did earlier. A bright light radiates within the Pharaoh and blasts out explosively, not only dropping him through the Duel Barrier and onto the ground but also tattering his royal threads a bit! Though surprisingly, he didn’t seem to yell once defeated. Strange.
WINNER (2-1) – Reimu Hakurei
“Even in defeat, you definitely passed my test. I feel like it’ll be an honor to team with you.”
“Teacher! Are you alright?” Mana is already looking concerned for a bit.
“Why are you asking Mahad that,” Kaiba glances at the “Dark Magician Girl” with disbelief in her question, “We’re in the afterlife. What’s more important is ‘Where is the Pharaoh?’”
“I couldn’t tell too well,” the “Dark Magician” answered, “It looked like a forest with a shrine of some sort, though on his command I was more focused on this red and white… mysterious flying shrine maiden that seemed to be going against him. Last thing I remember seeing is him getting smacked by a talisman of hers.”
“If the “Dark Magician” returned after Atem was hit… that can only mean…”
“The Pharaoh LOST!?” Kaiba flips his lid, “Twice now he’s given the crown to some nobody!?”
“It wasn’t a game of Duel Monsters. The players seem to do the attacking for the most part.”
Kaiba looks perplexed for a moment… and decides to not let that bother him, “What about the area itself and the shrine maiden? Remember how they look?”
Mahad fires up some magic to form an image of the area he saw, and the lady that just narrowly defeated Atem. The girl in question seemed to catch Kaiba’s eye, “I swear that girl looks familiar…”
♪ Spring Lane – Colorful Path
“Can’t say I expected you to have some impressive danmaku, Pharaoh,” Reimu smiles as she extends her hand to Atem, helping him back to his feet, “At least you try to play properly, unlike someone else I know.”
“I’m sure that person had their reasons,” Atem grabs Reimu’s outstretched hand and the two pull him up.
“You sure you’re alright with your clothes getting ripped like that?”
“It’s nothing a ka can’t handle.”
Another stone tablet rising occurs, this one of what looks like a praying young lady. However the girl came out blue-skinned and shining a light around the Pharaoh. Before Reimu’s and Marisa’s eyes, his clothing repaired itself! The magician looks especially surprised as the “Mystical Elf” departed.
“Isn’t calling forth gods yer power, Reimu,” Marisa glances at the shrine maiden, “Yer seriously getting outshined by a second such being.”
“Those aren’t gods,” Reimu retorts, “Shinto or Egyptian.”
“‘Monster’ is the term,” Atem corrects both of them, “And you both would know if I was trying to call forth an Egyptian God.”
“Three phantom gods?”
“Try not to think too hard about it.”
Reimu then looks back to Marisa, “I need to take the Pharaoh to the village and get him some clothes that won’t make him stick out like a sore thumb, then take him acro—I mean, to Higan. Hold the shrine while I’m gone.”
“Not a problem, Reimu,” Marisa smirks, thinking she’ll get first dibs if an incident occurs.
“Across what,” the Pharaoh asks, which prompts Marisa to get close to his ear.
“‘Crossing the river’ is a euphemism, like the Shadow Realm. But she has to do so literally to reach Higan.”
With a quick nod from Atem, the red-white and gold-purple were off to the Human Village.
“Does this look familiar to you,” Kaiba shows a projected card image to Mahad, which looks crude, but very much like the shrine maiden that he had encountered as “Dark Magician”:
Paradise Priestess
*******
Spellcaster/LIGHT/Fusion/Effect/2500/2000
2 monsters Special Summoned from the Extra Deck
Neither player can activate cards or effects from the hand.
“That’s her,” Mahad yells out, “How do you have her in card form?”
“It’s not an actual card. This was from a card design contest back in 2015, submitted by someone named Sumireko Usami. But more importantly, look at her lore.”
The lore that came with the card’s submission read “A mysterious flying shrine maiden residing over the fantastic land of Gensokyo. They say nothing can weigh her down.”
“So how did it fare,” “Dark Magician Girl” curiously inquires.
“Never made it past qualifiers,” Kaiba retorts, “but now it has more importance than any of the winners that year…
♪ Kaiba Hacking
“Small change of plans. I’m heading for the Spirit World to find a way to Gensokyo. I’m still seeking out the Pharaoh and finishing this Duel. However, if this link proves true, the Duel may be where I find him. ‘Cause I figure, if there is this land of fantastic beings out there, then let’s teach ‘em how to Duel!”
Kaiba starts laughing like a maniac, while Mana takes him towards somewhere he can enter the Spirit World from.