It’s that time again, folks. I read a chapter of a bad fanfic and comment on it, you all laugh or don’t, agree or don’t. Any intro I could give or will give has by this point become irrelevant, because we all know you don’t read these just for the introduction. As a result, let’s get down to it.
Chapter 11: Team Kasumi vs Team Jaden
After Kasumi fainted at the end of last chapter, this chapter begins with her waking up an hour later. Tenten and Asuka were watching over her, and Tenten asks why she fainted, causing Asuka to spout unnecessary exposition.
But... it was mentioned that Jaden only lost to Yusei by default, and that he lost to both him and Jack. That means he faced Jack in a ground duel, and Jack kicked his ass. Author, you mentioned this at the very end of last chapter. Do you really forget your own plot points that quickly? Well, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me...
Tenten says that they should have thought this through, because Kasumi can now tell the future and knew exactly who their opponents were before they actually began training. Or something. However, Asuka manages to calm the two by telling them to just have fun with it all, which makes me think they were going to make this even more Serious Business than usual if she hadn’t intervened.
Kakashi enters the medical tent and introduces himself to Asuka, who does the same. The Hokage comes in shortly after and tells Asuka that she and Jaden have been approved to live in Konoha, which I find strange. If one had to apply to live there, I personally would have done so before traveling there, though I probably have more sense than most of this cast.
When Kasumi inquires about why they’re moving there, Asuka says the hospital where she worked was going to transfer her anyway, so she decided to move where Kasumi was because she was her patient. Yeah, screw all those other patients you have, Kasumi was the only one that mattered at all!
The next hour is then glossed over, since Kasumi and Tenten are crafting strategies during it, and the strategy will only have the vaguest hope of working if it’s never mentioned beforehand. During this, Asuka fellates Jaden’s dueling ability some more, presumably so Kasumi’s inevitable defeat of him will be all the more monumental. I suppose the author forgot that she defeated a professional duelist in her very first duel (how she did so was ridiculously stupid, but she did).
After that brief bit of pointlessness, another time skip occurs, and it’s suddenly time for the duel. Tenten and Kasumi walk outside, and the announcer (whom my friend has taken to thinking of as Mr. Referee, so I shall do the same) gets everyone riled up.
Or not. The text describes him as so enthused, but his actual dialogue doesn’t really reflect that. Also, I’m not your buddy, guy.
Everyone, particularly the Leaf ninja, starts cheering on Kasumi because nobody else in the duel truly matters, not even Kasumi’s partner. Hell, everyone but her should just forfeit right now and save me this chapter. Alas, such is not the case. To further prove my point, the entire crowd falls silent when the announcer introduces Jaden and Johan.
The two teams exchange niceties, and with that the duel begins, and Jaden is the one to go first. As he draws, Kasumi and Tenten look at each other, to confirm that Kasumi will go first out of the two of them. You would think if such a facet was vital to their strategy, they would’ve confirmed that before the duel actually started.
Jaden uses his turn to just summon Elemental HERO Avian and set one ca– Holy shit, he still has Avian? I just kind of assumed that most of his Elemental Heroes stopped existing once he got Neos. Regardless, he sets one card to end his turn, and Kasumi goes next.
Kasumi winks at Tenten to confirm that their strategy which they have yet to actually enact is coming along nicely. Inexplicably, Jaden and Johan miss her winking. Kasumi summons Mia, then uses Double Summon to also summon Leanne, then tune the monsters together to summon Micaiah. Of course she used Double Summon to do so; what other way is there to summon multiple monsters in one turn? Special summoning is just a myth created by the man to bring us down!
Scrap Archfiend. Gaia Knight. Naturia Leodrake. Care to get anything else wrong, author?
Sure enough, though, Kasumi reveals Micaiah’s effect to boost the attack of all of her monsters. The announcer supposedly gets really excited over this, but his dialogue has no actual shouting. I can’t help but think of how much better this announcer would be if he was from Super Street Fighter IV.
Kasumi activates Micaiah’s other effect, halving her attack to revive Mia. The announcer gets excited over her summoning four monsters in one turn, which isn’t really that great, especially considering that she only had two monsters out by the end of it. Some metagame decks can fill out their entire monster card zone in one turn.
Kasumi sets a card to end her turn, and Johan, in turn, starts his own by summoning Crystal Beast Emerald Turtle Tortoise. Johan used Crystal Beasts back in GX. Good to know he hasn’t changed his deck in the slightest, like all other canon characters in this fic. He sets one card to end his turn.
Tenten starts her turn by tributing Mia to summon Horus LV6, then using Level Up to tribute that to summon Horus LV8. Jaden laments this, a stark contrast to how he would often comment how the duel is getting exciting in the actual series, and Tenten then uses Micaiah’s effect to summon Mia to the field again.
Johan summarizes the entire story for us, ladies and gents.
Tenten ends her turn by setting a card, because no true duelist would ever leave their spell/trap card zone empty for even a turn! Jaden takes his turn, summoning Elemental HERO Burstinatrix, then activating Polymerization to fuse the Elemental Heroes on his field. Apparently, Asuka learned the strategy of wasting your normal summon from Jaden.
The fusion results in Elemental HERO Flame Wingman, and Jaden follows by activating the field spell Skyscraper. An onlooker shouts that it’s causing an earthquake, because holograms can totally make the earth shake now. This spell boosts Flame Wingman’s attack by 1000 when it attacks, and Jaden uses this new power to try and destroy Micaiah.
Tenten negates the attack with Scrap-Iron Scarecrow, however, and Jaden ends his turn by setting another card. I am convinced that Kasumi loads her deck; it’s not just getting the opportune card at the right time, which is normal for Yu-Gi-Oh protagonists, but she always gets nearly the exact same hand at the start of every duel. The author needs to learn to vary the duels.
During her turn, Kasumi uses Mia to destroy Flame Wingman, but Jaden activates HERO Signal in turn, allowing him to summon an Elemental HERO that is level 4 or lower (while the author claims its attack has to be 1500 or less. Author, please get your facts straight). Jaden uses the card to summon Wildheart, whom he summons in attack position for some unfathomable reason. Also, the signal shines in Naruto’s eyes, causing him to complain about it. Ha ha ha?
When Mia attacks again, he negates the attack with HERO Barrier, but that really does nothing for him, since Kasumi destroys Wildheart with Micaiah immediately after. Micaiah then destroys Emerald Tortoise, since it can attack twice due to being summoned with Leanne, but it goes to the spell/trap card zone due to its effect. Kasumi then tries to attack directly with Horus, but Johan reflects the damage back at them with Magic Cylinder.
As the reflected attack hits Kasumi, Tenten yells for her, worried for her, but Kasumi says she’s fine. Must be a damn fine hologram to actually cause damage. Or maybe Tenten’s just technologically inept. Kasumi ends her turn, and Johan ponders how to effectively counter as he starts his. Bla bla bla, padding out word count, it’s dull, bla.
Johan summons Sapphire Pegasus, allowing him to place Ruby Carbuncle in his spell/trap card zone, then activates Double Summon to also summon Amethyst Cat (inexplicably called Amazes Cat). Well, Double Summon is one change to his deck, I guess, though it’s less an evolution to his deck and more an inability on the author’s part to see how any deck can function without it. Author, Double Summon is not that great.
Johan’s monsters start talking to him, which stuns Kasumi and Tenten, even though they shouldn’t be able to notice it. Johan feels the need to exposit to his monsters about the monsters his opponents currently have out, because readers surely wouldn’t remember what happened earlier in this very chapter.
He proceeds to activate Crystal Blessing, summoning Ruby Carbuncle from his spell/trap card zone. Carbuncle’s effect then activates, summoning Emerald Tortoise back to the field. Tortoise complains about having just been destroyed in what I can only assume is supposed to be comic relief, and Johan attacks Kasumi directly with Amethyst Cat by halving its attack. This is yet another exchange of “Why would you summon/attack with such a weak monster?” “I activate its effect!” Hereafter, I am just going to call it The Exchange™.
And then Emerald Tortoise attacks directly. I’m not entirely sure how; Tortoise’s effect does not allow for that at all, nor do the effects of any other monsters Johan has on the field. Nobody even questions it, either, so the whole exchange is just confusing. “Screw the rules, I don’t know them?”
Jaden and Johan are confused that Kasumi is not physically hurt by the intangible holograms, and Kasumi boasts that she actually can cause pain in duels through her psychic powers. I’m not sure why you would boast about being able to hurt people in a children’s card game, but okay. However, Asuka clarifies that her duel disk has been updated to prevent real damage. Except that GX duel disks did not have any such mechanism; people only took damage in underground duels that involved what were essentially shock collars, or shadow duels. I honestly don’t understand the author’s thought process sometimes.
Johan ends his turn by setting two cards, and to kick off her own, Tenten equips Horus with United We Stand. So, she does run equips kinda sorta. Yay, I guess? United We Stand boosts Horus’s attack and defense for every monster Tenten has on her field, bringing its attack up to nearly 6000. When she tries to attack, however, Johan activates Negate Attack, negating the attack and ending the battle phase. Tenten ends her turn by setting a monster and two other cards.
Jaden, during his turn, tributes all of Johan’s Crystal Beasts except for Amethyst Cat in order to summon Yubel. I cannot help but be reminded of whenever my AI partner did this in the Tag Force games. GODDAMMIT, CROW, STOP USING MY MONSTERS AS FODDER FOR YOUR BLACKWING SYNCHROS THAT YOU END UP GETTING DESTROYED IN THE VERY SAME TURN SODGFBSOIDG.
...Where was I? Oh, yeah. Yubel only needs two tributes to be summoned. Jaden attacks Horus with Yubel, declaring that they’ll take all damage from battles that involve Yubel. Upon hearing this, Kasumi activates Scrap Iron Scarecrow, in order to negate the attack. So, if Jaden hadn’t loudly declared the trick to his monster’s effect, he would’ve won. Nice. I don’t think withholding it would be against any sort of rule in this fic; nobody had any qualms about Haku withholding Catastor’s effect when Kasumi dueled him.
Also, this has been bugging me for a while, but I might as well bring it up now. How does activating spells and traps work here? Can anybody on a team activate a spell or trap? It’s really inconsistent in that regard; in most Yu-Gi-Oh games with tag duels, only the person who is currently taking their turn or took their turn last on a team can activate them. It’s a minor gripe, but it’s been bugging me every since the first tag duel popped up.
Jaden tries to attack directly with Amethyst Cat, but Tenten counters with Enchanted Javelin, just to confuse me on the tag mechanics further. Enchanted Javelin restores their Life Points by Amethyst Cat’s attack, but that’s made moot when Amethyst Cat attacks to bring it back down. On one hand, Enchanted Javelin is garbage, and I should comment on it. On the other, I don’t care enough to complain about it; there's no real point.
As Jaden ends his turn, the three Crystal Beasts he tributed appear in the spell/trap zone (even though they can only go there if they’re destroyed), and Tenten activates Raigeki Break to discard a card and destroy Yubel. Why she didn’t activate this when Yubel was attacking, I have no idea. Or maybe Kasumi jumped the gun and ended up screwing up their whole strategy, leading to them losing horribly, starting a long series of losses and her angsting upon realizing she’s not as perfect as she thinks she is, leading for her to develop as a character and become an ultimately better person for it.
Oh, if only.
Instead, we get Kasumi flipping Tenten’s face down Princess of Tsurugi, so Jaden and Johan take 500 damage for each spell and trap card they have. I am convinced, at this point, that Tenten’s deck theme is not “dragons” so much as “loads of random crap, largely dragons.”
As Jaden takes damage, Kasumi uses her psychic powers to actually make him feel damaged by it, and she does the same when she uses Micaiah to destroy Amethyst Cat. After she explains what he’s feeling, he reacts remarkably well, calling it sweet and saying he wishes he had something like that to deal with Chazz. Sadomasochism joke here. Kasumi says she didn’t go all out with her powers, just because she wanted to show them to him, which she probably could have done without actually using them on him. She also feels the oddest need to bring up that she has, in fact, killed with them.
After that bit of pointlessness causes the duel to come to a grinding halt, Kasumi attacks directly with Horus, in order to win the duel and desperately try to reclaim the tension that the duel never had. The announcer freaks out, as if Kasumi hasn’t already beaten a professional duelist, and congratulations go around.
If you are concerned about his well-being, why did you use your powers on him in the first place?
Jaden and Asuka talk about them moving to the Leaf Village, and the Hokage’s desire for them to construct a Duel Academy there. They talk about who’s fulfilling what role, because hiring people after constructing the academy is totally out of the question, and they ask Kasumi to be the chief of security. Why her, of all people? Does the security guard have to be able to duel? You have an entire village full of elite ninja, and out of all of them, you choose the ten-year-old that’s not even a ninja. Excellent decision, Jaden.
They also ask Haku to be a teacher because... they can, I guess, and he accepts, so long as Kasumi is safe. Shikamaru asks who would even try to kidnap her. Um, how about the multiple factions of people who have already made clear their intentions to kidnap her? He also says that the ten-year-old girl needs a job.
When the Hokage asks if they’ve decided how the school will be set up, everyone nods, because Jaden apparently asked Kakashi, Tenten, and Shikamaru to also be security within a time skip of a few seconds. The Hokage declares that construction will begin immediately, and Kasumi wishes Tenten and Shikamaru luck in the Chunin exams. Tenten says that she’ll survive the exams, and entrusts Kasumi’s safety to Haku.
Kasumi then notices the loads of children waiting to talk to her, and among them Konohamaru. Actually, he’s only one year younger than Kasumi, but he is not important enough in this fic for it to matter. She finally gives him the autograph he asked for so long ago, and the children begin to swarm her for her autograph.
After a while of Jaden, Johan, and Kasumi signing autographs, Shikamaru and Tenten both leave with their teams for the exams, and all others present (except Rei, who has apparently stopped existing) go to the teacher’s lounge, which suddenly exists in the Leaf Village. When there, Guy asks Kasumi about her new position of power, and she answers with a tangent about the duel academy not being as big as the ninja academy, since dueling takes time to perfect. Yeah, being a ninja is the same old thing over and over once you’re out of the academy! The ranks are actually totally pointless!
Jaden and Asuka banter about the former’s life at Duel Academy for no real reason, and he reveals that he’s going to retire from professional dueling now that he’s opening the academy. This only causes more annoying bantering, this time about Jaden being too lazy to learn to ride a Duel Runner, and Asuka explains her history with Kasumi when asked.
This is the first time she’s been mentioned in this scene. Good to know she appears out of nowhere solely to hammer home the assassination of her character. Kasumi berates Rei for being out of character a sore loser, saying that you can’t win them all.
When Asuma comes up with the logical counter that Kasumi can’t lose due to her being a Signer (which is still bullshit), she says that she can still lose to a Dark Signer or one who hates the Crimson Dragon enough.
Where did that second one come from?! If someone hates the Crimson Dragon, do they just automatically become a Dark Signer? How does one even quantify hatred? At what point does one cross the line from “bitter” to “eternally vengeful”? Author, you really need to elaborate on your plot points. The Beige Prose does not help in the slightest.
Kasumi asks about how long the exams will take, to which Kakashi responds by not really responding at all. She laments how long it will take, despite Kakashi not giving a real time frame, and Asuka agrees, saying she’ll need her bodyguards. Screw the well-being of Kasumi’s friends; they are merely peons to her, subject to her whims and forced to perform her every will!
At this point, children surround the lounge clamoring for the autographs of all the duelists held within. Kakashi assures them by saying only teachers are allowed inside, so apparently the children are only held outside by their own sense of honor. Everyone wonders, however, how long they can survive in there without food.
So Kasumi will be the first to go. Awesome. On that note of waiting it out, the chapter ends. So, too, shall this liveblog end. Join me next time, all.
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