Last time on Kasumi: The Last Signer, not much happened. There was discussion about things and oh yeah the main character was born.
This time, the main character actually does things kinda sorta! No point in trying to build up what the things are* , let’s just get straight to reading, shall we?
Chapter 1: Ten Years Later
Before the chapter itself actually begins, the author explains that the story will cover Yu-Gi-Oh cards at the end of each chapter from here on out, and they may be real or a creation of the author.
...Why? It’s understandable for hir own cards, since nobody will know what the hell they do, but real cards? That would be understandable if if the information of the cards gave things like tips on how to use it in actual duels, but it’s not. It’s just the information of the card copied and pasted at the end of the chapter. The reader could look them up if they were curious.
The author may be thinking “Oh, I’ll save them the trouble of doing that,” but if that’s the case, why not just cover every card that was used in that chapter?*
Enough rambling about things that don’t actually have much bearing on anything, though. The chapter itself begins with Kasumi waking up and looking at herself in the mirror after taking a shower. The whole chronology of this is confusing because of the wording, which just kind of rushes through all of it (the description of it in the fic is seriously no longer than it is here). The impression is it all happened in maybe five minutes.
The spelling gets better, I promise (for the most part). Neglecting that, though a mixture of violet and what? Itself? Mixing violet with itself won’t magically change its color to neon green.
Kasumi narrates that Crow and Aki have been training her ten years to duel, and this day is the culmination of that training.
...She’s been trained how to duel since the day she was born? If you say so, kiddo. Even by Yu-Gi-Oh standards, this is already pretty silly.
If length of description is equivalent to time spent on the action as I hypothesized before, then she must take at least an hour or so dressing. Kasumi narrates in depth exactly what she puts on, the fic in the process comparing itself to the likes of My Immortal and My Inner Life sooner than I would have liked, though thankfully not to those extents.
Kasumi then heads downstairs to see her parents and Crow waiting for her. What is so special about Crow, exactly? “Oh, he taught her how to duel,” one could argue, but why was he special enough to do that in the first place? Could Aki and Yusei not do it by themselves for whatever reason? Or even Aki by herself, since she’s the only of the parents mentioned to have actually taught her.
Greetings occur, and Kasumi confirms that she is, in fact, ready for her first duel.
She’s gone ten years of learning about dueling without actually dueling? Um, what? Wouldn’t learning through experience be the best way? To take an example from 5D’s itself, it’s not as if Aki took a written test to be able to duel on a motorcycle; she had to beat a member of Sector Security in a riding duel.
After Kasumi confirms this, Crow hands her a deck, boasting that he stole it from Sector Security as he is wont to do, justifying it by saying it’s easy to steal from them.
Why are Aki and Yusei letting this guy around their 10-year-old kid again, much less letting him be a primary influence on her?
However, when Yusei questions if it was confiscated, Crow stated that nobody ever owned it, which raises its own set of questions. The main one I want to ask is “How has nobody at all ever owned it?” What, did the person who constructed the deck think it so horrible that he disowned it and relinquished it to Sector Security?
Yusei then gives Kasumi a duel disk and asks her to be careful; she promises she will be, prompting a concerned reaction from Aki. Kasumi responds thusly:
Also, Kasumi wasn’t born in Neo Domino; she was born in Satellite, specifically Martha’s orphanage, given that Martha helped with the birth. Unless Martha was helping with it at the hospital for some reason, which would be... weird. Only one chapter, and already the author is forgetting hir own plot. This bodes well.
Aki waves her concerns away as nothing, and Yusei then leads Kasumi outside so they can ride to wherever the duel will be on his D-Wheel/motorcycle. As they head outside, Kasumi makes a comment about usually riding with Aki or Crow which serves no real purpose other than to increase word count. Maybe if it was elaborated upon, but she essentially says “Oh by the way this doesn’t usually happen so that makes this occasion ~SPESHUL~”.
The duo take off after Aki advises them to be careful one last time, but halfway to the duel arena—
I’m sorry, duel arena, what?
Um, anyway, halfway there, the two are stopped by Officer Trudge .
Trudge apparently just stopped them to admire how speshul and kawaii uguu
◊ Kasumi is, given all he really does in relation to her is admire how cute she is.
Yusei thinks he wants to arrest her for something, given the past friction between him and Trudge (which is weird logic, but whatever). Trudge’s response?
Um, wow. I... have nothing I can say to that. Let’s just move on.
The three have a brief discussion about life, the universe, and everything, during which Kasumi says she was picked on for being born in the orphanage. So now she was born there again? Goddammit, author, make up your mind!
It is at this point, however, Trudge reveals why he actually stopped them, saying that many girls around Kasumi’s age have begun disappearing. This worries Yusei greatly, and Kasumi complains that now he will never let her out of sights.
Yeah, how dare a father care for his daughter when there is a large chance she will be abducted or worse! Who cares about protection when there’s adventuring to do?
With that, the two groups part ways, and Yusei and Kasumi finally arrive at the Kaiba— oh, no, the Kiba* Dome. Why is she dueling for her first duel here...?
Yusei warns Kasumi before the duel to respect her opponent, to be careful and that her opponent is much more experienced than her. Again, why are they making her go through with this?
Kasumi proceeds to whine some more about the advice to be careful, saying he’ll never let her do anything. I get if she’s supposed to be kind of a brat, but this is taking it to an extreme; Yusei was given an entirely legitimate reason to be very watchful of her, which she neglects entirely. It might be trying to be funny, but it’s narrated far too blandly to really be comical in the slightest.
Aki joins her family, and after about an hour, an MC introduces Kasumi as the daughter of Yusei and the Black Rose to an excited audience.
So, um, Aki never made a name for herself after she stopped using that persona? At all? She dropped that by the first third of the series and this is ten years after the series. I blame Crow stealing the spotlight. Also, if she really was only ever known as that, why would people be excited about her child?
The most glaring part of this, of course, is WHY IS KASUMI DUELING HER FIRST DUEL IN FRONT OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. I honestly don’t see any reasonable justification for this; why are they exhibiting the first duel of an inexperienced duelist to this many people? To laugh at her? Because of her famous parents? Either way, Yusei and Aki would never agree to something like that, given how they said they would always be with their child. Unless they inexplicably didn’t see how humiliating this would be.
What’s even worse is that she actually isn’t affected by this. At all. First the author goes too far with the brattiness in an attempt to make her sound like a proper 10-year-old, and now she’s far too composed to be one.
Her opponent is then introduced, the “amazing Rua,” who has apparently made a name for himself as a professional duelist, only further compounding the stupidity of this entire situation. Strangely Creepily enough, he’s wearing the exact same clothes as he did when just a kid. He marvels at how she’s grown, since he and his sister haven’t seen her since she was born. Yeah, way to keep in contact, guys.
Leo asks if she is ready to duel him as her first opponent, and she affirms that she is, saying she intends to win. Now don’t get ahead of yourself there, kiddo.
Essentially, Leo politely calls her an idiot for thinking such, given the whole “professional duelist” thing he has going, but Kasumi argues that she knows how to duel thanks to Crow and Aki. Yeah, hon, knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you’re good at it.
With that, the duel properly begins. The author follows the anime rules for dueling, meaning Life Points start at 4000 and the person who gets the first turn is decided completely arbitrarily (in this case, Kasumi gets to go first because it’s her first duel).
Kasumi looks at the cards in her hand, most of which are characters or weapons from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn. She feels proud since these are apparently brand new cards, so she is the first to lay eyes on them.
How? The person who made the cards is the first to have laid eyes on them, and then the person who constructed the deck would have also already lain eyes on them if it was a different person. And then there’s the Sector Security who confiscated it, and— You know what, it doesn’t matter.
She starts her turn by summoning Cleric Mist in defense mode* , bringing the narration to a grinding halt to state what the monster looks like and what the attack and defense values for the monster are.
Given the rather measly values that these are, Leo wonder if it’s a little weak to start things off, but Kasumi rebuts that when Cleric Mist is summoned, she gains 1000 Life Points, bringing her up to 5000.
As a big fan of Fire Emblem, and Path of Radiance being one of my favorite games in the series, I’ll be blunt: Mist is not that great a healer. That will be a recurring problem with these cards: they’re less accurate to their namesakes and more whatever is most convenient for our main character. So, basically, like most Yu-Gi-Oh main characters, but worse.
After some congratulatory remarks from her parents about what a perfect and amazing duelist she is, Kasumi plays Silencer, which basically prevents Leo from playing any spell or trap cards at all for what is essentially two turns.
First, Silence is the staff that is most comparable to this card, not Silencer; Silencer is one of the names for the One-Hit Kill ability Assassins have. Second, this card is so ridiculously overpowered, it’s not funny. For comparison, there’s a spell card in the actual card game called Cold Wave which has the same basic effect, but it applies to both players, it only lasts for one turn, and it has to be your first action during your main phase; this card is still banned in the metagame. In essence, this card is better in every way than a card officially deemed overpowered in the actual card game; its only drawback is needing a Spellcaster-type monster on your side of the field. That isn’t even that difficult of a requirement, as Kasumi shows here by activating it on her first turn.
After playing her ridiculously broken card, Kasumi sets a card and ends her turn. Leo then begins his turn by summoning Morphtronic Celfon. Kasumi calls him out for his hypocrisy on the ‘weak monster’ thing (Celfon only has 100 attack and defense each), despite knowing something is up. Then why bring it up in the first place?
Leo responds by activating Celfon’s effect: a number at random is chosen, and Leo gets to pick up that many cards from the top of his deck. If any are level 4 or lower Morphtronics, he can special summon them.
He then does his trademark arm-screwy thing and yells “Dial on!” as the effect activates. So, we’re supposed to believe that in ten years, with Leo going from a young adolescent to an adult professional duelist, he hasn’t changed his strategies or even his mannerisms at all?
Yusei comments that Leo hasn’t changed, to which Aki responds she’d be worried if he had changed. I, on the other hand, am personally worried that he hasn’t changed.
Celfon’s effect yields the number two; Leo picks up two cards, and one of them is Morphtronic Magnen, which he special summons in defense mode before ending his turn.
Kasumi draws a card to begin her turn and declares Cleric Mist’s second effect, saying she receives 500 Life Points every turn Cleric Mist is on the field. This increases her Life Points to 5500.
She then summons Swordmaster Mia, another Fire Emblem monster. I normally don’t bring up attack and defense values, but Mia’s attack is 1800, which is more than a bit high for a Swordmaster.
Inexplicably, despite having no face down cards and his strongest monster having 800 defense, he claims that Mia won’t be enough. In response, Kasumi activates the equip spell card she just drew, Armor Slayer, equipping it to Mia. She explains that the card inflicts piercing damage and increases Mia’s attack by 500 if she is battling a Machine-type monster. Sure is convenient she just drew that and all of Leo’s monsters are Machines, then!
With the increase in attack, Mia’s attack rises to 2300, causing Aki to comment to Yusei that it already matches up to one of his signature cards, Junk Warrior.
...Junk Warrior isn’t that good, is it supposed to be a good thing Mia measures up?
The MC further praises Kasumi for how amazing and perfect she is, claiming she knows how to "rock her deck." I think anybody with cursory knowledge of the card game could rock this deck by his definitions, considering how little she’s actually done so far, especially in the way of intricate combos.
Mia destroys Magnen, costing Leo nearly half his Life Points in damage and actually scratching him slightly. Kasumi wonders why this is; the answer is very predictable to anyone who knows the slightest thing about her parents.
She asks if he’s okay, and he responds in the affirmative, so she gleefully responds that it’s about to get even better because Swordmaster Mia can attack twice a turn. The idea that Mia can attack twice per turn fits the idea of a Swordmaster, but is questionable given how high her attack is with such an effect. What’s worse, though, is how utterly Kasumi disregards the idea of Leo actually being injured after maybe a second or two. You think someone else would notice the injuries and try to call the duel off before things could escalate, but apparently not.
Kasumi then has Mia destroy Celfon, reducing Leo’s Life Points to 300. She then sets a face down card and ends her turn.
Leo starts his turn by summoning Morphtronic Remoten; the fact that it’s a Tuner worries Kasumi.
And then he ends his turn there Leo confirms her suspicions, using its effect to remove the Celfon in his Graveyard from play to special summon another Celfon. He then uses this Celfon’s effect, and the number again comes up as a two. Man, luck is just not on Leo’s side in this story.
Well, maybe it is, since he is able to special summon both of the two cards he picks up, Morphtronic Clocken and Morphtronic Magnen.
Kasumi starts totaling the levels before realizing he can summon a level seven Synchro with the cards he has, meaning he can summon his trump card , Power Tool Dragon.
And summon it he does, tuning Remoten to Clocken and Celfon to summon it. Um, one problem with that: their levels are respectively 3, 2, and 1. Using my brilliant math deduction skills, I figured out that these three numbers added together do not, in fact, total to 7. Oops.
What’s worse is that there was an actual combination of monsters that could total their levels to 7: just replace Clocken with Magnen, which is level 3.
Enough about how poetic my mathematics proficiency is, though, Leo decides to get straight to attacking Mia with Power Tool Dragon, since Silencer crippled its ability. Normally, both cards would destroy each other, but Kasumi uses the trap card Switch to change the attack target to Mist. Leo decides this is fine, since it means she’ll stop gaining Life Points, but Kasumi then activates her other set card, a counter trap called Sleep Staff.
The card calls for Kasumi to flip a coin, and someone throws one down to her. She can tell it’s Crow’s, because it has a crow on the back. Normally in the anime, such effects are represented visually on the card itself in some way, but SCREW THAT CROW NEEDS TO BE INVOLVED IN EVERYTHING.
EVERYTHING.
Anyway, Kasumi flips the coin, and it lands on heads, meaning Power Tool Dragon’s attack is reduced to zero, and it can’t attack for three turns, negating the attack.
I asked a friend who is more well-versed in Yu-Gi-Oh than myself if a series of moves like this was possible, because I wasn’t sure. He was promptly lost because of how vaguely the effects to Sleep Staff were explained.
Leo falls into despair for a brief second, then ends his turn. Once Kasumi’s turn starts, she summons a Tuner, Heron Leanne.
Yusei mumbles that the Tuner is a new monster. No, really? She’s been using exclusively monsters that are apparently never before seen, and you’re just now realizing these monsters are new? Let’s give Yusei a hand for how profound his observations are.
Kasumi then tunes Leanne to Mia and, with a trite Synchro chant about lighting a way or some dumb stuff like that, summons Michah Micaiah, Maiden of Dawn.
The author spells Micaiah’s name quite a few different ways throughout the fic yet never actually spells it right. Go figure.
Kasumi then explains that one of Micaiah’s effects is that all of her monsters gain 500 attack points, which I assume is a result of her rousing speeches, since she commanded an army in Radiant Dawn. However, “all of her monsters” includes Micaiah herself, which works because... I have no idea. Micaiah has such low self-esteem her rousing speeches rouse herself?
Micaiah then attacks and destroys Magnen, which was the only of Leo’s monsters not used to summon Power Tool Dragon, causing Leo to laugh, since it was in defense position, so he does not come to harm.
However, Kasumi explains that since Leanne was used to summon Micaiah, she can attack twice, so she attacks Power Tool Dragon, destroying it and winning the duel.
Leanne’s effect or not, destroying Magnen was just plain rude of Kasumi, since she just did it to mock Leo for his apparent stupidity.
What’s more annoying, though, is that Kasumi is a kid that has never dueled before, while Leo is a professional. Already, she’s showing signs of being a Sue, which only gets worse and worse from here on out. Not only did she defeat him, he never actually damaged her or even made her worry at any point.
The signs just keep coming when Kasumi figures out, after the duel is over, that Leo was almost blinded by the light from Micaiah’s attack. There’s a brief inquiry as to if he’s okay, and then she never suffers any sort of repercussion for it or any other injuries she caused.
Also there’s this line from Leo:
But I’m not even going to begin to touch that.
The closest she does get to punishment for this is the Signers talking to her about this at her house after the duel. Before actually getting into the matter, the author establishes the contemptuous relationship Kasumi and Jack share. Why?
...Iunno, because he calls her short, I guess?
After that brief exchange, Aki informs Kasumi that she has psychic powers, which she demonstrates by bringing a card to life. She then tells her that her powers may grow out of control like hers did, hence why people called her a monster.
Kasumi rushed into her mother’s arms and sobs she doesn’t want that to happen to her. This could be a moving scene, if there was any sort of description. Instead, it’s told in the blandest prose possible, making such an occurrence seem nothing more than routine.
Yusei and Aki assure her they would never let anything like that happen to her, and while she cries, Jack snaps at her for crying because apparently “A Fudo never cries!”
Don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack. Aki cried quite a few times in the series, and Yusei cried at least once; Jack’s never had trouble with any of these instances. This is especially considering they were in their late teens during the series, while Kasumi is a ten-year-old girl. It’s as if the author one day thought, “Hey, I should make fan favorite character Jack Atlas a complete jackass for NO REASON!”
Crow gets Jack to calm down, and Aki asks if Kasumi knows about the Black Rose. She says she does and asks who that horrible person (her words, not mine) was.
I may be willing to accept the world at large not knowing Aki as anything other than the Black Rose, as implausible as it is, but her own daughter? Especially considering Aki was introduced as the Black Rose during Kasumi's duel?
Aki is understandably pissed by her question, but dismisses it because she apparently had no way of knowing. Except, of course, for Aki’s introduction at that huge event. You know, the one that happened maybe a couple hours ago? No? Okay.
Yusei assures Kasumi that she still has time to control it and Leo confirms it, given that his injuries weren’t too bad. Sure, being almost blinded isn’t too bad, why not.
Some vague references are made about a duel Leo had with Aki a while after Kasumi was born (where he was almost killed by her powers even though she should’ve had them well under control by then) and Jack having a riding duel he has to get to (just to drive home the point that he’s not very nice). Afterward, Kasumi asks if they are going to send her to the Arcania Arcadia Movement , but everyone refuses near immediately, as they should since the Arcadia Movement was dismantled during the series.
Weirdly enough, they talk about it as if it still exists, with Jack arguing it could be good for her and Aki saying that the leader of it, Devine Divine, used her. Even if the Arcadia Movement was still around, Divine wouldn’t be a concern because he kinda died. Twice.
Aki and Yusei decide to help Kasumi hone her psychic powers themselves after ruling out the Arcadia Movement, which should be defunct but apparently isn’t, and Kasumi asks if that’s all they wanted to say. Apparently not, because Luna tells Kasumi that she is, in fact, also a Signer.
What. Being a Signer is not a genetic trait; if it was, all of the parents of the Signers would be Signers themselves, which is not given even the slightest bit of credence in the series proper. Furthermore, what parts of the Crimson Dragon would be left to relinquish onto a new Signer? When a sixth Signer was introduced (which we’ll get into later), the Heart mark was suddenly introduced, but what is left to use? The left lung? The pancreas?
Anyway, Luna explains the duties of a Signer, which is all new to Kasumi. She asks about the Crimson Dragon in particular, which is weird because she mentioned it during her Synchro chant for Micaiah during her duel.
With that, Kasumi is allowed to leave to go to bed, and the chapter ends with her narrating that it would be the last time she would see any of them. Ooooooh, spooky.
As mentioned at the beginning, there’s a card showcased after the chapter (in this case Micaiah), but I’m not going to cover them, since I talk about them enough in actually summarizing the chapter.
Next chapter, we get to see where the Naruto characters enter the fray! Oodles of fun!
- Silence should just disable a Monster effect for a turn.
- Mist's healing ability be something more reasonable, like 200 or something.
- Sleep should just be a normal Spell Card that just stops a single monster from attacking.
- Swordmaster Mia as an 1800 4 Star Monster that can attack twice is VERY broken. Either make her attack 1000-1400 at most, or give her a different ability, maybe something based around criticals.
Also, comparing an equipped card buffed 2300 ATK monster to a innate 2300 ATK monster is one of the dumbest comparisons I've heard. Of course it would be better than Junk Warrior, as it wouldn't be as much a pain to summon, but whatever. Maybe Micaiah's attack rose because she saw her soldiers getting motivated and she got motivated by them. Shut up, it makes sense to me! And characters from an Action heavy series coming into what is esentially a competitive gaming series...Oh joy. I am going to LOVE seeing the author take on Naruto characters. But anyway, Great Liveblog!