This fic is silly, making a liar out of me. At the end of last chapter, the author said that the conclusion to the Chunin Exams would be next (yes, that quickly; the Arc Fatigue must have set in quickly.) What do we get instead? A duel that serves only as Filler, of course!
Chapter 13: TenTen vs Temari
The chapter starts a week after Kasumi’s first encounter with Jiraiya, or “Pervy-Sage,” as she and Naruto apparently nicknamed him. Despite Naruto referring to him as that before Kasumi even met him. Apparently, Kasumi must even take credit for trivial nicknames. She explains the meeting to Kakashi, and he admits that Jiraiya wrote the book that he always reads, Make Out Paradise. I assume that he knew she would find out either way, given her ability to read minds that she shouldn’t have.
You’re so adorable, Kasumi, thinking you have authority over an elite ninja probably three or more times your age! The aforementioned elite ninja then returns to training Sasuke, because he knew Kasumi had something of grave importance to tell him, and he teleported to her side instantly. Or something.
With Naruto also in training with Jiraiya, this leaves Kasumi and her posse essentially aimless, because heaven forbid the author create original plot lines. Kasumi eventually decides to go see Naruto, thinking of him as a big brother, despite just mentioning his training with Jiraiya. Training for a vital exam is of no importance compared to the boredom of Kasumi; devote your lives to her, foul plebians!
They eventually spot Naruto speaking to Hinata; the narration mentions it to be a rare occasion, since Hinata doesn’t faint when Naruto approaches. The author apparently felt the need to dumb down her character even more so than Kishimoto already had; it’s not just this instance, Hinata eventually ends up fainting at the very mention of Naruto’s name.
There is a brief allusion to Hinata’s Character Development from this part in canon, before the two part ways, so Naruto is allowed to interact with Kasumi. He asks if she’s still mad at him, and she answers in the affirmative, elaborating that he didn’t need to show her and Tenten a nude female. This brings up implications in Kasumi and Shikamaru’s relationship.
Naruto explains that his training is going great when asked, and Shikamaru responds in kind when asked about his and Kasumi’s relationship, except for the fact that Orochimaru wants her dead. I would totally mention such a facet in casual conversation; wouldn’t you?
Shikamaru’s mention of Orochimaru causes Kasumi to start crying due to the memories of her fight with him, and everyone moves to comfort her. Naruto vows to help her avenge her family because... he thinks that he’ll get ramen as an award, I’d assume, and she starts to calm down after he says this. With another of the lower-class now devoting their entire life to Kasumi, the narration whisks Naruto away, so that he may join Jiraiya for more off-screen training.
Or at least, he would. But Kasumi feels it of utter importance to see the construction of the Duel Academy, making Naruto compelled to see it by proxy. The group heads to the construction site before Naruto parts ways with them, making his status as an escort ultimately pointless. There’s some flimsy justification of the possibility of a sound ninja attacking, but that seems more than a bit unlikely, given that she’s surrounded by bodyguards in broad daylight.
Kasumi and co. meet up with Jaden, who shows them the basic frame of the academy. He apparently gets bored with it soon after, since he decides to direct his attention to much more important things, such as Kasumi and Shikamaru’s relationship. Why is everyone so obsessed with a prepubescent relationship? I assume it’s because the author is, and wants to make sure every single reader learns of their supposed true love.
After that brief bit of nothing, more nothing follows, for there is a time skip of several hours. Apparently, the only thing that occurs throughout the passage of time is everyone watching the construction. Riveting. However, Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari approach, and Asuka is quick to glower at Temari for almost breaking Tenten’s back during their fight.
Temari is quick to dismiss her, but Asuka is staunchly opposed to such a ludicrous idea as actually injuring someone in a fight. Never mind Gaara injuring Lee badly enough that he may never be a shinobi again, or Neji causing severe internal bleeding to Hinata, it’s Temari who’s beyond salvation for injuring a protagonist!
Gaara accuses duelists of being weak for not being willing to kill. Here, an actually moral protagonist would reply that killing instinct does not make one strong. Our protagonist being Kasumi, however, she simply replies that she can and will kill them. Gaara dismisses the notion, and I really have to agree; Gaara is absurdly powerful and ruthless at this point, there’s no way–
What. Kasumi, would you please stop completely undermining the conflict? All it does is make you appear incompetent for ultimately not doing anything to stop him sooner.
Temari mocks Kasumi’s heritage and her powers, because villains are required to do that, I guess, when Shikamaru is quick to defend her. However, Tenten decides to challenge Temari again, this time to a duel because she noticed her duel disk.
I love how every antagonist has to have a new goal directly involving Kasumi, yet these new goals ultimately do nothing to stray from canon. Many threats are exchanged between Tenten, Temari, Jaden, and Gaara, including a reference to when Jaden kinda sorta went insane and almost destroyed the world. And Jaden’s prowess is never mentioned again.
The threats ultimately amount to nothing, though, for Temari accepts Tenten’s challenge regardless, believing it will be as easy as the fight in the Chunin exam. Tenten retorts that the 10-year-old daughter of a now-deceased dueling champion tutored her, which apparently makes her one of the greatest duelists to ever exist. Since she is on such a podium, she says that if she wins, Temari has to apologize to Kasumi for existing, or something, and the Sand Siblings are not allowed to come near the Duel Academy again.
HUGH IS BACK YAAAAAAAY.
Gaara moves to attack while they are in the middle of bantering, but Kasumi holds the sand at bay with her psychic powers because she now has complete telekinesis. At this rate, I expect her to eventually just grow wings and breathe fire. With that, Temari accepts the challenge because she hadn’t done so already, according to the author’s world of lies.
She also accepts despite Kasumi threatening to torture her, in effect, if she defeats Tenten in the duel. With that, they make their way to the front gates for the duel. Apparently, every duel forever needs to be a fucking spectacle.
Followed by MORE BANTERING BETWEEN IRUKA, KONOHAMARU, TEMARI, AND KASUMI I DON’T CARE LET’S GET TO THE DUEL.
Temari goes first and starts by summoning Cyber Harpy Harpie Lady. This causes Kasumi to mutter that she’s using a Wind type deck, because one card is enough to determine that. Or maybe Temari is actually thinking “Oh please don’t let her know I’m using a Wind deck it’s integral to my strategy for some godforsaken reason.”
Temari ends her turn by setting a card, and Tenten starts her own by summoning Luster Dragon. It’s described as beautiful as it’s summoned, because clearly only good guys can have beautiful cards. This worries the others, because it’s barely stronger than the Cyber Harpie. Well, Haku says it’s one hundred times stronger, but I’m just going to assume he sucks at math and move on.
Tenten increases Luster Dragon’s attack with an equip card, then destroys Cyber Harpie. She seems disproportionately confident in herself following this, since her field is empty other than the monster and equip when she ends her turn, the Life Point difference is negligible, and Temari still has a face down card. Temari shares my sentiment, since she questions Tenten’s confidence before activating her face down Call of the Haunted to resurrect Cyber Harpie. She then tributes it to summon Raiza the Storm Monarch.
The author really needs to realize that cards sharing some basic characteristics does not give them synergy; monarchs and harpies are two very different archetypes, and only the most incompetent of duelists would put them together. This is a problem when duelists are supposed to appear competent, because they only appear competent in comparison to other, more incompetent duelists in the context of the story.
Temari uses Raiza’s effect to return Luster Dragon to Tenten’s hand (when it should return it to the top of her deck), in the process destroying the equip card since it’s no longer equipped to anything. Raiza then attacks Tenten directly, and Temari starts acting smug and overconfident because every villain ever is supposed to do that, right?
However, Tenten shows the Heroic Resolve typical of these kinds of stories, and she starts her turn by summoning two monsters via Double Summon – Lord of D and a face-down monster. She then activates Flute of Summoning Dragon to summon two garbage Dragon monsters, before ending her turn by setting two cards.
Temari speaks of “talking hard ball” because the author has decided that baseball is another anachronism that Naruto needs before starting her next turn. She boasts of the card she plays, Sand Storm, since nobody has ever seen it before. Temari, you’ve seen it before. Assuming you didn’t make it yourself (and what Duel Monsters company would let a teenager design a card?), the person who designed it has seen it before. The author needs to stop saying this bullshit when it’s blatantly not true.
Anyway, ignoring Temari’s bullshit, Sand Storm halves the attack of all of Tenten’s monsters, and Temari follows up with Monster Reborn to revive Cyber Harpie. She tries to attack with both her monsters, but Tenten counters with a new card (which receives notably much less fanfare): Emergency Life Transfer, which lets her pay 400 Life Points to negate an attack. This lets her survive another round, and Temari ends her turn by setting two cards.
Tenten flips her face down Princess of Tsurugi up, dealing 500 damage to Temari for each of her set spell/trap cards because she, being the expert strategist she is, read Temari’s mind to know she would set so many cards! She apparently planned for this exact scenario, given that putting Princess of Tsurugi into a Dragon deck is a... questionable decision, at best.
Tenten follows up with Heavy Storm, which destroys all spells and traps on the field and may or may not have been banned at this time, and Magic Recovery, which lets her put a spell card from her graveyard into her hand and would have been banned at this time if it actually existed. She decides to return Pot of Greed, and since this is a Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic, it lets her draw exactly the cards she needs to win. The first card she draws is Fire Ant Ascator, which she is quick to summon.
Temari is so cute, thinking these decks have any sort of consistency or cohesion to them. Also, “more stronger.” That is all.
Tenten then tunes Ascator to one of the aforementioned garbage Dragons to summon Sun Dragon Inti, again with a trite summon chant to cap things off. These dumb summon chants remind me of the special attack phrases in [1], but without the cheesy voice acting to help make them bearable.
She also reveals to Temari that her remaining garbage Dragon gains 200 attack for each spell she played that turn, but that doesn’t really matter since she doesn’t even use it. Instead, she equips Inti with United We Stand, increasing its attack by 3200 points since she has four monsters on the field. Inti then attacks Raiza for the win.
I really do wonder why Tenten had to get the exact cards she needed to win: her conditions did not include anything for if she lost, so she was not at risk. Did the author really need Temari to apologize to Kasumi for not worshipping her? Most other Yu-Gi-Oh authors with bad original characters at least have them lose inconsequential duels to counter claims of invincibility; this author cannot even say that. This doesn’t apply to just Kasumi, but to all of the main characters. I really would appreciate some meaningful conflict.
Anyway, since Temari is a villain, she of course must declare that This Cannot Be!, and Jaden counters that she did not properly anticipate Tenten’s moves. I like how Duel Monsters is treated here entirely as a game of skill; many a metagame player curses the heavens due to bad luck with draws.
Tenten and Temari shake hands, and Temari reveals that she just wanted Kasumi to have stronger bodyguards than someone like Tenten. Why the fuck does Temari care about this little girl that is from a completely different nation whom she barely knows? Until proven otherwise, I am just going to assume the Third Hokage went on a worldwide campaign to advertise Kasumi and her greatness. With that, the Sand Siblings leave, and Kasumi tells Tenten that she just defeated Temari.
People being better at different things? How delightfully absurd!
Jaden tells them how excited the duel made him, and Johan and Asuka compound his statement by talking about how he always got excited by such duels in the academy. Why must they always reference the academy when talking about their past? Author, if you’re going to have such a time skip between them then and now, don’t just act as if these events are right after the series. Honestly, they use the exact same decks, act the exact same, and never reference anything after the academy. This author is creatively bankrupt.
More congratulations for Tenten, and Iruka asks Kasumi to duel as an example for the Ninja Academy sometime, because a ninja needs to know how to duel and Kasumi was totally involved in that last duel. She replies she’ll do it if it’s okay with Jaden, and he agrees, since he doesn’t want her to just duel students. For some reason, the prospect of students challenging Kasumi worries her. I never knew duels were so honorable: accept and die with honor, or refuse and die in shame.
Iruka thanks her for her consideration and leaves, taking Konohamaru with him. To end the chapter, Kasumi and her bodyguards do something that I have been doing the past two weeks instead of bothering to read this tripe: sit around idly and do nothing.
So, yes, the author changed the entire premise of a chapter right before the release of said chapter. Speaks volumes about hir ability to plan stories ahead. But next time, there shall be The Stations of the Canon for real! Until next time, all (which will hopefully not take as long as this entry did).
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