25 – Regionals Part 2

I sat in my suite on a plush leather armchair. My hands were steeped before my masked visage as I leaned my elbows on my knees and stared off into the distance with determination and fire in my gaze.

In other words, I was hella bored and zoning out.

The room was nice! It had 2 rooms and a bathroom. The first room was a living room of sorts with 2 couches facing each other along with several leather chairs around the room. There wasn't a TV or any sort of entertainment, as we were isolated in here, but at least it was comfy! The second room was a private bedroom complete with a king-sized bed, dresser, bedside table, and an attached bathroom. 

Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought of the whole "Isolation" thing much beforehand. I didn't have anything to do, didn't bring any entertainment, and I was completely alone, so I just shuffled my deck over and over until I got tired of that and decided to brood silently for a bit.

'Yup. Getting Ishizu her Isus outfit is a must. It would have been so much fun if we could have been here together...trapped inside this room for hours...alone...' My thoughts trailed off as I thought about the things that might happen in such a situation.

At a particularly juicy moment in my daydream, a knock came at my door.

"Anubis? 15-minute warning! I will be back to escort you to your first duel in 15 minutes." The male voice calls out crispy. 

"Got it," I answer simply and stand to face the door. 

...Then I realized it was stupid to stand for 15 minutes when I didn't need to and sat back down to wait. 

I was so ready! My deck had been carefully crafted with the cards I asked Ishizu for used to round out my basics. I did not have a theme or main focus to the deck, instead, I added all my best cards, some 1800 ATK beaters, 2000 DEF walls, and some utility spells and effect monsters. My goal with it was to be as safe as possible. 

I wasn't trying for flashy wins with huge monsters, I was, instead, going for consistency, removal, control, and relentless 4-star monster aggression. In my practice duels with Ishizu...She beat me 7 out of 10 times...but the deck was consistent at least!

Dueling Ishizu taught me a lot about this world. 

First off, she had a few cards I didn't even know were out yet, such as Cosmo Queen, Dunames Dark Witch, and Skelengle. This told me something I had never even considered before...

The card packs of this world, the ones that cost 100 DP and have utter garbage? Yeah, they also have OCG, anime, and video game cards. Cards that were never released in the packs I had access to in the shop, or, at the very least, not for a very long time.  

This both changed everything and nothing at the same time. 

I still wasn't going to buy them, as mostly crap with some bonuses was still crap, but I was going to look out for the cards to buy outside of the packs. My system had said nothing about buying the cards myself with the points I earned, I just couldn't use others' DP or accept their cards for free, except commons. 

As if to reinforce this decision, Ishizu told me that she would have opening nights once a month as a family head where she would open 1000 packs in one sitting and organize the cards into good and bad piles. The good would be saved and the excess good would be sold off, but the bad was usually given away. 

How many "Good" cards did she get? 

"I usually find something worth keeping in 10 or so packs, so it's not that bad." - Ishizu

Yeah... 1000 Duel Points for a chance at 1 sorta good card? 

I'll use my shop, thanks. 

The second thing I learned was what people with good decks (Good for this point in the story anyway) use for spell and trap strategy. Since there aren't any solid archetypes out yet, the most popular strategy for spells and traps was to use one of everything; To have an answer to every situation and hope you draw it. 

Without the ban list, there are so many powerful cards pros can use that playing one of each of them isn't all that bad of an idea actually. Each card could have, potentially, game-altering effects when they resolve, after all. 

The last thing I learned was that, even without archetypes, pros tended to gravitate towards certain types of cards, and they would still try and find a theme to work with if they could. This, usually, was just for a personal flair, but it did have the potential to evolve into actual strategy once more support cards were released. 

In Ishizu's case, her theme was...female monsters.

***

"Babe...why are all your monsters girls?" I ask Ishizu as we sit at the dining room table practicing dueling for Regionals. 

"Because they are cute. And I don't think Maha Vailo or Skelengle are girls." She answers quickly as she draws for her turn.

"Yeah, but the Malevolent Nuzzler you use for Maha Valio has the image of a very provocative girl..." I start to say but cut myself off when I see her narrow her eyes at me.

"Is there a problem with my choice of cards?" She asks shortly¹Rememeber, telling someone their deck is bad is considered extremely rude in this world. You don't insult people's babies..

"No! Of course not babe! I didn't mean anything bad by it, you know that, I was just curious as to why-" I try to explain once more, but am interrupted.  

"I beat you 3/4's of the time. I think my deck is great, thank you very much." She answers with a huff, then, as if to hammer her point home, she summons Cosmo Queen and reduces my LP to 0. 

She smiles beautifully at me amd gives me a peace hand sign. I sigh as I have nothing more to say. Her deck was much better than mine, after all.

Besides, if she liked her cards with a female theme, I was only ever going to help and support her. That was my job as a good boyfriend, even if I didn't fully understand the "Why." 

***

Odd theme or not, Ishizu's deck was a beast and she was, easily, the toughest person I had ever dueled. The Maha Vailo + Malevolent Nuzzler combo was incredibly strong and hard to out. Plus, being able to bring the spell card back to the top of her deck whenever she chose made it incredibly annoying to deal with. 

Having dueled her, I now knew for a fact that I needed something built for endurance and not speed or strength. My deck was all about safe bets and good cards that kept me in the duel rather than huge monsters or risky gambits.

I wanted to beat at least 1 pro duelist before I was defeated, and I really think I have a chance with this deck. It is not perfect, but it is good enough to outlast the flashier or more reckless duelists. 

I finish looking through my cards one last time as another knock comes to my door. 

"Anubis! You're up! Come, follow me." The voice outside my door says again. 

I open the door and find a short, male techie who had brown hair, wore all black, and had a giant headset on top of his head.

The piece of equipment was similar to what I saw people in theater use in my time as Josh, but it was way bulkier and looked to have many more features. Attached to the headband was a moveable, miniature screen that was attached to a plastic rod and that displayed...whatever their manager needed it to. It was as if Smart Glasses had a baby with the Scouter from DBZ. It also had a giant microphone, like 2x the size of a normal headset, with an even larger black windbreak sleave around it. The damn thing was the size of a goofball and bobbed all around in front of his face distractingly. 

"I know I'm handsome, but let's get a move on, ey big guy?" The techie jokes with a smirk. 

I just tilt my head at him as if to say, "Really?"

He chuckles and starts heading down the hallways, leading me to the dueling arena. 

As I walked through the hallways, seeing suite after suite that I knew housed some of the best duelists of this generation, I grew both nervous and excited. 

'This is it. This is what I have been building towards all this time. My official debut as a pro duelist and someone for the world to keep their eye on...Well, more so than just the tabloids, anyway. I am here, maybe due to being mysterious and flashy, but I mean to go as far as I can and prove my worth! Plus, I have a little surprise for this first duel that is guaranteed to make me steal the spotlight.' I think with an enormous shit-eating grin under my mask. 

* | * | *

3rd Person POV

"Ladies, gentlemen, and all those in between, it is time for round 17 of the preliminaries in this year's Duel Monsters Regional Championship Tournament!" The announcer shouts to the booming response of the audience. 

He sat at a table on a raised platform that was adjacent to the massive dueling arena. Next to the man was a woman, on his right, and a man, on his left. They both sat behind the same table and they both wore happy smiles as they waved to the crowd. 

"I am your announcer for this match, Jerry Hooper. Besides me, I have Mrs. Gwendalin Petrovich and Mr. Hassan Valsindor, both retired pros that have agreed to be judges for this year's Regional tournament. They will be covering rounds 17-24 with me. Please join me in giving them a round of applause!"

Jerry was a jovial man of just under 6 feet. He had dyed blonde hair and brown eyes, and he wore a well-tailored suit. He had tried out dueling, but he was much more talented at talking loudly about duels than he ever was in actually dueling. 

Gwendolyn was average in height, but she was anything but average in looks. She was a blue-haired bombshell in her late 20s and drew the eyes of most men in the arena. She had been a pro up until last year when she retired, reluctantly, because she got married and had started a family. She very much wished she was here dueling this year but was happy to take the judge's seat when they offered it to her. 

Hassan was a short man of Indian descent with deep brown skin and black hair and eyes. His most prominent feature was his giant, well-groomed handlebar mustache that he brushed constantly with a small comb he kept in his blazer jacket pocket. He had been a pro duelist over a decade ago and was now working as a coach for new duelists in India. 

The audience in the arena gave polite claps and cheers to the announcer and former pros as they waited for the main event to begin. 

The arena itself was a 500x300-foot dueling space inside the giant Domino City Dueling Colesium. It was shaped like an oblong circle, similar to a track field, with a 50x50 foot middle section that was flat and that held 2 comfortable-looking chairs facing each other and a table in the very center.  

Around the middle section were flat raised platforms spaced and ascending every 10 feet. Each platform had a table set up on the edge, facing the middle dueling area, and comfortable reclining chairs behind the table. People dueled, snacked, or otherwise watched from these spots and had plenty of space to relax,

There were about 5 chairs for every 10 feet, so there was a lot less seating than if this was a traditional sporting center with riser seats from Josh's world. It also looked much more comfortable than his old word's were, and the arena itself was large enough to fit thousands, so it was still not an issue. 

Because there were only a maximum of around 5000 seats available, the tickets for the floor and first few riser rows were astronomical in price. To combat this, 1000 tickets at the top were set aside and given to local businesses to give out with promotions or other events. This helped to ensure everyone had a chance to attend, and, even outside of that, the duels were recorded and were free to watch anywhere in the world. It was a pretty great system and made actually going to Regionals and, especially, The World Championship something to brag about.

On either side of the arena, length-wise, was a door and long path that the duelists would take to meet in the center. This was lined with security and the stage crew for the arena as they waited for the next duel to start. 

"Thank you! Now, without further ado, let's introduce our duelists for the 17th round! Coming in first, with a professional dueling record of 57 wins and 12 losses, the lovely and talented Miss Snow Mieko!"

From the south end of the arena, the doors opened and music started playing. It was a pop-techno tune with loud pumping bass and a talented soprano on the vocals. With the music, the lighting of the arena synced and dimmed so that strobes and colored spotlights could dance around the stands. 

The crowd exploded into cheers and applause as the Regionals competitor took her first step into the arena.  

Snow Mieko was a Japanese duelist and Domino City native. She had been on the pro scene for about 4 years and had made it to the World Championship Tournament last year. She had a raving fanbase and was widely liked by most of the Duel Monster enthusiasts. 

Snow stood at barely 5 feet tall with a slim and petite frame on her 23-year-old body. She had her namesake snow-white hair and sapphire blue eyes. For the tournament, she wore a light blue dress with white flowery accents and had matching light blue flower pins in her hair. Snow was a quiet, stoic woman normally but got really into the game when she was playing. That was one of the reasons she was so popular. 

Her nickname was the Gap Moe Duelist. 

Snow made her way to the center dueling table and waved at her fans with a small, content smile. Her manager, who walked behind Snow as she entered and up until the dueling area, tried in vain to get her to give more energy into her waves.

"Your image! Remember, your image Snow! You are supposed to be going through a bad girl phase!" The manager yell-whispers as the managee ignores it completely. 

Alas, Snow was elegant and demure in everything she did, unless it was dueling. When she finally arrived at the center table, she gave a quick curtsy to the judges and the announcer, and then she daintily sat down at the table and brought out a light blue deck box to remove her cards. 

"And next, joining us at Regionals for the very first time, a rookie duelist who managed to defeat the former World Champion Takashima Nobu in a local gaming store tournament-"

Judge Gwen into her microphone: *Pft*

Nobu somewhere in the audience: "Hey!!!"

"-Having no official dueling record and this being his first professional duel; The mysterious dueling Egyptian God of Death: Anubis!" Announces Jerry, hyping up the audience even more. 

An ominous bell rings throughout the arena and the roar of noise suddenly slows and turns into confused mutterings. The single bell rings again after a couple of seconds, then several more times in the same way before drums and electric guitar join the bell in a metal-like vibe. 

Whereas Snow's entrance had exciting music and colorful lighting, Anubis' entrance was dark until a single red-orange spotlight shone down onto his black and golden form. As he walked down the pathway towards the center, the single light cast an enormous trailing shadow that follow behind him, increasing the intensity even further.

By the time Anubis had gotten center stage, the lights had slowly risen back up and the audience all around exploded in applause. 

'Ah! Aaaaah! My inner Chunni²Japanese for Middle School Syndrome - Look it up! He is posing and laughing in delight!!! Aaaah! The power I wield within me is too great!!!' Anubis screams in joy. Internally, of course. 

Outside of his inner delight, Anubis presented the same calm and calculated visage as he normally did. When he reached center stage, he took a minute to spin in a slow circle and wave at all the cheering audience. 

He wished he could spend more time finding out where Ishizu, Kin, and Ren were sitting, but he knew that would make it too obvious if he found them. He seriously doubted that Kin or Ren could get Ishizu to do the cheerleader thing in here. That would have been too much...probably for him too...

Instead, he finished waving in 360 and sat before Snow on the other side of the table. He took out his matte black card case and entered his code to retrieve his deck. Once he had it, he put his cards down and held out his hand to Snow. 

Snow smiled and reached out her hand to shake Anubis'.

After they did so, Anubis mumbled something inside his mask. Snow was sure she heard it, but there was too much noise around to hear clearly.

"Sorry, what was that? I didn't quite catch your words." She asks, realizing her voice is now being projected across the entirety of the arena. 

*Indistinct Mumbling*

"Umm...I really can't hear you. I'm terribly sorry." Snow says with a helpless shrug of her delicate shoulders. 

Anubis seems to sigh and he slumps slightly. 

Then he raises his head and shrugs as if to say, "Looks like I have no choice."

He then reaches up towards his mask.

Eyes widen.

Bodies Freeze.

Breaths are held.

Everyone in the arena stills and silence almost immediately descends.

Anubis pulls up on his mask and, without fanfare, it comes free, showing what lies beneath for all to see for the very first time.

Gasps of shock and squeals of delight come from the audience all around as they behold the true face of Anubis. 

He sets the mask down beside him at the table and says in the same deep voice, "Ah, much better. That mask can get so stuffy. I am Anubis. It is nice to meet you, Miss Mieko."

Snow is just as frozen as everyone else. When Anubis speaks, she tries to answer, but it only comes out as a small squeak as her chest feels tight and her cheeks start to glow increasingly red. 

Before her sits an ethereal being. He claims to be a God and, after seeing him up close, she can't help but agree.  

Anubis had long shimmering platinum hair that seemed to...No...That definitely gave off a soft white glow. His bangs fell to his chin and were parted in the middle to roughly frame his perfect face. 

His skin was unblemished and his eyes were shining emerald green. 

When he stared into Snow's eyes with his green piercing gaze, she felt like she was completely exposed and vulnerable before him. Like her very soul was being seen through and judged by a God that determined her fate.

He was perfect. Scarily perfect. Unnaturally perfect. Otherworldy perfect. 

Snow was both absolutely terrified of him...and incredibly interested in getting to know him better.

She hadn't thought much of this match beforehand, just another newbie that was going to learn what being a pro meant, but now she thought that this would be the highlight of the entire tournament. 

If nothing else, it would be for her.

While similar thoughts were spreading throughout the arena like a wildfire, Anubis was blissfully unaware of his literal glowing hair and impossibly perfect image, and he smiled happily about his successful red herring.

'The face reveal went perfectly! Of course, the cloak had the ability to do my face as well! I just had to want a hood and it appeared as if it was always there. As soon as I put the hood up, walla! Now I can "Take off my mask" when I need to and further protect who I really am!' He thinks with a quiet chuckle. 

It was a good thing he had found out about this. At first, he felt jipped for buying both items when he really only needed the cloak, but, after thinking about it for a bit, he realized this could work to his advantage. He planned to do the same thing for Ishizu's items. She could have a "Real" appearance that she gets to craft as well. He had a blast with it, so he bet she would too!

'I did have a hard time thinking up what I would look like at first, but I am really glad I went with Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7. It was much easier to make once I had a firm idea in mind: [Godly Beautiful, Cool & Intimidating As Hell, Looks Like Sephiroth From FF7.] I think the reception is pretty good!'

 

Little did he know how "Good" the reception to his reveal would be. 

One of the long-running questions about him had finally been answered and confirmed without a shadow of a doubt, and an enormous pool of Duel Points had now been paid out to one of two groups.

What question?

The question of "Is he hot under that mask!?!"

The answer?  

"Kyaaaaaaaaaa! He's Hot! He's so freaking hot!"