#I've got more stuff with Rei if you wanna check it out

[nell0-0]

Hi Nell0. Thanks for responding to my last ask and wishing me luck with my wisdom teeth! Also congrats with your graduation and good luck with everything coming your way! Hmm I didn’t saw the teacups at the festival for I was busy looking at how happy everybody is! Also that pic of Rei and Ingo was very cute! Also what’s your headcanon for their relationship because everyone tend to make Akari like a niece or daughter to Ingo but nothing for Rei. Thx so much! 🍵

Hi again! Actually, there IS stuff with Rei, but Akari's got more due to being the more popular MC of the two I guess (also probably bc of anime Dawn). It depends mostly on who you choose as the MC in Legends. Instead of categorizing them as Akari and Rei, if we focus on their roles of MC and professor assistant, it stands to reason that the chosen MC gets closer to Ingo bc of both being Fallers.

You see, that's the wonder of being a fan content artist/writer, I have multiple HCs that contradict each other until I talk about a specific AU or circumstance.

I like it when both the MC and professor assistant have a certain level of friendship with Ingo though.

[resurrection-of-soul]

Flashback | PSYCHOBREAK 11

Writer: Akira (日日日)

Characters: Rei, Adonis, Koga, Kaoru

Rei: What the heck, you're gonna make me cry… It's enough to move even my weary, withered heart. I've been thirsty for so long… But right now, strangely, I feel satisfied.

[ For the best viewing experience, please read directly on my blog! ♪ ]

Rei: ~………♪

Adonis: Oh? Sakuma-senpai, where did you get that guitar?

Rei: This is the temple belongin' to bouzu's family, yeah? I remembered leavin' a buncha instruments in their storehouse, so I went and grabbed 'em just now.

Koga: What are you, a couple that just broke up?

Rei: Emotionally, it really does feel like that. Even though we're cooperatin' like this at the moment, I don't think there's a~any hope of us gettin' back together. Even if he wants us to, I'm to~otally not into him anymore. Cause y'see, right now, I'm in the mood for new encounters ♪ ♪~♪~♪

Adonis: Ohhh… What a great song. Even though the melody is very aggressive, when you listen to it, it makes you feel strangely uplifted. Oogami, you composed a song like this all by yourself? That's amazing.

Koga: Y-yeah… But it's just that the person performin' it is crazy skilled…. In Sakuma-senpai's hands, even a mediocre song'll become a masterpiece.

Rei: Aw, he's feelin' shy. How nice it is to be so young n' innocent~. I wanna regain those kinds of pure feelings too~ Or rather... I'm sure that's exactly what Pup was hopin' for when he named us UNDEAD. Just like Adonis-kun, he sensed I was feelin' down, though in his case it mighta been subconscious… He was hopin' t' help me regain my liveliness so I could be revived. What the heck, you're gonna make me cry… It's enough to move even my weary, withered heart. I've been thirsty for so long… But right now, strangely, I feel satisfied. I suppose, more than a million compliments… What I wanted was someone's pure feelings. ♪~♪~♪

Kaoru: Ohhh~ I don't really get what's going on here, but you guys sure are lively, huh~?

Rei: Yo, Hakaze-kun. Nice entrance, ya nailed the "executive comin' to check in on his employees" vibe. Just when I was startin' t' worry ya wouldn't show, too.

Kaoru: There's no way I'd be a no-show… After all, as the one who hired you to exterminate the "vampires" it's, like, totally my duty to make sure you guys don't slack off, right? I never thought I'd end up being part of a group as weird as "UNDEAD," though.

Rei: You're also an aspirin' idol at Yumenosaki academy, ain'tcha? So you'll be a valuable asset.

Kaoru: Don't get your hopes up, 'kay~? I'm notorious for slacking off at school. But, well, if I wanna protect my workplace — my place to belong — then I guess I'll have to put in some effort for once. What a pain, just kill me now~♪ So, that said, I totally made some promotional flyers to hype up tomorrow's showdown. Hand them out to your friends, 'kay? Though with the exception of Sakuma-san, who's super well-connected, it'll probably be a drop in the bucket. Also, I got a fancy stage all set up. Or well, not just me personally, but all the guys who run the shops downtown. They're super enthusiastic about helping out. I would have liked to get custom stage costumes too, but, like? I didn't know your measurements, and I figure there's probably not enough time to get anything made, anyway.

Rei: That's fine by me~ It ain't like our enemies are gonna be all that thorough either, so it'd look better if we just sing in our school uniforms, rather than showin' up in full costume n' comin' off as total try-hards. It'll be fair n' square; a real, proper match.

Koga: Hmm… So the reason we haven't seen ya at all up 'til now ain't cause you were slackin' off, you were actually busy gettin' a buncha stuff ready. I'm seein' you in a new light, Hakaze…senpai. Ya step up to the plate when it counts.

Kaoru: Yup, yup! I'm the kind of man you can rely on~ Really, it's true ♪

Koga: Yeah. Ya seem irresponsible at first glance, but you're actually a reliable guy. I'll remember that.

Adonis: Yes. You have been filling in the gaps we did not notice. It's a big help.

Kaoru: Even so, I still think we're, like, totally unprepared~ I mean, honestly. We've got the venue all set up, but we're seriously lacking in terms of practice, aren't we? The live to exterminate the "vampires" is tomorrow, isn't it? At this point, aren't we basically just winging it?

Rei: Well that's exactly why we're havin' this little get-together, yeah? It's also a chance for us to get t' know each other, since we're a newly formed unit n' all.

Adonis: It is more of a reorganization than a formation, though.

Rei: Ahaha. Funny how Adonis, who's the least familiar with Japanese, is the most precise about the meanin' behind words.

Adonis: Words are important.

Rei: Sure are. In this country, there's a belief known as kotodama¹. I heard about it from a good friend of mine who passed away recently—

Koga: Hasumi-senpai ain't actually dead, y'know… Even though he decided to work from behind the scenes, he's even more fired up about this than us. He even went and convinced his parents to let us use this place for practice without us even askin'.

Kaoru: He needn't have bothered, though~ We could've just, like, practiced at my family's live house.

Rei: 'Tis a good thing, ain't it? The weather's lovely today, and there doth lie a certain sense a' refinement in singin' n' dancin' beneath Mr. Sun's rays. We're gonna be huntin' "vampires," thus let us soak up their greatest weakness n' amass as much of its power as we may. ² ♪~♪~♪

Kaoru: A-are things really going to be okay like this~? You're talking, like, super optimistically and all, but do we have any guarantee that we can actually defeat the "vampires?"

Rei: Nobody knows the future. Not even me, obviously. But, somehow, I feel like things'll work out. For some reason, there's some gramps-like guy inside my head agreein' with me, goin' all, "Aye, 'tis exactly so," too.

Kaoru: What do you mean, "some guy inside my head"? Are you drunk?

Adonis: I asked the same thing earlier.

Rei: I'm perfectly sober. We're the ones who're gonna get rid of the delinquents, so there's nooo way I'm gonna go around breakin' the law like 'em. Without descendin' to the level of our enemies, we'll become like the sun and burn away the vices which corrupt the earth. Leave it to me. I'm feelin' oddly good, so I'll give it my all in tomorrow's performance. I can't say for sure what'll come after, but I can guarantee ya this much, at least.

[ ☆ ]

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Kotodama, or the soul of language, is the belief that words, especially names, hold power. Words must therefore be chosen with deliberate care, as they can have real effects on you and the people/things around you. You know how in shows and movies, martial artists always yell "Hyah!" or smth along those lines prior to attacks? That practice is rooted in this principle, with the idea that a confident, aggressive shout lends power to the attack. (Which is also why every shounen anime ever has the chars going around shouting their attack names.)

Rei is speaking in a haphazard mix of his delinquent and archaic old man speech for these lines. Yes, it does sound just as bizarre in JP as it does in ENG.

[wavering-eyes]

January 26, 2025 Richmond Regional Report - 24th w/ Crystron, x-2-1 UNDEFEATED (yes, really)

To answer the obvious questions first: yes, the title is accurate, and no, I'm not delusional enough to write a report for a good-but-not-great placement using a standard build of a known tier 2 deck at a low-turnout regional right after its release date. I know nobody with any awareness of how competitive Yu-Gi-Oh works would read that on its own merits.

I am here to tell you a story. About how one thing leads to another, why you should never give up, and most importantly, why you should always commit to the bit.

Part 0: Evidence / Decklist

Check my last regional report in case you want proof this is my COSSY ID. I don't know why I'm still censoring my name at this point but whatever, who cares, put in the legwork if you wanna send a bomb to my house.

Here's my list. I got locked out of my Side Deck account and had to do a paper list this time, so you'll have to settle with a DB screenshot.

I would change nothing about this besides putting more Mulcharmies in the side, which I wasn't able to afford. I have lots of thoughts on the deckbuilding here, but I'll be real, this is basically Yacine's list with a few cards swapped. I could yap a while to convince you I have the deckbuilding prowess to have reached virtually the same conclusions about what should and should not be here, but this isn't really supposed to be a profile.

Part 1: Paying It Forward

Let's travel back about two or three years. The closest locals to my house is Comic Kings in Virginia Beach. I have worked at a bar at the Oceanfront for the past seven years, and every now and then there's a bit of overlap where Yu-Gi-Oh players will turn up at my bar or bar patrons will randomly show up at locals.

I met a guy named Kyle at Comic Kings one day and saw him at the door to my bar later on, while we were charging a cover, and decided to be a bro and let him in for free. As it turns out Kyle became a regular, I continued letting him in for free and chatting with him, and I learned he's a generous dude.

Evidently I caught him at the tail-end of his career in paper Yu-Gi-Oh, because one day he decided he'd spent too much time and focus on the game and told me he'd like to give me his collection, to which I agreed. He took out most of the obviously expensive stuff and sold it, but left me with a bunch of bulk and foil bulk and a few deck cores he'd built over the years, all free of charge. I've mostly used it to build cubes, but every now and then I find something really useful there.

About a week ago, I was looking in there for cards for an experimental cube format when I stumbled upon a full Crystron core including a Quariongandrax and a set of Citree, like $100 worth of 8-year-old cards slowly curling away in a triple long box.

At this point the regional is in like, three days, and I don't even want to go. The format has been very rough, I've been playing nothing but Sky Striker at locals, and the matchup against Maliss just seems unwinnable. I've had two people offer to sell me a Maliss core but the plans have fallen through every time, and I wasn't exactly eager to spend all that money for a deck I haven't practiced. But life gave me Crystrons, so I put the deck together and found the new cards and took it to locals the following day with no practice and made top 8. Reluctantly I agreed to drive to the regional, expecting nothing.

Part 2: The Crystron God Awakens

Round 1: D/D/D, 🎲✓, 2-0

My first round was against rogue. Game 1 was actually very close after I let a Piri Reis Map resolve and he was able to steal my Infinity with a hard drawn Headhunt and put a Machinex over it, but he was at 1000 LP with a Gilgamesh in the EMZ and misplayed around float effects which let me attack over it with a Quariongandrax for game.

Game 2 I opened Droll on Kepler and a playable hand. Not much more to say.

Round 2: Maliss, 🎲✓, 2-1

Game 1 I opened Tristalos and 4 hand traps against a similarly poor Maliss hand. Naturally he wasn't able to play.

Game 2 he opened combo, I opened Lancea, he chained Called By. You know how this ends.

Game 3 I open combo, he opens Lancea, I open Called By and a much better hand.

They need to ban these cards, man.

Round 3: Melodious, 🎲✓, 2-0

Game 1 had a very funny chain of misplays: I control Dawn Dragster, opponent controls Aria summoned off of 1st Movement Solo. He uses 2 other monsters to Link Summon the Melodious Link-2 and activates effect. I chain Ogre, he chains Called By. I think for a bit and chain Veiler. He says OK and keeps playing. I smack myself in the head for not negating it with Dragster. Four or five moves later he realizes the Veiler was illegal and we both laugh and accept the gamestate, and he scoops after I out Aria with Samurai Destroyer.

Game 2 I imperm his first fusion off of Ostinato and use Droplet to crack the rest of the board.

At this point I'm the only person in my car doing well, and even though I've played only 1 meta deck I'm feeling like a beast--I'm sure I can win the whole thing.

Part 3: Why I Did Not Win The Whole Thing

The judges announced before Round 3 that there would be a 45 minute lunch break before Round 4. I invite the other guys in my car out for pizza and fuck up navigating there several times before realizing the only open pizza place is a 20 minute walk away.

We end up stumbling upon Buttermilk & Honey at 5th and Grace, a local chicken place in Richmond. We left the venue before time was called in Round 3, so we had basically the full 45 minutes to get our food and eat.

I order a side of macaroni and cheese and a box of fries.

I waited for an hour to actually get my food.

Numbers get called as people get their orders, including both of the guys in my car--but not me. I tell them to leave for the venue before they also get game-lossed, and about 20 minutes later I had to go up to the counter where I learned they never called my number at all, and had left my finished order on the counter for an indeterminate amount of time without telling me.

I was issued a match loss before I even made it out the restaurant.

This sucked, but I came to terms with it pretty quickly. Taking an L at 3-0 to make sure I had enough food in me to play the rest of the event seemed like a good idea considering I hadn't eaten any breakfast (didn't have any time) and wasn't going to be able to eat until the day was over.

And honestly, the absurdity of the situation was kinda funny.

No shade to the business owners, by the way. They were probably slammed, it looks like there were only a few people in the kitchen, and honestly the food was delicious. But this was completely out of my hands.

I sat down with my friends and enjoyed the extra hour or so long break before Round 5, when I walked up to search through paper pairings and... couldn't find my name.

So I went to the judge table and learned they dropped me from the fucking tournament without telling me.

But this was a common enough situation that they had an un-drop form available which I quickly filled out. Even so, I was also issued a loss for Round 5.

At this point I'm fucking heated, complaining to everyone I know about the unfairness of the situation. I have half a mind to go back to the judge table and drop again, since by this point my entire car was X-3 besides me. But then an idea formed in my head.

It would be extremely funny if I got my invite after this and said I did it undefeated.

Part 4: Committing to the Bit

Round 6: Ryzeal Fiendsmith, 🎲✗, 2-0

I remember almost nothing about this set besides some line in Game 1 that started with imperm on Caesar followed by Terrortop into S:P to bait backrow, Praisortle banish to summon a live Citree from hand, normal summon Rosenix, make TY-PHON with it and out the whole board while holding up disruption. TY-PHON is a beast of a card and you should always consider it!

I think Game 2 I cracked the full board with Droplet too.

Around this time, someone texts the locals group chat I've spent the past hour complaining in to ask if anyone is doing well. I respond with a cheeky "I am X-2 but still undefeated". I get a laugh react from someone else not in attendance. Everyone else is silent.

Round 7: Ryzeal Fiendsmith, 🎲✓, 2-0

Game 1 I open... I think, Taketomborg, two blanks, a dead Crystron and a Sulfefnir, so I start with Sulfefnir destroy itself to summon Smiger from deck, normal Taketomborg and make Cherubini. My thinking was that this line was worse into Ash and better against Imperm compared to summoning Sulfadhole, not that many people know how to interrupt my deck properly anyways. I didn't know at the time how correct I was.

I activate Cherubini and say "paying cost" and put a Thystvern in my GY. My opponent asks to read the card. I once again tell him that it mills as cost.

He asks to rewind the gamestate so he can imperm it on summon. Sorry buddy, you were never ever winning this game.

I think Game 2 I played through the full board and a Nib and still ended on like, tuner + Infinity + Cluster. I ended up making my second Eleskeletas and just playing Cluster control until he ran out of cards.

I'd like to say it's probably not a coincidence that both of these guys insisted on summoning Caesar over Desirae whenever they had the chance and sending Mereologic Aggregator instead of Twins for Ext. I know Nib is a scary card but I think you are massively kneecapping yourself by not summoning Desirae instead, it's better into breakers and patient imperms and also the mirror. But that's just me.

Round 8: Yubel, 🎲✗, 1-1-1

Game 1 my opponent sets up slightly less than a max board, playing totally uninterrupted: Phantom + A Bao + Desirae + Yama (?) + Escape + Varudras. He said he was one card off of ending on Soul of Rage but I'm pretty sure he actually misplayed.

Sitting beside my opponent one table up is Naomi Kim, who goes to my locals, and who also made top cut. I imagine her Game 1 finished before my opponent was done comboing, since she made some comment to the tune of "Yubel still makes super strong boards. I don't even know how you're supposed to break them."

I look to her and shout "WATCH ME" as I activate Droplet sending 4 Crystron names.

She told her version of this story after the tournament and I don't think I've ever felt so cool in my entire life, since she also said I broke the board afterwards. But I have a confession to make: the droplet got negated since he set Escape instead of Chamber, and I did not in fact break the board. I was able to play through it, but I quickly lost to Nightmare Pain singlehandedly.

Game 2 I am playing into draw phase Lancea and I didn't draw Crossout or Called By, for the first time ever. I still do not know anti-Lancea lines, and my opponent decides to rush me since he knows there's maybe 15 minutes on the clock.

I think for a while and determine there's a line that gets me to Infinity and a live tuner, but I'm maybe one card short of it. I end up doing a wonky Synchro-locked line ending on Clockwork Knight, a Dragster, and a Citree.

First action of his turn: activate some spell, chain Dragster, chain Citree, summon a second Dragster. Activate Talent to take, chain Dragster. Normal Summon Beckoning Beast, grab Gates, crash into Clockwork Knight???

He asks afterwards "Why did I do that?" I guessed out loud his idea was to turn on Gates to summon something by pitching it, and he did try that, pitching a Spirit of Yubel to get stopped by Ghost Ogre.

He asks if I can kill him next turn, and I say "no, but I can summon Infinity and make the game unwinnable" and he lets me play for a while before calling Game 3.

I noticed around here I could have summoned Infinity with my two still-live copies of Dawn Dragster which would have been hilarious.

Game 3. With 3 minutes left on the clock, I fully expect time shenanigans. He goes through a Fiendsmith combo with no clear goal. At first I assume I'm gonna be totally safe waiting for whatever card either burns me or heals him to hit the board, but there's a nagging thought in the back of my head that there might exist some random Fiend card from 2005 that burns when you mill it off of Aerial Eater, so I determine I need to stop that from resolving at all costs. Unfortunately in the course of doing this I also let Yama resolve, there's a judge watching our game, and I don't want to have to count on this random judge to give a correct ruling on whether the Aerial Eater will resolve if it's negated on field but resolves after being destroyed. (It gets negated.)

I stop him on effect of Sequence (instead of on summon, for some reason), and Veiler it with the explicit goal of baiting Sharvara.

He takes it hook, line and sinker. Aerial Eater comes out and gets hit with Impermanence, and the game is over with a draw.

He said later that Tract GY effect would have let him play through the Veiler anyways, so this may have been a misplay. I am not certain he had the correct materials when it mattered, but whatever.

I also learned his time card was Red Resonator, so I guess I could have waited for it--but I wasn't taking any chances.

I wait an agonizing ten or so minutes for the standings to be posted and pop the fuck off when I learn that only top 24 were getting invites and I placed exactly 24th.

To recap: I pulled a complete deck out of a box of bulk I got from a guy for being nice to him a few times over several years, took it to a regional with one day of practice, and got my invite with it despite literally skipping two rounds for macaroni and cheese.

Lock in and you can achieve anything. Crystron God, X-2-1, undefeated, signing off.

Thanks for reading.