Summer, 2013.
A teenage boy was happily dueling amongst fellow Yu-Gi-Oh! fans and players on Dueling Network. He happens upon an unusual opponent--a girl. The two teenagers have fun joking and poking fun at one another as the duel progresses, until it ends when the final life point reached zero. She asks him if he is interested in joining an academy of which she is a part, and he excitedly accepts her offer. An academy like in GX? He'd never even heard of one existing, let alone ever been a part of one. He meets with the girl, and with her at the academy, is its owner. The boy is the third member of the academy, including the girl and the owner, and the owner happily and quickly tests him, eager to gauge the boy's dueling abilities. The boy puts up the best of efforts, but it's no use; the owner's deck is far too powerful and ends the duel swiftly. The boy is placed in the lowest dorm.
Fall, 2013
The teenage boy had happily been a part of the academy for a month or so. He witnessed new people join, and some people leave without so much as a goodbye. He's been training, improving, widening his knowledge of the game of once he'd been such a fan as a child. A new tester appears in the academy; a machine user, with a particularly "cool" attitude. The boy asks the new tester to test him, and the duel commences. Slaughter. The boy makes no progress and is stuck in the lowest dorm. Maybe he needed more training, he thought. A week passes. He tests again, this being his third overall, and by now he had become the most tested member of the academy. The owner tests him once again, and this time, to avail. The boy is moved up one dorm. Ecstatic, he sets a goal for himself: to be the best student in the academy, no matter what. But he had no idea how hard that road would be, nor the path he would have to choose to get there...
Winter, 2013
It's been four months since the boy joined the academy. He had trained for hours on end, for weeks and weeks. This time, he had a better knowledge of card rulings, techniques and combos. And with his trusted fusion deck by his side, he is ready to test again. The clash between the owner and the boy happens once again; a clash that would become the staple in the boy's head as to why he had to train. While he put up the best fight he's put in a long time, he still fell victim to the owner's power. Shame, worry and doubt pierced the boy's psyche, and for the first time he felt...powerless. How could so much time and effort be put into training, to no avail? How could he still lose? What made the owner so much better than himself? But for a second, all of these thoughts faded away, as the results breached the academy; the boy was now one step closer to his dream. By being in the second-highest dorm now, he knew, he believed that his training was not for nothing, that he didn't need to win to move up. How wrong he would soon find himself...
Spring, 2014
The boy had become one of the best in the academy. He'd beaten almost everyone, and was sitting atop as a representative of his dorm. These were the best of times...and the worst of times. War struck the academy, and the owner had to make a team; the best of the best would represent and defend the academy against another. It was the owner, the boy, and several newer students. How cute, how all of these newer guys want to defend the academy, thought the boy. He expected them to fail, and for himself and the owner to win the entire thing by themselves. But reality has a harsh manner of revealing itself in a world of fantasy. The boy stared, shocked, disturbed and frightened at how he had been the sole loser of the team, while the rest of the team secured the victory, seemingly with ease. Once again, those vile, evil and shameful thoughts reared their ugly beings within his head; why was he beaten so easily, while the new kids got all the glory? What made them so much stronger than him, even after months of training so hard to get to where he was? What was he missing? Little did he, and everyone else know, that at this point, the dark, twisted, diabolical being of destruction and darkness had begun to manifest. And there would be no stopping it...
Spring, 2014 (One week later)
The boy went about his daily routine; training, conversing, and just having fun with his classmates. But behind that mask of nonchalant happiness and lackluster care lied a shadow that only grew and grew within his head. Constantly, he was plagued by unanswered questions: Why him? Why was he so weak? What made the others so powerful? Why couldn't he win? Loser...loser...weakling...pathetic...The boy merely stared as the others laughed and joked around about the easiness of the war. It was short-lived. Within a week, wartime struck again, this time pitting the academy against a more...intimidating force. The boy was exuberant; it was time to show what he was really made of. No more losing, and no more excuses. This time, he would prove why he was at the top of his dorm. But it was not to be. Opponent after opponent, duel after duel, the boy watched in agony and despair as his precious fusion deck was dismantled, destroyed, decimated and...mocked. "Did he really throw that card away?" "He's destroying him.." "This is a slaughter." "What was he thinking? Being on a war team?" The boy sat back and took it in. They were laughing at him. Mocking him and the deck he worked so hard to master. His deck was his friend, and they were laughing at it and him. Tears streamed down the boy's pale cheeks as a feeling of absolute sadness overwhelmed him--a feeling he had not known that he even had due to his usually-optimistic glee. His whole reality had been shattered, and he fell down the pit into despair. That's when....he...contacted the boy. "Your deck is pathetic. But I am impressed: you did fairly well against someone who was just toying with you." The boy angrily asked what the man meant, and asked if he was just mocking him like the others. "I can make you stronger. All you have to do...is cut the anchor holding you down..and take this deck." The boy wasn't sure what to do; would he turn his back on his friends in his deck in order to gain absolute power? Or would he remain with his deck and be pummeled over and over, dwelling deeper into hopelessness? "They don't care about you, your 'friends'; they ditched you, and left you down when you needed them the most." The man....was right, in the boy's mind. The owner had cut him off from dueling in the war due to his giant losses for the team. Instead of encouraging him to get back up and try again, he merely...abandoned him. The other teammates laughed and joked and they won their duels, gaining massive points for the team. There was only one thing left to do, he thought.
Spring, 2014 (Two days later)
"I am going to teach you how to use absolute darkness to destroy your enemies." The boy watched doubtfully as the deck he had been given squared off against the highest-tiered deck of the year. There was no way a deck like this was going to beat such a fast, combo-based one that topped tournaments for years on end. The boy watched as doubt grew into horror, and from horror into interest, and from interest into...maniacal joy. The dark deck had destroyed the other, and left the boy staring at the remains. He glanced at his new deck...How could one deck hold so much power? This was exactly what he needed; this deck, he thought, would give him back the respect that he wanted. This deck would prove that he wasn't weak--that the academy needed him again! The boy sat...and laughed...and laughed...and laughed. The man watched, emotionless, as the boy laughed himself into a maniacal fit of rage and sorrow. They abandoned him; left him in the war as if he were the weak link. Weak. They thought he was weak. That's why they dropped him. What the hell made them so special? What made them so much better than him? Why did they abandon him? He'll show them. He'll show all of them. He'll prove that they're the weak ones, and that they are the ones who needed him. He'll show them all...
Spring, 2014 (One week later)
Rigorous training, duel after duel, hour after hour spent with the darkness. The boy watched and laughed as foe after foe, deck after deck, burned and crumbled at the hands of the darkness. Fifteen wins the first day. Thirty the next day. A combined total of over eighty wins by the end of the week. This was true power, he thought. This was what he was missing, what everyone had but him. He returned to the academy after his training. He watched as his "friends" were...horrified at his change. He was no longer the happy, optimistic person they came to know and love. No...he was something much, much darker. A force of pure evil, and hatred. They begged and pleaded not to go down the road of darkness, not to abandon everything he worked so hard to achieve. But it was all useless. The one they loved...was gone...the darkness had taken over, now a manifestation of darkness, and hatred itself. The boy only smiled...and laughed. The man watched as he told the boy: "They only want you to stay weak. They want the old you back so that they can laugh again." In the boy's mind, all he thought of was his despair--the agony that he felt as he dropped to his knees time and time again as he lost. They tried to tell him that friends were always there for each other. That friends will make you stronger. Where were they when he fell? Where were they to help him back up, and to make him better? No...no it was all a bunch of lies. A bunch of nonsense, and deception that they fed him to keep him weak. In his mind, they wanted him weak, because they feared him. They feared his growing power. And now, that fear had manifested, and that power had grown out of control. The boy they knew was now an emissary, a pawn in the darkness. And he loved every second of it. He was no longer a boy; he was...a monster. He was evil incarnate, darkness itself. And he only had them to blame...
Spring, 2014 (Update)
What is power? Is it something that you acquire by abandoning all hope and emotion? Is it something that is even acquirable? Who knows. The boy went through the month destroying those he deemed unworthy. His hatred ran coarse, for everyone he met and knew. But what he hated the most, was the fact that his friends continued to defend him. Why? Why would they fight for only him? It made no sense. And as the days went by, and more friends stood by his side, another thought raced into his head. He was afraid. Afraid of what he'd become. Afraid of the darkness that seized control over his mind. Tears streamed down his face as he watched his friends get beaten down by the one he thought he could trust, the one mentor that taught him the powers of Darkness. So he decided it was time to end it, once and for all. And on that fateful night, he challenged his old friend to a fated duel of destiny; should he win, he would embrace the darkness. But should he lose, his humanity would overcome the darkness, and the light would break him free. And without further hesitation...without holding anything back...they did what they did best. They dueled.
My name is Tamashii Youkai. I am writing this because these are events that actually happened to myself, and to my friends around me. After that fateful night, with my dear friend and I in our fated duel, the questions that were plaguing my head--Why were they so much stronger than me? Why couldn't I win? They were answered. True strength does not lie in dark power, or destroying your enemies. No. True strength lies in the power you get when you have a reason to fight, a reason to go on. Someone to protect. As for me? Well...It turns out I had something to protect all along. My friends. And as long as I can draw a card from my deck, I'll always protect them. I guess that makes me strong then...Funny, isn't it..?
by 
Subject: The Birth of a Monster 
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