Been a while. Good to see you and this story up again. Sorry to keep you waiting. Been busy and I had to reread the story again to freshen things up in my mind after so long.

Anyways, we are picking up where we left off after the Druler pummeling our dear Kaneko just got and this time we’re taking a break from the bad guy duels and getting into some good ole rivalry between friends duels. And what’s more we got space HEROes vs city HEROes. Daitaro shows off fan-favs Stratos and Shady Mist for the initial turns while our MC flexes some brand new Cosmics.
Fun time, but Kenta of course is going about with his not-happy-guy persona. Too much doom and gloom ain’t good for your mental health man. Just saying. Take a cue from Kimiko, who eventually shows up to watch our two besties duking it out. Seems the group has definitely started to rub off on her. Good for you girl. Let all that sexual tension put you at ease ;D …. Don’t me.

The duel gets more and more interesting with the use of the new OC cards. Really like these, especially the Xyz ones making use of their own set of Mask Change cards. MC busts out ace monster Andromeda and proceeds to trade blows with Daitaro’s Thunder Hammer, who survives, except the latter (insert famous Arc V meme quote here). And then they proceed to diving into MCU reference territory, good lord XD.

Andromeda eventually bites za dusto, yet Matsuda is having the time of his life in a long while. I can relate. Do not life and death related, playing the game competitively for a while tends to take a toll on a person, especially when you’re stuck with worries on perfecting your deck, picking and buying a ton of cards to have it perform, and testing for hours on end to make sure you have everything covered, and you either end up cherishing that hard-earned success or sink when it doesn’t work at as well as you hoped. You stress over your mistakes, what you should’ve ran, what you should’ve sided, or read, etc. It’s nice to have games like these with friendly rivalries, as corny and childish as they may seem, to help you grow, strengthen your bonds, build memories, and just to ease away from the tensions of life.

The back and forth continues, and our players drop ace upon ace. It all culminates in one explosive last turn with Shady Mist vs multiple backrow. Daitaro proceeds to misplay by burning his mask change early, because why not. At least they’re self-aware about it. You commit you commit.
Post duel and the two have a banter over what they have on their plate. Kenta continues to berate the two for being children, but Matsuda makes a good point. There is a difference between toughening up vs. turning your heart to complete stone that you lose all sense of what made gave your duty such meaning in the first place and knowing that our group here can still laugh and smile in hard times is a true testament of inner strength. All is good… AT LEAST UNTIL SHADOW BITCH ARRIVES…dun dun dun..

I read up until that scene….. And this chapter had me from chuckles, to hype, to anticipation, and then into just absolute rage. I was audio reading this chapter during work, and I nearly wanted to scream. Forget Enzo and Yamato for the time being. Congratulations Miranda, you have instantly jumped from shaddoll playing toth to numero uno in my little shit list. If there is ANYTHING I am looking forward to, it’s definitely watching you burn and burn reaaaaal good. She got off easy with that mystery sniper. The fact that she never got to even relish the fact that she murdered a mother in cold blood felt good. But, not good enough. She manages to escape, albeit with some wounds, but they seriously need to put a stop to that teleporting BS.

Matsuda’s mourning proceeds to tug at me real damn hard to the point that those few paragraphs begin to feel even longer than they should. First, I almost screamed, then I nearly cried at work. Kimiko does good by consoling him and lighting some hero’s resolve in the poor guy. Love this pair. And that is that.

What more can I say? This was roller coaster of a chapter, and definitely worth calling a mid-season’s end. Idk how long it’s gonna take till the next pops up, but I’ll be ready and waiting to read it for sure. Keep up the great work man. Great to have you here again, and I’ll definitely be checking up on YGO Golden League at some point. Hope to see the cast here or some other cameos make it to MoD and vice-versa soon too. That stuff was priceless. And of course, I’m eager to hear from you on Termina Saga soon as well. I’ve also got some serious updating to do on my part. That’s all for now. Stay awesome, bud!

I agree about that I'm right is just plane rude and mean but did you have to but that last thing when you were talking about his or her comment

Ho. Ly. HELL. It finally happened. Two years in the making. Time to see if it was worth it.
… … …
Oh who’re we kidding, we all know I beta’d this. For me it WAS worth it. That said, since I said a lot of what I would’ve during the beta process, I’ll keep this short n’ sweet (cuz that’ll actually happen…).

Right into the duel we cliffhanger’d from last chapter, and all throughout it’s a constant tug of war. More than anything though, the theme of this duel clearly stands out as a representation of what it is our heroes’ resolve to fight for is. If perhaps a bit excessively, you regardless keep bringing us back into their heads and let the readers share in their excitement throughout the whole thing, which was a special kinda treat. Kenta being stuck as the only purely-serious one left is gold, and watching Kimiko finally join the gang in their constant referencing is glorious (as a side note, this chapter totally should’ve been titled “Infinity War” by the way).
By the end, we’ve got reference to some sort of higher power determining Matsuda’s ability to pull the win with the card he pulled for himself right from the start of the duel? WhatEVER could that be ab-
… y’know, I make an ass out of myself a lot in these reviews, but I’m making an ass out of myself ABOUT myself in a way now, so I’m just gonna stop here. Save some pride.
It’s a struggle right down to the last card and the last life point, aaaaaand- oh, we all knew Matsuda was gonna win that one. Obviously. The next bit really lets the human come out of these characters, reaffirming what they’re fighting for whilst Kenta is boiling down to an existential crisis. Don’t get to focus on that for long tho, cuz along comes the Shadow Bitch herself, Miranda; and her merry band of men too! Funnily enough, when extortion scenes threatening physical like this come up in YGO stories, it really makes you wonder why some people bother with the card games in the first place, eh?
And then she fuckin’ does it: she brings momma Yukaro into this. It’s so evil and fitting for her character, and every bit of the scene is heartbreaking right down to the tragic end. Which brings me to the one big plot twist for me in this entry, who in hell started sniping her right after? (Should’ve gone for the head.)
It’s enough to get her and her lackeys distracted and flee, leaving Kimiko to try and help Matsuda through the first major tribulation he’s been put through so far... though her words reach him, it seems he’s about to enter a darker place that there may be difficulty returning from. I’m getting moment-when-Jaden-goes-Supreme-King vibes here.
(Speaking of GX: real talk here, reviewer below me. 1. Naming yourself “I’m Right” doesn’t make you right. 2. You must’ve missed the mix of Synchro and Xyz plays that went down in this chap, cuz I don’t remember that noise happening during GX. Now put your rage boner away, no one wants to see that.)

And that’s where we drop off. The shit’s about to get real and I am all over it. Much as your decision to take a temporary break from here is going to annoy me to no end when I want more more MORE MORE MORE MORE MOREMOREMOREMORE-
/slices that me in half/ You get the picture. I’ll miss it, but your past-chapter rewrites are gonna be awesome and your vision for Golden League is gonna be epic. Trust me. I’m gonna be helping you write it, I’ll make sure that it is. xD
Oh yeah, your story’s characters pop up in mine! I totally forgot about tha- okay, why the fuck am I still playing dumb. Yes, my good people, we have embarked on a quest to create a shared-universe batch of stories that, if we’re lucky, we’ll live long enough to see become reality. I don’t like our odds, but I’ma keep the faith anyway because it’s the SHONEN THING TO DO! And we are NOTHING if not Shonen emulators at most, and free time writers with big dreams at least.

Okay. That’s enough outta me. I gotta finish my own next chapter before it becomes a year after MY last update… yeah, we’re totally boned. FAITH. Right, done being erratic for real this time. Talk soon bro, and stay awesome.

I see no signs Of this being an arc-v story this is more of a gx GET YOUR SHOWS RIGHT YOU FOOL My god

Now that ive finally caught up with Realitys Curtain, its time for a proper Q&A question:
How do you come up with your characters names?
Now, weve heard about the meaning of Maedas name, but what about the others? Do they have some special meaning or do you just randomly give them a first and last name?
Because thats honestly how ive been doing it for most of my OCs names, except for
Emmanuel Richter a.k.a. Chihiro Himegeki, maybe.

i dont think the rule of drama moment with shaddoll was really that effective, after all it was only a measyl difference of 200lp, that trope really could be used better.

you acidentally wrote proxima centauri as gaining three hundred attack for each monster, when matsuda is explaining the effect

Divine Wind doesnt have that negate effect, as far as i know. Not even in the manga. He would survive against 2,7K Escuridao since he has battle protection
And i dont think Daitoro having 200 instead of 100 lp before finishing of Alex matters that much, so you dont need to add the negate ability.
Then again, i changed Castle Links effect for Arc-VRAINS, even though that wasnt needed either, so take that last part with a grain of salt ;-)

Shouldnt special summoned Qlis lose ATK?

Sweet Kaneko screen time!

I can absolutely totes relate to her at the beginning. Customer service sucks :p It's good we get to know more of how she's thinking about this whole war. Side character girls need something to fight for too. Glad she's found her *insert Vergil voice* motivation. The part where she finally gets off has some creepy, good atmospheric detail. Good stuff!

Daitaro, being comic relief, as usual, is a fun read. Same goes for all the animanga references. XD I seriously need to start watching Gintama.

Alex getting his ass kicked, and bullets that never fail to force people to play card games. Neat!

Oooh boy. Rulers vs Books. Not gonna lie, I loved this format, even when I wasn't playing these decks. (Books I hated though. They were unfun to play against). Of course, Yamato gets a hand at this crazy archetype, AND gets even more OC specials to boot. Although, I didn't really find the trap that busted. I guess if it was searchable, but mainly if it was continuous, then that's another story. The rank 7 is pretty legit. I'm damn sure though, that there is gonna be a LIGHT one, and I imagine it being at least three times more broken hax.

Kaneko took the L? figures. -_-

Lady Light is always a win! *insert ding sound effect*

The end, was really emotional, and well executed. A nice tone shift. I'm hyped for the duel in the next chapter, and maybe some more Kimiko.

*Hears of collab project with TLA* Well, I'm hyped for that shit too. Not gonna lie, wish i could join in, but that is definitely something to look forward to.

overall, awesome chap chap. Really enjoyed it! Stay Frosty my friend and keep it up!

Forget my question ive forgot the author note of THIS chapter

So I started writing this all two nights ago... and I continued writing it last night… and both nights shortly thereafter, I fell asleep. XD in my defense, the events before I began writing resulted in me managing to get my pc laptop working, so hopefully I'll be looking into TDOANE or something of the like soon.
Anyway, enough with the excuses and boring tales, ON WITH THIS ADVENTURE!

So, this time around's a Kaneko-centric chapter. We see her in her job, how much she hates it, but puts up with it as well as the idea that she's gotta pick up chump change while her best friend and brother are attempting to save reality itself. And amidst all that, she's got her doubts about her future and what she's truly good for in comparison to said others. A modest take on a powerless side character, and one I find fitting to her profile. I've always felt like she was shafted into being the Asuka of this series, being the badass chick with not enough street cred, but this extra vulnerability of hers breathes a familiar but satisfactory dynamic into her character.
Now then, what're the guys up to?
Daitaro: I'M GONNA DUEL EVERYONE!
Matsuda: There's no one here.
Daitaro: I'M GONNA DUEL THEM ANYWAY!
Matsuda: *facepalms*
Kenta: Also, I'm here.
... ... ... great. XD
Fast forward a little, and- oh for fuck's sakes. What is it with everyone in this series and curb-stomping? Come to think of it, what exactly WAS going down before Kaneko stumbled on Yamato with Alex? I'd wager he might've been... "persuading" him to give up details about the group of friends. Kinda really wanna know if that's right. Perhaps future chapters can shed a little more light on these events.
So what do you do when you're the pants-sh*tting side character girl walking in on a dude brutalizing an acquaintance of your brother's?
Matsuda: ... challenge them to a-?
CHALLENGE THEM TO A CHILDREN'S CARD GAME, yes.
And then suddenly BAM! Lady f*cking Light returns at last! Finally ready to corner this bastard. 'Course, anyone gets near Yamato and Alex bites it, so... need this duel settled first.
Spellbooks vs Dragon Rulers... oh f*ck me, I should've known Yamato was gonna have some OP sh*t. The good news is due to the serious demand of character development, Kaneko manages to figuratively grow a pair and put up a fairly decent fight against him. Bravo.
And then the others show up! Unsurprising Daitaro was nearly ready to run headfirst at Yamato. Matsuda and Lady Light's first reunion sets up the idea that she really ain't the crazy psycho b*tch he thought she'd be. And then there's Kenta, with the machine-like sentiment of not knowing what good friends are. But with a good first (painful) swing from Matsuda, we manage to shove Kenta onto developmental avenue as he begins pondering how a flower doesn't… know it’s a flower, but just... is? Who the f*ck got high before they wrote this for me?!
... *ahem* My cheap Family Guy references aside, I felt there perhaps was just a tad too much slack in the other characters' grasp of the seriousness of the situation. We've got Daitaro cracking jokes while his sister is in mortal danger, and screaming at Lady Light to quit picking on him. 10 minutes prior he was telling Matsuda to quit giving him humorous crap because she was in peril, and now... well, f*ck it I guess? For real though, how far down do these characters draw their lines to take these kinda things seriously?
Fast forward a little bit, and eventually, despite her best efforts, Kaneko gets KO’d. Still, Yamato has himself cornered by Lady Light and all the others now, right?
… right?
*sudden explosion in the distance*
… oh no.
Out of nowhere a GIANT FREAKING WARSHIP blasts half the block to bits, killing off most of the restaurant patrons and yet somehow sparing our entire primary cast. Hell, how Alex and Kaneko survived that in their near-comatose states is boggling, but hey- if you make your plot armor strong enough, right? xD
Anyway, we got Enzo commandeering the Skybase, which makes off with Yamato who flies off like Seto frickin’ Kaiba before Battle City starts. Wow.
And of course, Lady Light needs a reason to not stick around, so she’s gonna rush Alex off to the hospital. At least, I’m assuming that’s why she did- just to get away from the others. After all, just because she’s not against them doesn’t mean she wants them near her.
Afterwards, the three guys manage to get Kaneko back home so she can sleep off her trauma from the earlier events. While they wait for her to wake up, Daitaro and Matsuda realize that they need to fill the fourth and final slot for the tournament finals ASAP, which means only one thing for them: time to duel.

As a whole, while this was a character-centric chapter, it was thoroughly enjoyable with all the other developmental pushes you gave to the other characters. Hell, even Alex got a cameo in again, but man… not quite the one he thought he was gonna get, I imagine. 0.0 Also, speaking from the beta reader’s perspective, I’m glad you decided to take my word on Daitaro and the others moving Kaneko to safety first. After a traumatic brush with death like that, I didn’t expect her to be in any condition to be conscious for at least a good hour afterwards, much less for her brother and friends to just let her lie there and start dueling right off the bat. Plus, after a blast like that, it’d get pretty awkward for them to start dueling there and then suddenly the authorities arrive to investigate the earlier boom… yeah, you can imagine how that would go down. I also have to add, the somberness of just the three guys walking after getting her to safety, followed by the realization that they need to get one of themselves into the finals, was just an excellent touch to wrap up the chapter in a full-circle fashion. It actually got me even more excited to see how their match is gonna go down next chapter.

Now then… a QnA sesh for RC as well, eh? Hm. I wish I had questions I could ask right off the bat, but honestly we’ve talked so extensively outside of this medium that it’s hard for me to think of anything right at this moment. I suppose for the moment I’ll give ya this one, but if I come up with any others I’ll let you know.
So the question: we writers always put a little of ourselves into each of our characters, so out of all of the characters you’ve created in RC, which one do you think correlates the most with YOU personally?

And yes, our project. Super special. Super secret. Much anticipation. O_O (CAN YOU SEE ME SUPPRESSING MY EXCITEMENT OR SHOULD I TRY HARDER?)

With all that said and done, I think that more or less wraps up what I have to say here. Now I think I’ll go and respond to your review on MY last chap-
… oh… right. ._.
Anyway, you know how I roll here. Read was great, you’re great, yadda yadda yadda, and stay awesome.

is the title derived from a line from a subbed version of Arc-Vs second opening?

I've been wanting to get back to reading your story but I've been so busy with college and work. So when I woke up this morning before work, I really wanted to read your story :)
Although I don't have enough time since I have work, I would love to keep reading. I think I may on my break
About what I've read up to so far, I've got to say, I was laughing at the part where the mother was yelling/freaking out at her son xD How every worried mother would be, especially with his situation.
I also really like how he keeps waking up then falling asleep again and then all of a sudden we're in a new location.

Hey, hey I finally finished all 9 chapters, yay! Anyway, now to the reviewing, I will be honest. I already said that finding grammatical mistakes isn't my speciality and I'm reviewing 9 chapters in a row so I'm going to try and keep this as short as possible.
I already told you what I'm thinking about chapters 1 and 2 in our PM so instead of doing a copy-paste I'm going to say some words about your characters. They are nice to have around. They are all awesome and I love reading about each one of them. They all have a strong individuality aka their characters don't overlap with one another. I'm not sure what else to say about them expect that so far I found Yamato to be my favorite with Kenta being close second (I don't know why I like those types of jerk characters so much)
Actually you know what, I will drop the idea of reviewing every chapter one after another as I don't find anything criticism worthy in them. Maybe the character development in each of them was one of the best things I got from them and boy, you don't know how satisfying was to watch Brock getting beaten up by a girl, thought I think that the last chapter (N.9) gave his character a bit of justice.
But I have to ask. Do you have a HERO fetish or something? Because I found at least 3-4 characters using the HERO archetypes of which one is the main character, the other is his friend and the third is Kenta with the Destiny HERO Malicious. I don't have a problem with that and the HERO archetypes are really cool, but I found this to be an interesting thing to point out.
That's definitely an amazing story and even if it didn't have such good characters and duels I would still have followed it just for that mysterious vibe I'm getting from it. Like, really, the more I read of this the more questions come to my mind! I really hope that you are going to update it soon.