A/N: This is a random one-shot that was inspired by a conversation I was having with my friend SuperNova 23. In the summer of 2014 I picked up Kingdom Hearts for the first time. (1.5. Remix) I've just now started Chain of Memories within that same game, and when I was talking about it with Nova, I told him that (due to the whacked out card system) that I kept expecting Yugi Muto from Yu-Gi-Oh to pop up screaming "It's time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-DUEL!" Nova followed up with, "I summon Simba in defense mode." That cracked me up and in turn, inspired the random events of this one-shot. Hopefully you guys enjoy it.

And Nova, since you inspired the crazy, I expect you to review. XD

Warnings: This is my first time writing anything related to Kingdom Hearts so, go easy on me if you choose to review. Let me know if I did okay with Sora's character. This story takes place during the early stages of Chain of Memories with a random cameo of everyone's favorite king of games, Yugi Muto!

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Yu-Gi-Oh.

Card Games with Keyblades

Within Castle Oblivion.

"Okay, so to defeat heartless now...I have to use these cards? What sense does that make?"

Sora, wielder of the kingdom keyblade, puzzled this turn of events as he strode through the red cobblestone streets of Traverse Town...or was it his memory of Traverse Town? The spiky haired boy couldn't begin to guess and figured it was best not to think about it. For the moment he was pretty much alone. The mysterious stranger in black he had met within the first room of the castle had transformed Donald and Goofy into cards, which he now held in his right hand. His only company was that of Jiminy Cricket, who at this moment was much more interested in keeping to himself inside of Sora's hood. So, on a whole, Sora was completely and utterly alone, pondering over the strange man's words and the whole "to lose is to find and to find is to lose" nonsense. Quite frankly, Sora could have done without the confusing riddle...and the whole whacked out card system too. It was making things a lot more complicated than they needed to be. Then again, nothing about the adventures he found himself participating in were simple. If he wasn't chasing heartless or arguing with Donald, he was daydreaming about the day he would return home with Riku so the two of them could fight over which one of them was going to share the papou fruit with Kairi again.

"It's funny," he thought, walking at a leisurely pace. "Less than a year ago I wanted nothing more than to see new worlds and go on crazy adventures with my friends. And now..." Sora shook his head of spiky brown hair. This wasn't the time to look back on the past or ponder the irony of his situation and the things he felt. He couldn't change anything that had happened and even if he could have gone back to before the mess started, he wouldn't change anything. Despite the trails he was facing now, which consisted of the weird castle, the mysterious stranger in black, and his friends being reduced to pieces of laminated paper, Sora was still in high spirits. He would be just fine by himself...at least for a little while.

So far, the keyblade wielder had only come across two strings of heartless. They had been fairly easy to deal with, but Sora knew better than to get comfortable with the easy pickings. Oh no, before long a giant shadow creature would probably descend from the black, star-studded sky above him, and smack him across the courtyard. The poor boy could already visualize himself flying through the air and hitting the hard ground. He could even hear Donald screaming at him in that high-pitched squeal of his to stop being so clumsy.

"I think I've been at this heartless slaying business a bit too long now," he thought woefully, his blue eyes searching for any traces of the black creatures. Before long, nocturnes and other varieties of heartless would come barreling into him, just like that first shadow had. It had been like a domino effect, one shadow after another bumping and scratching at him after the first one appeared. The second string came at him in much the same manner, only Sora had been able to get the advantage early on, using his small deck of attack cards and potions to win.

It was an odd way to fight, especially since the boy had become accustomed to just hurling his keyblade about while hoping that it hit something. Just holding out attack cards in a dramatic fashion and dodging attacks coming his way seemed...well anticlimactic...an a bit silly too.

But regardless of this, Sora continued forward in silence, though his mind was chatting up a storm. Even now, the teen was busily thinking to himself with intense concentration.

"I can barely wrap my head around this whole card thing. What do I need the cards for? Why can't I just swing my keyblade around and hope it hits something like I always do? I'm terrible at card games. Mom was the card shark in the house. She used to torture me with constant poker games. She always used them to take back the little allowance I got from Dad." Sora paused for a moment, his footsteps coming to an abrupt halt as a terrible thought struck him.

"Oh no...Mom! She called me down for dinner months ago! She's probably gone crazy trying to figure out where I am...or worse...she's preparing one of those green bean casseroles that I hate for when I get back!" With a cry of anguish, Sora hung his head in dismay. "She's definitely going to ground me for a good ten years...or she may just put me out of my misery and make a casserole out of me."

"Sora, I don't think your mother would do anything like that..."

"Gaaaaaaaaaah!" Sora nearly jumped out of his skin. "Jiminy! When did you...oh that's right you've been in the hood this whole time."

Jiminy popped out of the hood briefly to stand on Sora's shoulder. "Sora, are you alright? You seem on edge."

Sora didn't reply verbally, only nodded his head.

"Is that a yes to being alright or to being on edge?"

Sora looked at the ground, pondering for a few seconds before answering with a cheeky grin. "Both."

Jiminy would have replied, but he didn't get a chance to as a sudden rumbling shook the ground beneath Sora's feet, forcing the cricket to tuck himself away in the hood once more. The rumbling stopped soon after, but Sora and Jimminy were still a bit dizzy.

"Goodness gracious...what was that?" Jiminy asked just before the rumbling started again. Sora let out a yelp as he stumbled forward. Briefly he saw a bright golden light shinning from above the buildings in the third district of the town. He began to run towards it.

"Whoa! Sora! Not so fast!"

"Sorry Jiminy," Sora called back, rushing ahead through the doors leading from the first district and directly to the third. Immediately upon walking inside he could see the source of the golden light. One of his eyebrows rose to his hairline at the sight that befell his eyes.

"Is that...a giant golden chicken?"

Jiminy, who was suffering the post effects of whiplash, glanced up at the chicken-like creature with dragon wings flying in the sky above the district.

"It certainly looks like one," he muttered, stars dancing around his tiny head as he passed out. His small body slipped back into Sora's hood again. Sora didn't notice. His gaze stayed on the giant chicken-like creature. Golden flames wrapped around the beast, making the thing look even more like a giant golden chicken. The size, majesty, and flat out ridiculousness of the beast's presence was overwhelming to the young wielder of the kingdom key. He was so transfixed by the creature that he didn't notice the scores of heartless lingering below it or the single figure that stood in their midst.

"Winged Dragon of Raw, attack!"

Sora blinked, his sky blue eyes finally locking on the person standing below the chicken...or dragon now. He wore a navy blue school uniform with a black shirt underneath the blazer. Around his neck he wore a chain with a large golden pyramid pendant hanging at the end. Still, what drew Sora's attention was the contraption hooked on the guy's wrist. and the tri-colored, star-shaped hair that served as the guy's hairstyle.

"Yeah, and people make fun of my hair," Sora thought, reaching up to touch one of the spikes in his hair.

The thing on stranger's wrist looked like a giant wristwatch to the Sora at first, but after a few seconds he noted a card laying on top of one of the empty square spaces. The card was identical to the creature hovering in the sky above them...and from what Sora could tell, this giant monster was about to set everything on fire.

And the dragon did just that. Opening its mouth, it sent out a ferocious fireball toward the awaiting shadow heartless surrounding the mysterious figure. Sora jumped back, shielding himself with his arms as the hot wind blew past him.

Peering through the space between his arms, he watched the flames tear through all of the heartless. Soon after they began to die down and the terrifying dragon disappeared from sight. The attack from the dragon had wiped away all of the heartless that had been there before, but more began to appear within seconds.

Those things just never quit, do they?

With the flames slowly dying away, Sora could finally make out the face of this unknown hero.

"Guess, that didn't work," the older teen stated, his violet eyes reflecting his annoyance at the situation he had found himself in. "Fine then." The man drew a card from the deck locked into the giant wristwatch. "I summon Simba, in defense mode!"

Sora's expression deadpanned as the man, in a show of unnecessary theatrics, placed the card in another space on his...weird card reading machine. Simba appeared before him, roaring as he usually did, but he disappeared almost instantly after he was summoned. That was probably for the best, the man with tri-colored hair had looked utterly perplexed by Simba's appearance despite having called him by name seconds earlier.

"Man, this guy has no idea what he's doing," Sora muttered aloud before thinking, "Sure, I don't really know what I'm doing either, but this guy is really lost. Kinda makes me wish Donald were here to witness it. He'd love ranting about how dumb this guy is. Even Goofy would get a laugh out of it."

The man's violet eyes widened. "I don't understand this." Drawing another card he screamed out, "Come forth...Dumbo?" He paused, staring at the card in his hand. "Wait a minute! These aren't my cards? What's going on here! Where's my Dark Magician! Where's Gaia? Oh my word! Where's Celtic Guardian!?"

Sora continued to stand there, flabbergasted at the crazy person standing before him. At this point, even the remaining heartless were just sitting around the older teen in a circle, staring at him as if they were waiting on him to do something. In fact, Sora could've swore one of them was filing their nails. Wait...did shadows even have nails to file?

While Sora was debating whether or not heartless had fingernails or not, the man continued to shuffle through his deck, screaming, "What happened to my monsters? My cards are just pictures of keys now! This makes no sense...and for Ra's sake where is the bloody Celtic Guardian!"

Yugi...you will find it for the fate of the world depends on it...oooh...

Sora glanced around, momentarily distracted from his previous train of thought. "Where did that voice come from?"

"Get out of my head Marik," the pharaoh muttered, unable to comprehend the situation unfolding before him. "This isn't Yu-Gi-Oh abridged and I'm not Bakura. Besides that, everyone knows that I have twice as many fangirls as he does."

"Okay, that does it." Groaning in exasperation, Sora finally summoned his keyblade and ran forward, swinging the weapon in a particularly violent manner. He destroyed all the remaining heartless in no time at all while the crazy newcomer continued searching through his deck for that blasted Celtic Guardian.

"There, now they're all gone!" Sora cheered, twirling his keyblade around with a proud smile on his face. He turned to the newcomer. "You can stop looking through your deck now. I doubt you'll find that Celtic...whatever it was you were calling it, anyway."

The pharaoh simply shook his head of wild looking hair. "I simply don't understand it. I've fought these things in this castle for three days straight now and not once has this happened." His gaze moved to meet Sora's. "I thank you for your help, but who are you?"

The younger teen folded his arms behind his head. "I'm Sora..." he trailed off, his arms dropping to his sides in the process. "Did you say castle!? Do you mean to tell me that you're inside Castle Oblivion too?"

The pharaoh narrowed his gaze on the boy, unsure of whether to answer or not.

"Say Pharoah, why don't you let me take over. I don't think he's any threat to us."

"Hmmm...very well, I suppose it should be alright."

Sora barely noticed the sudden decline in height of the newcomer, but the personality shift that followed really took him for a loop.

"My name is Yugi Muto," he began, a small smile on his face. "I came here following after a friend of mine. You see, he was hosting a Duel Monsters Tournament, but then a man in all black kidnapped him and went through a dark portal. My best friend Joey and I ended up getting sucked into the portal too and now we're both trying to find him so we can get out of this place and back home. We ended up getting separated though. I think he's a couple of levels below this floor, still in the basement somewhere, while I've been on this floor waiting for him. I would have gone ahead to cover more ground, but Kaiba ended up escaping and found his way to this floor. We met up a few hours ago, but then the world within this room of the castle shifted into this town and we got separated again.

"That sounds pretty complicated," Sora replied. "I only just got here. That guy in black you were talking about is probably the same guy that lured me and my friends here. He turned my friends into cards. It's only temporary, but I've been out here fighting heartless on my own and like you I'm looking for a friend. His name is Riku. Have you seen him?"

Yugi looked away for a few seconds, searching his memory. "I did see someone strange lurking about. He was about your height, maybe taller. Had white hair?"

"That's him!"

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Sora frowned, his hopes dashed. "Why?"

"His disappeared really quickly," Yugi answered. "I have no idea where he could be now."

The younger teen let out a soft sigh. "Well, thanks anyway. I hope you find your friends."

"Thanks, I hope the same for you." With that, Yugi turned away from the boy, starting on a slow trek toward the second district.. "Thank you for your help earlier, but I should be alright on my own now."

Sora frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Yugi replied, the Millennium Puzzle around his neck glowing again. The pharaoh returned. "Good luck Sora."

Sora nodded his thanks and waved timidly, weirded out by Yugi's sudden voice change. However, his dismay went off the charts when four big bodied heartless appeared, surrounding Yugi on all sides.

"Yugi! Look out!" he screamed.

The pharaoh, masquerading as Yugi, activated his duel disk yet again, shouting, "It's time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-DUEL!"

Sora had just summoned his keyblade again and was gearing for another ambush, but upon hearing...that...the boy turned on his heel and practically ran out the door he had entered in from.

It was in this situation that Sora learned a very valuable lesson. Helping people in their time of need is a charitable and generous thing to do. One should always strive to be good to others, but there's a limit to how much help you can give a person...especially if you get the sense that the person you want to help is coco for cocoa puffs...

Sora's stomach grumbled as he closed the doors to the third district behind him. "Aw man, I just had to think about food." He let out another sigh. "I miss mom."

That green bean casserole didn't sound so bad anymore.

Meanwhile...with a certain C.E.O.

"Where the heck is my Blue Peeps Whitey Dragon! That's it! The next person or thing I see is getting smacked by this briefcase!"

"Excuse me, my name's Mickey. I'm looking for..."

"SMACK!"

Seto Kaiba smiled a brilliant white smile at the cry of the poor mouse king. "Perfect timing!"

Elsewhere, ten of the 101 Dalmatian puppies were captured and skinned by Cruella DeVil. Blame Seto freakin' Kaiba for the loss of innocent puppy lives.

A/N: And that's the end of this random one-shot. Hopefully it made you guys laugh, though I'm really not sure how well I did. I'm pretty sure I made Sora a little out of character as far as him leaving Yugi behind to fend for himself, but that was more for comedic purposes anyway. Thanks for reading. If you have time and enjoyed this, leave a review. Also, below are some story recommendations. Check them out. They're great!

1. You're Why I Live

By: Sweeney1999

AU. Kairi's having a video contest- make a video of yourself (fully clothed)telling her why you want to be her boyfriend. It was only open to the seniors, like her. So when she's just about to give up and fall asleep from such horrible candidates, a familiar voice rings through the computer speakers, what happens? And what does the boy tell her to do? SoKai. Not as stupid as sounds

Kingdom Hearts-Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Hurt/Comfort - Sora, Kairi - Words: 2,331 - Reviews: 8 - Favs: 15 - Follows: 2 - Published: Dec 1, 2013 - Status: Complete - id: 9892766

The above story is so cute. I loved it and I'm sure you guys will too.

2.Tainted Ocean

By: Handwritten

Namine is pure, like the ocean. Whereas Roxas is sure he is an oil slick. Diry, dangerous, and threatening to taint her. A short story about how one person can change another - and maybe for the better. Roxas/Namine, T for content.

Kingdom Hearts-Rated: Fiction T - English - Angst/Romance - Roxas, Naminé - Chapters: 12 - Words: 17,871 - Reviews: 192 - Favs: 101 - Follows: 18 - Updated: Aug 9, 2009 - Published: Jul 12, 2009 - Status: Complete - id: 5212796

The above story is another great one.

3. Twisting Time

By: SuperNova 23

Having rewound time over a hundred times, a time traveller meets the Guardian of the Time Stream. And she is not pleased.

Crossover - Sailor Moon & Puella Magi Madoka Magica/魔法少女まどか マギカ - Rated: K+ - English - Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,102 - Reviews: 1 - Favs: 10 - Follows: 3 - Published: Sep 16 - Setsuna M./Sailor Pluto, Homura A. - Complete

See Nova, I told you I'd put in an advertisement for you. You didn't believe me, did ya? Did ya?

Anyway guys, those are the recommendations for stories. Probably should have put in some for Yu-Gi-Oh too. Oh well! Merry Christmas guys!