Fanfic / Dueling Trigger Finger

This page contains unmarked spoilers for Danganronpa and Yu-Gi-Oh!. You Have Been Warned!

A battle of hope and despair. With card games. Art by Starcoookies.

What do you know about Duel Monsters?

— Junko Enoshima

Worlds collide as a twisted tale interlocking the fates of both universes begins. Dueling Trigger Finger is a fanfiction created by draconichero21 that combines both the Danganronpa and the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe and starts at the beginning of Battle City. For the Danganronpa cast, it starts in between episodes 2 and 3 of Danganronpa 3 Despair Side. And in spite of this, even class 78 shows up, though, of course, they're not in Hope's Peak yet.

Although the series is currently doing arcs for the Yu-Gi-Oh! series, there are plans to continue straight into the continuity of Danganronpa, including the killing game and all machinations thereof.

A prologue was posted to his DeviantArt account seen here. It follows someone that's clearly not Makoto through the first portion of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, only to reveal their identity at the end. According to draconichero the prologue does constitute the canon setup for the fic, which has already changed elements of Danganronpa's canon.

Like Fairy Without Wings, Dueling Trigger Finger does a surprisingly good job of meshing both worlds together. And, as always, draconichero's talent for character interaction is on full display.

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This fanfiction contains examples of:

Tropes A — C

• Actually Pretty Funny: Mahiru unintentionally makes a joke by mentioning Celeste escaping into her own little world after she mentioned doing escape rooms and Hajime points out that it's actually kind of funny. Mahiru and the others in the scene end up agreeing and having a good laugh.
• Adapted Out:
  • The missile strike at the end of the Virtual World Arc is completely absent and everyone returns back to the real world with no sense of danger at all, this is primarily because of Mahiru putting a stop to Noah and Chihiro instigating everyone's escape. However Chapter 50 shows that Kaiba still had the underwater fortress blown to kingdom come to ensure Gozaburo's shadow is extinguished forever.
  • Red-Eyes B. Dragon is omitted from Yugi and Kaiba's Battle City finals duel because, as the author pointed out, it did nothing besides giving out a Power of Friendship message that was both an illegal move AND makes no sense to happen within context of this fic.
  • Duke Devlin makes no appearances during the Orichalcos or Kaiba Corp Grand Prix arcs, despite appearing as a supporting character in the canon versions of both.
  • The second Yami vs. Rafael duel never happens. Instead Rafael duels Junko instead, resulting in his loss which is then immediately followed by a duel between Yami and Junko.
  • The whole subplot regarding the abduction of Yugi's grandpa and his duel with Vivian Wong don't happen due to Junko immediately "taking care" of the woman immediately following her victory over her in the tournament.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: The Yu-Gi-Oh! side of the crossover appears to integrate circumstances and events that span throughout various related media and mixes them up together.
  • Bandit Keith appears alive and well in Chapter 9 which correlates with his fate in the anime, but contradicts his fate in the manga — where he was subjected to a Penalty Game by Pegasus and left comatose if not dead.
  • The Pharaoh/Yami Yugi's original modus operandi of playing Shadow Games is alluded to in Chapter 17.
  • Miho Nosaka — a minor character from the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and a main character in the Toei anime (dubbed "Season 0" by fans) is present and is mentioned here as an original member of Sayaka's idol group "Sweet Orchard" who sadly died in a car accident. Except, not really.
  • Various filler episodes/arcs from the second anime such as the Legendary Heroes arc, Mai's duel with Jean Claude Magnum and the Virtual Arc are hinted to have happened/happen in this fic.
  • Various comments made by the narration largely imply that the chain of events that led to Yugi and Kaiba's rivalry are more in line with the original manga's depiction compared to the 2nd series anime. This is all but confirmed in Chapter 56 when Chiaki directly mentions the Death-T incident and the ammoral actions Kaiba did back then to his rivals and competitors.
    • In addition, the Von Schroeder family is also mentioned confirming that they exist in this continuity. And the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix arc, where they act as antagonists in the anime, explicitly starts in chapter 101.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • This fic's version of the Virtual World arc includes additional characters for the protagonists to duel — many of which are Kaiba's former employees who turned on him yet were never seen again. In addition, Chiaki and her classmates learn about the Kamukura project from Chisa which Word of God has mentioned will have some major changes to the story going forward.
  • The Orichalcos arc is for all intents and purposes: Completely rewritten in terms of how certain events are played out. In addition to there being two additional Legendary Dragons, much more plot elements and storylines occur from within the canonical storylines.
  • The Kaiba Corp Grand Prix arc has been quite literally expanded by increasing the amount of participants from 16 to 32, with most of them being characters that had already been established in the story before that point. On top of that, while the original only put focus on a handful of duels, here every duel is fully written out and almost each of them has a full chapter dedicated to it.
• Adaptational Badass: This fic has several examples of these, from both series:
  • Dueling-wise, the entire Danganronpa cast fall under this. Aside from the fact that there's obviously no such thing as Duel Monsters in their canon; in this fic not only are the majority of them duelists, but some of them can even go to toe with the best of them like Yugi and Kaiba themselves.
  • While Joey was already quite the competent duelist in canon, he was still Over Shadowed By Awesome by the likes of Yugi and Kaiba in terms of skill level and cards. Here, not only does he rack up more impressive wins under his belt, but his deck is a lot stronger due to winning several powerful rare cards (one of even included The Wicked Dreadroot at one point) that make his spoils of war from canon look positively cute by comparison. In addition, when he duels against Kaiba during the Battle City Finals (as opposed to an unofficial duel); he comes extremely close to winning him and actually makes Kaiba work for the victory compared to the times they have dueled in canon where the duels were mainly one-sided in Kaiba's favor.
  • In the original, Mai was the infamous recipient of The Worf Effect. Here, she has won 2 out of her 3 on screen solo duels and in group duels, she's usually the one pulling the most weight and really shows how her experiences in the pro circuit help her keep up with younger, but skilled duelists like Joey, Komaru, and Ibuki. Shown in full during the Orichalcos where in addition to not pulling her canonical Face–Heel Turn, she also wins against her Orichalcos rival (Valon) and keeps her soul long enough to participate in the final battle alongside the legendary dragon wielders.
  • While Sonia Nevermind her already shown her badass princess credentials in Danganronpa canon, the same cannot be said for the Sonia in Yu-Gi-Oh canon who was nothing more than Rafael's deceased sister. Due to Sonia being a composite character with Rafael's sister, this trope qualifies for the Yu-Gi-Oh Sonia.
  • While Chisa Yukizome was already fairly badass in canon, she did eventually suffer The Worf Effect resulting in her being lobotomized and tortured into despair by Junko and Mukuro towards the end of the Despair Arc and even has an anti-climactic death at the start of the Future Arc. In this story, not only does she get to show off more of her skills but she also attains victories on her end, is a very skilled and powerful duelist on her own right, and is also a reincarnation of an ancient Atlantian queen. To top it all off: During the final battle in the Orichalcos arc, not only does she last longer than many of her teammates and shrugs off the damage to her soul with no worse for wear; but she is also the only one left standing, even outlasting the Pharoah himself leading her to be the one to duel Dartz himself.
  • Rex Raptor gets to show just how competent of a duelist he compared to his canon self while dueling Makoto. Even though Makoto wins, it was not easy.
  • Celeste was already competent to start with in canon, but here she's a freaking treat. Not only is she one of the more skilled duelists in the story, but she is putting that gambling talent of hers to work given her collusion with Marik.
  • If the backstory is to go by: Queen Iona. In canon, she was nothing more than Dartz's devoted queen who eventually succumbed to the same corruption that plagued the rest of the Atlanteans. In this fic, she is described as a warrior queen who not only opposed Dartz, but also cooperated with the rest of the legendary knights (and great sorcerer) in protecting the minds of the Atlanteans from collapsing.
  • Serenity also counts to a lesser extent. Her dueling ability far exceeds what she was capable of in canon and her intellect is jacked up to the point that she can skip grades.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Wicked God Cards (The Wicked Avatar, The Wicked Dreadroot, The Wicked Eraser) are only strong effect monsters instead of being the Evil Counterpart to the Egyptian God Cards, lacking the divine effects they had in Yu-Gi-Oh! R.
• Alliterative Title: By Alliterative List: The twelfth chapter is called "Faith, Fusion, and Fire".
• All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: Brought up when Hifumi plays Lekunga among his female monsters.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Shadi learns this the hard way by trying to invade Junko's mind. He had the best intentions, but Junko may as well be Gygas for how hellish and incomprehensibly horrific her mind is when observed with the power of the Millennium Key. Shadi ends up eaten for his trouble and ownership of the Millenium Key passes to Junko.
• Amusing Injuries: By the time he catches up to Nagito, the Rare Hunter that was chasing him has been bit by a dog, trampled, fallen into a river and caught a cold, got bird poop in his eye, hit by a car and knocked over a man's cabbage stand. Marik really ought to offer him hazard pay for all that he had to go through.
  • Averted for Chiaki during and after her shadow game. That leg injury of hers has her almost disqualified from the Battle City Finals.
• Anyone Can Die: This is a crossover with Danganronpa. The use of this trope should not be surprising.
  • Odion is killed by a despair brainwashed Ishizu in chapter 61.
  • Weevil is killed by an enraged Yami via Berserker Soul and Tea being nowhere in sight to calm him down. Junko is there instead and she only makes the situation worse.
  • Shadi appears to be the next fatality among the Yu-gi-oh cast. After attempting to invade Junko's mind and pacify her from her investigation into the Millennium Items, he ends up dying inside her head to the hellish nightmare that it is.
  • Zigfried von Schroder dies in Chapter 125 courtesy of a sniper round fired by Mukuro.
• Ascended Extra: In canon, Espa was just a one-off opponent that Joey defeats and is never seen again afterwards. Here he actually makes it to the Battle City Finals after his initial loss to Gundham making him far more involved in the Battle City arc. He returns for the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix, now sporting actual psychic powers.
  • An interesting case with Komaru who doesn't enact a major role until Another Episode. In the story, she actually acts as Makoto's one-girl cheering section and we even get to see a sibling dynamic between the two.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!:
  • Gundham uses this strategy during the first half of his duel with Mai, which blows up explosively in his face.
  • Played for Drama during Yami's duel against Weevil via his Berserker Soul where unlike in canon where Tea was around to stop him, Junko urges him to attack even more eventually resulting in Weevil's death.
  • Junko also defeats Rafael this way, even using the aforementioned Berserker Soul strategy.
• Badass Adorable: Both Makoto and Chiaki are among the kindest and friendliest characters in the series. Both of them are also strong duelists in their own right, capable of pushing Yugi and Kaiba themselves respectively to their very limits.
• Badass Normal:
  • Hajime and Makoto have no professional tournament experience and no previous renown to speak of, yet both are still competitors in the battle city finals. Makoto more so since Hajime at least has the Five Headed Dragon.
  • Chiaki also qualifies since she doesn't have a millennium item and managed to win a shadow game.
  • Celeste is the only non-Millennium item holder or Arc Villain that isn't Kaiba to push Yugi into a very tight corner.
  • Sonia also deserves special mention for being the only character without a tie to Ancient Egypt, capable of reading Ancient Egyptian, thereby permitting her to summon Ra during her duel with Marik. In addition, she is also one of the two non-legendary dragon wielders to participate in the final battle against Dartz during the Orichalcos arc.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Rafael may be an antagonist, but Junko is still rotten to the core. It's hard to see Rafael as anything more than a Hero Antagonist in chapter 79 given how utterly horrible Junko is. Worse, this carries over into chapter 80 where we find out that, despite the fact that the heroes are off to defeat Dartz that this is exactly what Junko wants as part of her Xanatos Gambit.
• Batman Gambit: Even though Celeste loses her duel to Joey in chapter 20, she still has him kidnapped by having the Rare Hunters show up to kidnap him, which was all part of her ingenious trap to start with.
• Battle Amongst the Flames:
  • The Saionji estate catches fire due to lightning raining down during Yukizome's duel with Gurimo.
  • Done again in Joey's duel with Natsumi, once more due to lightning.
• Battle in the Rain: During Yukizome's duel with Gurimo, it's pouring out. Multiple mentions are given to water droplets coming down Yukizome and Gurimo's faces and clothing.
  • As with the above trope, this trope is used during Joey's duel with Natsumi as well.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: How Yugi and Yami phrase letting the former duel Celeste instead of the latter.
• Berserk Button: Don't bad mouth the occult in front of Sonia, lest you invoke the darkness laying deep within her. Right, Yasuhiro?
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sonia is a cheerful, rather easygoing person that is polite and friendly to everyone. One thing she isn't though is a pushover when it comes to dueling. Bandit Keith found that out the hard way. Mai even brings up the trope when Joey finds out Sonia's in the finals and she's smiling sweet as ever.
• Big "NO!": Yami Bakura has this reaction when Chiaki uses Heavy Storm to obliterate Destiny Board.
  • This is also Chiaki's reaction to Sonia losing to Marik.
• Big "WHAT?!": Yami Marik has a complete freak out when it's revealed that Sonia can read Ancient Egyptian and therefore can summon the Winged Dragon of Ra.
• Blackmail: A heroic example. Kyosuke, Chisa, and Kaiba use their combined compilation of evidence about the Kamukura Project to blackmail the Steering Committee into shutting it down, as well as making some new changes to Hope's Peak's agenda and getting Hajime accepted in Class 77-B as the Ultimate Duelist.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Joey Wheeler is already a competent duelist. Celeste is taking the next step by both buffing his deck and teaching him complex strategies. So far though, Joey seems to be incapable of learning the latter due to...intelligence limitations.
• Blooper: It should almost be a drinking game given how many times the author uses the wrong word or name, forgets to end a sentence, misreads a card and has to chalk up something to "anime logic".
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: True to form, Monokuma does this during his duel with Kaiba on more than one occasion.
• But We Used a Condom!: Chiaki and Hajime having sex at the end of chapter 85 is probably one of the more heartwarming moments in the fanfic. Chapter 93 then shows the consequences of that moment by Chiaki getting pregnant.
• Call-Back: Monokuma deliberately protects himself with a Kuriboh just to give Kaiba PTSD to Duelist Kingdom.
• Call-Forward: In a flashback, Kaiba remarks getting a temp or an intern to help him with technical troubleshooting so that he doesn't have to do it himself. In chapter 1, he's already hired Chihiro.
  • During their duel, Monokuma refers to Kaiba as "Herr Kaiba", which is how Zigfried von Schroeder refers to him in the dub.
  • Chapter 75 has Mai and Valon compete in the first ever card game on motorcycles.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • There are several fic-original characters of note:
    • Eliza Se Arc who serves as a Friendly Rival to Chiaki.
    • Emma — Crump's niece and another person Kaiba had laid off when he took over Kaiba Corp (for good reason in her case).
    • Tai Takamaru — Gundham's Only Friend during his childhood.
    • Miaka Senri — Class 77-A's Ultimate Cosplayer (no connection to the Shirogane family).
    • Several more appear to fill out the roster of the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix: Bianca Bismark, Ramona Shibakura, Ace Konami, and London Kuriboh.
  • During the Orichalcos, there are also an extra two Legendary Dragons alongside the canonical Timaeus, Critias and Hermos: They are Pythagoras who is wielded by Hajime, and Iona who is wielded by Yukizome. Iona as in the same Iona who was the queen of Atlantis and Dartz's wife.
• Cassandra Truth: Invoked by Junko in chapter 79. She lets Rafael see her at her worst with the comforting knowledge that no one is going to believe him that she's completely demented in the head and nuttier than a Payday. This was done to make Rafael realize just how badly he screwed the pooch on his life choices.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: In the climax of Yugi fighting the mind-controlled Joey. Every major character so far (bar Makoto, Komaru, Chiaki, Hajime, and Nagito) rushes to the pier, intending to help out, only for Celeste to toss an EMP and disable Marik's death trap minutes before they get there.
• Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning of chapter 12, Hajime is stated to get Future Fusion in a free booster pack. It's used to great effect in his duel that chapter to summon the Five Headed Dragon.
  • Makoto also gets a specific card from his free booster pack, Maiden of Macabre, which winds up being a turning point in his duel with Junko.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Miho Nosaka. In chapter 11, Makoto winds up at a charity drive held for her through Sayaka's Idol Group because Miho died several years ago and the group is raising money for her family. Chapter 45 reveals that Miho is Not Quite Dead and in a bone chilling twist has Gone Mad From The Isolation and become 100% Yandere for Tristan. She even ends up succeeding in kidnapping him.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Junko when it comes to dueling, but given her despair fetish, that's probably to be expected. Exaggerated when dueling Chiaki by making the hologram system at its most solidified so that the damage feels as real as possible.
• Confusion Fu: How Celeste starts her duel with Yugi. And boy does it come to bite her in the ass several times throughout the duel.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: At the end of the Orichalcos arc, Yukizome makes Hiyoko clean the entire classroom as comeuppance for her Face–Heel Turn...with a toothbrush.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Ishizu has been relying on her Millennium Necklace for so long that it's dulled her dueling instincts. As such, her composure becomes much more shaken if she's forced to go without it. Such as when going against Makoto, whose luck wrecks havoc with its future sight.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Several examples:
  • The very first duel is like this. Despite losing almost half her life points, Chiaki has complete control of her duel with Leon every step of the way.
  • Celeste defeats one of Marik's Rare Hunters in only two turns.
  • Ibuki Vs Natsumi plays out like this, with Ibuki barely getting a scratch, despite the duel going a few rounds.
  • Andrew from Duel Links gets utterly floored by Nagito in one turn. How? Nagito summons Exodia.
  • Sonia wastes Yasuhiro in one move by summoning three monsters in one turn to his one with no trap cards or quick-play spells on his side of the field.
  • Zigfried is on the giving end of this trope during his very first on-screen duel.
  • Vivian Wong gets FTKed by Junko during the first round of the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix.
• Curse Cut Short: From Joey's duel with Ibuki:
  Ibuki: Ibuki's gonna put away her snake for something that's gonna blow you out of the water, or blow you back. I guess you could call it a blow—
  Joey: Just play the card!
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Peko loses her cool demeanor to coo over Joey's fluffy Scapegoats, as well as other fluffy monsters that get summoned to the field during duels.
  • In Chapter 51, both Ibuki and Komaru start squeeing over the sight of Yugi's Kuriboh + Multiply combo.

Tropes D — H

• Death by Adaptation:
  • Odion courtesy of a Despair-converted Ishizu in Chapter 61.
  • Weevil too by virtue of being thrown from a train without a soul and his body tumbling down a hill during Chapter 75.
  • And then there's Zigfried getting shot in the head in Chapter 125. Unsurprisingly, Junko has been at the heart of each of these incidents.
  • Ryota Mitarai's corpse, having likely overworked himself and died of natural causes, is discovered at the end of Chapter 133. Word of God confirmed for once Junko wasn't involved.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Chapter 14 ends with Ibuki becoming friends with Yugi's friends...as well as possibly developing a crush on Joey.
  • Subverted in Chapter 20 with Celeste. Just as it looks like she is enjoying her duel with Joey and having fun dueling someone whose luck is on par with hers, she then calls for the Rare Hunters to kidnap him and practically sells him out to Marik.
    • This comes up again in Chapter 26 when, after rescuing Joey and Yugi from Marik's death trap, Joey reaches out to try and befriend Celeste, but she just gives him his owed reward from his victory over her in their duel and denies his request of friendship, deciding to head off on her own.
    • Celeste is very hard to read as she might finally be coming around after losing to Yugi in Chapter 30, but she's very...erm...complex. Did we mention she's hard to read?
  • Mai comes to respect Sonia after their duel in Chapter 25. It also serves as a Continuity Nod for Mai, who, in Duelist Kingdom would've rubbed her victory in Sonia's face, but here she's respectful for someone who nearly took her down.
• Demographic-Dissonant Crossover: While it does occasionally dabble in darker themes, Yu-Gi-Oh! is still a Shonen-series aimed at boys and young teens. Danganronpa on the other hand is clearly aimed at far more mature audiences.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Yugi of all people is treated this way for the first portion of Battle City. In 14 chapters, he's only appeared twice. Once to give Joey a pep talk, and the other was to gaze up at the Five Headed Dragon. Justified in that none of his duels are different from canon, so the author isn't showcasing them. In addition to that, his role in dueling Noah in the Virtual World is instead filled in by Makoto.
  • Junko for the first part of the series. See Put on a Bus below.
  • In a bizarre way, the Big 5 also get this treatment. While they are still a major threat, their duels/appearances are usually left to the sidelines to make way for the additional storylines. Escalates further in Chapter 47 when Noah simply deletes the Big Five's (along with Emma, Kemo and Hobson's) minds thus removing Yugi and Joey's duel against all of the Big Five entirely.
    • Gansley and Leichter suffer from this the most because while Crump, Johnson and Nezbitt at least get feature duels, they merely get defeated off-screen by Yugi and Kaiba respectively due to their duels remaining the same as in canon.
• Determinator:
  • Chiaki has a case of this in Chapter 28 when she duels in Yami Bakura's shadow game. By the end of the duel she can barely stand, having been electrocuted, bitten and knocked around, and absolutely refuses to bow to Bakura's will using The Power of Friendship to draw one last card and summon her favorite monster to win the duel and save Hajime. She also shows this throughout the Virtual World arc where she goes through think and thin to save Hajime from the Kamukura project.
• Determined Expression: Done most notably by Joey in Chapter 14 where he's staring down Ibuki's Blowback Dragon and Twin-Barrel Dragon with zero monsters on the field and only two trap cards the reader doesn't know the identity of.
  • Mai and Sonia both have these sported during various parts of their duel to show how much they're unwilling to yield to their foe. Sonia Exaggerates it at the end where she stands completely still and doesn't flinch when Mai delivers the finishing blow.
• Designated Girl Fight: Given the many, many more female duelists featured in the narrative, the use of this trope was basically inevitable.
• Didn't See That Coming: No one, not the fans, nor even Yami Marik himself saw Sonia's affinity for the occult and her omnilinguistics allowing her to properly summon the Winged Dragon of Ra.
• Double Entendre:
  • Ibuki in Chapter 14 says she polishes Blowback Dragon, a machine-type monster with a large cannon barrel, every night right on the heels of making a blowjob joke.
  • Toko tells Mako to quit his Nice Guy act, she's sure all the attention he's gotten from girls has his weapon harder than a coral reef.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Despite sticking up for Joey at the end of the previous chapter, Chapter 32 shows that Byakuya is pretty bitter about losing to him during the first round of Battle City.
• Dub Name Change: Played straight with the whole Yu-Gi-Oh! cast. Inverted in the case of Slifer the Sky Dragon, who goes by its original name "Osiris" instead.
• Duels Decide Everything: Brought up, subverted, and Played for Laughs in one scene. Upon encountering Genocide Jill, Yugi initially thinks about challenging her to a duel to resolve their situation...only for her to charge at him with scissors. She's a serial killer, after all.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Vellian Crowler appears in Battle City years before he would ever become a teacher at Duel Academy.
• Everyone Can See It: "It" being Kotomi's crush on Mursame. Only the man himself somehow seems oblivious to it and Kotomi is too shy to say it to his face.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Skye, the anime-only dog that's also a millennia old Silver Fang, barks repeatedly at Junko, clearly aware that she's nuttier than a payday. However, none of the present characters are able to discredit Junko's sanity beyond she has the Seal of Orichalcos, but is playing the "I switched sides" card.
• Exact Words: When Genocide Jill angrily calls out Yami for "cheating" in their shadow game, he points out that he only said they had to impale the apple on their partner's head, not throw the scissors into it.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Celeste has this sort of reaction when she realizes how Chiaki got Thunderclap Skywolf into her graveyard.
  • A downplayed reaction of this occurs twice in her duel with Joey where Celeste realizes exactly what Joey has when she's confused by his moves.
• Expy:
  • Eliza Se Arc, who draws heavy inspiration from Erza Scarlet.
  • Class 78's teacher, Homura Takashiro, is based on Chandra.
  • A couple of contenders of the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix also count. Ramona Shibakura is based on Roka Shibasaki, Bianca Bismarck on Bambietta Basterbine, Earl Williams aka "London Kuriboh" is clearly referencing LittleKuriboh and Ace Konami is the Vagabond from Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links also known as Konami-kun in Tag Force.
• Fauxshadowing: A lot of people thought that Odion's duel would be against Hajime given several context clues in the chapter prior. It ended up being Nagito.
• Fish out of Water: How Makoto feels being part of a tournament in the finals with the likes of Yugi, Kaiba, several students from Hope's Peak Academy, and pro-duelists like Mai and Byakuya.
• Flat "What": How Marik responds when Celeste proposes the idea of marrying him in exchange for helping him acquire all three god cards.
• Foreshadowing: In the prologue, Chihiro notes that Yugi and what he worked on are connected somehow. In chapter 1, It's revealed that Chihiro helped program an AI that helped expand the amount of duelists in Battle City.
  • In chapter 40, the courtroom Celeste duels Johnson in is redesigned from canon to resemble the one in the first game.
  • Chapter 41 puts Joey on a tropical island resembling Jabberwock Island.
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • Chapter 17 doesn't have a duel. Instead, it has a throwback to Season 0 where Yami challenges Genocide Jill to a shadow game effectively erasing Genocide Jill from the plot and we're quite a ways off from the events of the School Life of Mutual Killing.
  • Chapter 82 forgoes a standard duel against Dartz, in favor of Yami, Joey, Kaiba, Hajime, Yukizome, Mai, and Sonia pitting their monsters against Dartz's Orichalcos minions in an RPG-esque battle. However a standard duel is still set up at the end of the chapter between Dartz and Yukizome.
• Friendship Denial: Kaiba is this way towards Chiaki, even though pretty much everyone can agree the two of them are friends.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Joey is shaping into a heroic example of this, at least from Kaiba's perspective. Thanks to his duel with Celeste, Joey has his hands on one of the most powerful cards in the game The Wicked Dreadroot as well as several other powerful cards from his other duels in Battle City. It makes his spoils of war from canon look positively cute by comparison.
• Fusion Fic: Many Danganronpa and Yu-Gi-Oh elements are blended together to form this fic's background.
  • Kaiba is attending Hope's Peak as the Ultimate Duelist and helps them stay afloat with his funding
  • Chihiro is attending Kaiba Corp as an intern, which is beneficial for both—working with them has allowed him to develop his AI technology, and he's helped them develop several top projects, including the Battle City tournament itself.
  • The Togami Corporation's technology advances directly played a part in Kaiba Corporation's rise to fame.
• Genius Bonus: Discussed in Chapter 43. Kaiba compares himself to the French actor Paul Mounet and likens Monokuma to a teratoma. Monokuma remarks both times that most of the audience won't get the joke.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Happens with high amounts of frequency, usually towards Joey when the pressure gets too much for him, especially during the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix. Hajime, prior to becoming an Ultimate, also frequently needed a pep talk.
• Gilligan Cut:
  • After losing to Joey, Fuyuhiko tells him that with how lucky he is, he should duel Nagito. Joey asks how lucky Nagito is, and the fic cuts to a duel and Nagito drawing all five cards of Exodia on his first turn.
  • After Byakuya defeats Hobson, he claims that he is the only one true Byakuya Togami. The fic then cuts to the Ultimate Imposter sneezing.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Chiaki and Hajime engage in this in the conclusion of the Orichalcos arc.
• Graceful Loser: Chiaki's duel with Kaiba ends with Chiaki smiling in spite of the fact that she gets direct attacked by Obelisk.
  • Hajime's second duel with Joey ends this way with Hajime silently congratulating Joey.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Gundham Vs Espa is mostly one-sided in Gundham's favor until Espa decides he wants to be more like Gundham and joins in the spectacle.
• Handicapped Badass: Downplayed example. For his duel with Weevil, Nagito, removes Exodia from his deck to show what he's capable of without it, proclaiming he doesn't need Exodia to beat Weevil. He's right.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Celeste seems to be giving heavy consideration to becoming a Rare Hunter in Chapter 4, promising to take out Joey Wheeler to further hers and Marik's deal. She follows through with this in Chapter 20, then turns around and helps Tea and Mokuba escape in Chapter 22, pretends to switch back to Marik's side after, and then reveals she was only in it for rare cards and to secretly test Yugi, and had no intentions of hurting anyone. Her loss in the finals in Chapter 31 seems to seal her working for the heroes, though.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Joey defeats Ibuki by using Graverobber to summon the very monster she'd been using to beat him down all duel long.
  • Joey uses this trope with Graverobber again in his duel with Byakuya to use the very same spell card Byakuya just used to prevent Joey from losing the duel altogether.
  • An interesting case in Marik's duel with Sonia. Sonia uses Pot of Exchange to pull the Winged Dragon of Ra from his deck and proceeds to summon it since she is actually able to read Ancient Egyptian. However, Marik then uses Dimensional Wall to redirect the damage Sonia inflicts with the attack right back at her and since Ra originally belonged to him, it's hard to say whose petard was used to for the hoisting here.

Tropes I — P

• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Nekomaru suffers from this trope, his heart condition preventing him from getting involved in highly intense duels with the hologram system is active due to the strain it and the tension of any given high stakes duel puts on his heart. He's a pretty competent duelist without the handicap as shown when he wins a classroom tournament that had eliminated Battle City contest, Fuyuhiko as his opponent in the finals.
• Identity Amnesia: Yugi in the prologue.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Ibuki decides to almost invoke this trope after beating Natsumi if the blonde continued to act like a sad puppy.
• Irony: Ibuki saying that Duel Monsters is "just a game" when the entire plot hinges on Megalomaniacs and Machiavellian schemers using the game to their own twisted ends in an Absurdly High-Stakes Game.
• Insult Backfire: Bandit Keith calls Celeste a "princess" as a derogatory statement when he duels her during the Canadian Nationals arc. Celeste takes the comment literally, referring to her desire to have a castle of vampire butlers.
• Insult to Rocks: Hiyoko's line in Chapter 19:
  Hiyoko: (to Akane) You eat like a voracious boar! No, I take it back, pigs have better table manners!
  • Joey calls Marik a slime ball in Chapter 34. Celeste tells him that saying such will make slime balls everywhere feel insulted by comparison.
• Knight of Cerebus: Junko. As the summary says; "Rated M due to profanity, Junko, sexual themes, Junko, heavy drama, Junko, nightmarish imagery, and did I mention Junko?"
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Subverted during Joey's duel with Fuyuhiko. Just as Joey is about to display an example of this trope, Yugi appears and gives him a quick pep talk.
• Large Ham: Gundham, to the point that some of his lines are in ALL CAPITALS.
  • Kaiba and Yami also count as per canon, but Gundham really just Exaggerates it.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • While she does read/watch a lot of manga and anime, Komaru telling Makoto that if he finds his own rival he can star in one may be referencing the fact that he's the protagonist of the first game and Danganronpa 3. Not that Makoto has a rival in either appearance, but it's close enough.
  • Komaru is also confused when the Yu-Gi-Oh characters start discussing Egyptian God Cards, commenting that it feels like there's a huge, ongoing story they got thrown in the middle of. This actually works on two levels—the first is the obvious one, but the second is that while some Danganronpa characters have been involved in that plotline, Komaru, Makoto, Hajime, and Chiaki haven't^note though the last two did briefly fight Rare Hunters and run into a shadow duel.
• Lemony Narrator: The narration tends to get rather snarky and humorous.
• Love Triangle: Three currently exist in the fic and they're all type 3:
  • Junko and Tea are competing for the affections of Yugi and Yami.
  • Celeste and Mai have it out for Joey.
  • Sayaka and Mukuro, the newest to the fray, are trying to get in Makoto's pants.
• The Magic Poker Equation: Just like the anime, this is done to make duels more exciting. Nagito Exaggerates this during his first duel where He draws all five pieces of Exodia on his first turn.
  • Using Pot of Exchange is never recommended to take a gamble in a duel, but in chapter 33, Sonia uses it to draw Marik's god card the Winged Dragon of Ra, allowing her to summon it with knowledge of Ancient Egyptian, thanks to her virtue of being a princess.
• Metaphorgotten:
  • Eliza tries to compliment Hajime after their duel, talking about how today's trial by fire will seem but a campfire with marshmallows by comparison because as everyone knows marshmallows are far more delicious when you win. He can just blink in confusion.
  • Ibuki has a hilarious case of this in chapter 20:
  Ibuki: It's like the Kobayashi Maru! No matter what he does it's a no-win scenario! Joey! You should've just blown it up when you had the chance, now you're against an adaptive A.I that'll counter your every move until you and your crew are completely dead and floating adrift in space like frozen dessert treats!
• Modern AU Fic: Due to the nature of the crossover, the Yu-Gi-Oh! side of things fall into this. The original Yu-Gi-Oh! hints that the story takes place at around the mid to late 90s. Meanwhile however the time period in which this fic begins based on what has been give out in Danganronpa canon implies that this fic is set at around either the 2010s.
• Mood Whiplash: The (relatively) light-hearted Grand Prix arc ends with Mikan and the Imposter discovering Ryota's dead body, and the subsequent funeral.
• Mundane Made Awesome: While the duels themselves always qualify, special mention has to be given to the fighting game tournament finals between Chiaki and Eliza.
• Mundane Solution: While it's ambiguous if Gundham knew how Espa was cheating, or if he truly believes in his Hell imbued powers, the way he held his hand and the positioning of his hamsters on his body made it impossible for Espa's brothers to spy on him.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Leon winds up being the very first opponent in the story's run, likely referencing the fact that he's the first killer in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.
  • When meeting Byakuya Togami, Nagito comments that he swears he's seen him before, only way fatter, referencing his classmate the Ultimate Imposter, who does wear Byakuya's appearance in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
  • Mai mentions going to middle school with an alumni of Hope's Peak, who loved to wrestle but had a big heart.
  • Chiaki's injuries during her Shadow Duel with Bakura are very reminiscent of her injuries received during Side:Despair Episode 10.
  • Monokuma makes a joke about his wife being a salmon.
  • During Chiaki's Get A Hold Of Yourself Man speech to Kaiba, she mentions underground casinos and shock collars, referencing the illegal dueling rings in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Fridge Brilliance kicks in since it's referencing Zane Truesdale, who was one of the three Kaiba expies (the other two being Chazz and Aster) in GX.
  • After their Face Heel Turns Nagito and Gundham duel Chiaki and Nekomaru into submission respectively, likely reflecting the killer/victim relationship they have in canon. Bonus points is that Nagito didn't want to take Chiaki's soul, just as how in canon he wanted her to be the sole survivor.
  • The Orichalcos arc takes careful note that Mai could be standing in Natsumi's shoes if not for the Power of Friendship.
• No Kill like Overkill:
  • Nagito Lampshades this trope when he uses Skull Dice on Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth and brings its attack power down to 700 after summoning Garlandolf King of Destruction and powering it up with Inspiration.
  • The Winged Dragon of Ra is summoned with 7,700 attack points in Chapter 33 and proceeds to destroy a monster in attack position with only 500. ...yeah.
  • Makoto of all people delivers this unto Noah by raising Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon's Attack to 13,000. Noah's monster only had 2,200 attack points. Even worse/better, Makoto didn't even need to boost it that high, he could have gotten away with just casting Megamorph on it (which would have doubled it to 9,000 attack, more than enough to wipe out Noah's 4,350 life points). He just did because Noah messed with his sister.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: While "nemesis" might not be the proper word for it, Mukuro is certainly this to any would-be opponent of hers. She foregoes the cheesy one-liners and flourishing hand gestures, keeping her body still and speaking rather robotically of abilities activating. Makoto even tells her she can afford to loosen up a little.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Ibuki. She may act carefree and ditzy, but she's one heck of a duelist. Even Yugi's Grandpa notes her skill.
• Official Couple: Thus far, Hajime and Chiaki.
• Oh, Crap!: Joey, Yugi, Kaiba and even Marik all have this reaction when The Five Headed Dragon takes to the skies during Hajime's duel against Marik's Rare Hunters.
  • Yami Marik of all people has this reaction when Sonia reveals she can actually read Ancient Egyptian.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted as of the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix arc, which introduces Leon Wilson into the story on top of the already existing Leon Kuwata.
• Only Friend: Whether Kaiba admits it or not, Chiaki is this for him.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Used several times. When the nice characters like Makoto and Chiaki get angry, you know they're angry.
• Orwellian Retcon:
  • Chapter 63 originally had Chiaki telling Hajime "I don't feel so good", when losing her soul to the Orichalcos. Fans found that this ruined the intended impact of the scene and the author ended up removing the line.
  • A portion of the duel between Joey and Gundham in Chapter 120 needed to be rewritten due to an oversight by the author. In detail, at one point he forgot to have Joey sacrifice his last Lamb Token for his Panther Warrior to attack, with that same Lamb then playing an integral role in the following turns. At least he managed to include an additional friendship moment in the fixed version.
• Pass the Popcorn: Virtually everyone who spectates the canon Yugi vs. Kaiba duel in Chapter 56 does this in spades. Almost every narration in the chapter describes the characters munching on something in-between their comments and the duel.
• Pet the Dog: Kaiba giving Makoto an autograph after Makoto makes it clear that Kaiba is his personal hero who got him to start playing Duel Monsters since Kaiba isn't that much older than him.
  • In Chapter 34, Kaiba lets someone other than himself hold Obelisk, despite the card belonging to him, Chihiro. Granted, it was for a very good reason, but this is Kaiba we're talking about.
    • And later that same chapter, when he finds Chihiro covered in soot, he hands Chihiro a towel.
  • Byakuya gives Joey credit where credit is due and defends him when Kaiba calls Joey a talentless hack.
• Poe's Law: Espa Roba is thoroughly baffled by Gundham during their first encounter, and is unable to tell if Gundham fell for his phony psychic act or not, and also can't tell if Gundham is putting on a similar act or if he genuinely believes he has real powers. He ultimately chooses to believe that Gundham saw through his act but chose to play along for the sake of entertaining the crowd, which inspires him to give up his cheating ways. Which is Entertainingly Wrong, of course. This is Gundham we're talking about. Ironically, both of their powers would later become real, with Espa having developed genuine psychic abilities by his next appearance and Gundham able to summon the Four Dark Devas in their "true forms" with some Shadow Game assistance.
• Power Creep: Subverted. While there are several cards and archetypes included in the fic that weren't around during the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series (such as First of the Dragons, Blaze Fenix, the Burning Bombardment Bird, Red-Eyes Slash Dragon, Thunder Dragons Colossus and Titan, Frightfurs, and even the infamous Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon), many of which have effects and support that far outclasses anything from canon, the duels are never decided via the actual card game meta.
• The Power of Friendship:
  • It's much less overwhelming than the series proper, but it's there. Chapter 25 has Mai of all people use it, thinking about Joey as she duels Sonia, wondering if his dumb luck rubbed off on her a little.
  • However, where this trope has truly shined, so far, is in Chapter 28 when Chiaki is literally dying on the ground against Bakura's Shadow Game and hallucinates all of her friends telling her to stand up and stand she does! It's implied that, thanks to this trope, she didn't have to look at Monster Reborn to know she drew it. Her friends helped her draw it.
  • This is actually discussed and utilized—and depending on your interpretation weaponized—during the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix, with characters being bolstered by their strong bonds from friends and family to reach ludicrous amounts of determination and will.
• Purple Prose: Typically done by Gundham, as per his character's charm
  Gundham: (about to flip a coin) I decree that the wings of destruction shall land face-up.
  Hifumi: Uhhhh...
  Gundham: (annoyed) I call tails.
• Put on a Bus: With the cast rotating around every so often, this is bound to happen.
  • Junko had made all of two appearances in the story during the first arc: briefly in chapter 1 to kick things off and in Chapters 22 and 23 sequentially. This trope gets invoked in the author's notes of 23 that Junko won't be returning to the story until after Battle City was over.
    • The bus has unfortunately come back in Junko's case and Word of God is that she's not getting another bus trip until her time as the Big Bad has concluded.
  • Gundham sits out during the Virtual World arc, up until Chapter 49 towards its conclusion.
  • Makoto, Byakuya and Celeste are absent during the Orichalcos arc.

Tropes Q — S

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Nagito delivers this to Weevil, telling him he's even less than a stepping stone. Ouch, Nagito, ouch.
  • Kyosuke, Chisa, and Kaiba deliver a huge one to the Steering Committee in Chapter 59, ripping them apart for the immorality of deceiving, manipulating, and planning to experiment on a human boy. Then they blackmail them into canceling the Kamukura Project immediately.
• Refuge in Audacity: Attempted by Chiaki only to be defied by Yukizome in chapter 93. Chiaki turns out to be pregnant with Hajime's baby as per the events of chapter 85 and when Yukizome asks Chiaki what was she thinking that sleeping with Hajime could have no consequences, Chiaki's response is "video game logic?". Yukizome's expression makes it clear that she's having none of Chiaki's shenanigans. And the cherry on top is that even Chiaki doesn't seem entirely convinced of her attempted use of this trope.
• Relationship Upgrade: Hajime and Chiaki have theirs at the end of the Battle City arc.
• Screw Destiny: A recurring theme with the Danganronpa characters as per canon. Unlike the Yu-Gi-Oh characters specifically ones with Ancient Egyptian ties like Yugi, Bakura or Marik who go by the idea that destiny is inevitable, the Danganronpa characters instead choose to try and oppose threats far beyond their level no matter what others may say.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Played straight at first in Chapter 34, only to be subverted later. Gundham quotes the trope verbatim after his Attack! Attack! Attack! strategy has lost him most of his life points. It works at first, but Mai forces him back into battle with Shadow of Eyes. Fortunately, by that point, Gundham was in a position to unsheathe his sword once more.
• Ship Tease: Already the series has hinted at Ibuki, Mai and Celestia with Joey, Sayaka and Mukuro with Makoto, Gundham and Sonia, and Chiaki and Hajime.
  • There's actually a little bit of this between Asahina and Yugi in the prologue.
  • Some see Celeste's speech at the end of chapter 30 to be this towards both Yugi and Joey.
  • As per canon, Chisa and Kyosuke have plenty of this which also overlaps with their Official Couple status.
  • By the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix arc Celeste is using Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon in her otherwise purely vampire-focused deck. She even notes herself how much it stands out, though the reason why it's in should be very obvious.
  • Starting with the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix, Kaiba seems to be getting this with Mikan.
• Ship Sinking: Chapter 59 sinks Joey/Ibuki when she declares she only sees him as a brother.
• Shotgun Wedding: What Hajime marrying Chiaki, even though it's by choice, basically amounts to with Yukizome threatening him and all.
• Shout-Out: The author is quite fond of dropping references and shout-outs wherever he can. They can be found here.
• Shown Their Work: Draconichero shows great competency when adhering to the rules of Duel Monsters to make exciting duels that feel less like the series' constant Deus ex Machina and more what you would see in a highly intense pro-duel when players are drawing the cards they need to fight the good fight. Occasionally, the story slips into anime logic, but it doesn't detract from the duel quality at all.
  • During the Orichalcos arc, a keen reader can notice that you can follow parts of Chapter 77 and 78 using Google maps. The locations and streets used in the story actually exist.
• Shower of Angst: Mahiru has one after she's briefly sent and rescued from the Shadow Realm.
• Slasher Smile: Junko's smile when she thanks Makoto for their duel is very disturbing. Komaru even thinks to herself that she's seen less frightening ones on clowns.
• Sore Loser:
  • In contrast to most duelists in the canon, Natsumi takes it pretty hard when Ibuki beats her.
  • Byakuya is often this given his ego.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Because they encounter Hajime and Chiaki instead of Bakura; Bonz, Syd and Zygor avoid their canonical fates of being sent to the Shadow Realm.
  • Noah also survives his canonical fate of being deleted alongside Gozaburo and his Virtual World, instead his data is salvaged by Chihiro and now resides in his laptop like Alter Ego and eventually Kaiba Corp's database.
  • Natsumi Kuzuryu. In canon, she dies during the Twilight Syndrome incident by Sato's hands. In this story, she survives her encounter with Sato albeit at the cost of making a Deal with the Devil with Dartz and joining the Orichalcos.
    • Sato herself also survives her canonical death.
  • Meta-wise, Rafael's younger sister Sonia who died in the original version of the anime is live and well in this story, due to her being a Composite Character with Sonia Nevermind.
• Spoofed with Their Own Words: Yugi and Kaiba's duel in Battle City keeps all of the cheesy dialogue from canon, which results in many of the spectators making fun of it relentlessly.
• Story Arc: Just like in a typical Shonen the author neatly divides the story into several story arcs. He usually even announces beginning and end of an arc in the Author's Notes. Those arcs are:
  • "Battle City Arc" (Chapters 1 - 37) — Several characters from Danganronpa enter the Battle City Tournament. Joey faces off against a gauntlet of Ultimates as Hajime and Chiaki get embroiled in Marik's schemes. All while Celeste plays both sides.
  • "Virtual World Arc" (Chapters 38 - 50) — The Battle City Finals get interrupted as Noah Kaiba forces the participants into his virtual world, aiming to prove his superiority over his brother and regain a body to enter the real world. But he's working with more than just the Big Five. The Steering Committee has decided: It's time for their Ultimate Hope to be born.
  • "Battle City Finals Arc" (Chapters 51 - 61) — With Marik's dark side unleashed, it's a desperate scramble to stop him and the strongest Egyptian God. As Yami Yugi is convinced that it is his destiny to stop the evil, the students of Hope's Peak, both current and future, refuse to stand aside. Who can stop the menace?
  • "Orichalcos Arc" (Chapters 62 - 85) — In the aftermath of Battle City, Dartz makes his move. As the Atlantean prepares to summon the Great Leviathan, several students of Hope's Peak fall under his sway. Ancient legacies are revealed, but another disaster looms. Junko Enoshima personally enters the fray. Can the heroes stop the power of the Orichalcos? Or will Ultimate Despair prove to be the greater threat?
  • "Canadian Nationals Arc" (Chapters 86 - 92) — In an effort to improve his understanding of the Heart of the Cards, Byakuya brings Joey and Mai to the Canadian National Duel Monsters Tournament. With Celestia joining as well, all the competitors have their own reasons to enter, to win. In a tournament with neither King of Games nor an Ultimate Duelist, it's anyone's game.
  • "Despair Arc Part 1" (Chapters 93 - 100) — While Hope's Peak prepares to welcome the next class of Ultimates and reserve course students, Chiaki and Hajime plan, and don't plan, the next steps in their relationship. Junko also schemes her own next steps and, as Kaiba gets the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix ready, she wants in.
  • "Kaiba Corp Grand Prix Arc" (Chapters 101 - 133) — It is time for the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix, with a duel against the King of Games as prize! To make the event as big as possible, Kaiba has invited some of the best duelists from across the globe. Are the Ultimates deserving of their titles? Or can others prove that being an Ultimate is not the be-all, end-all?
  • "Despair Arc Part 2" (Chapters 134 - 137) — Disappearances among the Reserve Course rock Hope's Peak Academy. In the aftermath, Celeste grapples with the question of who she wants to be and whether or not that will get her what she wants. All the while, Monaca Towa worms her way into Kaiba Corp, exposing the company’s lingering darkness.
  • "Falsebound Kingdom Arc" (Chapter 138 - ?)
• Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: Gundham invokes this trope by name when having Twin-Headed Wolf destroy Giga Tech Wolf.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Hajime's duel with Espa goes this route when Espa uses equip-type spells to make a Jinzo archetype monster have 6100 attack points. Hajime summons his Blackland Void Dragon and then equips it with Horn of the Unicorn, bringing its attack value to 6800.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Nagito referring to Weevil's hope as "puny" causes the latter to explode in a rage, screaming that "It's not puny! Nothing I have is puny!"

Tropes T — Z

• Take That!: Ibuki's nice subtle jab at 4kids' infamous censorship in the Yu-Gi-Oh! dub by mentioning Invisible Guns.
• Taken for Granite: As in canon, Noah turns Mokuba and Kaiba to stone after beating the latter in a duel. However, he also starts turning Makoto's friends to stone during their duel, going from Ibuki to Mai to Komaru. Also as in canon, they revert once he's defeated.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • In Chapter 32, Yami Marik tries sending Celeste to the shadow realm, but Mahiru unwittingly jumps in front of the attack.
  • In Chapter 50, Nagito sends his Deckmaster to intercept an attack that would have defeated Chiaki.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In Chapter 11, Makoto worries Sayaka might have Meteorain face-down. No guesses for what happens next.
  • Invoked by Celeste in Chapter 20, who deliberately challenges Joey to, in her own words "surprise her" because she's enjoying their duel far too much and wants to see his luck counter hers again and again, even if, as noted by Marik, potentially losing the duel.
  • During his second duel with Joey, Hajime remarks that he was half worried Joey was about to attack him directly with Queen's Double for game. This is how Joey eventually beats him during Sudden Death.
• This Cannot Be!:
  • Byakuya and Celeste both have this reaction when they lose for the first time in the fanfic.
  • Yami Bakura gets an extra helping of this in Chapter 28 when Chiaki stands against him after almost being taken by the shadow realm and summons Thunderclap Skywolf to take out the rest of his life points.
  • Quoted verbatum by Celeste when she realizes that Yugi's about to summon his Egyptian God Card.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Yugi's determination to go through with dueling Celeste instead of Yami, despite the risks involved, because he wants to prove that he doesn't need Yami to win duels for him.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Nagito exclaims this after Dark Marik sends Sonia to the Shadow Realm, as he is acting out of pure malice and despair.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Duel Links' Bella wins a duel that Makoto and Komaru are observing. Given she has self-confidence issues, it's a bit heartwarming to see, especially when she goes over and hugs her mommy.
  • In Chapter 60, Yugi and Joey duel for the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. On the final turn, Joey attacks Yugi directly who had Kuriboh in his hands. By discarding Kuriboh, you can negate all damage that turn. However, Yugi, feeling Joey has proven himself, decided not to and let Joey win.
• Tournament Arc: This is a Yu-Gi-Oh! crossover, of course there is one. Multiple in fact. As of writing we have the canon Battle City and Kaiba Corp Grand Prix arcs, as well as the original Canadian Nationals tournament arc.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: After a chance encounter while in disguise and realizing her feelings for Joey, Celeste has him meet Taeko Yasuhiro a few more times to see if they could actually be together without any of their previous misconceptions. It goes a bit too well with Celeste quickly growing jealous of her hated persona.
• Underestimating Badassery: Rex sees Makoto as a walk in the park, only to wind up losing to him. Byakuya initially sees Makoto as this, only to amend that statement when Makoto's luck and deck prove interesting to him.
  • Fuyuhiko sees Joey as this during Battle City since Joey doesn't have his Red-Eyes. He, Peko, and Ibuki all learn that Joey is more than just a rare card.
• Unexpected Character: To say no one expected Espa Roba to make it to the tournament finals would be an understatement.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Yugi sees Monokuma as this in the prologue.
  • Chiaki finds Bakura's life and death shadow game far more threatening than his Dark Sanctuary, saying that Silent Hill is far scarier.
• Unstoppable Rage: Gundham in Chapter 34, due to Sonia being stuck in the Shadow Realm via Marik. Mai gives him a pep talk to snap him out of it and he's better now.
• Villainous Breakdown: Weevil goes completely catatonic after suffering humiliation at the hands of Nagito.
• Villainous Rescue: Junko rescues the heroes from being attacked by Dartz's monsters. While the heroes don't know she's a villain yet, the reader sure does.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: In-Universe. Kaiba Corp hologram technology is commented on as being very impressive, and the fic's descriptions more than do that reputation justice.
• Waxing Lyrical: Ibuki borrows a line from Alice Cooper's Poison during her duel with Joey.
  • Earlier in Chapter 6, Makoto's closing internal monologue quotes a line from the anime's opening.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 17: Genocide Jill is erased from the plot by being sealed in the Shadow Realm and we're nowhere close to reaching The School Life of Mutual Killing. This is a huge game changer, no pun intended.
  • Chapter 42. Hajime duels Kazuo Tengan (though he doesn't know it) as The Stern Mystic and a representative of the Steering Committee, for his freedom from the Kamukura Project...and loses. With that, his mind is whisked away so the project can start early.
  • Chapter 45. Chisa informs Chiaki, Nagito, Ibuki, and everyone else about the Kamukura Project. For those familiar with Danganronpa canon, this is a huge game changer for the fic going forward by virtue of this act alone.
  • Chapter 57. Three words: Hajime. Defeats. Marik.
  • Chapter 59 has several wham moments that throw a huge curveball towards the rest of the story. On the Yu-Gi-Oh side, Kaiba finally ends up sealing the God Cards away instead of leaving them to Yugi as per canon. But this is especially huge in terms of the Danganronpa side of the story: The Kamukura Project is shut down, thanks to Kaiba, Chisa and Kyosuke's efforts, the Ultimate Duelist title is now officially made to be an annual thing (with the slight mention that Yugi is a possible canditate meaning he might be able to join Hope's Peak in the future), and most importantly: Hajime is put on the Main Course under said title, thus finally dropping his Reserve Course status.
  • Chapter 61 is probably the most prime example of this fic, for it pushes the overall setting of the fic down to a darker level: Too summarize: The Ishtar siblings get captured by Junko which results in Junko physically, emotionally and sexually torturing Ishizu into becoming a Remnant of Despair, having the newly Despair-converted Ishizu kill Odion in cold blood, and worst of all; using all of these to push Marik past an even worse Despair Event Horizon causing his dark half to return as he and Junko start teaming up to bring despair onto the world.
  • It seems Chapter 17 is not the only chapter willing to sabotage the status quo. Chapter 62 completely shoots canon in the foot by having the tables turn on Sato's fateful encounter with Natsumi. Natsumi not only survives being hit on the head by making a deal with Dartz she also turns around and steals Sato's soul. While Sato will likely come back and Dartz will inevitably be defeated there is no guarantee that another murder attempt will be made on Natsumi, thereby completely removing Case 2 of the sequel from the picture entirely.
  • Chapter 75...whoo boy. Yami using Berserker Soul on Weevil is one of the most iconic moments of the Orichalcos arc in the anime. Since Tea isn't there to calm Yami down, Junko ends up egging him on to the point of Yami ending up killing Weevil in the process, making him the second fatality among named characters in Junko's path of bloodshed and still not by her hand directly.
• Wham Line:
  • In the Prologue:
    Mysterious Girl: My name is Mukuro Ikusaba, Fenrir 1st Branch, Second Battalion of Alpha Pack. I am Hope's Peak Academy's Ultimate Soldier!
  • In Chapter 33, most of the readers can see the Foregone Conclusion of Marik defeating Sonia in their duel. The reason this is spoiler tagged is since, inevitably, when Ra is summoned in Sphere Mode by his opponent, and Marik says that only those that can read Ancient Egyptian can summon it, the response he gets is, "Oh, I love Ancient Egyptian!" At that point it became possible for Marik to actually lose. Unfortunately he was one step ahead of the game having planted a just in case trap card with Dimensional Wall.
  • Chapter 41 does this in only two words. "Monokuma appears!"
  • The end of chapter 67:
    Sonia to Rafael: Big Brother?!
  • Chapter 93, Chiaki asks this question to Hajime:
    Chiaki: So… Remember that night a few months ago after that whole thing with the Orichalcos?
    Hajime: Of course I do, I… [realizes what she means] Wait! Are you saying that—
    Chiaki: Yeah. Mikan had me run four tests in a row. They all came back positive.
  • Serenity reveals during Chapter 95 that she's going to be attending Hope's Peak as a reserve course student, which was so shock inducing, it sent the fans into a frenzy.
  • At the end of chapter 96, Yugi states that he'll be attending Hope's Peak Academy
  • "Izuru, is annoying" When Chiaki is saying this about her own son, there is a big problem. Luckily, it gets solved right away...to an extent.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Deconstructed with Season 0's Miho Nosaka who is explained as not being in the story by suffering a fatal car crash while still in middle school. Turns out she's not as dead as we all thought.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Fuyuhiko is the only person to try this in the entire story, opting to ignore everyone's first instinct to play a children's card game. If not for Nagito's luck, he might've actually shot Dartz.
• Wild Card: Celeste of all people. Even Marik can't figure out what side she's on. For the first portion of the story, this is hilariously subverted for Nagito, who is mostly acting in the interest of the protagonists, and himself and hasn't yet decided he'll help Marik in any way the way Celeste directly helped Marik kidnap Joey and Tea.
  • Starting with chapter 30 she might slowly be cementing herself as a good guy or may start to fall under the heading of Good All Along. Only time will tell.
• William Telling: Yami challenges Genocide Jack to a Shadow Game where they take turns trying to hit an apple balanced on their respective alternate personality's head with a pair of Jack's scissors. The two rules are: 1) If you miss, your target must move further away from you. 2) If you pass your turn, your target gets to move closer to you. Jack repeatedly misses thanks to Toko's skittishness while Yami merely passes his turn repeatedly until Yugi is close enough for him to just reach over and stab the apple. After all, there was no rule saying the scissors had to be thrown, just that you had to use them to hit the apple.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Gundham sees Espa Roba as this, drawing upon his deluded powers forged in Hell in order to beat him. He also views Sonia in this light, delightedly awaiting the chance to duel her and not holding back.
  • While initially slating Makoto as not worth his time, Byakuya amends that statement after seeing him duel Sweet Orchard, saying that he believes Makoto would provide him with a challenge, but Makoto would still lose to him.
    • This is turned back onto him in chapter 16 where Kaiba sees him as not worth his time, but comes to the conclusion later that Byakuya makes a worthy adversary.
  • By the end of their duel, it's clear Celeste sees Joey as this.
  • Mai views Sonia this way as after their duel.
  • Chiaki is the only other duelist that Kaiba has any respect for other than Yugi, and the only other duelist besides Yugi capable of pushing him to his limits. Some serious close calls during their duel in Chapter 37.
    • On the subject of Chiaki, while she's largely a case of Fun Personified, she really enjoys meeting examples of this trope, which, in addition to the above, also now include Makoto, Hajime and Joey.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Rex sees Makoto as his Warm-Up Boss, not realizing that Makoto is the protagonist of this tale, so Rex is doomed from the start.
• Xanatos Gambit: Whoo boy, here we go. After helping Marik catch Joey in Chapter 20, Celeste then springs forth Tea and Mokuba from being captured in Chapter 22 and is present when Marik springs his trap to make Joey and Yugi duel in Chapter 26. By pretending that she has a control switch for the anchor rather than what she's really holding—an EMP grenade—she's able to force the match forward without Tea's participation in Marik's plan. And this is all a huge set up so that she can see if Yugi values his friends more than he values victory. And, if the timer ran out, she could always disable the anchor herself and be seen as the hero, even if she contributed to the current situation in the first place. And, as the cherry on top, every interaction she's had with Marik, she's so far been able to get away scot-free.
  • Celeste pulls another one in Chapter 30. She coerces Yugi into dueling her instead of Yami using pretty solid logic for a normal person that believes and understands what the Millennium Puzzle does for him and isn't exactly his friend. If she wins the duel, well that's good for her clout and ego as she advances to the next round. If she loses, Yugi makes it clear that, whether it's him or Yami in the driver's seat, they aren't to be taken lightly. Unsurprisingly, Yugi beats her and that suits her just fine.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: How Tea sees Joey losing to Chiaki. After coming so far in the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix, having him lose when the duel was a hair's breath from victory—both duelists had less than 200LP remaining—and having previously overcome Hajime, even she has to agree with Junko that Joey losing to Hajime would've made the pain of this hurt less because his victory over Hajime gave her that hope.
• You Remind Me of X: Yugi in the prologue finds Byakuya, Mondo and Asahina to remind him of people he knows. Which would reflect as Kaiba, Joey, and Tea respectively.
  • Additionally, Asahina sees Yugi as reminding her a little of her little brother.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Played for Laughs. Both Marik and Byakuya are unnerved by Nagito paying them compliments, with the former even sputtering that he's nothing like Nagito.