A Duel With No Stakes
In a big theater room in an empty casino that belonged to the Kaiba corporation, a single wooden table had been set up, and two young men were standing on either side of it with intense looks in their eyes.
"Kaiba!" Yugi yelled, probably a little too dramatically, out as he took the card given to him and brandished it in his hand. "I hit and summon the Ace of Clubs!" He slapped the card down on the table alongside his other cards. "That gives me a perfect twenty-one! Kaiba, your move!"
Kaiba closed his eyes and crossed his arms. Then his eyes opened again and fixed Yugi in their cold gaze. "Yugi, I know you've been cheating. Before this round started, while you were chatting with your friends, I removed all the aces from the deck!" He slipped the four aces out from his sleeve and brandished them.
"What a cheap trick to pull!" Yugi chastised. "Didn't you know that would never keep the King of Games from winning?"
Kaiba smirked. "I knew all along you would try to make some lame argument like this. That's why I brought a panel of judges. You had no idea they were observing your every move, just waiting for you to break the rules. If you won't listen to me, then let's hear what they have to say!"
Yugi grinned. "It was a good plan, Kaiba. But I anticipated it! I handpicked every last one of your judges!"
"What? No!"
When the curtain on the stage lifted, the four people sitting around the judges' table were Yugi's friends: Joey, Tristan, Téa, and Bakura.
"So, what did you think judges?" Yugi asked with a smirk.
Joey leaned one knee on the table and slammed his fist down. "I didn't see nothin'! Just keep playing the game, Kaiba!"
"Yeah! Go Yugi!" Téa cheered.
"I say! We're judges, so at least pretend to be impartial!" Bakura scolded.
Just as Yugi started to chuckle, Tristan's face slammed down on the table, shocking everyone. Very pale and with a weak voice, Tristan said, "Guys, don't drink the coffee."
Kaiba smiled and laughed. "You see, Yugi? I anticipated you would try to fill my judges' board with your friends, so I poisoned all of them. You've lost at last!"
"What? Noooo!" One by one, Yugi's friends collapsed as they fell victim to the poison. "How could you, Kaiba? Over a friendly game of blackjack with no stakes whatsoever?"
"That's where you're wrong, Yugi! I've staked everything on this game! My reputation, my career, and my life. You've ruined all of them by constantly beating me! But now I've won! I'll get it all back!"
Yugi's eyes widened. "You're insane, Kaiba!"
"Am I?" Kaiba's grinned and his eyes flashed with triumph.
Yugi hesitated, uncertain of what to do. But fortune was on his side. The door to the room was thrown open, and there stood Kaiba's kid brother. "Mokuba!" Yugi cried out.
"Yugi! I'm on your side this time. He's clearly lost it!" Mokuba yelled back.
"So you got it then?"
Mokuba nodded. "Yeah. The antidote. I couldn't just let your friends die over a stupid game."
"It's not a stupid game!" Yugi and Kaiba yelled at once.
"Er…," Mokuba said, surprised by the scolding. "The antidote, then." He rushed to the judge's table to administer the medicine.
"Betrayed by my own family. I guess I've got no choice but to use my trump card," said Kaiba.
"What are you going to do, Kaiba? Stand on a ledge and try to get the other me worried that you'll die again? It won't work, Kaiba! You've lost! This is the last round and I've got twenty-one! Now draw and lose already!"
"That's where you're wrong, Yugi! If you lose this round, we'll have to play another as a tiebreaker! Now draw another card and bust!" As he spoke, Kaiba pulled a revolver out of his coat pocket and pointed the muzzle at Yugi.
Yugi exhaled. "Very well. It seems I have no choice." He drew another card and threw it on the table. His sum went to twenty-nine, and he busted.
"But technically, Yugi already stayed, right. So my brother just broke the rules," said Mokuba, pondering the situation.
"That's where you're wrong!" Joey said, having been roused from his unconsciousness. "Technically, Yugi never said he stayed, according to the rules. He just said, 'your move'."
"Sounds like a really lousy excuse, but if you want to take my brother's side at such a crucial moment, I guess that's your problem."
"Of course I'm takin' his side!" Joey yelled at Mokuba. "He's got a gun! G-U-N, gun! And he's already shown he has no problem with getting rid of all of us!"
"You heard the judge, Yugi!" Kaiba said with a sinister grin. "Now, time for the next round."
Yugi reached his hand out to the deck, but, perhaps sensing his doubt, the deck moved out of his reach. "No!" he thought. "I've got to believe in the heart of the cards. I can still win this game!"
"Are you done spacing out? You almost made me forget it was my turn to deal." Kaiba asked. It turned out that it was he who had snatched the deck away from Yugi, not the cosmological force that guides the course of card games. Kaiba dealt Yugi his two cards for the round.
Yugi got two sevens. Kaiba's showing card was a king. "If Kaiba's facedown is a five or higher, then he's got the better hand. But if I hit and get anything larger than a seven, I'll bust and everything will be over!"
"It's your move, Yugi." Kaiba raised the gun and added, "Don't think I'm going to give you time to think. Make your move now."
"I have no choice! Hit!"
The card Yugi drew shocked everyone, including Yugi. They all stared in awe and held their breath for a full thirty seconds. "Impossible! What's that doing in there?" Kaiba said. As he gaped at the miracle that had happened, he lowered the angle of the gun by a few degrees. The card Yugi had drawn was the joker.
Yugi grinned. "A joker can become any card I want, Kaiba. And I think I know which one I'll pick!"
"No, not that one!"
"That's right, Kaiba! I choose Dark Magician!"
"What the… Dark Magician?" Kaiba was completely flabbergasted at Yugi's choice.
The Dark Magician's card manifested in Yugi's hand and when he slapped it down onto the table, Dark Magician itself materialized. "Dark Magician, Dark Magic Attack!" Dark Magician pointed its staff at Kaiba's hand and blasted him with the attack. The force of the blast knocked the revolver out of Kaiba's hand and sent it flying across the room.
"Alright, Yugi!" Joey cheered.
"What just happened?" Kaiba said, baffled by the sudden appearance of Dark Magician.
"What's happened, is I won!" Yugi said, showing Kaiba the five Exodia cards he had in his hand.
"But when did he draw all of Exodia? Impossible!" Kaiba roared.
"Exodia! Obliterate!" Yugi cried out.
Exodia appeared and shot a bright ray of light at Kaiba. As Kaiba was enshrouded in the blinding light, he screamed in horror. "Noooo!" He was thrown against the wall and knocked unconscious.
This gave Yugi plenty of time to peek at Kaiba's card and see that it was a nine. "I'll need a six or a seven! Heart of the cards, don't fail me now!" Yugi drew a card and slapped it down on the table. When he pulled back his palm, it was revealed to be a seven. "Twenty-one, Kaiba! I win!"
"That's garbage. I saw you place that on top of the deck!" Mokuba declared.
"Excuse me, Mokuba, but you're not a judge." Yugi nodded at the judges table and everyone still conscious after the epileptic light show Yugi had put on turned their attention there and waited with bated breath. Téa and Bakura were just awakening, so there was only one judge who had been conscious during Yugi's draw.
Joey slammed his feet down onto the table, crossed his arms, and proclaimed, "I-didn't-see-nothin'!"
Yugi chuckled. "Looks like this game is over. Let's go home, guys. Joey, grab Tristan since he's still sleeping."
"Sure thing, Yugi!" Joey hoisted Tristan's arm over his shoulder to support him. "Don't you go boneless on me, Tristan!" Joey chastised.
"He must have drunk a lot of coffee," Téa said concernedly.
"Indeed," Bakura said.
The four of them left Mokuba to clean up his big bro, who was still sprawled on the floor, but was beginning to come around.
"What happened, Mokuba? Did I win?"
"Uh… Yeah. You did. Now let's get back to managing your billion dollar business before it goes bankrupt. I had a great new idea for the game that I call synchro-summoning. I think it'll keep the card game fresh, plus it'll bring people back to buy more cards since they won't be able to compete with their old decks."
But Kaiba wasn't listening to Mokuba's prattle; As Mokuba spoke, he erupted into maniacal laughter, and he went on laughing for a very long time.