The characters and settings of Yu-Gi-Oh belong to Kazuki Takahashi. My story serves in a small way to show my continued admiration for his work. Reaper, Neko-chan, and Bubbles, and their highly unusual, non-cat like abilities are FrenziedPanda7's creations. She has graciously given me permission to use them in this story.
This story is a total crack-fic. I think that any story featuring Reaper and his siblings, by definition, falls into this category. *snerk*
Holiday
Grandpa stretched, as expansively as his morning-tight bones would allow, and took a deep, satisfying pull from his steaming coffee mug. Today was a holiday, he forgot which one. Normally, holidays meant even more work for him in the game shop, as the rest of the world, especially the kids who were his biggest customer base, were off from work and school. This one holiday, even though he always forgot the stated reason, was one of his favorites because it rendered Domino City into a virtual ghost town.
He'd been unprepared the first year. He'd laid in extra stock of his hottest and most briskly moving items against running out. He'd expanded his store hours to make it easier to handle the crowds that normally thronged the game shop during holidays. He'd been utterly shocked when the day came and went and he had not a single customer. The whole day. That had never happened.
The second year, forewarned, he'd toned it down quite a bit. Perhaps his last order before that weekend was a bit more full than usual, but not the extravagant expense of that first year. He kept his normal business hours. Perhaps he fared a bit better as one person did stop in - to use the restroom, but at least he'd seen another human being that day.
After that, he'd put the lesson he'd learned to good use. Like most of the rest of the businesses, he closed entirely for the holiday. It had taken him a few years to accustom himself to it, though. He'd been edgy, certain he'd heard knocking on the door of the game shop even though the door was locked and the closed sign displayed. Year after year he'd learned to let go more and more of his anxiety, until even he could kick back and fully relax with his coffee and breakfast, at the indulgently late hour of 8 o'clock in the morning, on the day of the holiday.
Yugi, predictably, was nowhere to be seen. Undoubtedly, the late-morning (or early-afternoon) riser was still in bed. Grandpa smiled to himself that his grandson would never have to take years to learn to unwind and relax on a holiday that required no work. Something wound itself sinuously around his ankle. The rumble he half-felt/half-heard against his calf could only be...
"Why, hello, Reaper. You must be looking for food." Grandpa looked at the wide, innocent, shining eyes of the kitten, and his heart melted a bit. "That lazy grandson of mine won't be up for hours." He glanced into the corner where the dishes for the cats were set. Sure enough, the food one was empty. He leaned heavily on the table to leverage his body up out of the chair. There were some mornings Grandpa swore his old bones creaked. This was one of them. But, the little one was hungry. How could he sit and eat his breakfast in front of a hungry kitten? That would be cruel. Besides, he suspected with this kitten, if he did something so rude as to eat breakfast in front of him without putting food down for him first, Grandpa might well have to fight him for his breakfast. With how he was feeling this morning, Grandpa wasn't even going to pretend to claim he could win against Reaper, kitten or no. The things he'd seen... Or, thought he'd seen...
Unbeknownst to Grandpa, Yugi wasn't in his bed. No, no. He'd been summoned, even before the sun was up (such hardship!) by a frantic phone call from Jounouchi. He'd barely had time to throw clothes on over his pajamas before opening his window and scurrying down the downspout attached to the side of the building.
He hoped that the spirit of the Puzzle would remain quiescent, and more to the point, quiet, until Yugi had sorted Jou's mess out. Heck with quiet. He hoped the spirit would remain asleep and oblivious to Jou's problem. He really didn't want to hear what his partner would say, otherwise. No such luck.
"So, Yugi," the spirit commenced his disconcerting behavior of fixing his ghostly image before Yugi's eyes so he seemed to be sitting in the air, facing Yugi as Yugi was charging forward (so the spirit seemed to be floating very swiftly backwards) and smirking at him. "Are you ready to agree with me that distributing the kittens the way you did was a very bad idea?"
Yugi clenched his teeth together. "Whatever do you mean, Partner?" He glared daggers at the spirit, who only grinned the deeper at him.
"I will concede that you retained the worst of the litter yourself, which is the only sign of wisdom I've seen regarding these awful beasts. That the one in Kaiba's household is able to retain enough of this strange magic to summon Blue-Eyes at whim is surprising, since magic by all rights should shrivel up and die in Kaiba's presence..."
"I can think of a certain spirit who could use a bit of shriveling up right now," Yugi muttered.
Said spirit affected a hurt air. "Just because..."
"Yes," Yugi interrupted him. "'Just because'. There's nothing more annoying than someone who absolutely has to say 'I told you so'."
"Did I say 'I told you so'?" the spirit demanded.
"All but."
"Well, then. I remain unshriveled." Yugi glared at him some more, while still running full tilt toward Joey's house. "So, what emergency are we racing so fast to get to? You know, normal people tend to run away from danger, and not into it..."
"Danger? If anything, it's just a randomly summoned, slightly confused duel monster or two."
"I didn't mean the duel monsters," the spirit said. "I meant the hellcat."
"Neko-chan is the sweetest of all of them!" Yugi exploded. "If anything, I'm sure it was an accident, or because she was lonely!"
"'Neko-chan' - damn silly name for a cat. Just because it's in another language doesn't mean she didn't name the cat 'Cat'."
Yugi rolled his eyes at his partner. "It could have been worse. She could have named it 'Inu-chan'."
"The beast's name is the least of our worries," the spirit replied darkly.
"That's it! Other Me, just - go back to your soul room! If you aren't going to help..."
"Partner," the spirit said, suddenly all seriousness.
"What!"
"Did I ever say I wasn't going to help?"
"N-no..."
"Still..."
"Other Me, if you say 'I told you so' I swear I'll..."
It took a moment for enough of his consciousness to traverse the great divide and so he knew who summoned him. Whenever his masters summoned him it was swift and total, a mere eye blink of time as his consciousness flickered from the Shadow Realm to here. Whenever the other one summoned him, it was somewhat longer a process. It always took him a moment to gather his awareness - an effect of the less speedy 'travel' time.
Fortunately, whenever the little one summoned him, it wasn't to a life-and-death, or sanity-saving struggle, or even to a friendly, yet still adversarial, duel. Most often it was because the little furry one had managed to upset one or the other of the masters...
No, that wasn't correct. Yugi very rarely got upset at Reaper, and those few times he did, he approached the situation with the lighthearted and balanced acceptance of how the world could sometimes be frustrating - a cheerful sort of optimism. Yugi would never hurt Reaper, no matter what the fuzzy one did - and Reaper well knew it.
His other master, however, was not so indulgently fair-minded toward the kitten. If it were not silly to think of it so, he would even claim that the spirit of the Puzzle and the high-spirited kitten suffered from a fundamental personality conflict, their interactions were so fractious. To the spirit's credit, Dark Magician knew he would never actually hurt the kitten, but Reaper didn't know that.
So, Dark Magician found himself summoned to this world in this slower and more disorienting way for three reasons; Reaper was bored, or hungry, or wanted to be petted, or wanted to play with something he couldn't reach, or... any number of things that appeared critical to a more than curious kitten. Or, Reaper had managed to do something that made him the target of the spirit of the Puzzle's undivided and rather dark attention. Or, Reaper sensed that something - weird - was going on, and wanted Dark Magician to stop it.
Each time he'd been summoned by the kitten, no matter how urgent this situation seemed to the small one, he'd had the moment or two to gather his focus after a momentary disorientation, and take care of whatever situation had prompted the kitten to summon him in the first place. He supposed it might become tedious, being at the magical beck and call of a pet, but the novelty of being able to exist in this world outside of a duel, and in some cases to relax and even share a pot of tea with a friend were compensation enough. If it did become tedious, he might have to devise a way to ignore the call, but that was a problem to be tackled later.
Right now, he had to tackle whatever 'problem' Reaper found distressing enough to summon him.
"So, my littlest master, what seems to be...?" Dark Magician's eyes widened as they focused and he realized what card the crafty feline's front paws rested upon. One of them was on his own card - not surprising as Reaper did have to touch the card to summon his friend. But the other...
"No, Reaper! Don't!" Dark Magician managed to cry out before a massive magic flared in the room.
"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!" Jou called in a high-pitched, wheedling voice. "I've got some tasty tuna for you!" He cupped his hands before him.
"She's too smart to fall for that, big brother," Serenity chided, before her eyes welled with tears again. "Oh, Jounouchi! What am I going to do? What if Neko-chan never comes home?"
"Don't think like that, sis. We'll find your kitty. I just hope Yugi had better luck getting Red-Eyes to go back to bein' two-dimensional than I did!"
Fortunately, Jounouchi's father had taken one look at the Red-Eyes Black Dragon squished in Jou's room, with part of his tail thrashing in the hallway, and promptly passed out. Jou suspected his pop would wake up with a hangover, as the man had been drinking, and chalk the dragon up to an alcoholic hallucination - but only if the dragon were gone by the time his old man woke up.
And, Jou had been panicked enough, and Red-Eyes had been uncomfortable and panicked enough, that neither of them could gather enough focus to return the dragon to his card in the matter-of-fact and simple way that Kaiba had handled his dragon suddenly becoming real.
Yugi didn't understand the problem until after he arrived. After taking a few minutes to assess the situation, and knowing that Red-Eyes was the card of friendship shared between them, Yugi tried to release the distressed dragon back into his card state. And failed.
He wasn't panicked. It should have worked. Heck, if Kaiba could do it...
"Yugi," the spirit appeared.
"Yes? Kinda busy here," Yugi grabbed and stroked Red-Eyes front paw as the poor duel monster struggled again against his odd confinement. Encouraging Jou's dad pass off his weird memory as something to do with alcohol wasn't going to work if there were dragon-shaped divets in the floor, or chunks of ceiling missing.
"Where's Jou? He should be taking care of keeping his dragon quiet."
"Red-Eyes is my dragon, too. Jou's trying to calm Serenity down and find her kitten. She's not having an easy time believing what Neko-chan did, and she's really upset because the kitten got out and ran away when the dragon appeared."
"That's the least of our worries! There's a reason you can't get Red-Eyes to return to his card - it isn't here!"
"Wha-?"
It was true. Even with the dragon obligingly moving aside and letting Yugi check underneath him (a scary prospect, but Yugi trusted Red-Eyes to not squish him) the card was nowhere to be found.
"Now what?"
There was no helping it. He couldn't just sit back and wait for the situation to remedy itself. He'd checked the house thoroughly, and neither of his masters were here. Odd, really, that they had left the deck behind. Even if they weren't anticipating a duel, they usually carried it wherever they went. He wondered what could have happened that they hadn't taken it with them, and he surprised himself by feeling just a little hurt that they hadn't. Shaking himself, he reasoned it was because this predicament would not have occurred if Reaper had not had unsupervised access to his card. Well, there was no helping it. He needed help.
Grandpa had stretched out (at least as far as a man who was only five feet tall can stretch out) on the couch for an after-breakfast nap. His breathing was deep and even, and only a few moments away from turning into a snore.
Something furry jumped up on him.
"Huh? What?" he sat up, instinctively cradling the little kitten-bomb that had blasted away his nap.
"Reaper! What did you do that for? I was dreaming..." Grandpa tried to curl the kitten into a compact ball and tuck him under his arm so he could drop back into his nap, but Reaper was having none of it.
The kitten leaped down from the couch and meered at Grandpa. Insistently.
Grandpa sighed. He knew that tone. He wasn't going to get any rest until he did what the kitten wanted. He hoped he guessed what it was before he woke up fully.
"Sure wish you could tell me what you want," he mumbled.
Twenty minutes later, he found himself in his grandson's room. The kitten's dish didn't need any food, the water dish, even after he'd dumped the water, rinsed the bowl, and refilled it hadn't been what the kitten was after; petting didn't seem to satisfy the beast- If not for knowing that Yugi would kill him if he 'accidentally' left the door to the outside open...
So, now he was here. Oddly enough, Yugi's deck of Duel Monster cards wasn't on his desk, in his case, or even left out on his bed or on his bureau. No, it was scattered across the floor.
'Scattered' wasn't the right term for it. The cards were laid out in a pattern.
"What are you trying to show me, Reaper?" Grandpa murmured. He knew the kitten was preternaturally smart, but this was ridiculous! After studying the way the cards were spread out, and how some of them were grouped together, he thought he had an idea what the kitten wanted him to do - but he didn't understand it. "Should I get Yugi?" For the first time today, Grandpa wondered where his grandson had gotten off to.
"Meoooow!"
That was a 'no'. Grandpa looked at the cards again. He was no fool. He'd seen duel monsters sneaking down the hallway with kittens in their hands, beautiful ghostly dragon-girls (well, just the one, but sometimes in his dreams there were more than one) and other extremely odd things under this very roof ever since his grandson had solved the Millennium Puzzle. He was the one who'd first taught Yugi about the Heart of the Cards. There was no way he was going to try to pretend he didn't believe in magic this late in the game.
"You know you're asking a lot of an old man, don't you?" he glared down at the kitten. He sighed. "There better be a good reason for this. Reaper, I sure hope you know what you are doing. Dark Magician is one thing, indulging you with all you put him through, but this one..." Grandpa shuddered.
"MEER!"
There was no mistaking that utterance, either. "Very well then. I can tell I'm not going to get any rest at all on this holiday!"
He groaned a bit as he bent over to pick up the cards the kitten insisted he play. He passed the tremor in his hand off to his age and his creaking back, but he knew it was a bit of apprehension about the monster he was going to summon.
"Wha...?" Jou looked up from his crouched position peering under a bush to see Yugi's Dark Magician peering down at him. He blinked. The Magician was still there. He blinked again, harder. Nope, still there. There was something so - intent - about Dark Magician's gaze that Jounouchi suddenly recalled his mishap with the Horn of the Unicorn, and the squeaky-hammer (of Doom!) and he worried. A lot.
Hey! Wait a minute! With Yugi doing his best to return Red-Eyes to his card form, who had summoned Dark Magician to roam the streets? Yugi's cat? Jou started to scoff, as he hadn't quite believed Yugi's stories of his cat being such a great duelist, but now, after what had happened with Serenity's kitten and his Red-Eyes...
"D-Dark Magician?" Jou stood up, and found himself bowing to the looming duel monster. "Uhm, I'm not doin' anything bad, I'm looking for my sister's kitten! Er, if you'd like to - help - er, it would be..."
At the continued blue-eyed, disinterested stare, Jou ground to a halt. After an eternity, Dark Magician turned, and floated off.
"That was - weird!" Jounouchi turned from watching Dark Magician float out of sight around the corner of a building, and happened to glance down. "Hey!" He pounced, scooping up Neko-chan in his arms. "We've been looking for you, monster-cat!" Neko-chan protested her sudden loss of freedom, dropping the Red-Eyes Black Dragon card from her mouth as she did so. "Oh! So that's why I couldn't get Red-Eyes to..."
"JOUNOUCHI!" Serenity pounced on him and scooped her kitten from his arms. "You found Neko-chan! You're the best big brother, ever!"
"Yeah, that's not gonna matter if Dad sees a dragon in the house!" Jou shouted. He snagged up the card and took off for the house as fast as he could run. "Follow me at your own pace! I gotta get this card to Yugi!"
Yugi, Other Yugi, and Jounouchi left Serenity cooing baby-talk at her kitten, Jou's dad still passed out from his 'hallucination', and Jou's Red-Eyes Black Dragon, (grateful at returning to being 'just' a card again) along with the rest of his deck, in his pocket.
"You're gonna have to pay attention, and not leave your cards lying around," Yugi said. "I've learned the hard way that Reaper will take every opportunity to summon Dark Magician that he can find. Once I'd taken a bath and forgot to bring a towel with me - when I called Grandpa to bring me one, it was..." Yugi blushed.
"Dark Magician?" Jou guessed.
"Yeah. He said it was not very respectful of me to wake Grandpa just because I'd been forgetful, so he brought me the towel himself. That was embarrassing enough for me to always keep track of my deck since then."
"Yugi?" The spirit of the Puzzle's handsome features twisted in an expression of dawning horror.
"Yes?"
"Where's your deck, now?"
Yugi's hand snaked down to smack against his deck-free right thigh, frantically pat his pockets, and bury themselves in his hair. "Oh, no! I think we left them out on the bed when we left to help Jounouchi with Red-Eyes! They've been out all day!"
Yugi set off for the game shop at a dead run. His panic was strong enough that he managed to beat Jounouchi there, despite being that much shorter than his friend. The shop was still there, it hadn't burned to the ground from an unwisely summoned Hinotoma, for example.
"Doesn't Reaper usually just summon Dark Magician?" Jounouchi asked. "Hey, speakin' of, I saw ol' DM while I was searching for Serenity's kitten. He just sort of glared at me and floated away."
"Wait. Dark Magician was outside?" Yugi grabbed Jou's arms and turned his taller friend to face him. "He knows to never leave the shop!" He tore open the door and pelted up the stairs to the living area above the business. "Grandpa, Grandpa!"
"In here, Yugi. No need to shout!" Grandpa's voice carried from the kitchen.
Yugi dashed through the hall into the kitchen and pulled up short. Grandpa was there. So was the kitten, on the table lapping some pale golden-brown liquid from a saucer. Also, the Magician of Black Chaos sat at the kitchen table, sharing a pot of tea with his grandfather. Yugi's legs gave out and he slumped back against the wall. Once there, he slid down the wall until he sat on the floor. "What - happened?" he asked weakly.
"Your highly foolish, yet undeniably magical, Reaper evidently decided he wanted a holiday," the Magician of Chaos replied.
"Chaos? Uhm...?"
"Oh, not to worry on that score. It was your grandfather who summoned me, at this one's insistence." The Magician of Chaos' hand dropped to stroke along Reaper's back.
"How is that any better?" Jou asked.
The Magician of Chaos grinned at him. "It is not widely known, but Dark Magician and I are related - brothers."
Yugi nodded. He could see it. The Dark Magician was so responsible, kind, and very patient. It made sense, if Chaos were his little...
"When my little brother needs help, I respond."
Yugi's thoughts screeched to a halt. "Oh."
Chaos grinned at him. "You thought he was the elder? Common mistake. I taught him everything he knows - didn't I - little brother?" Chaos smiled sweetly down at the kitten he was still petting. The feline looked up at him, narrowed his eyes, and hissed.
"Now, now, boys! None of that! Now that Yugi's here, perhaps we can figure some way to undo this mess!" Grandpa said.
The surreal scene in front of Yugi suddenly gained a new participant. The spirit of the Puzzle appeared, and the first thing he did was drop his face into his palm. "By all the..." He glared at Yugi. "This situation is impossible! First your cat learns how to summon duel monsters, and teaches his siblings the same annoying trick, and then he learns how to combine cards. To do this, he must have not only combined cards, but changed one of the effects! Who knew the little beast could read?"
Yugi just stared at him, non-comprehendingly.
"Think, Yugi! What card in your deck could have transferred Reaper's misbegotten excuse for a soul with Dark Magician's?"
"Uhm...?" There were no such cards in Yugi's deck. He said so, aloud.
"Exactly. But doesn't that sound suspiciously like the name of a card in your deck? One you use to summon higher level monsters more quickly, when you only have one of the two necessary tributes?"
It dawned on Yugi then. "Soul Exchange? Reaper did this with Soul Exchange?"
"I swear to heavens, Partner, if you smile, if you think this is somehow oh-so-clever of your pet, I'll..."
"BOYS!" Grandpa roared. "Should've had a granddaughter... She'd have been so much easier to deal with..." he muttered. "Look, however it happened, Chaos assures me that right now Reaper is actually Dark Magician. We infer that means Dark Magician is now Reaper, but we can't find him anywhere. Thus far, Dark Magician has not been able to trigger Reaper's card summoning magic, so our hope is that Reaper is also having difficulty using Dark Magician's magic."
"He can float," Jou offered.
"What?" Chaos turned at glared at Jou. Evidently, he knew some of what had been inflicted upon his little brother at this careless duelist's hands for his eyes narrowed dangerously.
Jou gulped. "Yeah, I saw him earlier. He floated up, stared at me, an' floated away again."
"Where?" Chaos demanded.
"Uhm, toward, uhm, the center of town," Jou's eyes widened.
"We've got to find him, and undo this spell, before Reaper learns how to use Dark Magician's magic," Chaos said. "In other words - before it is too late."
Never, in a million years, would Kaiba have ever suspected such a strange assortment of people, creatures, and 'other' would ring his doorbell. He only went to the door himself because the butler's wide-eyed, wild stare assured him it wasn't something as mundane as a kidnapper bold enough to ring the bell summon Mokuba to the door, to then abscond with him, or a simple robber come to steal him blind - no, the only thing that could make one of his staff look like this was something to do with duel monsters. And 'the Heart of the Cards'. And 'magic'. He was right, but he forgot to add something. And 'kittens'.
"Wonderful," was Kaiba's succinct summation when he opened the door and Yugi (and most certainly 'Other Yugi'), his grandfather, and Jounouchi walked in. Words failed him entirely when the Magician of Black Chaos, wearing the smirk to end all smirks, and carrying Yugi's kitten in his arms, floated in after them.
"We're here to see Bubbles," Chaos informed him.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Mokuba's cat? Bubbles?" The Magician of Black Chaos slowed his words down as if he were talking to an idiot.
"I know who you mean, but... Why? Are you going to do something...?" Kaiba didn't particularly like the kitten, or the way he had to be even more careful about his cards now, but Bubbles made Mokuba happy. Anything that made Mokuba happy was good, and he wasn't going to subject her to whatever weird magic and/or animal experiment the crazy-eyed duel monster had in mind.
"We're not going to hurt her, Kaiba," Yugi said. "We need her help!"
"You need my little brother's kitten's help? Just how stupid do you think I am, Mutou?"
"Incredibly stupid, but we don't have time to break it down into words small enough for you to assimilate. We came for the kitten. We aren't going to hurt her - and you are getting in our way," Chaos said, floating up to loom over Kaiba. Against his wishes, Kaiba found himself falling back half a step.
"BOYS!" Yugi's grandpa roared, then started coughing. Jou whacked him on the back to stop the spasm. "All this posturing is wearing me out, and all I'm doing is watching it! Young Kaiba, you have to understand that the Magician of Black Chaos is worried about his younger brother. Surely you can understand that? We need to borrow Bubbles for a little while, so that Chaos can help his brother with a - problem. Once the - problem - is solved, we will bring Bubbles back, unharmed."
Kaiba assessed each of them, in turn. "'Problem'? Clarify."
Yugi's kitten, which had been quiet in Chaos' arms until now, started mewing up a storm. Chaos looked down, his expression softening, and murmured comfortingly at him. Kaiba watched with realization dawning in his eyes. The Magician of Black Chaos, and a kitten who could summon duel monsters, it made... it made...
Nope. It still made no sense whatsoever. "Do you expect me to believe that - that cat - is the Magician of Black Chaos' brother?" Kaiba wheeled on Jou. "This is your lamest prank, ever! How could a duel monster be related to a cat?"
"I'm not related to Reaper, you nimrod! Dark Magician is my younger brother. Reaper, the kitten, exchanged souls with Dark Magician."
Kaiba threw back his head and laughed. "That's even more ridiculous than believing you are related to a cat! You want me to believe the mighty Dark Magician is right now nothing more than a tame house-cat? A kitten, at that?"
"This was foolhardy, Yugi. He's far to limited in mentality to help us." Chaos turned. Something in his expression gave Kaiba pause.
"Wait." He stared into the Magician of Black Chaos' eyes for a long, unblinking moment. He turned and glared at everyone, before reaching out suddenly, scooping Reaper deftly from Chaos' hold, and depositing him in Yugi's arms. "All of you, wait outside. I will speak with the Magician of Black Chaos, big brother to big brother - alone."
"So, how'd ya convince Moneypants to help us?" Jou asked Chaos on the way back to his house. They needed to borrow Serenity's Neko-chan, too.
"If I spoke with you in confidence - would you like me to tell Kaiba the specifics of our conversation?" Chaos replied. "Suffice it to say some feelings transcend differences of human or duel monster and make such distinctions seem - petty."
Jou kicked at the ground. "Nuts! I was hoping for some dirt on Kaiba! Say, what do you need the kittens for, anyway?"
"They are Reaper's siblings. Just as Kaiba rethought his position when our similar relationship was mentioned, we hope that Bubbles and Neko-chan's relationship with their brother will..."
"Wait a minute! You aren't going to hurt 'em to bring Reaper out, are you? Not even threaten them?"
"Of course not!" Chaos snapped. Reaper mewed at Jou with a distinctly feral sound in his throat.
"Just askin'!"
"Jou, we think if we put Bubbles, Neko-chan, and Reaper - well, Dark Magician right now - in the right places, we can use the sibling bond of the cats to triangulate where Dark Magician - er, Reaper - is right now," Yugi explained.
Oh. Hey, that's pretty clever!"
"Why, thank you!" Yugi's grandfather bowed. "As much as I want to watch what's going to happen, these old bones can't just take it. Bring everyone back to the game shop once you've sorted everything out."
"We must. The card we need is there. We only seek to find Reaper - finding him might be the least of our tasks," Chaos replied.
They found him - eventually. The kitten triangulation trick worked to help them narrow down where the kitten-turned-Dark Magician had gotten to, but it was the most heart-wrenchingly lonely, unearthly yowling that pinpointed exactly where he was. Trying to master the magic of the Dark Magician, Reaper had managed to get himself stuck in one of the magic boxes. Sharp, lethal swords hovered with thankfully frozen intent ready to impale the box poor Reaper had gotten himself stuck in.
The Magician of Black Chaos smiled gently, waved mystically at the swords, and they disappeared. A second wave opened the door of the magic box, freeing the frantic kitten from his unwelcome confinement. He fell, shaking, to the ground and tried desperately to curl himself into a tiny ball. He dared to look around, once, cried out a curiously warbling sound, and tried to curl even tighter into himself.
"Poor thing," Yugi's other self murmured.
"Oh? You don't think he got his just deserts for what he's put us through?" Yugi asked.
His partner eyed him coolly. "No one deserves to feel that - alone. Maybe I can be a bit more - understanding. After all, he is still just a kitten, right?"
Chaos knelt, released the kitten-fied Dark Magician from his arms, and reached out to the stricken duel monster Reaper. He managed to make sounds that were suspiciously like mews and purrs while Dark Magician repeatedly stroked his head against what ultimately was his own face trying to offer non-verbal comfort.
Jou walked up, a kitten in his arms. "Look, guys, I'd love to stay and watch how this all plays out, but it's getting late, and I don't want to leave Serenity in the house with my dad by herself any longer. I've probably got a few hours yet, but I don't want her to be alone when he wakes up. I'll catch ya later! Tell me how it all ends!" He waved jauntily and took off.
"When do you think the Magician of Black Chaos learned to speak 'kitten'?" Yugi asked.
"Probably as soon as he learned his younger brother had been turned into one," Yami retorted. "Look, I don't want anything bad to happen to Reaper, and I'm willing to admit perhaps I've been too harsh to the furball, but, we can't have things like this happening, Yugi. We were just lucky that Domino was deserted, today. Just imagine the chaos that could have happened if any of your duel monsters got out on any other day - even if they weren't housing a curious kitten's soul!"
"You called?" Chaos smirked at them as he helped a still shaken appearing 'Dark Magician' over with one arm draped around the other's shoulders. "I'm pretty sure we can undo this and put everyone's souls back where they belong, now. Reaper is very sorry for what he did, and the problems he's caused. He's more than ready to return to how he's supposed to be."
Dark Magician stretched to his full length and heaved a sigh of relief. In the end, Reaper hadn't been able to undo what he'd done - it had been Dark Magician's big brother, bringing his superior magic to bear, that had undone the spell. Dark Magician hoped that one day he'd prove that he was able to take care of himself, but until that day came, it was a relief to know that his big brother, the Magician of Black Chaos, had his back.
Reaper, once he was restored to his normal appearance and nature, refused to leave Dark Magician's arms. He kept reaching his head up to lick Dark Magician's face, or his hand, or his armor - apologizing over and over again for what he'd done.
Chaos had gone to return Bubbles to the Kaiba Estate. He told them he promised Kaiba to return the kitten - personally. As much as Yugi wanted to tag along, how often does one get to see Seto Kaiba confront a fully-present, breathing, non-holographic duel monster? The Magician of Black Chaos' look quelled his request. He felt a twinge of jealousy that he didn't have an older brother to take care of him as Mokuba, Serenity, and now evidently Dark Magician did.
"Who needs an older brother when you've got me?" the spirit of the Puzzle asked. That was true. Yugi would never trade the spirit for something as mundane as an older brother - though, when Chaos returned, Yugi amended the adjective away. There wasn't anything mundane about the Magician of Black Chaos.
"It's been a long day for both of you," Chaos ran his yellow and red-eyed gaze over them. "You should get some sleep."
"B-but...?" Yugi protested weakly. "I can't, uhm, that is, you're still here..."
"Since your grandfather summoned me, I can't leave until he wakes up and releases me. Rather, I could leave, but that would be rude." Chaos smiled indulgently over to the couch where they'd found Grandpa after returning from finding Dark Magician - er, that is, Reaper as the Dark Magician. Grandpa hadn't waken even when Chaos' magic flared through the room exchanging the souls to their proper forms. Grandpa's soft snoring assured all of them that he was okay - just worn out from his non-restful holiday. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to permit Dark Magician to remain active tonight, too? I would like to spend time with my brother discussing - things. And drink some more wonderful tea!"
-end-
Author's note-
First of all, I want to thank FrenziedPanda7 again for permitting me to write a story featuring her Yu-Gi-Oh kittens, Reaper, Neko-chan, and Bubbles. I love her duel kitty stories and it was great fun to write this one. The references to Jounouchi's mishaps with Dark Magician and the Horn of the Unicorn and the Inflatable Hammer are also from her stories.
I have no idea what sort of holiday would empty a town of people instead of fill it with shoppers - maybe everyone spends the day at a nearby lake? I just needed a way for Grandpa to not be tied down to the shop, and the guys to not be tied down with school or saving the world from megalomaniacs, or... You get the idea.