You'll probably hate me for categorizing this as a DM/5Ds crossover when the only character is Seto Kaiba. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for plaguing the GX and 5Ds categories with a minor and/or non-present character. I've done this to GX once before and I could have done it this time but I chose DM instead. I hope nobody minds too much. Also you should probably know that while I am working on watching 5Ds, I'm not very far into it, and if they ever say anything that contradicts what I say here, I don't know about it yet. So I'm sorry if this goes against canon, though I doubt that it does because this is pretty non specific. I am also aware that an authors note with nothing but negative things to say probably doesn't make you confident that my story will be worth reading. But please do. I would smile. Oh, how I would smile.
He thought of it a long time ago, but he forgot about it completely after a few preliminary sketches and the realization that the technology required for something like that was so far from being developed that even considering it for the next few years would be completely implausible. He remembered again when it only took him a few months to advance from the prototype to the first fully functional and mass-marketable Duel Disk. And, with the idea fresh in his mind, his soul burned with passion and the absolute need to invent it somehow. After a few days of drafting, though, he found he still wasn't sure how to do something like that, and he dropped the idea again. He was still pretty excited about his latest achievement, and he could live off that elation at least until Battle City was over.
After remembering it the second time, every so often it would pop up again, taunting him with its awesomeness and its improbability. It was most definitely a good idea, of this he had had no doubt, but it wasn't necessarily an idea anyone else would agree to indulge him in. As the CEO, he was the ultimate authority in design and manufacturing, but he couldn't completely disregard what anyone else had to say if he wanted to maintain a full staff. The mayor of Domino City had agreed to let him borrow the city for his tournament, but only reluctantly and after a lengthy calculation of how much money they would make off of tourists and how much they wouldn't lose if KaibaCorp was willing to pay rent. Participation in the tournament had been greater than expected, and no doubt Duel Monsters was already extremely popular amongst people of all demographics, but it was still at that point a marginalized children's game, and the more fancy technology invented for the sole purpose of enjoying it, the more skeptics complained about capitalism run wild and encouragement of anti-social nerd behavior and video games ruining today's youth. Of course, Duel Monsters is an inherently social game because you can't play it without at least one other person, but people said what they wanted without thinking and there was nothing that could be done about it.
Anyway, because of this backlash, he couldn't just go ahead and put out whatever he wanted. To a certain extent yes, he could, but there was a limit that he was aware of and he didn't want to push it. He didn't want to jump the gun and start producing crazy niche merchandise in an already niche market before he could describe it by using the word niche at most once in a single sentence. Duel Monsters had to reach the point where it was so popular that it was as iconic an entertainment as board games or television before he could do something like that. So every time he remembered his idea, he would suppress it, knowing the time wasn't right but wishing it was, because no matter how ridiculous it would seem to stupid adults and boring children, to him it was monumentally awesome. Sometimes he thought it was cooler than his Battle Ship.
And eventually it did reach that level of popularity, but the first thing he did when that happened was found a school on an active volcano, because that other idea had been filed away in the attic bookshelf of his thoughts and he hadn't considered it for years at that point. The creation of Duel Academy had taken a long time and a lot of work, because his educational background consisted of a few years of elementary school, the shittiest home school program ever, and two years of high school, and as a result he barely understood how school felt to a student, let alone how an administration runs one. Because of this he had had to hire people to consult him on how to do everything, and working with other people saps his energy much faster than working alone, so he had no time or brain capacity to produce anything besides updates to previous technologies. So he released a few more versions of the Duel Disk, created more sophisticated Duel Tables and Duel Arenas and reformatted and reprogrammed and all kinds of things, but until the school had been running for long enough to graduate at least five classes he didn't even consider actually inventing anything. But as soon as he reached that point he thought of it again, and finally it seemed even remotely feasible.
Once he had the time he went everywhere he thought they might be and found all of his old sketches and drafts and pored over them until he thought of a way to build a suitable prototype, which he would test himself against a computer before releasing a more user-friendly version available only on closed courses to people with licenses at Kaiba Land locations and nowhere else. Almost no one could use them, but people loved watching them, and Kaiba Land ended up hiring people as performers instead of opening it to the public like every other Duel Arena on location. Soon, though, enough of the audience over a certain age started getting permits and begging to be able to join that he had to open it up to anyone and everyone who was willing to sign a release form. Duel Monsters was too popular to comprehend at this point, and it barely took a year before someone started a new Professional League and stadiums worldwide were either modified to accommodate it or built completely from scratch for it. And he was not at all surprised by the speed at which it grew in popularity because everything he touches turns to gold and he may as well rule the world at this point for how much he's done and how much he's appreciated for it and how much money he makes despite how little money he demands for his services and how he's almost eliminated the concept of physical violence from everyday life and how he did all this with a totally inconsequential game that made him happy when he was a little boy which was only popular in another country. And he hopes things stay this way because no matter how he presents himself he's quite the humanitarian and only wants the best for everyone and if his "childish" idea of fun is what makes people happy then he's perfectly satisfied to keep doing it forever and ever and no amount of protest from ignorant morons can convince him it's stupid because even if it seems silly it's still done what it has and that can only be a good thing.
In no way is Kaiba anything but one hundred percent happy with the invention of the D-Wheel.
~And then 5Ds happens.
Thank you for your readership. Have a nice day, whether it includes reviewing this story or going to look at my other stories or not. I AM NOT UNSUBTLY SUGGESTING ANYTHING, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.