Disclaimer: I don't own either Batman Beyond or Yu-Gi-Oh. I wrote this as a gift for Willow, since she asked for Ryuuji/Terry slavefic, which is why this is such an AU world.
Twenty Random Facts You May or May Not Know About Ryuuji and Terry.
1. When Terry is born, he tests negative for Ka. That makes him a Second Tier citizen. Ka isn't something that everyone has; those that do are the strong ones, the privileged ones. They are First Tier, and the Sector buzzes with eager anticipation when time comes for the Heir to be birthed. There is no way of telling while a child is still in the womb whether s/he has Ka or not. The mother's body protects her child, and throws the testing off.
2. The Heir's mother dies when he is born. That's a good sign. Powerful children often draw too much energy from their host body during the birthing process for the mother to survive. When the Heir tests positive for Ka (as is practically guaranteed once his mother dies), there's a nation-wide celebration. If he'd tested negative… Well, he couldn't have been the Heir then, could he?
3. Apart from festivals that are held to celebrate the Heir's birthday, every solar cycle, Terry's life as a Second Tier citizen doesn't overlap with the Heir's. Not until he turns fourteen, attempts to break into a hovercraft of a First Tier citizen and is dragged to the Palace for judgment. He'll probably be demoted to a slave, he knows, but cannot help but marvel at the splendor of the building even as he is roughly pulled towards the Chamber of Judgment. First Tier have their Ka stripped from them if they break the law, which demotes them to Second Tier. When Second Tier citizens commit crimes, they are turned into slaves. And for a slave that does not honor the law of the land, there is no punishment left except death.
4. Terry has both his hands fastened in front of him. When the two boys collide, he hits the ground hard, and finds himself being pushed to a side, facing a wall. There's the harsh whisper sound of mage-fire, and then silence. By the time he managed to roll back around, a boy with long dark hair and bright green eyes is standing over two corpses, and turning to look at him with an apologetic smile.
5. Terry doesn't even have time to ask for the boy's name before the younger boy – yes, younger, definitely First Tier from the clothing – is chattering easily, apologizing for having knocked him over, asking him where he's from and what he's doing here, explaining that he was running from an assassin as part of his training exercise and hadn't expected anyone to be in the way, and is sorry that he's knocked Terry down. Terry takes a second to adjust to the First Tier dialect and accent – their words are smoother, faster, with fewer harsh sounds – and then does a double-take. Assassin? Training exercise? Is this one of the Heir's guards or something?
6. What clues Terry in is the dragon tattoo marked on the hollow of the boy's throat. All First Tier have their Ka image tattooed there; to imitate it is death. Whores sometimes paint marks and pretend to be First Tier, for Second Tier that'll get their kicks out of fucking their supposed superiors. The dragon-mark, though – there's only one dragon in the Nation, and that's the Heir. Who he just touched. If there's a punishment worse than death, Terry's sure he's about to encounter it.
7. But the boy keeps cheerfully talking away – his name is Ryuuji, he says, and he asks Terry for his own, which Terry gives in a daze – and somehow, Terry's not sure how, but he ends up agreeing to be the Heir's personal slave. Maybe it's because the Heir isn't anything like what he expected, because the Heir is young, and bratty and charming in an odd way that has more to do with his green, green eyes and endless self-confidence than Terry would like to admit. Or maybe it's just that he knows that otherwise, he'll be sent to the fields to work, and surely a cushy Palace job is better than that.
8. He rethinks that once he realizes that his main duty is to act as a living doll for the Heir, so that he can be used to test out new clothing combinations and makeup without the Heir needing to struggle through all the numerous buckles and buttons that are currently fashionable. It's dull. It's frustrating. Terry almost welcomes the assassins that the Heir's father sends after him because at least watching them get killed is a break from the monotony of being forced to try on outfit after outfit while the spoilt, dangerous child just lounges back and watches as if he has absolutely nothing better to do. Like the homework for his lessons will just do itself while he entertains himself playing dress-up with Terry.
9. Terry is sometimes allowed to accompany Ryuuji to his lessons. He thinks of him as 'Ryuuji' more often than not as the two of them spend more time together because it's hard to think of the boy (he's such a child, only thirteen) as the Heir when he's so much more than just a title. Terry doesn't have enough power to perform spells on the same level as Ryuuji – one of the drawbacks of having no Ka – but he can learn about their Sector's history and all the little countries that used to make up 'Europe'. And the physical defense lessons are the ones he likes best, even though Ryuuji's got the edge over him again due to having trained from childhood. He can't accompany Ryuuji to all the lessons, though, and it's the lessons that he can't come to that make Ryuuji wake up in the night with quiet, sobbing nightmares and phantom pain.
10. He's with Ryuuji when they visit the power plants, and sees the Ka walking the giant treadmills or lining up to electro-charge turbines. Ryuuji asks lots of questions, especially about the wristbands. All citizens of the Nation wear a wristband on their left wrist that draws power from them, enough power to keep everyone's Ka manifest and working, but only a little power from each individual. The only exceptions are the Heir and the Emperor, who can draw power from everyone else and will need every scrap of power possible if they are ever called upon to defend the Sector. Terry's wristband is decorated with little scraps of leather; the metal tag from the gang that he belonged to before was taken from him as evidence. Ryuuji tried to make him change it to something prettier, with gems and gold but Terry refused, told Ryuuji he wouldn't wear it unless Ryuuji wore an identical one. And of course the Heir couldn't endanger himself by doing that, so the conversation ended there.
Terry wonders if Ryuuji is thinking of that argument as he speaks with the workers and asks how it feels to have their Kas 'exploited' like that. He wonders, even more, how many of the workers are spies put in place by Ryuuji's father to watch his Heir's reaction.
When they leave the power plant, Ryuuji is worryingly quiet.
11. That night, he tells Terry with all the heartbreaking confidence of the young and idealistic, "When I grow up, I will change the world."
Terry isn't sure whether to laugh or take him seriously, and they talk late into the night of Lord Seto in the East, who rules the land-known-as-Asia, and Marik-kie of Antartica, and King Bakura of ex-Africa, and Dartz of the ocean, and Pegasus of former-America. All of whom who will still be ruling once Ryuuji comes to power, which will not be long now that his father is sickening so. By the time they fall asleep, Terry still isn't sure if Ryuuji is serious or just amusing himself with a dream.
12. The next day – Ryuuji's fifteen now – Terry is introduced to a woman in her early twenties with blonde curls and an easy laugh, who has steel under the silk of her smile. She's called Mai, and the tattoo at the hollow of her throat is humanoid, of a winged woman warrior. Ryuuji tells Terry gravely that when he grows up, Mai will be the Commander of his Forces. Terry starts to think that Ryuuji is serious, even though Mai's laughing. The next find is Noa, who has a cybernetic human tattooed at the base of his throat – Commander of Communications. Then Rebecca, Supervisor of Technology. After that, Terry takes each introduction in stride, knowing that Ryuuji truly is preparing to wage his own war against the culture that raised him.
13. Once or twice, Terry tries to ask about the First Tier, Second Tier and slave rankings, whether Ryuuji will still keep those. Whether Ryuuji will continue the tradition of splitting apart families by sending First Tier babies to First Tier families, and taking Second Tier babies from First Tier parents to be adopted by other Second Tier humans. There is no such thing as a slave baby. You cannot be born into slavery, and that's about the only good thing that Terry can see of this system that judges people based on the random variable of if they have Ka or not.
Ryuuji never answers; he always finds something else to do.
14. When Ryuuji turns sixteen, he skips celebrating his birthday in favor of preparing for the tri-annual Septirate conference. The world is divided into Sectors, and the ocean is a Sector all to itself. The rulers meet up three times a year and discuss all the important topics – they're all First Tier. Terry's never been taken there before, because Ryuuji and his father always attended together. This year, the Emperor is too ill to go, so Ryuuji chooses to take Terry with him, for moral support, he says. Ryuuji sits in a throne, and Terry kneels on the floor besides him. He keeps his eyes on the grounds but listens to everything that's said, and the feel of Ryuuji's hand stroking through his hair doesn't distract him as much as one might expect.
15. Being dragged on to Ryuuji's lap and kissed with surprising skill, however, has him losing track of everything. He knows what prompted it – King Bakura's comment that Terry should be sent over to him if Ryuuji's not going to make any better use of him than just petting his hair – but he'd been expecting his owner to reply with some of his usual snark, not to give a demonstration of an actual reason to keep Terry with him. And Terry wants to know where Ryuuji learnt to kiss like that, and why Terry wasn't there with him, and most of all, Terry wants Ryuuji to not stop kissing him.
16. Ryuuji stops anyway, because he's human even if he is the Heir, and he needs to breathe. Things aren't ever quite the same after that. Even when the conference is over and the other rulers are gone, Ryuuji doesn't stop touching Terry. He pulls Terry onto his lap during Judgment sessions, hands sliding under the slave's clothes and stripping him bare. He doesn't seem to care who knows that he's dallying with his personal slave, or who sees it. And in public, Terry can't protest because for a slave to be openly disrespectful to the Heir would mean death. In private, in Ryuuji's quarters, he can argue, but when everything is actually happening, Terry has no choice but to tilt his head back, close his eyes and pretend that nobody's watching. Because he doesn't mind what Ryuuji's doing, only that everyone else can see.
17. He tries to ask Ryuuji how Ryuuji would feel if it was him that was naked during those public meetings, since Ryuuji never exposes anything of himself, just strips Terry and plays with his body like Terry really is a living doll, but Ryuuji never answers that question either, just laughs incredulously and pulls Terry to his bed to kiss him properly. Apart from that first time, he never kisses Terry in public, but he'll make Terry come again and again and again, until Terry's sore and begs him to stop. He never makes Terry beg in private though, and he'll kiss Terry then like he could never grow tired of it because Ryuuji's sixteen and in love. When you're sixteen and in love, everything seems simple. Even changing the world.
18. Sometimes, Terry isn't sure that Ryuuji's all that different from his father after all. Ryuuji's ruthless, and dangerous, and arrogant. He gets his own way too often because unlike normal people, he doesn't care what it takes to get what he wants. It's a good thing that Ryuuji hadn't known Terry before they'd met, otherwise Terry would have gotten suspicious about why he got caught, and if Ryuuji had maybe just planned the whole thing as an excuse to get Terry and keep him for himself. He's devious enough, after all, Terry's learnt that much from living with him for the past three years, but Ryuuji isn't quite heartless enough to ignore other people's desires completely as long as they've done nothing against him. Still, it's touch-and-go, and Terry loses himself in how it feels to be touched by the Heir to the Sector and kisses the places on Ryuuji's body that should be scarred but aren't.
19. Ryuuji's father dies in a tragic fire. Nobody believes it was an accident, even though that's what they all say. Ryuuji announces his new Cabinet as soon as he takes power, lining up his beautiful young coterie on a balcony for the people to cheer. Terry is named his Chief Advisor, and Ryuuji kisses the hollow of Terry's throat in public, then notches the skin with a knife. No Ka-mark, because Terry has no Ka but instead, a scar. He announces his new plans to make rank more fluid. To make it possible to earn First Tier status, and to have a scar placed there, magically enhanced to prevent counterfeiting, and to laser off scars of those that fall.
These are the kind of secrets that Terry doesn't mind Ryuuji keeping.
20. Not everyone is happy about the new order. There are lots of protests, mostly from the First Tier, about how Ka-less people can't hold their weight. There are strikes, there are sit-ins, there are plenty of assassination attempts but Ryuuji's stubborn, as Terry well knows, and Terry knows how to get the Second Tier and slaves to fall in line. All Ryuuji has to do is placate the First Tier, and when appeasement doesn't work, call out his Ka and make it quite clear what his upbringing as the Heir taught him. Everything settles down eventually, though not without blood, death and quite a lot of creatively-applied misuse of magic on Ryuuji's part.
And even though this isn't a fairytale, they live happily ever after.
...And the world is changed.
Fin.