Happy birthday, Seto!
… yeah, I can imagine him scowling at me right about now.
For those of you unaware of the Japanese schooling system: up until sometime after 2000, Japanese students went to school Monday through Friday for a full school day, and a half-day on Saturday, before the half-day was cut. Mokuba is the younger brother of a corporate CEO, so I figure he skips school fairly often to help out at the company, given his personality. At the very least, I figure he's already doing more advanced material and school bores him (his brother is a prodigy, I'd think at least a bit of that intelligence seeped over to him), so he would likely skip Saturday half-days.
And you guys have no idea how difficult it was to write out even little tiny pieces of the children's card game in this story. I don't play the game, and am only familiar because my younger brother taught it to me when I was ten (though I still have a makeshift deck lying around). For the record, I have no idea what the characters would have done with their decks post-canon, so I just relied on cards they used at some point during the series, usually later on. But I did look at the rules, and did all I could to at least make it a legitimate card game (unlike so many of them …). My apologies that there isn't much card game here aside from what's necessary, or for how bad my Duel Monsters strategies are. I write about the characters, not the cards.
For the future, though, a small poll: would you guys prefer me to write only bits and pieces of full duels and summarize the rest, focusing on the essence of things, or try to write out the entire thing, with each monster summon, spell play, etc.? I will soon be writing a very lengthy piece with a number of anticipated duels, so I thought I should ask beforehand.
In any case, this story is fairly general. Who is it about? That's for you to decide. Non-romance, as with almost everything I write - though, as always, you are free to interpret as you wish.
I hope you enjoy this little piece - it's been a long time coming. Please leave a review when you're done!
Ichiban
Isono brought cookies.
He had ordered every single one of them not to say a thing about this day of the year, every year since he had taken over, and none of them ever had. But this year Isono brought cookies. He brought them to the employee lounge—the one Mokuba had convinced Seto to build a few years back—and left them there all morning. He didn't say they were for Seto; he said they were leftover from a party for his wife.
Seto had been there three years ago when Isono completed his divorce.
Mokuba stepped in quietly and took two—chocolate fudge, his favorite—but Seto just stood there in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, until Isono's face was dripping with nervous sweat and the rest of the employees began to avoid the cookies like rotten garbage or the plague.
But on the way back to his office, Seto still caught Mokuba stuffing his second cookie into his mouth, offering a smile in Seto's direction, and walking off to do whatever it was Mokuba did while he was at work.
Seto worked Saturdays, as was the habit that had been drilled into his head. Sundays he only took off if everything was going well. He wondered for the first time in a while as he booted up his office computer if the school had noticed he had stopped attending some time ago, except for rare occasions. It wasn't as if he really needed any of the credits secondary school had to offer, considering Gouzaburou had given him an education that would make even a doctoral student flinch.
One of the ironic perks of all Gouzaburou had put him through, he supposed.
All the others of the group had gone back to school when the break ended, as usual, and right now, they would be in the middle of their half-day. He had bargained with the schools years ago to let Mokuba come in only as needed, back when he had actually thought he might have time to spend with his little brother.
That idea had turned to fairy tale some time ago, and Kaiba Seto was the last person to try to resurrect dead wishes.
The computer was taking longer to boot up than usual. He nudged the monitor with his finger, then gave the actual computer a fair smack with the back of his hand. His KaibaCorp logo wallpaper glowed on the screen. He put a hand to his forehead and wondered if Isono had remembered to buy him new headache medication when he bought the cookies.
A few of his employees had once given the excuse when he found them leaning in their chairs chatting that they needed a few minutes at the beginning of their workday to "get in the flow of things." Three of them had been fired the following week, and the other had become his best secretary. He knew she still believed that one might need a few minutes to "get in the flow," but she never complained, and she never slacked off.
Seto did not take excuses for slacking. Gouzaburou had not taken excuses, and that was one thing that had stayed with him all these years. So the instant his computer stopped freezing every time he tried to adjust the mouse, he re-opened the documents he had left off with yesterday and got straight to work.
All was silent that day. An occasional breeze blew outside, some of them so loud he could hear them through the window—and apparently it was getting colder, as Mokuba had started to bring his thick blue coat to work—but he let it go. Today was the same as any other day. And today, he had reports to file, an email to write to that bulk customer in Germany, budgets to approve, and a very annoying Pegasus to chat with—although that one could probably wait until tomorrow. Seto wasn't particularly in the mood to discuss the latest Industrial Illusions products at the moment.
The clock ticked by on the corner of his screen. Minutes turned into what was about two hours since he had arrived here. He typed and he clicked and he took one or two messages from his secretary to put on tomorrow's to-do list. He didn't pause. He didn't idle. Kaiba Seto was not one to idle.
At ten o'clock on the dot, though, he stopped.
His eyes flicked to the phone on the left side of his desk. He stared at it, and he almost felt like it was staring back at him—which made him want to pinch himself for how ridiculous he sounded. He had a lot of work to do today, and no time to spend just sitting here not getting anything of importance done. He wasn't even finished looking over the budgets.
But he still stared at that phone, and he didn't hold himself back when his hand twitched and lifted from the keyboard, settling so carefully on the receiver.
Seto gave himself a strong internal glare and said that this was no behavior for a corporate CEO. Another part of Seto laughed at him, and said that this was his company, and he would spend his time as he pleased. Besides, if all the employees—and Mokuba—kept insisting that he do something for himself today, he might as well oblige.
He smirked and picked up the phone to the awaiting voice of his secretary.
"Get me the Kame Game Shop."
There was something wrong with him.
Not as if there hadn't always been something wrong with him. Seto rather doubted someone could be born with hair that naturally spiked up in three different colors and not be at least a little out of the ordinary. But he had always been the same Yuugi. Tremendously weird, ever confusing, and with what he had for a long time before defined as a bout of minor multiple-personality disorder. But he was still Yuugi.
This wasn't.
He smiled at all of them, and he smiled at Seto when Seto spoke. He gave them encouraging words and spoke of the future, spoke of where they were all going to go and what they were going to do. He kept that cheerful demeanor, and everyone else smiled with him, and tried to do the same.
But Seto knew. He looked at that boy, and he did not see the Yuugi he had always dueled. Well, assuming the recent events hadn't just been some holographic projector—and he hadn't seen a reason so far to believe they had been—this wasn't the same Yuugi.
The real Yuugi had always been there, though, and he refused to believe otherwise. Part of him, anyway, and he was just going to keep on with his mental organization of the "two" of them being two parts of one. That gentle side had been there bawling over his grandfather when Seto tore up the fourth Blue-Eyes card. Had been there to refuse to beat him when he had threatened to take his own life. Had been there trying to offer Seto that silly friendship, no matter how many times he refused to accept it.
Seto did not see that Yuugi here now.
At least not all the way.
"Are you alright, Kaiba-kun?"
Seto flicked his eyes over to the boy who had apparently taken to walking beside them as they made their way back to the ship. He was still so inconceivably short, at least from Seto's view. His eyes were still big but not quite so innocent. Darkness lined them now, darkness of knowledge and knowledge of pain.
He wanted to punch himself for how ridiculous he was beginning to be.
He scoffed. "Of course I am. Why do you ask?"
Yuugi backed up while still walking, managing to stumble over one of his own feet. "You just seem a little … distracted."
"So do you."
Yuugi chuckled, not quite as nervous as he had once been. "Good point. Sorry for bothering you, Kaiba-kun."
And he walked away to chat with Jounouchi, who a minute later saw fitto shoot Seto a glare.
He looked exactly the same as he had before.
Isono brought him in to the Duel Dome at KaibaLand five minutes before three. He was early, but Seto had still been waiting for twenty minutes on his end of the arena. He strapped on his Duel Disk and shuffled his cards so much that he had likely put them in every possible position by now. He watched the door. He waited for him to arrive.
He slipped his deck into the Disk when Isono pushed open the door and held it for the boy walking in behind him.
He still had that same multi-colored spiky hair and the violet eyes that looked far too big and child-like for someone his age. He still wore that school uniform, though he had slipped on a gray hoodie over his blue jacket, likely to ward off the chilled air outside. The left sleeve was rolled up to carry his Duel Disk on his arm, and he walked with an uncharacteristic mix of confidence and timidity.
But there was still some faint shadow in those ever-innocent eyes. Something that dulled them and took away from the warmth he had always found so terribly naïve. And the big golden artifact that had always hung around his neck was nowhere to be found, his torso seeming somehow small and empty without it.
His lips twitched up into a faint, tiny smile.
"Hello, Kaiba-kun."
Seto crossed his arms and gave him his most scrutinizing look. Yuugi did not flinch. He kept that smile. That strange, tired smile, as if he hadn't slept well for about a month but wasn't about to tell anyone. He didn't wring his hands or fidget or stare off into space. Yuugi met Seto's gaze in full, no fear anywhere in him, not that there had ever been real fear.
But no intimidation. No desire to defend or run, nor that horrendously regal confidence that Seto had gotten used to over all their duels. Just standing there, like he had been invited over for a cup of tea and English muffins.
Seto lowered his eyebrows.
Yuugi's smile changed. "I haven't seen you at school in a while, Kaiba-kun. How have you been?"
Seto stepped forward, once, and then at his usual pace, closing some of the distance between them but stopping while there was still a few meters to cover. He stayed there like something was holding him back, some invisible barrier keeping him from moving any more. He looked at that student who actually looked like a student for once in his life, and he made note of everything that was different.
He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes with the stern look that frightened his employees but did not even make Yuugi blink. "Did you bring the God cards?"
Yuugi straightened himself, and at last that silly smile that had never really been a smile—not that Seto cared if he wanted to plaster a fake grin on his face—faded. He quirked his head, and for a long time, he just looked at Seto like he was waiting to hear something else. He waited, and Seto stood there, looking back at him with that same expression. Never shifting. Yuugi still did not flinch, but at last, he let out a breath Seto could not hear.
He slipped his free hand over to the second belt he still wore strapped around his waist—the one that the gray hoodie did not quite cover—flicked open the odd square pouch that was already well worn out, and fingered the cards within. He did not look at them. He turned his gaze to the ground, but Seto could see he was not looking at the cards. He ran fingers over them, like he had always seemed to believe he could somehow feel them, until at last he reached near the back of the deck and drew out three cards he did not need to flip around for Seto to know.
Those cards were newer than the others, fresher, and less worn. Certainly, that was how he had managed to draw them.
Yuugi nodded, a tiny movement difficult to see from a distance, and Seto allowed himself a very small smirk.
"Good," he nearly muttered, plenty loud for Yuugi to hear. "This would be a pretty boring duel without them."
Yuugi took one step forward, in a motion that reminded Seto of his million ridiculous peace offerings. There was no smile, but the smile was not needed. "Has everything at your company been oka—"
"I called you here for a duel, not tea and cookies. Now are we going to duel or am I just wasting my time?"
Yuugi stared back at him for a moment. That smile of his didn't return, nor did he look particularly surprised. There was some expression on his face Seto didn't care to try to read, nor did he fully believe it could be read, even by the one who wore it. Seto kept his arms crossed over his chest, adjusting to make space for his Duel Disk, and he waited.
Once again, Yuugi sighed, but this time, Seto could make out the sound. It wasn't dramatic, or at least not intentionally, and it brought out no pity in Seto. Yuugi shifted his eyes and shifted the God cards in his palm, as if in one final expression of hesitance.
But he did not walk away—as he well could have done, as Seto was not going to stop him. He just looked at the cards for another moment, let out another gentle breath that seemed so different from the breaths in all the other duels he had fought before, and yet somehow could only be made by him. Seto nearly laughed out loud at how silly he sounded in his own head.
Yuugi slipped his hand again into the pouch on the side of his belt, gathering all his cards into his fingers with an odd tenderness. Not like Seto held his cards, handling them gently and carefully as one should with rare and powerful objects. More like one might cradle a small animal in their palm, and though the movement was slight, Seto saw Yuugi glance at those cards with a fondness Seto found utterly ridiculous.
That short boy with the strange hair and the precious cards slipped his deck into his Duel Disk and met Seto's eyes once again. "Right here, then?"
Seto narrowed his gaze and nodded his head in the direction of the exit without looking away.
"You can go now, Isono." He could practically hear the man flinching and shifting in his spot while still keeping his shoulders uncomfortably stiff. "I'll buzz you when we're done."
"Yes, sir."
The words were curt, and Seto did not need to offer a warning glare before he heard the shuffling and pattering of feet on the hard floor as Isono just about ran out of the arena. The man wasn't particularly intelligent, not in Seto's opinion, but he had seen more than most of his employees. He had seen far too many duels—and worked for Seto for far too long—to not take an order given before a match with Mutou Yuugi seriously.
The door to the dome closed with two beeps, and the two duelists were left in silence, still standing some distance from one another, eyes locked like they had been so many times before, and yet somehow very different.
Yuugi forced his lips into a small smile that still looked disgustingly gentle, even as he held his Duel Disk close to his chest.
"Good luck, Kaiba-kun." The words were silly, and unnecessary, but Seto could tell even though he didn't try that Yuugi meant them.
Seto said nothing. He took his deck of cards in his fingers—the cards hardly worn out, not from lack of use but because of being sealed in an air-tight case when not being played, instead of on shelves in a game shop—and he slipped it into the Duel Disk on his arm with a familiarity he had long come to expect.
He stepped back, far enough to offer plenty of room for the holograms, and the boy across from him, who had always looked far taller and stronger than he really was when placed in a dueling arena, suddenly looked small and feeble. Seto tried very hard to ignore it.
His Duel Disk lit up, Yuugi's following in turn, and Seto stared at the young duelist he knew far too well and gave a tiny nod to himself.
"Now let's see what the King of Games can do."
"May I speak with you for a moment, Mister Kaiba?"
He wanted to remind her not to use such formal addresses. She did not work for him, and no one other than his employees spoke to him like that—even she had dropped the habit for a time and switched to "Seto," which despite its casual tone, he preferred over the formality. It wasn't that he didn't want to be shown the proper respect. But somehow it made him uncomfortable.
He gave a curt nod, and he followed Ishizu as she led him away from where the rest of the group stood talking at the entrance to the airport.
"What are you going to do now?"
He flicked his eyes over to her, and he saw that same woman he had met in the museum all those months ago, and yet also someone tremendously different. She had always irritated him, from the first moment he saw her face on the news and heard her voice over the phone. But even though he still suspected she was at least a little bit crazy—along with the rest of her family, and everyone else who regularly associated with Yuugi—she had always managed to make him listen.
And that, at least, was an accomplishment in itself.
Seto leaned against the nearby wall, and he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. He wasn't sure whether or not it was a conscious effort to make himself look like none of this really mattered. He shrugged.
"Go back to running my company. Same as before."
She paused, and he imagined her giving him one of her looks of thinly veiled disapproval mixed with concern and almost disbelief. "You won't change anything? Anything at all?"
He briefly raised his eyebrows in a sarcastic gesture Mokuba was starting to pick up from him. "Is there a reason I should?"
"You've been through a lot, Seto." She dropped the formality, and he resisted that vague urge to smirk. "There isn't anything you wish to do differently?"
She had always spoken to him as if she somehow knew an infinite amount more than he ever could. She spoke in those respectful tones, always, never breaking them, and that was what made him want to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to quit mocking him.
He just breathed and stared out at the city of Cairo in the distance, and glanced over at the entrance to the airport, where all those crazy people stood with Yuugi—the real Yuugi—and where Yuugi stood trying to smile.
"Nothing."
"Your turn, Yuugi."
There was a sense of déjà vu lingering about him that wouldn't go away, and it mixed in very ugly with the equally blatant sense of unfamiliarity. His feet shifted on the ground of his dueling arena like it had on the platform that day so many months before. When virtual technology was still a new phenomenon and seeing the look on a loser's face had given him much more satisfaction than it did now.
The Duel Disk was suddenly heavy on his arm, and he shifted again and stared out at his opponent across the field.
If Yuugi had been looking at him before, he glanced away just as Seto turned his gaze. Those almost childish—but not so childish, not anymore—eyes focused on his own Duel Disk like there was something odd about it. His right hand lingered over his deck, a finger occasionally brushing the top card but never quite drawing. Seto did not tell him to hurry up.
It all might have reminded him of the many duels they had had before. It all might have seemed just the same. Similar cards. Same people. Same duel.
But it wasn't the same duel.
Not in each move Yuugi made, and not in the blankness of his eyes every time he looked over to glance at Seto's face.
The boy across the arena gripped the top card of his deck and pulled it out.
"I lay one card face down." Card slip into Duel Disk. All familiar. All done so many times that Seto no longer needed to think about it. He watched Yuugi reach again into his hand of cards and lay down another, face up, and the hologram shimmered into being before him. "Then I attack Different Dimension Dragon with my Gremlin."
"Reveal face down card! Tyrant Wing!"
Seto flipped the card without even looking to see if Yuugi had reacted. His voice echoed about the arena, and for a moment, he almost dared to pretend that this really was one of the duels back in the old days. Before everyone was trying to get him to believe in magic and pharaohs and necklaces with ancient power. Back when cards were strength, cards were cards, and Duel Monsters was a game invented by a kooky billionaire with way too much time on his hands.
A game at which only one person had ever been able to defeat him.
"Equipped to my Different Dimension Dragon, it gains four hundred attack points, now stronger than your Gremlin," Seto announced, and his tone suddenly hesitated. He swallowed. He flicked his eyes to the holographic projectors off to the sides, and to the blue-green dragon before him that powered up and flapped its wings in anticipation. So much of him wanted to smirk, just like before. But he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.
The holographic dragon sped forth and burst the bright green imp to pixels that sparkled and vanished before the short boy across the room. Yuugi blinked at his monster as it faded into nothing. He did not gasp. He did not stare. He did not curse or swear retribution. He just stood there, watching as if from halfway across the world. Seto pursed his lips.
"And since the card's effect allows it to attack twice in the same phase, Dragon, attack Silent Magician!"
Yuugi did not even glance over his life point counter as it dropped, ten, fifteen, one hundred, nine hundred points down from its former two thousand. He did not furrow his brow and far-too-obviously strategize, ranting about the heart of the cards and how he had to win for the destiny he had yet to complete.
The life point counter fell, and Yuugi did not move at all.
Seto stared at him with what might have been to others a glare, but was to anyone who knew him his serious look. Yuugi had always stared back at him with the same intensity. But he was quiet now. Almost peaceful, but in a way that made Seto want to cringe. Yuugi reached his fingers all too slowly toward the cards in his left hand.
"I summon Magnet Warrior Alpha in defense mode," he near-whispered. The card slipped into the Disk, and the hologram flickered and appeared. Yuugi stared at it with indifference and calm. "Your turn, Kaiba-kun."
"Stop."
The word seemed to shatter something Seto couldn't determine. That quiet, almost peaceful trance Yuugi had soaked himself in vanished in some incomprehensible instant, and Yuugi's head moved up from his stare toward his Duel Disk with movements slow and face changing.
Yuugi furrowed his eyebrows, and that calm melancholy made way for a strange sort of nervousness that did not suit him as a duelist. He flicked his eyes back and forth, shifting, not standing in that confident and definite stance Seto had grown so used to. His feet stood close together, always moving back and forth, never settling down. He brought his arms closer to his torso like a scared child, and he looked up at Seto as if his height actually mattered to him once again.
"It's your turn, Kaiba-ku—"
"I said stop." Seto did not glare, but he suspected from the way Yuugi took a step back that he did not need to. He dropped the arm with his Duel Disk to his side and pulled in Yuugi's gaze, holding it there, never relenting, never letting go, no matter what odd childish looks Yuugi continued to give. "Stop this, right now."
His tone—or at least it seemed to be his tone—pushed Yuugi back another step. Fearful, though showing no fear, and with nothing of which to be afraid. A tinge of confusion still lingered on his face. "What's wrong, Kai—"
"You know perfectly well 'what's wrong.'"
Seto did not care how much frustration made its way into his own voice. Usually he tried to keep himself calm, composed, as much as he could. He tried to make those words sound commanding and firm. But the emotion slipped its way in, no matter how hard he tried to force it back. He straightened his stance.
"I called you here because I wanted to duel you, not because I wanted you to stand there like a pitiful little puppy and let me have the upper hand."
Yuugi flinched, and though he did not try to do so, Seto could see it far too well.
"Kaiba-kun, I'm not—"
"And don't try to lie."
Seto knew, somewhere deep inside him, the sharpness of his own words. He had never been one to recognize such things, not for a long time, but however much he wanted to deny it, he wasn't the same person he been before. Something had changed. He didn't know what, and he still wasn't certain he approved of it.
But that little part of him that had changed cringed when Yuugi stepped back, and the rest of Seto stepped forward, his eyes narrowing, gaze growing fierce.
"I called Mutou Yuugi to duel me." He straightened himself even as Yuugi curled up across the dueling field, and with his cards away from his fingers, he squeezed his hands into fists he had not meant to make. His eyebrows lowered. "Not some poor kid who just sits around feeling sorry for himself."
The boy standing across from him blinked, much like that kid he had seen across the classroom back when he had actually attended school on a regular basis. The kid who loved playing games and never seemed to see a point in it other than having fun. But the spark in that annoying kid's eyes had faded, and now, there was only that odd sense of anxiety and almost fear. Like a small child backed up against a wall, shutting his eyes against the truth, waiting for the senior twice his size to strike the first blow.
"I called you in for a real duel, not to have you go easy on me," Seto almost shouted. Something boiled within him, memories, memories that were not his own and memories he could never really accept. Memories, expectations, of the only real challenge he had ever faced.
Memories in a life he wasn't entirely sure he had lived, and memories of his life now, and the duels he had fought, and the fierce opponent he had expected.
His fists loosened when Yuugi met his eyes in a pitiful way, but still listening. Like Seto didn't think he had seen him really listen for a long time. Seto let out a breath that somehow felt off. "Don't think I don't keep up with all your paparazzi." Yuugi straightened just a bit, and Seto let his fists go. "It's been over two months. Two months, and you haven't had a single duel."
Yuugi did not step back again, and for some reason, that kept Seto from tightening his fists once more. But the boy still stared back at him with a kind of timidity Seto found disgusting. Yuugi glanced away and curled inward again. Fading, in his own strange way. So unlike the strong duelist he had seen face a near-mirror image of himself in a tomb not all that long before.
"I'm … just a little out of practice, I suppose …"
"You and I both know that's not true, Yuugi," Seto countered, but even though he had willed his voice to be sharp, it wasn't. Not as much. It was harsh and it was, as Mokuba probably would have called it, a little bit mean. But not sharp. He let out another breath, and he looked at Yuugi with the ferocity he imagined that silly replica of himself with a tan might have done. "I watched you earn your title of 'King of Games' with my own eyes. I watched you do it, and I may not think you're completely sane, but you won."
Yuugi, the boy whose innocence was laughable, especially when examined next to his skill, still stared back at him and blinked. He fiddled with his fingers. His cards lay forgotten on the Duel Disk on his arm, as if they had never been there, and as if this was not a duel. At least not a real one.
It was a long moment before Seto took another step forward, though Yuugi did not seem to notice."You have beaten everyone who's come to challenge you, and here you are, flapping around like an injured goldfish!" Ache surfaced within him, and he glared it into the corner of his mind. "If you came here just to let me win, then go home! If you let me win, all you're doing is insulting my pride as a duelist. Insulting me, and him."
The last words had come from somewhere he did not know. They had come without his permission, or even his full knowledge until he heard them echo in his own ears. And until he saw Yuugi freeze perfectly still and those big violet eyes glisten with emotion he no longer tried to hide.
Yuugi stared, and the words settled into the air. The simple, plain facts that Seto was not going to deny.
Seto felt nothing, to a bit of his inner relief, when Yuugi looked at him with those eyes. Eyes so very much like he had given when one of his many opponents took something of his away. Something dear to him, something he had never imagined he could lose. Though somehow, this was different. Seto knew it hurt him. It was very difficult not to see hurt when that small boy felt it.
But Seto pursed his lips and stared Yuugi right in the eyes without a reservation in the world.
"You let me win, and all you do is dishonor his memory." His voice was quieter, but it echoed off the walls and ceiling of the dome, and somehow it didn't sound any less fierce. The faintest of pains resounded in Seto's chest, but when he stared deep into Yuugi's eyes, he forced that away and nodded only to himself. "And I don't think that's what you came here to do. Or was I wrong?"
The silence might have been described by some as deafening. But Seto was a logical person, and he knew silence could not be deafening. It was just silence, and it held as neither Seto nor Yuugi moved for a very long time in the sanctity of the KaibaLand arena. Their Duel Disks remained activated, strapped to their arms as they hung by their sides. Their eyes still locked together, Yuugi's in emotion Seto could not read, and Seto's in a determination he did not understand.
Seto glanced at the cards in his hand and pulled two from the right before slipping them onto the Disk.
"I play two cards face down. Your turn, Yuugi."
He looked at Yuugi, and even though something deep within him still cringed, he looked without a touch of emotion showing on his face. Yuugi had straightened himself, his eyes still wide, still blinking, and his arms still held close to his torso like the child he once had been.
A few moments later, Yuugi let his arms drop, before bringing his Duel Disk up to his chest. He looked at Seto with emotion Seto still could not read, but an emotion he did not need to decipher to understand. Something in Yuugi's eyes shifted, just a twinge, very hard to see from a distance.
But only one more instant passed before Yuugi placed his fingers on his deck with a fondness no one else held and drew another card into his hand.
He didn't meet Seto's eyes for a long time. But Seto decided it did not really matter.
Mokuba had already climbed into the jet, and he waved at Seto through the front window in the Blue-Eyes head. Seto didn't wave back, but his lips twitched into a tiny grin at his little brother so happy.
"I think he is glad this is over, too."
Seto didn't turn his head to look, but he saw out of the corner of his eye the old-fashioned linen and tanned skin step to stand next to him. He shifted his feet, but he did not speak.
Ishizu sighed.
"I know you saw it," came her quiet words. He still didn't meet her eyes. "You saw all of it. You must believe it."
Seto huffed a breath. "Whether or not it was real is hardly a concern now, is it? I'm going on with my own life, just like I told you."
"And your new knowledge of your past?"
"I am Kaiba Seto." His voice grew loud and certain. "I am the CEO of KaibaCorp, and I am one of the most powerful people in the world."
He knew Ishizu was looking at him, though he didn't see it. "And Priest Set?"
Seto's eyes hardened, and he looked up one more time to see his little brother finding himself a proper seat in the front of the jet, waiting for him. Very faintly, he could see that he was smiling.
He nodded to himself.
"Died a long time ago."
Five minutes later he looked out the window himself as Mokuba clicked on his seatbelt beside him. He saw that same woman in the white linen and old-fashioned jewels, staring at him, and watching him as he set to depart. He saw her bow her head in her own expression of respect.
He did not look back.
Yuugi avoided Seto's gaze for a few minutes after that. He drew his cards and he announced them—albeit quietly—and he played them as usual. He stared at the cards like there was something he just couldn't quite face in the direction of his opponent.
Seto picked his latest card from his deck, and he watched Yuugi with eyes never faltering, never glancing away.
It was all very quiet now. Life points had been lost, monsters had been summoned and destroyed, traps had been sprung. Seto was down to his last five hundred, and Yuugi to a hundred and fifty. But Yuugi didn't look at his remaining life points with worry, or even that smug satisfaction he had worn so many times in their past duels when things had seemed hopeless but had been brought back at the last minute.
But Yuugi was paying attention now. He was quiet, but he was watching. Every card Seto laid out, every move Yuugi made himself. Something was different, and that was why Seto did not speak.
The entire field was different now. New monsters, new reverse cards. All except that one card Yuugi had laid quite a few turns before, just before Seto last spoke to him. It had stayed there, even as Yuugi's monsters were attacked and destroyed. If it was a magic card, its effect had yet to be used. If it was a trap, it had yet to be sprung. It sat there, innocent, like it was waiting.
Seto was not going to wait.
He narrowed his eyes and slipped his hand onto the cards on his Disk.
"I sacrifice Blood Vorse and Lord of Dragon to summon my third Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
The dragon emerged. Shimmering, so very close to real, no matter how hard he insisted to himself and everyone else that it was just an image from the projectors. It was just a card.
No amount of strange white-haired girls with powers and dragons riding into the sky could change that. He couldn't let it. What had happened then was then, and this was now. And this was just a card.
He narrowed his eyes like he did so often in the midst of his battles, and he tried to keep himself from smirking. A part of him wanted to. But to another part of him, it still did not feel quite right. Not like he was winning. Just like he was being handed what he wanted on a silver platter. "Next, I active Fusion, to form my Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"
Seto was used to the holograms. He had gotten so used to them that even if a monster roared in his face he wouldn't have flinched. But the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon was always different. It had been different from the beginning. Every time he saw that magnificent beast emerge from the air and cry out with all three of its head into the sky, a thrill he could never fully explain rushed through him.
Like the thrill of victory. But for the first time in so long, he had never been more alive.
It got so much harder not to smirk.
"I've got my ultimate monster on the field, Yuugi, and you've got two." His dragon roared again, and again that thrill, the anticipation of what was to come. "Next turn, I attack, I win."
Yuugi had not broken his gaze the entire time. He looked back at Seto with such unwavering certainty, though not quite confidence, that Seto was almost infuriated by how content he seemed. He looked at the great dragon, and he looked back at Seto, both with a silent admiration.
"You're really good, Kaiba-kun." Yuugi smiled at him, a smile quiet and accepting, and yet somehow reminiscent of the smile he would give those friends of his at the end of a long battle when all was okay and they had finally achieved their goal. "You always were."
Seto scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"Don't give me that. Take your turn."
Yuugi's smile did not fade. It didn't even falter. He nodded, that understanding nod that Seto always found condescending, even as he fingered the cards laid out on his Duel Disk with that affection Seto knew he would never quite be able to understand. His hand slipped to his deck, and he nodded again. "Okay. Draw."
Seto resisted the instinctual action to cross his arms over his chest and give the glare so many of his employees found terrifying. He eyed Yuugi with precision as he drew his card and slipped it into one of the empty spaces on his Disk.
"I activate Treasure from Heaven. Both of us draw until—"
"I know what it means," Seto snapped. Again, Yuugi did not flinch, and Seto could have sworn he almost saw him laugh.
But Seto did not yell as a little part of him wanted to. He drew his three extra cards just as Yuugi added his own, one by one until he had six, each with a care like he was handling a dear friend. His eyes were still soft, that smile still there. Infuriating, in a way. But also, for some reason Seto could not quite define, it seemed right.
Yuugi slipped his hand again to the Disk and finally touched that card that had lain face down on the field for so many turns that both of them had lost count. Something in Seto sparked, his old rival instinct, the anticipation for the unknown. He almost smirked. Almost, but not quite.
A moment passed, and Yuugi flipped the card.
"Now I activate my reverse card, Raise the Dead, to bring back Silent Magician."
Seto rubbed his fingers together at his side and quirked his head. "Well, finish up."
In all reality, he did not find Yuugi using such a card all that unusual. It had seemed to be a pet favorite of his, used in almost all of his duels that Seto had watched. He doubted even Yuugi himself realized it. It was just a card. Just a simple magic card with a simple use.
But it had still been the card pulled out as the final trump in the duel he had watched in the late months of the summer, down deep in that tomb. It was still the card that had changed everything, that had sent the confident one walking through the door and into the burning light, and left the timid one with tears in his eyes and a small fire sparked within him, just waiting to burst into flame.
Oh, yes. Seto had definitely been listening to Ishizu too much.
He watched Yuugi, though, from across the arena. He watched Yuugi's quiet strength, a strength that wasn't obvious or pompous or something he would ever flaunt or brag. But it was there, even if no one else could see it. This was Yuugi. This was Mutou Yuugi, King of Games.
The only person alive worthy enough for him to duel.
Yuugi met Seto's eyes, and at last, the smile disappeared. But that quiet strength remained.
He placed three fingers on three cards on his Disk, and with those three fingers, he pulled them up and slipped him into the Graveyard slot. The movements were fluid and practiced, but they hesitated, if only by a little bit. Seto did not try to think of what was going to happen next. A little part of him knew. And a little part of him could already accept that it had happened.
Yuugi touched one card in his hand of six and slipped the familiar glowing red into play.
"I sacrifice all three monsters to summon the Sky Dragon of Osiris."
It was hard to believe that his words could be so quiet and so calm. He had always been one to cry out his monster's name to the skies, and the clouds would part and glow as if he had commanded him. A trick of the light, Seto had always called it. Odd weather. But whatever it was, it had always been there before. No longer.
But regardless of Yuugi's calm demeanor, his god was not so gentle. It was a hologram. Just a hologram, like the Ultimate Dragon that stood in front of him. Yet the very fabric of space itself seemed to rip to made way for the giant snaking beast that worked its way out of the tear and into the yielding space of the Duel Dome. Its wings spread and shimmered as the holograms solidified, and it roared with such a volume that Seto wondered if his hologram projects had been upgraded for audio quality behind his back.
Yuugi drew in a breath, a familiar breath that looked so old and so new at the same time.
"And since I have five cards in my hand, he has an attack power of five thousand."
Seto had always been one to keep his pride. To keep his cool. And he did, this time, just like the others. His eyes went wide. He stared at the beast before him, and he stared at his own dragon. He saw his five hundred life points and did not even need to think to have the math calculated in his head. He knew what had happened. He knew it without a touch of uncertainty in his mind. But he still stared, in wonder and in awe.
He stared, and then his lips twitched up in a smirk that finally felt right.
He let his eyes close for one moment alone.
"Proceed."
Yuugi looked at him for what felt like a long time. Seto knew, in the back of his head, that it was not any longer than a few seconds. But the quiet knowledge in those eyes slowed the ticking of his mental clock, and it seemed Yuugi stood for an eternity with his fingers hovering over his own card, eyes blinking, face somehow naïve and infinitely wise all at once.
And Seto just continued to smirk. Even as Yuugi stared back at him, and even as Yuugi finally lowered his hand onto the surface of the Disk.
"Osiris, attack the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"
It was not a magnificent ending. It was not like the moment he had stood on the other side of his old dueling arena, staring at the cards before him that suddenly looked more and more like just pictures on pieces of paper, when he couldn't believe he had lost to an amateur by a miracle draw. There was no great explosion, or the drop of life points to zero with a bang.
The counter on his Duel Disk dropped in silence, and a moment later, the screeching blue dragon and the snarling red god faded and vanished into air.
The room was not a battle field any longer. It was just a large room and arena he had built for his own purposes, that only he ever used but would never redesign for use as anything else. Each sound echoed about the ceiling and the walls as he slipped his deck out of the Duel Disk and back into the small sealed case he kept strapped to his side.
Seto closed his eyes for just a moment and gave a nod no one else could see. Then he opened his eyes and looked across the room at the boy standing some distance away looking back at him, and he knew that nod was not in lie.
"Kaiba-kun."
It took all Seto had not to roll his eyes at the still-young voice that called to him from the other side of the arena the instant he took a step away. He thought about just walking off, back to running his company, back to the life he had worked to make for himself.
He turned back, and he looked Yuugi right in the eyes with a gaze anyone else would have found intimidating.
"What?"
Yuugi fidgeted, but not in nervousness, and not like before.
"Thank you." The words were quieter, but not a whisper, and they resounded very well around the dome like someone had put a microphone to his lips. And even though they were still quite some distance apart, and the movement was slight and slow and Seto's vision wasn't perfect, Seto could not have missed the way Yuugi's lips curved up into a smile. "For a great duel."
Seto resisted the urge to cross his arms over his chest and scoff, and merely rolled his eyes halfway to the ceiling.
"Next time, try playing the game from the start. It gets boring if you don't."
Yuugi blinked, but that smile on his face remained. It was a strangely content expression that brought a sense Seto could not define to the room. Suddenly, the awkward heaviness that had surrounded them faded, and they were just left in an empty new. Where they could go anywhere and do anything, and start whatever lives they wanted to live.
Seto felt like smiling, or smirking, in an oddly peaceful sort of way, but he didn't do that, either.
He flicked his eyes to the suited man he almost hadn't noticed standing in the doorway, though he did not remember buzzing him in. "Isono, you can drive him home now."
Isono straightened, and though he did not fiddle with his hands Seto knew he had to use every fiber of his self-control to keep his arms at his sides.
"Y-yes, sir!"
Seto turned toward the closest exit he knew out of the dome. He thought of all the documents and budget plans and work he had left on his computer screen that morning. He wondered if Mokuba had taken to eating the sweets the employees kept in the back of the fridge out of boredom. He thought of his own company, and his own world, and of the deck that felt so familiar at his side.
He flinched when he heard the shuffling and pattering of feet on the floor. Small feet holding up a small body, running a short distance, and Seto imagined the owner of the feet stretched out a hand.
"Kaiba-kun!"
"What?"
One hand tightened at his sides, and he spun on his heels to offer that glare everyone else found terrifying at Yuugi standing not so far away. The two stared at one another, silent, neither daring to say a word. Yuugi blinked, eyes wide, then he sighed and smiled a smile so simple and so complex all on its own.
"Happy birthday."
Seto stood very still from his spot in the middle of the dueling arena. He imagined he looked perfectly ridiculous with his eyes wide and his whole body straight and stiff, staring in almost disbelief at the boy who watched him from some distance away.
Of course, Yuugi had done about a million things in the past that Seto did not understand, or hadn't yet come up with a sound explanation for. There were at least a few things Seto had resigned himself to the fact that he would never really get. But how Yuugi had managed to learn what today was, when that information was supposed to be private and no one should have given him the news, Seto simply could not fathom.
Yuugi smiled at him just the same as before. It was a gentle smile, a young and pleasant smile. But it was also a smile with a hint of familiar confidence. Not cocky, but confident and strong. A strength Seto had never seen more than when Yuugi had stood in an ancient tomb, dueling someone Seto had grown quite certain was not a hologram at all.
And for a moment, when Seto looked back at him, he thought he saw that cunning, smirking face staring at him from across the room, grinning with a certainty no one else could ever understand.
Seto stood there for a very long time after Isono left Yuugi, still smiling, out the door of the dome and back to the limo parked outside. He stood there, and he just stared at the empty arena around him, at his familiar white coat sleeves, at the faint outline of his corporation that would have appeared in the distance if he had bothered to install windows. He looked at the world he had built, the world he had created, and for a long time, he watched it and waited.
It was minutes later when he smirked, just a little, to himself, at something amusing he could not determine, turned around, and reminded himself of all the work back at the company yet to be done.
Isono left for home early, upon Seto's orders. Seto watched him pick up the nearly-empty plate of cookies and carry them into the elevator and nod in respect as he closed the door.
When Seto got back to his office, he found a small paper napkin with one large, round, fudge-filled cookie sitting by his computer.
Seto rolled his eyes.
"If there's a stain on my desk, it's coming out of your paycheck."
He wrapped up the cookie and stuck it in his pocket.
He took it out after he had gone home and changed into his pajamas and put away all his work for the day. He stared at it and contemplated how much fat and sugar was packed in, even though he had no real need to watch his food intake. He twirled the cookie around and around in his hand, and at last, with a sigh, he brought it to his mouth and bit off a tiny piece.
Seto quirked an eyebrow. He shrugged, though no one was around to see. "Needs more flour."
He took one more bite, then he wrapped the remainder of the cookie in the napkin and set it on the nightstand beside his bed. He forced back a yawn. It was still rather early, but for some reason, he felt like he had pulled another incident of staying up for three days straight. Another yawn pushed against his lips, and he let it come, though he gave it the best internal glare he could possibly muster.
He chuckled ironically to himself at the idea that he was glaring at a yawn.
Seto had only just put a hand on the sheets to climb into bed—and maybe get himself a better night's sleep so he could get a proper amount of work done tomorrow—when he heard a very soft, hesitant knock on the door. He turned around.
"What?"
The knocking stopped for a moment, and something in Seto that he couldn't understand cringed in wondering if maybe he had scared someone off. He laughed at himself at the thought that one of the servants would be offended by his usual sharp tones, but most of his servants would be downstairs or in bed by now. There was really only one person who could be at the door. Seto bit back a groan in regret.
At last, the knob turned, slow and even more uncertain than the knocking had been, and a moment later, Seto released the tension in his shoulders when a young face surrounded by a mess of dark hair met his eyes.
"Mokuba."
"Nii-sama," Mokuba answered, but his voice was quiet, like the knock, and he kept his hands quite firmly behind his back. Seto almost thought it was because he was hurt, but Mokuba rarely acted like that when Seto had said something to hurt him. Mokuba met his eyes in full, relaxing a little. But he still kept his hands behind his back.
Seto raised an eyebrow.
"Hey," he muttered, in a voice somewhat hoarse from work, and, as some of the servants had once mentioned to him, hoarse from acting like he was so much older than he really was. He had threatened to fire them after that comment, but it had been a year and they were still on his payroll. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Mokuba smiled and laughed just a little bit, and somehow, it made Seto feel better as well.
"Nii-sama, it's only ten. I'm never asleep at ten. You're usually not even in your pajamas."
Mokuba was in his pajamas, at the very least. His favorite bright yellow ones that made him look about four years younger than he really was. Seto had picked those out for him, and he had worn them whenever he could since, even though when he had first looked at them he had found them childish.
Seto leaned forward and put his hands on his knees, and he suddenly felt very silly sitting there in his own pajamas this early at night instead of working. But Mokuba still smiled at him, with that strange look he only gave when Seto did something unexpected but good. Seto didn't know why it was that him going to bed at a more normal hour was somehow something worthy of making Mokuba happy, but it did make him happy, and that was all that really mattered.
"So," Seto started again, and Mokuba blinked at him, still having to look up even though Seto was sitting on the bed. "Any particular reason you still have your hands behind your back?"
Mokuba froze, and then let his mouth curve into a smile smaller than before, but much more genuine.
Seto quirked an eyebrow. After a moment of shifting back and forth, Mokuba let one of his arms fall to his side and brought the other out in front of him.
It was not the sort of thing Seto was used to seeing in his brother's grasp. Mokuba had let go of the tendency to play with stuffed animals back when they were at the orphanage, even though he was still rather young to have done so. It had been so many years since Seto had seen Mokuba hold a stuffed toy that it took him a moment to realize what the intricately designed plushy actually looked like.
A miniature Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
Seto sat there and stared for a longer time than he would have thought he could keep his eyes so wide. He wondered if something had gone wrong with his vision or maybe his brain from all the events of the day weighing down on him. Even when he stayed up for two days straight working—and Mokuba hated when he did that—he wouldn't start hallucinating.
And when Mokuba kept that sweet grin on his face, Seto knew what he was seeing was real.
Mokuba took a step forward and held the Blue-Eyes, if a little timidly, further toward him.
"… happy birthday, Nii-sama," Mokuba whispered, the words vague and uncertain, the smile starting to fade as if he wasn't entirely sure he had done the right thing. But he kept a little of his confidence, and after a few moments of just looking at that strange plushy in his brother's hand, Seto reached out and took it in his own.
Mokuba seemed to be fighting to keep himself from beaming.
Seto turned the doll over and over again in his hands. He felt the soft cloth that had been used for the body and each of the little designs that looked as if they had been professionally sewn. Of all the products he had designed and approved since he had gotten into the gaming industry, and especially when he had taken up making products related to Duel Monsters, he didn't think he had ever seen anything quite like this.
"Yuugi helped me pick it out."
Seto turned his eyes up instantly, blinking, and Mokuba paused before shifting and holding his arms firm at his sides.
"He … said you might like it, when I went and asked him yesterday," Mokuba added, quieter, and he seemed to be trying very hard to keep Seto's gaze when Seto didn't break down or even glance away. "And … I wanted to get you something. Something special."
Mokuba opened his mouth as if to say more, but then shut it and went silent.
Seto looked at Mokuba for a very long time, or some amount of time that felt very long when he had already spent far too much time today staring. He looked at Mokuba, and he looked at the doll in his hand, and he looked at Mokuba again.
"… you got me a plushy?"
Mokuba brought his arms in a little tighter, with a look on his face that reminded Seto almost hurtfully of the days in the orphanage when he hid in the corner, not saying or doing anything. Just waiting. Waiting until it was safe for him to move. He stared at the floor. "I'm sorry, I know it's kid-ish, I just—"
"There's almost no room for it." Seto turned the Blue-Eyes over in his hand, and he did not need to look to hear Mokuba draw a sharp breath in and feel his gaze on him yet again. Seto ran one thumb over the fabric of the doll, nodded just a bit, and slipped it onto the table beside his bed, right under the glowing lamp and next to the cookie. "But I guess the nightstand will do for now."
Mokuba blinked, green eyes wide and almost, but not quite, disbelieving. He fidgeted.
"Wh … what if the servants laugh?"
Seto crossed his arms over his chest, and even though he knew it made him look childish and even a little immature, he gave his best fake stern look down at the boy who stood before him.
"What servant is stupid enough to laugh at Kaiba Seto?"
Mokuba straightened himself. He seemed to be trying to hide it, but Seto could see the smile that worked its way onto his face. A smile that brought some odd sense of peace to Seto that he had never been able to understand, but had decided a long time ago that he didn't need to.
Seto smirked, a little against his will.
"And if they do, I'll let you sign their pink slip."
This time, Mokuba didn't hide it. He laughed, a new and happy sound. A sound Seto had worked to keep alive for all these years. He had forced it down without realizing it once or twice. He had brought forth pain in the small boy who was far too young for all the suffering he had endured. But that laugh was still there, buried as it was, and that kept the smile on Seto's face even after the laughter ceased.
Seto leaned forward, resting his folded arms on his knees, and quirked an eyebrow at the boy who still stood grinning in front of him. "Now get to bed, you have school tomorrow."
Mokuba half-looked like he was going to laugh again, and half-looked like a mixture of confused and feigning annoyance far beyond his years.
"Nii-sama, tomorrow's Sunday!"
"Right." Seto glanced away in a fairly intentional move, and he heard Mokuba snicker behind his hand. A moment later Seto glanced back, and Mokuba still stood there, his snickers suppressed, but his smile clear. "Get to bed."
Mokuba's grin settled. "'Kay."
It was such a familiar sight to watch his little brother turn and start to walk out the door. He looked, somehow at the same time, to be that small boy in the orphanage or living with Gouzaburou, scared of all around him, and dependent on all, as well as the boy he had become. Only twelve years old, and if need be, Seto would have trusted him with the whole multinational corporation.
Seto let out a breath he knew could not be heard.
"Hey, Mokuba."
Mokuba stopped, and he turned around, blinking, and in that moment he looked entirely like that boy Seto used to know. Before the orphanage. Before Gouzaburou. Before helping to run a company. When he was a toddler who knew almost nothing at all, when all there was was cookies and smiles and mom and dad.
It was a silly thing to do, and for a long time afterward Seto knew he would scold himself for giving in to weakness. Giving in to emotion when he had worked for all these years never to let himself fold.
But despite all of that and more, Seto did not stop himself from holding out his arms in a gesture he so rarely gave. He did not smile. But he didn't really need to.
Mokuba stared at him, just for a second, with eyes wide and stunned. He stared like he could not believe this was really his brother standing before him, the same Kaiba Seto that skipped lunch and dinner just so he could get the budget plans finished a day early. He stared, and Seto kept his arms outstretched, restraining himself from giving an impatient look or shifting even a bit.
It was only a second. Then Mokuba grinned a wonderful grin a twelve-year-old should wear, and he stepped forward into Seto's arms.
Seto let himself imagine, even though it wasn't for long, that they were still at their old house. The house they had lived in with their parents. It wasn't big. They weren't rich, and there were no servants to care for them. But there was no business to do, nothing but chores around the house and dinnertime and teaching Mokuba how to play chess.
And sitting together on the bed to read together every night, book after book until Mokuba's eyes closed and he rested his head on Seto's shoulder, and Seto stayed there for a very long time until he was sure he was asleep.
Seto squeezed his little brother in his arms, and for a moment the dream was real.
He ran a few fingers over the top of Mokuba's thick hair while Mokuba clung to the front of his pajamas, tiny fingers grasping, latching on to the little bit of the old life they still had left. Seto breathed out slow. "Thanks. For the gift."
Mokuba turned his head up and smiled at Seto with glistening eyes. Seto melded that image into every corner of his mind, holding it close, reminding himself that what he had here could not last. Not forever. Someday, it would all be gone. And he had to treasure it for as long it remained.
Seto finally allowed himself a tiny smile in return, even as the boy slipped out of his arms, still grinning, opened the door, and shuffled off to bed.
The sounds of Mokuba's footsteps faded into silence, and Seto sat for a very long time at the edge of his bed, his room settling into the dim light of the lamp on the table. He stared at nothing and he listened to his own breathing and the faint whooshing of the cold wind outside, signaling the approach of winter.
He sighed and lay back on his pillow to look at the cracks in the ceiling, not bothering to pull up the covers or take his slippers off of his feet. He nodded to himself.
Yuugi would owe him a proper duel next time he came around.
Seto rolled his eyes when he yawned again, and with a tug on the covers and a flick of the lamp, the room faded into content darkness, and Seto let a small smirk twitch onto his face as he closed his eyes to sleep.
"Does any of this really matter? He is gone, Ishizu. 'Passed on,' like you said. And I rather doubt anyone who left like that is coming back."
"He's still here, Seto. You just need to know where to look."