PROLOUGE

Okay so this is my first story since forever so the flow might be a bit off. I wanted to try to start writing again so this is one of my first stories. As a fourteen year old, I used to write yaoi with terrible grammar, and now as an adult I'm going to try to write actual stories hopefully with better grammar. I want to use fanfiction to help practice my writing skills so I'm just going to use all of my old OTPs from my teen years.

BEFORE YOU READ

This is a story I'm rewriting from my teens just for the sake of finally finishing it. I'm not such a hardcore fan anymore so some references may be off (by all means if it bothers you please correct me). The story will take place in an ambiguous Japan/USA domino city. Once again I'm not such an Otaku so there won't be too many Japanese cultural references. I'm focusing more on the characters than dueling (sorry).

With all that being said, please read and review (Seriously I mean it I want to see how much I've dropped in my year off school). I'm rating it T for now.

Obviously I own nothing

Chapter 1

"I swear all of the employers in Domino City have an ongoing joke not to hire Tea Gardner!" Tea exclaimed loudly as she had read yet another "Sorry but the position has been filled" email. It was her third week of job hunting and so far she had little to no success. After 3 weeks of job hunting she had sent out dozens of applications and had only received 3 unsuccessful call backs. At this rate she would be rejected by every employer in Domino City in a month.

'That's the spirit' she thought to herself. She went over to the whiteboard in her room and crossed off 'Hostess – Cilantro Grill'. She still had 'Receptionist- Lilac Spa' and 'Temp- Scott Grant Firm' to hear back from, but at this point she wasn't hopeful. Money had never been easy to come by for Tea growing up, but now she needed it more than ever.

Graduation was at the end of this year and soon Tea and all her peers would have to go out into the world and make their own path. On Facebook a few people's profile pictures were the logos colleges, universities, and institutions they wanted to get in to. People were posting photographs of their new campuses and the beginnings of their terribly cheap furnishings for their dorm rooms. Tea was one of those people, having acceptance letter as her profile picture. This was why she needed to drastically change her financial situation.

In a last attempt to keep her dance career alive, Tea had decided to go big or go home. Before the beginning of the year when she was narrowing universities to apply to, she fought tooth and nail to try out for the most prestigious dance school in Domino City; The White Crane Contemporary Dance and Ballet Academy. She had called every contact she knew, and harassed every one of her old dance teachers for a reference.

After a month intensely pestering the Academy's office she had been given a special tryout during season when they weren't accepting any dancers. To her surprise she had received a call back, and to her greater surprise she had received an acceptance letter. From then on she had made the decision to not apply to any universities and to commit to dancing.

This was why Tea was in such a financial woe. Unlike school, there were no government loans for dance academies and with the exclusivity of White Crane Tea would have to do more than break open her piggy bank. It was going to be approximately $5000 a year, and that was $5000 more than she or her single mother had to spare. It was her last opportunity to become a dancer and coming up on 18 years of age she was a senior citizen in the dance school world. Most girls got into academies from ages 8-13 with 15 being the absolute latest. At Tea's age she should be an advanced student looking for companies to work in.

Her family and friends were extremely supportive of her. The guys were with her every step of the way. From the beginning with her an Yugi sending long eloquent emails to the Academy, to Tristan and her harassing the receptionist over the phone, to Joey verbally accosting her old dance teachers that hadn't reply to her reference requests and…well in all fairness that hindered things a little, but his heart was in the right place.

Her mother would have preferred her to go to university with the academic scholarships she surely would have gotten, but had always loved to watch her daughter dance. Unfortunately her mom only had enough for one child. Her and her brother knew that, that's why both of them worked their asses off to stay on honor roll. With a 90 plus average they could easily get half of their school paid for, take out a student loan, and have mom cover the rest. Now Tea would still get the same amount from her mom per year, but wouldn't have a scholarship or student loan to help out. Tea wouldn't give up on her dream though.

The White Crane Academy had some of the best dance coaches in the country, and scouts from Tokyo, London, and New York. It was a full time academy most young girls quit school for to commit to, and soon Tea would finish her final year of high school and be able to join next year's troupe… that being if she could afford it.

Tea sighed as she closed her email and went on to open a literature paper she was working on. Even though she wasn't going to university next year she wanted to keep her grades up so that she had some options if something went wrong with dancing. She was more than half way done with 2 weeks to finish it.

It was half way through the first term, although unlike her peers she didn't have the stress of looming rejection from a school to affect her writing. Her finances however, only gave her the patience to punch out words for half an hour before her anxiety cause her to open the local Domino classified ads.

'Maybe there will be some new postings tonight...' She read through the ads looking for ones her experience could cover. She slid right past a "Wanted: Child behaviour expert" one without a second though. Little did she know how that add would be her best shot.

XXXXXXXXX

Kaiba inhaled deeply as he put his face in his hands. He sank into his chair as he pushed away from his desk. At that moment his migraine seemed to be the only thing that existed in the world, and it was getting stronger.

It was 10:00 pm and he was almost done his after school shift at Kaiba Corp. He had no meetings, the engineering tests were going smoothly (for once), and sales were steady before the Christmas rush. He should be relatively relaxed and stress free; but whatever deity that was in charge of his life decided that would be too good for him. He had just gotten a call from his head housekeeper, Layla. Mokuba's private school had called again.

It was the third time in the last two weeks Mokuba had been acting up. The private school had been holding him in detention for a while now, and even when he got home the staff had been complaining about his pranks and hyperactivity.

There was only one explanation for this, and his name was Noa.

That's right Kaiba had done it. After being trapped in his game with his backstabbing staff and abusive step father he wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened, but Mokuba of course would never forget or let Kaiba forget about Noa. That was one thing that made Kaiba glad that he had become the serious and miserable person that he was; So that Mokuba didn't have to. His heart and intentions were always pure, and anytime they weren't it was for Kaiba's sake. His little brother had hounded and guilt tripped him on his promise he made to Noa, so Kaiba had made a promise to not half-ass his efforts like he had originally intended to.

Connecting to the old server took quite a bit, but to Seto it was just a great game. He hadn't had a technological challenge like this since he was a child, so he relished in rehashing the old program and looking for the individual bits that held the consciousness of Gozeburo's lost child.

After a year on this special project Kaiba had finally succeeded. Noa had been put into a back-up state of hibernation in case of such an emergency where the virtual world program would be disabled. With the world being designed for Noa, he was the only information that had that ability.

Kaiba was surprised that his Step-father wasn't cocky enough to not prepare for that type of emergency. Even in the weapons business, Gozeburo would have eventually become obsolete. He was so focussed on his success that he didn't plan for the future. If Seto hadn't taken over when he did, there wouldn't be much left for him to inherit as his successor.

So with the engineering branch, top plastic surgeons, a quarter's worth of his revenue that year, and a few organic donors Kaiba had reconstructed his "step- brother's" body. It was a controversial subject in all of the tabloids of course. There was no way that the dead son of a millionaire weapons tycoon being resurrected would be unnoticed. Kaiba's fantastic publicist had managed to swerve it into a life-saving, Kaiba brother reunion as opposed to an un-holy act of a man playing god.

In all honesty to Kaiba he was a little happy this was happening. This meant that his brother was becoming normal. Before Noa arrived in his life, the complaints that Kaiba receive from his private school were Mokuba's depression, skipping meals, and having a general "why bother" attitude. The school's officials were mostly worried about his mental health and his lack of socializing. To be honest many of the children at his school were afraid of him, because of his brother's reputation; the ones that did try to befriend him were often persuaded by their parents as a spineless attempt to gain some form of power. Kaiba had sent Roland and Fuguta many a time to these parents' houses to "have a chat". God have mercy on them if it ever got bad enough that Kaiba himself ever had to show up

On average Mokuba only got at most 30 minutes with his brother a night. He would spend most of his time with whatever nanny Layla had hired, the house staff, and a few friends from school. He was really left by himself a lot. Not to mention the amount of times he had been betrayed by people close to him, kidnapped, or alienated because of his surname. The kid had a right to have issues.

After Noa arrived things exponentially changed. Mokuba became an average 12 year old boy. It was almost as if he had gotten a new lease on life, and Kaiba was grateful that he was regaining some of his innocence. He was pulling pranks, playing video games, laughing, joking, and generally being mischievous. Kaiba was more annoyed than actually worried about him now a day.

Noa on the other hand, was a completely different story. That kid was an anarchist. Kaiba had assumed he would continue to be the matured child he had met the last time, hell they would almost be the same age technically, but after a couple of weeks of living he had returned to the age that he had left off from. 'I guess if I had to choose I'd go back to being a kid' Kaiba rationalized. With that being said, Kaiba's mansion had turned into a tween version of Jackass. Broken windows from balls, 12 grand staircases becoming impromptu skateboard ramps, and he didn't need a reminder of the near heart attacks he had when he heard about the boys using the balcony of the study as a diving board.

Now with all of this he could understand why any sane Nanny would quite. They were professionals who were used to having over privileged kids how went to their rooms to play video games and do drugs, while their parents cheated on each other. As long as they got B's in school the nanny was paid. She wasn't paid to care for the most hyper active 12 year old and his brother Satan.

This was why he found himself in such a dilemma. He had almost gone through every damned Nanny Service in the area, and ones he hadn't used had been warned against it. It was hard enough having to screen these people to make sure they weren't kidnappers or looking to use his brother to gain something, but when he finally found a reputable service they'd quite after the third flour bomb provided by antichrist and spazy. This was why it was recommended to him to search for a "Child Behavioural Specialist" as opposed to a nanny.

Kaiba began to shut down his equipment. It was 10:43, by the time he got home it would be 11:20 and he'd be up at 5:30 to get a little office work done before dropping of the boys and going to class. Somewhere throughout his day he would have to find time to help narrow down the list of applicants for Mokuba and Noa, because he couldn't completely leave an issue this sensitive to any of his staff. As he exited the office he emptied his mind about all his daily stress and thought about how nice his bed would feel.

END

Okay that's all I could do for an intro. Please bear with me guys as I set up the plot. I know a lot of it is cheesy, but it's been a while.

As long as there isn't any "kill ur self" reviews I'm actually not too picky. Let me know what you think about the writing.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Newday