Okay, you all know the drill. I have to take up valuable space and time to say that I do not own any part that is the coolness of the Yu-Gi-Oh universe. That honor goes completely to Kazuki Takahashi. Authoress as she bows subservantly before her shrine of great creators... "We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"

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This Old Man: Sugoroku's Story

Part 1: Japan

1. The Beginning…

1928 Tokyo, Japan

Osamu Mutou hadn't expected this.

Hadn't wanted it really.

At least, not now.

But it had happened none-the-less.

His wife was pregnant.

The entire empire was still struggling to get back on its feet after the Great Kanto Earthquake only several years before, the first 'subway line' was opened between Asakusa and Ueno last year (not that he would ever use it), the government was currently preparing for its first general election for the House of Representatives of the Diet and now, of all things, Sayuri was pregnant.

It was almost too much for him.

Too much change, too much deviation.

He hated change.

It was a funny thing though.

He had never felt like this before when his wife was pregnant. Twice before it had happened, the first being born with severe malformations that ended its life only hours later and the second spared at least that by being still born. But this time…he had a feeling. This one would make it. Of that he was sure. What he wasn't sure about was how he should feel over it.

There was barely enough for anybody right now and with the sickness that followed the earthquake only now dissipating, it was still no easy life. They lived in little more than a wooden walled hole in a bad part of the city, he worked 12-14 hours a day at a laundry pressing hospital sheets and his wife kept the house, such as it was, and tended their meager garden during the spring and summer. This in his mind was not the time for a baby. To top it off, neither were exactly as healthy, or young, as one came and neither had family left to lean on.

Was it any wonder that he almost looked to this with some amount of dread? It would almost be a blessing if this baby didn't make it as well. But there was that feeling…

Osamu Mutou was a simple man of simple values. He did what he had to, did what his superiors told him and never questioned the validity of it. He was in all respects a good little Japanese subject. Lucky to even have a wife, his closely cropped black-brown hair did little to add anything to his immeasurably short stature of 4'9". He carried a heavy boned structure and with troubled dark brown eyes he truthfully, as a younger boy, never dared dream of attracting a fly let alone the delicate little thing he called his wife.

Walking along as a younger man he had been on his way to Tokyo to see what fortune had in store for him that warm spring day. As he passed the back side of a high walled yard he'd heard a frustrated sigh and curious as to the reason why such a sigh had been issued he found on opening in the fence and slipped in. Not less then twenty feet was the tiny Sayuri sitting on a bench with a game board before her. Wearing a pale blue dress stitched with the pattern of lilies upon it, her long black hair had been let loose being in privacy and with its framing effect made her unusually colored ivory skin seem as pale as the full moon on a cloudless night. She was not the most extraordinary woman he had ever been privileged to see but he found himself quite taken with her none the less. How bold he had been back then to dare approach her in her own yard and sit on the other side of the board! After rolling a six with the sugoroku die and then moving a black disk he looked at her, waiting for her move. Surprised for only a moment she had quickly recovered and with a soft smile took her turn. They played the game for well over an hour which, in the end, she had won and that had sealed it. When he had finally put foot in Tokyo he was no longer alone.

In truth to her name's meaning 'little lily', Sayuri was very nearly as delicate as a woman came both in build and in height. With long black hair habitually worn in a tight bun, she stood no more than 4'6" when straight and weighed no more than perhaps 70 lbs if that. Her feet had as a baby been wrapped in accordance with tradition but when it was obvious she would forever be extremely small the job was left unfinished as it was certain that even with her kind and soft spoken nature she could never find a man of any repute that would want her.

Well, she had found a husband and as he was the only person to ever show interest she was hustled off quickly so as to be no further burden or embarrassment to her family. She did not, however, let it detract from her carriage or demeanor in the least. She in fact held herself with pride and yet humility in her position. True they did not have much, but they at least had each other and she was more than happy with that. After being convinced that it was to be her lot in life to be alone, to have someone who wanted to have her was a joy. They had in their years found a certain love for one another and they stood by that resolutely and never once entertained the idea of there being more.

Life didn't give them leave to.

They had survived famines and bad times. They had survived disease and no jobs. They had even survived an earthquake that had brought destitution to all around them and the deaths of over 140,000 thousand people. They alone of both their families had continued to live. They were as happy as they could possible be for the moment and now were once again working to better their place in life as best they could, finally getting a grip on the good.

And now, thanks to the perverse sense of timing of the gods, she was pregnant.

Osamu could not ignore that there was a part of him, though perhaps a bit on the minuscule side, that was quite happy over the prospect of being able to father a child; one that would perhaps live this time. But still too fastened in his mind to forget was the idea that it was just not the right time for it.

What else could he do?

Nothing, save continue to work his long hours and eat his little portions of food.

And this he did. For the many long and agonizing months of waiting to see.

In the meantime they prepared.

He did additional odd jobs as he could find them. They saved every last possible yen they could earn or find. She hand made baby clothes from their older things and was even able to have some of the vegetables she grew herself jarred for later use. He had even managed to make their little home a little sturdier by bartering the sheets and bed clothes that were no longer up to the hospital standard, for food and then the food for lumber, concrete blocks and even sheets of steel and other metals. The home was enlarged with the addition of an eight by eight room and so by April of 1929 the little Mutou house had grown by one new room and one new life.

Sugoroku Mutou was born one afternoon while Osamu had been at work. It made for a rather disconcerting homecoming. To leave in the morning as always and come home to a son… In the morning his wife had been busy sweeping the front walk, in the afternoon she was feeding a baby. It all still seemed so mixed up to him. It was so…..different.

And so was their son. At least compared to the previous two he was. Named in honor of the board game she and Osamu had met over, Sugoroku had a mass of thick black hair right from the start, which always seemed to bush out at all angles giving him the most extraordinary look of messiness. His pale lavender eyes were wide as though always curious and unlike the first two he had been no delicate child like his mother. He was, even for his initially tiny size, made with a heavy bone that easily foretold his potential to be built more like his stocky father.

Additionally, their new son was a lusty, healthy thing that did not deem it unnecessary to bellow in earnestness when he thought he needed something. He did not whimper or coo softly as other babies did. He demanded to be noticed for whatever reason right then and there with no sense of shyness. Nighttime, on a regular basis, was a particularly difficult time for the Mutou family. Woe be to them all when their son woke with a chill, fever or in hunger. Everyone for a half mile knew it.

But as happens with babies they begin to grow and in his own time Sugoroku did as well, so that by the time Japan had taken over Manchuria he was no longer a mouthy little baby, but he had become an active and insistent little boy. While he now waited patiently for the food he knew would be coming he did not hold that patience over when he wanted to play and explore. Having been lovingly lavished upon by his mother with almost constant affection and attention he did not learn that others might not care to have him around. Consequently, when he wanted to join in games with other kids, he joined. When he wanted adventure, he went out and sought it. When he wanted to be daring and brave, well, he did those dangerous things all boys may try at one time another that makes fathers shout and mothers swoon in fear.

He was never above playing king of the hill on the many piles of regularly shifting rubble still not fully cleared. He never thought for a second from backing down on a challenge to cross a narrow beam twenty feet up between two buildings. He never gave a second thought to what danger really was. What young, energetic, adventurous boy does? Smaller though he may be, no one near questioned his courage even if it did border on youthful ignorance.

Blissfully unaware of the wars that raged in Europe and in China and with no concern for the next several years, the adventurous and independent Sugoroku came of the age when all Japanese children began their first year of school and the boy soon found many new challenges to test him daily. The first was the challenge to be the best in his classes. He could not compete as easily in all the many physical feats but when it came to his academics he more than made up for it. He had a quick and keen mind and since his limited world made him desire to know all that he could conquer, he was predisposed to working tirelessly to any task given him. It was not an uncommon thing at all for him to be done his studies for the day before any other student and so often find himself for an hour or more alone in the school yard until his fellow classmates were done.

He might have fallen the wayward side, as happens to many students who move forward a little easier than others, from this inactive time and the increasingly easy work they gave the students if he had not at about 9 years of age discovered a new challenge with which to test himself.

He found a game.

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Yeah! Part 1, Chapter 1 done! It seems boring right now doesn't it? But it will pick up. You have to know the history first. After all, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, right? Anywho... You're probably wondering right now, "Why write about Grandpa?" My answer, "Why the Hell not!"

Seriously though, The idea of this came about one Sunday morning after I had been mentally going through some ideas for my as of yet unfinished adventure "The Book of Sprits". I'd been working on that for about two months now and as usually happens I diverged a bit and started thinking about how Takahashi gave background on some characters and not others. We know Jonouchi's and Kaiba's sob story and even Pegasus'. Other than having a sister and a nephew we know nothing more about Honda. We know a little about poor dear Ryou but almost nothing about Anzu other than she and Yugi had been friends from childhood. Mia's beginnings are as mysterious to us as Yugi's mother and other than 'he woke up and found the Millennium Puzzle next to him' we know no more about Yugi's grandfather. And this got me to thinking…

So who is Sugoroku Mutou really?

He is a heck of character. Weird, creepy, friendly, sometimes eccentric, oddly unserious at the strangest moments and yes, occasionally a little, well, perverted. Enigmatic and yet freely open to his opinions he presents a father figure role model that is obviously lacking to some degree in our favorite three guys and he has the ability to deal with just about anything any of the three come across with. Though he is open minded to the strange and unexplainable he also has, given his easy acceptance of the unusual, a most striking tendency toward realism on a consistent basis. I see him as a man with a unique sense of humor, possibly a jokester when younger and someone with an interesting story of his own to tell. It may never have been as exciting as Yugi's but I would imagine that for him it would have been no less life shaping.

There is the implied suggestion that he himself may once have been a great "gamer", that he and professor Hawkins have been friends for quite some time, he's known Professor Yoshimori for a while, may himself have possibly been an archaeologist or Egyptologist, got Yugi's grandmother interested in him by using a message puzzle and he owns a game shop which caters to the rare and unusual. And so it was that I started to consider how some of that came to be. I started an outline and worked in a few things and found that I could even add a little bit of foreshadowing from my "Book of Spirits" story.

As a side note, I re-read my Manga novels continuously to keep my feel for who this man is but particularly I look deeply at the chapters where Kaiba tried to trade for Soguroku's BEWD and where he and Soguroku have their Duel Monsters game and there is something going on between those two that itches at me. We know he isn't happy with the way Kaiba plays with nothing but knowledge and never his heart, but why does it bother him so much? If he had himself been put into a similar situation like Kaiba, does he wonder if he would have thought of gaming the same way? Why does he accept that duel? Does he think he can convert him, that its not too late to help Kaiba see how important it is to play with one's heart? I don't think he accepted that duel strictly to 'prove him wrong'. Sugoroku has always seemed to me to be above such pettiness. So, why?

Honestly, no one but Takahashi can know for certain, but as it seems that no answer is anytime soon forthcoming I decided to give it my own try.

So there it is.

My idea of how our unique and less than mundane 'Grandpa' may have come about.

Enjoy or not enjoy, that is now my question.

At least YOU can answer that.

R&R please.

Trixie21