This story is part of a writing trade, where the plot idea was provided for by Ask-Maxie-Boy, and I wrote the story. I hope you enjoy it!
Codebreak
Midway through editing a line of code for his virtual world, Seto's screen froze. The monitor flashed twice, and the coding scrolled down the screen too quickly, but somehow ended up back where it began. Seto designed this computer himself and knew it shouldn't have been possible to glitch like that, but couldn't find the source. He gave up pouring over the data after an hour and his fourth coffee, and began to pack up for the night.
It wasn't that late. Seto needed to check to be sure the error in the landscaping had been corrected, and with full days of meetings planned every day for the rest of the week, now was his only real chance.
He called Mokuba to let him know he would be late, and went to the first pod in the long row, underneath the glaring overhead lights.
Logging in left him with a stretching sensation that lingered into game play. Hours of effort hadn't eliminated it, and Seto chalked it up to something biological, which meant it was something he couldn't control.
Inside the game, Seto was pleased to see the updates had gone through, and the flickering at the horizon was gone. Most players hadn't noticed it, but Seto did weeks ago, and only now had gotten a chance to correct it.
But as he was about to give the command to log out, he caught an unexpected motion to his left. Seto turned and came face to face with someone he was certain couldn't have been in his world.
"Bakura?"
"It's smaller than I imagined."
"What are you…you weren't in a pod."
And he shouldn't have been able to get into Seto's office regardless of that. His lab was in the basement, with one entrance and no windows. Since he worked on all his new projects down there, it had to be completely secret.
"Why is this so small?" Bakura asked. He folded his hands behind his back and walked in a wide circle around Seto, trampling over the flowers without paying them any attention. "For all your big talk, I expected more."
"This isn't the actual world," Seto said. "You broke into a draft."
Bakura laughed, bitterly and privately. "A draft. Your working prototype, I take it."
"Tell me how you got in."
"No."
He hadn't noticed Bakura in a pod, but maybe that was because he wasn't looking for him. Seto would go back out, check them all, and if it turned out he had gotten in some other way, boot him from the system.
"You couldn't have come up with something more original for your prototype? Even this landscape is plain."
It wasn't. The landscape was rich and wide, with snow-capped mountains to the north and south, a stream to the east, and a long plain out to the west. Each flower had been designed individually, along with the rustling of the leaves in the trees.
"You can't steal something and complain about the lack of interest."
"I've stolen nothing. The point of these worlds is to have visitors."
"Welcome ones."
"You could never possibly welcome all of them."
He started another circle, walking over the same path as before. "Is this connected to the game world from your park?"
"No," Seto said. "It's internal, for my use only."
And some of the lab technicians, but it was irrelevant knowledge for Bakura. He wouldn't be in the world long enough to get anywhere or to be seen.
For whatever reason, Bakura seemed to find that amusing. "Your personal use," he said, as if mulling over the idea. "And I am supposed to believe this isn't connected to any of your servers? Backup drives? The cloud?"
"It's isolated so hackers can't get in."
At least, that had been the idea of it. But Bakura had gotten in and Seto would have to spend time he didn't have finding the fault in his security. Hiring out the job would have been more efficient, but also would have alerted others that his system had a vulnerability.
"I won't try to explain to you why I find this amusing," Bakura said.
"I didn't ask."
Seto had enough of this, and pulled up the command prompts. They appeared in the space in front of him, and he skimmed over the lines of text, looking for where the error was. He said nothing of Bakura walking up behind him. Reading it wouldn't make any difference.
"What are you looking for?" Bakura asked, although he didn't sound interested in the answer.
"A way to delete you."
"And you'll find what, my soul in the numbers?"
"Why is it all of you only ever talk about souls?" Seto said. "Not everything is life and death. You broke into my system. I'm forcing you out."
Bakura chuckled, and Seto made note of the echo. There was nothing around for it to be echoing on, so it was another thing for his list.
"And where will you send me if I'm not in a pod?"
"Wherever you came from."
"Does your entire life work like this? All unsolvable mysteries are simply coding you can rewrite to your desire?"
Seto couldn't find anything, and he started again from the top. Bakura couldn't have been here without some evidence in the program. Seto found the trace where he had signed in, but there was nothing for anyone else.
"Where did you log in?" Seto asked.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually. But until then, you could at least program a house or something for me to sleep in."
"You're not staying in here."
Even someone with no computer skills would eventually be able to figure out the vocal overrides, and Seto wasn't about to lose this world to Bakura. He could always make a backup to work in, but would rather get Bakura out and then block him from getting in again.
"And you can't get me out," Bakura said. "But I'm sure I'll enjoy watching you try."
However he got in, Seto wouldn't be able to find it from inside the game. He logged out, doubled checked that all the other pods were empty, and took his seat behind the computer to search.
Two weeks later, Seto still couldn't figure out how he had gotten in, or how to get him out. It stalled his progress on all other projects and left him horribly behind on his schedule. He needed to start beta testing for Duel Links, but if he transitioned fully over to it, Bakura might just break into that one.
He hadn't seen Bakura leave. Not once in the two weeks—and he had set up monitors to watch for it—had he logged out even once.
Fed up with the situation, Seto went to find Bakura outside the game, to find where he lived in hopes of figuring out how he got in, and ended up face to face with Bakura, outside the game.
"How are you in my game?" Seto demanded.
"I'm in your what?"
The conversation took too long to make sense, and even then, Seto wasn't sure how much he believed it. Bakura insisted he had never heard of Seto's software, and that he had no idea why a symbol of him had made it into the game. Then he had some story of banishing an evil spirit, to which Seto gave little credence, but insisted that if anyone was giving Seto problems, it was the spirit.
It gave Seto almost nothing to go on, except that Bakura didn't have a VR pod in his dingy apartment.
And unable to find any trace of Bakura in his system, Seto logged back in.
Only instead of his landscape, he found a desert. Seto exhaled breath he didn't need, and came forward, looking around at the new scenery he hadn't created. Bakura caught on more quickly than he thought he would, ruining months of progress in this world.
"Bakura."
He came out of one of the sandstone huts. "Kaiba."
"I went to your apartment."
"And how is my landlord?"
"That's really your question?"
Bakura laughed, and again, the echo felt wrong. If this was still his world, Seto would have corrected it, but Bakura had claimed for himself.
"How is little Ryou, should I say?"
Seto let that one go.
"I didn't see a pod in your apartment, and there is no record of you having left his game."
"That sounds right."
"Do you ever give a straight answer?"
"Where is the fun in that?"
Seto took in the new scenery and hated how realistic it looked. Every detail, down to the texture of the grains of sand under his feet. Each one was defined and unique, realistic enough Seto might have believed he was in the desert if he didn't know better.
"How did you do all of this?" Seto asked. "This is more advanced than what you should be able to create from inside."
"I am the game."
Seto should have known better than to expect a straight answer. He hadn't gotten one at the apartment, and wouldn't be getting one here. He wouldn't get an answer, he wouldn't get Bakura out, and he wouldn't be able to move on with Bakura in here.
Unless he just unplugged the entire thing.
At this point, he was tempted enough to cut his losses. It was one server, and with no record of how Bakura got in, Seto knew he couldn't get him out.
Then again, without knowing how Bakura got in, Seto couldn't stop him from switching over to the next world. And with Duel Links around the corner, he wasn't sure what the greater risk would be.
"There wasn't a pod in your apartment."
"Even if I needed one, the landlord wouldn't have liked it."
"You have a fascination with your landlord."
"He offered a necessary service. You fill the role suitably."
"You can't possibly live here."
Bakura held up his hands in a bold gesture to their surroundings. "Have you seen me leave?"
"I didn't see you come in."
"Maybe I'm not really here," Bakura said. "Maybe I'm all in your head. After all, isn't it only your mind that's here?"
"You created an entirely new world and think it's possible for me to project thoughts into code?"
Bakura shrugged, and somehow, that left Seto more bitter than anything else he had done. He intentionally created trouble, only to act as if it didn't matter.
"Why are you here?" Seto asked. "What do you get out of this?"
"My landlord kicked me out, and I needed somewhere new to stay. You were convenient."
This couldn't have been happening. He didn't have time for this. He was giving up his time with Mokuba to deal with this nuisance, and there was no end date in sight.
"Then stay here," Seto said. "I'm pulling this machine and this world, so live here as long as you want."
Giving up didn't come easily to him, and an old, nagging voice took over his thoughts. He had failed to get rid of Bakura or even find out how he had done it. Seto failed, and living with that would be the greatest challenge of all this.
"You're letting me stay?" Bakura asked.
Seto eyed a snake crawling on the ground between them, and watched it move behind a rock and out of sight.
"I have more important projects, and you can't bother anything else from in here."
Seto signed out, and powered down as much of the system as he could, leaving just the one computer attached to it. If he could have unplugged it all without killing Bakura, he would have, but with everything else going on, he didn't need a murder trial.
Eventually, Bakura would get bored and move on.
Duel Links launched in June, and Seto kept busy with the tournaments, bug reports, and advertising. Not having enough players online at any given time had been the biggest struggle. People who logged in to play at midnight didn't have enough challengers, and ended up signing off.
Seto had to program NPCs to give them more to do. And then, when the game finally took off, all Seto could do was to program more for them to keep up with the demand.
He added AIs to vary the duels, and to prevent players from facing the same battle time and time again. But no matter how many more events or characters he added, they always asked for more.
Yugi agreed to participate in tournaments, which always helped for a couple weeks. And for whatever reason, the players even enjoyed having Wheeler come in.
While trying to brainstorm ideas for his next big event, Seto went down to his lab. He thought he might be able to incorporate more of a VR element to the game now that virtual reality goggles were becoming more accessible. He would need to set up a prototype to see how it would work, and didn't want anyone else looking in.
Seto always started a new project with sketches, but halfway through, text appeared on the computer screen beside him. He hadn't planned on using that one, and hadn't come back to check if Bakura had left. He knew Bakura had a Duel Links account, and took that to mean he was done with an empty shell of a world.
Kaiba.
The word didn't leave, and Seto knew what it must have been. Bakura was still there, somehow. Somehow he was in Seto's closed off virtual world, in his apartment, and a frequent player of Duel Links.
Seto ignored it and kept planning out which parts of the world he would want to build in VR. It wouldn't be all of them at first. Maybe an event would be fully in VR, although, he didn't want to exclude anyone who couldn't afford the glasses. He would have to design it to be played both ways.
Come in, Kaiba.
Seto didn't need an invitation to enter his own world, but was mildly curious what Bakura might want from him. Seto had lost, caved, gave him what he wanted, and there was nothing more he could have wanted.
His curiosity didn't outweigh his work. Despite the barrage of messages from Bakura, Seto finished sketching before he went to one of the pods.
The world was still the desert, this time with NPCs running around inside of it. Their movements were glitchy and patterned falsely, which struck Seto as odd considering how much effort Bakura had put into the scenery.
"What," Seto said flatly, and faced Bakura, who looked starkly different than the last time Seto had seen him. His skin was darker and his face scarred, and now he was dressed for the scenery in an open front purple robe.
"You really didn't come back."
"Why would I?"
"You let me take something of yours without any fight?"
"I did."
Except he had fought it. There just wasn't any solution for it.
That actually made it all much worse.
"You can't leave me here," Bakura said, and came forward. When an NPC walked its programmed path in front of him, he waved a hand to be rid of it.
"If you are here looking for a game, I'm not going to play. Leave if you want."
"There is nowhere to go."
"Your apartment isn't that great, but I know you have somewhere."
Bakura shook his head. "You still don't get it. You think I'm someone else."
"I don't think you're a figment from my thoughts."
"I can't leave your game," Bakura said. "But you can move me to another one. One with people there."
It made Seto laugh. "So you can hijack that world as well? None of this is my creation. I let you into another one and you ruin it as well."
Bakura looked to the sky, and around them, the world changed back into Seto's mountain setting. Bakura's control over the world was more elaborate than all Seto could do from behind his monitor.
I am the game.
Seto almost believed it.
"I want out," Bakura said. "But it has to be another world like this one."
"What good would that do me? I'm better off keeping you here."
"I would make you offers, but I don't think you care to hear them."
Seto was still trying to understand how Bakura controlled the world, how he had gotten in, and why he couldn't get out. He didn't see why Bakura needed this favor. He didn't see how this wasn't the Bakura he knew. He certainly seemed familiar enough, sounded just like he had during past tournaments.
"I want you out of my system."
"I can't leave," Bakura said, more forcefully this time. "I wouldn't be asking this if I could go."
"Tell me why."
"I'm dead."
The words should have came as more of a surprise, but after everything Seto had heard from Yugi's group, this didn't faze him. All they ever talked about was spirits and magic.
"You're dead."
"Yes."
"I don't see how this is my problem."
"I'm stuck in your system. You might as well make use of me."
"And you proved you can't be trusted with it."
Although, Seto had seen him duel. He would be a challenge new to most people, and would be more intuitive than an AI. Seto might be able to do something with him, if he could find a way to keep him controlled. He didn't have any ideas for how to make sure of it.
"I wouldn't do anything you didn't want."
"I don't want you in my system."
"No that is something I have no control over."
Apparently neither of them did.
"I am at your disposal," Bakura pressed on. "Tell me what I can do."
Bakura's idea of being at Seto's disposal involved harassing every duelist who faced him. The game was too easy for him, and the challengers never lived up to their names. Seto could tell as the weeks wore on that he was getting bored again, and Seto didn't want to find out what would happen when he tired of getting under people's skin.
Seto came in to talk to him when he started getting complaints about that AI's programming.
"I don't remember asking you to taunt the duelists."
Bakura shuffled his deck. "They're all too easy to beat."
"You didn't ask for a challenge. You wanted people to interact with. You have them. So stop chasing them off."
"You're not exactly a charmer yourself."
"And I'm not the one in here dueling them."
Bakura shuffled the cards again, and started to flip them over one at a time. "There is no fun in dueling all day, every day. You know sleep isn't part of the programming here."
"You're the only dead person in my system."
"So program a sleep function."
"I'm not putting extra work on my schedule because you can't deal with what you asked for."
When he stood, Bakura let his cards scatter. He came up to Seto, but not close enough to touch. "Let me try out a new game," he said. "I'll do all the work for it, and you can offer it as a secondary event."
"People come here for dueling."
"And they will stay for my campaign. Monster World."
"No."
Bakura glanced down and toed a card at his feet. "You saw what I did in the last world," he said. "What I did and what I could do here."
"You threatening me?"
"I advise you to take me up on my offer," Bakura said.
Seto shook his head. "No one wants to come here for made up games."
"Every game was made up at some point. You might find you like this better than Duel Monsters."
"And what happens after this?" Seto asked. "When you get bored of Monster World and want to move on to the next thing?"
"Then I move on to the next thing."
"I agreed to let you in here as a duelist. You don't make up the rules."
"But I could. I could and there wouldn't be anything you could do to stop me, otherwise you would have."
It was true, but Seto refused to admit it. There was a way to get around this, even if he didn't know what it was. He had transferred Bakura from the last server to this one. And while he had Bakura's willingness for that, he could find another way. Maybe program something that when Bakura interacted with it, it would pull him back into the old system.
"What's one campaign?" Bakura asked. "The worst that happens is it doesn't get good reviews."
"You've been harassing the players," Seto said. "No one would join a tournament you oversee."
And with no reason to carry on the argument, Seto left. That had been his initial reason for coming down, and maybe if he thought it would change Seto's mind, Bakura would tone down the aggravation he was causing.
But a week later, Seto got reports of posters being put up around the game, and the announcements going out. Duel Links was buzzing with talk about Monster World, and it was too late for Seto to do anything about it.
The hype about a new campaign did calm down the complaints against Bakura, so Seto had that off his plate.
He went back in to find Bakura smugly preparing for the new game.
"You've heard the news then?" Bakura asked.
"That you went against a direct order?"
"I don't work for you, Kaiba."
"And what happened to being at my disposal?"
"I am helping you tremendously," Bakura said. "This will bring in new players and additional revenue. You can look over the in-game purchase options if you want."
Seto shouldn't have been able to feel his anger so strongly inside a game. But it welled up and he couldn't force it back down. But he also couldn't get Bakura out of the game, couldn't shut it down because as far as anyone knew, Monster World was his idea.
He didn't have much of a choice left.
"Fine. Show me what you have."
Seto took a seat at the table, which seemed to come as a great surprise to Bakura.
"Giving up again that easily?"
"Unless you would like to tell me how to kill you permanently," Seto said. "This will have my name on it. It might as well be done right."
Bakura had one of the posters for it on his wall, and Seto made note of the launch date. There wasn't much time between now and then to figure this out.
"You must be exhausted," Bakura teased, and sat across from him. "I would be if I was constantly bested."
"Need I remind you of your constant losses? Seto asked. "And apparently someone even got the final victory over you."
"And you still are losing to me."
Seto made himself nod. "For now."
Once Seto had gotten a feel for Bakura's game, he did most of his end from his office rather than going inside the game. Bakura would get most of it together, which meant Seto didn't have to design the monsters like he normally had to do, or even the dice effects.
But he did write all the rules for the tournament into Duel Links' programming, including one in particular Bakura wouldn't be expecting.
August came and with it, the start of the campaign. Bakura's smugness hadn't worn off, and Seto set back, drink in hand, to watch.
The first player came to tap their way through, and it was a breeze for them. They won round after round, and when they got to the final level to face Bakura, his deck didn't work for him.
Bakura's frustration built as the challenge progressed, and after his loss, he seemed stunned by it.
After every player who came through beat him, Bakura caught on and started cursing toward Seto, although he couldn't see him. But there was no way out of the campaign until the end, leaving Bakura to suffer loss after loss.
Seto shut down his computer and finished his drink, now with plenty of ideas in mind for keeping Bakura in check.
Thanks for reading!