Yugi tripped as he walked out of the KaibaCorp building. He was always slightly clumsy because the world seemed built for larger people than himself. He had grown a few inches in the past few years and people didn't mistake him for a 12 year old anymore. Still, he knew he would never be as tall as his friends, but he was always alright with it.
"Yugi, do you want to duel?"
The question startled him because he thought he was alone, and it was fairly late at night. Yugi turned to see a boy slightly younger than himself with brown hair and a ball cap that barely hid his hazel eyes. He looked innocent enough, and Yugi smiled.
"So you recognized me, huh?" he said smiling, while a hand went in back of his head with slight embarrassment.
The boy nodded emphatically. "I want to be a master duelist like you some day! I'd love to get some tips."
Yugi struggled with saying no, which is what he wanted to say. He was tired, he had plenty of other work to do, but instead, he replied, "Well, let's go find a playing field."
The boy was ecstatic. His hazel eyes went wide and he looked like he was going to jump out of his skin. Yugi could only smile warmly, thinking dimly that had their roles been reversed, he might be doing the same thing.
They walked to a clean alleyway that would be hidden from sight. Yugi expressed this was a great idea since he didn't really feel like playing in front of a crowd. The boy inclined his head saying he didn't care either way.
"The name is Bodin," his dueling partner stated. "And when I woke up this morning, I had no idea this was even a possibility! Thanks for taking my challenge!"
Yugi pulled out his deck and dueling disk and saw the boy do the same. "I'm always happy to play a good duel," he said. As he fed his deck into his the dueling disk, he felt a weird pang in his head, like a headache coming on.
"You okay?" the boy called from the other side of the alley.
Yugi bit back a grimace and nodded. "Sure, it's just been a long day." He pulled himself up and looked at his opponent. He tried to study him a little to hopefully understand what he was getting into.
Yugi realized, with a small sinking feeling, that the boy might not be as young as he had thought. He acted and sounded around 14, but now that the champion duelist was actually paying close attention, some things didn't quite add up. His brown hair was short and angled; more similar to Tristan's than Kaiba's, but with many spikes. He was very thin and lithe, but his small stature made him seem more approachable. His hazel eyes were much more aware and observant than Yugi had originally thought.
Bodin wore black and red in a fashionable jacket and black pants. It was perhaps the red and white ball-cap that had influenced Yugi to think he was so young. Now Bodin removed it, and he looked older.
Maybe even older than Yugi. Bodin's eyes suddenly narrowed as his face turned serious.
"I certainly hope you are up for the challenge," he replied, in a deeper voice than before.
Yugi narrowed his own eyes and smirked. "Somehow I have the feeling this is not a typical duel," he said, trying to imitate the foreboding voice of the pharaoh.
Bodin smiled lazily. "I see you are seeing through the glamour. I hope you are not disappointed that I am not a small boy that you can take advantage of," he said pouting.
Yugi raised his chin in defiance. "There is no reason for age or smallness to influence someone's opinion of dueling skills. I am proof of that," he said, irritably. "I just don't appreciate being tricked into a duel under false pretenses." He touched his deck to pull his first five cards to start the game.
The man calling himself Bodin smiled with his teeth. "And yet you still want to continue."
Yugi undid the buttons on his school uniform revealing the black shirt underneath. "I admit, I'm curious, 'Bodin,'" he replied, his voice laced with doubt. "But I think I should let you know that I do not have the God cards in my deck, so they are not available should you win."
Bodin laughed hollowly. As they talked, it seemed as if the image of Bodin came into focus, and he looked more sinister as the time went on. Nothing perceptibly changed, just... the aura he was giving off. "I am not after the God cards." Bodin drew his own five cards. "By all means, Moto, please take the first turn."
Yugi scowled slightly, feeling a small hint of panic at his situation. He should have let someone know where he was after leaving KaibaCorp, or at least that he would be home soon. He wasn't sure if this Bodin was just a crazed fan... or something else. But he swallowed those thoughts and channeled everything he had learned from the Pharaoh, about courage and confidence.
He dueled now to make the Pharaoh proud.
He drew a card for his turn. "I play this monster face-down in defense mode and this card face-down," he said as he set the cards. "And I end my turn."
Bodin drew his card. "I play Gaia, the Fierce Knight in attack mode. Gaia, attack his face-down monster!"
Yugi revealed Big Shield Gardna as his face-down monster. "Your attack is not effective, Bodin, and the difference between Gardna's defense and your monster's attack is deducted directly from your lifepoints." Bodin's lifepoints dropped to 1700, as the 300 point difference came off.
But then Yugi felt a stinging sensation in his mind, almost as if someone had pricked something sharp inside his skull. He couldn't hide the pain on his face, and he held a hand to his temple to try and ease it.
Bodin smirked. "It seems you're having trouble dueling, Yugi," he said with a taunt. "I place this card face-down and end my turn." Gaia returned to his side of the field and the horse pawed the ground and snorted.
Yugi ground his teeth as the pain increased. He glared angrily at Bodin, and reached for a card to draw. When he touched his deck, he felt a horrible shock rip through his body. Violent images swam through his brain, and one in particular made him cry out.
Yami, lying dead as Yugi stood over him with a bloodied dagger in his hand.
Yugi fell to his knees and grabbed his head with both hands. His head felt like it was splitting apart, or that the pressure was going to crush his skull. Tears sprang to his eyes as he shook his head wildly.
"I don't- what is this..." he whispered pathetically. His eyes were clamped shut and his breathing was ragged in sobs. Other images of Duel Monsters attacking him including the Dark Magician, Joey trying to kill him, and Atem falling to his death off of a cliff flashed in front of his eyes, and the young duelist gasped at the strain and horror in the pictures he saw; pictures that were of memories that never happened.
Distantly he heard his duel disk power down, and footsteps approached him.
Bodin grabbed Yugi's hair and pulled up on his head to face him. Yugi hissed at the rough pull and opened his eyes to Bodin's harsh hazel ones.
"This is what is going to happen every time you try to duel, King," the man ground out. "My master wanted to deliver a message, and I'm glad to see it was received so clearly," he spat, throwing Yugi's head down. Yugi cried out and went back to cradling his head in agony.
"Who- who are you?" Yugi said.
Bodin laughed as he walked away and called over his shoulder. "We are your worst nightmares."
Kaiba checked his watch and it was almost ten at night; around which Mokuba said he would be home. He clicked off his computer and checked his phone. No emergency phone calls, no frantic texts, no mysterious alarms had been set off.
Seto pinched the bridge of his nose. Lord forbid he ever have children of his own someday. Worrying over his brother sometimes felt like he had lifetimes of parent angst.
But then his phone buzzed with a call from Yugi.
"What do you-" Kaiba had answered, incensed. How dare Yugi call him this late at night? It didn't matter if he would be up for hours anyway, it was disrespectful and insulting. But he couldn't even answer the question before the other voice on the line cut him off.
"Joey, please help me, I'm at Block 39 near building 10*- and I-I can't seem to m-move..." Yugi said, his voice pained on the other side of the line. He then gasped and the line went dead.
Kaiba pulled the phone from his ear and regarded it with confusion. Was this a prank call? Yugi, despite all of his delusions never seemed the trickster type. He quickly went to his contacts and scrolled through, looking for Wheeler's number. But then he remembered- he had specifically not added his number to his phone. He growled. Yugi was going to owe him.
He called his driver to pull the car up.
Yugi was struggling to get out of the alley so that someone might see him, but he was not in a busy part of the city and he didn't have much hope of being obvious if Joey arrived and he had passed out. There were no street lamps nearby and the darkness was oppressively enveloping his vision.
What did I get myself into, he thought. The pain had not lessened, and he felt himself teetering on the edge of consciousness. Black spots already clouded his vision and made it harder to concentrate on moving.
He was on the ground with his duel disk still on his wrist. He was practically crawling, extremely slowly, all while his head reverberated with horrible memories of things that had not happened. An inch closer, and he felt his hand get cut by some broken glass on the ground. He felt the sting, but barely had the energy to react, so he kept crawling towards the open alleyway.
He saw headlights, but they passed by him and he could not rouse enough of a voice to call out. His head fell as he continued to try and move. He felt so weak that he had to stop for fear of passing out.
He did not hear the footsteps as they ran into the alley and stopped short in front of him. "Did you get mugged or something?" Kaiba said, looking slightly disgusted at the disheveled duelist.
Yugi looked up in confusion. "Wha- Kaiba? I didn't call you-"
"Yes you did, though you thought I was the mutt," Kaiba said, some of his usual venom leeched out of his voice. He got down on a knee and examined Yugi quietly.
Yugi gasped again as he felt the flowery burst of pain behind his eyes again. "But- then you came anyway?" he said even as his eyes were shut.
"Well, don't expect me to make a habit of it." He stood and looked to his car about twenty feet away. "Can you walk?" he said as gently as he could.
Yugi shook his head quietly as he started to shake a little. He hated looking so weak in front of Kaiba, and what was worse, involuntary tears sprang to the corners of his eyes. Kaiba sighed, and wordlessly bent down to pick up the smaller duelist.
Kaiba was amazed at how light Yugi was as he carried him in both arms. He felt probably the same weight, if not lighter than his brother, who was quite a few years younger than Yugi. The younger duelist's head lolled back as he slipped unconscious for a second and then came back. His violet eyes were still pained as he looked to Kaiba.
Kaiba said nothing as his chauffeur opened the door to the limo. Seto gingerly climbed in and laid yugi down across the back seat as he took one of the seats on the side. He started rummaging under the seat for a first-aide kit.
"I'm okay, Kaiba, I just have a headache-" Yugi said. He winced as he finished the sentence.
"Bullshit, you are bleeding all over my imported Italian leather seat," Kaiba said, perhaps a touch more harsh than he intended. Yugi looked confused and then felt the slickness of his hand that was covered in blood. He regarded it and then placed it on his stomach so that the blood flowed onto his own clothes rather than the oh-so-important leather seats. His other hand was weighed down by the duel disk and it was starting to pull his arm at an uncomfortable angle. Kaiba, again, without a word, began to help him before Yugi could ask for it and removed the duel disk from his arm.
He noticed that there were two cards in play and that Yugi's deck was in the disk. "You were dueling someone?" he inquired as he moved the disk to the other side of the seat.
Yugi's arm hung limp where Kaiba left it. "Yes," he said weakly, closing his eyes.
"Did you win?" Kaiba said absently as he pull out antiseptic to start cleaning up Yugi's hand. Yugi was too exhausted to protest to the sting of the alcohol.
"I... couldn't finish the duel. I think it was a draw," he said quietly. Kaiba said nothing as he pulled out gauze to wrap up his hand. "Why are you helping me?" he asked, his eyes opening and looking at Kaiba.
Kaiba flicked his eyes to meet Yugi's then went back to working on his hand. His face was blank as he pressed the cotton bandage into Yugi's palm and he wrapped the gauze around the small duelist's hand. "I suppose we'll consider this a favor to Mokuba, who has a strange concern about your welfare," he replied nonchalantly. He bit a piece of surgical tape off of a roll and used it to secure the bandage in place.
"You should change that in a few days, I don't think you'll need stitches. I can't do much for your headache," he said. But even so, he pulled out a white cotton cloth from the kit and opened a water bottle to pour out water on it. He wrung it out on the floor of the limo and placed it on Yugi's forehead. Yugi looked immensely grateful and almost shocked at Kaiba's good will.
"But also," he said quietly, "...problems of yours usually end up being problems of mine. I want you to tell me everything."
*Interesting note: I learned that Japan does not have street names, they have block numbers. Addresses in Japan have the district number, the block number and then the building number which goes from oldest to youngest. Yugi is in a fairly new part of Domino City.
AN: Thanks to my reviewers! To the anon, Great: Thank you, I'm glad you liked the little bit of humor ;)
Anon Guest: I actually completely agree with you! It is unbelieveable. But someone who was so selfless and kind... what would their worst nightmare be? What do they fear? :)
Keltish: Thank you for the kudos- they were yummy and delicious. I enjoyed them thoroughly! :P More vivid for the imagination!
Anon Ygo Fan Committee: YOU GOT IT! :3
Next chapter is in the process of being written, and it should be up by the end of the week. I can't promise anything right now. :) Please review! I love reviews.
