Red & Blue, Black & White

Summary: REWRITE. Dragon AU! Seto Kaiba is the lieutenant of the Rafter of Domino Peak, living his days in frustration after the death of his father. Not only is he second-in-command to his lifelong rival, and the only caretaker to his hatchling brother, but his attitude towards his leader has 'earned' him solo patrol duty for the next month. On one of those patrols, he comes across an odd, aggressive black dragon who comes with his own set of baggage.

Pairings: Kaiba/Jounouchi, Yugi/Anzu, Honda/Otogi, Ryou/Marik(not Yami Marik), Yami/Yami Bakura, other minor shippings will be mentioned as the story goes

Rating: T+, may go up later


Chapter 6: Asylum

"Finally her eyes are opened! I was worried she would lag behind her siblings."

"Be nice Marik, everyone grows at their own pace."

Seto creaked his eyes opened annoyingly; he was lying on the grass with his wings spread far apart, collecting the rays of today's particularly bright sun. Mokuba was on top of his head, lying on his back, and sleeping quite soundly judging by the loud snores. He looked over passively to Ryou and Marik fussing over their brood, by the sounds of it their youngest daughter, Amane, had finally opened her eyes. Her brother and elder sister had already opened their eyes a week ago.

It had been over a month since Seto's punishment had ended and Ryou's three chicks had hatched. The male, Namu, was silver like Ryou, but he had the gold dusting luster of his other father, and the same molten amber eyes, he was also the biggest of his clutch and the only one to inherit Ryou's frill-neck. Malika, the older daughter was almost identical to Marik if not for her pearl luster - which actually made her look more like her aunt Ishizu - and she too had Marik's orange eyes. Amane was the youngest, and the runt of the litter, she was a lighter, more saturated blue color than Marik and had a pale gold luster to her scales. Seto focused in on the small family, seeing Amane's eyes were yellow like Ryou's.

"I'm not being mean." Marik pouted, nuzzling the side of his mates head, looking down at their chirping offspring with soft eyes "I'm just worried… Winters approaching quickly, and you know the mortality rate of runts..." He trailed off, his voice becoming soft, Ryou rubbed the top of his head under Marik's chin comfortingly. Marik's fears were not unfounded; dragon eggs hatched during the summer, but they were now at the tail end of summer, and the leaves were changing colour, telling of the dying seasons ahead of them, and runts weren't likely to survive those rough times. It didn't help that Amane's egg was the one that Marik had passed; the other two were Ryou's.

Seto carefully stepped off the rock with a yawn, stretching the stiffness out of his wings and legs. Mokuba made a keening noise, still too sleepy to want to wake up, so his older brother gently rolled him back onto the basking rock. Once they were far enough in fall, it would be time to move back into the village, which meant a winter of taking care of a crying baby again.

As much as a handful as dragon hatchlings were, taking care of human babies was something else, because babies were much more helpless than they were in their dragon forms, and they couldn't be sustained by trophallaxis or magic. Luckily, they had a milk substitute for mothers who couldn't nurse, or families headed by only one or two males.

He felt sorry for the mother dragon with ten hatchlings, though.

Shaking his head clear of thoughts, Seto set off towards the main camp to meet up with Yugi, it was already mid day and he hadn't been given any orders today. Normally, he wasn't one to seek out orders since Yugi was hands-off when it came to the duties of his lieutenant, but Seto was trying really hard these days to show his loyalty, and hopefully take suspicious off of himself after the incident with Jounouchi at the border.

He hadn't visited the black dragon since his punishment ended, and he hadn't heard of any of the patrols finding any sort of sign of him. He assumed he had either left, and was just really good at hiding. The sooner was more of a hope, and the latter was more realistic; he was a Shadow Forest dragon after all, even if he lacked use of the element of shadows.'

"Hey Kaiba!" He heard someone call above him; he looked up to see Otogi swooping down before landing in front of him, seeming excited.

"What do you want Otogi?" Seto asked, eyes narrowed. He wasn't in the mood for his peer to be harassing him again.

"You're not going to believe this - so I was flying over the woods of the West border, and you're not going to believe what I saw!"

Seto's blood ran cold even for a reptile, and his mouth grew a little dry. Jounouchi and Shizuka… Surely Otogi hadn't spotted them, right? "What did you see?" Seto asked cooly, heart racing.

"Humans." Otogi told him.

"...Humans?" Seto echoed; dragons taking their human form outside of a villages was dangerous because of their vulnerability to predators and other dragons, only desperate dragons traveled in human form; the desperation was usually because they either had no rations that could sustain their dragon forms, or they needed to hide. "How many?"

"I didn't get too good a look - I don't think they realized I saw them. Two adults, two children, at least? They had some baskets and sashes on them, they might have babies with them too."

Seto hummed in thought "It might just be a traveling scrum," he told his underling, but lifted his wings "but, you go inform Yugi, I'll check this out - was there any particular landmark they were close to?"

"Yeah, that big pond near the edge."


Seto flew close to the edge of the treetops - if that month of punishment did improve anything dramatically, it was his ability to maneuver close to treetops, giving him a better view of the forest floor. In his front talon he held a cloth and spear he would take use of soon.

He landed when he was close enough to the pond to make it on foot, but not close enough to be seen coming. When he did land, he took a deep inhale of the air around him, trying to catch unusual scents.

Grass. Leaves. Deadwood. Dragon scent. All intermingled in a way that made it distinctive from the woods surrounding him. Very similar to Jounouchi's scent - but it was different. These were different dragons.

Seto closed his eyes and focused on his elemental core, imaging himself smaller, and as he willed it he felt his body shrink significantly and when he opened his eyes he was human again - he picked up the cloth, which was a tan robe to cover himself with, and picked up the spead, but he sashed it over his back. He had it to defend himself with, but he wasn't going to threaten with it right away, this would only cause aggression with the dragon parents.

He started walking in the direction of the pond, cursing himself for not bringing footwear. The forest floor was just not as forgiving as the grassy plains of his rafters territory that he was used to.

He came up to the pond, staying a little hidden behind the bushes to survey the area.

He saw that the tree Jounouchi was in before was clear of him, but there was a little movement heading towards the pond; he strained his eyes to focus on the figures approaching the waters edge.

"I don't get it, where is that damn mutt!" He heard; a male voice.

As they got closer he finally got a good look at them; two males. The taller was a pale, lithe man whose appearance took Seto aback; this man looked almost exactly like Ryou in his human form. The most notable difference was that even though both Ryou and this man had spikey white hair, this mans hair stuck up in different directions with his bangs almost appearing to be horn-like. His brown eyes didn't look quite as friendly as Ryou's either. He was wearing an off-white cape draped over his torso almost like a one-strapped robe, and a skirt going down mid thigh made of the same material. He was holding an infant swaddled up in cloth, and had a cradle basket on his back, most likely carrying another baby

The other male was dressed mostly the same except that he had a headdress of the same material covering most of his head and obscuring his face somewhat, enough that Seto couldn't make out the details of it. This man was slightly shorter than his companion, and also slim, but his skin was a dark tan colour, which contrasted against the other man who was near-albino in complexion. This man was holding two swaddled up infants. Both of the men were older than Seto, appearing to be in their late twenties to early thirties in human years.

"I'm sure he's fine." The shorter male told the white-haired man, who growled.

"I swear if that filthy hybrid fucking died on us I'm going to kill him a second time." The white haired male grunted, leaning down to gather water in his free hand and get a drink.

"Don't call him a filthy hybrid - our children are hybrids too." The shorter male chided, kneeling next to him.

"When I call them filthy hybrids, I mean it with love." That earned him what looked like a glare.

Seto swallowed to get his composure straight, and started his way over, trying to be as passive appearing as possible "Hey!" He called.

The two men automatically shot back up to their feet, the white haired male held the baby he was carrying close to him as he pushed the shorter male behind him "Back off mountain fucker!" He yelled, his free arm spread out to the side.

"I don't mean harm - look, I'm in human form like you" Seto offered; the white haired man narrowed his eyes further disdainfully, but lowered his arms. "But you are on my Rafters territory and I need to know why."

"Dads!" He heard, and saw two young preteens running up from the tree - a boy and girl, appearing to be fledglings around 10-12 years of age. The boy was wearing the same thing as his parents but without a headdress, he had black hair that looked like a spiky patch of grass, brown eyes, and his skin was tanned. The girl was wearing an off-white long skirt that went down to her feet, and a poncho covering her torso, she had tanned skin and brown eyes like the young boy, but her hair was long, spiky and white with dark magenta bangs.

"Stay behind us you damned brats!" The white haired man barked at them, they gathered around their other father instead, staring at Seto with wide eyes.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," Seto insisted, putting authority in his voice "I'm the Lieutenant of the Rafter of Domino Peak."

"Who is your alpha?" The white haired man demanded.

"Alpha-?" Before Seto could answer, the other man spoke up.

"Kaiba? Aren't you Seto Kaiba?" The tanned man asked, passing the babies he was holding to the two other children, he looked over to Seto past his headcover, showing that his eyes were a red-magenta color.

"Yes…?" Seto answered, blinking in surprise "Do I know you?"

"Maybe, you probably don't remember me though. I'm guessing Gozaburo isn't around if you're the lieutenant." The shorter man deducted.

"Who are you?" Seto asked, with a demanding edge, the white haired man didn't like this tone directed at his mate and angrily scowled at him.

The man took off his headcover, revealing a signature star-shaped hair style; black with magenta tips, and yellow bangs so similar to Yugi's if not for the bangs that sprang up into the main body of hair like lightning bolts. In fact, this man looked as similar to Yugi in his human form as his mate looked to Ryou; he was only slightly taller, had a darker tan, and his eyes were slightly more red.

"..." Seto wracked his brain, but while this man looked very similar to Yugi, he still wasn't familiar with him "You… look like my leader." Seto deadpanned.

The tanned man chuckled "I figured you'd say that," he said "I'm his older brother, Yami Motou. I left the Rafter before you two were fledglings."

Seto thought back; the hatchling stage was so long ago, only being 12 years while the fledgling stage was 170… all he could imagine was Yugi alone except for Anzu.

"I think I've heard of you..." Seto said, thinking hard "but we thought you were dead?" Sugoroku was considered without an heir not just because his son had left, but because his sons first child had also died… no, not died; he'd disappeared while he was still a fledgling, an older fledgling but still not an adult yet.

And here he was.

Yami shook his head "No, I wasn't dead… I, I just left." He explained vaguely, before he looked up "This is my mate, Bakura."

"Bakura?" Seto repeated, thinking back to Ryou. He looked to Bakura with confusion "What's your family name?" He asked.

Bakura snorted, crossing his arms best he could whilst holding an infant "Bakura is my family name, idiot." He scoffed.

"...Do you have a brother?"

"I don't think so-"

"Speaking of brothers," Yami cut in "how is mine?"

"He's the diamondtooth."

Yami's eyes widened in surprise "...Wow, so early?" He said aloud in disbelief, before chuckling to himself "Wow, my tiny little brother a diamondtooth! I'm never would have thought..." He trailed off.

"What brings you back?" Seto asked, approaching slowly to not raise alarm; to make a point, he unsashed his spear and threw it behind him, opting to approach unarmed, this seemed to calm the group down quite a bit, though Bakura still didn't look pleased. "What is it you want?"

"First of all, don't talk to me like I'm some common outsider," Bakura interjecting, still standing between Seto and his mate "I happen to be a healer, you know."

"A… healer…?" Seto questioned; healers almost never leave their Rafters territory for anything other than medicine gathering "You?" And healers aren't normally this abrasive.

"We're from the Rafter of the Shadow Forest," Bakura told him, tone still harsh, but he muttered the last part a bit "we're here seeking asylum."


"Yugi," Seto said as he flapped down to the clearing with the article of clothing in his talons; as he transformed into a human he pulled the article back over him, minimizing exposure; the other dragon sitting on leader rock looked to him confused "Yugi somethings come up."

"I'm assuming if you're in your human form," Yugi said, climbing off of the rock, "what's going on Kaiba?"

"We have asylum seekers." Seto explained, crossing his arms as he looked up to his leader "But… one of them is bound to be familiar to you, you may want to take your human form for this, and maybe sit down."

"Where are these asylum seekers? Does this have to do with those humans Otogi spotted near the border?"

"That is them, I sent them to the village to the Counsel Hall, they're not in the shape to transform back into dragons." Seto explained.

"I'll change into a human when we get there, but can you tell me a little bit why they were here?" Yugi asked, as he started walking towards the village, Seto walked alongside him though he stayed in human form.

"They're from the Rafter of the Shadow Forest… they've fallen on hard times."

"Does this have anything to do with that fugitive Hirutani was looking for?" Yugi inquired.

"Somewhat. For starters, Hirutani is not a diamondtooth," Yugi's eyes widened "and the fugitive was their real diamondtooth, who Hirutani attacked dishonorably when he claimed to surrender a challenge fight, a few months ago." Seto continued to explained, remembering the look on Jounouchi's face when he re-lived his trauma in memory "He escaped to recover, but Hirutani's been acting dictator ever since… he's fallen back on more 'traditional' aspects of their Rafters culture. He killed most of the eggs of their real diamondtooth, and now their healer and his mate escaped because his mate is an outsider, and their children are hybrids." More tradition/backwards Rafters weren't very accepting when it came to hybrid dragons "They only managed to last so long because he's a healer and he's too important to just drive away… but they were afraid that their older children would die in 'accidents'."

"That's terrible..." Yugi frowned "What about their females?"

"He's restricted them all to not leave the main camp or nesting area without a male."

"Disgusting." Yugi growled, shaking his head. "Has no one tried to stop him?"

"They're too afraid of him. He has too many loyalists willing to bully the rest of their Rafter into submission."

"We're definitely offering these poor people asylum..." Yugi said, as they came up to the village Yugi took a different path - to his own home. Once he was out of sight, Seto continued walking his way to the counsel hall.


The counsel hall was similar to a church, but no patron gods, there was a large chair at the center at the end surrounded on either side by smaller chairs, up on a platform elevated from the rest of the floor by a short walk of stairs. Sitting at the stoop of the stairs was Yami, Bakura, and their scrum of children.

"Daaad can I go back to being a dragon? I keep tripping like this." The girl child, Mana, asked.

"No, you just have to adjust to walking on two legs, you'll be fine." Bakura said, rocking two of the infants simultaneously. It was almost jarring how he managed to be so gruff, but so gentle at the same time.

"Can we at least be intermediate?" The boy, Tozokuo, asked, he was lying down on the stairs with his head resting on Bakura's lap.

"No." Bakura repeated.

"Dad?"

"No Tozokuo." Yami answered. It was equally as jarring how the children referred to both of their fathers as 'dad' and yet the two men seemed to understand which one they were referring to at any given time.

The lieutenant strode over, crossing his arms "Yugi will be here momentarily," Seto told them "I told him your predicament.. But not who you are," he turned to Yami specifically "I'll leave it to you to explain."

"He won't be very happy with me..." Yami said quietly, leaning slightly on Bakura as he supported with other two infants "I don't even know how I'll explain myself."

"The truth." Bakura suggested bluntly "Tell him you ran away to prove how tough you were on your own, only to almost die because you weren't that tough, and ended being nursed back to health and also seduced by me" Yami rolled his eyes and the two older children made faces.

"Dad, gross." Tozokuo said, scrunching up his nose.

"Quiet down boy, you'll understand when you have your own mate."

"I'm here," a voice said at the end; they turned to see Yugi standing there with a few guards by his side. Yugi was wearing an attire of of leather and light chainmail armor, and had a dagger strapped to his side, likely just in case if this was a trap of some kind "who are the individuals seeking audience with me?"

Yami handed the two infants he was holding to their older siblings and began walking over. Seto observed as Yugi's eyes widened as he recognized his long-lost brother, but they immediately narrowed again. Seto was seeing a rare emotion flash in the other mans eyes; rage.

"Yugi," Yami said softly, looking down slightly at his younger sibling, before taking a knee respectfully "or should I say, Diamondtooth?" He offered the younger a small smile.

"..." Yugi took a step forward, and continued until there was little space between the two of them.

"It's, been a long time..." Yami said, looking up at his brother.

"..." Yugi's eyes were unreadable for a second, but his pupils suddenly turned into dragonic slits.

WHAP!

Yami suddenly fell back, holding his cheek where the leader had just struck him. Yugi's fist was still curled from punching him. Bakura's snarl could be heard from across the building as he sprang up from his feet, somehow managing to quickly and also gently set the two infants he was holding on the ground - he rushed over, seamlessly taking his intermediate form and standing over his mate protectively, his wings spread in an intimidating display, his hair had turned silver and his eyes had turned blue, reflecting on his dragon palette.

"You damn runt! Touch my mate again and I swear-"

"Bakura," Yami hissed, sitting up "go back to being human." He covered his swelling eye with a hand.

"I-"

"Now." Yami pretty much growled "This is a Diamondtooth for gods sake." He warned in a lethal tone.

Bakura's eyes flicked at Yugi, he still looked angry, but he picked up his discarded garments and transformed back into his human appearance.

"I understand your angry." Yami sighed, his tone was soft as he looked up at his enraged sibling, who now hand his arms crossed and his gaze deadly "I left you all those years ago."

"You left me alone." Yugi spat "Our father died before I was born - our mother had just died, Yami! I had no idea Diamondtooth Sugoroku was our grandfather. You were the only family I had left and you just abandoned me!" He ranted "Did you even know that were his grandsons?!"

"...I did." Yami admitted.

"Well I didn't, I was barely an adult and suddenly I'm a diamondtooth because my brother not only left, but told me nothing! Was I nothing to you?!"

"It's not that Yugi. I had to leave, you don't understand." Yami tried to explain, standing back up, his mate was still hugging over his shoulders from behind.

"I don't think you understood either, because you're back." Yugi said harshly; he looked back to the two frightened fledglings in the back, and their four infant siblings, and his eyes softened a bit, but he was still angry "No matter; we will allow you to stay for now, my lieutenant will get you and your family lodged." He turned to leave.

"Yugi-" Yami tried to plead, the dark glare that Yugi threw over his shoulder was enough to make even Seto hold his breath.

"You are allowed to stay here, Yami," Yugi told him, slowly turning his gaze forward again "But you and your mate are not permitted to speak to me. Any comments, concerns and requests will be dealt with by my lieutenant, and if you try to approach me I won't be so generous." He walked out briskly, the guards following him.

Leaving Seto alone with the family.

"Is he always such a dick?" Bakura asked the brunet, taking a look at his mates eye and scowling "That's going to leave a black eye… don't worry, I've got the herbs necessary to make an healing press for that." He told his multihaired mate gruffly, before gently kissing below his injured eye.

"I swear he isn't normally like this," Seto told them "he's always had a difficult time even being strict. Having his brother return has struck a nerve I didn't even realize was there."

"It's all my fault." Yami said softly, only for Bakura to furiously shake his head.

"Don't listen to that runt, he wouldn't listen to your side for a moment and that's his problem. Oi, where's your healer Kaiba? Our little ones need formula." As in on cue, one of the babies started whining, which made their older siblings look panicked.

"I'll grab him… and his mate."

"Why his mate?" The white haired healer asked with a raised brow, one arm still slung over Yami.

"You'll see why."

TO BE CONTINUED…


Authors note: A little backstory for Yugi and Yami! Also, Bakura and Yami as a couple with their horde of children. And where's Jounouchi now?

You may be asking, why the hell do they have four babies and two teens?! Well, remember an average dragon clutch is anywhere between 3-6 eggs, less so for younger dragons, or a dragons first clutch. They had their first clutch about 10-20 years ago, which was only one egg each (because usually same-sex dragon couples will impregnate each other). Mana and Tozokuo are currently like 12, while the four infants were the same eggs Yami was incubating a few chapters back. Dragons don't have clutches every year, they will usually have another clutch when their last one goes into the fledgling stage.

So Bakura is a harsh one. He basically hates kids, except for his own.

Hatchlings and child dragons cannot transform on their own, an adult dragon has to magically trigger the transformation in them, again this is a survival mechanism for the winter and times of famines, because a baby dragon requires wayyyy more sustenance than a baby human, even if baby humans are limited in what they can eat. This is also why hatchling stage is so fast/short compared to Fledgling (hatchling only being roughly 10-13 years, while fledgling stage is 167-170)

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