Puzzle Pieces

by serena.jones.585

Chapter 0, Piece 0: Preface "That? Oh, it's a puzzle, but the box is missing, so I'm not sure what the picture is." "Couldn't someone just put together and see?" "I suppose they could, but how? You'd pull out a handful of pieces, but you wouldn't know if they were sky or water or anything. There'd be no way to see how they relate. And you'd never know if a piece was missing."

25. Piece 43

Chapter 25, Piece 43 * * * * * * * *

"Ladies, Gentlemen." Mokuba acknowledged the assembled guests. "Others." He nodded toward a specific group and got a laugh from the general audience. "Thank you for joining us this evening. Tonight is special for KaibaCorp, and for me personally. As you all know, I have been overseeing operations as my brother concentrated on several pet projects that needed more focused attention."

"So that's the public line of bullshit?" Jou snickered.

"Shh!" Yugi admonished. "They had to say something."

"Why not, dude was in a fucking coma; even assholes need recovery time."

The group around them laughed again, and they picked up the thread of Mokuba's speech.

"Before we get to that, we have a special presentation if Kozuki Takuya will join me?"

The president of Konami Corp smiled as he joined the Kaiba brothers on the small stage. He was carrying three gift envelopes.

"Duel Monsters is based on a game played in ancient Egypt," Kozuki-san began. "Konami reintroduced the game to the modern world and so we were excited when Kaiba-sama showed us his research."

"There are two more Legendary Dragons," Seto interrupted him. He was practically bouncing with excitement. Mokuba face palmed as Kozuki looked at Seto, stunned. "You were taking too long to get to the point." Seto turned back to the guests. "This will only be of true interest to those in the Duelist community." He turned back to Kozuki. "Go on; tell them!"

Kozuki looked at Seto as if seeing something strange and new, but recovered after a moment. "Yes. As he said, there were originally four Dragons, representing the four cardinal points - north, south, east, west. When we revived the game, we used texts from the fourth dynasty. But Kaiba-sama was able to translate a third dynasty text and the earlier documents clearly show the two existing dragons - the black and the white representing north and south. But they also show dragons at east and west."

A large covered poster board was set up quickly by stagehands. Seto pulled away the sheet and revealed an enlarged re-creation of the tablet he'd found in his research.

"As you can see, the east dragon was at one time red, but the color used for the west has been lost and the only thing remaining are the eyes which were obsidian inlays."

"Oh you are shitting me!" Jou gasped. "I did not just see that."

"See what?" Honda asked.

Seto gestured and the stagehand brought forward two more posters. "There is an obvious -"

"Suggested," Kozuki corrected.

"...obvious pattern here." Seto indicated the original tablet. "Each dragon has the eye color of the dragon next to it clockwise: red dragon, red eyes, black dragon, black eyes. Therefore, following this pattern, the west dragon must be," he whipped the cover off the second poster, "Black-eyes-blue-dragon. And the east must be White-eyes-red-dragon." He whipped off the remaining cover."

"Oh, you goddamn-dickhead-asshole-mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch!" Jou growled. "You stole it!"

There was some applause which Mokuba settled quickly. "I assure you, we haven't reached the real excitement."

"After careful consideration, we have decided to expand the Official Legacy Card set to include the missing dragons." There was a gasp from the assembled guests. Kozuki had expected it once he saw how many game industry attendees there were. "As with the originals, we have issued four of each card, and no Duelist may have more than three in a single deck. The Legacy cards are invalid for tournament play and so we are giving two of each to KaibaCorp to be given to the 'King of Games' over the next four years."

They made a photo op out of Kozuki handing one of the envelopes to Mokuba.

"Which leaves four remaining cards." Kozuki pulled a document out of his pocket. "Now, I happen to know the reigning King of Games is here, as I have already spoken to him, so Mutou-san, if you please?"

There was plenty of applause as Yugi went up and accepted the envelope.

"Now, the last set we wanted to give to last year's King - which as it happens was also Mutou-san - but we didn't want to give two sets to one person."

"I'll get them next year," Yugi grinned impishly.

"If I stay retired," Seto retorted.

"Be that as it may," Kozuki continued. "We calculated who the next most winning Duelist is, excluding Kaiba-sama himself of course, and we will be presenting the final set to Jounouchi Katsuya."

Again, there was a great deal of applause.

"Oh that is perfect!" Jou snarled under his breath. "I should have killed him when I had the chance."