Prologue

"Damn it."

Yuugi frowned at his screen. The level editor had frozen yet again. His cursor was stranded, blinking helplessly over the "render" button.

Yuugi had written about twenty bug reports over the last month and sent them dutifully through Kaiba Corporation's official ticket system. When the editor continued to choke up and die whenever Yuugi looked at it wrong, without any acknowledgement from the coding team, he'd escalated to polite emails. He'd gotten a terse response yesterday instructing him to uninstall and re-install the editor, make sure it was in the correct directory, and then reboot his computer.

This, of course, was bullshit. Yuugi knew the basics of troubleshooting! A fresh install and reboot was one of the first things he'd tried. However, he'd obligingly completed the steps again, and emailed the head of the editor's coding team that it hadn't worked.

Yuugi refreshed his inbox yet again. No response from the coding team. There was, however, a message from his supervisor - asking why his level still hadn't been completed, and warning him that he had been behind on every progress checkpoint for the past four weeks.

"Damn it!" Yuugi repeated, chewing on his thumbnail in frustration.

Thanks for checking in, he wrote. I've been unable to meet my progress checkpoints because I'm waiting on the status of ticket #856-E. As you can see in the ticket history, it's been over a month since the issue began. I've cc'ed Tanaka-san in hopes that we can get the level editor back to full functionality soon :)

Translation: I can't get my job done until you fix the tools I need to do my god damned job, you jerks.

In an added flourish of pettiness, Yuugi cc'ed Tanaka-san, Tanaka-san's supervisor, and his own supervisor's supervisor. Good luck ignoring his ticket requests now. He hit 'send' with a vindictive little thrill.

"You got in trouble for that?" Jounouchi said, squinting at Yuugi's phone screen. "Huh? I don't get it. There was even a smiley face."

"Cc'ing all those people was kind of an aggressive move," Yuugi admitted, chewing morosely on his burger. "My supervisor said I shouldn't waste everyone's time by bypassing the ticket system."

"But you tried the ticket system," Jounouchi said. "And they ignored you."

"I know," Yuugi said miserably.

Jounouchi shook his head. "Fuck me. Dunno how you do it, Yuugi. Office are fuckin' minefields. I'd be puttin' my foot in it all the time."

Yuugi sighed, slumping back against the cheap plastic of Burger World's booth cushions and staring up at the fluorescents above. "It was better when I could talk to Kaiba-kun about it. He wouldn't solve my problems, exactly, but he'd give pretty good advice on how to get results."

"You know what else I don't get?" Jounouchi said.

"That asshole," Yuugi said in unison with Jounouchi.

"Yeah," Jounouchi said, jabbing a fry into the cup of ketchup between them. "First he offers you a job at KaibaCorp, then he makes you start at the god damn bottom-"

"I know," Yuugi said again.

Truth be told, Yuugi hadn't minded starting in mobile game level design after getting his degree. Job slots at KaibaCorp were coveted, often reaching up to a thousand applicants within a day of posting. Being the King of Games didn't mean Yuugi had a right to a position that could go to a more talented coder, designer, or artist. He was grateful at least that Kaiba didn't make him start as a glorified code janitor and work all the way up.

Sure, making levels for simple mobile platformers only tangentially associated with KaibaCorp's flagship brands wasn't exactly Yuugi's passion, and designing games to be as addictive as possible to fuel endless microtransactions wasn't exactly in line with Yuugi's strongly-held values about gaming. But it was something - far more than he deserved after graduating with half-assed grades from Domino University, in truth.

"What's that dick even up to these days?" Jounouchi ranted. "Sulking and avoiding us all because-"

"Jou," Yuugi cut him off. He really wasn't up for this conversation again.

"I know, I know." Jounouchi sighed. "I just...sometimes I kinda feel like the team is driftin' apart, you know?"

"Is it?" Yuugi said, alarmed.

"No!" Jounouchi backtracked. "No, I didn't mean that. Maybe it's just me. Guess I kinda feel like I'm going nowhere fast these days."

Yuugi nodded thoughtfully as he worked on another bite of burger. He knew exactly what Jounouchi meant.

"I didn't even get it together and go to college," Jounouchi muttered, shaking his head.

"Neither did Honda-kun," Yuugi pointed out.

"That's different," Jounouchi said. "Honda always wanted to open up a garage, and now he's doin' it. I'm...I dunno. Construction isn't my passion, I think you know that."

"You're doing great at pro Dueling," Yuugi encouraged.

Jounouchi snorted. "Yeah, winning a few small-time tournaments isn't what I'd call great. Nothin' like...like Battle City, or..."

"I know," Yuugi sighed. "I know. You're doing great at pro Dueling the same way I'm doing great at my game design career."

"Exactly," Jounouchi said, stealing another one of Yuugi's fries.

"Drifting apart?"

"Yeah," Yuugi said. "Jounouchi-kun thinks so."

Anzu chewed her lip. "I mean, we don't hang out as much as we used to, I guess, but...I guess that happens sometimes when people grow up."

That was an understatement. It had taken Yuugi and Anzu a full two weeks of texting back and forth to find one measly hour for lunch that would fit with both their schedules. In the end they'd only been able to make it work by eating in the KaibaCorp cafeteria, with Yuugi taking a late lunch break and Anzu ducking out between dance rehearsals.

"It doesn't mean I have to like it," Yuugi said, a little petulantly.

"I don't like it either," Anzu admitted. "You know I haven't seen Eri-chan in four days?"

"What?" Yuugi laughed. "You two live together."

"The life of a grad student is tough," Anzu said, frowning. "I hope she's at least remembering to eat."

"Here's a tip," a voice said from behind them. "Hide stashes of snacks in places that you know they frequent."

"Mokuba-kun!" Anzu said in delight, turning around in her seat. "You get taller every time I see you!"

"I might still catch up to Seto," Mokuba said, a triumphant grin on his face. At seventeen, he wasn't really that close to his brother's towering height, but he wasn't the pint-sized kid from Battle City anymore either.

"Come sit with us," Yuugi invited. "I feel like I haven't seen you forever, even though we share a workplace now!" He patted the seat next to him. Mokuba happily obliged, setting down his tray of food.

"It's been nuts," Mokuba admitted. "If I could just work here full-time instead of two days a week..."

"If you dropped out of school it would break Kaiba-kun's heart," Anzu chided lightly, switching immediately into Big Sister Mode.

"I know, I know," Mokuba said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "I'm just saying, nii-sama needs some kind of full-time babysitter to make sure he doesn't die from overwork."

"Hence your tips on how to make sure someone's remembering to eat," Yuugi said wryly.

Mokuba nodded with a long-suffering sigh. "He's only getting worse with age. Who are you trying to keep alive, Anzu?"

"My roommate, Eri. You remember her, right?"

Mokuba thought for a moment. "Uh..."

"Éléonore Morin," Yuugi prompted. "Anzu's friend from Juilliard. Remember when you and Kaiba-kun were in New York for a product launch while we were all visiting Anzu for winter break, and everyone got together?"

"OH!" Mokuba said, snapping his fingers. "Eri. Yeah, of course. She's in Japan now?"

"Uh huh," Anzu nodded happily. "I made her apply to Tohoku for her masters', just for fun, and she got in. So I talked her into coming here."

"Did Eri have any say in it?" Mokuba laughed. "You can be pretty convincing, Anzu."

Anzu pushed Mokuba's shoulder playfully. "No, I didn't force her to move to Japan. Anyways, she wouldn't have studied so hard for the JLPT if she didn't want to come."

"That's ambitious," Mokuba said. "No way I'd do a master's degree in another language. Or a master's degree in general. I'd skip doing a bachelor's if I could, but Seto says he'll demote me if I don't go to college."

"That's...a little hypocritical," Yuugi admitted.

Mokuba grinned. "Tell me about it. So how's the rest of the gang?"

Anzu and Yuugi exchanged glances.

"Less of a gang these days," Anzu said wistfully. "Yuugi and I were just talking about how we don't see each other nearly enough. Honda is so busy with his garage, and Jounouchi is always pulling double shifts at work and then pro Dueling on the weekends...and dance has just been so crazy for me lately..."

"Aw," Mokuba said, frowning. "That's no good. I know nii-sama misses you guys lately too."

"He what?" Yuugi echoed incredulously.

"He does!" Mokuba insisted. "I can tell."

"We invite him to things, you know," Anzu said. "He's been ignoring all of our messages for ages. Since..."

"Yeah." Mokuba looked down at his tray, poking listlessly at his noodles. "I know. Just...don't give up on him, okay?"

"It's not that we're giving up on him," Yuugi said gently. "But...we can't force him to talk to us..."

Mokuba thought about that for a moment, and then looked up at them with a bright, sunny smile. The kind of smile that with Mokuba usually meant trouble.

"I have an idea..."

"KaibaLand? What is that, an amusement park?"

"Yeah," Anzu said. "It's huge. There's so much stuff to do! It's going to be a lot of fun."

"It's not like I don't believe you," Eri said dubiously, chewing on the end of her pencil. "It just...sounds kinda expensive?"

Anzu laughed. Sprawled on the couch surrounded by books, wearing a rumpled pullover sweater with her hair corralled into a messy bun and reading glasses on, Eri looked like the very picture of a graduate student - right down to pinching every penny possible. "It's okay, we know the owner," Anzu assured her. "We can get in for free."

"Oh," Eri said, as it dawned on her. "Kaiba Land. As in, Kaiba-kun? Your tall, scary friend?"

"That's the one," Anzu said with a grin. "Mokuba-kun will be there too."

"Mokuba-kun," Eri said. "That's Kaiba-kun's kid brother, right? I like him. He's sweet."

"He is," Anzu agreed. "So what do you think? This Sunday?"

Eri pondered for a second, and then glanced at her massive pile of strewn books, notes, and papers. "I want to," she said, "but I'm in the middle of grading midterms..."

"It can wait for a few hours," Anzu said firmly. "Come on, Eri-chan. No one but me has seen you in weeks. Honda thinks you secretly moved back to Canada and I'm just in denial about it."

Eri laughed ruefully. "Okay, okay. Honda-kun's one to talk. Ever since his garage opened he's dropped off the face of the earth."

"Well, that's part two," Anzu said, pointing dramatically. "Now that you've agreed, we've gotta call Honda and get him on board."

"I see," Eri said, stroking her chin. "Two against one. All right, let's get him."

Honda didn't pick up the phone at first, so Anzu just kept calling. Finally he answered on the third try.

"Anzu? What's going on? You okay?"

"Come to KaibaLand this Sunday!" Anzu chirped.

"Jesus," Honda groaned. "You triple-called me for that? Dude, I thought there was an emergency."

"There is an emergency," Eri said. "We miss you. That's the emergency."

"Oh, so you haven't moved back to Canada," Honda said in exasperation. "What are you two up to? You only ambush me on speakerphone like this when you want something."

"We want you to come to KaibaLand with us this Sunday," Anzu repeated.

"You have to," Eri added. "It's mandatory."

"Is it now," Honda drawled. "And I'm just supposed to close up the garage on a weekend day?"

"You're supposed to let your apprentice man the shop for just one day," Anzu said sternly. "Which you've been saying you'll do for months."

"I will!" Honda protested. "Hideki's just not ready-"

"Hideki's ready," Eri interrupted. "If I gotta to to KaibaLand in the middle of grading midterms, then you gotta let the kid man the garage for you. It's only fair."

"Wait, your logic is kind of..."

"And Jou swapped out both of his shifts that day, and Jii-chan is watching the Kame Game shop even though Sunday is usually his day off so that Yuugi can go," Anzu added. "I begged off rehearsal, too."

Honda sighed, long and heavy. Then he laughed. "Jesus. The Eri-Anzu ambush is way too effective."

"Does that mean you'll come?" Eri said excitedly, as if she herself hadn't been dragging her heels just moments before.

"Yeah, yeah," Honda said. They could practically hear him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. "Both of you have gotta win me prizes at the game booths, you hear me? Andgood prizes."

"Okay," Anzu laughed. "We'll win you a plushie as tall as you are."

"You'd better, or I'm gonna turn around and go straight home."

After Honda ended the call, Anzu brought up the group chat on LINE.

Anzu: We got him (✧ω✧)b

Jou: damn girl ur efficient as hell

Yuugi: and you got eri-chan too right?

Eri: yeah! i wanna go on every single roller coaster!

Honda: so anzu n yuugi were behind the whole thing huh...how am i not surprised...

Yuugi: = ω = see you all sunday! 9am!

The group arrived at KaibaLand at eight-forty-five. Mokuba was already there, leaning against the gates and playing with his phone, with Isono lurking nearby.

"Hey!" Mokuba called out. He jogged up to meet them. "You guys are early."

"Well," Yuugi said sheepishly, "Kaiba-kun did say he'd have security escort us out if we were even a minute late."

"Aw, he didn't mean it," Mokuba said. Yuugi felt that Mokuba could sometimes be a little in denial about the extent of the elder Kaiba's misanthropic attitude.

"Where is your brother, anyways?" Anzu said, looking around.

"Oh, he's busy," Mokuba replied. "He won't be here."

"The hell?" Jounouchi whined. "We haven't seen that jackass in six months and he's not even gonna come say hi?"

"Sorry," Mokuba shrugged. He looked uncomfortable. Yuugi wasn't surprised, exactly, given Kaiba's reclusiveness as of late - but the way Mokuba was nervously avoiding everyone's eyes made Yuugi wonder if there was more to it than that.

"What's Kaiba so busy with, anyways?" Honda wondered.

"Stuff," Mokuba said evasively. "Anyways, come check this out, we made the Blue-Eyes White Coaster even taller-"

Despite Mokuba's very obvious attempt at a topic change, the distraction worked well. The newly-renovated KaibaLand was huge. Kaiba had not only added more rides but also interesting new takes on classic games, like a gigantic chessboard where you projected an avatar of yourself and engaged in virtual combat each time you encountered another piece on the board, or a sort of high-stakes backgammon where the players were suspended in midair with an anti-gravity technology and made their moves using a series of exaggerated gestures.

"I gotta give it to Kaiba," Jounouchi said, arms full of prizes. "This is awesome."

"Yeah!" Anzu agreed. "You guys did a great job with the renovations. Have you started doing Kids Days again yet?"

"Tomorrow is the first one," Mokuba said, glowing from the praise.

Another feature of KaibaLand was that one day a week - every single week, in every branch the world over - it was closed to the public, so that children from group homes, the foster care system, and other under-served communities could come and play for free.

"That's right," Yuugi said with a smile. "I bet you're most excited for that part."

"Yup," Mokuba said with a huge grin. "Those are my favourite days. Nii-sama's too, even though he always says it's because kids are good beta testers for new attractions."

"Of course he does," Anzu laughed.

"Hey, look at this!" Eri cried from behind them. "Look what we got!" She and Honda were struggling to carry a gargantuan stuffed Celtic Guardian between them.

"Did Eri win that for you, Honda?" Jounouchi needled him.

"Yup!" Honda said, completely unruffled. "Archery game."

"There's an archery game?" Yuugi marveled. "Jou, you wanna try?"

"Sure. You think I'll be any good?"

"Only one way to find out," Mokuba said happily, towing them off in the direction Eri and Honda had just come from.

In the end, they didn't find out if Jounouchi had a secret talent for archery minigames. Mokuba's phone buzzed just before they reached the archery range.

"Hey, nii-sama," he said. A pause. "Oh. That doesn't sound good." Another pause. "Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"What's going on, Mokuba-kun?" Yuugi asked.

"Um...tech malfunction," Mokuba hedged. "It's no big deal! You guys keep playing. I'll come back later if I can."

"It sounds like kind of a big deal," Anzu said, noting Mokuba's worried expression. "Can we help?"

"I'm an employee here too, Mokuba-kun," Yuugi pressed. "Come on, let us come with you, at least for backup."

"Nii-sama won't like it," Mokuba said slowly.

"That's fine," Jounouchi said, looping an arm around Mokuba's shoulder. "Your brother always kicks up a fuss about us helping out, but that never stopped us before, did it?"

"I guess..." Mokuba thought about that for a moment. "Okay. Follow me." He entered some kind of code on his phone, and the wall right next to them opened up into what appeared to be a maintenance tunnel.

"Where are we going?" Eri whispered to Honda.

"One of Kaiba's secret tech dungeons," Honda whispered back. "You'll love it. It's like something out of that show you watch, with the bald guy in the jumpsuit-"

"Star Trek," Eri whispered excitedly. "Woah."

"Hey, you two," Mokuba said sternly. "This isn't a game." He pointed at Eri. "Especially not for you. You're not used to weird stuff yet."

Eri saluted. "Yes sir. I'm just here for moral support." She and Honda high-fived. "Moral support gang!"

Mokuba sighed and pressed a hand to his forehead. "Don't do that around Seto, I am begging you."

When they arrived in KaibaCorp's basement labs, Mokuba led them through another few tunnels, each one getting darker and less populated as they went. Finally he entered a complicated sequence of key-codes at an extremely forbidding-looking metal door, which gave off a pneumatic hiss as it groaned open.

"Is that..." Yuugi said, eyes wide.

Kaiba was standing there over what looked like a wreck of twisted metal, frowning, his arms folded tightly over his chest. The room was so dim that they could barely see him.

"Nii-sama," Mokuba greeted him, jogging to his side. "What's going on?"

"Why are they here?" Kaiba snapped, eyes still fixated on the debris in front of him.

"I thought maybe they could help," Mokuba cajoled. "Especially Yuugi."

Kaiba finally looked up. He pinned each of them with a glare in turn. "I highly doubt it."

"Fill us in, Kaiba-kun," Yuugi said, brushing off the slight. "Is that the dimensional domain emulator?"

Kaiba seemed to weigh his options, and then shrugged. "What's left of it."

"It blew up this morning," Mokuba explained. "Nii-sama was down here trying to figure out what happened. And then..."

"It started doing that," Kaiba said, pointing. Cracks in the metal briefly illuminated, glowing with a soft blue. The light lasted for only a second before fading.

"What is that?" Anzu said.

Kaiba ignored her and turned to Yuugi. "Watch for a minute," he instructed. The light flashed on and off a few times, and then a pause, and then again.

"Oh," Yuugi said, taken aback. "It's a pattern. Specifically..."

They all watched this time as the light glowed and receded. Three short bursts of light, followed by three longer emittances, followed by three short ones again.

"An S.O.S. signal," Mokuba said slowly.

Kaiba nodded. "Once I saw that, I noticed something else. Look. It's projecting." He gestured towards the wall. With every flash of light, very faint, squiggly shapes were appearing on its darkened surface.

"Oh, that's why you have all the lights off." Mokuba leaned forward and squinted. "You can barely see them, and they're gone so fast. What are they?"

"I don't know," Kaiba said. "I used the computer up there to take pictures of each projection and sharpen the image, but I can't read it. All I can tell is that it's the same series of symbols appearing each time."

"It looks like an alphabet," Yuugi said, stepping towards the projection and gazing at it with a furrowed brow.

Kaiba looked up at him with an appraising expression. "Maybe one of you can be useful after all. The same thing had occurred to me. It strongly resembles hieroglyphic text." He gestured up towards an isolated booth in the upper corner of the room, protected by thick walls and reachable only by a small lift. "Mokuba, go start running the analysis. Yuugi, over here with me. The rest of you stay out of the way."

"Can't you read hieroglyphics, Kaiba-kun?" Yuugi said, as Mokuba made his way into the booth. The heavy door shut behind him.

"Only while the Sennen Items were still around," Kaiba said. "Now that all of that nonsense is settled, no, I can't decipher them anymore." He didn't sound at all put-out by the loss of that particular ability.

Yuugi stepped hesitantly towards the hunk of twisted metal. It made a hissing noise.

"Oh, look, it likes you," Kaiba said sarcastically.

"Kaiba-kun," Anzu called. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"Obviously not," Kaiba snapped, "which is why I didn't invite any of you in here."

"We're just trying to help, Kaiba," Jounouchi said hotly, taking a step towards the destroyed machine. It started to spark.

"Get back," Kaiba said.

"Now you listen here-"

"Get back!" Kaiba roared, but it was too late. The metal started to blaze red-hot and the hissing noise became so loud that everyone had to slam their hands over their ears. The flashing started to pick up in pace. Mokuba was trying to get out of the control booth but it seemed that the door was no longer operational.

Suddenly the room filled with a golden glow, piercing and all-encompassing, and a voice echoed through the space. A woman's voice.

Help. Help us. Please.

Hi everyone, and welcome to The Legend of Zelda: Ten Thousand Year Elegy! This is obviously a bit of a departure from what I usually write, and my first go at a real epic longfic. I've got about 200k words written so far so updates will be quite regular. The structure of this fic is in three Books. Book I has three parts, Book II has four parts, and Book III has one part.

This work follows the usual blend of anime-manga-DSOD headcanon I tend to use in my works: Death T didn't happen but Atem did put Kaiba in a coma following his duel with Sugoroku. Gozaburo yeeted himself out a window like in the manga and was not present for Virtual World, but Virtual World did happen. (Just pretend it makes sense.) DSOD happened, but differently. I've written out Shadi's creepy orphan cult (as per usual for my works). DSOD happens later, in the gang's early twenties, and is 100% about Kaiba's obsessive grief and denial making him launch himself into the afterlife. Obviously he ends up coming back. At the start of this fic he's been back for approximately six months.

Over the course of the next few weeks I'll be posting some supplementary material on my tumblr (winklepickers.) (Also linked in my profile bc FFN is draconian about links...) This will be mostly fanart, but also probably some lore and behind-the-scenes stuff. If you have any questions about the fic please feel free to ask in the comments, or shoot me an ask on tumblr. Thanks, everyone, and enjoy the ride!