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, other minor shippings will be mentioned as the story goes

Rating: T+, may go up later

Chapter 1: Alligator Snapping Dragon

The first few days of the punishment weren't so bad, but it was awfully boring. The West border wasn't usually touched by most of the Rafter because of the lack of prey, and the particular forested area. The Rafter of Domino Peak were foothill and plains type dragons, they preferred having the open sky right above them. Having a forested area made them feel suffocated, and vulnerable, unable to see everything around them. Seto considered himself to be a very adaptive dragon, but even he felt claustrophobic with all of these trees around him.

The other day had been the day when Yugi decided to, without warning, send a whole gaggle of fledgelings his way. He struggled the entire time to not roar at any of the young dragons, they were energetic and talkative, excitible, loud, everything he hated. Rebecca Hopkins, a particularly precocious fledgeling, decided to show off her 'skill' to him by attempting to shift to her human form, and while she did manage to do so, she didn't have enough energy to change. It was made worse since she had no clothes on her and forgot that unlike their dragon forms, their human forms gave them a great sense of shame when it came to nudity. She sobbed the entire time trying to cover up her human form body, and Seto had to send the rest of her peerage away while he awkwardly tried to calm down her hysterics while simultaneously not looking at her so she didn't feel worse.

It lasted for hours, until eventually he was saved when one of her peers informed the young females mother what happened, who flew over to collect her daughter.

He was on day five now, and he was dreadfully bored. It wasn't even noon yet and he'd already scouted the entire west side border three times. He'd try catching a scrawny buck dear earlier, but ended up crashing against a tree because of his lack of experience with them.

He would consider taking a nap, since it wasn't like any other patrols ever came to this side of the border, but if he did that than that would basically mean that Yugi got to him and won and he wouldn't allow that.

He hadn't managed to catch any prey yet, but he could go for a drink; he wasn't terrible excited at the prospect because there weren't many running streams around this forest, so any body of standing water was bound to be stagnant, he could only hope it would at least be a little fresh with the nightly rainshowers.

Seto climbed up to the top of a tree, struggling to do so with his massive size compared to the minimal space provided by the cluster of trees, but once he was at the top he flung himself into the air and struggled to get into proper flight, and sighed in relief when he got the proper lift for flight.

He flew above the trees, squinting at the spaces between leaves for the reflective glare of water, it was only when he was close to a remote corner that he finally found what looked like a decent pool of water.

Carefully he returned to the ground, sniffing around. He scrunched up his nose; mud. This was definitely more of a pond than a pool of water. That meant the water was most likely stagnant and probably filled with algae and mosquito larvae. He was dreadfully thirsty at this point, and had to suck it up to quench his thirst. He approached the pond carefully, struggling to not sink into the mud and soft peat surrounding the pond. The pond water was mostly dark, but he was relieved to see that there was in fact at least a foot of a clear layer on top, free of detritus. He bent his neck down and drank in long swallows of water, making sure his forked tongue didn't so much as brush the dirty, dark layer of water beneath the clear.

He lifted his head when he got his fill of water and scrunched his nostrils trying to clear the disgusting boggy scent from them. In doing so, he caught an unusual scent, one that was unfamiliar, but familiar in it's elements - grass, Earth, clay, deadwood… blood?

He looked around and saw that there was a patch of grass with dried blood droplets on the blades. He knelt down to sniff at the blood - his spines on his cheeks stiffened as he realized that this was dragon blood. Not his, nor any Windrider he knew. This was the blood of an outsider.

The blood may have been dried, but it was fresh, not older than a few days. Growling lowly in his throat as his pupils slitted to the width of a needle, he swept his gaze around for signs of any strange dragons. He saw depressions in the mud, definitely from something big and heavy. Like a dragon… He thought, quietly following the depressions, sniffing around.

The unusual scent increased enough he could follow it's trail instead - grass, leaves, and deadwood. The strong scent of foliage mingled with distinctive dragon scent and blood. Windriders smell like precipitation and the wind. So this definitely wasn't a dragon from his Rafter.

The scent became strongest when he came close to a very large tree. This tree was huge in fact, probably the biggest in the forest. However, it was hollow at the bottom, it's base having being hollowed almost to the tree bark, and roots curling over the ground in front of the entrance. There was more blood on the roots, and there was a depression on the ground inside the tree, indicating a full grown dragon had been at least lying there. There were dried leaves covering the ground, although sloppy from being hastily put together, it was definitely supposed to be a nest.

The fresh was scent… but no dragon was there.

Seto looked side to side, before poking his head inside the entrance, taking a deep whiff of the unusual scent.

He heard the cracking of a branch, and before he could react he felt a weight crash on him, with a roar of surprise he felt himself get pressed against the ground, an almost primal growl rumbling from around him. Seto struggled to get his footing with the bare ground covered in twisted roots, but he dug his back feet in and bucked the other dragon off of him before whirling around to face him, lightning crackling threateningly from the corner of his mouth.

The dragon in front of him was another male looking to be of his age group, maybe a little bit younger. Like him, he was four-legged with his front legs and talons appearing to be prehensile even if was standing on all fours currently. He was very spiny and spiky for a dragon, and was bulky, at least compared to a Windrider. His head had a pair of back-pointing horns at the top of his head and behind his chin. His scales were a deep black with no signs of luster or break in the dark colour, and his eyes were a bright scarlet. He was clearly enraged, as his pupils were slitted to the point of almost not existing. He was crouched closely to the ground, with his wings spread wide and his tail whipping from side-to-side rapidly. An aggressive stance.

Seto crouched close to the ground as well, lightning still crackling in threat "You are trespassing." Seto growled "This territory belongs to the Rafter of Domino Peak. I'm giving you one chance to flee, before you really piss me off."

The black dragon narrowed his eyes and seemed to raise a bit from his crouched position - as if he was going to turn and leave after all. But quickly, the other dragon leapt with a strong spring of his back legs and tackled the white dragon.

Knocked onto his back, Seto opened his jaws wide and blasted the challenging male with a strong stream of white lightning. The other dragon ducked enough that only his left wing was hit, with a hiss he got off of Seto and took some steps back, when Seto rolled back onto his feet the other dragon knocked him back with a swing of his tail.

Seto regained his composure and saw dark red flames forming along the talons of the other dragon. While elemental breathing was the strongest, most primal, and easiest use of a dragons element, the element can be used in other ways, blasts can come from movements of the talons, sweeps of the tail, and flaps of the wings.

The other dragon growled at him, but his mouth was clamped shut.

Seto circled around him, the other dragon was very defensive right now but didn't appear to want to attack him right now. Seto studied his opponent more carefully now that he wasn't moving; his back right leg appeared to be injured, as he was overcompensating with his left. His tail was bent like a broken branch, with the end half appearing limp and dragging. What appeared to be bulk was actually just the bone structure of the dark dragon, he was supposed be be thickly built, but really he was skinny, with his scaly skin clinging to his broad bone structure and making him appear bigger than his lack of nourishment should have allowed. While the blackness of his scales had no luster, the scales of his underbelly had an ashy cast to it… and deep claw marks, as if he'd been clawed and burnt there. Whatever he'd been fighting previously, it definitely didn't want him to live.

This definitely explained the other dragons aggression. Dragons by default are aggressively compared to their human selves, but being sapient they are never aggressive for no reason. While a dragon trespassing isn't unusual, it's definitely unusual for a dragon to attack another on territory that isn't their own.

This dragon was hurt.

Seto stopped and raised his head, looking the other dragon in the eye "You're injured." He observed "I don't pity you, because you've trespassed on my Rafters territory. However, I'm not so low I'd try to beat down an already beat down stray." He growled "I'm not pathetic like that. So, talk."

The other dragon's slitted pupils appeared to dilate a bit as the fog of aggression seemed to dissipate, but the dark red flames spewing from his talons continued.

"Leave." Seto ordered "This isn't your territory, go lick your wounds somewhere else."

The other dragons throat rumbled with a growl as his pupils slitted again.

"For fucks sake," Seto cursed, he really didn't want to fight this dragon. Not because he felt sorry or anything like that, but his opponent was too weak to be a real challenge, the win wouldn't be worth it "go, you dumbass!" He demanded with a roar.

He tried approaching but the other dragon just stepped back, still on the defensive. Not saying a word.

"You stubborn pile of scales," Seto growled, this dragon clearly wasn't going to leave without a fight, "wait here." Seto suddenly ordered before walking away the other direction, the dark dragons eyes followed him until he was out of sight.

Seto sniffed around him until he found the musky scent he was looking for. He stalked close to the bushes until he came close to a break in the trees.

There was a sapling in the middle of a clearly, the young buck from earlier was chewing on some of its leaves. Seto crept close, trying to be as stealthy as possible, but it was a struggle. It didn't work either, because he was barely close when it's ears perked up and it got into position to leap away.

Cursing, Seto shot out an elemental breath of lighting right at the deer, he had enough reach to zap it. The deer whined and fell to the ground, flailing in twisted contortions around from the electricity. Seto hated using his lightning, because it usually made the creature suffer if he didn't immediately kill it. He rushed over and chomped on the bucks throat - the deer's warm blood filled his between his teeth and it went limp.

Carrying the prey in his mouth, he walked back near the pond and tree where the dark dragon had been. To his surprise, the black dragon was indeed still waiting for him as told. He wasn't summoning fire anymore, but he was still in a defensive pose.

"Here," Seto grumbled as he threw the carcass in front of the other dragon. The black dragon looked to it, before looking back up at Seto "what?" Seto demanded, growling "Even the most unintelligent loner knows what prey is." He scoffed. The dragon didn't move, just blinked at him, almost expectantly. "What are you looking at? Do you expect something better? You ungrateful scavenger." The dragon still made no moves "Do you think I poisoned it? Here-" he bend down and took a bite of the bucks shoulders, chewing quickly and then swallowing.

He looked back down to the black dragon, who finally stood fully up. He expected the black dragon to start eating the prey, but instead he used a talon to hook around the bucks antlers, and backwards-walked back to the hollow tree, dragging the corpse with him.

Seto raised an eyeridge and followed, the other dragon stopped at the shoreline of the pond. The red-eyed dragon was definitely more calm now, but he wasn't wholly trustworthy either. Seto sat back down, his talons neatly in front of him. The other dragon copied the same sitting position, but it was awkward with how twisted his rear leg was. "That looks bad." Seto commented. The other dragon said nothing, just continued to stare him down. Not talking, or eating the prey even if it seemed like he intended to.

"... Don't cause any trouble around here. And try not to stick around. We don't appreciate strays." Seto growled, turning away. He wasn't going to fight this dragon, he was too aggressive, and apparently stubborn. He would check up again on him tomorrow. Finding a more open area, Seto took a running start before flying off, leaving the stranger alone.

For now.

"Why are you always wide awake when I'm ready to go to sleep?" Seto asked his hatchling brother as the chick continued to climb all over his neck and back, until he settled on top of his head, peeping excitedly.

He sighed tiredly. He managed to stay away from the other dragon for the rest of that day, but that didn't sate his curiosity. Why did that dragon refuse to leave? What had injured him so badly? Why didn't he say a single word?

Seto scoffed to himself and placed his head on top of his talons, he'd moved fast enough to cause Mokuba to fall off of his head, but it was a soft enough fall he just rolled onto the nest, chirping as if laughing.

He didn't know why he bothered to waste energy on thinking about the stranger.

He supposed he pitied him.

Mokuba headbutted his older brothers snout.

"Please go to sleep." Seto groaned, Mokuba whimpered, rubbing against the other white dragons face. "Here, sleep under my wing." Seto offered, lifting his wing as he'd seen Ryou do earlier, sure enough Mokuba stumbled to his side and curled up beside him, but didn't close his eyes until his brother draped his massive white wing around him.

Soon enough, the chick was fast asleep.

Quietly, Seto go up and stretched his wings, while he was tired, he still had something he needed to do, or rather, someone he needed to talk to.

He took some bounds forward before lifting off into flight, he flew high over the territory until he came close to Domino Mountain - he flew closer, and even though it was dark, some structures become more and more visible to him. A village, a simple village with archaic one-story wooden buildings, and cobblestone roads. He flew close to the edge where an unlit shack was. This was his human home.

He focused himself to his center, imaging himself smaller, flightless, standing upright… With a faint light his body began to shrink and lose structure as it build itself back up into his human form. Once Seto was fully transformed into a human, he ducked into the small home, using some remnants of his connection to his element to spark a lantern into lighting up.

He grabbed up some clothing from a chest and hastily dressed, cursing his human need for modesty.

Dragons had the ability to switch between three forms, an ability they gain as fledglings. Their true and most natural form was of course the dragon form. But during times where they needed to limit the amount they had to eat (such as during winters or famines), or do things such as read, write or use tools, they used their human form. They also used it for things such as political and social events, to show that there was no aggression.

Their human form was vastly different from their dragon form of course, if the change in species wasn't enough, their hair, eye and skin colour doesn't always match up with their dragon form. While Seto was a leucistic white dragon, in human form he was a pale man with brown hair, and his eyes were a different shade of blue, not near as dark. It was rare that a dragon's scale and eye colour matches their human form, but sometimes it does happen; Yugi for example, as a human, had the same eye color, and a spiky black hairstyle with violet rimming and yellow bangs. Yugi, though, was always a bit of an outlier, Seto supposed.

They had an intermediate form, a 'between form' of human and dragon. They were still large, not near as large as their natural dragon form, at least twice the size of their human form, their scales and spines became armour surrounding them, their hair and eye colour reflected their scale and eye colour as full dragons, and they could still use their element to its full power. This was a form reserved for times of war, or other drawn-out battles when they needed strength and power, but also the ability to use weapons. This was also the form that most fledglings used to help them master switching to their full human forms.

Once he was fully clothed, he stepped back out of the hut and walked down the dimly lit street. It was nesting season, so a good portion of the adults of his Rafter were in the nesting area tending to eggs. Some houses were still lit, probably younger adults, or families where the children were developed enough to take human form.

He walked down until he came down to a particular hut - this one was taller than it was wide, and had a skylight ceiling but no windows. He knocked loudly on the wooden door, and heard some noises that sounded like a book being slammed on a desk.

The door opened, revealing a frazzled man with tanned skinned, spiky long sand-coloured hair, and violet eyes. "Evening, Zephyr Ishtar." Seto greeted. The healer huffed, no doubt annoyed.

"If you are here trying to give your brother sleeping aids again-" Marik begin.

"I'm over that, I promise." Seto interjected "I want to know a few things about wound healing."

Marik tightened his lips into a line, raising a brow "You? Why. I mean, I know any dragon can offer to be my student, but usually only when their young-"

"I don't want to be your student." Seto stopped him, and pushed passed the other man, letting himself inside, looking around at all of the books, notes, plants, bubbling cauldron, and vials upon vials and other containers of medicine. "I just want to know a few basics."

"...Such as?" Marik began, plopping himself onto a chair, grabbing a pencil and piece of paper.

"Setting a broken leg, and bent tail. Burns. Infected claw marks..."

"Here, stray." Seto said as he came up to the hollow tree. The buck carcass was gone, save for a torn-off pair of antlers, meaning the other dragon had eaten the whole deer bones and all.

The black dragon was curled up asleep inside of the hollow tree, his head resting on top of his front talons, his eyes opened and his pupils immediately slitted, a growl thundering from his throat.

"I'm not here to fight you." Seto told him simply, there was a leather pouch sacheled around his neck and shoulders. "I'm here to help you." He opened the sachel and poured out it contents - medicine, bandages, and a rigid wood splint "We need to straighten out your leg and tail, otherwise it will heal improperly and not work correctly in the future. Not to mention the burns on your underbelly."

The other dragon stared at him, silently shocked, as if he had two heads. Seto didn't blame him; for one thing, dragons will never expose their underbelly to another dragon. It was both an instinctual thing, and a thing all are taught at a young age. A dragons underside is soft, the scales are smooth almost like their human skin, not tough and armored like most of their scales, so the underbelly was a dragons most vulnerable spot.

"Look - I'm not trying to kill you." Seto explained, moving closer. The other dragon growled very loudly at him, the claws of his large talons extending further in a wordless warning.

Seto stopped and racked his brain for a solution, before sighing "Here." he said and shifted into his intermediate form. He was covered in white armour resembling his dragon form, his hair was white with a light blue sheen, and his eyes were the same blue shade as his natural form. "I'm no real threat in this form compared to you." He said.

The other dragon was silent, and for a moment Seto though he humiliated himself for no reason.

However, the dragon got up, and slowly walked out of his tree hollow. He got closer to set before lying down. He shifted onto his uninjured side, exposing his injured underbelly.

"Ouch..." Seto muttered as he finally saw the full damage for himself. There were large patches of pink flesh, rimmed by blackened scales and dotted by scabbing, indicating where he had been badly burnt. The claw marks appeared to have been made by a single swipe of a dragons front talons, they were deep, extending from his sternum, all the way to the base of his tail, there were about three slashes, but onto the middle was was really deep. "Doesn't look infected, at least..." He offered flatly, grabbing some of the medicine Marik had given him.

The next day, Seto was the center of the territory, stalking, or at least trying to stalk, some prey. This time it was a rather plump moose. However, he made too quick of a move and the moose bounded off.

"Fuck." Seto cursed. "Blasted forest. I'll never know why any dragon chooses to live under such cover."

"It's not hard." A voice said behind him, Seto whirled around in surprise, but saw nothing.

"Who said that?" Seto demanded. He heard a little bit of a weak chuckle, and although he whipped his head side to side and up he still saw nothing "Answer more before I blast you into your next life!"

"It's just me." The voice said again, a dark shape made it's way out of the shadows, having previously blended in so well that Seto hadn't even seen them. He blinked in surprise seeing the red-eyed dragon from earlier - he was limping a bit with his splinted leg and tail, but otherwise appeared in better shape today.

"So you can talk." Seto muttered, keeping his eyes on the black dragon. The black dragon eyes sparkled in amusement.

"Having trouble?" The other dragon asked, looking in the direction the moose had gone.

"Dragons aren't supposed to hunt in the forest. We need open air." He grumbled.

"That is something a Windrider would say." The black dragon said, sitting a few feet away from Seto, his tongue was forked like most dragons, and his teeth appeared covered in soot, most likely he had been chewing on rocks or coal earlier; dragons with a fire elemental core had the tendency to swallow rock shards that their fire core would store and grind together to produce fire. "It's not about being a dragon or not you know. It's all about technique."

"And what would a stray like yourself know about technique? I'm not interested in learning how to scavenge." The white dragon scoffed. The other dragon growled at him, but it actually amused Seto a little bit. It was supposed to be threatening, but it almost seemed like a pout. Kind of cute, really.

No, no, he shook those thoughts away, not cute. He wasn't some twitterpated idiot.

"I'm no scavenger," The other dragon told him "I'm a hunter, just like you, in fact, I'm objectively a better hunter than you."

"Oh, how so?" Seto challenged.

"We're in my element." The other dragon explained, looking around the woods surrounding them, but he didn't further elaborate "Stay here and watch." He said, taking light steps towards a tree.

The black dragon was a decent distant away, and he suddenly just stopped under a tree, holding the same position for minutes on end. At first Seto was confused, especially as the moose cluelessly walked closer, nibbling leaves off of tree branches. How did the stupid creature not see him?

However, Seto softened his gaze, and as his eyes were less focused, he realized what the other dragon was doing. He stood under a large tree, where a dark shadow was cast. The shadow surrounded the dragon, and with the dark luster-less scales, he was practically invisible. The only way to really see him is if you had already known he was there.

The moose, not knowing any better, walked over to the tree that the shadow was cast from. And when it was within talons grip, the black dragon moved in a flash and snapped his jaws around the antlered creatures thick neck.

There was a considerably loud snap and he ended the preys life with one closing motion of his jaw.

Seto narrowed his eyes as the black dragon dragged the large prey over to the lightning user. "There, nothing to it." The other dragon said, his voice thick with smugness. "Want to share?"

He didn't respond yes or not, but he did bend down and take a chunk of flesh from the mooses neck "Pure biological luck," Seto dismissed "your scales are black and dull, of course you can blend into the shadows. "

"Hey, with enough technique, a dragon of any colour can master stealth." The black dragon told him, taking bites from the preys shoulders.

"Right." Seto said, unconvinced.

"Let me teach you, it's not like you have anything better to do around her, all you do is stalk the border all day."

Seto snorted, and continued eating without continuing the conversation.

A rumble close to a purr resounded from the black dragon, it was known as a content sound that dragons were capable of called a 'dragon purr'. Seto seldom used it. When the other dragon used it, for some reason it made his own vocal cords tremble. "What's your name by the way?" The red-eyed stray asked.

"What's yours?" Seto shot back.

"Jou." The other dragon answered simply with a shrug. So he really wasn't secretive after all.

"Kaiba." Seto answered, wondering why Jou was being so open, when he had been so wordless before.

"And so you crouch down."

"Like this?"

"Closer to the ground, and lift your tail a little bit to be in line with your spine so it doesn't drag on the ground."

Yugi watched in fascination as his Lieutenant was teaching unfamiliar hunting technique to a sizable scrum of fledglings.

"I wonder where he learned that..." He wondered aloud, mostly to himself, but somewhat to his mate. Anzu was a large female wyvern, mainly a light orange colour like the sunset, but she had a dark red plate at the top of her head that extended to thick, front-facing horns that curved back. She had a line of dark red spines on both sides of her neck a extended to the base of her tail. Her undersides were the same dark red colour of her spines and headplate. Her eyes were pale yellow, almost like cream or ivory.

"Maybe he managed to teach himself something while he holed up in those woods." She suggested, lying down besides her smaller mate. Yugi nodded absentmindedly, continuing to watch his lieutenant.

"I almost thought I was being too harsh on him, too." Yugi sad.

Anzu rolled her eyes "He's always put himself on a pedestal, someone had to finally knock his ass down a peg or two." She told him, licking her talons calmly.

"As long as he's learning something..." Yugi said, laying down by his mates side "...Do you think I'm good? As a leader I mean."

"Don't be silly." She assured, nuzzling the side of his neck "Everyone has a transitional period to a new position, especially something as big as a Diamondtooth. And everyone has their own style of leadership. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"Sometimes I wonder if dragons would take my brother more seriously than they do me."

"Don't think about stuff like that." Anzu said, watching Seto the the group of fledglings "Yami made his choice years ago, and it wasn't the Rafter, leadership or you."

To be continued...

Authors note: And so Seto meets a stray. Why was he initially so quiet? How did he get so beat up? What happened with Yami?

Please review!