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

Rafter of The Shadow Forest

Predominate Dragon Species: Darkstalkers. Dragons with a connection to the element of shadows.

Territory: Dark woods and forested areas thick with foliage and shade.

Diet: Carnivorous.

Leader: Diamondtooth Katsuya Jounouchi

Lieutenant: Mai Kujaku

Lorekeeper: Sunset Shadi Shin

Healer: Underbrush Yami Bakura (Mate: Yami Motou)

Numbers: 100+

Chapter 4: Whole Episode Flashback

Weeks ago…

In the darkest, thickest, quietest part of the forest, near the center, there was a sizable pile of long-dead, downed trees. These trees were leafless, but covered in vines and bramble to cover the gaps made by the trees being pushed together, the formation they formed was similar to a cave. There was a big mouth to the cave, and the cave was dark, but there were two dragons inside that couldn't be seen by normal eyesight.

One of the dragons was a medium sized female, she was thickly built, obviously strong. She wasn't very spiny, and only had two horns on either side of her cheeks. Her scales were a gradient of dark blue to pale blue from top to bottom, and lacked luster. Her eyes were a deep magenta. The other dragon was crouched over a pile of herbs, he was male, tall and lithe, his scales were lusterless, and were gradient of light gray to ghostly white, compared to the other dragon he was very spiny, and had a crown of dark spines encircling his head and chin similar to to a crested lizard. His eyes were bright blue.

"So… Is she okay, Underbrush?" Mai asked, shuffling her talons together. Her magenta eyes were resting fondly on the newly hatched dragon chick between Bakura's talons. The chick was chirping, almost mewling in confusion. Her wings were drawn close to her body, and her eyes were clamped shut as typical for a newborn.

Bakura looked annoyed more than anything, it was no secret the healer had very little patience for chicks that weren't his own. "She's fine, healthy." He said, pushing the chick back to her mother "Jounouchi would be proud."

Mai's eyes flashed "Any leader would be proud to have a healthy dragon born to their rafter." She defended.

He looked at her like he was about to scold a dumb fledgling. "Oh, spare me." He scoffed, looking to the hatchling "Look at her, Kujaku. If I wasn't there when you passed your eggs, I'd swear that Jounouchi had spat her out himself. Everyone in this Rafter have their scales in a gradient except for that filthy hybrid, and you have practically no spines and this one is definitely going to grow into more spines than any dragon would ever need."

Mai huffed "You shouldn't be insulting our Diamondtooth." She told him. Bakura just rolled his eyes, because he knew she had nothing left to say, or defend herself with.

The Rafter of the Shadow Forest was somewhat still stuck in it's own ways… 'old fashioned', compared to other Rafters and Societies. The former Diamondtooth, Pegasus, kept his offspring secret, which was an age-old tradition to deter ambitious dragons from killing said offspring. A Diamondtooth, when they had an egg or eggs with their mate, would give them to another nesting dragon in secret. Only that adopting dragon, and the Lorekeeper knew who the heir was in the Rafter.

Katsuya hadn't know that he was the heir when Pegasus died, and then his teeth turned to diamonds. He was shocked in fact, because he was still a fledgling at the time, being the dragon equivalent of 16. Mai really felt bad for her friend - not only did he get shoved into a role he was wholly unprepared for, but he found out that the dragon who had raised him, the elder Jounouchi, wasn't his biological father at all.

There was a bit of an uproar over this, because of Katsuya's hybrid status and age, but once he gathered his bearing he proved to be one not to be messed with. He was one of the best fighters in their Rafter, and no one who had challenged him so far (and there were a decent amount who tried) had won and taken the Diamondtooth status away from him.

Once he was settled, and turned 180 the legal adult dragon age, Mai and the lorekeeper Shadi had to have a conversation with the young alpha. There was another tradition in their Rafter; once a dragon became a Diamondtooth, they had to have offspring right away, regardless of if they had a mate yet or not. This was ensure that they would have an heir at the earliest. Katsuya was of course horrified, because he was young and didn't have a mate.

He had thought about it, and ended up asking his Lieutenant, Mai, if she would be the one to have eggs with him. She was flattered, but not wholly surprised. Mai was a few fledgling groups older than Jounouchi, but they had always been friends, so even if he didn't love her in that regard, he did admire her greatly. Not to mention, him having eggs with another dragon the same age would be be automatically suspicious.

They ended up having six eggs, which was impressive for a first clutch, but this young dark chick was the first born, and therefore first in line as heir to their Rafter. The next one hatched would be the one in line to inherit the Lieutenant position from her.

"Let's hope one of the bunch is a male huh, this one can't be heir." Bakura muttered, going back to sorting his medicine. Mai hissed at him to keep his voice down.

"She's the first hatched, she's heir." Mai informed him quietly.

"This Rafter does not take female alphas, you wouldn't even be Lieutenant if your father had any sons."

Mai snorted "I already talked to Katsuya about it," the blue dragon told him "he said he doesn't mind if the heir is female, because he's trying to move our Rafter past ancient restrictions."

"Ohoho," Bakura chuckled harshly "First a filthy hybrid, now a dragoness as an heir? What's next, a cripple?"

She swatted him with her tail, making him hiss in pain.

"I'm just saying," Bakura said, his voice was still quiet but he now held a warning tone "you need to be careful… You know our dear Diamondtooth still has opposition. I'd keep your chirper closer than a parent usually would, if I were you."

Mai looked down to her tiny daughter. Squealing and wriggling, unable to stand yet. She knew Bakura was right; the newborn chick was a dead ringer for her father. Katsuya looked next to nothing like Pegasus, the only thing he seemed to inherit from his biological father was the lack of luster to his scales which was typical of Nightstalkers, and their red eye colour; but red eyes weren't rare.

She wondered if Pegasus chose a bogcrawler as a mate so others would have a harder time realizing who the true heir was. She remembered how before Pegasus died, many assumed his heir was her peer, Hirutani.

That dragon had always been stubborn, insistent he must have been the true heir. She remembered how much he had shown off when they were fledglings, how much he intimidated anything with even the slightest big of weakness compared to him, or how if he did find something stronger than him he would get strength in numbers.

She remembered how when Shadi announced that Pegasus had died, Hirutani looked smug. He already started walking towards the leader tree when Shadi asked when he was approaching when he didn't have diamond teeth. Hirutani looked shocked, and asked the nearest dragon if his teeth were diamonds yet.

Shadi asked Katsuya to come up to the leader tree. Katsuya looked confused, and frozen in place. When all the attention was on him, they saw through his slightly parted jaws that his teeth were the characteristic glittering diamonds, the sign of leadership.

When Hirutani himself saw Katsuya with the diamond teeth - he flew into a blind rage, and attached the still-technically-fledgeling Katsuya.

Katsuya did not take this sitting down, though, he fought back and even defeated the long-standing bully dragon. Hirutani, a notoriously tough adult dragon! That victory started the first group of dragons who supported Katsuya.

And now, they had an heir.

Mai bent down and picked her daughter up by the scruff of the neck - the tiny dragon chick squeaked in protest and squirmed a bit, but went limp once Mai had her hoisted up.

'I wonder what Katsuya would like to name her?' Mai thought as she winder her way between trees, heading back to the nesting area, she had Bakura's mate, who was also nesting a new clutch, watch her five remaining eggs for her while she had her first born examined by Bakura.

The chick made a small chirp with every bump Mai made, but seemed mostly pacified for now.

Mai bumped into another dragon she didn't see - another dragon that must have been harvesting shadows.

"Watch where you're going, broodbitch!" A rude voice told her; she looked down slightly and saw it was Hirutani, in a horrid mood as always.

"I will put you on sun-up to sun-down patrol if you talk to me like that again, Hirutani!" She growled between a mouthful of baby scales.

The darker blue dragon was going to retort again when his eyes fixated on the chick in her mouth "...Yours?" He asked with emphasis, and disgust. His eyes were narrowed.

Her heart pounded, maybe the chick was so underdeveloped that Hirutani didn't see her resemblance to Katsuya? "Yes." Mai answered, quick and simple and pushed past him, quickening her pace to the nesting area.

She was relieved to see her nest still safe when she returned, she gently placed her newborn down and curled up around the eggs. She saw Yami had been watching them, but now that she was back he finally closed his eyes to sleep, pulling his own four eggs close to him.

Yami was an undersized dragon, being slightly smaller than his mate Bakura who was already lithe and not particularly tall himself. He liked to joke that he was at least bigger than his brother Yugi, but no one knew who Yugi was or what he looked like because Yami was an outsider who didn't tell them where he was from, all they knew for sure at this point was that he was a Windrider around the same age as Bakura. Most suspected he was from the nearby Domino Peak Rafter. Yami was a wyvern, with black scales, a magenta luster, and a lightning bolt-like pattern and shape to his wings. His head was also almost completely encircled by back-pointing horns, the crown of horns only stopping at either side of his neck. His eyes were a dark red-leaning shade of magenta.

She heard a rustling and saw a familiar dark shape approach her, a slight glimmer from his slightly parted jaws. "Katsuya." She greeted respectfully, he sat down on his belly across from her, his eyes were sparkling with excitement "It's a female." She said, nudging the sleeping dragon chick.

"She's beautiful." He throat rumbled with a dragon purr. He craned his head to get a better look and sniff at that chick. She chirped, but stayed asleep. Katsuya nuzzled the top of her small head. "I'm sure she'll grow into something amazing." Her red gaze swept across the other five eggs; he made a cackle-like noise from the lower throat, a noise parent dragons made that urged their young to follow them, the newborn female squeaked in return, but from inside the other eggs they heard peeping sounds in response to him. They were only a day or two from hatching.

"What should we name her?" Mai asked, tucking her talons under her chest.

"How about 'Loud'?" He asked jokingly, Mai nudged him "Because she sure is noisy for a newborn." He said, referring to her constant squeaks and chirps.

"How many newborns have you dealt with? Yami will tell you that they're all like that." She told him, amused.

"She's not silent though..." He chuckled, pulling her close to his chest. She curled up close to him "Gentle though… How about Shizuka?"

"Shizuka huh?" Mai mused tiredly, curling her tail around her five peeping eggs "I like it..."

Katsuya nuzzled Shizuka one more time before gently rolling her back by Mai's side. He waited for his Lieutenant and their brood to be peacefully asleep before walking off.

He didn't notice a pair of enraged, dark blue eyes watching him from the nearby cover of the foliage.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant! You need to see this!" A harsh voice and shove to the shoulder woke Mai up; she shot her eyes open angrily and saw the concerned face of a fledgling.

"What it is Nezumi?" She asked the young dragon; the fledgling was mostly harmless, if a bit of a lacky to Hirutani.

"Big bro Hirutani and the Diamondtooth are fighting!" He told her, Shizuka beside her started to squeak at the noises being made that she didn't understand.

Mai clenched her teeth and looked over to Yami, who must have gone to make waste or something, because for the time he wasn't at his nest.

"Nezumi I need you to watch Shizuka okay?" She asked, pushing the tiny chick to the fledgling, who just looked confused.

"But Lieutenant-"

"That's an order, little one." She said, gentle but with an authoritative edge "I need you to make sure she's safe okay?"

"O...Okay.." He agreed, looking down to the baby dragon.

She started off in a dead sprint towards the direction of the leader tree, and as she approached a bigger and bigger density of dragons built up, until the saw a large crowd surrounding the leader tree.

In the center of camp was Katsuya and Hirutani. Katsuya was relatively fine, if a bit heavy in breath. Hirutani's wings were singed, and the corner of one of them appeared to be badly bent.

"Give up!" Katsuya spat, Hirutani tackled him again, and they rolled around on the ground in a flash of short-range range fire and claws, but eventually Katsuya ended up on top, his large jaws with glittering, diamond teeth pressed against Hirutani's throat. It wouldn't take much pressure to snap up or cut his carotid artery, especially with his teeth being literal diamonds. "Give up." Katsuya repeated, with more emphasis this time.

Hirutani growled, but relented "I… I surrender, Diamondtooth." He said, appearing to go limp. Mai saw from the corner of her eyes some of Hirutani's lackeys slink away, probably to proverbially lick their wounds elsewhere.

Katsuya removed his jaws from around the other males neck and stood up on all fours over him, preparing to get off of him.

In a flash of bright fire Hirutani blaster Katsuya right in the exposed underbelly with an intense stream of fire - Katsuya didn't have time to yell before Hirutani used one of his back legs to claw him in the same spot.

Blood pooled from Katsuya's stomach, and the black dragon was in shock as Hirutani reversed their positions, with him standing over Katsuya as the diamondtooth was lying on the ground on his near-eviscerated belly. Katsuya tried to stand up, but Hirutain slammed a front talon on the top of Katsuya's head, keeping it pressed to the dirt. Katsuya lifted his body from the neck down up off the ground, and appeared close to shaking his challenger off. From the trees descended a group of some of Hirutani's most burly supporters.

"Give up." Hirutani mocked Katsuya's earlier order "Now, except defeat."

"You.. cheat..." Katsuya growled, blood pooling beneath him. "You.. surrendered-"

"Clean fighting is a made-up concept, so is cheating." Hirutani mocked "Now, accept defeat and give me your diamond teeth, or I'll rip them out of your skull myself."

"Never..." Katsuya growled, glaring at the lackeys surrounding him. He cried out as one of thugs smashed one of his legs with a hard blow of both of their front talons, while another one bit his tail until it was bent at an angle, trying to coax him into accepting defeat.

Mai tried to run over to assist her leader in this trap, but more of Hirutani's gang blocked her. She saw that the other dragons of their Rafter were frozen in place as they watched in horror. Never once had they seen such a dishonorable display from a challenger.

"It's over for you, Jounouchi..." Hirutani continued, digging his talons into the scales of Katsuya's head, drawing blood "Not only are you defeated… but your progeny is being burnt to nothing as we speak."

Katsuya's eyes widened in realization and horror. So did Mai's.

Her children!

She tried to turn around and rush back to the nesting area but she was tackled by another lacky "Shh… Just accept it, pretty-pretty." The male dragon mocked, Mai was too panicked to remember his name, she scored her claws down his face and escaped, rushing to her nest.

She heard a guttural roar, and a cry of pain, and soon Katsuya was running side-by-side with her, they didn't waste time with words, they had the same objective in mind.

They could already smell smoke and charr the closer they got, but they denied the worst.

They denied it until they could no longer deny that the worst had happened.

"No… No..." She heard Katsuya whisper from her side.

Mai roared in grief up to the sky, her cries could be heard for leagues.

Burnt. Destroyed. Killed…

Jou stared silently at the nest that once contained the eggs of his offspring. As if to ground him into the reality that he faced, he picked up a cindered shard of an eggshell and held it wordlessly in his talons. Mai was sobbing and roaring madly, with no ending to her grief in site.

He heard padding from behind him. Gently, he placed the shard back on the ground, as if to soothe the lost soul it once contained. He knew who it was, but he whirled around, Trying to be angry but he knew he sounded desperate with grief "How… How could you! They were already peeping inside of their shells!"

"They're existence was a threat to me. Be thankful they weren't old enough to even know they were alive." Hirtani said, his thugs walking up to Jou and his Lieutenant "Don't worry, you'll both be joining them very soon."

Jou nudged Mai harshly, trying to get her to move, to run, to something. But she was so far into her shock and grieving she wouldn't obey any sort of command "Come on!" He growled, biting the back of her neck, trying not to cause damage with his diamond teeth but still trying to get a grasp of her scruff.

She started running with him, but she was still sobbing. His heart ached for her. Although he too was devastated at the loss of their eggs, Mai was the one to carry, lay and incubate those eggs, her grief and feeling of loss were at the level he couldn't fully comprehend.

They were being chased after, and were being caught up with, Jou turned around and shot a volley of fireballs at them, which slowed them down a bit as the foliage caught on fire but it wasn't going to hold them for long.

They stopped in a clearing, stopping to catch their breath and think. "What do we do?" He asked his Lieutenant, but she was still crying profusely. Jou closed his eyes and took a deep breath, brushing his snout lightly against her neck in a comforting gesture "I know.. I know..." He tried to soothe, tears streaming down as he remembered the charred remains of their offspring. The image was forever embedded into his memory.

"A… Alpha..." They heard a whimper, they looked over to see a fledgling cowering in the bushes.

"Nezumi?" Jou whispered.

The fledgling approached them almost shyly "I'm sorry… I-I didn't know.." The fledgling stammered "Big bro Hirutani told me to just tell the Lieutenant he was fighting you… I-I didn't know h-he was going to-"

Jou's teeth were clamped shut. He wanted to be angry with the fledgling for being such a tail-licker to Hirutani… But he couldn't be. He was still young, he didn't know better. And by the sound of his tone… He really didn't expect something like this to happen, and he felt regret for what did.

Jou's eye's widened when he heard a familiar chirping, he saw that between the crestfallen fledglings front paws was a newly hatched chick - Shizuka… alive, and safe. "Shizuka..." He whispered, and nudged Mai "Mai, Mai look, Shizuka's alive, she's okay!" He told his sobbing Lieutenant who's chest heaved as she took a big breath and finally looked to the ground where their newborn daughter was.

"S-Shizuka… she's okay… He didn't get her..." She sniffed, she sounded relieved, but Jou knew she still had a lot of grief over the rest of their children.

"Y-You told me to make sure she was safe..." Nezumi said softly, looking away, still ashamed.

They heard crashing behind them, as the group chasing them finally seemed to get past his fire distraction. And were heading right towards them.

Mai's demeanor changed entirely, she whirled around and got low to the ground in a fighting position "Katsuya, take Shizuka and run!"

"I'm not leaving you-"

"GO!" She roared "If Hirutani kills you and becomes a Diamondtooth, our chicks would have died for the sake of a dictator! Now take Shizuka and go before I take your diamond teeth from you instead!"

Katsuya stared at his Lieutenant in shock - he always did admire her for her true fearlessness and loyalty. He nodded, and bent down, collecting Shizuka in his mouth like a Bogcrawler would, this way she would be safe and hidden, and his talons would be clear.

Jou took a running start the opposite way, and opened up his wings.

He flew off, far away from Hirutani, where his daughter would be safe.

To be continued...

Authors note: Whooo, that was tough one, sorry for anyone who has a hard time with infanticide.

Yes, Mai is Shizuka's mother. No, her and Jou are not romantically involved, some eggs are created through platonic relations, which is what their relationship is; it's platonic, they both have a great respect and admiration for each other, but they aren't in love. Having eggs for political reasons is not an unusual practice.

Jou is actually a little bit younger than Seto and Yugi! He's currently '18' in dragon years, while Seto and Yugi are '21'. Jounouchi was the equivalence of '16' when he became a diamondtooth. Ages are as follows;

Shadi: Somewhere in his 50's

Yami, Yami Bakura: 30

Mai, Hirutani, Marik, Ryou, Ishizu: 26

Kaiba, Ryuji, Yugi, Anzu: 21

Jounouchi, Honda: 18

In this story, Bakura is a healer! Some of you be thinking "Whaaat? Bakura a healer!? But he's so violent and full of hate! It should be a kind and gentle character as the healer!" Weeelll buddy I dunno if you've ever met a DnD healer or underpaid ER nurse, but let me tell you, so many people in the medical field are very sarcastic and grumpy and probably hate humanity, so that's what Bakura is; an impatient, snarky and grumpy healer. Also yeah, Yami is his mate which is why he left the Domino Peak Rafter. Yami and Bakura both have the same first name which is 'Yami' but Bakura prefers to go by his family name because of how common the name Yami. I don't know yet if he and Ryou are related or if Bakura should just be a common surname. I'll either decide later or leave it for the readers to decide, because Ryou and Bakura are already two different dragon breeds.

The reason that Hirutani's defeat of Jounouchi was not legitimate was because he claimed to surrender before springing on Jou; and he then had back up. It was not a legitimate defeat, therefore he did not take Jou's Diamondtooth status.

Please read and review for more! No seriously please.