Disclaimer: I do not own any copyrights, trademarks or registry in Yu-Gi-Oh. Wish I did!
4
While Seto finalized his science project, Mokuba went through the rest of the Duel Monster cards. He separated out the duplicates and put every individual card together for Seto to go through at his leisure. Mokuba was very surprised to find the Exodia cards, Dark Magician and a Blue Eyes White Dragon in the "special" cards. Yugi must have been desperate for money to sell all these cards for the relatively small amount he did, or was the rarity of these cards just another thing about this world that was different.
Mokuba started researching the game as it was being played in America (the only place it was still popular) and discovered that (1) the cards were just as rare as he remembered, and (2) the tournaments were still being played using the old tournament tables. That gave him an idea. While dueling with Seto for practice, Mokuba dropped hints from what he remembered of the dueling disks and holograms knowing that Seto's mind would unconsciously start working on making them.
Mokuba also researched into the Duel Monsters American tournament winners. With the information on the winners, Seto was able to construct what he felt was a winning deck. He also set aside cards for different strategies for the various decks of the competition. Mokuba realized that this was not the strategy that he remembered Seto using, but he trusted his brother's instincts.
--
Hearing his brother chuckle, Mokuba looked up at Seto. His brown hair had grown out a little and his eyes had cleared a bit. Behind them was now a sense of purpose, other than bowing to the wishes of his father. Mokuba followed his brother's line of sight to see what had made Seto actually chuckle. It was Yugi's science fair display, just one table down and across the aisle from Seto's display.
"You find something funny about my project, do you?" Yugi glared at Seto as Seto walked over to take a closer look.
Nodding, Seto glanced at Yugi and pointed at his project. "You created this? All by yourself?"
Yugi looked sort of embarrassed. "Well, not exactly. One of your past projects … let's say … inspired this." Yugi then looked defiantly at him, "I got it to work."
"Show me." Seto looked almost hungrily at the mechanism as Yugi activated it.
The two older boys started an animated and detailed discussion which Mokuba didn't even try to follow. In fact, he went back over to where Seto's display was and waited.
"What's up, Big Brother?" Mokuba asked as Seto returned. There were conflicting emotions showing on Seto's face – first excitement, then dread, then back to excitement.
"Yugi's project should win this time. I can't change that and I am not sure I want to. Gozaburo is going to be furious; but, if I survive the fallout, Yugi and I plan on collaborating on some projects. We will need to keep it all secret, especially from Gozaburo."
--
Seto almost didn't live through the beating he got for losing the science project competition to Yugi. This time, Gozaburo felt it would be more inspiring to Seto to have Mokuba witness it. He was only half right. It was an inspiration, but not the way he wanted. Both brothers were even more determined to get out from under their father; but now they were going to take down Gozaburo Kaiba too.
That night and at least twice a week since then, Mokuba had the same nightmare. In his nightmares, he was in a hospital. They had him strapped down with tubes and wires stuck in him every which way. He could hear what was going on around him, but he couldn't talk, move or even open his eyes. Mokuba would wake up from these nightmares, drenched in sweat and trembling.
Time passed and Seto finally completed the project that had been causing him so many problems. Later, Gozaburo took great pleasure in showing Seto that it was patented under the KaibaCorp name and made him personally deliver the information to the Research & Development department, under goon escort, of course.
The hologram proposal for Seto's next project was approved by Gozaburo and the research started. Taking a risk, Seto's research was now divided between how to convincingly use holograms in war technology and, secretly, how a smaller version could be created to recreate life-sized versions of the Duel Monsters cards and effects. The power source Yugi had improved upon was small enough to run the computer and hologram projectors for the duel disks they were creating.
To aid him in doing research for these projects, Seto convinced his father that he needed to go to America as the libraries there held much more of the needed information. Gozaburo agreed with only one condition; he insisted that Mokuba stay behind. It was obvious that Mokuba would be used as insurance of Seto's return. Gozaburo was not stupid. He had marked the changes in Seto's manner and the stronger bond forming between the brothers.
While Seto did indeed do his research in America, he also anonymously entered and won Duel Monsters tournaments. His expertise at dueling brought him to the attention of Maximillion Pegasus (which was the plan all along). After being beaten by Seto wielding Exodia, Pegasus carefully listened to his plans for the future of Duel Monsters and KaibaCorp.