Glad to know folks are enjoying this! And speculating...hmm, I don't want to give anything away, but I'd be most curious after this, if it's what you thought, or something else entirely...

"I wouldn't--don't--that's--" Impossible, Kaiba managed to stop himself from saying in time, but the blond clerk obviously heard it anyway.

He smiled, a bloodless, humorless smile. "I know what you must have heard of Kaiba, what people think of him. Eccentric, that's what they call his attitude, he's rich enough to buy all the good press he needs. Most people never heard of his--campaign, and those that had, most of them have forgotten. Have tried to forget, and Kaiba doesn't do much to remind them, now."

Kaiba couldn't help but be fascinated, listening to the man speak. He had never heard his name pronounced with such abject, unforgiving hatred, except when he spoke it himself, referring to his late stepfather.

"I've heard that Kaiba Corporation once supported Duel Monsters," the clerk went on. "That they designed the major dueling technology, that Kaiba even might have played himself, once. But that would've been a long time ago. More than thirty years."

Thirty years. And here he was, thirty years from that time he knew to be true. "What happened then?" Kaiba found himself asking.

"Thirty years ago," the blond man explained, "Kaiba Corporation bought out Industrial Illusions, the producer of Duel Monsters. And then stopped production of the cards on the spot, and destroyed all the original prints. Even demolished Pegasus's paintings.

"But that was just the beginning. Making sure no more cards could be made wasn't enough for Kaiba," and he spat the name with more venom than before. "Not by a long shot.

"First he recalled all the unsold card packs and destroyed them. Here, in America, Europe, everywhere. Then he started buying out the surplus in used stores and the online markets. Cards sold in auctions, starter decks, complete collections, he'd buy them all up.

"Some people thought it was a business strategy. That he was driving up the value of cards by limiting the supply. Except he never sold any, and he didn't sponsor any games, didn't advertise the cards at all. Then Duel Monsters was barred from all Kaiba Lands--supposedly they'd held tournaments in the first couple parks that were built, but those arenas were turned into other games, and later people weren't even allowed to bring the cards onto the premises.

"Kaiba wasn't stockpiling collectible cards to sell later. He was destroying them. Incinerating every single card. First all the ones he bought up. Then he started making offers in the Kaiba Lands, in store chains partnered with Kaiba Corporation. Buying old Duel Monster cards back for double their going price, no matter their condition, and that price had risen fast after I2 went down. Kids who weren't playing anymore would dig up their old decks and turn them in, get a start on their college savings.

"But a lot of people were still playing, it continued to be the most popular game going. Though the play became pretty fierce. You'd duel with ante rules, usually, giving up your best card if you lost, and there'd be no way to get another one. Usually the winner would trade his weakest card, so at least the loser would still have a complete deck. Guys who owned more than a deck, hoarding cards they didn't play with, they'd be pretty despised. Most of the collectors sold their extras, made a mint.

"By then the serious collectors were refusing to sell to Kaiba. They'd realized what he was doing, that it wasn't anything to do with Kaiba Corporation's profits, that he wasn't simply trying to use the game to make money. Though Kaiba started buying through proxies, so some people sold to him by mistake, and he'd never allow a sale to be cancelled once it was made, would never return any card he got hold of.

"Then, at this big American dueling tournament in New York, a duelist accused their opponent of cheating to steal their rare card, and a fight broke out that became a major riot. And a couple kids got killed in it. After that a law ended up getting passed in America, banning Duel Monsters altogether, and there was no proof that Kaiba was backing the lobbies that supported the ban, but everyone knew he was. Especially when laws like it started getting pushed through here in Japan, they knew it was him.

"All duelists knew by then. That Kaiba didn't have a plan for Duel Monsters. That he was just trying to end it. Once and for all, so it would never be played by anyone ever again."

"Impossible," Kaiba breathed, and only realized after the blond man stopped his account to look at him strangely that he had spoken aloud. "I mean," he said, groping to make sense, when disbelief was ringing in his ears like he had taken a punch, "it's ridiculous, that..." His hands gripped around his deck were going numb, whitened where his fingers had tightened and the cards' edges dug into his flesh. He forced them to relax before he slipped and bent a card. "Absurd. This game was played by millions, around the world. Billions of cards. That only one man..."

The clerk gave a bark of laughter, as dark and grim as his smile. "You don't know Kaiba."

"And you do?" Kaiba snapped, unable to stop himself. "Know him?"

"No." The blond man shook his head. "I've never met him myself. Though, my parents..." He swallowed, looked down at the tabletop. Seemed to be gathering his rage, for when he began speaking again it was with even colder hatred than before. Kaiba understood that tactical direction of emotion; he had relied on it himself. And he had been the object of such antipathy before, but it was a weird thing now, to hear it focused at his name and yet to have no anger when the clerk looked at him, no realization. This man didn't understand who he was. Though Kaiba himself hardly understood it any better. What he had done. What he would do.

Only he never would, not this. Impossible.

"Kaiba kept all offers for buying cards open," the clerk continued. "But the real players, the true duelists, they wouldn't sell."

Kaiba nodded, knowing he never would himself. Even a mediocre duelist might have that much loyalty to their deck.

"Though the game wasn't legal in public anymore, you couldn't even trade in most places, much less play, they wouldn't give in. Even when Kaiba started raising the prices he would pay for cards.

"Until the offers became high enough that they stopped being payments, and started being rewards. Bounties. Even a weak card could earn you a small fortune. A rare card...

"After that--it wasn't only gamers who cared anymore. It wasn't only a game. I don't know if Kaiba hired some of the hunters personally, or whether they just came when the money got good enough. I've heard that he had ways to track the cards, maybe a satellite system, though people managed to hide pretty well from it if that were true. At any rate, however they did it, if they found you had a card--if they heard you had a whole deck--they weren't gamers, they didn't follow any rules. Any laws.

"And Kaiba didn't care. Oh, nothing would be traced to him--the card rewards weren't made public anymore, by then. Industrial Illusions had long been liquidated, Kaiba Corporation officially denied any involvement with Duel Monsters, had for several years. But everyone knew where the money came from. And Kaiba paid the same reward for a card no matter its condition, as long as it was intact enough to be identified--and if it weren't, there was still a price, as long as it could be proved to be genuine. It didn't matter what kind of damage. Ripped apart, slashed, cut into pieces. Burn marks. Bloodstains.

"My parents...my mother and father both were duelists. Some of the best. And they went up against Kaiba from the start, they weren't afraid of him. When the laws against games started getting passed, they organized protests, held competitions anyway. But that meant they were known--their cards were known. They traded, but they never sold any of theirs. They both had complete decks. Good decks, with lots of rare cards.

"I was six, when the break-in happened...the men who came had guns. And my parents, my mom and dad, they were... Both of them. The same night. The hunters ignored me, I wasn't what they were after--they knew where to find their decks. Took them--sold them.

"The guys who had come that night were caught later by the police. Amateurs, they got life for it. But even then, that young, I understood what had happened. Who'd really done it. Kaiba probably burned their decks himself, there were few enough left that he was doing it personally, by then. And some of those cards would have been the last of their kind.

"My aunt--she and her husband raised me, after that--doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't like my uncle or their friends to talk to me about dueling, but she couldn't stop me. She never really tried. Because of my father, and my mother, and what it meant to them. By the time I was old enough, talking was all anyone could do anyway. All that was left.

"I play myself, now. Not the real game, of course. But I tried to show you these before," and the clerk took out a deck of playing cards with the same stylized knot pattern on the back that Kaiba recalled from the deck he had been shown in the shop. The man fanned a few hands out face-up on the table. Kaiba looked at them disinterestedly for a moment, hearts and spades, clubs and diamonds.

Then he frowned. It had been a long time since he had played a round of poker, but diamonds were all supposed to be red, weren't they, not sometimes green? And why were there two sixes of clubs, the markings arranged in such different patterns?

The clerk watched comprehension enter his expression and nodded. "Clubs are traps, diamonds are magic cards. Hearts are--"

"Low-level monsters. Sacrifices," Kaiba said, leaning over to study the cards closer. "And spades would be high-level monsters." With the underlying system explained, Kaiba could identify the design of the hands, interpret the arrangements. The ten of spades, with two spades pointing perpendicular to the others, that would be a special ability. And the queen of clubs, holding a net in her abstract arms...

"The tournaments are all secret, of course. And there's no books of the rules to study, you have to memorize them all, but I could teach you. It'll never be what your father played with that deck you're holding. But at least we're remembering. And someday Kaiba will be gone, and we'll recreate the real thing again. As well as we can."

"Someday," Kaiba echoed, staring down at the cards on the table.

"Like you said," the clerk said, "he's only one man. Even if he is Kaiba. Eventually--"

"Eventually," Kaiba growled, reached out and swept the doctored playing cards off the table, sending them twirling to the floor, a flutter of white and brown cardboard butterfly wings.

"Hey!" the clerk protested, leaping from his seat and diving for his cards. "What the hell is your problem, kid?"

Kaiba launched to his feet as well, his fingers clutched around his deck. "You're just going to wait. Sit here in this little shop with your fake cards and pretend to be a duelist. As if knowing the rules or remembering the cards means anything, when you've let them all be destroyed. You'll never be a true duelist, even if you had my deck. If Kaiba's a man, then challenge him--if Kaiba's a monster, then challenge him and win. But you'd rather leave it to time."

The blond man, crouched on the floor to retrieve his cards, was staring up at him. With fading anger but still no abhorrence, and Kaiba was almost, almost tempted to tell him who he really was, just to learn what the hatred in those brown eyes would feel like when it was aimed directly at him.

Instead he asked, "Why?"

The clerk blinked. "Why won't we--"

"No. Why would--Kaiba--you said, he was once a duelist himself. Why did he..." His deck felt too small, three cards short, the hard case with the Blue Eyes digging into his hip. "Everything you told me..."

"What made him do it? Why would a man hate a game that much?" The clerk shook his head, blond hair falling in his eyes as he straightened up, shuffling the cards in his hands back into order. "Because he's crazy. Maybe he is a monster. And...

"Like I said. My aunt won't bring up any of it at all, my uncle and the others...they'll talk about the cards. Not the other stuff. But--my mom and dad were duelists. They'd met Kaiba, before any of it started. And even if no one's told me straight, there's stories that go around--rumors. Myths, really. Maybe just things that got made up by people trying to understand.

"It would have been a while before I was born, over thirty years ago. Kaiba Corporation supposedly used to make accessories for the Duel Monsters, like I mentioned. Stuff like holographic imaging systems to bring the cards to life, and this was years before 3DV, so it must have been really crazy tech for its time. I don't know, that might only be urban legend. All of it would've been destroyed with the cards, anyway.

"So the story goes, Kaiba was designing a new card-play system in his lab one day, working with his brother. They were business partners or something, he and his brother. If you believe the stories, he was trying to make a magic effect real--I don't know, maybe he was crazy all along.

"But whatever it was, something went wrong. There was an accident. And his brother died."

"What?"

"Those who knew Kaiba before," the clerk went on, oblivious, "said he was never the same, after that. He was injured himself, burned, but that wasn't..."

Kaiba didn't know if the man stopped talking, or if he simply couldn't hear him anymore, from the sudden great distance he was speaking across. His mind had spiraled back, thirty-two years, two months, eleven days and however many hours it had been now--only a few hours ago, from his perspective--

"Nii-sama!"

But Mokuba had been behind the glass, safe--

But Mokuba had bolted up, gray eyes wide and panicked, and Kaiba had shouted at him to stop, to just keep monitoring, but he was already keying open the door to the lab--

White flames, blinding--

"Nii-sama!" His brother was running towards him, his sneakers squeaking on the testing room floor--

Burning--

"Kid, are you okay?"

Kaiba's free hand found the tabletop, gripped the corner to keep himself standing. "Fine," he said, or thought he said, too far away to hear his own voice.

Maybe too far away for the clerk to hear it, either, because the man didn't look convinced. "Sit down," he said, set a hand on Kaiba's shoulder and pushed the chair against the back of his knees, so Kaiba folded into it, hunched and still hanging onto the table's corner with one hand, his deck in his other, as if either could anchor him.

to be continued...