The Polaroid Effect

A/N: Yar! I torture you by adding yet ANOTHER fic, that is not AC! Mwahahahaha! cough Yeah, still working past that block... and I wrote this spontaneously when I was supposed to be sleeping... so meh! Might as well type it up, eh?

You can sort of... ignore the title. It made sense at the time, but I'm not entirely sure if it still does. shruggs It makes a vague sort of sense.

Can't be sure of the pairings as of yet. There will quite possibly be Yami(Atemu)/Yugi, and maybe, maybe not the other yami/hikari pairings or anything else. It shall be seen later on. It will either be shounen-ai or non-pairing. So yeah. And when it come to names, I mix and match between the Japanese and English versions... cough

Spoilers. noddnodd I foresee spoilers. For like... the end of YGO or so and crud.

Please be reviewing! Now on to fic!
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Prologue:

Five years. It had been five years since they had all graduated from Domino High. Longer since the fiasco with the millennium items and the 'yami no games'.

He'd kept in touch. Just a chance encounter here and there, a reunion or two, nothing more. He had a company to run after all, a businessman like himself had little time to pursue high school friendships. In fact if it hadn't been for the experiences they had shared and the urgings of his little brother, he probably wouldn't have bothered at all.

But he'd kept in touch, with all of them. Wheeler and his family, the dog's companions, Tristan and Otogi, Anzu, Ryou Bakura, even the Ishtars. All of them accept one. The person who had played the single most important role in the events of the past.

It had been five years since Yugi Mutou had dropped off the face of the planet.

So when Seto Kaiba walked into a bar while on a business trip to the United States of America, Yugi Mutou was the last person he expected meet. But there he was, sitting on a barstool and sipping a drink.

He look different, enough so that Seto almost didn't recognize his old rival at first glance. But the similarities were still there, though he had to admit, Yugi looked less like himself and more like his other self, Atemu, the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh that had finally left this world, years back.

The first difference he had noticed was the hair. It was shorter now, and solid black, save the golden bangs, no trace of red visible. The duellist was also noticeably taller, even seated, passing the height of his other self by several inches, and had developed a rather dark tan. The biggest difference though, was the air he exuded. Decked out in a leather trench coat, black pants and knee-high, buckle-up boots, Yugi no longer seemed the small, innocent yet brave boy he had once known. Now he felt mysterious, dark... dangerous.

Seto took a seat next to him and ordered a drink. Yugi didn't even give him a sideways glance, ignoring the tall brunette in favour of his drink. Lifting the glass to his lips, the spiky-haired man took a long swallow, then placed it back on the bar top with a loud clink.

There was no change in the man's bored demeanour, so Seto was startled when his companion finally began to speak.

"I'm not going to ask how you've been," Yugi said. "KaibaCorp is all over the news. New world champion, I hear."

Seto sipped his own drink. "The old world champion wasn't around to defend his title."

"I don't suppose he was." The dark-haired man began to mutter under his breath. "Pointless, pointless..."

"Pointless?"

"I already know I'd win. My only real opponent... the only one worth duelling is..."

Yugi broke off, violet eyes narrowing. Seto had a good view of his eyes now, and they too had changed, losing their childlike roundness and having grown slimmer. Another feature that made him more like Atemu than his old self.

He continued, his words developing a bitter edge: "There is no opponent worth duelling."

At another time, Seto might have been offended at being passed off as a worthless opponent, but sitting here with this strange, dark Yugi, he was overcome by the feeling that what the duellist was saying was unmistakeably true. The thought made him shiver.

He decided to change the subject. "How have you been, then, since you seem to know so much about my life? I haven't seen you in person, let alone television."

"That might change soon," Yugi murmured, before answering, "I've been travelling around, doing odd-jobs, killing time."

The smaller man giggled suddenly, as though at some joke only he know. Seto shivered again and a silence fell over them.

Yugi's eyes had changed more than in shape. They had been full of emotion once, brimming with life and energy. Now they seemed dead, dull, and yet... if he looked deep enough he could almost see some sort of hellish fire dancing behind the lifeless shells. Those eyes scared him, scared him in ways he didn't understand and it was then that Seto knew that this wasn't his Yugi. No, this was someone, something else. Something that he didn't like at all.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

Yugi smiled wistfully. "Have you ever looked up at the night sky and though how dark it is, how dark it would be if it weren't for all the stars? But do you know what? If it weren't for all the dark, you wouldn't see any of those stars."

Seto stared at his companion questioningly.

"Without darkness, light cannot shine. Think about it." The dark-haired man snorted, then added. "Life happened to me, Kaiba."

With that, Yugi stood and turned. "I must be going, no time to kill," he called back, then let out another of those secretive giggles. "Well, that might not be the best choice of words."

Seto was left more confused now than he had been from Yugi's disappearance five years ago. He needed another drink.

The next day the news announced that the President of the United States had been murdered in the night.
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