Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh. I own a whole ton of cards though.
-sama sir, honorific
-dono my lord, higher honorific
YGOYGOYGOYGOYGOYGOYGOYGO
"So who's a loser?" Jounouchi-sama leaned against the wall of the castle and grinned at her.
"Ugh, don't remind me. I was such an idiot." Mai grimaced.
"Nah, you're not an idiot." He shook his head. "You were supposed to think I was a loser. I won my first few gang fights that way."
Mai smiled. "I still manage to win big duels because my opponents think I'm only a woman."
"Eventually I made a big enough name for myself there was no point in acting goofy any more." The grin was a little more predatory again. "I kind of missed it—No, I missed it when I went straight."
"Speak for yourself. I'm glad I stopped cheating. I only started doing it because people were such losers it was kinder to beat them quickly." Mai shook her head. "I shouldn't have done that. I would be stronger now if I had focused on dueling."
He shook his head. "Nah, there's nothing wrong with intimidation. A fight you can avoid is the best kind. But you weren't fighting, you were dueling. There's a difference."
She nodded. "You're right. You showed me that when we dueled." She sized him up. "Look at you now. I totally fell for that high school punk act of yours."
Jounouchi-sama laughed. "I was just doing the same thing you were doing. It becomes a habit, doesn't it? Like you made a habit out of not caring, about being in it only for the money, when in reality your heart was beating in time with those harpies of yours." He adjusted the fiery sword that hung at his side.
She looked down at the deck pouch strapped to her leg and smiled. "Yeah. I owe you guys. Big."
"It's incredible, isn't it?"
She reached down and took out her deck, angling so he got a look down her skimpy top. A weapon was still a weapon.
The calculating bitch part of her mind was only background noise. The rest of her was almost innocent wonder. "I've always know they were alive."
"I always knew there was more to life than gang fights and evil teachers."
"More to life than just living day to day, unable to really do anything. Knowing that nothing I did would make a difference, for every sexist pig I trounced there were another two million out there. Reading about wife beatings in the newspaper." Her eyes hardened.
"Watching the guy who used to be my best bud get harder and harder, stop fighting just to fight and start fighting to maim. Knowing my life was going to be wasted, that with my record I wasn't going to get any chances. Knowing I couldn't even be a good big brother to my little sister, that she was going to go blind and not a thing I could do about it." His grin was getting broader. "But that's all over."
"Yes." Her hand carefully gripped her deck. "It's amazing. There's magic. There's power. We have power. Power to make a difference. Power to build a better world."
"That's it." He nodded. "Great, isn't it?"
"Thank you so much, Jounouchi-sama. Thank you for inviting me to this tournament, giving me the chance to be one of the first trainees." She bowed to the Duelist Elite.
He shook his head. "Don't thank me: Pegasus-dono drew up the guest list. But I'm glad you made the cut, Kujaku-san. And not just because you're hot." He winked.
She smiled. "Please, call me Mai."
"Call me Katsuya, all those 'sirs' are getting to my head. Reminds me of when I was a gang boss." He pointed to himself. "Look at me. All those people telling me I'd never go anywhere, and here I'm a freakin' general. All thanks to Yugi-dono and Seth-dono. Personal bodyguard to one of the destined rulers of the world! I feel sometimes like I'm trapped in an anime!"
Mai laughed. "Yeah, this is sort of like one of those secret society plotting to take over the world things. Only we're the good guys."
"You bet we are. And we're going to win, too. They'll never know what hit them, all those bastards in power. Stomping on the little guy…" He shook his head. "All over soon."
"Yes." She nodded firmly. "I swore to help you guys out, and I'm going to. Female duelists listen to me, I can swear in and train others. Vivian, Rebecca, they're respected. I travel all over the world for tournaments."
"Thanks, but we've got that covered. Pegasus's going to be leading 'card clinics' at tournaments, Seth too, Yami-dono and the others have that all planned out. I actually wanted you to do something else."
A special responsibility? How exciting! "Name it." Her eyes sparked with enthusiasm. "Mai Kujaku is your woman."
Jounouchi-sama, Katsuya, laughed. He had a nice laugh. He was hot too. Blond, you rarely saw that in Japan. Not natural blond, anyway.
"When Yami-dono and Yugi-dono dueled you, they saw that you had the potential to be really strong."
She knew it.
"So, they want you to get special training, maybe even general status. They might end up assigning you to lead female duelists, but right now I have orders from Yami-dono for you."
Her skill was finally being recognized. "I said, name it. I'm your woman."
"If you want, you can take the position of one of Yugi-dono's personal bodyguards. That means traveling from tournament to tournament with the King of Games, dueling in exhibition matches, leading clinics for new duelists, that sort of thing. What you wanted to duel already, only with special training like I'm getting." He pointed to the sword.
"You mean I could keep rose whip out all the time?"
Katsuya laughed again. "I knew you were a closet dominatrix."
"You have to let people know who's boss." She winked at him.
"Lady, for you I'd roll over and play dead." He grinned back.
"Do you want to head off for the woods, have a practice duel and discuss it? You could start giving me that 'special training' right now." Strike a pose.
"So you're accepting the position, Mai?"
"Of course."
"That's great! Sure, let's go duel now and I'll tell Yugi-dono the good news later. He'll be glad to hear it. We all knew you had promise." He was grinning like a fool.
"I'd like to think I knew you guys were special even before you showed us what you could do. I mean, I wouldn't have listened to just anybody, even if you did beat me. I wouldn't have shared my food with just anyone."
"I think you did know, Mai. You're a duelist, duelists are perceptive." He pat his deck in a holster on the other side of his belt from the sword.
Footsteps came around the corner. "Hey, Anzu, Mana."
"Hello, Mazaki-sama, Dark Magician Girl-sama."
Mana nodded and ran past. Anzu skidded to a halt. "Come quick! Dinosaur Ryuzaki summoned the Serpent Night Dragon and he's refused to acknowledge him as a chosen duelist! We need the Red Eyes!"
"On it! Come on, Mai." Katsuya ran off, following Mana.
"So you've accepted the position?" Anzu and Mai ran next to each to each other.
Mai nodded. "It's an honor! Nice to be working with you."
"Thanks for the shower, I was starting to smell." Anzu wrinkled her nose. "It'll be good not to be the only girl in the group."
"Sick of all the boys?"
"Mana's great, but I get tired of the testosterone." Anzu shrugged. "Keep up!"
Mai was falling behind. "How do you run so fast?"
"Years of training, come on!"
Mana's spellcasting was shielding her and Ryuzaki from the dragon's blasts. "Isn't Serpent Night Dragon stronger than Dark Magician Girl?" Mai asked.
"Brains over brawn: Mana knows tons of spells." Anzu looked proud. "Jou, summon that dragon!"
He was grasping the card and concentrating. "Some of us have monsters that can't stay in this world without attracting attention! When's the last time you had to summon a level seven from scratch, huh? And the screaming isn't helping!" Ryuzaki was panicking. "Whose bright idea was it to let him start off with a level seven? Wasn't anyone watching him?" The card glowed.
"He summoned Two Headed King Rex and Blast Juggler! Honda thought he was going for the Cyber Saurus fusion, not sacrifices."
"Honda? Good thing he called you. I summon the Red-Eyes Black Dragon in attack mode!" The dragon emerged from the glowing card and roared at the Serpent Night Dragon, which roared back.
Katsuya quickly jumped back out of the way. "Fifty attack point difference. Oh man."
Mai watched her first real duel avidly. "What's the problem? The Red-Eyes Black Dragon will win, right?"
"Yeah… after a pretty long battle." The dragons were circling the clearing and hissing at each other. "I'm going to take a page out of your book, Mai. Dragon Treasure!" Gold appeared under the Red-Eyes, which stopped circling to stand guard on top of it. It looked fiercer. "They're tougher when they want to defend their hoards."
"My dragon! Stop it!" The Red-Eyes had attacked, black flame against black wind. Ryuzaki pounded the walls of the cage. "Don't attack him!"
"He was trying to kill you a minute ago," Mana pointed out.
"He's my favorite card! I won him in a tournament. Don't hurt him!" Ryuzaki winced when a blast of black flame hit home.
"Quiet!" Anzu yelled. Everyone stared at her, even the dragons. "Did you hear that! You tried to eat him, and he still doesn't want you to get hurt!" She pointed to Ryuzaki. "What kind of braindead excuse for a monster are you if you don't respect your duelist for doing that!"
The Red-Eyes hissed at the Serpent Night Dragon, which hissed back. Then turned back into a card.
Mana dropped the shield, otherwise Ryuzaki would have hit his head on it as he lunged to keep the card from hitting the ground. "Phew!" He carefully put the card back in his deck.
Mai understood. She didn't want to think about the possibility of the Harpie Ladies rejecting her.
They had picked up and taken her flying. She had seen all over the island. They spoke the old tongue, from when the empire had ruled. She had to learn it. To talk to them, she'd dreamed of that. Literally.
She understood why he would shield the card even though he'd fallen on a rock. "Ow."
Mana healed him.
Anzu stood with her hands on her hips. "And that's why we told you not to summon anything above a level four until you got stronger! The monster has to respect the duelist, and a dragon isn't going to respect someone who is just starting out."
Jounouchi-sama drew the Red-Eyes back into the card with a cheerful "Thanks!" Looking over at Anzu, he whispered to Mai, "And I thought she was a drill sergeant back when she was only Class Representative in our High School." Mai giggled.
Ryuzaki was nodding and apologizing "Please forgive me, General Mazaki! Don't make me stop training!"
Anzu sighed and held her hand to her forehead. "Boys. Sometimes I feel like the only sane person in this whole army. Except you, Mana."
"Even my teacher." Mana sighed. "Men."
"Looks like it's over," Katsuya whispered to Mai. "Want to go and have that practice duel?"
"I'm going to lose. I hate losing." That just now? Had been impressive. He wasn't a loser. Far from it. He had taught her, Kujaku Mai, a valuable lesson. Several lessons. And he was hot.
No, he was too young, even if he acted like a veteran sometimes. Still, no harm in flirting.
"Yeah, but you'll get better. Don't you need to do that? For the sake of your Harpie Ladies, so you can help them better in duels?"
For her Harpie Ladies, she could and had sacrificed her pride. "You're right."
He took her hand. "Come on. While Anzu's still lecturing the other trainees. Otherwise she'll grab me to give group lessons instead of private ones."