Tourneyshipping (Yami no Yugi x Haga)

(what if even Haga had a secret, noble reason for being at Duelist Kingdom?)

This was it. This was his moment. It had been a long, hard climb, but now, he was sitting on the brink of ultimate victory.

He could already see his name sprouting up all over the Internet – "did you hear? Somebody beat Yugi, the kid that beat national champion Kaiba! It was Insector Haga! Man, is he awesome!"

No longer was he the weird kid in the corner of the classroom, flipping through the pages of Eyewitness Insect. No longer would he be the one everybody whispered about behind his back, the one who got tripped in the hallways, the one who was always the last person picked for teams in gym. Not "that weird bug kid" but "Insector Haga, the Legendary Bug Duelist!"

Yugi took his place on the other side of the table, eyes flashing red and intense. Hm...had his eyes been that color before? Must be contacts.

"You're despicable, Haga," Yugi said softly, a strange new edge to his voice. "I will make you pay for those cards you so unfeelingly threw away."

Haga shrugged, shuffling his deck.

"The futile words of the losers," he snickered. "Real duelists have to do what they must to win. Without Exodia, you don't have a chance. And anyway, it was only a few slips of paper, so no use crying over them, eh?"

Yugi's red eyes remained level, not dropping Haga's gaze even as he shuffled his deck with precise fingers. He drew his first five cards silently, and Haga grinned to himself. The famous Yugi Mutou had no comeback for him. This battle was already half won!

"Real duelists rely on their hearts to win, Haga," Yugi said suddenly. "And cards are more than slips of paper. Any object can be imbued with sentiment, and, it so follows, a soul of its own."

He said something else, but Haga didn't quite catch it.

"What was that?" he said.

Yugi shook his head, and played his first card. Then there was only the duel, and Haga did not allow himself to think of anything else. This battle was the last step in his journey to become number one – and with Yugi putting his life at stake in this battle, it couldn't get more intense!

He couldn't contain his excitement, couldn't deny the exhilaration pumping through his veins.

Perhaps if he had, he might have been more careful.

And then he might have won.

The mist fell thickly over the board, the moth and demon becoming mere shadows in its midst.

"It's over, Haga," Yugi.

No – wait – there was no way –

"Summoned Skull, finish off his moth!"

The lightning crackled cross the board, so life-like that Haga could feel the static running through the Battle Box. His cards dropped from his hands as the lightning shocked through his moth, sending it tumbling to the ground before the holograph faded.

"My – my moth," was all he could say. "You – Yugi, you –"

Yugi was already standing up, collecting the star chips Haga had left on the table.

"There's – there's no way!" Haga said, feeling a hint of tears in his eyes that he tried desperately to hide. "I was the one that was supposed to win! I was going to be the champion – I was – I was –"

Yugi's fire red eyes were unreadable, meeting Haga's with a calmness that made Haga even angrier.

"Stop that – STOP THAT! Stop looking at me like I'm something to be pitied!"

"Then stop acting like something that should be," Yugi said.

Haga gritted his teeth, trying to hold back his angry words – anything to make Yugi stop looking at him like that.

"Haga," Yugi said. "At the beginning of the duel, I told you that cards are more than slips of paper. But what you didn't hear is that I thought you, of all people, would most understand that."

He took the forgotten Great Moth card from the table and held it out to Haga. Surprised, Haga took his card back. He couldn't hide the trembling in his fingers as he realized what Yugi was saying.

"Y-Yugi – how did you – "

Yugi looked almost sad.

"I told you," he said. "Anything can have sentiment, can grow a soul. I only heard what it was telling me."

His red eyes met Haga's for a brief moment longer before he turned and exited the Battle Box.

Haga didn't leave his seat for a few moments, staring at the card in his hand. There was no way, no possible way that Yugi could know who had given this card. There was no way that Yugi could know the real reason Haga wanted to win this tournament, why he needed that prize money.

No one, not even the media that had started following him after winning the regional tournament, knew about his mother, who had given him this card after he had brought a luna moth to her in the hospital...just before she died.

He gripped the card a little tighter, and for a minute, he almost thought he heard something from it. A whisper, nothing more...maybe he had imagined it.

Okay, he thought. I'll find another way to donate to that cancer fund.

The card whispered again to him, and this time, he knew he had heard it.

A/N: geez, my hatred from Haga has turned into full-out ohmigosh-he's-so-sweet-and-sad-I-want-to-hug-him love. So much so that I feel that I have really, really strayed from canon in this story just to show how sweet I think he actually is. :) Okay, next up is Toughshipping (Bandit Keith x Jonouchi). Sigh.