Inspireshipping (Kaiba Seto/Mazaki Anzu/Yami no Yugi)

. . .

An artist found inspiration everywhere. An artist took that inspiration no matter what it was, no matter how they might feel about it, and they used it.

Broadway was as hard as she had expected. Harder. The language barrier was one thing. Her inexperience, her lack of connections, another. The people here could be cruel and harsh. Cutting her away to keep her from the spotlight that she dreamed of.

It would be easy to give up.

But he hadn't.

She would stand in the shadows of the backstage, trying not to cry about how all the other actors were pretending she didn't exist to haze her. Curl her hands into fists, and match the same stance she remembered. He was so small, short enough to be mistaken for a middle schooler, even now.

But he commanded. At the end of their adventure, he demanded every eye. It was as though he were taller, bigger, stronger, brighter than anyone else in the room. Even when he stood a head shorter or more, he was stronger, and everyone around him knew it. It was the fire in his eyes. The power in his stance.

She cultivated, copied that fire in her own breast. Her limbs firm, she imagined him in her mind, and projected him around her.

When she walked back onto the stage the next time, even the most pointed ignorers couldn't help but steal a glance in her direction. She was brighter than them. She was so much brighter.

Next came the cutting words. The snarky remarks. The jabs at her height, her weight, her shape, her hair, her eyes, her face, her acting, anything they could see and strike. Not tall enough for this role, not pretty enough for another. Not committed enough, will wash out in a few weeks. Big dreams and starry eyes but no staying power. Not good enough. She would pull back against the wall of the bathroom stall, press her hand to her mouth, and try not to cry.

And she'd remember the other one then. The one with the flashing eyes and the cutting expression, the one who could silence an ill word without even speaking one himself. The way he folded his arms and curled his lip and immediately made anyone with cruel words snap shut and wither.

His own cutting retorts that rolled off his tongue without a thought. The smirk and the spark in his eyes, that made everyone believe that he was just naturally better than everyone else—even if he didn't believe it himself, as she had seen in the quiet moments when his mask failed.

The way that he had never stopped. People had told him what he couldn't do.

He had ignored everyone of them.

She would leave the bathroom with ice in her eyes and a knife in her smile, and the cutting words would die in the others throats before they could be spoken.

She was Yugi's fire and Kaiba's ice.

She was unstoppable.

She would reach the goal she sought—and she did.

Her inspiration was in the audience tonight. She could almost feel their gazes, on the darkened stage, boring through to the back to her—the lead role, waiting for her to enter the stage in the spotlight she had fought and won for herself.

Fire from you, and ice from the other, she thought. Thank you. For everything. Let me show you what I've done.

And Mazaki Anzu, the rising star of Broadway, took to the stage for the very first time.

. . .

A/N: I can't remember if this was one that got a name change or if it's a newer one, but whatever, it's one I missed and it's going here. Next is Insightshipping (Priest Set x Ishizu) as previously scheduled.