Chapter 26: Strategy
"It's eerie, isn't it?" Mokuba said.
Seto wouldn't call it that. As he stared up at the looming Duel Tower and breathed in deep the smell of ocean salt and metal, he almost smiled.
"It's triumphant," he said.
Alcatraz Island (named after the US prison island because for all his skills at business, Gozaburo Kaiba possessed no imagination) had once been home to KaibaCorp's main weapons base. It had been Gozaburo's pride and joy, the beating heart of everything he'd spent a lifetime building.
So of course, after seizing the company, Seto had ordered the demolition of every structure on the entire island. He'd torn Gozaburo's favorite toys down to broken rebar and gutted foundations, and in doing so, he'd sent a very clear message about his thoughts on his father's pride.
"Mr. Kaiba." Roland caught his attention, and though the man's tone was normal, his deep frown made Seto tense. "I've just finished speaking with the station. They're adamant they can't air the broadcast today."
Seto scowled. "We made this agreement—"
"It's Domino City, sir. Apparently there have been some . . . attacks."
That certainly wasn't what he'd expected to hear.
"What?" Mokuba gasped. "From who?"
Even with his eyes hidden by his sunglasses, Roland looked uneasy. "I'm afraid I can't get a clear answer. They say it's . . . monsters."
Seto snorted. "I leave the city for one day, and it loses its mind."
"I'll continue investigating, sir. Would you like to postpone the finals until we can get the broadcast sorted out?"
Though Seto hated to admit it, after the previous night's madness, maybe there was some serendipity in the cancellation.
"The finals will continue as scheduled," he said.
As if summoned by the announcement, Yuugi appeared on the path, approaching the Duel Tower.
"I'll head to the audience side," Mokuba said, kicking a bit of chipped concrete off the path.
At a look from Seto, Roland said, "I'll accompany you."
Mokuba looked ready to protest, so Seto ruffled his hair. It was instinctive, unexpected even for him. And apparently it was as good as saying please (something Seto had never been skilled at), because Mokuba grinned.
"I'll be cheering for you," he said.
Seto nodded, and the two of them headed around the side of the looming tower.
Yuugi reached the entrance, and he and Seto stood in silence. It was a bit surprising; normally, Yuugi was all-too-eager with his annoyingly friendly greetings. He was also normally surrounded by a herd of eager friends to match, so perhaps that was the difference.
"When I beat you," Seto said, "your god card will be mine."
He expected some kind of response. Yuugi was, at times, unpredictable in his reactions—sometimes noncommittal, sometimes fierce. But he always reacted.
And yet it was like he hadn't even heard.
Seto scowled and looked away, and the silence continued until the next finalist arrived.
Marik.
"Well, well, well," the Egyptian purred. "Look at all of us ancient souls in one place. It's a regular carnival."
In unison, Seto and Yuugi shot him withering looks that did nothing to deter him.
"The pharaoh, his high priest, and his kindling. We could form a band. There's enough people in me for a whole choir of backup singers."
"Your god card." Seto narrowed his eyes. "I know its weakness."
"Do you now?" Marik cackled, drumming his fingernails on the orb of the rod sticking through his belt. "But how could you know Ra's weakness, priest, unless you read its abilities?"
Yuugi shot him a piercing look, and Seto's glower grew more pronounced than ever.
Marik produced Ra from his deck pouch, brandishing easily the card he'd been so reluctant to display when qualifying for the finals. Seto didn't want to look, but his eyes were too quick, and his mind was too sharp.
The card's text was in a foreign script, just as Mokuba had said. It wasn't quite hieroglyphs and it wasn't quite not.
And yet . . .
Seto knew every word.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Marik gestured to the card's script. "Pegasus had to copy the text directly from a vision, no idea what it said. Poor modern fellow doesn't read Egyptian. These are, of course, no ordinary hieroglyphs. This is hieratic text—used by the priests and palace scribes. Lucky for me, this tombkeeper mind learned it well. I was never given a privileged education in the past like you were."
His smile spread wide enough to crack his face. He wiggled the card back and forth.
"Well, High Priest Seth? Does it jog your memory?"
"Spout all the nonsense you want," Seto said calmly. "Mind games won't win you this tournament."
But his heart had gone cold.
So had his hands.
"It's pointless to deny, Kaiba."
Funny that Yuugi would choose now to speak.
Seto glared at him, but Yuugi only gave him something of a resigned look. "We can't hide from ourselves."
"Wise words." Marik slid Ra into his deck once more, his eyes bulging above his smile. "The wisdom to lead a country, one might say."
"Ridiculous," Seto muttered. He clenched his fists at his side and welcomed the distraction of the fourth finalist approaching.
Mai Valentine gave a French greeting and took up a position next to Yuugi. "Beautiful island you have here, Monsieur Kaiba. A picture of paradise."
The barb was welcome, too.
Seto smirked. "You've never heard of a metaphor, Ms. Valentine? A champion rises from the ashes."
"Then I shall be a phoenix."
And though Seto didn't care one ounce for the blonde finalist in his tournament, in that moment, she was the best person on the island. At least she was sane—just a duelist intent on winning a dueling tournament. No Egyptian nonsense included.
The doors to the Duel Tower slid open, and Fuguta bowed from the entrance.
"Welcome, duelists, to the Battle City Finals!"
Seto was already through the doors.
"Stand in the middle, if you will," Fuguta continued, "and I'll explain the Qualifier."
When Seto had designed his tournament to have ten finalists, he'd been aware of the problem such an arrangement would pose in moving from the semi-finals to the finals. An elimination duel to narrow five down to four was both exciting and messy, and in order to avoid any bias on his part (the chance he would subconsciously design the contest to cater to his strengths), he'd had no hand in devising the qualifying match.
As with all matters of highest importance he couldn't handle personally, he'd left it to Roland.
Yuugi, Mai, and Marik joined him in the center of the floor. The room was circular in design, made of undecorated gray metal, with a low ceiling and five doors besides the entrance, all identical save for the numerical identifier above each.
"This duel shall be unlike any other." Fuguta stepped away from the entrance, and the doors began to close.
Just then, a voice shouted, "Hey, hold the elevator, would ya?!"
Seto felt a headache gather behind his eyes.
Fuguta turned quickly and held a button while Wheeler slid through the entrance with a stupid grin. The doors closed behind him.
"Can't start without your best finalist!" he said.
"Give me one reason," Seto growled, "I shouldn't disqualify you for missing the deadline."
"'Cause if I have to, I'll climb the outside of this here tower and fight anyway."
Somehow, Seto didn't doubt it. His headache doubled.
"Take your place and shut up."
Wheeler hurried to the center, and Fuguta continued as if there had been no interruption.
"With five finalists, a normal bracket elimination is impossible. The purpose of the Qualifier, then, is two-fold. First, it will narrow the finalists from five to four. Second, it will decide the matchups for the next two duels leading to the grand finale. Rather than being decided by random lottery, you shall have the opportunity in this duel to arrange who you will battle in the finals. But be warned—too much focus on arranging your opponent and you risk becoming the eliminated finalist. This is a duel of strategy, one which decides everything to come."
"Way to make us sweat!" Wheeler interjected.
Had Seto carried a knife on his person at all times as Yori did, sharing a room with Wheeler would have been a very dangerous thing.
"In this duel," Fuguta went on, "all players shall begin with 4000 lifepoints, as usual. However, the first two duelists to lose all lifepoints shall be the first two participants in the finals. The next two players at zero shall comprise the second duel of the finals. The last-standing duelist in the Qualifier shall be the one eliminated."
Trust Roland to turn everything on its head. In order to win, Seto would have to lose. Just the thought of seeing his lifepoints hit zero put a sour taste in his mouth.
Wheeler raised his hand like a kindergartner.
Seto closed his eyes, as if blinding himself to the stupid could somehow ease it.
"Uh . . . yes?" Fuguta said.
"Question. So if I lose first, I duel whoever loses second?"
"That is correct."
"Question."
He was still going. Seto clenched his jaw so hard, he was certain he pressed his teeth an inch deeper into his skull.
"How do we know whose turn it is?"
"I was just about to explain turn order, sir."
"Oh, gotcha. Keep goin', then."
"Wheeler . . ." Seto opened his eyes, leveling a Kaiba Glare at the mutt. "If I had a dollar for every time you damaged my IQ by association, I could buy another Blue-Eyes."
Wheeler glared back. "How 'bout you buy a better island? One that ain't got steel for palm trees."
"I'm glad you asked about losing first, since that's what you always do."
"I qualified third, Rich-boy. Third. What number were you again? Or did you forget when Ryou scared the pants off you with his shadow game?"
Seto could have killed him.
"Children," Mai said, raising her eyebrows, "may we perhaps continue with the adult tournament?"
"Don't stop now." Marik laughed. "I think we may be close to a murder. I do love a good murder."
"The, uh, the order of attack"—Fuguta raised his voice—"shall be determined by a sacrificial monster card. You may choose any card you like, and order of play will be conducted from highest attack points to lowest, but whatever card you choose must be removed from play for the duration of the duel. You will reveal this card when I ask you to do so."
A gamble. Sacrificing a strong card would guarantee an advantage in turns but could handicap a strategy. Lucky for Seto, he had an abundance of strong monsters. The opening turn would be his. The only question, then, was how to arrange the finals.
Wheeler was the weakest duelist. A coward might arrange a match with him. Seto was no coward; the only arrangement he wanted for Wheeler was elimination.
Mai had shown herself in the semi-finals to be a fierce competitor with a watertight deck arrangement. She would be no pushover in a match, and under any normal circumstances, Seto would have considered a duel with her a worthy one. However, among the current options, she meant nothing.
Then there was Yuugi. Seto had waited months for their rematch, looked forward to it in every step of tournament creation. The thought of missing his opportunity now was like peeling out a rib.
But he would have to count on Yuugi to beat Mai.
Because ever since the docks, since the anchor, there had been only one option of who Seto wanted to face.
Fuguta swept his arm around the room. "Now that the Qualifier rules have been outlined in full, please proceed to one of the five doors."
"Does it matter which—"
"If the door mattered, Wheeler, he would have told you." Seto was already halfway to the closest door, and as he reached it, the gray metal slid aside.
"I'm gonna take door three, Rich-boy. Like how I qualified third."
With his middle finger, Seto pointed to the number above his own door.
It was door three.
The hiss of the closing door wasn't enough to hide Wheeler's exclamation of rage, and that, at least, was satisfying.
As the door closed behind him, all Yami could feel was numb. He was aware of how unfocused he was, aware of how dangerous such a mindset would be to any match, and yet no matter how he tried, he couldn't seem to ground himself.
He worried about Yori, about whatever torture she was enduring in the shadows.
He worried about Yuugi, about what a god could possibly want with the boy that would keep him absent this long.
And he worried about facing the finals alone. From the moment the puzzle had been solved, Yami had never been truly alone. He'd taken that for granted. Yuugi had pulled him back from so many edges, first in Duelist Kingdom and then in Battle City. The anger in his heart, the shadows that called for his command—there were so many edges. Without his best friend, would he lose himself?
Without Yuugi, could he accomplish anything at all?
He sighed and ran a hand over his face; his fingers were cold.
Under normal circumstances, the Qualifier would be a challenge. Unfocused as he was, it felt nearly impossible. It was one thing to lower an opponent's lifepoints to zero, another to lower his own. Arranging both events simultaneously was a tall order, especially with the other opponents to consider. If he and Marik simply attacked each other, things would work out, but he was sure Marik had no intention of making things easy for him. The Egyptian would probably go after anyone but Yami, calling out taunts and jests all the while. He would be the most unpredictable player on the field, no goal but to create chaos.
Kaiba always conducted an aggressive offense. It was doubtful he even possessed cards to lower his own lifepoints, which would have put him at highest risk for elimination were it not for Joey and Marik on the field. Marik would attack him to get at Yami. Joey would attack him out of malice. Either way, Kaiba's lifepoints would drop. His goal would be to duel Yami; he'd said as much when they stood outside the Duel Tower. But he was a smart player, and he would be aware of his offensive strength and elimination risk, which meant he would adopt an attack pattern that arranged the first duel of the finals between two duelists of his choice and pitted him against Yami for the second—a strategy that would align his strengths with his goal. He had no respect for Joey, which meant he would try to arrange a duel between Marik and Mai first, leaving Joey to be the eliminated finalist.
Joey was an offensive player as well, and especially after the way Kaiba had taunted him moments earlier, he would be focused on dueling the CEO. He was prone to tunnel-vision, and it was likely he would channel all his focus into attacking Kaiba, forgetting about his own lifepoints in the process and putting himself at highest risk of elimination, just as Kaiba wanted.
Under normal circumstances, Yami would have done something to ensure his friend wasn't eliminated. But as things stood, he couldn't bring himself to care about the tournament, not even when he knew how much it meant to Joey and how hard the blond had fought in the preliminaries. It was safer for Joey to be as far from Marik as possible, and if that meant elimination, so be it.
Mai was a wild card. She was a smart player, a strategist, neither offensive nor defensively inclined except when it suited her needs. However the field stood, she would play it to her advantage, especially if she wanted to pit two players against each other in order to clear them from her path. Yami had no indication of her emotional preference, so he could only infer she would take the smartest path forward, which would be to pit the two most dangerous opponents against each other, guaranteeing the removal of one without any hazard to herself. Since Yami had defeated her in the Duelist Kingdom semi-finals, he would be one of those duelists. If she saw Marik as the other, she might swing things in his favor. If she saw Joey or Kaiba as a higher threat, she might disrupt everything.
There was simply too much uncertainty, too much chance that if Yami attacked too hard, Marik would drop to zero, but Seto or Joey or Mai would immediately follow. And Yami couldn't let Marik face anyone else, couldn't risk another person falling victim to the shadows. He also couldn't play too defensively and risk elimination himself.
Too many variables.
Too much at stake.
The room he'd entered was small and dimly lit. The only object in it was a vehicle of some sort, a cart with high railings fastened to a track in the wall. The front of the cart bore the same reflective pane he'd come to associate with the Duel Disk's holoimagers, and as if he were on autopilot, Yami turned his arm, flipped the switch on his Duel Disk that connected it to a local system. A series of green lights blinked on the cart, and its holoimager shimmered to life.
He reached for the hinged side railing, swung it open.
But he couldn't get himself to step forward.
After Duelist Kingdom, Yuugi had opened up to his grandpa about the Millennium Puzzle. He'd asked about its discovery, its origin, and Sugoroku had outlined the final expedition of his career. A pair of graverobbers had infiltrated the project and managed to corner Sugoroku alone, forcing him at gunpoint to proceed past the point of safety into the one tomb no archaeologist had managed to safely excavate.
"Despite what movies would have you believe," Sugoroku said, "booby traps and such are not a common feature of tombs, not even the tombs of pharaohs. Even if a trap had once been set, you give it a few thousand years, and the mechanisms no longer work. But not this tomb."
Not only was the tomb full of traps, but the traps were enchanted. Sugoroku said there was no other explanation for it. The graverobbers were intent on reaching the center of the tomb, which was rumored to hold the world's most valuable treasure, and both of them sacrificed their lives to the attempt—one to the sword of a moving statue, one to a massive red dragon that rose from the stone to burn him alive.
"I don't know how I survived." Sugoroku's voice and hands trembled even in the retelling. "When I reached the center, there was an inscription that said only a worthy heart could claim the key to past and future. I don't know what's considered worthy. All I know is every time I tried to turn back, that awful dragon opened its mouth to roast me, too. It wouldn't let me pass until I picked up the puzzle's box. Then it just vanished."
Yuugi had absorbed the whole story with wide eyes. He looked almost guilty as he said, "You should have been the one to solve the puzzle."
"I tried." Sugoroku shook his head. "Twenty years I tried. Couldn't even put a dent in the thing. And every time you saw that gold box growing up, your eyes got so wide and excited. Eventually, I had to accept it was meant for you."
"Guess it was." Yuugi had laughed, and he'd left things at that, but Yami had felt his doubts, felt his concern that he was "no one special." That perhaps everything had been a big mistake.
Later that evening, Yami had gathered his courage to address the boy, to say simply, "It's no mistake."
Defeating Pegasus had made them partners, but it was that short conversation that had made them friends.
Had Yuugi been with him in the current moment, facing the Qualifier, Yami may have admitted that it was his turn to feel like there had been a big mistake, that he was no one special, that the more time he spent in the world, the more he was convinced he couldn't save it or rule it or anything else. And he didn't want to.
All he wanted was to save one girl.
Perhaps Yuugi would have told him that was okay. More likely, he would have said something wise and unexpected, something that made Yami consider the whole world in a new light. Such was the boy's way.
Regardless, he would never know. And he could save neither Yori nor the world by remaining paralyzed.
So even though he wasn't ready, he stepped into the cart and latched the railing.
Note: I know I'm super behind on replying to reviews, and I apologize. Life has been busy, and next week isn't going to be any better, but hopefully after that, I'll find time to breathe. Next update will be Thursday, March 5th. Thanks, everyone.