I will be taking certain liberties when it comes to Millennium Magic. The rules aren't exactly set in stone, and honestly, I kind of feel like if you really try to hammer out each and every rule of a magic system, it kind of defeats the purpose of having magic in a story in the first place.
This isn't to say that there won't be rules at all. Just that, in some ways, they will be—as Captain Barbosa once said— "more what you'd call guidelines."
You'll see what I mean as this chapter wraps up.
1.
The Turtle Game Shop is a small, modest place. Its shelves are stocked with entirely too many different "knickknacks and novelties" to properly gauge them all in the quick glance that Seto gives them, but all the same the store has the atmosphere of one of those Mom and Pop general stores you'd find in old folksy towns; the ones that stay open to the public only because they're tourist attractions.
Yugi bounces into the shop with the bearing of someone who's long since forgotten that the store has anything interesting in it; to him, it's just home. He tosses his backpack onto a card table set in the middle of the main floor. Missus Mutou, who's been standing behind the counter, sees them all walk in and smiles.
"Welcome back," she says. She notices Seto standing there, staring at everything not in any kind of shock but in almost ravenous interest, and her smile widens. "And welcome. Hello, again, Seto."
Seto remembers himself, and bows slightly. "Hello, ma'am. How are you doing today?"
It's a stock response, canned and served because he doesn't know what else to say, but he knows—somehow—that it's dumb. "I'll be right back!" Yugi announces to Seto, making him flinch; Seto watches his companion bound over to a door that probably leads up to the second floor of the building, and he feels a sudden swell of panic.
Seto isn't someone who frequents new places very often; not if he can help it. He is a creature of habit. He has his routines, and he likes them. His days are regimented. Each hour has its place. He prefers it that way. Usually, when he is forced into a new arena, he has his brother to think about. The necessity of making sure Mokuba is safe, happy, and behaving properly keeps Seto's mind busy, so that he doesn't have to think about anything else.
Like how cripplingly awkward he feels, standing in the middle of a store without a penny to spend.
Sugoroku sidesteps the counter and takes his place there.
"I'm doing just fine," Missus Mutou says, as she starts to head to the same door that Yugi has disappeared through. "Would you like something to drink? A snack, maybe? Dad, don't ignore the customers. I'm not sure what you have planned for today, but I know you well enough by now."
Sugoroku waves dismissively.
"Um . . . tea, maybe?" Seto says.
Missus Mutou nods, and disappears.
Seto ruminates on the fact that this is the first time he can ever remember being—anywhere without his baby brother. Except school.
He feels a hot stab of guilt.
"Your brother is fine," Sugoroku says, leaning against the counter, and Seto flinches again. He stares, unblinkingly, at the old man. Sugoroku, for his part, winks. "You don't get to my age without knowing how to read people. Especially in my line of work."
". . . A salesman?" Seto asks, feeling clueless and hating it. This is why he doesn't like new places. But, like his insecurity complex, he doesn't know this consciously. All he knows is that he suddenly feels stupid, and nervous, and he wishes he'd asked to just go home. The Domino Children's Home isn't much, but he knows it. It's familiar. It's predictable.
"Safer to call me a gambler, m'boy," Sugoroku says, standing up straight again. He pulls at the straps of his overalls. "Told myself, years and years ago: if I ever lost, I'd better hang up my suit for some overalls and call it a day."
"A . . . gambler." Why does that make so much sense? "So I guess you lost, then."
Another stupid observation. He really should have just gone home.
"Abso-tively! I never back out of a bet, even if it's with myself!" Sugoroku winks again. "So, here I am. Now, like I was saying, if you're worried about your brother . . ." He gestures to the phone hanging on the wall behind him. "Would you care to check on him?"
Has Seto ever mentioned Mokuba to this man? Téa called him by name, but did he ever say that Mokuba was his brother? Does that mean Yugi talks about him? Certainly it makes more sense than to assume that Sugoroku Mutou can read minds, but he feels the same sense of indignation, regardless.
He tells himself that it's rude to be offended by something so trivial.
"I think . . . Natsumi put the phone number around here somewhere . . ." Sugoroku starts sifting through envelopes and receipts and Heaven knows what else, from under the counter.
"I know the number," Seto says quickly. Then he blinks. "Missus Mutou . . . found the phone number for m—for the orphanage?"
"Just in case," Sugoroku says. "Go ahead and call. It'll put your mind at ease. Then we can see about training you up! You're aiming for the top, Master Yagami. Best we get started."
There's something . . . utilitarian about the way Sugoroku talks about Seto's "training." Seto suddenly realizes, in some part of his brain, that this old man is already fully invested in helping him improve his playing as a duelist. On the heels of that, he realizes that this old man, with no reason to care about him except that he talks to his grandson at school, is already showing more interest in him than almost any adult Seto has ever met.
Except for . . .
Seto smiles; it's a sad smile. ". . . Okay. I'll call. And then . . . we'll train."
"Just call me Mister Miyagi!" Sugoroku announces, and laughs fit to shake the floor.
2.
It's the first time Seto has ever done something after school, for himself, and that's why Kristine Hathaway has to tell the poor boy that his brother's doing just fine, even though Mokuba has been inconsolable for the past hour. How would it sound, she wonders idly to herself as she hangs up the phone, if the one time Seto goes off to a friend's house to play, Mokuba is absolutely miserable? How can she possibly do that to him?
She doesn't like lying, especially not to the children she is tasked to protect, but in this case . . . there's just no way to not do it. She has to let Seto have his own time, his own wants. She has to let Seto chase them. Shackling him to a responsibility that he shouldn't have ever had to take on . . . just isn't in her. Because she knows, more than she knows that her lungs are used to breathe, that if she tells him the truth, Seto will never do anything on his own again.
Kristine heads into the office that Dan Elliot has been using for the past week—the office she had once dreaded ever stepping into—and finds that Mokuba has quieted down. He's down to sniffling and kicking his feet around, looking like a puppy that's been put out in the rain.
"Are we done?" Kristine asks, raising an eyebrow at Dan.
"I think so," he says. "Mokuba. Are you going to behave?"
Mokuba nods miserably.
"We don't have to tell your Niisama about this, do we?"
Mokuba shakes his head. "No. No-no-no-no."
"Good. So, you're going to be a good boy now, aren't you? And when Niisama gets back, we're going to tell him that you've been a good boy. Aren't we?"
Another nod.
"All right, then." Dan gestures. "Go play. But if I hear one more word about you misbehaving, your brother's going to hear about it. Understand?"
Mokuba nods one last time, vigorously enough to make his wild hair dance, as he squeezes out of the room and disappears behind Kristine.
Dan sighs. "I feel so fucking stupid," He looks at Kristine. "We're supposed to be professionals, aren't we? Good with kids? That's the whole idea, right? Yet here I am, threatening to tell on a three-year-old, to a ten-year-old, because nothing else . . . fucking works."
"They're a special case," Kristine says. "We can't expect our normal methods to work with either of them. The simple fact that we've found anything that works is a godsend. Best not to dwell on it too much."
Dan sighs again, and cradles his head in his hands. ". . . Kind of epitomizes 'easier said than done,' doesn't it?"
3.
Pegasus Crawford sits in a high-backed chair like it's a throne. The room around him is so dark that the candle sitting on the table in front of him does nothing but illuminate just how dark it is. His eyes ache.
Both of them.
In this entrancing darkness, he can see the young woman he's been examining in his mind for the past few weeks. She's petite, with jet-black hair and eyes of an indeterminate color. Her face is smooth. Austere. She's dressed in jeans and a sweater.
She looks angry, but not in the way that you would expect a refined young lady to be angry. There's lightning in those eyes, and Pegasus can almost hear the thunder.
"I'm only doing my part to help," Pegasus says.
The illusory woman scoffs. "You tell yourself that," she says snidely, "but what is it, exactly, that you've done to help him? You give him a deck of cards, and you tell him things specifically to get his hopes up without any sort of payoff."
"I have every intention of following through with the promises I've . . . danced around," Pegasus says. Almost pleads. The smooth, suave quality that so many people notice about his voice these days isn't quite working with this woman.
"Oh?" She glares hotly at him, and this time Pegasus does hear thunder. "Is that why you haven't actually made any promises? Just in case you fail? If it works out, you get to sweep in like Santa Claus! And if it doesn't, no one can pin the blame on you! Is that how altruism works in your world, Master Crawford?"
". . . It has never been my intention to hurt your boys. I assure you."
The woman stands up from the chair his mind's eye has placed her in, on the opposite side of the table from his own, and she starts stalking the room. "There we go again, with intentions and promises! I'm looking at actions! And so far, all you've actually done is fuck with him!" She whirls around, looking like nothing so much as a mother dragon, with some unknowable cataclysm sizzling behind her teeth. "You listen to me, Pegasus Crawford, and listen closely!"
Pegasus feels a twinge of superstitious terror that he never would have anticipated. His entire body goes stiff as this ravishing, terrifying beauty in his vision levels a glare on him that's hot enough to melt the Ninth Circle of Hell.
"You've been digging around in my son's mind for everything you've said to him. You stole me from his memory. I know the measure of you, Pegasus Crawford. You're so drunk on your 'gift' that you've forgotten the meaning of boundaries. You sit here in your castle like some ancient king, pulling strings and laughing when your puppets dance. My boy has enough to worry about without some jackass in a fancy suit toying with whatever's left of his heart. Either you man up and put actions to your flowery promises, or I'll crawl right out of your skull and strangle you in your sleep. You, of all people, should know the danger of angering the dead."
She looks up, to one of the far walls of this dark room, and Pegasus's gaze is drawn—unwillingly—to the portrait hanging there. The man in the white robes. The man from Egypt, with the sea-storm eyes.
"Remember the pain," the woman whispers, in the darkest corner of Pegasus Crawford's mind. "Remember how it felt, to wander through dusty streets with no direction. Remember how it felt, when he promised to give you what you wanted, and all you got was pain. Remember that pain. Can you feel it? Can you taste it?"
Pegasus's hands grip the arms of his chair almost hard enough to crush them.
". . . Yes."
Yuki Yagami's ghost comes up close to him and leans forward, almost seductively.
"I can do worse. And if anything happens to my boys because of you . . . I will do worse."
Then the door opens, and there's no one in the room.
No one but him.
"Master Crawford," Croquet says, crisply, from the open doorway. "Might I ask what you're doing?"
"Oh," Pegasus says, wiping sweat from his brow, "you know. Just arguing with myself."