"You want to...scan my brain?" Yugi asked, unsure he was hearing all this right. He was standing in—well, no, the real Yugi wasn't standing anywhere. He was in a rather quiet room wearing one of Kaiba's virtual reality headsets, looking very silly and vaguely reminiscent of an egg. Where Yugi thought and felt he was, though, was standing next to Seto Kaiba in front of the fountain at a breezy, empty, pleasant public park, one that was slightly more clean and pleasant than any real-life park in a way that made it a little eerie.

"Yes." Seto Kaiba looked so different these days and yet exactly the same, or maybe Yugi had just gotten taller, and wasn't used to seeing him from a better angle. "Not a full copy. That would be time-consuming and unnecessary. Just enough of your brainwaves to produce an adequate simulation. It would only take a few hours." He looked to the side, distracted by something Yugi couldn't see, overlays with simulation data Yugi wasn't privy to. "If you don't want to, I can construct one based off of my memories of you, but a real scan would be more accurate." He smiled then, a tiny smirk. "I would hate to undersell your abilities, if you're afraid I would remember them wrong."

Yugi watched a tiny virtual bird perched on a streetlight and thoughtfully took apart every part of that statement. That Kaiba apparently already possessed the capability to make a "full copy," whatever that was. And the last part, which seemed to flippantly imply that some version of Yugi Muto would be in Duel Links whether he consented or not, and that Kaiba's request wasn't for the sake of getting permission but ensuring the fidelity of his tech as a selling point.

"So people would log on and duel a fake me?"

"It's a feature I'm planning for the full release." Kaiba made a gesture, which must have either been for Yugi's benefit or Kaiba's dramatics because it was clear that Kaiba could do whatever he wanted here with thought alone, no manual controls required. Yugi did not have much time to wonder which it was because he startled and nearly stepped back into the fountain when the previously quiet park was instantly filled by a roar of chatter, so abrupt it nearly made his ears pop. Empty just a second ago, the park was now crowded with people, some familiar and some not, talking and eating and sitting on benches and doing everything else people do, remarkably lifelike.

"A number of notable duelists have already been added. Everyone wants the opportunity to duel greats like us." Kaiba continued. "And the difficulty is adjustable. For the kids."

Yugi scanned the park. There was Mai Kujaku, with her too-wide smile and makeup that would never smudge, and there was Haga, the former national champ bickering with his runner-up. A second, near-identical Seto Kaiba stood not very far from the real one, and ever more. "Is that Pegasus?"

"It's a reconstruction." he said, answering the unspoken question with no, I did not dig up a dead man to scan his brain, which one hopes would be obvious but this is Seto Kaiba we're talking about, who had already sort of tried to do that once. "Is that a yes, to the simulation, or no? I don't have all day."

Yugi put aside the myriad questions that were raised by creating a computer copy of soul-stealing kidnapper who had only been dead for a year in order to allow small children to play card games with him for fun. "I guess I don't mind, for the kids." he said, looking out at carefully-modeled green space. "Sounds like fu—" Yugi's words died in his throat the instant his eyes fell on the person standing across the pathway.

Yugi did not have any words, his mouth dried up and his head filled with static. He was frozen solid, staring at someone who looked so much like him and yet not quite, standing tall with a uniform cast across his shoulders. He was talking to someone, someone Yugi didn't know, offering encouragement with an easy, confident smile. Yugi couldn't hear what they were saying but he saw him cross his arms proudly and laugh, and it didn't matter how far away he was standing because Yugi knew exactly what that laugh would sound like.

"...Kaiba." he finally managed, and there was a crack in his voice he had to fight off that he didn't expect. "What is that?"

Kaiba followed Yugi's eyeline and saw what it was Yugi was looking at, and frowned, giving it only a sideways glance. "Another reconstruction."

"Of him?" Yugi's eyes had not moved. "You didn't tell me."

Kaiba paused, and while he was pretending not to his eyes were also now locked on their old friend. "I don't need your permission. You're not him." he said, with the faintest of hard edges. He added, "He wouldn't mind."

Yugi thought about this for only a second before immediately concluding that Kaiba was right, and Atem would find the idea of a computer copy of himself funny. That he would lightly tease Kaiba for creating it ("Hah! Did you really miss me that much, Kaiba?") or make a joke about it being handsome, and then ask if he could duel himself for the hell of it, and tackle with great enthusiasm the challenge of trying to outsmart his own deck. No, Atem would not mind. There were a lot of things that Atem would do and say if he were still around, and thinking about them was creating a heavy knot in his throat but Atem was standing right there, laughing and smiling, and Yugi was smiling too, and he was still staring across the park and doing it so intently that when Kaiba asked him a question he didn't even hear it.

"Huh?"

"I said," distracted again, glancing off to the side at more things Yugi couldn't see. "I have to go to a meeting. Mokuba says something came up."

"Oh."

Kaiba's face twitched, ever so slightly, about to say something and thinking better of it. "The test server is always up." he said, instead, opting for a neutral statement of fact. "Feel free to duel whoever you want."

Yugi finally snapped his head towards Kaiba. "I can...?"

Kaiba was typing something on floating keyboard, pretend-dismissive. "I need more data from high level duelists. Amateurs don't test it well." A partial truth or a kind excuse? Both, probably. "I have to go." The keyboard faded the moment he stopped touching it, and he looked at Yugi again. "Let me know," he added, "about the brain scan."

"Right."

And in a blink Seto Kaiba was gone, without so much as a puff of smoke or fade-out animation, a meeting cut razor short, leaving Yugi standing in front of the fountain with only a light breeze, the sound of running water, and the vacant chatter of virtual recreations of people who weren't there.

And Yugi Muto, the only human in a park full of people, crowded on all sides and yet stunningly alone, stopped holding back tears and bolted down the sidewalk faster than he'd ever ran in his life.