Summary: Doma Arc. Prior to his duel with Kaiba, Amelda does something he shouldn't when his boss is gone, and has a little talk with someone he knows he shouldn't… reeeally shouldn't. Implied Y/YY

Don't forget to squint for the plot!

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For those of you that don't know, Amelda joined the Doma Organization with the intention of making a world without war, and the brainwashed belief that the Pharaoh was the cause of all war with the Shadows still in the world. In the original Japanese, Amelda's brother Milko was killed when a tank he was in exploded. Dartz tricked him into thinking it was Kaiba's fault, and so Amelda makes Kaiba his enemy, swearing to defeat him after the duel where Oreikalkos was negated.

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Some Theories of Emotion:
1. Canon-Bard: emotions lead to physiological changes and actions
2. Cognitive appraisal: we decide what to feel after interpreting events
3. Impact bias: overestimating the effect of an emotional event
4. Social contagion: we catch emotions from others

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It had entered his mind so suddenly that he wanted to talk the enemy of his enemy that when his master left he couldn't believe his fortune. And he was curious, because technically this was his enemy too, being allied with the Pharaoh, the bringer of war and death. The explosions of tank, gasoline, and carbon dioxide consumed his brain every day, as potent and breaking as the cries of his brother. The darkness…it was all because of the Pharaoh that evil still lurked in the heart of Man.

He really shouldn't be here.

It wasn't hard to find the small boy's tablet. Dartz had mockingly left the host a space front and center for the Pharaoh to see and break apart at when he came for them, when they crushed him.

"Hello." He said. "You are the host-child right?" The one Rafael screwed up on…

He glared up at him "What do you want?" He said in a low, cynical voice, fantastically contrasting to such a face. The odd eyes that were wide like his brother's might have been, radiating and projecting distrust and anger… and underneath it what Amelda suspected was an omnipresent self-loathing and uncertainty.

Interesting, he expected a squeaky mouse and got a little lion. He could work with that.

"I want information."

He flared right up. "Well you can go screw yourself because I am not telling you anything about mou hitori no boku or the Puzzle so you might as well send me back!"

Hmph, well so much for a god feeding off of him and draining all his energy… "After that little summoning spectacle you did earlier, you're lucky you're just in a tablet, kid, and not already fed to our lovely Leviathan completely."

Yuugi glared. "You can't; the souls must be fed all at once and you're still a few short."

Ignoring his uncanny perception, Amelda looked at him critically. Smart mouth… "How old are you kid, twelve?"

"I'm seventeen!" He snapped, flushing and embarrassed. But he didn't look away. He clearly wanted to, but he didn't: the rest of him hadn't caught up with his jaded eyes yet.

His eyes widened. Damn. "Woah, that sucks, but seventeen is still a kid to me…"

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"So that is why you seek revenge against Kaiba-kun."

He tilted his head at the small boy. "You continuously speak of him in such a tone as if you are beneath him. But you have defeated him several times."

But he looked away. "Tha—that isn't me that fights," he said, cheeks going pink. "The other me that is walking around in my, uh, our…body…he defeats Kaiba-kun. I don't fight much. I don't…"

Amelda frowned. This is the one Dartz feared? Amelda racked his brain, but he couldn't remember why his master had made the explicit order (which he had just broken) that this one should be locked away by the tightest of seals. Surely having him alive and able to dangle in front of the Pharaoh would have been a better use for this "bait." He licked his lips. Easy, too, he was so unassuming and clearly lacking confidence to be any kind of threat; yet Rafael swore the Pharaoh had been screaming, like he couldn't duel without him? Master Dartz mentioned it, too, right before the train went over the cliff and that annoying Haaga lost. "Why haven't you asked me to let you go?"

He looked at him and frowned, free of fear. "Well, you wouldn't, would you?"

"No…"

"Well then," and he cocked an eyebrow. "That is a silly question." And the way he said it, bitterly, Amelda felt he was quoting from someone.

"Kaiba's soul is my revenge," he said instead.

"His brother rigged a coin game on us once." Yuugi said vaguely. He didn't seem to be seeing him. Post-disorientation. His soul was probably still adjusting to not be sucked on constantly for vengeance against the Pharaoh's darkness. "He won anyway." He shook his head, the memory floating away and met his eyes. "He can't lose you know. Mou hitori no boku never loses."

"Uh, hello, kid, why do you think you're here?"

He brought his knees up and said nothing. "That wasn't a true duel, because that wasn't him dueling."

"The Oreikalkos only reveals the extremity of darkness in a holder's heart; it does not change the holder's identity."

"You're wrong!" He snapped suddenly and Amelda's jumped, startled at the degree of temper emitting from the boy. The defiance in his eyes, the clutched fists and tense body…he stared down over at him, and then laughed. "Stop it!" He said, "You're wrong, you don't know anything about him!"

"And you?" He asked. "He's shared your mind, pulse, and blood, and you can't even tell me his name." The boy deflated like a balloon, and Amelda voiced, "I've been wondering for a while though, what would happen had you played Oreikalkos instead."

"I wouldn't!" The boy snapped again, "That card is evil and makes you slaughter your monsters!"

"Just humor me for a moment, boy." He said testily, eyes hard.

Yuugi flinched and looked away. That stance… Amelda started. But the Pharaoh wasn't with him anymore! He couldn't be… The boy closed his eyes. "He won't forget me." He said strongly.

"How do you know?"

"I was a toy once, in a Game of Darkness a long," he smirked at the irony, "long time ago. I was the Dark Magician. I remember it looking so bad, so bad because was only just beginning to understand what a darkness game meant when I looked up and saw his face." His lips twitched to a smile. "He was looking down at me, and I just remember how… just how he had been watching me so concerned before I was even aware of it. Watching me with his hand poised to physically pick me up and make sure I made it to the next square okay, like he'd forgotten I could walk on my own. And I knew… I knew I'd be safe. He wouldn't let anyone touch me, he all but said it in my mind. I felt safe.

"That is why I know he won't forget me," he said. "You don't look at someone like that and forget them. No one ever looked at me like that before. Somehow I know he'd never done that, either, looked at anyone like that. It confused him, scared him.

"He doesn't understand his power, he doesn't like it. There's too much of him."

No, boy, too little.

"He's too powerful."

He's not powerful at all without you. "You brought him to your knees." He said smirking. "Broke him in then; he fell to pieces after you left. He's barely lasted two days so far and I don't have faith he'll last another with the useless way he maneuvers your body."

For the first time the boy looked away first. "He's going to leave me," he said. Amelda noticed he was clenching his fists, the skin turning white, as he glared at something. He didn't sound at all broken-hearted by it; if anything he was angry. "He's leaving anyway; he should not be doing things like that. I don't mind if he doesn't forget me, because for better or for worse I will never be able to forget him, but this is a level of hypocrisy even he has not before broken."

"Then why are you loyal to him?"

Yuugi looked mildly surprised. "Isn't that how you express love? Isn't that why you fight for your brother?"

"If you're going to kill me you might as well get it over with," Yuugi said casually.

"No," he said after a moment. "I couldn't hurt you. You're still just a child." He leaned back and swung his legs away. This wasn't getting him anywhere, not that he had started with a goal to begin with. But it was getting unnerving and he shouldn't be letting this one affect his judgment when it was already so clearly justified. The Pharaoh was evil; none could tell him otherwise. "Well kid," he said coolly, "I think I'm done with y—"

"He is too, you know." Yuugi was looking at him with a child-like (but not childish), inquisitive intensity as he cut him off.

"What, kid?"

He looked at him calmly and Amelda felt a little smaller. "You say I am a child still, that you cannot hurt a child. He is too then. By default. He's not much older than me you know. And a part of me. Mou hitori no boku and I, we are the same. Doesn't that make him a child, something taboo to hurt to your stated principles?"

He stared at the unblinking boy. "I…" He felt it then, something…something very bad. Was it power, the power of the Pharaoh's host? He didn't feel power per se, that dark energy that oozed off the Pharaoh in tumultuous waves, but this… this must have been what Dartz had been muttering about. Something dangerous, yes, Mutou Yuugi was dangerous, Amelda decided, as a trickle of apprehension rand down his back. "Goodbye kid," he said, pressing a blank card into his duel disc.

He was brave about it, bracing himself only slightly against the pull, and he didn't fight. Those eyes, young and old at the same time, never left his. They shimmered, like he wanted to cry but not for himself and not for his ironically dependent Other. Amelda didn't like it, didn't want to think about a victim feeling pity for him instead when the kid was about to have his soul torn apart all over again and fed to a god. But thank those gods he couldn't take by the banishment once it began, that once the light went away Mutou Yuugi was gone for good and none would be the wiser.

/He won't forget me./

He could just forget this whole…conversation…ever happened.

/He's going to leave me./

Two completely powerful, opposing statements that should not result in the same expression. One should be happy, in love. The other should be angry, in bitterness. They shouldn't be only one, and it definitely shouldn't be the first. The second shouldn't be so much more full of love, so absent of hate.

Dangerous. Mutou Yuugi was dangerous. And despite that Amelda glanced across the dueling field at Kaiba with ice and indifference, he would have been lying if his hand wasn't shaking a little when he pulled Oreikalkos… and saw pensive eyes questioning instead of Dartz's god when he looked down. He imagined the Pharaoh falling and screaming for those wide eyes, and Amelda felt his own heart listening. He thought of his brother's memory.

Milko…

You're just going to let him go?

/How else can you fully express love?/

And Amelda didn't want to win anymore.