Ishizu Ishtar dipped the brush in paint, a smooth, rich, velvety violet, and daubed it on the canvas before her in a swooping, graceful arc, before wiping a touch of sweat off her brow in the strangely warm April day.

Despite the difficulties with everything going on in her life, in Domino Town, with her students, with Marik, painting, her greatest area of expertise in this world, always managed to soothe her frazzled nerves, to provide a channel to turn her frustrations into something outside herself, into something beautiful.

This was her afternoon ritual in her little private studio: a little warm-up before Serenity Crawford arrived back at the house for her lesson that evening. It would not do for an art teacher to have a shaky hand that day—or rather, any day, for that matter.

She rinsed her paintbrush in a bowl of water and studied the canvas, with its unfurling mass of violet highlighted with icy blue—an abstracted sea-sky fractured and curled its way across the plain, unprimed cloth that she had set up on her easel.

Usually Ishizu painted more figurative works—that was what she taught to her students, anyway. Landscapes with misty blue mountains and verdant green fields; the always-popular portraits of family members for parents to show and give around Christmastime, not to mention occasionally commission; the occasional partial nude figure study, when she could acquire a willing model, that is...

Yet after the particularly cold behavior she had been the recipient of over the past few weeks alone, something properly stormy and half-rendered seemed to fit the bill more precisely.

Hmm… needs a little white, perhaps? She daubed her paintbrush in the glop of white pigment on her palette, then thought better of it and dipped her fingers in directly, highlighting right beside the deepest recesses of the still-wet purple paint, creating deep slashing forms that seemed to stab right out of the canvas, all tense and sharp.

Pleased with the impulsiveness of her decision to finger paint—that vestige of childhood, with its unbridled promise and creativity that so often eluded her—she wiped her hands on her already hopeless paint-splattered overalls and adjusted her thin rimless glasses perched on her nose, knowing that the oils would soon get everywhere, dotting her face and arms with bright cold colors.

Ishizu knew she looked the part of the eccentric art instructor—that sort of floaty spirit from whom pure inspiration, and perhaps a touch of lunacy, seemed to waft from the very pores, the very essence of art, distilled into one body—that artificial way of being that in no way would describe her. Yet her enthusiasm for her craft, for teaching; her too-much-ness in her manner of speech and dress; not to mention her fortunate-yet-unfortunate stroke of luck several years ago… they all had left her nearly friendless, little more than a sour note on the tongues of everyone in Domino Town.

It was not my fault that Mr. Shadi left me the art collection. As she rinsed her brushes in a small bucket of mineral spirits, the sharp, pungent petroleum-esque smell rising through her nostrils and seemingly into her brain most unpleasantly, she fought back bitterness from rising in her throat. It was not through any sort of trickery that he left his collection to me and not to Domino Town.

The mysterious old gentlemen with his bald head and strangely smooth face had long been a fixture around Domino Town—Ishizu had known him growing up as one of her father's dearest friends. Yet when the wealthy Mr. Shadi had died several years ago, he had caused quite the stir when he had bequeathed his rather spectacular art collection not to Domino, as he had intimated previously, but to Ishizu herself.

To make no mistake, the fine Georgian columned brick building holding the paintings and sculptures, containing all manner of European and American art fresh from the salons of faraway Paris, still belonged to the city. Ishizu worked most mornings in the collection building, offering tours to visitors, monitoring the students who liked to study in the well-lit, quiet space, and making sure everything was properly labeled. She was, essentially, the collection's sole manager and the curator of its treasured works of art.

She still rented her studio space in the small old guesthouse behind the collection building—the building was Mr. Shadi's former mansion, after all—and tried to make herself as unseen and ordinary as possible—as she had been before the strange begifting., before everything had changed.

It had taken her completely by surprise, Mr. Shadi's overly generous bequest. She had completed college at a small Ohio college, one that accepted women, majoring in painting and art history, and had returned home upon graduation to set up her own painting and teaching studio and to serve as Marik's guardian. She had, of course, spent several nights a week caring for the then-geriatric Mr. Shadi upon his request—cooking him dinners, reading to him (for Mr. Shadi had preferred to keep his cards close to the vest, as it were, and not hire any help he did not know previously in his old age), and working mornings in the collection building, as she did now, which had given her such joy.

She had also completed a rather magnificent portrait of him that still hung in the collection building, above the master bedroom's fireplace.

That work had been a true triumph for her—all greens and brown tones, done up in the style of Edouard Manet with the blackness of Mr. Shadi's suit boring into the eyes of anyone who saw it, and it clearly had won him over as well…

Ishizu was still unsure of what she could have done to be worthy of the fabulous collection. She and Marik still benefitted from his largesse daily, as the viewing fees and interest from some of the works (due to some banking maneuver Ishizu still did not quite understand). They were not rich by any means, but with the income from the painting collection, as well as the money Ishizu made from teaching (and rarely, oh so rarely selling her art), they were able to get by.

Yet as rumors do, false utterances had quickly spread around Domino town and her prickly, resentful citizens—rumors that Ishizu had obtained ownership of the artworks through most unsavory and inappropriate means. Means that made Ishizu shudder still upon thinking of them.

While Ishizu did still count several of the women in town among her acquaintances, through some measure of charm or begging, only one could she count as her dear friend: the erstwhile widow Mai Valentine, whose own exploits had given her quite the reputation herself.

Thoguh, Ishizu reminded herself, perhaps unkindly, Mai's reputation in Domino Town was actually earned.

And then, of course, there was the matter of Marik.

Marik Ishtar, known around town—reviled, frankly—as the troublemaking younger brother of that no-good harlot-artist Ishizu Ishtar. When Ishizu's and Marik's parents had died, both of illness, while Ishizu was still studying at college, Marik's mood had taken what still seemed to be a permanent turn for the worst. Ishizu had struggled with whether it would have been better to leave school and come home to take care of Marik, but in those early days in the aftermath of their parent's death he had written to her, promised that he would be able to care for himself, and Mai had written often as well, promising she would chip in...

She ought to have expected differently, she now knew.

Seven years her junior, Marik had never been particularly inclined to follow the rules put forth for him by their parents (or by the stubborn denizens of Domino City, for that matter), and, well, once the whole affair with Mr. Shadi's art collection had transpired…

Yet things had quickly taken a turn for the worse as Ishizu had completed her senior year. She'd been buried in notes for her comprehensives when Marik had had his first strike against the town's good graces-something to do with a flagpole and a fire... When she'd returned, she'd come home to find a brother who was wholly different from the usually cheerful, often mischievous Marik Ishtar-someone whose moods vacillated wildly between incredible, self-destructive lows when he would barely utter a word to anyone or leave his room to go to school, or frightening, jarring highs when he would go on his rampages around town, causing mischief and trouble with a smile like a veritable Tom Sawyer.

It was a marvel she and Marik were still living together, that he had not been yet made a ward of the state. He only had one year to go before he reached his majority. Yet after the night he had spent in jail on counts of loitering and public indecency, she could only hope he would learn to better control himself, for once Marik reached eighteen, the punishments doled out for his misbehavior would be far less forgiving…

Still, she kept her head up high in the storm, against the two-faced, small-minded Domino Town citizens who took in her art collection by day, sent their children to be taught fine arts by her by night, and spoke poorly of her at all other times in between, over breakfast, lunch, afternoon knitting, evening socials that they refused to include her in.

If nothing else, Ishizu Ishtar maintained a rather misplaced sense of inner nobility, one from which she derived strength and morale in light of all that had occurred. These small-minded people did not truly understand her, clearly, and had chosen to shun her and her family for it when they weren't taking advantage of her art collection and her talent as an artist and teacher—

And yet Ishizu Ishtar stayed in Domino Town—at least until Marik's health improved, or until she found the means to take what was rightfully hers, if she could even stomach doing so, and leave the small, stagnant town and all of its unpleasant memories behind.

Ishizu realized, with a small sigh, that she was unduly abusing her poor paintbrushes; the mineral spirits were oozing into the small cuts and calluses on her hands. She winced slightly in pain, drawn out out her resentful reverie.

She quickly dried the brushes on her overalls and placed them beside the bucket of pungent mineral spirits. Careful not to let the thickly applied oils drip onto her overalls (but what for, really?) she gingerly lifted the large canvas from its perch on her easel and leaned it against the back wall of her studio space, alongside her other recent works.

A brusque knock at the door to the studio sounded, followed by a tall woman with flowing blonde hair and a startlingly pink feathered hat, totally out-of-place in this heat spell, who marched right up to where Ishizu was standing and thrust a wrinkled set of pages at her.

"I-is something wrong, Mrs. Crawford?" Ishizu queried, anxiety clenching at her stomach like a vise. Why did she not go to the house? Why is she here, in my private space?

... Of course something is wrong. Something always is…

"I don't know, Ms. Ishtar. What do you make of this?" came the furious yet haughty voice of the woman, who was practically seething with rage, an anger that colored her cheeks the same pink as her attire.

Ishizu unfolded the sheets and found that they were—drawings. Nude figures studies of men and women, of angels and cupids partially covered by thin fabric…

"Mrs. Crawford, your daughter has merely been practicing her figure studies, as I assigned her last week…"

Mayor Crawford's wife, the imperious Cecelia, all six feet tall with fading matinee idol-looks, forever hounding her sweet eldest daughter Serenity for some reason or another, looked most displeased at Ishizu's response.

"And this is what you're teaching my daughter?" She folded her arms across her impressive bosom and stared down at Ishizu, mouth twitching with disgust and resentment.

Ishizu scanned the drawings quickly. While Serenity's sense of proportion still needed work, the charcoal shading clearly was the product of many hours of work, work that her own mother had ripped away and crumpled up like trash…

How cruel…

"Mrs. Crawford," replied Ishizu evenly, praying that she could hold her temper, her own sense of superiority over this downright provincial woman, with her local politics and fashionable social events, in check. "Figure studies are a basic and necessary way of teaching art students to draw. Why even images of our Lord Christ and his saints and angels have been rendered in the nude… to be able to recreate the figure in the nude, or even in partial-nude, opens up a multitude of figurative possibilities, not to mention that it's good practice for observation of muscles, flesh, sinew, bones working under skin…"

"This is smut," retorted Mrs. Crawford, voice dripping with scorn. "What you're teaching my daughter—with these bodies of young women and men, lying about in their underthings, or with their naked shame all showing for the world to see?" Her voice turned snobby and icy. "What else could I expect from someone like you?"

Ishizu bit the inside of her cheek at the insult that, by all means, she ought to have anticipated coming from Mrs. Crawford, the de facto originator of the gossip surrounding Ishizu and Mr. Shadi. Or, if not the source, Mrs. Crawford had partaken greedily in those rumors like a fine meal…those dark clouds of words that chased Ishizu around town every which way she went…

"Mrs. Crawford," she responded softly, a pleading tone coming into her voice, "wouldn't you rather have Serenity studying art, studying the classics—than, than… oh, I don't know, being forced to learn nothing but deportment and sewing all day?"

"I have half a mind to pull her out of your art classes, Ms. Ishtar—and how dare you imply that my Serenity needs deportment lessons? I assure you, Serenity is of good breeding and good manners, unlike some young people I could mention…"

And now she had attacked Marik with her fork-prong words. That was unforgivable—yet what could Ishizu do?

She gritted her teeth and kept her tone level. "I understand, Mrs. Crawford. I apologize for my words—I meant no harm by them."

"I'm sure you meant nothing by it." Mrs. Crawford sniffed, taking in Ishizu's rather untidy studio, a cruel mocking smile playing on her lips. Knowing she had won, she pulled out her ornate pearl-encrusted purse and pressed a folded bill into Ishizu's hands. "This is for last week's lesson. See to it that Serenity does not continue to study any of this disgusting nudity and obscenity. Have her paint lovely robed angels singing our Lord's praises, have her paint little sheep in a meadow, I don't give a damn. But if I find that you've been tempting her to sin, to lust, to shame by teaching her to draw naked people, by God, she will not be returning to your studio for lessons. Is that understood?"

Ishizu wanted nothing more than to crumple the money, light it on fire and thrust it into Mrs. Crawford's smug, self-satisfied face until the older woman screamed in agony. Yet she instead tucked the money into the front pocket of her overalls and folded Serenity's drawings carefully, placing them on the table next to the brushes. "I understand completely, Mrs. Crawford."

"And you're not to tell her that it was I who found the filth she was drawing, understand? Just tell her that you're practicing something new, that her 'nudes', as you so cavalierly call them, were unsatisfactory, or perfectly fine, whatever you wish to say. She will just have to learn that some things are just not done. Some things are not appropriate in this town, Mrs. Ishtar, despite what you and your brother might think…"

Ishizu bowed her head and remained silent.

Mrs. Crawford took one more leering look around Ishizu's studio, sniffed, and swept out with a flurry of pink feathers.

As soon as the door closed, Ishizu let out a dry, halting sob. Anger, molten hatred and resentment towards this unceasingly cruel and petty woman, with her behavior towards not only Ishizu and Marik, but her own daughter as well rose up in her throat, closing off any other path to a better frame of mind.

What else could she do?

Ishizu clenched her fists, willing herself to calm down, and ran over to the back of the studio where her finished canvases lay, propped up against the wall. Rummaging towards the back of the piles of paintings, she retrieved a long, narrow canvas she had painted in dewy pinks and yellows two months ago—a quickly rendered study of the shy, nascent spring flowers growing outside her window.

Well, it was now April. And in the unseasonal heat of the weather, the sudden heat of her anger, what else could Ishizu do but set the canvas on her easel, reach for her biggest brush and start flooding the once-tranquil scene with strokes of blackest paint?

Seto watched the train pull off into the distance with a satisfied smirk. Oh, how he did love getting the upper hand on people like that—people who bespoke wealth and comfort, or at least those who did not have that same air of struggle, the grime under their nails from clawing up to achieve what little they had the way he had done his entire life.

He looked around him, at the dusty train station with its small coterie of wholly uninterested people milling about, then hoisted his briefcase off the ground and began to make his way away from the station.

The one road leading from Domino Town's small train station wound its way up a gentle hill bracketed on both sides by fenced-off fields—individual livestock farms, Seto reckoned. I don't suppose there's some kind of horse and buggy rig to get me up the hill…?

He walked over towards the fence and called out to the farmer, a skinny bearded man resting in the shade of a tree on his property, "Excuse me, friend! Where could I see about getting a rig to the center of town?"

The farmer called back without moving: "The man in charge of hiring rigs!"

Seto blinked for a bit, almost surprised at the man's rather unexpected… standoffishness? Perhaps he's having a bad day…

He walked a bit further up the hill, beginning to sweat beneath his linen suit under the unseasonably hot sun, his shoes filling with clods of dust from the dirt road. He caught sight of another figure, all blurred in a haze of sunlight, arranged his figures into a benign smile and called out:

"Hello, friend! Could you direct me to the center of town?"

And the figure replied, as if he'd been expecting this sort of question and was prematurely weary from it:

"Runs right down the middle of the street!"

O-kay. Is everyone in this town all out of sorts because of the heat? Or…

Seto reached for a handkerchief and wiped his forehead before trudging up the rest of the hill. Couldn't hurt…

His efforts were soon rewarded with a charming view of Georgian brick buildings and clapboard houses and storefronts, all paved with cobblestone streets just wide enough for perhaps five to walk abreast. A few carriages moseyed on down the street, drawn by particularly tired-looking horses.

The locals hummed about their business in small groups of twos or threes—buying their groceries, going to the milliner, the haberdasher, each group moving in isolation, not acknowledging one another. Few "hellos" or greetings of any kind seemed to be exchanged among these locals, except for the buzzing and twitting amongst small clusters of middle-aged women placed here and there like coteries of hens, pecking and pecking away.

Seto walked over to one side of the street and made his way over to a building that read in painted red letters on white clapboard: "GENERAL STORE." He approached the men standing out front enjoying a cigarette and asked, scarcely holding his breath at this point: "Hello gentlemen—I'm new in town. Where could I find a good hotel?"

One of the men, a tall, coarse-looking fellow with a shock of blond hair, quipped drily: "Try the Old Royale in Cleveland!"

Seto fought to stop from rolling his eyes. Is everyone in this damned town insane?

Was it just… something about Domino Town and her citizens? Something about Iowa itself—something curt and straightforward in people's manner? Did they not take to strangers? What the hell was going on with these people?

Seto adjusted his suit, the heat starting to wear down his charm, and continued along down the sidewalk, beginning to draw stares from the townsfolk. After all, new people coming to Domino Town, Iowa, were quite a rarity, especially men who looked as young and fresh as this one.

Before long he had a flock of Domino City chickens following him along his way.

He called out to a pair of women he saw sitting on a wrought-iron bench and called out, against his better judgment, "Hello ladies! What do you all do around here for fun in Domino Town?"

One of the women responded flatly: "Mind our business."

Seto gritted his teeth but kept up his smile, continuing to walk towards where he assumed the center of Domino Town would be—at least, if the earlier sarcastic gentleman had been indeed telling the truth in his own way.

Someone behind him tapped him on the shoulder. "You're in Iowa, stranger," the man muttered behind a bushy mustache, pronouncing it Io-way.

Seto raised an eyebrow in response. "Ioway? Is that how you say it?" he replied, forcing a self-deprecating chuckle into his voice. "I never knew that's how it's meant to be said!"

A woman who began walking alongside him piped up, "Well, we say it now and then, but we don't like anybody else to."

"You folks sure know how to make a body feel at home," Seto said briskly, the cheer in his voice now tasting artificial and sour on his tongue. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

"That's just how it is here in Iowa," replied the bushy-mustached man as the townspeople gathered behind Seto began to pick up speed, following him wherever he went on the street—across the street, as he took a peek in a storefront window, across the lawn of the schoolyard... Seto turned his head back in a kind of wonder at these increasingly odd people in this increasingly odd town.

"You know, we're a different breed of people than you're likely used to, stranger," added a younger man towards the middle of the pack. "Iowa's a sort-of… well, how can I describe it…?"

"We've got a bit of a chip on our shoulder, you might say," filled in a female voice somewhere next to the original mustachioed man. "We're a proud people—cold, and stubborn as all get-out."

Cold and stubborn. Sounds familiar.

These people could have proven to be those after his own heart, given different circumstances.

Seto fought to keep his voice light and pleasant. It was rapidly becoming more and more difficult to keep up that facade. "Well, that's certainly charming to hear—every town in this great state, in this great country of ours certainly does have its little quirks, now, doesn't it?"

It was clearly not the right thing to say. Seto noticed several of the people in the flock behind him bristle and sought to make amends. Damn it. I'm already slipping with these strange people. "Ah, my mistake, I misspoke. You see…"

"Stranger, we're a plain-spoken folk here in the heartland, and especially in Domino Town. We've got no need for your fancy words and linguistics…" began the mustachioed man at the front of the crowd.

"And yes, you're welcome to stay with us—but remember that here it's every man for himself. No handouts! And we likely will not mention it again," chimed in a passer-by.

"We're a by-God stubborn and proud people here in Iowa, so you mustn't forget that!"

"But you are correct in that you really ought to give Iowa a try."

Seto smiled at the throng of people behind him, face nearly going numb from the effort it took, and tipped his hat rather gallantly. "Thank you kind folks! I'm glad to hear of it, and I think I will give Domino Town a try."

He turned on his heel and walked away from the crowd, which, feeling as though it had gotten its message across, began to disperse, each citizen resuming their own business as if it were any usual day. Well, that definitely wasn't what I was expecting from a place like this…

A small building with a generous front porch caught his eye, and outside that building, a hand-lettered sign reading, simply, "Hotel."

Well, they were right about being plain-spoken…

He hoisted his briefcase up the steps, up on to the porch, and opened the strangely light wooden door to the hotel.

The hotel was certainly everything that he had expected in a small town like this—homespun niceties mingled with a proud sense of plainness. There was no vaulted ceiling of hotels in larger, richer cities, no marble trimmings or columns, no Persian rugs beneath his dusty feet, no clinging rosebuds entwined in the staircase railings. Instead, it was all paneled wooden floors, rickety-looking rocking chairs, and doilies. Lots of doilies. Aside from a few people reading in the rocking chairs, the lobby was largely empty.

Seto set down his heavy briefcase and let out a long, well-deserved sigh.

"Seto Kaiba?" came a voice. Seto instinctively froze up, fighting to keep his exterior calm and placid, friendly and unthreatening.

Someone here knows me?

A surge of liquid panic ignited in his veins, and, despite his best efforts, a cold sweat, despite the heat, began to trickle down the back of his neck.

He turned towards the direction of the voice, and despite himself, couldn't stop a tiny, genuine smile from gently tweaking the edge of his lips. "Yugi Moto? What are you doing here?"

Indeed, the spiky hair and small frame had identified the man calling him as none other than Yugi Moto. While Seto Kaiba did not count anyone he knew in that nebulous, wholly unnecessary category of "friends", Yugi Moto had always been a cut above the usual rabble he had to deal with. Following the death of his grandfather, Yugi Moto had landed in the same orphanage that Seto and Mokuba had floated in and out of during their childhoods. He'd run into Yugi several times over the course of his life; they'd even been placed in the same boys' home in an ill-fated attempt at acclimation that had lasted only a few months.

Once Mokuba had been separated from Seto in the system—for who would take two boys? Foster parents were out of the question once Seto had grown older, with adoption nothing but a mere dream. The number of willing boys' homes had dwindled as the boys had grown older —and contact had been seemingly irretrievably lost between them, Seto had taken his not-inconsiderable natural intellect and ingenuity and had turned to swindling—conning unsuspecting people out of money, any amount of money, that he would then use trying to buy or bribe information about where he could find his brother. As the cons had grown bolder and larger, with nary a failure of note growing up, Yugi Moto had always been there, in a similar way, though his motives were far simpler—he just wanted to be able to survive.

The two of them had, despite Seto's protestations, even worked together as part of a con in a small New England city… but that is a story for another time. Despite his surprise at whatever Yugi Moto could be doing in this small, strange Midwestern town, he was, shockingly, almost pleased to see him.

I must be getting sentimental.

Perish the thought.

Yugi strode over to him and extended his hand, beaming almost beatifically. Keep your expectations down, Yugi, thought Seto dismissively, before taking the smaller man's hand. Yugi always was a bit too overjoyed to see him—and while it couldn't hurt to have an inside man in this particularly increasingly delicate operation, it would not do for it to be evident that the two of them knew one another.

For Yugi's part, seeing his old—well, perhaps friend was the wrong word—associate here in the hinterlands of Domino Town was an unexpected delight. While he could never have called them "partners in crime," in as much as partners were meant to stick together and to trust one another, the two of them had been close as anything, as close as children in the system could ostensibly be.

"Of all the people to run into in Iowa—Seto Kaiba!" Yugi burbled, violet eyes shining, as he held onto Seto's hand firmly. "Why didn't you send word that you would be coming?"

All right, even for Yugi Moto, that's quite naïve.

Seto held a finger to his lips and shhh'd Yugi's overzealous efforts at friendship, as he so often had before. "I'm here on business, Yugi—is there somewhere we could talk?"

Yugi nodded firmly, understanding, and pulled a key from his pocket. He beckoned Seto over to a small room behind the rather ornate front desk of the hotel—the only lavish aspect of the whole lobby, it seemed. The two men entered, and Yugi locked the door behind them.

Seto set down his briefcase and leaned upon it, crossing his arms over his chest. "What's a hustler like you doing in a humdrum place like this?" he asked, trying to stop a note of curiosity from creeping into his voice, and perhaps overcompensating with an air of disgust.

Yugi blushed. "Well, Seto, I'm—ah… retired now. This is where I work—the Domino Town Hotel."

Of all the places to settle down… "You mean you live in this town?" Seto could not imagine staying in this strange, cold, "stubborn" little town for absolutely longer than he had to, for any longer than it would take to run the game and take the money.

Yugi smiled again. "Yeah, I like it, too. I mean, it's certainly not New York City or Chicago or Detroit, but it's certainly got its charms, and it's quiet. People here know people, and that's something that I don't mind." It was true, at least—while Yugi occasionally missed the excitement of pulling off a con, especially the Manchester job several years back with Seto, it certainly was nice to be working steadily as manager of the Domino Town's hotel.

"You sure you aren't in hiding?" quipped Seto drily.

"Nah, I'm retired now—I swear! I got a nice job here at the hotel, and I got a wonderful girl." Here Yugi's face lit up even more than seemed humanly possible.

"Hmm? The plot thickens," responded Seto, fighting from rolling his eyes. Ah, Yugi Moto, that hopeless romantic. No wonder he retired—flimflamming isn't exactly the best business for falling in love with every damned woman who gives him a smile and a wave.

Yugi either didn't notice Seto's teasing, or, far more likely given their history, chose to ignore it. "Yeah—her name's Téa Gardner. Nice girl, lovely, wonderful girl." The mere thought of sweet Téa, with her grace and smile, was enough to outweigh Seto's needling.

"I see. Well, allow me to write your eulogy while I'm standing here: 'Here lieth Yugi Moto, once an honorable man of the scam, now wasting away in Domino Town…'" he let out a dry chuckle at his own cleverness, which Yugi, always game for a laugh, returned wholeheartedly.

"So what's going on with you? What are you doing here? You're not still after…"

After your brother.

Seto nodded gravely, the smile dropping from his face like rain. Yugi reached out a tentative hand to Seto's arm, then thought better of it and commenced twiddling his thumbs. He tried again. "You still doing the Duel Monsters scam?"

"Still doing the Duel Monsters scam—the cards, the rulebooks, the card-dealing devices."

Yugi's features arranged themselves into a thoughtful look. "Well, you've got your work cut out for you here, Seto… anything these Domino folks don't already have, they'd rather do without."

Hmm. This will be a tough sell, then. Still, though… what's wrong with a little challenge?

"Then what do these Domino folks do for entertainment?" Seto queried, sure in some small part of himself that the good citizens of Domino preferred to stand around and glare at one another for fun.

"Well, we've got a nice little art collection since old Mr. Shadi died—it's run by this stuck-up art teacher who gives lessons to all the local kids. Ishizu Ishtar."

"A mere art teacher running an art collection building?"

"She's also the curator. It's a long story, Seto—we don't have time to get into that whole business now. Anyway, yeah—Ishizu Ishtar. Maiden lady," continued Yugi, causing a quirk of Seto's eyebrow. Maiden lady, huh?

"I see…" mused Seto, a smirk creeping onto his face. Well, I do have a not-inconsiderable track record for this sort of thing…

"Eh, Seto, good luck with that one—she's odd but bright, and she'll definitely expose you before you unload this whole Duel Monsters thing…" Yugi shook his head at Seto's overconfidence, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. While Seto was charming and handsome, more so than most, that darkness that he knew licked at Seto's heels on a permanent basis certainly complicated things—not to mention that particular keen intelligence Ishizu Ishtar held in her eyes.

If this was the path Seto wanted to take, he certainly had his work cut out for him.

She'll try to expose me? Seto inhaled sharply, feeling—was it nervousness, perhaps…? If the town is this… cold and strange towards one another, how am I going to sell them on the idea of dueling in pairs, against each other? I have my work cut out for me…

"Well then, Yugi, you point her out to me the minute you see her, and I'll see if I can't get some… ahem… exposing done of my own, on my own terms."

At this clumsy entendre, both of them laughed—Yugi wholeheartedly, and Seto decidedly more guardedly.

Still, at the prospect of all of this, a quiet thrill shook itself alive within his veins. For Seto Kaiba, wanted con man, did enjoy a good challenge. And getting the people to come together to duel one another, not to mention taking care of this mysterious art teacher woman who would, as Yugi said, seek to expose his tricks, would be a most excellent challenge indeed.