Not mine, YuGiOh! Is not mine.
It was getting close to twilight, and the cave was a flurry of precise, practiced movement. Everyone seemed to know exactly what to do and how. Everything had a sense of long habit to it, which, Yami reminded himself, was true. This was a carefully planned, on-going operation.
He watched Yugi move, keeping track of where everything was going, checking and double checking supplies. Despite being millennia older, currently there was a look in Yugi's eyes that made him feel very, very young in comparison with the shorter teen.
Watching him, Yami recognized some of the mannerisms he himself used, but Yugi never did- well, except for when they shared a body and Yami took over. But instead of looking at Yugi and seeing a mirror opposite, it was startlingly similar. His eyes flickered over and saw Seto watching Yugi as well, no doubt coming to the same conclusion.
Yugi, of course, was ignoring them. Not out of rudeness, but this was an operation. If anything went wrong not being prepared could mean the difference between life and death, no exaggeration. So having two of his friends (he would call Seto a friend because he was, even if he was a rival) watch him like a hawk was not at the top of his priority list.
He was focused on keeping his kids-he always thought of them that way- and his friends safe.
It was a terrible, nerve wracking job. Hard decisions had to be made, and whenever Yugi was there, it was his job to make them. The worst was when someone had to be put in harms way to protect everyone else, and it couldn't always be him that did the most dangerous tasks. Sometimes it required an expert in traps, like Dmitri, or technology, like Leanna.
Yugi was an expert in medicine, and as such he couldn't risk being unable to help others. Which meant sending his friends to do the bad stuff.
It was this part that made Yugi miss Domino, where he never had to make these decisions. That was left to Yami. But nothing in Domino gave him quite the same satisfaction as knowing he had just saved a child's life. Nothing was the same as giving a child his first toy in who knew how many years. He wasn't a teen dependent on his grandfather here. He was a man. In soul, if not in body, he thought wryly.
He knew, in a small part of his mind, that his stranded friends were wondering about the difference in his behavior. He had wondered about it as well. Which was the real him? He toyed vaguely with the idea of a split personality. But no, it was just different aspects of him were needed in different places. Didn't Yami often tell him that he was the stronger of the two? Perhaps this is what he meant.
True, there were those bully problems at high-school, but really. Compared to being shot at, it wasn't a big deal. They thought he was a wimp who couldn't stand up for himself. He surprised them all by standing up for others. He wasn't surprised. That was just how it was. He didn't have to be a leader in Domino- nobody's life was on the line, and if it was, once again, that was Yami's look-out.
At any rate, things were shaping up nicely, although Seto's extra things were causing a bit of trouble, but Kaiba simplified things by consolidating any information and leaving the rest.
"It's just metal," he stated simply. Good. There was no need to be dragging around large metal objects in the middle of a war zone.
At last, they were ready to go. Aden was big enough to move on his own, as was Lochlann, although they were both assigned to Dmitri and Elianna. Cole was carrying Willow, Leanna was point, and Yugi was rear guard. It would take them about four hours to get to the next location, as long as all went well.
Scouting ahead, but not too far, Leanna moved silently through the woods. Even the two little boys moved with a stealth that would have surprised most people observing, and it was at a fair speed as well.
They had to stop, of course, letting the young ones rest. They switched roles silently, knowing the pattern by heart. Yugi was point now, Dmitri was carrying Willow, and Cole was watching their six. There was, perhaps, a bit of pride in Yugi as he watched his family run their operation smooth as clockwork.
Yami, on his part, knew he should be used to the incredible teamwork shown by the teens, yet somehow he was still surprised by it. He was also saddened that such a beautiful country should bear the scars of war. Sure, most of the time you couldn't really tell. But then something would pop up- perhaps a discarded weapon, helmet, or a place where fox-holes pockmarked the ground.
Yugi had explained how the main problem of the war was the lack of leadership. Gozeburo had purposefully killed any decent leaders that arose, essentially guaranteeing continued chaos until leadership arrived in the form of-who else? Gozeburo himself.
War may be a necessary evil, but in this case…it was just evil.
Shaking himself from his dark thoughts, Yami smiled at a sleeping Willow, who had grabbed Dmitri's curly blonde hair in her dreams. And in that moment, he understood more about his aibou than before. He had wondered how aibou could be so…protective of others, how he could stand against evil, and though scared defend his family and friends. Yami now saw a bit more clearly how Yugi saw, how he could give his friends such loyalty- because his friends were his family. Because his loyalty to his friends had saved him.