A common problem that I have is I'll come up with a cool idea, and then that's all I do. I don't work out a plan, I don't finish the thought, I don't follow through, I just jump off the cliff and build wings while falling. And that compounds into a much larger problem when the world collapses all around me and I can't find the energy to work on anything to start with.

I had no idea where to go with this "arc" when I started it, and I also had no idea what to do with this arc when I started writing this specific batch of scenes. I think I have an idea now, but that's as much as I can say. I'm not a planner, or an outliner, and I've never been. And when my ability to focus took a nose-dive, which has been the case for several years now, the stories I didn't know what to do with went right to the back of the line, shot past it and nestled in a closet somewhere.

But I told myself 2023 was gonna cooperate with me whether it wanted to or not.

And that means we're gonna get moving.

Shall we?


1.


When the clouds came, the only one who didn't look nonplussed or even surprised was Noa—even though he'd just come out to ask if he and his fellows could have a snack. He looked out the window like a tourist eyeing a landmark, then turned to regard his brother. "Aniue? I think we have a situation out there," he said.

Mokie, following behind to ask for a drink along with snacks, glanced past Noa's shoulder to the window, up into the sky. "Um," he said. "That can't be good." He turned to look at Kaiba, who was looking down at his right hand. Flexing and unflexing his fingers. "Niisama? I think we might have a monster problem bearing down on us."

Mokuba looked up from a small tablet he'd pulled from an inner pocket of his coat. "Oh, what fresh hell—" he started, then dove for the children as the windows imploded into shards. Lightning crashed just outside, the entire house rumbled, and Téa screamed.

I tried to be merciful. I played the game by your rules. I gave you a chance to surrender peacefully, to die with honor. But you have shed the blood of my children, and for that you must pay the price. In flesh.

"I have already played the game by your rules," Seto said softly. "I don't make the same mistakes twice. I would have expected someone as powerful as you to have anticipated resistance. If you haven't, then you are a fool. If you have, and you still want to pretend at mercy for the sake of your ego, so you can tell yourself that mass genocide is merciful, then you're pathetic."

BE SILENT, PRETENDER.

Kaiba flinched as pain lanced through his entire body, sang in his nerves, but he managed to keep his feet. ". . . Pathetic, then."

"What the fuck is going on?!" Mokuba demanded.

Kaiba grimaced. "If I were to venture a guess, I would say he expected his flunkies to succeed, for your brother to be abducted and for you to dance on their strings. They would press him to work in their service in exchange for your life, and they would use some of the strongest creatures in all of creation as load-bearers for their army."

"But then we showed up," Noa guessed, "and everything went sideways."

"A bigger threat than you anticipated," said Kaiba through clenched teeth. "You're angry now, aren't you? Scared, I shouldn't guess. And you're going to pretend that this is all a part of your grand design, you're going to demand that we perform our roles as you've laid out in your imagination, and then blame us for our own deaths. Because for all your grandstanding, for all your talk of superiority, you just can't admit you want this, can you? You can't find your spine and say this is for you, can you? Say it! O Dartz, God-King of Forgotten Places! Show your face! Let everyone see the face of a sad, sorry little man who gaslit his way to greatness and still couldn't amount to a fucking thing!"

The house shook as lightning blinded the lot of them.

Kaiba, for his part, laughed like a lunatic.

"You fucking joke!" he roared. "Did you really expect to use lightning against me?!"


2.


Mokuba stared, stunned and disbelieving, as a massive bolt of pure searing light crashed through the roof and swallowed Kaiba whole. He could feel himself screaming, even though he couldn't hear anything past the thundering against his head. He reached out, futilely, convinced that this man who looked so much like his brother—who acted so much like his brother, so capricious and overconfident—had gone fully and irrevocably insane.

But the light receded, and when he regained his vision, Kaiba was still standing.

Not only was he still standing, he was still grinning.

Wrapped around him, with claws settled on his shoulders, wings spread out like those of an archangel from on high, was a huge, sinuous, gleaming dragon. The great wyrm lifted her head and let out a piercing roar that rang like music. Mokuba's mouth gaped, his entire body went limp, as he looked upon the proof—beyond any and all doubt whatsoever—that this man, this confusing, confounding man, was his brother.

"What in the . . . ?"

Kaiba's face was a picture of supreme confidence. His eyes crackled with the white lightning singing through his body from his prized guardian. "You aren't the only one who can call on ancient magic," he said, softly, but his voice was larger than a man's. "You should know better than to think you can hold dragons under your thrall, King of Nothing."

This matters not. Your arrogance is a trifling annoyance.

"And yet, you continue to speak." Kaiba turned his gaze to Mokuba. His face softened, turned kinder somehow. "This is a battlefield now, like any other. Are you ready?"

Mokuba clenched his fists. "I was born ready," he hissed.

Mokie, still on the ground, was grinning. "Get 'em, big guy."

Kaiba leaped into the air, and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon lifted him out of the gaping crater in the ceiling, out into the storm. With a glance at Isono, Mokuba shot toward the door after him. The thunder announced the coming of war, and two soldiers from two worlds marched out to meet it.


3.


Seto came barreling into the front parlor like a guard dog after a mail carrier. Right at his heels was a creature nearly as tall as he was, bright orange scales glinting, tail whipping this way and that, snorting out tiny flickers of fire from its nostrils.

The Baby Dragon.

"What happened out here?! Wha . . ." Seto saw the hole in the ceiling. "Holy shit."

Mokie was on his feet, his weapon in hand. "It's a good old-fashioned duel," he said. "Your brother and mine are out there. What do you think? Should we back them up?" He reached into a pocket with his free hand and pulled up a deck of Magic & Wizards cards. "I've got some tricks up my sleeve, too."

Seto blinked, stared, eyes darting from the hole in the ceiling to Mokie, to Isono, to the ceiling, to Mokuba, to Isono, then a grin split his face. "Let's do this!"

Isono, for his part, shook his head and rolled his shoulders. "I would say something about you three staying inside, where I can keep a proper eye on you, but there's a dragon in the parlor. I don't think any of our usual protocols mean much today."

Noa was studying their surroundings. "I wonder . . . how much of this place influenced the game world I made." At Mokie's questioning look, he said: "When I was making that game for you guys, I thought I was having a burst of inspiration and all that. You know? But I think maybe what it was, is I was seeing things from this world. Right? So maybe . . . maybe I . . . go! You guys go ahead! Help Aniue and Big Mokuba! I'll catch up!"

Before Mokie, Seto, or Isono could stop him, Noa whipped around and vanished into the house.

Isono checked his sidearm, then followed the others outside.

Téa took a moment for herself, perhaps to wonder if she was the only person in this entire group who had a proper understanding of the situation they were all in, before she joined the others. If she was going to die today, she mused, then she wanted it to be under an open sky.


4.


Mokuba dove across his own lawn, spinning and rolling and pivoting every which way to avoid the imps and drakes and flying serpents attempting to rip him to shreds. He squeezed off a shot every chance he could, and every bullet found its mark, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

Kaiba, meanwhile, was as still as a statue dead center in the walkway leading out from the Kaiba Estate's front porch, floating several feet off the ground, buffeted by the wings of the dragon wrapped protectively around his middle.

Streaks of lightning shot from his hands; he'd traded in his manic glee for a dead-quiet grimace. His eyes blazed like stars set into his skull, his mouth set in a grimace, as he stared up at nothing. Nothing touched him. Not a single creature could find purchase against him; those who managed to escape the lightning were caught by the mighty jaws and talons of the dragon.

"I know you have more than this," Kaiba whispered, but his voice thundered. "You're still convinced you don't have to take me seriously. Fine. I've been generous. I've been patient with you. But if this is the way you intend to act, then I'm going to have to make you pay attention."

Kaiba snapped the middle finger of his right hand against his thumb. A deck of cards lifted from his pocket and floated in front of him. He reached out, almost lazily, and pulled the top card. He held it up, the slightest of smirks ghosted his lips.

"Rip him from the sky," Kaiba said. His eyes flashed golden. "Fall from your pedestal to this baptism, O King of Nothing, and visit damnation."

"You know, Niisama," came a sudden voice, causing Mokuba to whip around and stare in numb horror at the children sauntering out onto the grass, his own brother and Kaiba's right behind him, "for someone who doesn't put any stock in magic, you're pretty good at using it."

Kaiba chuckled. "We were supposed to play a game today, kiddo," he said. "I'm not going to let this jumped-up dusty amateur get in my way. Not again. Besides. I'm a performer." He winked, then held his card aloft. "Obelisk! Soldier of Gods! Hand of Hell! Fist of the Blasphemer! I call on you! Empty this false king's broken throne! Cast him on the rocks that he may drown in his own blood!"

YOU WOULD CHALLENGE ME DIRECTLY?! PITIFUL INSECT!

A massive rift in the clouds, like the maw of a god, split open and a great gout of flame cast down from it. Mokuba shut his eyes against the searing light, holding up one arm to cover his face as he moved futilely to place his body between the great pyroclasm and his brother.

Seto stared, wide-eyed, unable to wrest his attention away.

Mokuba caught a glimpse at Mokie, who had a look of joyous awe on his face, as he stared at his brother cradled in the air, eclipsed by a meteor of flame. Mokuba barreled into his own brother, eyes shut tight against the painful brightness, and braced himself for oblivion. He had just enough time to curse his life, to curse Yugi Mutou and everything that had ever happened to them since he'd shown up with his stupid magic and his stupid prophecies and his stupid

The fire didn't burn.

Shadow fell over them like a warm blanket.

Mokuba turned around, looked up, confused, stunned, unable to process anything.

A figure, beyond massive, beyond comprehension, stood over them all. Muscles carved from gravestones, ripped through with veins of raw aether, magic pulsing with every minute movement, so incomprehensibly huge that Mokuba's brain nearly broke into pieces trying to perceive it.

A fist the size of a tank, which didn't so much move through the air as it displaced realityaround it, met the fireball in the sky. There was a short eternity of absolute silence, during which Mokuba could hear the blood pumping in his veins; he could hear the sweat dripping down his face.

And then.

The sky cracked in half.


5.


Noa rushed through halls and down staircases that he didn't even think he honestly remembered. It was purely muscle memory which propelled him forward. Had he ever actually walked down these dark, hidden spaces? Or had he only ever discovered them once he was a ghost in his father's private network, and started playing with blueprints like gameboards?

He didn't know.

He couldn't know.

Every step, when his feet hit the floor, sent a thrum of impact up his legs that he couldn't help but marvel at, even when it started to hurt. When his lungs started to burn, when he struggled to breathe for how far he was pressing his body, just a child's body after all, it was a symphony; it was joyous, it was transcendent, it was an apotheosis; and even when the foundation of the mansion shook like a god's plaything, and a chunk of plaster crunched against his head, he laughed.

Something of that old, capricious demon, that grating imp he had been, remained, because Noa found himself grinning as he rushed through the bowels of his old home, even during oblivion. He could die, true, but oh, what a way to die.

Then the thought of his brothers, his family, dying with him crossed the flitting maelstrom of his mind, and he panicked. No. No. That would not be permitted. Dartz could crow about cleansing fires and a great rebirth all he wanted; he would not take this world that held his brothers in it.

He was a Kaiba. He was loyal, he had an obligation, to those who shared his name.

Noa skidded to a stop when he ran into the security system, in a sterile hallway, a steel-reinforced box of soul-crushing modernism. It was a sophisticated dance of circuitry, far beyond any industry standards. His father's pet project. But Noa had never met a machine he couldn't conquer.

He eyed the door which blocked his way, then pressed his fingers to the keypad sitting so innocuously beside it.

"Here we go," Noa whispered to himself, as the ground heaved around him again.


6.


Two times in his life, in all the times he had "pulled rank" as Seto's older brother, Mokuba Kaiba had wondered if the boy would ever forgive him. The first time was when he'd adopted the position of Master Kaiba, taken over Kaiba-Corp and brought about the changes they had dreamed of for so many years; everyone knew that Seto had been the golden child, the one that Gozaburo had hand-picked to succeed him, and no one bought into it harder than Seto himself. Everything he'd ever done in that house, every sleepless night, every lecture at his father's knee, had all been leading to that moment.

And then Mokuba had taken it from him.

The second time had been when he'd made Seto take Obelisk the Tormentor out of his dueling deck. A card so powerful that its creator tried to bury it, a card named for the fact that just its presence was enough to cause torturous nightmares, a card that obliterated opponents, that won wars, all on its own.

Looking now at that beast, in its full hideous glory, Mokuba thought he would never feel so vindicated for a decision for the rest of his life.

He didn't have nearly enough time to gloat, though, as he barreled through a team of imps and sent bullets through half of them. He watched, not in dismay but with a kind of numb anger, as the things' wounds closed themselves in front of him.

Kaiba was slicing through dragons with blades made of light. "Lean into the fantasy," he murmured, almost casually. "We're dealing with magic, kid. Own it. You can't tell me you've watched your brother play this game for years and haven't picked a favorite beast."

Mokuba grimaced. "You're entirely too calm about this."

Kaiba tossed his head back and laughed like a supervillain. "I've already lived through this! What could I possibly have to fear?! The King of Nothing sends his slings and arrows, and for what?!"

Whenever Seto got into one of his monologuing moods, Mokuba couldn't help but find it cute. Others talked about how he sounded like a maniac, how he turned into an asshole when he got on a tear, and Mokuba had never managed to understand what any of them were going on about. Standing here, in the middle of a storm of chaos and claws, watching this man cackle as he sent bolts in every direction, he almost understood.

But all the same.

Mokuba couldn't help but still see that little boy he loved so much. Hidden there, behind that mask. He saw his brother there, in that face, projecting strength and confidence. And then Mokuba turned back and looked at the boy who could have been himself, at the laughter bubbling up in Mokie's entire body, and then he did understand.

It was a performance.

It was all a performance.

"He can't be afraid if I'm laughing," Mokuba murmured.

He looked up, saw Kaiba watching him.

"Now you're getting it," Kaiba said.


7.


It didn't take long for Seto to supplement his Baby Dragon with a cavalcade of other monsters from his deck, set up in a defensive phalanx that beat back whatever Kaiba managed to miss. This he did while Obelisk's massive punch kept on keeping on, so large and surging that time itself didn't seem to catch up to what it was doing.

Dragons and soldiers and armored lions, all roaring and crying and slashing and biting, and Seto looked like he had never lived before this day. His eyes were bright, feverish, his grin so wide that it split his face in half.

Mokie knew well what this meant.

He'd been around his brother on too many death-defying stunts not to recognize a terror-charged adrenaline rush. He knew that Seto was one missed step away from a panic attack, and he knew his brother wasn't too far behind. The moment that the Blue-Eyes couldn't block an offensive, the second blood spilled, he was going to crack.

He met his elder counterpart's gaze and understood that Mokuba knew this too.

"Lean into the fantasy," Mokuba whispered.

Only Mokie heard him. He said: "If you have a favorite monster, it knows. If you call for it, it will answer." Mokie held out a hand. "Watch." His shadow walked out of the darkness cast by Obelisk and held up a clawed hand to catch the golden saber that came flying from the sky. "Ready, Swordstalker? We got work to do."

The Vengeful Swordstalker, the dark impulses at the edge of his mind, every angry thought he'd ever had, every curse he'd ever bit back, hefted its weapon and leaned down in a protective crouch over the boy who'd called for it.

On the other side of an unfathomable gap, a rift that spanned dimensions, Mokuba watched, then his lips twitched in something like that old Kaiba smirk.

"That's just how shit works today, huh?" he asked.

He thought. Did he have a favorite Duel Monster? The Swordstalker was an interesting choice. He thought it said quite a lot about his younger self. But it didn't feel like his answer. It felt like the kind of favorite he might have had if Seto had been his guardian, and he'd been watching from the sidelines not as a chaperone, but as a real spectator. The kind of favorite he might have had if he'd been pressed by sentiment to pick a favorite out of his brother's decks.

But that wasn't how things worked here.

It didn't feel like the right answer.

But what was . . . ?

Wait.

As soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew it was right. He was already crouching before the words solidified into a coherent idea. Before he understood what was happening, he felt chitinous armor split his skin. He felt wings sprout from his spine. He gripped the earth beneath him, watched his fingers extend into claws, and felt a clarity and peace of purpose that he'd never encountered before. This. This was it.

This was exactly what he should be doing right now.

Two words landed in his imagination, and as power like a torrent of raw fire shot through his veins, he knew they were correct.

"Dragon Killer."