What happens when you give a boy genius an impossible task?

You find out the real definition of "impossible."

We don't often think of Seto Kaiba as an artist, but I do. This is just a logical extension of that concept, coupled with a bit of handwaving magic. Does it make sense? Maybe not. But this is Yu-Gi-Oh!

Nothing has ever made sense here.

.

Yugi looked fretful, like he was coming down ill, like he might drop dead of a heart attack at any given moment. He kept looking Mokuba's way like he wanted to say something, needed to say something, but just couldn't bring himself to do it. He probably thought he was doing a decent job of hiding just how worried, scared, stressed, pissed he was. But he wasn't.

Not even a little bit.

"Say what you need to say," Mokuba said, gesturing invitingly. "Go on. There's clearly something on your mind, and we're all just sitting here anyway. I mean, where would we go?" He winked at Joey, who snorted laughter.

"It's just . . ." Yugi started, staring at his hands in his lap, fully ignoring Mokuba's little joke. He sighed. "I appreciate your brother trying to fix my grandpa's cards. I really do. But there's just no salvaging them. There isn't. You and Joey risked your lives, and . . . and it's going to amount to . . ."

"Jack and shit?" Mokuba asked. "You can just say it was pointless and we were stupid to do it."

"And that you wish we hadn't, and you wanna clock us one," Joey added.

"That's not it!"

"I'll say it if he won't," Téa cut in immediately.

Mokuba chuckled, more to himself than any of the others. "Listen," he said. "Just wait until you see Seto's work before you start doom-glooming, okay? They don't call him a genius because of his social skills." The elder Kaiba leaned back in his seat; a self-satisfied little smirk rose on his lips. "Most people would agree with you. There's just no salvaging waterlogged cards, especially when they've been saturated to that level. I couldn't do it. You couldn't do it. But the thing is, neither you, nor I, nor anybody else—not a one of us is Seto Kaiba. So, just . . . wait."

"Mokuba-kun," Yugi pressed, "I know you're morally obligated to talk up your brother, but—"

"I'm not, actually," Mokuba said, holding up both hands. "I'm . . . really not. I try my best not to talk him up, most days. Trust me when I say my brother has no shortage of self-esteem. He's so confident in himself that it'd make a Roman emperor uncomfortable." The laughter left his face, and he eyed Yugi seriously. "I know you don't know me from Adam, you have no reason to trust me and plenty of reasons not to, but I'm asking you to just take my word on this one. You're going to want to hold off on judgment until he's finished."

Yugi looked like he wanted very badly to keep arguing, but something stopped him.

Seto spent the next two days holed up in the cabin he shared with his brother, only coming out for ten minutes at a time to eat—he didn't want any food getting in the way and possibly mucking up his process. Yugi's dread at eventually having to tell the boy that, while he appreciated the effort, he really did, they were still ruined, kept his shoulders heavy and his head low.

But he couldn't deny that Mokuba was right about one thing.

The young Kaiba gave no impression that he thought he might fail.

The very concept was foreign to this boy.

At dinner on the third night after Mokuba and Joey tempted fate, halfway through the trip, Seto came up to the group's little table on the main deck with the most impish, devilish little grin on his face. Mokuba slid his gaze over to Yugi, and he tilted his head.

"Yugi Mutou," Mokuba said, with the timbre of a town crier introducing a king, "I present to you: Exodia the Forbidden One."

Seto laid down each card in sequence: carefully, deliberately, with a kind of ceremony and reverence that he'd never shown before. Even Ryo, who'd been the only one who honestly believed Seto was capable of whatever Mokuba claimed he could do, was stunned to silence when he laid eyes on the five cards they'd all watched flutter into the velvet void.

They were immaculate. Iron-flat, perfectly dried, vibrant and gorgeous and indistinguishable from any other card in Yugi's collection. The art was perfect. The text was perfect. The backs were perfect.

The cards were perfect.

"If another tourney champion gets hold of these because you were being dumb," Seto said loftily, "I'm charging next time." He pointed. "I recommend using Glass-X polymer on all your cards, if you aren't going to sleeve them, to keep them in proper shape. I didn't use any on these. I didn't know if you had it on the rest of your deck, and a card is illegal if you can distinguish it."

Yugi was staring dumbly. "Seto-kun . . . how?"

Seto's grin split his face in half.

"Somebody must have told you by now: I'm a genius."