Here is where we start getting into pure conjecture on my part. I have a lot of theories on how the Duel Monsters World™ works, and here is where I start delving into it. I'd love to have worked this all in earlier on in the story, but the simple truth is that I hadn't thought of it yet.

All the same, I think it makes sense, and I think it works for the sake of this story and for the series as a whole. I'm not really working from canon here. I'm just making all this up. But I think it's consistent with what I've done in the past.

Maybe.

Probably.

I hope.


.


Something dangerous, like scraping steel, visited Yuki's eyes. "I beg your pardon," she said through her teeth. No one would ever doubt that this was the mother of Sotaro, but in this moment she looked like the mother of Seto Kaiba. "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. What guesses I can come up with aren't painting you in a good light right now. Would you care to . . . elucidate?"

Yugi closed his eyes. Lowered his head.

It was like he was bowing in deference to a superior.

"This is immeasurably risky. I am going to be risking more than just my life, Missus Yagami." Yuki and Kohaku both wondered, in this moment, if he'd ever referred to her so respectfully before; they didn't think so. "However, as I explained to Mister Ackerman earlier today: we are without much choice in the matter."

"Go on . . ." Yuki said.

"We need to find someone who is not only capable of standing against Gozaburo Kaiba. Openly, on even footing. We need someone Kaiba will believe is capable. He will not take anyone's word for it. Least of all mine. Whomever we select as our next champion, he must trust implicitly. He must be willing to let this person take his place on the field. He must have faith."

The danger in Yuki's entire aura abated, just a bit. "I think I agree with you," she said. "But what does any of this have to do with my son? He's seven."

"I have someone in mind," said Yugi. "Someone who I believe, with every part of me, not only can but will prevail. I stake my entire existence. My life, my soul, my name. Everything I am. I stake it all on this. But that doesn't matter, none of it will, if I can't convince her to help. And I can't do that alone."

"Who is this person?" Valery asked. "Who is this 'her?'"

Yugi reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He laid it out flat onto a nearby table, revealing it to be a poster, announcing a convention that year called Kaiba-Con. Seto and Mokuba were displayed front and center, arms crossed, back-to-back. Rising up behind them like a tempestuous storm was a huge, gleaming dragon. Sinuous, crackling, sheathed all over with lightning.

"You've seen these creatures before," Yugi said, directing his statement to the room. "You know what they are."

"Kind of," Kohaku said. "I know I've seen that dragon before."

"The Blue-Eyes White Dragon," Valery said. Yuki was nodding. "More people associate Seto with that dragon than they do the man who created it. Pegasus Crawford. Even he seems to know: that dragon is Seto's."

"More or less." Yugi nodded. "But to be precise, Pegasus Crawford did not create this dragon. He created this depiction of her." At the confused looks from his audience, he chuckled. "Allow me to explain. The card game that your son has been learning to play, the card game at which his older self is a champion, is based on a competition from ancient, ancient history. Long, long before now, in the heart of Kemet—Egypt—these same creatures were first depicted in stone, and called upon to fight for court magicians and officials in place of battlefield skirmishes. Pegasus Crawford, when he created the game Magic & Wizards, found these stone tablets and used them as inspiration for his artwork."

"I'm supposing that's why he calls them duels," said Yuki, tapping a finger against her chin. "They were used to settle disputes. Arguments, insults. Anything that could be settled simply. They would use these creatures on the tablets to fight for them. To be their champions."

Yugi nodded. "Yes. Exactly so. Now, Pegasus did not simply paint these monsters. Thanks to his own Millennium Magic," here he pressed the fingers of one hand against the pendant hanging around his neck, "he infused the cards with more than just imagination. He woke the beasts themselves. The monsters in this game are not works of fiction. They are living, breathing, bleeding things."

Silence reigned.

Valery was the first to break the stalemate when she said: "I believe you." She licked at her lips and gestured to the poster. "I had just mentioned to Yuki and Ko about that time there were monsters all over the news. Dragons and imps and all. They were these creatures, weren't they?"

Yugi nodded again. "That they were. Yes. I have heard of this time. My friends have spoken of it. A man named Dartz, and his compatriots, sought to use the monsters as a personal army." Something twitched in his face. "Anyway. Yes. You are quite correct, madam."

"So, you're talking about the dragon. The Blue-Eyes." Valery tapped the poster with one finger. "You're saying that this dragon is real, and that it—she—can finish the fight that you, that Seto, started."

Yugi nodded. "I am saying precisely that."

"Where?" Yuki asked. "If all the people and monsters and dragons and wizards on all these cards are real, then . . . then where are they?"

Yugi drew in a breath. Let it out. "That is rather complicated. Tell me. Are you familiar with the concept of purgatory? Where mortal souls may work to purify themselves, that they might enter Paradise?"

Yuki nodded. "Sure."

"There are two forces which govern all of existence. Chaos, and order." Yugi held out both hands, with both index fingers raised. "What you think of as Heaven is a place of order." He lifted one hand. "Hell, its opposition, is a place of chaos." He lifted the other. "You see?"

"There's no such thing as good or evil," Kohaku mumbled. "Not in a cosmic sense. The universe doesn't operate on our morality. We think of order as 'good' because it's safe. Chaos is 'evil' because it's dangerous. It's how we evolved as a species. We exist to perpetuate ourselves. What helps us survive is good. What tries to kill us is evil."

Yugi grinned like a shark. "Precisely. Precisely."

"And that makes Purgatory . . . a liminal space?" Yuki wondered. "A place of transition."

"Yes," said Yugi. "The space between the tides of chaos and the great walls of order, which I will call Purgatory for simplicity's sake, is where the monsters dwell. They, too, seek to enter Paradise. The great golden fields of highest order, where they may reach their apotheosis. But they, like us, must work to shape themselves properly. In the name of that work, they have turned their home into a sort of crucible. A great proving ground."

"And that's where all the monsters came from, the ones who came here."

Yugi nodded. "They were promised, by this man Dartz, that working for him would allow them to enter the Fields. That fighting in his army would prove their worth." He crossed his arms over his chest. "They fight the forces of chaos to prove their worth to order."

"What do the forces of chaos want?" Kohaku wondered.

"What do the chaotic always want?" Yugi asked. "To fuck shit up."

Yuki barked a sudden laugh. Then she cleared her throat and said: "So you . . . you're talking about going to Purgatory, and enlisting a dragon for help. The same dragon that Seto apparently uses for marketing is going to help us fight Gozaburo Kaiba."

"Is it honestly any more outlandish than what you have already lived through?"

Yuki blinked. ". . . I guess not." She shook her head. "So, what happens? You go there, ask around, go recruiting? Like this Dartz did?"

"Not quite," said Yugi. "It is not quite so farfetched as you might think. The magic you have already dealt with is leagues more dangerous than anything I would need to invoke to take us to the monsters' home. Gozaburo Kaiba is not the only man with agents working toward his interests, after all. I can call upon allies of my own to work their magic and open the way for us. They already know well enough why I must impose upon them. I need not convince them to help. They will do all that they can."

"Couldn't you ask them do help us fight him?" Kohaku asked. "Why do you need a seven-year-old boy to talk to a dragon for you? Like, you do know how ridiculous that sounds, don't you?"

"Of all the soldiers I could call upon," Yugi said, "none of them are nearly as powerful as she is." He tapped a finger at the dragon's chest. "This dragon is our single best chance to end this war. Quickly. Utterly. With as little bloodshed as possible. If we want this to end before more innocents are sacrificed, then we need her."

"Why can't you just talk to her yourself?"

Yugi laughed, and his voice cracked. "My good man. If I showed my face to the queen of dragons, alone, I would be dead before the first word left my lips."