The strangest thing about coming back to this story is revisiting the whole concept of Seto and Mokuba's parents. When I first created Yuki and Kohaku, they were Adults. I had no idea who they were or what they were like, really. I put them in the same category as my parents.
Then I got older, and I started realizing that—considering how young they were when they died—these two people weren't Adults anymore. They were Peers. I was now of an age with the parents of my favorite character. And wasn't that a trip.
Here I am at 36. And they've made a whole 'nother transition.
Now I look at them and I think. Oh, God. They're Kids.
Basically my point is, the older I get, the more sympathetic I end up becoming to what they must have gone through. And with that comes a deeper understanding of who they are.
.
"Wait. Are you really—
Yuki held up a hand. "There are plenty of rumors. Nothing concrete. And that's precisely how I intend for it to stay." She winked. "But. Auntie Sayako did make sure I knew how to defend myself before Ko and I left for America."
"I'm no slouch," Kohaku put in, "but she's on another level." He laughed to himself. "It's gotten us out of, and into, more than a few scraps." Yuki averted her gaze with a coy little smile. "I think if not for meeting you . . . er, well. You know." Yugi nodded and waved for Kohaku to continue. "I think Yuki would've tried to fight Gozaburo Kaiba herself."
"I still haven't ruled it out," Yuki murmured.
Sotaro had no commentary of his own, except for the devilish little grin that spread on his face. As they continued their march along the trade-road, he mimicked her movements with the hooded stranger, using his staff in place of her long knife. Kuriboh dipped and darted around Sotaro's shoulders, and he took to sparring with the creature. From the sounds he was making, Kuriboh was having the time of his little life.
Yugi's grin reached his ears.
The rest of the day passed without incident. They walked, they waved to passersby, they helped a merchant fix a broken wagon wheel. Kuriboh informed Sotaro on the comings and goings of the monsters he knew, and the others started to wonder if Sotaro wasn't playing with them when he explained what he learned.
"No, I understand there's utility in a centaur visiting a blacksmith for shoes," Kohaku said at one point late in the afternoon, "it's just . . . give me a second. I need to recalibrate my brain, is all."
As the sun settled against the horizon and painted the sky with all sorts of pinks and purples, the small company opted to stop and camp for the night. Kohaku unstrapped a tent from his pack and began the process of setting up their shelter, while Yugi and Sotaro joined Yuki in gathering up stones and kindling for their evening fire.
"If you don't mind my asking, Missus Yagami," Yugi ventured, "um . . . how old are you?"
Yuki put a hand to her chest. "A lady never tells." She paused. "I'm twenty-eight."
Yugi laughed. "So I guess you've had plenty of time to learn how to fight." Yuki shrugged but nodded. "Joey, my friend Joey? You met him. He says he'll teach me how, sometimes. He says I'm too nice to punch a tree. Which, I mean, what did the tree even do? Why would I do that? But he says I should still learn how not to break my wrist if I ever have to . . . punch a person. Not. A tree. I don't think there's any reason to punch a tree."
Yuki smiled. "Knowing how to defend yourself is very important," she said, "especially if you deal with a lot of . . . um. Adversity."
"Mm," Yugi said. "Adversity. That's definitely a word for it."
Yuki drew in a deep breath as she took in the landscape surrounding them. The stars had just begun to poke through the dense blanket of nightfall, casting the fields and the dirt road in an ethereal softness. "It's beautiful here," she said. "I can't help but wonder what the Sacred Fields must look like."
Yugi was nodding. "I saw them once," he said. "Just a peek, you know? A few years ago. The spirit of the Puzzle, the Atem that I knew," he lifted up the pendant that had been shaping his life for so long, "went back to the afterlife after we . . . finished his work. It looked pretty. Gorgeous, really. But also, well, kind of sad. Melancholy. Bittersweet." He sighed. "Maybe I'm biased. I don't know." He looked around, and his gaze settled on the full moon. "I do like it here, though. This is nice."
"I wonder what the mountain looks like," Sotaro said; he was sitting nearby on a large stone, kicking his feet. He pointed off in the distance, toward the horizon, with his staff. "I bet it's that one." They turned to look, and saw a looming peak that was fast fading into blackness.
"Why do you say that?" Yugi wondered.
Sotaro shrugged. "Feels right," he said. Kuriboh trilled happily, bouncing around between his new friend and the other two. "See? Told you."
"The Mountain of Furious Lights," Yugi murmured softly, thoughtfully.
"What do you suppose that means?" Yuki asked.
"I think it must be her lightning." Yugi frowned. "Even if it isn't hers, I imagine lightning is a common thing up there. I'm not sure. But I do know the Blue-Eyes White Dragon is affiliated with lightning. You know? Her card is light themed, but . . . it's close enough. You've seen her by now, yeah? The holograms? If you've seen any of Kaiba's duels, you must have. He almost always uses a dragon deck."
"I've seen her," Yuki said. "You must be right."
Sotaro listened to Kuriboh for a while. "Kuriboh says she sleeps a lot. He says there's only lightning around the mountain if she's awake. And if she's awake, she's angry. The lightning is a warning, so everybody from all around knows they should be careful."
"I wonder what makes her so volatile," Yuki mused.
Sotaro spoke for Kuriboh again: "He says she's old. Like, old. She's been around for a really long time. She's seen a whole lot of bad things. Her family died in an old war, and she still hasn't forgiven the monsters that did it. She left the High Court and she's up in her mountain like an exile. If she wasn't up there, she'd probably just eat the whole government."
Yuki hummed. "That . . . certainly sounds like a dragon."
Yugi set down the stones they'd collected in a tight ring, while Yuki set the wood down and fished flint and steel from her pack. "Part of me wants to be surprised," he said, "that Mahad didn't mention any of this." He shook his head. "But I don't think I'm surprised at all. We learned . . . well, let's just say some unsavory things about Atem's court, too. That's his name." Yugi lifted the Millennium Puzzle again. "I don't know if I mentioned that before. But the spirit, his name is Atem. Anyway. This is an old place, and I think monsters must live a long time. Ancient governments just have this way about them, I think. They get set in their ways, and they don't see any real need for change. That ends up becoming a big problem for anybody who's suffered under said government."
Yuki nodded. She looked pensive. Thoughtful. "I suppose I'm still a bit surprised she hasn't taken a fight to the High Court." She scraped sparks from her flint and watched as they caught. As the fire grew, she went on, face framed in oranges and yellows: "From the sound of things, with her reputation and all, I can't imagine she would be easy to fend off. Even if she couldn't take on all of them, I bet she could do some real damage."
Sotaro popped in again: "Kuriboh says she has plenty of allies and followers. If she wanted to go to war, she could."
Kohaku came up to them, setting a pot onto the fire. "Something must be stopping her," he said. "I doubt it has anything to do with the High Court. I highly doubt she's intimidated by them. Maybe she just doesn't trust herself. Staging a revolution takes a specific kind of leadership."
Yuki nodded.
"We could ask her," Yugi said, "but I get the feeling we shouldn't. I don't think that would go very well."
Kuriboh's response didn't need translation this time.
Even without words, they all understood Absolutely not when they heard it.
