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Chapter Text

The city of Domino was buzzing. After the excitement of KaibaCorp's exclusive Grand Prix at its premiere theme park, KaibaLand, the young CEO of the company – Kaiba Seto – was once again facing off against the Grand Prix winner and his long-time rival – the “King of Games,” Mutou Yugi. The rematch was televised and streamed live on KaibaCorp's website, and every competitive duelist – as well as just about every child in Japan – tuned in to watch the match unfold.

True to form, Kaiba had developed a brand new, powerful strategy specifically for the duel. Using a combination of the magic card Abysmal Designator, the monster Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer, and the trap card Return from the Different Dimension, Kaiba had brought his Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon to the field without using Polymerization. Because he hadn't had to use a fusion card, the Ultimate Dragon was able to attack immediately, and without any magic or trap cards on his side of the field, Yugi's only monster – the Silent Magician – was wide open to an attack.

“Go, Ultimate Dragon!” roared Kaiba. “Attack Yugi's Silent Magician and wipe out the rest of his lifepoints!”

The Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon opened all three of its massive mouths, shooting three streams of white lightning right at the Silent Magician.

“I activate Honest's special ability!” cried Yugi.

“What?!” said Kaiba.

Yugi held up an angel-like effect monster from his hand between his two fingers to show Kaiba. “If I have Honest in my hand, I can discard him to the Graveyard and give my Silent Magician attack points equal to the monster that has attacked me for one turn!”

Kaiba's face blanched. “No!”

Yugi's Silent Magician raised her staff: it crackled with white and black lightning that came out in a wave, crashing into the Ultimate Dragon. The three-headed beast roared in pain as the attack consumed it, overtaking Kaiba in a flare of light as his lifepoints went down to 0.

Kaiba staggered slightly, seizing hold of his knee with one hand in order to anchor himself.

He'd lost – he'd lost again – after all of his planning, all of his strategy –

He heard Yugi's footsteps approach. He raised his head, his eyes hardening as he faced his rival. He'd no doubt come to assert his victory, to rub Kaiba's failings in his face, like he had back in Battle City –

“Kaiba, you lost to me, but you must defeat your hatred.”

But those blazing, sharp eyes were not what greeted him. Instead the eyes of his rival were round, warm, and happy. Despite himself, Kaiba couldn't completely fight back a flinch.

“That was an amazing match, Kaiba-kun,” said Yugi.

He put out a hand as if to shake Kaiba's. The CEO stared at Yugi for a short moment; then, his pride kicking in, he walked past the smaller boy, purposefully ignoring his friendly gesture.

“I don't need your pity,” he spat.

He fully intended to walk off without another word, but Yugi pursued him, even as the cameras that had been recording their match turned off and withdrew back into the walls of the duel arena.

“I mean it!” said Yugi earnestly. “Seriously, if I hadn't had Honest in my hand, I would've lost – or even if you'd summoned one of your Blue Eyes two turns ago...”

“Yugi,” said Kaiba coldly without turning around, “when I said I didn't need your pity, what I meant to say is I don't want to hear another word out of you.”

Yugi faltered slightly. “Kaiba-kun...”

Kaiba could feel Yugi's gaze on his back as he came to a stop at the edge of the arena. Yet he knew that gaze wasn't reproachful or powerful – it didn't egg Kaiba on, make him want to beat him into the ground that much harder. Yugi's voice sounded so much kinder than it usually did after they dueled – no doubt because this Yugi was the Yugi Kaiba had never dueled previously. This was the softer Yugi – the weaker Yugi – the one who had defeated the other Yugi, the so-called “Pharaoh,” who Kaiba had fought so many times before. And yet this Yugi, the one with the gentler eyes and voice, was the only Yugi left in this world.

Kaiba's blue eyes narrowed upon the door frame ahead of him.

“In battle, perfection is the only guarantee of survival. There's no second prize in life, as a King should very well know. Unfortunately I was unable to take the title from you today, and show you how best to use it – but rest assured, our war is not over.”

'It will never be over,' he thought. The memory of the other Yugi commanding Exodia to destroy his three Blue Eyes rippled over his mind. 'I won't let you defeat me, Yugi.'

“I know.”

The warmth in Yugi's voice startled Kaiba.

“That is, I don't agree with you – not at all – but I knew you'd feel that way. If there's one thing I know, it's that Seto Kaiba never gives up.”

Kaiba couldn't stop himself from glancing over his shoulder at Yugi.

The King of Games was smiling from ear to ear, his violet eyes sparkling with determination and something almost like fondness.

“I can't wait to see what you do next, Kaiba-kun,” he said, “and I promise you that I'll do my best!”

For a moment, Kaiba could do nothing but stare at Yugi. Although his face remained as stony as it ever did, he legitimately had trouble conjuring up any response at all.

Kaiba's rivalry with Yugi had become so central to his life that there were points where Kaiba struggled to remember what it was like before Yugi had been his rival. At times, it seemed like he and Yugi had been enemies for an entire lifetime, maybe more. And yet Kaiba knew now that Yugi was not just his rival, a master of all games with boundless confidence and unimaginable skill – he was also a happy, bleeding heart kid. He wasn't just the person who had won all three Egyptian God Cards and had dueled Noah with his deck in order to save him and Mokuba – he was also the person who Dartz had turned into a Duel Monster in an attempt to use him as a shield. He was also the person who tried to offer Kaiba advice before his duel with Pegasus.

Even now Kaiba sometimes had trouble figuring out what had been this Yugi and what had been the other Yugi – like that time Yugi risked his life to stay behind in the virtual world and help him escape from Gozaburo...was that this Yugi? Kaiba thought so – Yugi's eyes had shown no fear or hesitation, but he'd called him “Kaiba-kun.” The other Yugi had only ever called him “Kaiba” – no honorifics, no pretense – just as Kaiba had never used honorifics with him. He was just “Yugi” – or, at least, he had been just “Yugi.” The familiarity could've been considered rude, but Kaiba had always thought such pleasantries were unnecessary – he could scrounge up some for board meetings and school administrators, but his rivals never deserved them. And that was what Yugi was – his rival. It's what he would always be – no matter how different he was now, that would never change.

Kaiba exhaled quietly through his nose with a soft “hmph,” before he turned and strode away, his silver-trimmed forest green trenchcoat flourishing like a cape behind him. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor, and the doors closed behind him.

The duel between Yugi and the Yugi called “the Pharaoh” played over again in Kaiba's mind. When Kaiba first found out that the other Yugi would have to fight one more duel in order to enter the after-life, he'd resolved to be the one to finally defeat him once and for all. He'd been owed that right. And yet Yugi – this Yugi, the one he'd just faced – had refused to let Kaiba fight that Yugi, saying that he had to be the one to defeat the Pharaoh and send him to the after-life.

Kaiba had been furious, so much so that he'd actually lost his composure and grabbed Yugi by the collar, ready to punch him. Because of that choice, Kaiba lost his chance to defeat that Yugi once and for all – but this Yugi had defeated the other Yugi. He had proved himself worthy of the title “King of Games”...and so Kaiba had been willing to equate the two, to treat this Yugi as his one true rival. That's what he'd always been, after all – his rival?

And yet...no. No, he wasn't. That Yugi that had been Kaiba's rival was now dead. This Yugi had never been him – even though, yes, Kaiba didn't question his talent, this Yugi was not the duelist who had constantly denied Kaiba of the victories he deserved, who made him fight all the more viciously and plan all the more diligently...who made Kaiba's blood boil whenever he defeated him and who made Kaiba's heart race when he thought of finally dethroning him once and for all...

Kaiba tried to imagine defeating this Yugi. He tried to envision standing before this Yugi with his Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon roaring victoriously behind him as he laughed in triumph. In the past, he would've imagined his rival on his knees, hanging his head and clenching his teeth in shame and defeat – but when Kaiba tried now, all he could remember was Yugi on his knees back in Duelist Kingdom, shaking in fear.

“I couldn't do it!” Kaiba recalled Yugi saying to his friends when they'd rushed to his side. “If I hadn't stopped the other me, Kaiba-kun would've died!”

That had been this Yugi, in defeat. Kaiba found no triumphant, arrogant joy in that image. And yet this Yugi had only chosen defeat in order to spare Kaiba's life. Kaiba didn't like thinking about that duel outside Pegasus's castle very much – he still thought that he'd done what needed to be done to try to save Mokuba, but he still would've preferred to have beaten Yugi with dueling strategy instead of blackmail. And in his heart of hearts, he didn't like thinking about how it meant that he owed Yugi his life...or that it wasn't the first time Yugi had saved him.

Kaiba's jaw clenched as he rested a hand on the slimmed-down deck in his Duel Disk.

Defeating this Yugi...would it even bring him the satisfaction he wanted? Fighting him had been nothing like fighting the other Yugi. His strategy and techniques had been different, yes, but that wasn't important. The feelings both Kaiba and Yugi felt in that duel were nothing like Kaiba's duels with the other Yugi. There had been this vicious competitiveness to their duels, a feeling that had inflated both of their egos to their max and made them forcefully kick and push each other down in a relentless race to the finish. But when this Yugi dueled Kaiba, Kaiba never once felt that surge of ruthlessness that made him want to eliminate Yugi. He still wanted to win the game...but he hadn't wanted to finish this Yugi, to humiliate him, the way he had the other Yugi. It was like the hatred he'd always felt for Yugi no longer existed...just like the part of Yugi that had inspired it.

'No!' Kaiba thought angrily. 'I won't accept that. Yugi is my one rival, and I will defeat him once and for all. I will bury the past and take back the title of the world's greatest duelist – I will not let Yugi defeat me, no matter what Yugi it may be!'

The elevator doors opened. On the other side of them was Mokuba, who immediately grabbed hold of his brother's arm.

“Ni-sama!”

Kaiba looked down at his brother, trying to obscure the turbulent emotions from his face. “Were you watching?”

“Of course I was!” said Mokuba, sounding almost offended. “I was adding play-by-play commentary to your match while it was streaming on our website – talking about the cards you both were using and stuff. It really helped our view count.”

“How many people saw the duel?”

“There were 27K views on the KaibaCorp website alone,” Mokuba said proudly. “And thanks to the new video hosting feature I suggested, we were able to cross-stream to 25 other websites across the globe, and I'm betting once those view counts are tallied, we'll have earned over 200,000 just in the last hour!”

“Not bad, Mokuba,” said Kaiba, sparing a short nod of approval even though his face and voice were notably stony.

His face softening slightly, Mokuba followed his older brother as he walked down the hall toward the front doors.

“I was watching the message board I set up underneath the live-stream too,” he said. “A lot of people were really upset that you lost.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. They also were all geeking out when you summoned your Ultimate Dragon,” Mokuba added with a huge grin.

Kaiba couldn't entirely fight back a satisfied smirk.

True to Mokuba's words, the duel between Kaiba and Yugi had been watched by thousands of people all over the globe. One such person had watched the duel from his manor home in Budapest, Hungary.

The person in question was an older gentleman with long white-blond hair with triangular bangs that dipped into his cold, sharp-lidded dark blue eyes. As he watched the duel from the silver laptop placed on the long dining table he was seated at, a young girl with long, layered burgundy hair with similarly triangular bangs and identical dark blue eyes watched his face.

“So the one on the left – that's the reincarnation of Rosenkreuz?” the girl asked the light-haired man. “Seto Kaiba?”

“So it would seem,” said the man.

The girl's gaze flickered down to the screen very quickly, but then returned immediately to the older man's face.

“Are we recruiting him, then, Father?” she asked. “Does Ur Thorne want you to – ?”

“It's nothing for you to dwell on, Carewyn,” the man said shortly. There was an airy affect to his voice, but it didn't make him sound lighthearted or jovial at all – instead it only served to make him sound utterly disinterested in what the girl beside him was saying.

He caught sight of a shadow passing over the door frame just outside the dining hall and his dark blue eyes flickered coldly.

“Laurette,” he said sharply.

The figure halted just outside the door frame, tensing visibly.

“...Yes, Uncle?” a female voice said very softly.

“I wish you present,” the man said icily. “Come.”

The girl outside the room very slowly turned and entered the dining hall. Despite being related to Carewyn and her father, she had a much darker complexion than they did. Her dark hair, which was tied back in a constraining ponytail, was very thick and curly with dark red highlights. The light of the chandelier cast dark shadows over her tanned, freckled face, which only served to make her look even more tired and ill than she had before.

“Trying to slink off on your own again, lavette?” sneered Carewyn. “So like you, to try to hide away when Father has work for you to do.”

The girl called Laurette bowed her head and did not reply.

“You both will have work to do soon,” said the man, his airy voice becoming a little crisper like a chill in the winter breeze. “In order to open the doorway, we'll need to activate all of the cards, and if Ur Thorne is correct, that can only be done through dueling.”

Laurette glanced down at Yugi and Kaiba's duel on the laptop screen. Her red eyes, which were just as sharply angled as the rest of her family, drifted over Yugi and Kaiba's faces, but almost didn't seem to see them at all.

“But Father, we haven't found the last card yet!” said Carewyn.

“I have not forgotten that, Carewyn,” the man said dully, his dark blue eyes only sparing her a short, condescending glance before returning to Yugi and Kaiba's duel. “But that is where our little lavette comes in.”

Laurette looked up at her uncle. Even though her face appeared so tired and hollow that it was almost doll-like, her body language was very tense.

“You and I will be flying to Domino, Japan, this evening,” said the man without looking up from the screen. “There are two things I hope to pick up while there, but I think the second might be easier for you to obtain than me.”

Laurette's eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly. The expression didn't make her look angry, but it was clear she wasn't happy.

“You want me to steal it?” she said lowly.

“Of course he does, stupid!” Carewyn scoffed. “Why else would he take you and not me?”

“Contain yourself, Carewyn,” reproached the man.

At long last, he raised a hand and closed the laptop, directing his dark blue gaze fully onto the two girls to his left.

“When Laurette and I return from Japan, we should have everything we need...but having the proper tools does not exonerate us from the work we'll need to put in, nor will it mean that no one might try to get in our way. When that time comes, I'll expect nothing but the best from the Neo-Crusaders, most especially from my family. Do not disappoint me.”

The detached coldness in his voice did not go unnoticed by either girl. Despite the faint anxiety that flickered through her features, Carewyn put on her bravest smile.

“Don't worry, Father – I won't fail you.”

Laurette turned away, her sharp red eyes closing in something like defeat.

“I understand, Uncle.”

Chapter Text

It had been very strange for Yugi to return to school. His high school career had never exactly been normal, so the leisurely air of routine where he could go to class, take tests, and then have lunch with Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, and Bakura was almost foreign. It was kind of nice, though, despite how different it was.

When the bell rang, all of the students started to pack up their things and head out. When Yugi packed up his school bag, he slowly pulled the strap over his shoulder, wanting to be careful not to tangle it up with the Puzzle's chain around his –

He faltered, his hand clutching subconsciously at his chest.

'That's right,' he thought with a sad smile. 'The Puzzle's not...'

It was funny how often he caught himself making that mistake. For the last month after the ceremonial duel, Yugi had suffered short-lived heart attacks every morning upon reaching for the Millennium Puzzle on his bedside table and finding it not there. Other times he thought things in Atem's direction like he used to, only to hear nothing but silence in his own head. Every time Yugi thought of Atem, he tried not to let it hurt too much – after all, he knew his departure had been for the best, and Atem had chosen to go of his own free will. Besides...if he let himself get down about it, then everyone else would be worried about him...

“Hey, Yugi!”

Yugi suddenly became aware of an arm coming down around his shoulder. He looked up to see Jounouchi standing just over him, smiling broadly.

“Look what I brought,” said Jounouchi.

He held up his schoolbag, opening it up just enough so Yugi could see inside.

“Your Duel Disk?” said Yugi, startled.

“Yeah!” Jounouchi said brightly. “I got some new cards and I thought, hey, why don't you and I have a duel after school so I can test 'em out? What d'you say?”

Yugi's face brightened. “Yeah! That sounds great!”

“What new cards did you get, Jounouchi-kun?” Bakura asked curiously.

Jounouchi grinned mischievously. “Ah, ah, ah, I'm not gonna just tell you like that – you'll have to watch Yugi's and my duel and find out!”

“I'm going to guess at least one of them is one Mai-san recommended to you,” Anzu said with a wry smile as she shifted around in her seat to face the others.

“Getting recommendations from Mai now, are we?” teased Honda, wrapping an arm around Jounouchi's neck and playfully mussing up his blond hair. “You dog, hitting on an older woman!”

“Shove off, Honda!” snapped Jounouchi, and Anzu and Yugi both laughed.

“How about we go to the park?” suggested Anzu. “There'd be plenty of room for you guys to duel there.”

“And plenty of people that would want to stop and watch,” Honda pointed out. “Wouldn't it be better to do it where there are a few less people around?”

“Aw, let 'em watch!” said Jounouchi brashly. “Let 'em see two pro duelists in action!”

“Two pro duelists? That's quite an overstatement, bonkotsu.”

Kaiba had left his desk and had been walking across the room when he overheard the conversation.

Jounouchi immediately whirled on Kaiba, his brown eyes flaring and his fists clenching. “Butt out, Kaiba! No one asked for your opinion!”

Kaiba smirked. “I just think you should lower your expectations. It's one thing for two top-tier duelists to face off, but quite another thing for a top-tier duelist to play games with an amateur.”

Jounouchi growled angrily.

“Kaiba-kun, Jounouchi-kun has been in three tournaments now,” said Bakura reasonably, “and he ended up in the finals for all of them. He's hardly an amateur anymore.”

“Right!” said Honda, his tone more offended than Bakura's. “And if I'm not mistaken, he earned one of those Legendary Dragon cards, just like you did.”

Kaiba closed his eyes and turned away, his expression not losing any of the condescension he'd shown before. “A man only plays games of luck when he lacks any real skill.”

“You – !” Jounouchi started, but Yugi immediately stepped in front of him before he could reach Kaiba.

“Jounouchi-kun, please don't fight!”

Yugi glanced between his best friend and his long-time rival.

From the time they first collided back in the Kame Game Shop, Jounouchi and Kaiba had always been at each other's throats. Yugi knew full well that Jounouchi disliked how condescending and dismissive Kaiba was of him, but for the life of him, Yugi could not understand why Kaiba disliked Jounouchi so much. Kaiba had never really liked any of Yugi's friends, to be fair, but with Jounouchi, there always seemed to have been a targeted dislike. Was it just because Jounouchi was a duelist, was it because Jounouchi rose to Kaiba's taunts more than the others did, or was it something else entirely? Yugi wasn't sure – but even if he did consider Kaiba a friend, however much the other boy would deny it, Yugi didn't like how Kaiba treated Jounouchi. So before the smaller boy even fully knew what he was doing, he said,

“Kaiba-kun, why don't you come with us to the park?”

Everyone looked at Yugi, startled.

“Jounouchi-kun, you and I could have a three-way duel – kind of like the one at your Duel Tower during Battle City, remember?” said Yugi with a hopeful smile. “That was a pretty cool idea – I'd never really dueled like that before...a-and it might be fun to do something like that just for fun, without the really big stakes!”

Yugi's friends didn't look nearly as optimistic as he was. Kaiba stared at Yugi for a moment, his expression very difficult to read – then he gave a low scoff and turned on his heel.

“If I wanted to duel you again, Yugi, then we wouldn't face off in a public park. And dealing with the bonkotsu would only distract me from defeating you.”

“Distract you?” Jounouchi snarled at Kaiba's retreating back. “What was distracting you from beating Yugi last time, huh?!”

“What a jerk,” muttered Honda.

Anzu crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed at the door frame Kaiba had left through.

“Yugi, you shouldn't even bother with him,” she told him, her voice gentle despite her clear irritation. “There's no point in trying to change someone who clearly thinks they don't have to.”

Yugi sighed sadly. “I know what you mean, but...I don't know, I guess I just thought after everything we've been through, Kaiba-kun might have actually...changed a bit himself, I guess.”

Jounouchi scoffed. “If you mean he's gotten more obsessed with beating you, I'll buy that.”

“Well, we've all changed!” said Yugi insistently. “Before everything, you'd never even played Duel Monsters, Jounouchi-kun! Before, Anzu and I barely talked...and Bakura-kun, you hadn't even moved here yet! Before, I wasn't brave, and I didn't have any friends. Before...”

He swallowed.

'Before the other me...before Atem came around...none of us were friends at all...'

The memory of himself wishing for friends on his incomplete Puzzle flickered over his mind. Refusing to let himself articulate that thought, Yugi shook his head and discarded the sentence completely.

“...But I guess...I was just being optimistic,” he said with a weak smile. “Oh well...come on! We don't want to stay out too late!”

As soon as Kaiba arrived at Kaiba Tower, his butler Isono was there to greet him.

“Kaiba-sama,” Isono said lowly as he walked alongside his employer through the front door, “there is an 'Alban Rakoczi' here to see you.”

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. “I know no one by that name.”

“He said that he saw your duel with Mutou Yugi on the KaibaCorp website and claims to have a business proposition for you,” said Isono.

Kaiba's eyes narrowed.

“Your secretary encouraged him to make an appointment, but he insisted on seeing you,” Isono continued stiffly. Despite his stoic affect, it was clear he didn't trust the man. “Would you like me to send him away, sir?”

“No,” said Kaiba. “Have him wait in my office. I'll be there shortly.”

'If this is just a waste of time, I'll know it quickly enough,' he thought to himself dryly.

Once Kaiba had changed out of his school uniform and into his black turtleneck and pants and silver-studded purple trenchcoat, he headed for his office. When he opened the door, he found a white-blond-haired gentleman with triangular bangs and sharp-lidded dark blue eyes sitting in the chair in front of his desk. He was dressed in a dashing white suit with gray pinstripes and had a white rose brooch attached to his silver satin tie.

When Alban Rakoczi turned around and faced Kaiba, his dark blue eyes seemed to gleam with a bizarre excitement.

“Ur Kaiba,” greeted the man respectfully. “Or should I call you 'Kaiba-san?' I am afraid my Japanese is a bit rusty.”

Kaiba didn't reply at first – he was still studying the man.

He was right in thinking that they'd never met. From what little he'd been able to find out, his name was Hungarian, but there seemed to be no link between that name and either KaibaCorp or even the game of Duel Monsters. Despite never meeting the man in his life, though, Kaiba got strange vibes from this 'Alban Rakoczi.' There was something off – something almost familiar.

Closing his office door behind him, Kaiba came around his desk and sat down in the high-backed chair across from the light-haired man.

“I was told you wished to see me.”

“And I did,” said Alban.

He shifted slightly in his chair, his hands coming together on top of Kaiba's desk as he leaned forward.

“...Kaiba-san, have you ever heard about the War of the Roses?”

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. Alban took his silence as an invitation to go on.

“Long ago in England, there was a rivalry between two factions of the same royal family: the Lancasters, represented by the red rose, and the Yorkists, represented by the white. It was a bitter feud – none more so than between the factions' leaders – Henry Tudor, who led the Lancasters, and Christian Rosenkreuz, who led the Yorkists. Eventually Henry Tudor scraped a victory and became king, and the Yorkists were all forced to flee in exile. Christian Rosenkreuz escaped to France, where upon he took the title of the Comte de Saint Germain and traveled all across Europe. Eventually his descendants – the Rakoczi family – settled in Hungary, with the largest estate today just outside Budapest.”

Kaiba crossed his arms. Noticing the boy's faint impatience, Alban smirked slightly – the expression once again sent a flash of unpleasant deja vu through Kaiba.

“Here now – maybe this will help.”

He withdrew a small portrait miniature framed with tiny white enamel roses from the inside of his blazer and held it out to Kaiba.

“Here we are,” he said airily. “The founder of my house – Christian Rosenkreuz.”

Kaiba glanced disinterestedly down at the tiny portrait. Then he did a double take.

The portrait was very old, judging by the water-stained colors and the rust around the edges of the frame, but the man in the portrait was him. It was a perfect likeness, from the brown hair with triangular bangs to the tall, proud stature to the sharp-lidded blue eyes – the only real difference seemed to be that he wore a suit of white armor decorated with the head of the Blue Eyes White Dragon instead of a large-shouldered trenchcoat.

Kaiba looked up from the portrait, his eyes narrowing suspiciously upon Alban's face.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Alban placed the portrait miniature on the deck, his dark blue eyes glittering even as the smirk slid off his face.

“Kaiba-san, if I'm not mistaken, you're very well aware of the supernatural forces in our world. Your company was nearly taken over by the Doma organization not too long ago, which had ties to Atlantis, and on top of that, your rival is the reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh – ”

“Where did you hear that?” Kaiba asked, trying to sound off-hand despite the fury that pumped through his veins at the memory of the other Yugi.

“Let's just say these things get around,” Alban answered unhelpfully. “How I know is really not the point – the point is that you've been constantly thwarted out of what should be yours all because of forces outside of your control. But there is a way to get you what you want – you simply need to take control of those forces yourself, have them do what you want. All one would need to do is open the right door, and you could have the power you deserve.”

Kaiba studied Alban for a moment. Then, closing his eyes, he scoffed.

“Sorry,” he said coolly, “but I think you misunderstand. I am the Head of KaibaCorporation – I already have everything I need – and I earned it through my own work, on my own. Therefore I don't need your 'methods' to get what I deserve.”

“Not even the victory owed to you?”

Kaiba opened his eyes, looking faintly irritated. “I will defeat Yugi with my own strength. I need no help in achieving that.”

“Certainly,” said Alban, his dark blue eyes narrowing even as his voice grew breathier and lighter, “but what of the Pharaoh?”

Kaiba stiffened.

“You never got your victory against him, did you?” Alban asked, his voice softer than before even as his dark blue eyes rippled almost bitterly. “He was so cowardly that he chose to die rather than lose at your hands, as he should have – leaving you to pick up the pieces...”

Hating the man even more than he had before, Kaiba tried to keep his temper reined in, forcing himself to unclench his fists.

“Yugi is the King of Games,” he said at last, his voice very low in the back of his throat, “and when I defeat him, I shall earn the victory I deserve.”

Once again the memory of facing Yugi and the conflicted, not-angry emotions it instilled in him rose to the top of his mind, and he fiercely shoved it away. It didn't matter if this Yugi didn't see him as a rival – that was what he was, and that was always what he would be, even if Kaiba felt none of the arrogant glee at the thought of outplaying him as he had for the other Yugi.

Somehow Kaiba's cold dismissal did not convince Alban – instead he merely smirked wider, and the familiar expression made Kaiba's blood boil.

“I have no doubt of that, Kaiba-san,” he said, his voice once again rather airy and detached.

Returning his portrait miniature back into his blazer at last, he rose to his feet and turned to go. Then he hesitated briefly, glancing over his shoulder and holding up a card between his fingers.

“But...if you change your mind, about the Pharaoh...you can always give me a call.”

Without turning around, he placed the card on Kaiba's desk and left the room, leaving the door ajar behind him.

Kaiba clenched the side of his desk with one hand, his blue eyes boring into the embossed white rose under the text on the card left on his desk.

He didn't trust that man as far as he could throw him – but the amount of what he knew still bothered Kaiba. What strange magic did he know of that could bring the other Yugi back to life?

“Ugh, my arm is killing me! I'm exhausted!”

“Well, after that duel, I'm not surprised – you and Yugi-kun were really going at it!”

“Yeah! You did really well, Jounouchi-kun! That new combo you used with the Black Dragon Chick was really great!”

“Was that one of the cards Mai recommended to you?”

“Piss off, Honda! And no, it wasn't!”

“I'm going to guess it was Second Coin Toss, then – that really saved you from Yugi's Silent Swordsman, Jounouchi.”

“Uh – ”

“Was that the one Mai-san said you should get, Jounouchi-kun?”

“...All right, yeah, it was.”

“Ha! I knew it!”

As the five friends walked home together, Yugi adjusted the Duel Disk on his arm.

His arm was sore too – Jounouchi's and his duel had gone on for almost an hour, thanks to how well they could read each other and predict each other's moves. Even though Kaiba had always been more of a challenge thanks to his complex strategies, fighting Jounouchi was in some ways much more fulfilling for Yugi, given that they fought with the goal of helping each other improve, rather than simply to win. Yugi sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a similar relationship with Kaiba, where Yugi could afford to lose and still feel empowered enough to try again...but in his heart, he knew that if he did ever lose to Kaiba, Kaiba would probably never stop crowing about it until the day he died. And as much as Yugi wanted to think of Kaiba as a friend, Yugi really didn't want that to ever happen.

'Kaiba-kun's got too big of an ego as it is,' Yugi thought to himself with an amused smile.

Anzu suddenly stopped in her tracks beside him.

“Anzu?” said Yugi, stopping too and turning his head to look at her. “What's wrong?”

Anzu pointed up ahead, looking alarmed.

“Yugi – the Game Shop!”

The other four all looked up.

The front door of the Kame Game Shop was wide open, its window smashed as if someone had broken in.

“Jii-chan!” Yugi cried in worry.

He barreled toward the open door. Just as he was about to head inside, however, he was knocked backward by someone pushing him out of the door frame.

“Hey!” cried Jounouchi angrily. “Where d'you think you're going!?”

He tried to grab the stranger, who was bundled up in a sweatshirt with the hood up over their head, but they ducked his arm, just barely avoiding his grip and darting away. Jounouchi and Honda charged after them, while Bakura and Anzu both ran over to Yugi.

“Yugi, are you all right?” asked Anzu.

Despite almost being knocked to the ground, Yugi got back to his feet immediately, his face very white as he ran into the game shop.

Everything was in disarray. Drawers had been pulled out, the glass display case was open, and various cards were tossed out all over the floor.

Yugi looked around the room frantically, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Jii-chan!” he cried. “Jii-chan!”

“Yugi-kun!”

Yugi turned to Bakura: he was holding up a piece of paper.

“This was on the ground by the door – ” he said.

Yugi quickly took it from Bakura and read it aloud.

“ 'Out getting new shipment of Dungeon Dice Monsters figures. Be back soon! Sugoroku...'”

Yugi sighed in relief. “He must've been out when that guy broke in...”

Anzu gave Yugi's shoulder a supportive squeeze. “Come on – we have to go find Jounouchi and Honda!”

Yugi nodded firmly.

Jounouchi and Honda were pretty good runners, but the hooded stranger, despite their size, was both very fast and oddly slippery. Every time Jounouchi and Honda thought they had the thief cornered, they ducked under the two boys' arms and kept running. At one point, the hooded stranger even tried to scale a chain-link fence.

“Not so fast there, you little creep!” said Jounouchi.

He swiped at them, and although he couldn't grab them, the thief was forced to jump off the shaking fence to escape the taller boy. Honda lunged at them, and the thief was forced to roll around on the ground to avoid him, leaping up again so they could dart around the next corner.

Unfortunately, in trying to escape, the hooded stranger had rounded so many corners in the unfamiliar neighborhood that they'd found themselves right back near the Kame Game Shop again, and as soon as they rounded the corner, they plowed right past Anzu, Bakura, and Yugi.

“Hey!” cried Anzu in shock.

Yugi recovered the fastest of the three and tore off after the hooded stranger. As he ran up beside the thief, who was only about a head taller than him, he could hear them breathing heavily, clearly exhausted and frightened.

“Stop!” Yugi shouted.

Reaching out a hand, he managed to seize hold of the person's hood. When he yanked it off, a round mane of dark-red-tinted black curls sprang loose.

The thief cried out in surprise, and she whirled around.

“No – !” she cried, her red eyes widening.

But she wasn't looking at Yugi – she was looking at their feet. The ground under them had suddenly begun to break apart and melt into a thick greenish-black mist that resembled dry ice.

“Wha – !?” Yugi gasped, his eyes darting from the smoke to the girl and back. “Is this – ?!”

“Let go!” the girl told him urgently, her tanned, freckled face very white.

But the shadows of the vortex below them had already climbed up their legs and was starting to pull them down.

“Yugi-kun!” cried Bakura, dashing forward.

Yugi reached out a hand as if to take Bakura's, but it was too late. In an instant, the swirling, smoking vortex had inhaled both Yugi and the strange girl, and by the time Bakura reached where Yugi had been standing, all trace of the strange greenish-black mist was gone.

Chapter Text

“Yugi!” screamed Anzu.

Jounouchi stumbled to a shaky halt beside Bakura – his knees scraped against the ground as he clutched helplessly at the ground where Yugi had once stood.

“Yugi!?” he shouted. “YUGI!”

His face very white, Honda looked from Anzu, to Bakura, to where Yugi had once stood.

“What happened? Where did that – that thing under their feet come from?”

“I don't know,” said Anzu worriedly. “It just appeared as soon as Yugi touched that girl – ”

Jounouchi's hand clenched into a fist over the spot Yugi had been as he looked up at Anzu. “Then we have to find that girl and make her give our buddy back!”

“That might not be easy.”

The others turned to Bakura – his gaze was locked on the spot Yugi had just been standing on, his eyes very solemn.

“That chasm...” murmured Bakura, his eyebrows coming together tightly, “it...looked a lot like something out of a Shadow Game...didn't it?”

Jounouchi stiffened. The memory of himself facing off in a realm of purplish-black shadows against the dark Malik Ishtar returned to him, and he had to admit, Bakura was right.

'But that girl – she never challenged Yugi to anything,' he thought, his eyes narrowing in confusion. 'She was too busy trying to run away...'

“But I thought after the Pharaoh defeated the other Bakura, the Shadow Games ended!” said Anzu.

Jounouchi clenched his jaw. “Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. It doesn't matter. I don't care what kind of magic took Yugi – all I know is that we have to find him!”

Honda nodded, looking just as angry and worried himself. “I know – but how? We have no idea who that girl was...”

“Maybe there's something in the Game Shop that can give us a clue,” suggested Anzu. “Whatever it is she stole?”

“That'll take time,” said Bakura grimly. “If Yugi-kun was challenged to a Shadow Game, we have to find him before something bad happens to him.”

His eyes blazing with new determination, Jounouchi shot to his feet, turned on his heel, and began to run off down the street, right toward the setting sun.

“Jounouchi!” bellowed Honda. “Where are you going!?”

“Yugi has his Duel Disk on!” Jounouchi yelled back over his shoulder. “Every Duel Disk has a tracking chip in it! That's how Yugi was able to find us, when Malik brainwashed me and Anzu!”

Anzu's eyes widened.

“Kaiba!”

Without skipping a beat, she dashed after Jounouchi as fast as she could, Honda and Bakura close behind.

The next thing Yugi knew, he was falling. Down, down, down he went, spiraling sickeningly through that strange green-tinged darkness – one of his hands was still clenched around the back of the strange girl's sweatshirt as the other reached out frantically as if to grab onto something, anything –

Finally he seemed to grab something like a ledge. He hissed at the pain that pulsed through his arm thanks to him holding onto the curly-haired girl to stop her from falling, who likewise cried out in surprise at the abrupt end to their descent.

“Hold on!” said Yugi, even though the strain of supporting both his weight and his was quite a challenge. “I've got you!”

Her head shot up toward Yugi and her scarlet eyes were very wide as she gawked at him.

“What – are you – ?” she whispered.

Yugi's violet eyes glinted with faint reproach. “Did you really think I would just let you fall? Ack – just because you're a thief...doesn't mean you'd deserve that!”

The girl stared at Yugi like she'd never seen anything like him. Then her eyes seemed to lose any trace of light – even if they weren't filled with sorrow exactly, the death in her expression was a sad sight.

“You don't even know me,” she murmured. “How do you know what I deserve?”

Yugi was taken aback by the question, but his surprise didn't make his response any less instantaneous. “No one deserves to die like that.”

The girl's red eyes drifted away. As they dangled helplessly from the ledge, Yugi suddenly noticed that the darkness just past the girl's head was...moving.

He looked up and around.

The dizzying green-tinged darkness around them wasn't as endless and opaque as he'd initially thought. Instead its inky depths had faces and places reflected in its depths – the Kame Game Shop's window being smashed open – whirring silver chain-saws – an intimidating-looking, light-haired man with sharp-lidded dark blue eyes with a raised hand – Yugi himself, shoving a man wearing a black-and-white harlequin mask to the floor to avoid the chain saws –

Yugi's eyes widened.

“What – what is this place?”

Kaiba had expected to work late into the night. Although the publicity surrounding his and Yugi's most recent duel had reignited interest in KaibaLand, his company's stocks were still lower than they should've been, thanks to the various failed takeovers Kaiba had had to deal with in the last year. Mokuba's social media outreach had been working so far, but Kaiba was enough of a perfectionist to not sit on his laurels.

'An expansion of the park would not be feasible for at least a few years,' he thought. 'Cutting costs is an option, but I don't want to put out the image of us cutting corners, so it'll have to be done carefully.'

“Hey, Ni-sama.”

Mokuba had come into the room, carrying a convenience store bento box and a thermos in his hands.

“What's that?” asked Kaiba.

“Your dinner,” teased Mokuba. “Or did you decide to close up on time, come upstairs, and have Tatsumori-san cook us a real meal?”

Kaiba smiled wryly. “Sorry, Mokuba – there's no time tonight. I have to recalculate our quarterly budget.”

“I thought you'd say that,” said Mokuba coolly, “so I brought you this! Hope the chicken dumpling hot pot is okay – the dumplings aren't as good as the ones Tatsumori-san makes, but I figured you'd need something that's easy to eat when you're working.”

“It'll do,” said Kaiba offhandedly. “Thanks, Mokuba.”

Mokuba rested the cheap bento box and thermos down on Kaiba's desk. “Don't stay up too late tonight, ni-sama – you have that interview with Beru Broadcasting before school tomorrow morning – ”

As Mokuba was about to leave, however, Isono suddenly appeared in the door frame.

“Kaiba-sama!” he said, clearly flustered. “Some friends of Mutou Yugi are – ”

He'd barely gotten those words out before Jounouchi and Honda barreled past him into Kaiba's office.

“Kaiba!” said Jounouchi urgently. “We need you to find Yugi's Duel Disk!”

“Jounouchi?” said Mokuba, startled, as Bakura and Anzu arrived behind them.

“I would ask what makes you think you have the right to barge into my office uninvited,” said Kaiba very icily, “but tact has never exactly been your strong suit, bonkotsu.”

But Jounouchi was in no mood for Kaiba's insults. Instead of simply bristling in irritation like he normally would, he stormed right over to Kaiba and grabbed him by the front of his trenchcoat with both hands, yanking him up out of his chair with all of his strength.

“Jounouchi!” cried Anzu and Mokuba in unison.

“Jounouchi-kun!” Bakura said anxiously.

“You listen to me, you bastard,” snarled Jounouchi, “someone broke into the Game Shop, used some sort of weird magic, and took Yugi! We don't know who she was and we don't know where they went, but Yugi had his Duel Disk on him when he vanished, so you can find out where she took him! So tell us right now, or I swear I'll – ”

“Jounouchi, put my brother down NOW!” shouted Mokuba as he shoved his way in between them to try to break them apart.

Kaiba had been taken aback and offended when Jounouchi first grabbed him, but the revelation of Yugi's disappearance had been like a club to the back of the head.

Someone had kidnapped Yugi...with magic? Kaiba thought he'd been all done with magic – it was the one benefit to having lost his chance at defeating the other Yugi, not having to think about anything except winning duels again...

Alban Rakoczi's sickening smirk floated over Kaiba's mind.

"...and on top of that, your rival is the reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh..."

It couldn't have been a coincidence that that man had arrived that very same day – Hell, mere hours before. He'd suggested knowing a way to bring the Pharaoh back, clearly using some bizarre magic – could it be that same magic that had been used to take Yugi?

Kaiba's eyes narrowed in a hard, cold glare upon Jounouchi as he raised his hand, grabbed hold of Jounouchi's wrist, and painfully twisted it off of him.

“Geh – !”

Once he'd weakened Jounouchi's grip enough, Kaiba was able to shove the blond boy off of him, his blue eyes shooting daggers at his face as he sat back down in his chair, spun it around, and faced his computer. Minimizing all of the spreadsheets and data surveys he'd been consulting, he signed into KaibaCorp's private server, typing in three separate clearance passwords to bypass the retinal scan and speed up the log-on process.

“You'll be able to find him, won't you, ni-sama?” Mokuba asked in concern.

“Of course,” Kaiba said lowly. “The tracking chip was initially suggested by our engineers as a method to help us gather data about where our products were used, but I modified them myself, to make sure that, with the proper clearance and codes, we'd be able to pinpoint any individual Duel Disk on Earth.”

Honda's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That's pretty creepy of you, Kaiba. You sure that's legal?”

“Do you want to take it up with my lawyers, or would you like to find Yugi?” asked Kaiba coldly.

His fingers danced over the keyboard, typing in the stats for Yugi's Duel Disk and entering it into the system. A image of a globe appeared on screen, rotating slowly as the system digested the information.

Suddenly, out of the greenish blackness, a harsh burst of laughter echoed through the emptiness.

“Welcome, Yugi,” said an arrogant, almost snide male voice, “to my Hell – the chasm between Space and Time!”

The curly-haired girl stiffened visibly. Yugi's eyes narrowed upon the darkness around him, flickering over the shadows of Pegasus activating his Millennium Eye and Yami Bakura sitting a mile high over a Duel Monsters field.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The voice gave a light “tsk!”

“Wow, and here I'd presumed the Monarch of Games would know the value in common courtesy! Allow me to bestow upon you a tip – accept a greeting and reciprocate it, then move onto introductions.”

Yugi got very bad vibes from whomever was talking. Even if he couldn't see the voice's owner, Yugi would've guessed he was his age, possibly even a bit older, but his tone still dripped with superciliousness. His vocabulary didn't make him sound intelligent: instead it came across as stilted and rehearsed, almost like a person getting hard-core into roleplaying -- and yet Yugi, who quite like roleplaying games himself, didn't think he'd be the sort to keep a thesaurus on stand-by during a game.

“But since you're – if you'll pardon the phrasing – hanging out there, Yugi – ” sneered the voice, “ – why don't I show you around?”

The inky blackness quaked, and soon more images began to appear on all sides of them. This time Yugi didn't recognize anything – not the snow white hand raising a shining, golden sword up and out of the water; not the shadow of someone tossing a pair of opened handcuffs to the ground; not even the monsters that looked vaguely like Duel Monsters that appeared on the large stage decked with a scarlet curtain and dozens of candles –

“Look familiar, Yugi?” taunted the voice.

“No,” said Yugi. “How do you know my name? Why have you brought me here?”

The voice gave a short laugh. “Where's the off-switch on you? Seriously – is your default setting asking stupid questions?”

Yugi didn't respond to the voice's mockery – even when Kaiba used his far more intelligent insults, he was never quick to anger. The girl Yugi was still holding onto, her scarlet eyes appearing slightly wary, glanced from Yugi to the darkness ahead.

“Monsieur Thorne, Yugi couldn't know what any of that stuff is,” she said very softly. “He wasn't around during any of those events.”

Yugi looked down at the girl, startled. “Events? So those things...are the past?”

“So sorry, Laura, my dear,” the voice drawled, “I was so distracted by your pretty face that I couldn't quite make that out. And as much as I usually welcome that distraction...I don't think Yugi is entitled to it.”

In an instant, Yugi suddenly felt himself being wrenched backwards. The force was so strong that he lost his grip on the girl's sweatshirt and he was hurtled away into the darkness.

Finally, after a long moment, the system spat out a response, accompanied by an unpleasant ping.

ERROR: DUEL DISK NOT FOUND

Kaiba violently grabbed hold of the screen. “What!?”

“'Not found!?'” repeated Anzu. “What does that mean?”

“It means Kaiba's Duel Disks are broken,” said Jounouchi, his brown eyes flaring with aggression.

“Impossible!” retorted Kaiba, sounding both furious and disbelieving. “My database can find any Duel Disk anywhere in the world – even if Yugi wasn't using his Duel Disk or it was damaged, I should still have its location!” His eyes darted over the globe still rotating on his screen, narrowing a little more every second. “This doesn't make any sense – ”

Honda, Anzu, and especially Jounouchi looked anxious and confused – Bakura, however, looked almost hopeless.

“That can only mean that...Yugi-kun isn't in our world at all,” he whispered. “He must be somewhere we can't reach.”

Jounouchi turned to Bakura, his face torn between desperation and frustration. “But that makes no sense! Even in a Shadow Game, you're still standing on your own two feet – I was still with Yami Malik on Kaiba's blimp in Battle City – only your mind can really be trapped there, right?”

“And even with that,” said Honda, “you'd need a Millennium Item to start a Shadow Game, wouldn't you?”

Bakura nodded, his dark eyes downcast. “The Millennium Items started the Shadow Games...but they were all destroyed after the Ceremonial Duel. Without Yugi-kun's Millennium Puzzle...without the Millennium Ring...I don't know if there's any way we could reach him.”

Kaiba's teeth gnashed together furiously. 'No – I will not accept that! You will not slip away from me, Yugi – !'

“There is no way you can reach him,” the CEO snapped icily. “I will find Yugi, and I won't have to fall back on magic to do it. Now get out.”

Jounouchi reached out as if to grab Kaiba again, but Honda succeeded in grabbing his arm first and holding him back.

“We're not leaving until you tell us where Yugi is!” snarled Jounouchi.

“You will leave on your own two feet, Jounouchi, or so help me, I will have you all thrown out!” retorted Kaiba, his cold, low voice betraying a bit more raw anger than the group was used to. “Am I understood?”

Jounouchi opened her mouth as if to argue further, but Mokuba cut him off sharply.

“Jounouchi, if something's blocking us from finding Yugi's location, we don't know how long it'll take to find a work-around for it! You need to give ni-sama some time!”

Bakura brought a hand onto Jounouchi's shoulder, squeezing it lightly to show some support.

“I'm sorry, Mokuba-kun,” he said quietly, but very firmly, “but I'm afraid we don't have time to wait. Jounouchi-kun,” he glanced to his friend, “let's go back to the Game Shop. Anzu-chan was right, there might be some sort of clue that can tell us who the girl who took Yugi-kun is.”

Despite looking very reluctant to give Kaiba an inch, Jounouchi nonetheless gritted his teeth and gave a short nod, shooting Kaiba a glare over his shoulder as he quickly left the room.

“We'll call you if we find anything!” Mokuba called after them.

Laurette watched Yugi disappear into nothingness, her red eyes very wide and stunned. This time she didn't fall – instead she merely glided slowly downward, as if she was floating down slowly through water.

“What did you do with him?” she asked softly.

The voice belonging to the young man called Thorne responded almost lackadaisically.

“Hn...what did I do, indeed...?”

Laurette's eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly, but betrayed no discernible emotion. “Monsieur Thorne, please – ”

“Hey, what gives? You're actually talking to me today? Don't tell me that you're actually concerned for that...diminutive runt, Laura.”

Any other person might have called Thorne out on the redundant insult, but Laurette instead merely dropped her gaze.

“I just don't see why you had to kidnap him,” she said quietly. “He didn't have the card.”

“I have a score to settle with Yugi,” said Thorne, the coldness in his voice only serving to make him sound surly. “It's a good thing you managed to get close enough to him that I could finally reach him.”

Laurette's eyes widened ever-so-slightly in realization. Then she closed her eyes solemnly.

“...You used me as bait.”

Thorne clicked his tongue offhandedly. “Of course not – you were out doing work for your uncle, for the Neo-Crusaders. Fate just has a way with making things work out.” He chuckled. “You weren't bait – it was fate.”

He seemed proud of his “witty” conclusion. Laurette opened her scarlet eyes slowly, her muted gaze drawn to the six angelic-looking Duel Monsters cards with different-colored wings and no text fluttering through the oil-like darkness over her shoulder.

“Well, until next we meet, my lady,” said Thorne, his sycophant tone practically dripping with hauteur. “Parting is such sweet sorrow!”

Laurette's lips pursed together slightly as the blackish-green fog dissipated and she landed on solid ground. She looked up, to find herself in an airport terminal.

'For Uncle's and my flight back to Budapest,' she thought to herself.

Sure enough, the silver phone in her pocket buzzed, and when she took it out, she found a text waiting for her.

“Terminal 1, gate 15. I will be waiting.”

With a low sigh, Laurette slipped the phone into her pocket and reluctantly began to walk in the direction of the terminal, trying to put all thought of Yugi and Mr. Thorne behind her.

Chapter Text

When Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, and Bakura returned to the Kame Game Shop, they found Yugi's grandfather, Sugoroku, waiting for them. He'd called the police upon finding the store broken into, and a small team of officers were dusting for fingerprints around the door and taking pictures.

Despite the shock of his store being broken into, Sugoroku had looked rather composed. At the sight of his grandson's friends, he immediately approached them with a small smile. Once he'd realized Yugi wasn't with them, however, his expression creased with concern.

“Where's Yugi?” he asked.

Honda and Anzu exchanged heartbroken looks. Jounouchi bowed his head, clenching his fists at his side.

“I'm...sorry, Ji-chan,” he whispered. “We don't know.”

The old man who had once braved Egyptian tombs had shown no fear or worry about his store, but hearing about what had happened to Yugi made his shoulders shake as he tried to restrain his grief.

Sugoroku beckoned the group into the living room, away from the officers. As much as they wanted help in finding Yugi, they knew that the police wouldn't be able to do much. If Bakura or the others even tried testifying that Yugi was snatched up by a magical black vortex, they'd be likely either be simply laughed off or considered full-on insane.

“And you said the vortex appeared as soon as Yugi touched the girl who broke into my store?” Sugoroku asked lowly.

"Yeah,” said Honda, inclining his head in a half-nod.

“What's strange is,” Bakura murmured, “I saw her face, and she seemed surprised by it too. I don't think she knew that vortex was going to appear anymore than we did.”

“What did she want in the first place, Ji-chan?" asked Anzu. "What did she take?”

Sugoroku's gaze dropped to his hands clutched in his lap.

“That's the strangest thing of all – nothing was taken.”

The other four all looked up, shocked.

“Whatever that girl was looking for,” said Sugoroku very lowly, “she didn't find it.”

None of Yugi's friends slept a wink that night. Jounouchi had decided to stay over at the Game Shop that night to look after Sugoroku – he didn't want to take the chance that someone might come back to try to finish the girl's job. Plus he knew, wherever Yugi was now, his first concern would always have been for his family's safety, and Jounouchi wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he let Yugi down.

Seto Kaiba stayed up all night troubleshooting his Duel Disk database. He tried resetting the coordinates, rebooting the mainframe, adjusting the search perimeters, hacking into his own problem as an outside party to search for possible tampering, and even combed through every Duel Disk he had on file in the off-chance that Yugi's was simply disguised as another person's...but after hours and hours of searching, Kaiba still had not found Yugi.

The light of the rising sun flooded through his office window as Kaiba leaned back in his chair, clenching the arm of his high-backed chair tightly with one hand.

'This makes no sense,' he thought for what felt like the hundredth time. 'Even if Yugi's Duel Disk was somehow turned off or broken, its back-up settings would keep the tracking signal online. And if it were broken, I would have a record of it – it wouldn't just not exist...'

“Ni-sama?”

Kaiba looked up. After insisting that Kaiba wake him as soon as he found Yugi, Mokuba had fallen asleep in the chair on the other side of Kaiba's desk several hours ago – now he was wide awake again, peeling the studded purple trenchcoat Kaiba had put over him like a blanket off of him.

“Any luck?” the younger Kaiba brother asked, his indigo eyes concerned.

Kaiba glanced away, turning back to his computer without a word. He stared at the screen, his blue eyes narrowing in frustration.

A moment later, Kaiba stiffened slightly when he felt a pair of arms wind around his neck and give him a hug from behind.

“I'm worried about him too, Seto,” Mokuba said quietly. “I mean – I know Yugi and we've gotten in lots of trouble before, but...well, I thought after Yugi beat the Pharaoh, all of that crazy magic stuff might actually be over...”

Kaiba's eyes softened slightly.

Mokuba articulating some of his feelings was comforting. Of course his younger brother had always looked upon Yugi and his gang as friends while Kaiba certainly did not...but he had also expected that, after the other Yugi left, all he'd have to focus on was defeating Yugi and running his company.

'Yet even then, it's not how it was supposed to be,' a nagging voice in the back of Kaiba's brain reminded him.

Kaiba closed his eyes, shoving the memory of Yugi's and his most recent duel away once again.

“...You should get ready for school, Mokuba. I don't think I'm going to be able to fix the database anytime soon.”

Mokuba looked at his brother in dismay. “But what about Yugi?”

“Don't worry – I will find him,” Kaiba said, trying to sound reassuring but instead just coming across as forceful. “I'll just need to find another way to do it.”

He held down a button on the phone by his desk to page his secretary. “Hakoda, cancel the interview with Beru Broadcasting and inform Domino High School I won't be in today – some urgent business has come up.”

“Yes, Kaiba-san,” the secretary replied promptly.

Mokuba looked at Kaiba in concern, seeming very reluctant to leave him.

“Ni-sama, can't I take the day off too and help you?”

“That won't be necessary,” said Kaiba. Seeing the disappointed, frustrated look on his little brother's face, he said a little more gently, “I'll keep you updated, Mokuba: I promise.”

Seeing that Kaiba wasn't going to change his mind, Mokuba sighed lowly. “All right...”

He got up, lay his brother's violet trenchcoat neatly on the back of the chair in front of Kaiba's desk, and then shuffled out of the office and out of sight.

Once Mokuba had left, Kaiba brought his hands up over his lips thoughtfully, interlacing the fingers.

'Every Duel Disk in the world shows up in my database,' he thought in frustration. 'So why doesn't Yugi's?'

Bakura's words echoed in his ear.

“That can only mean that...Yugi-kun isn't in our world at all.”

Flashes of a strange, Ancient-Egypt-like place returned to Kaiba's mind – a white-haired girl with familiar blue eyes running past him – the Yugi who was the Pharaoh summoning the Three Egyptian Gods on a Duel-Disk-like artifact on his arm made of wrought gold –

'That world had been just a game,' thought Kaiba. 'Is Yugi in another one of those sorts of games?'

The CEO glanced at his desk, and for a second he imagined the Millennium Eye resting on it, as it had before he'd entered that Egyptian game world. His fingers folded together over his lips as his eyes narrowed.

'If he is...then I think I know exactly who's playing that game.'

Kaiba glanced at the phone on the side of his desk. Then, lowering his hands at last, he took out the white business card embossed with a rose that Alban Rakoczi had left for him the previous day out of his coat, picked up the phone, and dialed the number.

Yugi's head was throbbing. Why did his head hurt so badly?

With a groan, he inched open his eyes. When he did, he shot up out of bed, startled.

He was in his room? Had it been all a dream?

“Ji-chan?” he called.

There was no response. Yugi quickly stumbled out of bed, barely feeling any of the sheets or toys left scattered over the floor as he crossed the room, ready to dash out the open bedroom door –

Before he could, however, someone crossed in front of him.

“Jounouchi-kun!” said Yugi, both startled and delighted. “What are you doing here?”

But Jounouchi's gaze never reached Yugi's face, instead locked behind him on his bed. Yugi's smile flickered and died.

“Jounouchi-kun?”

He glanced over his shoulder quickly at his bed and then back up at Jounouchi, confused, but the blond duelist didn't answer him. Instead he merely looked away, his expression torn by frustration and pain.

“Yugi...” he murmured.

Yugi's heart clenched in his chest. “Jounouchi-kun, what's wrong?”

Jounouchi turned and slowly started to walk away. Panic pulsed through Yugi's veins and he reached out to try to stop him.

“Jounouchi-kun – !”

But when Yugi tried to grab hold of Jounouchi's shirt, his hand passed right through it as if he were a ghost.

Yugi blanched, his eyes growing wide with horror.

'What – !?'

A familiar, raucous laugh bounced off the walls.

“Like something out of The Sixth Sense, isn't it, Yugi?” scorned Thorne.

Yugi's head shot up sharply, and he looked up at the ceiling.

“Thorne-san – what have you done?” he demanded.

Thorne laughed. “Me? I haven't done anything – yet.”

The memory of Jounouchi's pained face seemed to eat away at Yugi's patience, and his soft violet eyes narrowed with righteous anger.

“Tell me what’s going on!” he said sharply. 

Thorne scoffed. “This is just how the Chasm Between Space and Time works! You can see everything, but you can't influence anything. All of the doors to individual timelines are locked to you, so all you can do is sit back and watch!”

Yugi's heart clenched as he turned to face the hallway Jounouchi had just left.

“...You mean you can see everything in this place?” he said lowly. “The past, present, and future?”

“The future's constantly being rewritten by the present, smart one,” snapped Thorne. “If you tried to watch that, all you'd have is a disjointed clip-show of half-baked ideas and flashes.”

The coldness in Thorne's voice reminded Yugi of something – Thorne had called this place “his Hell.” Did that mean that he also...?

“How did you get trapped here?” he asked, feeling some pity despite himself.

Thorne didn't answer for a moment. Then he burst out laughing, the sound very forced and devoid of any humor at all. When he’d finally stopped, his voice had turned much more hateful.

“I may only be able to contact you here, Yugi, but I'm anything but a prisoner. I am one with the Chasm – I see all! I control all! Just watch!”

In an instant, Yugi's room began to disappear, piece by piece, into greenish darkness. Yugi felt the ground under him quake as he was lifted into the air: then just as suddenly, he'd found himself in another hallway – one more streamlined and corporate. And walking down this hallway, a schoolbag on his shoulder and a plate of tamagoyaki in one hand was...

“Mokuba?” gasped Yugi.

The younger Kaiba looked worried. His indigo eyes drifted along the wall of the hallway he was walking down, stopping on the open door toward the end. Just as Mokuba approached the door, however, both he and Yugi standing behind him caught the sound of voices.

“ – everything you deserve!”

“I did not ask for your help in achieving my goals, nor do I want it.”

“Kaiba-kun?” whispered Yugi.

“I've never needed magic to get what I want,” said Kaiba's voice icily, “so I have no use for whatever it is you're selling.”

The younger Kaiba paused just outside the door frame, listening in carefully. Yugi, however, couldn't stop himself from entering the room.

Kaiba was at his desk, dressed solely in a black turtleneck and pants. The violet trenchcoat he'd no doubt discarded was hanging off the back of the guest chair in front of his desk. In his hand was a phone, and he was facing the screen just over the phone receiver, which held the image of a light-haired man with sharp-lidded dark blue eyes.

“But what of the Pharaoh?” the man asked. “If you help us, then you'd finally be able to face your true rival once again – ”

Yugi's heart clenched at the mention of Atem. Clearly Kaiba was wounded by it too, given how harshly he responded.

“The Pharaoh is dead!”

“Not all of him,” said the man lowly. “There’s still — ”

“Enough! I've heard enough out of you, Rakoczi,” snarled Kaiba. “Yugi defeated the other him – therefore, he is my 'true rival,' and I will not rest until I destroy him with my own two hands and he is left crumpled on his knees in defeat! Now stop stalling, and tell me where he is!”

Yugi was left stunned by Kaiba's anger. Most of it was targeted toward the man called Rakoczi, but the bile Kaiba had leveraged in Yugi's direction had also taken him aback. Yes, of course Kaiba had been his rival for a long time...but after all they'd been through together, all of the struggles and all of the battles that they'd had to face side by side, Yugi had still come to see Kaiba as something more than that. He cared about Kaiba, and Mokuba, and their company...after everything they'd been through together, how couldn't they?

'But then again,' thought Yugi, 'how many of those things Kaiba-kun went through with me...really was with me?'

It had been Atem who had fought those double-duels with Kaiba. It had been Atem who had weilded one of Kaiba's Blue Eyes against Noah and saved his and Mokuba's souls. It had been Atem who had pushed Kaiba to his limit and taken the title of “the world's greatest duelist” from him. It was hard to think about...but even though Yugi had started to see Kaiba as a friend, did he really have any right to? He thought he'd gotten to know Kaiba so well, and yet he so clearly resented Yugi. Was it simply because Yugi was his rival, like Atem had been? ...Was it because Yugi had prevented Kaiba from facing Atem in the Ceremonial Duel?

Yugi moved closer to Kaiba, examining his face. There were bags under his sharp-lidded blue eyes, and despite the ferocity of his expression, his left hand held the black phone in a vice grip.

'Kaiba-kun,' thought Yugi, 'why do you look so upset? Is it just because of your pride, or...?'

Somewhere above him, Yugi heard Thorne click his tongue in an almost chiding manner.

“What a shame,” he said derisively. “I always thought 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'...but it seems Seto still needs to learn that.”

The familiarity Thorne used for Kaiba made Yugi's eyes narrow slightly. He had a feeling that Kaiba wouldn't like being called by his first name by a stranger, particularly someone this unpleasant.

“Kaiba-kun may be my dueling rival, but he's not my enemy,” he said firmly. “He's my friend.”

Thorne laughed. “Your friend? Seriously? You and Seto have never been friends.”

The office began to fade away, back into the greenish darkness. Yugi tried in vain to hold onto Kaiba's office chair, but it dissolved under his fingers. He began to fall again, spiraling sickeningly through the air as his mind went blank.

Alban Rakoczi regarded Kaiba with a very harsh, almost resentful look. Then, very slowly, his expression cleared, his eyebrows rising over his narrowed eyes as he smiled. Despite the lack of visible anger, however, the man's face appeared no less cold.

“You're more stubborn than I'd envisioned,” he said lightly. “But no matter – I will put your mind at ease. Yugi Mutou is alive and well. He is simply – oh, how would you say? – in time-out right now.”

Kaiba's blue eyes flared. “I want a location I can access, Rakoczi, not a joke.”

“Well, I'm sorry, Kaiba-san, but I won't be able to help you there.”

Mokuba abruptly burst into the room. Quickly putting down the plate of food and his school bag, he barreled over to the other side of the desk, snatched the phone out of Kaiba's hand, and talked into it himself.

“What do you want, you creep?” he demanded.

“Mokuba – ” started Kaiba, but Alban merely chuckled in amusement.

“Ah, so this must be Mokuba Kaiba — the younger brother.”

“I asked you a question, and I want an answer!” asked Mokuba harshly. “If you have Yugi hostage somewhere, then you must want something – so what is it?”

The light-haired man considered Mokuba for a short moment. Then, very slowly, his lips spread into an icy smile.

“...Very well. I'll outline my terms. There is a card I need – a unique card, one of a kind and never seen by the general public.”

Kaiba's eyes narrowed. “What card is it?”

“It looks a bit like this.”

Alban held up a card. It was clearly a Duel Monsters card, yet the text box at the bottom was blank. Even the yellowish color of the background that should've designated it as a Monster was negated by the lack of level stars or attack and defense points. The image on the card was that of an angel with closed eyes and scarlet wings holding a sword in both hands, her midnight-blue hair floating over her head like a beautiful curtain.

Mokuba squinted at the Japanese text written at the top of the card. “...'The Ties of Courage?'”

“The card I need is part of a set of seven,” said Alban. “Each card looks slightly different, but they have similar names and appearances, and all have no text except for their titles. I had hoped to pick it up in Japan while I was visiting, but...well, the vender disappointed me. But I'm sure that the heir of the largest gaming company in the world could locate it for me. Bring the card to Rakoczi Manor outside Budapest, Kaiba-san, and I will be able to reunite you with Yugi Mutou.”

And with that, Alban hung up, and the screen went black.