Chapter Text
Though Domino High's varied attempts at academic excellence had encountered mixed results at best, the one area in which the school rarely disappointed was games. There was no lack of clubs dedicated to the plethora of different games that famously enthralled the children of Domino City. Many currently enrolled students were already internationally renowned masters in the game Magic and Wizards. On the honor roll were both the teenage CEO of the largest gaming corporation known to man and a transfer who was already a distinguished game inventor running his own retail franchise. Thrown in for good measure, the cherry atop Domino's very particular variety of excellence sundae, was a student purported to be the definitive King of All the Games, Ever, and who was publicly referred to as such without a shred of irony by children and adults alike.
Yet, for all the school's illustrious achievement in the realm of game culture and technology, it remained somewhat of a mystery as to why the chess team at Domino High insisted on proving time and time again that it invariably sucked at chess. The team wasn't simply weak in chess, underwhelming, or lackluster. It was a total failure and an insult in teenage form to the oldest and most distinguished of traditional games. Though only a recently organized team, they'd managed to be outstandingly terrible at any and all varieties of chess presented to them, Eastern and Western, ancient and modern, resulting in a flat-out ban from tournament competition by their own school administration in an attempt to reduce the damage incurred upon the school's prestigious game reputation. Many would argue that this decision was unjust, and that junior competition was more about the benefits reaped from the experiences gained and the camaraderie shared than about winning trophies and distinction. Upon thorough examination of the team's performance, however, many would then perhaps recant and admit that while a full-out ban maybe wasn't a step in the right and true direction, it was nevertheless a step in the best direction currently available.
The City of Domino, while offering Domino High the ideal environment for a student body with such single-minded dedication to games, was also the last place such a discrepancy as the inability to play chess would be overlooked. In desperation, the school attempted to recruit key figures from its pool of celebrity duelists and game aficionados, offering academic incentives to anyone willing to at least join the chess club. Such incentives were deliberately designed to patch up the very specific gaps in students' coursework left by spending weeks at a time competing in convoluted tournaments. Chess club would be a ticket to academic redemption allowing players to obtain both the glory and the grades needed to succeed in society.
The end results of this chess club enrollment campaign were unfortunate, demonstrating once again that strategy should be left to the game genius student experts and not harried school administrators. What hadn't been fully taken into account before the plan was instigated was that the students who needed academic redemption the most were those who had washed out of tournaments and realized five failed quizzes and numerous missed classes too late that they weren't cut out for dueling...or Capsule Monsters, or go, or whatever other game-centered pathway to fame and fortune had seemed such a sure bet to their underdeveloped adolescent brains beforehand. As such, the chess club was soon inundated with the very lowest rungs of the professional game hierarchy that attended Domino High, as well as students who weren't even particularly good at any games at all but just wanted the easy bonus points for signing their name to a roster and paying a bit of pocket money for the privilege.
Moves to resolve the crisis were slow, and the situation soon devolved into such chaos that it seemed quite possible half the student population of Domino High was in the chess club. Problems snowballed virtually unchecked until the club was unable to even schedule meetings due to the fact that there was no suitable location on campus to accommodate the influx of new members. The sponsor of the club, a humble math teacher, refused to spend the rest of the year burdened with the responsibility of managing such a massive group, and announced that she would be limiting membership to the amount of members that could be comfortably contained within the school cafeteria. Priority would be given to upper classmen, and once capacity was reached, all others would be waitlisted. Those who had registered previously would still be granted a substantial amount of bonus points for having attempted to join, but would have their club dues returned and no further points awarded until they were able to join the club itself.
In this manner, the club size was cut down considerably, and missing more than three meetings unexcused resulted in immediate removal. After a month, the overall academic incentive was also reduced with a vague excuse about a supposed conflict with grading standards, because of course it was. Students were then effectively forced to attend meetings and endure actual chess in spite of themselves just to eke out the few points still available in return for their continued membership.
All the drama and mad-dash enrollments had accomplished absolutely zilch in improving the school's chess team, which still staunchly insisted on sucking at the precise game it was dedicated to playing. For every premature bald spot developed by administrators fervently pulling out their own hair in hysterics, zero students stepped up to defend their school's game-based honor on the chess board. The official chess team itself remained unchanged, as having hundreds of registered members in the club made it virtually impossible to keep records or develop any sort of club ranking to determine which members were actually the better players. The students whom club sponsors had intended to attract with their offer didn't bite. The King of Game himself was too busy playing Magic and Wizards, having long since achieved the dream of all duelists: a profitable professional career. Said career was trucking along at full speed and couldn't spare a moment for a detour into chess. The only students close to professional stock that the club ended up gaining were Ryou Bakura, who they hadn't even noticed joined until a bookkeeping error nearly resulted in him having to pay his membership fee twice, and Jounouchi Katsuya, who missed half as many meetings as he attended, yet the club was too scared to kick him out and lose their one "star" member.
Just as Domino High's aspirations of total gaming supremacy appeared dashed, something like salvation finally arrived in the form of Seto Kaiba storming into the activity director's office beside himself with indignation. The depths to which his high school team had fallen had been brought to excruciating light during an unrelated interview about a KaibaCorp sponsored fundraiser. In this interview, the over-ambitious reporter, who did little to hide the fact that he wanted nothing more than to stir things up and hurt feelings, inquired frankly as to why Seto allowed such a blatant display of incompetence to shame him and his original signature game. Seto, baffled and displeased with the sudden departure from script, had demanded to know what the hell the man was talking about. The reporter all too eagerly explained in tearing detail the whole ugly situation as it was currently underway in the high school's activities department. This department was where Seto found himself shouting at people the very next morning.
As an expert in chess, Seto Kaiba had always appeared as something of a rescuing beacon beyond a turbulent sea of inadequacy the club's sponsor hoped to eventually reach and not drown. Up until his forced change in perspective, however, the performance of his school chess team had been irrelevant to Seto. Seto had his namesake corporation to run, shareholders to placate, pensions to fund, and no time for student activities beyond appearing in class for the sufficient amount of hours to not end up expelled for truancy. Things had appeared destine to continue as thus until Seto was given a damn good reason for them not to. Upon learning that the primary reason the team had been banned from competition by the activity director of the school was because a player had loudly and insistently accused an opponent of performing an illegal move while castling, Seto realized with supreme embarrassment that immediate action was long overdue.
From that point, for better or far worse, Seto's attention had been drawn. He was an unstoppable force in his anger, and addressed the issue with the same impassioned drive and unilateral conviction in his own ability with which he set out on all personal projects. The Domino High chess team was about to stop sucking, right now, and that was a damn promise.
The first order of business was a restructuring of the system through a (theoretically hostile, although given the circumstances, the sponsor would've rolled out a literal red carpet if she'd had one) takeover of the club presidency, a position previously held by the now defunct team captain. Chess Club President Kaiba proceeded to challenge every member of the official team to a one-on-one match as sort of a trail by fire to prove their worth and retain their positions. The several solid, slammed-to-the-floor, ass-kickings that ensued proved absolutely none of them did.
Once he'd established beyond refute that each player at his disposal was near useless, Seto decided it was time to search the club member pool for new blood and attend his first real chess club meeting. He went about his official introduction to the club the only way he knew how: with a massive goddamn spectacle. In a power play designed to cement his control and demonstrate to everyone in attendance his unequivocal mastery of the game, he had the whole of the recently disposed chess team compete against him in simultaneous matches. He then beat every single one for a second time. While blindfolded.
Seto's point was made. What remained of a dissenting voice among the club members concerning his abrupt takeover was soon confined to Jounouchi Katsuya, who for his part simply hated Seto on principle no matter what Seto did. The loss of Jounouchi's notable gaming prowess to the organization was no longer of great concern, and he was promptly informed within a week of Seto's arrival that if he missed three more meetings, he'd be removed from the club roster. This incised Jounouchi into attending every single meeting from then on out for the simple reason of talking shit about Seto as loudly and as often as possible in the vain hope that it would somehow, miraculously, incite a coup d'état. As of Seto's first month in office, Jounouchi's best efforts remained ineffective. The fact that Seto was a dick and a chore to be around was as incontestable as it had been since the day Gozaburo Kaiba had introduced his adopted son to the world, but, as far as managing the chess club was concerned, the guy was competent, and students trusted his authority.
If there were one particularly devastating drawback to Seto's intimidating mastery of chess, it was that it gave students a reason not to want to have anything to do with joining the chess team. Who wanted an overbearing, merciless taskmaster as a chess coach? The few who dared to join were those with no choice, whose parents had pressured them into joining the team in the first place even when it'd already sucked. Seto, knowing he'd have to ease his talented members in slowly, responded with an education campaign designed to increase players' competence as well as build up their confidence. Non-threatening, engaging chess experts experienced in working with children were invited to teach lessons after school during chess club meetings. Seto was the main party responsible for contacting these educators and coordinating their lessons, but he stayed as far away as possible when the lessons were underway. In fact, after his very public show of dominance, he transitioned into the almost invisible role of running the club and organizing events behind the scenes. Elections (though rigged) were held, leading to the ascendency of a boy named Hiroshi to the vice presidency. Though Hiroshi was a recent transfer to Domino High, Seto had chosen him for his amiability and warmth, which contrasted Seto's own deficit in those areas. Plus, Hiroshi already knew how to play chess, and was on track to become the new team captain in addition to the club's vice president.
Paying for Seto's chess education campaign was the club's own money, which Seto maintained control of in spite of there being an official treasurer after the elections. As chess club was the highest populated organization on campus after Magic and Wizards Club, it was also one of the richest. This by no means meant it couldn't take a little extra money, donated through a KaibaCorp funded organization dedicated to supporting the continuing gaming traditions of Domino City. There was even a presentation ceremony, where Seto had his little brother, Mokuba, deliver the check to the club president [Seto] and shake his hand.
Through the efforts of their newly elected leader (and indeed Seto had been voted for by nearly every member in the club during the election, minus most notably Jounouchi and his friend Ryou, who Jounouchi had bullied into voting against Seto), the chess club slowly but surely improved its skills. However, merely teaching chess was by no means Seto's endgame. Seto had a reputation to salvage, and nothing sort of regional, perhaps even national, dominance would appease him.
Therefore, the moment Seto decided that there'd been enough training, sometime within the second month of his presidency, he transitioned to the next phase of his plan. It was prime time for a club tournament. Naturally, being Seto Kaiba, he'd be damned if there wasn't anything a ludicrously massive tournament couldn't solve.