Chapter Nine

"So?!" Mokuba bounced up to his brother's side. "What happened?"

"Mutou found a grain of sense in that two-toned (or is it three-toned?) head of his and said yes," Kaiba told him. "We are going to call the company Dual Designs, Incorporated."

"Yay!" Mokuba couldn't contain his excitement, happy for both his brother and his friend.

"I--I've made a change you might be interested in, Kaiba," Yugi ventured carefully. "To the balance of the game, based upon our duel."

"Hmph. Is that some lame way to ask me to duel?"

Yugi grinned. Kaiba was still a prickly jerk. He supposed he'd have it no other way. "Yeah, I guess so."

"I'll go get my deck," Mokuba offered.

"Oh, thank you, but..." Yugi opened his portfolio and pulled out a deck. Unlike the cards Mokuba made, these were uniform of size and bore an identical pattern on the back of each card. "I was able to have some professional prototype cards made."

"Oh." Mokuba seemed disappointed.

"The deck you made for me, that I was using before, is one of my treasures. I've placed it in a special box in my house, Mokuba. Duel Monsters would not be as cool as game as it is if not for your help -- both with making those first cards, and with the changes to the game that you helped with. I've got a box for you here," Yugi offered. "It has every single Duel Monsters card there is."

"Cool! Thanks, Yugi!" Mokuba glanced up at his friend. Yugi smiled, and handed the box of cards over.

Yugi fussed for a moment spreading the dueling field mat on the table, before closing his portfolio, setting it down on the floor, and finally sliding the deck across the table to Kaiba. "It's time to duel!"

As Yugi had hoped, setting up for the duel distracted Kaiba sufficiently so that he did no more than glance through the cards in the deck Yugi supplied him with. Yugi retrieved his deck from his pocket, shuffled the cards gently, and slid them toward Kaiba for the cut, even as Kaiba slid his shuffled deck toward Yugi for the same service.

"Let's duel!" Kaiba growled.

The game unfolded as Yugi had hoped. He got his Dark Magician out early, equipped him with a few key support cards, and dominated the game. Kaiba thinned his mouth in irritation as his deck gave him nothing helpful to deal with Yugi's Magician. Mokuba sat back from the table and watched, but split his time with looking at the prototype cards. He gasped and sat up straight. Both Yugi and Kaiba glanced over at him.

"What's wrong, Mokuba?" Kaiba asked. Yugi suspected he knew, so, out of Kaiba's sight, he shook his head minutely at the boy, and hoped Mokuba wouldn't ruin his surprise.

"Nothing, Seto. I'm just a little shocked at the change in one of the card's appearance. It's awesome!" Mokuba grinned up at Yugi. When Kaiba looked back at the duel on the table, he winked at Yugi.

"I'm glad you are having fun," Kaiba grumbled, as he drew a new card to start his turn. "Yugi's Magician..."

Yugi looked up as Kaiba's voice trailed off. Kaiba's expression was such a blank, Yugi knew he'd taken his new partner completely by surprise. The card Kaiba held now had been designed off of Yugi's memory of the sapphire-eyed alabaster dragon in Kaiba's dragon room. The dragon that Yugi knew full-well represented Seto himself in that vignette. There was a pleasing symmetry to how the night was unfolding. Yugi had been astonished by the gold and purple dragon Kaiba had commissioned and placed in the case. Yugi knew that Kaiba knew that he realized the significance of that dragon, and the placement -- guarding the lapis lazuli dragon on the side opposite the alabaster one. Kaiba had given him a dragon. It now seemed more than right that Yugi had already planned to return that favor.

"My Magician -- what?" Yugi blinked up at Kaiba with as much innocence as he could muster.

Kaiba looked down at the board. Yes, he had two monsters he could tribute. Somehow he suspected Mutou had manipulated the game so he would. "Your Magician has just met his match! I play my mighty Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" Kaiba roared.

"Oh, you're in trouble, now, Yugi!" Mokuba crowed, scooting his chair next to Kaiba's. "You unwisely gave my brother a dragon. He's totally gonna cream you!"

Yugi laughed at Mokuba's defection. To add insult to injury, the kid was right. Kaiba trounced Yugi thoroughly, taking down his Dark Magician after a lengthy battle.

"So, what do you think of my 'brute card for the lazy, power gamer'?" Yugi asked with an excess of innocence.

Sure enough, Kaiba's head whipped around at that. Then, Kaiba smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile.

"Watch it, Mutou."

"Watch what?" Yugi laughed. "Blue-Eyes is designed to be easy for the lazy, power gamer to use as long as there are two tribute monsters to get him out on the field. But, he can be finessed, too. It seemed only right to make him -- versatile. Perhaps even a bit -- unpredictable."

"Hmph." Kaiba glared, but Yugi could tell he was pleased. Extremely so. Mokuba confirmed it by reaching out and hugging his brother.

"Isn't it cool, Seto? A card, just for you!"

Kaiba glanced at his little brother before his stare returned to Yugi. An unholy gleam formed in his eyes.

Uh, oh.

"Duel Designs, Incorporated... Our symbol will have to be a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, of course." Kaiba leaned back and challenged Yugi with a glance that was half a glare.

"Blue-Eyes? Hah! Dark Magician!" Yugi countered.

"Hardly. My Dragon could tromp your Magician."

"Not if you can't find him." Yugi grinned tapping the Magical Box card that had given him two turns more play than Kaiba had anticipated. "Not to mention, both the Magician and the Dragon are mine."

Yugi's eyes sparkled as they issued the challenge to him. He wasn't about to back down. Kaiba found he was obscurely pleased by that. Equal partners, huh? Yugi has guts. Loyalty, too. Kaiba reflected that it could be a heck of a lot worse than to be partners with Yugi Mutou. Besides, if Dual Designs, Inc. failed, he did still have Kaiba Corporation, even if he didn't quite know what to do with the ex-weapons manufacturing company.

"Hmph. You might have designed it, but the Dragon is clearly mine."

"Of course, Kaiba," Yugi replied in such a sweetly compliant tone that Kaiba sat forward against the threat. "Of course, this is only a preliminary design for the card. I could always change it. What do you think -- Blue-Eyes could be pink -- and super-deformed. That would be cute, don't you think, Mokuba?"

Mokuba made frantic, warding motions with his hands, not wanting to be involved in this, at all.

"You wouldn't... Over your dead body, Mutou," Kaiba finished. He seemed to consider something. "Okay, your Dark Magician riding on the back of my Blue-Eyes White Dragon."

Yugi gasped. That was a concession he never expected.

"No bridle. No reins. Dark Magician has to trust Blue-Eyes isn't going to let him fall." Seto added softly. "Oh, and Dark Magician has to have his hand up, holding his staff above his head, like so." Seto raised his right hand over his head as if he were holding the staff Yugi had drawn in his Dark Magician's hand. "For triumph. Because with the two of us, our company is going to be a success."

"You really think so, Seto?" Mokuba asked.

"I give us -- a year. One year from now, you'll see. Duel Monsters will be the 'in' thing -- the game, the cards Yugi's going to design, the duel disks I'm going to design, t-shirts, party favors, piñatas." Seto grinned at Mokuba, then turned his smile toward Yugi. "DDI, and Duel Monsters, is going to be huge."

"'Duel disks'?"

"Yeah, Blue-Eyes is too cool to be restrained in a card." Kaiba felt -- giddy. "I'll figure out how to miniaturize the holo-emitters and pair them with a tiny computer powerful enough to render your monsters in life-like sizes. Duel disks. It fits with Duel Monsters and if I work with a circular design, I think I can reduce the lag time from when a card is played and the holographic monster actually appears."

Yugi's eyes gleamed oddly purple in the light. "You think you can... Is it really possible?"

"Trust me," Seto said, suddenly serious. "At least as much as I trust you." His gaze slid meaningfully toward Mokuba.

"Seto!" Mokuba suddenly whined. "I wanna play!"

"Okay, just let me..." Kaiba reached out to gather his cards up.

"No! I want to play against you!" Mokuba stood over Yugi, glared down at him, and growled, "Move it, Mutou!" in a creditable copy of his older brother's typical attitude. Yugi bowed deeply and ceded the chair.

"I'm gonna beat you, Seto!"

"In your dreams, Mokuba."

"Let's duel!"

-the end-