#it was clear they were trying to insult Yami Bakura

[enemyoflactose]

One time I saw a post about how someone believed Yami Bakura was an antihero.

I've been a hater of his fan base ever since.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 36 S4: Seto Joins Dragon Wife in Hell

So I dunno about you guys, but 2020 aged me like a lot in just these 8 months, so I figured it was time to embrace the feeling of being on death’s door and I decided to learn Mahjong. So I could truly embrace the ancients and vibe in their natural habitat.

Anyway, once I learned some Mahjong lore, some parts of Yugioh just open up. Namely--Seto’s dragons. Like a whole lot of stuff about early Seto Kaiba that confused me at the time just makes so much more sense now.

But unfortunately, he dies this episode, and he never pulled out his Blue Eyes White Dragons, and it’s just like...

...but my Mahjong deep cuts...

Like every episode I’m just rubbing my palms together in anticipation that someone will die, but like...I never get to talk about how in Mahjong, there’s only 4 white dragon tiles, but if you have 3, you can steal the fourth white dragon from another player’s discards, and that when you that, other stuff happens...I don’t get to talk about that because Seto’s hella dead.

So lets just get to the death. Dartz decides to make all of our soldier frenemies attack Pharaoh--because that’s all he needs to raise the Leviathan. Like Dartz doesn’t even really need to finish this game. He just needs Yami.

Seto picks up that these friend (and Pegasus) soldiers that Yami refuses to kill are probably going to end the world very quickly so he decides to do something about it. If this were a blog where I talked about cards instead of Mahjong, then I’d dive into the intricacies of what that even was.

But, we’re not, so lets just talk about Pegasus.

(read more under the cut)

This guy harnesses some psychic energy he’s got leftover from S1 and communicates directly to Pharaoh’s mind.

So, hey, what was that about Pegasus not having powers anymore? Like? He’s still doing this? He’s still psychic and he very clearly can still make blank cards so like...I guess you can take out the eyeball and make him nicer, but you can’t take out some of the effed up magic side-effects. (like there was a comment I didn’t respond to (which, sorry about that, been a little nuts over here in California), but apparently there was a movie in between seasons where Pegasus saved their lives--so he’s legit good now...there was a DLC where character arcs happened.)

Which kind makes you wonder about Marik, but we’ll probably never see him again so o well, save it for the fanfiction.

PS Yami is totally fixating on that eye we can’t see, right? Like...it never outright tells us, but does this spiritual Orichalcos manifestation of Pegasus still have the golden eye? A human eye? Or no eye at all? Just skin?

Not like it matters because Seto does some sort of card shenanigans that undo the whole friends that are soldiers thing like it never happened.

MMMMM I don’t like these weird legs on Yugi. Don’t like the thighs it gave to Joey. No! I’m seeing like this skin-tight silhouette of half an ass right now and I really don’t like it.

Along with other card things I won’t go into that consumed most of this episode, Seto finally got hit by a...well, I mean you can clearly see it in the next cap.

So, in Mahjong, there are 3 types of dragons: a white dragon, a red dragon, and a green dragon. I used to think it was really lazy that we’re just calling monsters straight up “white dragon” or “red dragon” in this show, but now it makes more sense because this whole time it was probably baby’s first Mahjong reference but I’m too Western to know that.

Anyway, the white dragon is funny looking because it’s a white tile--just a completely blank white tile. I thought it was a wild card at first but nah--it’s a white dragon in a snowfield--which is a very funny Dad joke from 200 years ago we’re still doing today. But, often, instead of a Dad joke, they’ll just make the white dragon tile a drawing of a blank card, like this:

Kind of funny that the guy who’s shtick is white dragons, ended up with his soul in a blank card. Was that a mahjong reference? Probably not, but I noticed it.

And mahjong aside, the show paid it’s respects to Seto dying and so he took his sweet time passing on. It’s still not that much respect. We aren’t gonna get that amazing Joey death sequence from S3 that took like half an episode of scene-shredding for our mains to recover from, but like...Seto was very determined to keep going, despite not having a soul.

He even finished his turn of cards, as if to just spite Joey Wheeler for that one time Joey hella died before killing Marik.

Shippers rejoice, it’s a Yami and Seto Kaiba death sequence. If you squint really hard, it might even be an embrace. I mean they both have very sharp duel disks on, and if Yugi’s closes for whatever reason, it’ll snap Seto’s head clear off, but what other “hugs” do we really get on this show?

And as for Mokuba, he was quite tragic this episode. I mean it’s Yugioh, so it’s not like you’re gonna cry or anything, but Mokuba just doesn’t really have anything else going for him without his brother so it is legit like...man Mokuba gets a lot of crap thrown his way and even when he’s happy, he still has to live with Seto so just...Mokuba...

Again we get this bubble effect of other people trying to enter the Orichalcos which happens just a Hell of a lot this season. Like Dartz probably has never had a single person WANT to go in the green zone in 10,000 years and then these bizarre children happened and they just want to bounce off that thing like a jello pudding.

I think it took over 5 minutes for Seto to die, and he was very, very, VERY angry the entire time. Just fueled by literally nothing but rage. Could probably go a couple more episodes if he had taken a nap in the KaibaCopter, but alas, even Seto Kaiba eventually runs out of fumes.

Anyway, another Mahjong fun fact. The dragon tiles are considered an “honor tile” and how many times have we heard Seto--who is such a scumball--go off about his honor? It can be hard to use honors tiles because their rate of success is lower, so when Seto’s like “I have to live up to my dragon’s honor or I can’t keep these in my deck” could he be like...making a Mahjong pun as well as a literal reference to whatever he defines as honor?

...Again, just a Mahjong reference I noticed, but probably not what they intended at all. Which is Good Enough for this blog.

After he tragically passed on, and Yami delicately put his body on the ground, -- Dartz decided to make this moment very funny for me, instead.

Bless.

Not as good as Yami the both times his body was chucked casually across the screen this season--but a very good toss, nonetheless.

I have made so MANY clips of this season!

Tristan and Tea kinda just stood there this entire episode while this was all going down and like...I know they can’t really do anything else at this point but like...can someone give Mokuba a hug???

I can’t believe Valon was the only guy in this entire show about friendship who knew how to hug people. He was in prison since he was 9, and then was raised by freakin Dartz, why is he the only hugger?

PS, apparently Seto’s yummy soul was enough to make the Leviathan open a single eye-ball in curiosity.

Mokuba out there flinging so many insults that he got everyone else banned from watching devil cards. It’s like sports competitions in Middle school with that one kid who won’t stop cussing. That one kid who is the reason everyone else has to sit through a boring ass assembly about sportsmanship? That’s Mokuba.

Now that everyone is ‘passed out’, we can get to the juicy stuff only the olds talk about--which sounds a lot like I’m about to do another segway into talking about Mahjong again, but I’m actually all out of the Mahjong juice. Again, I’m ass at Mahjong.

(and like...the peanut gallery died in the original version, right? I know to never trust a “they’re just sleeping” line in Yugioh.)

Dartz telling me he dragged that ass length blue hair across Egypt?

Man.

I would say that it must’ve really thrown people, but then again, their Pharaoh looked like...that.

So Dartz ended up wandering the earth for 5000 years, cursed to live immortally, unable to revive the great Leviathan, wallowing in his failure. Sentenced to suffer the entire existence of humanity that he never wanted to see survive anyway, unable to die himself.

That’s an interesting plotline that I wish I saw more of. I really like the idea of a supervillian who is already past his prime, who’s already burnt out, who’s so far removed from what happened that he’s fully accepted his demise and is just wandering around out of habit. But, most importantly--that changes my math. That’s like...5000 years he wasn’t slurping no souls because he was too damn depressed. So I’ll append the Deathcount. One second.

OK so we can just subtract 7.3 million from what we had, leaving us with: 7,805,844,047. Barely even made a dent but...eh...when you got the current population of the Earth in there it’s really hard to make a dent in that thing.

PS I still have that google doc where I keep track of the deaths, we have 55 lines of entries, haha.

Yugioh is interesting because you do have some racial stuff going on here where Yami is SO OLD that he doesn’t remember not only his own name--he doesn’t remember what he looks like. He’s even seen it a few times in hallucinations but like...Yami legit doesn’t know what it is to be an ancient Egyptian anymore. It’s been a hot minute, and he still sees himself as a pale skinned Yugi clone when he spiritually manifests in the show. Because the modern day, set in Japan, through Yugi’s eyes--that’s all he knows about life.

Dartz was so impressed by Pharaoh’s magic powers that he knew--he just KNEW that this Pharaoh with the worst hair would be the yummy soul for the Leviathan tummy. But unfortunately...

This is a show that has had so MANY overlapping apocalypses that I did have to sit back and kind of count off on my fingers which crazy person this would be about.

Honestly? Either Seto or Bakura...guessing Bakura because we haven’t finished his storyline yet and I know that he’s the big bad of S5. But man...Dartz was just like “oh...no thanks to that guy. I’ll just take a nap for 5000 years, BIG no thanks.” and it does make you wonder...

...oh...so that’s why you didn’t bother Bakura in this timeline.

It also helps make Bakura even more of a threat. Again, Bakura is great because he’s just constantly leaving nuggets of what a threat he is and then just...disappears for seasons on end. The Bakura we’ve made in our head is probably way more awful than what he may end up being.

But for now, it’s fun to just fill in the gaps instead.

anyway that was it for this episode, I’m off to pretend it’s Thanksgiving week and will look forward to drowning my anxiety in a 16 lb turkey shared between four people.

Anyway, I brought up the cat that falls asleep on metal rods so I have to do this:

And for those that are new, this is a link to read these in chrono order: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[rainstormcolors]

A post that will only be of interest to maybe like two of my mutuals, but whatever, I want to write it. It’s a summary of the garbage Azureshipping fic I wrote many many years ago, while the dubbed Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was still airing. I included some excerpts from this story as well, though I’ve already shared them with a few of you. This story was never given a title, was never given an ending, is 350 handwritten pages long, and is crap. But I’m very fond of it even still. (BTW, this summary is very -very- streamlined. The work as a whole is a pure mess.)

Kaiba Corporation mysteriously goes under, and Seto and Mokuba are left penniless. I didn’t bother to going into detail regarding this, but it’s implied dark forces are at work. In the meantime, the brothers scrape by, living in a shabby apartment, and Seto seems to have given up. Yugi and Tea visit the brothers and Yugi offers to give them money, to which Seto’s attitude is, “Piss off! I don’t want your charity!” but as Seto’s turned away, Mokuba snatches the money from Yugi’s hand and whispers, “Thank you.” Meanwhile, in his dreams, Mokuba sees strange fragments of the past and the future.

Seto is deemed an incompetent parent to Mokuba by social services and Mokuba is taken away, but Mokuba runs away from the agency and takes to living on the streets for a string of days. A new Duel Monsters tournament is being held in a nearby city and Seto enters, hoping to win the grand cash prize, and is full of misery. Joey and Mai also enter this tournament. Seto and Joey duel, the two exchanging insults, but Seto wins and he proceeds to the finals. (I should mention I didn’t actually write any of the duels in this story. The moves are kept vague.) The final game is between Seto and Mai. Joey’s still unhappy about losing to Kaiba, meanwhile Yugi, “Yami,” and Tea watch the duel silently and uncomfortably. Tea then sees Mokuba in the crowd, watching his brother, and so in that moment she begins to cheer for Seto. Seto wins the duel and Mai doesn’t really seem to mind at all. But Seto isn’t given the prize money, because the tournament’s host has a grudge against Kaiba Corporation. (I don’t give any details for why.) And Mokuba vanishes, remaining hidden in the streets.

That night however, the Millennium Ring takes on a life of its own and teleports onto Mokuba’s body, and Yami Bakura’s energy possesses him. (I was making the Millennium Ring possess random people before DSoD made it cool!) Possessed Mokuba goes to the hotel Yugi and co. are staying in and he steals the Millennium Items, Joey’s deck and duel disk, and Tea’s cellphone, but Yugi and Tea catch him in the act. Possessed Mokuba races off into the night with the pair of friends in tow, when suddenly a man in a truck snatches up Mokuba (such an original plot point) and the Items from the street. The man rushes to an airplane held at the edge of the city, drives the truck into its cargo bay, and it flies off towards Egypt.

At some point around this part I decided this was going to be an Azure romance. While I realized the woman in Seto’s vision during his duel with Isis was far and away most likely not going to actually be Tea, I decided to give Tea a vision of that moment with the implication it’s her.

After finding him, Tea tells Kaiba what’s happened and he’s infuriated. Tea tells him to try tracking her cellphone and he does (just somehow), and they pinpoint his brother’s location in Egypt. Tea has enough money for two plane tickets, and while Seto isn’t happy about it, he needs to rescue Mokuba of course, and so she and Seto go together as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Yugi, Joey, and Tristan explain the situation to Mai and she decides to front the money for the four of them to fly to Egypt on another later flight.

Mokuba is still possessed by Yami Bakura as he’s brought to an underground temple in a secluded corner of Egypt. There are three siblings, who I make it clear care very much about each other: the oldest brother, the middle child who is the head of the group—a woman with short purple hair and wearing a black dress, and the youngest sister who has brilliant red hair and is in white robes. (I was ripping off the Ishtar siblings as villains before DSoD made it cool!) (I’ll also note it doesn’t seem they caused the collapse of Kaiba Corporation from earlier.) I wrote this story before the Millennium Scale was revealed in the anime, and it’s the Big McGuffin here. The siblings are the protectors of the Scale, which is said to be the most dangerous of the Millennium Items. The Scale is welded to a stone and only the chosen one may remove it, King-Arthur-and-the-Sword-style. There’s a prophecy inscribed in the temple walls, which states in part that the wielder of the Millennium Scale will become a vessel to filter evil from the Shadow Realm into the mortal world, and the siblings believe Mokuba is the chosen bearer of the Scale. Yami Bakura is gleeful at the chance to take hold of another Millennium Item but his spirit is unable to budge it, and touching the Scale ejects his grasp over Mokuba’s body. None the less, the siblings jump to the conclusion that they were mistaken, this boy is much too young to be the bearer anyway, and that it must be the older Kaiba brother who is the chosen one instead. Despite being the villains who kidnapped him, the trio are actually fairly hospitable to Mokuba. The middle sister is grouchy about how things have gone, though she’s happy to keep the Millennium Items for herself, and she has the friendly and pretty youngest sister (who is Mokuba’s age at that) take Mokuba into town in the morning.

Tea and Seto arrive at Egypt together and head to the place they’ve pinpointed, and in the town they find Mokuba waiting, and he and Seto have their sweet warm reunion at last. But tensions are high. Tea and Mokuba decide they need to get the Millennium Items back, and Seto agrees begrudgingly after Mokuba confronts him with, “How is it better?! What’s happened to you? You don’t care about anything anymore. […] If you go home I’ll come, but if you care, then help Tea get that stuff back.” Mokuba leads them to the temple in the nighttime and they sneak inside. They grab the collection of Items, but before they go, Mokuba finds himself strangely drawn to the Millennium Scale. It’s as if there’s a magical tug, and he goes to it and nudges it, whispering, “It is me…” before Tea and Seto call him to leave.

(Stuff gets really convoluted at this part and I’m really streamlining it here.) As they escape, Tea loses her sandals. There’s a confrontation with the trio of siblings, and soon Tea and Seto only have the Millennium Rod as all the other Items are stolen back, and the purple-haired woman challenges Mokuba to a duel for some weirdo reason, summoning the Shadow Realm as a test or something. Mokuba duels using Joey’s deck and duel disk but flounders. Tea shouts for Yugi, and with this, thousands of miles away, Yami realizes the others are in trouble. But as Mokuba’s about to lose, Seto uses the Millennium Rod to shatter the Shadow Realm, and so Mokuba’s soul is safe. Seto, Tea, and Mokuba steal the siblings’ car (noticeably not the truck; I don’t know what happened to the truck or airplane) and drive off, back towards the town.

Shadi appears to Mokuba in a vision spouting lofty nonsense about destiny at some point.

At nightfall, Tea and Seto have this embarrassingly written romantic moment:

[from pages 206 to 211; it’s goofy and bad and overwritten and so so so woobified]

““Oof!” she groaned w/ a loud thud, Tea had rolled off her bed onto the floor. There was no difference from when Tea had her eyes shut and when she had her eyes open, it was darker than the pitchest of blacks. “Hrmm,” she groaned rubbing her eyes, she was still very sleepy. As her eyes slowly adjusted, she could see an extremely dim light barely visible to the human eye seeping through the cracks of the flap hung over the back entryway as a tacky, cheap cover. Tea pushed up against the side of her invisible bed to help her stand and from there she felt her way round the tiny room, pushed through the flimsy flap to the outside world which left her totally breathless.

It was beautiful, the sky was speckled w/ what seemed like a trillion stars. Tea had never seen so many stars in her life. Back in Domino City, the bright lights almost always left the nightscape completely starless. Now that she was out in the middle of nowhere there wasn’t a single light source to fade the sky and everything from up in the heavens shown through, and she could see to the edge of the universe. Then Tea saw a dark figure radiating a faint silvery lining. It was Seto, staring off into the unknown. Seto didn’t seem the type to enjoy something as simple yet precious as stars, but this didn’t surprise Tea. There had been enough hints of his fascination w/ the sky. From how he held his tournament on a blimp and a high up tower, to him simply peering out the window as they flew here. Even his favorite duel monster could fly far up into the atmosphere.

She walked over and stood next to him. They didn’t look at each other, they didn’t say anything, there was absolute quiet, but the quiet didn’t bother Tea this time. The 2 just stared off into the silvery-blue desert silently. There was a gentle breeze, a soft whirling sound pierced the air.

“Why are you up?” Seto finally said in a tender voice, his eyes still fixed up to the moonless starscape.

“hmm, oh, I fell off my bed,” Tea quietly replied, “and why are you still up? We found Mokuba and you’ve been awake for several days straight.”

“more like a month”

“A month? You haven’t been to sleep for a month? Is that even physically possible?”

“Unless you count me passing out, yes.”

“Why?” He didn’t say anything, he shut his eyes like he was trying to sleep standing up. Tea looked at him, he was so broken. “Seto? Erk- I mean Kaiba!” she shook her head trying to snap some common sense into herself, “Sorry, I’ve been hanging w/ Mokuba too much and I’m starting to talk like him.” Why do I keep calling Kaiba Seto? I-

“Tea, Seto’s my name,” he reopened his eyes slowly, “you’re suppost to call people by their name. I never got why you and your pals call me Kaiba.”

“Well that is your last name,” she pointed out to him.

“My adopted last name. The name of my evil, wicked stepfather. Don’t even have the company anymore.”

Seto’s stepfather, a topic his mind seemed hopelessly stuck on. It haunted him in ways no one else could ever really understand, as icy essence that would always linger in the back of his thoughts. He was a little boy, the forgotten boy lost in time, forever running from this tangled fear, forever trapped in this endless chase, too afraid to stop and be devoured by this monster locked inside his frigid heart. Too afraid to even look back.

“You really don’t like your past, do you?”

His eyes were hollow and lifeless. Seto slowly rocked his head back and forth, lost somewhere in a numbing trance.

“Was it really that bad for you? I mean if that creep hadn’t adopted you, you never would of…” Tea stopped herself. Since he no longer held the position of president for Kaiba Corp, all the good had been sucked away from his adoption.

“It depends whether you value youth or not. Guess I did. But I just have to put all that behind me.”

“You mean forget?”

“It’s nice for your little friends to spit at me for that, especially when they have no idea what it was like.”

“You’ll never forget trying to forget, because in trying to forget you’ll remember and it will always be there. Don’t try and forget, try and let go,” Tea explained. Seto remained stuck in his daze. “So do you not like being called Kaiba? Besides Mokuba, and me too I guess, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody call you by anything else.”

“It was alright when I owned Kaiba Corp, it was one of my accomplishments, earning that name. But now it shows my failure.”

“If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you tell us?”

“What ever.”

“Ah. Well anyway, why can’t you sleep?” she asked getting back to the point, returning the conversation’s personality back to quiet and mellow.

“I just can’t, I lost my company, I lost Mokuba,” he explained to her.

“Stressed out then?”

“I’m a failure, a throwaway…”

This was not the Seto Tea grew to know, before all this rained down on him, Seto was always going on how much more superior he was to the others, now he was ranting how much more worthless he was. “Oh come now, you’re not a failure. Your company was stolen, I know you don’t believe in magic, but it was some ancient magic power that did this. You’d only be a failure if it was actually your fault, and it’s not. You’re really smart and skilled, I’m sure you’ll eventually bounce back. We’ll fix this. You know what they say, when you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up.”

“And you fall right back down,” he grumbled.

Tea was not getting through to this guy, “What do you mean?”

“What do you care? This is only going to result in one of your long, annoying speeches like it always does.”

“It does not.”

“Oh yes it does. You don’t even know the half of it.”

“Tell you what, if I promise to not say a single thing will you tell me?” she coaxed trying to come to a compromise.

He hesitated, feeling Tea’s waiting gaze upon him. “Look at my life, it’s a disaster, it just goes up and down, up and down, it never stops.” Seto quivered a little as he spoke, “Everytime I think things are starting to look good, I plumbit back down. My and Mokuba’s parents died, our remaining relatives stole our inheritance and then just dumped us off at an orphanage and no one cared for us. I tricked a rich CEO into adopting us and I thought things might change, but he turned out to be a heartless, dictating snake, so I overthrew him and took control of his company. Things were okay for a while, and now this! I have nothing, everyone hates me! My life has been ripped to shreds!”

Tea looked at him, she had never heard Seto talk so openly. His eyes looked so sad. She had known a little about Seto’s rugged past, but for some reason hearing it made her finally understand Seto’s bitterness, his distrust for people. “Everyone does not hate you, what about Mokuba? He doesn’t hate you.”

“Yes he does. And I can’t blame him. I’m a horrible person…”

“He just wishes you’d be more light hearted, try having fun. I mean, why aren’t you ever happy? Try smiling every once in a while.”

“Yes, I should try smiling, who cares how I actually feel? I should just pretend to be happy and smile, even if I’m dead inside, cause as long as I’m smiling everything’s alright.”

Tea thought about that for a second. “Are you really always that unhappy?”

“Speech, Tea. This is turning into a speech.”

“Well I can’t help it, you’re ranting on about how tenuous a life you have, and maybe you’re right, but you’re afraid of your past, you’re afraid of your future, I strongly doubt you like your current position, what is it you want? What would have to happen to make you happy?”

He finally turned to look at her, his deep blue eyes reflecting the dazzling stars. Tea felt a bizzar pull to him, like some force was bringing them together, it was weirding her out. Just a week ago the thought of talking to Seto left a foul taste in her mouth, she had been beating herself up for dragging herself here w/ him. But not anymore, instead of talking at him, she was talking to him, she could see the world through his eyes, everything had changed.

“You promised you wouldn’t say anything,” he gently said.

“Sorry, I forgot,” she whispered back. The 2’s personalities were an absolute contrast, there was no chance of ever hitting common ground, Tea was a jovial, kind-hearted girl, Seto was a bitter, withdrawn boy who lost his place. Still, there was a strong connection between them as they gazed back up into the star-frosted heavens, absorbing it’s pale silver glow.”

That same night, Yugi, Yami, Joey, Tristan, and Mai arrive in Egypt.

In the morning, Seto gives Tea his shoes, and she, he, and Mokuba have a “day of fun” in the town since they don’t know how they’ll get home yet. Seto plays a casual duel with Tea as if it was a lesson. Seto and Mokuba go off together and leave her alone for a bit as well. Later, sitting and watching the sunset together, Seto finally falls asleep and he slumps gently against Tea.

Then Tea’s friends find them and it’s all bustle and explaining things. They decide they’ll make another attempt to re-capture the Millennium Items because this shit is dangerous. Seto leaves them. When Tea meets him later, he pulls out the Millennium Rod from under the bed and asks her why she didn’t tell her friends about it, and she tells him it’s his. He forces it into her hands but she holds it back out to him. Seto then places his hand over hers on the Rod and bends down to her but she stumbles back, saying she should be getting back to the others now, and he lets her go.

Tea, Yugi, Yami, and Mokuba go to the temple and approach the Scale on the stone together (apparently the sibling villains are really really incompetent at guarding it). Tea guesses that Yami is the chosen one and he steps forward, but something feels wrong and evil, and Mokuba begins to see things and is able to read the scripture on the walls. Tea tries to comfort him. Then the purple-haired woman confronts them. She tells the group it’s one of the Pharaoh’s rivals who can pick up the Scale, and Mokuba feels confused as he hears this. She gives them the Ring as a peace offering. She offers to return the Millennium Necklace to them if they would be so kind as to bring Seto Kaiba to her to activate the Scale.

Tea and Yami aren’t sure what to do next, but as they leave with the Ring they find Seto standing outside the temple. As it should turn out, some kind of hallucinatory vision had carried him along with them and he’s just as confused as they are. They tell him about the situation. Mokuba, knowing he’s the only one who can remove the Scale and wanting to put an end to all this, tells Seto to try it. Seto does and is able to lift it with ease, and Mokuba is shocked. (The idea is Mokuba’s nudge was enough to free it, but he didn’t realize that.) The purple-haired woman is ecstatic, reveals that there’s dark magic inside the Item, and she challenges Seto to a duel to claim the Item’s powers. The youngest sister goes to Mokuba’s side. The woman and Seto duel, everyone watching, and Seto wins.

And so Yugi, Yami, Seto, Mokuba, and Tea leave with all the Items in their possession, but Yami and Tea are very concerned. They return to the others, and Mokuba is disturbed as things are explained and considered.

Here’s another excerpt:

[from pages 305 to 316; bad bad bad and overwritten and woobified again, now with terrible melodrama]

“Seto leaned over the sink in the inn’s bathroom. It’s edges were lined with scuz and sludge ringed the foucet, it’s handle was very loose. There was a shower, but it didn’t work. Washing his hair in the sink had grown used to him. He had done it back when he and his brother were living in that broken down apartment of deferred dreams and causes, and at the airport in London while waiting for his and Tea’s plane to arrive, but being without soap he couldn’t get it too clean. He wished the water was colder.

“Seto, are you OK?” Mokuba asked him standing in the restroom’s doorway.

He didn’t look up, “Why?” he said through the dribbling sound of running water.

“Because the girl you decided to f-“

“Mokuba, please.”

“Sorry,” his eyes shifted to the millinium scale that had carelessly been laid on the floor, “Heads up, Joey and Tristan might try to steal that from you.”

“Steal what?”

“The millinium scale, for some reason they seem to think it’ll make you go crazy or something.”

“Idiots. And let me guess, Tea-“

“Did nothing. Talk to her already, or do you want me to do it for you?”

Seto finally pulled his head out from under the grummy, near-broken sink. “Mokuba, you’re not helping,” he said as he squeezed the water out of his tangled hair with his fingers. Then he picked the polished scale off the floor. “See, this is why I don’t make friends,” he grumbled, “I knew this would happen.”

“Seto, you can’t just give up, that’s so unlike you.”

“She’s made her choice, let it be.” He walked out of the restroom, his hair damp and spirit low, “I have nothing, I don’t deserve her care.”

Mokuba stared blinklessly at his brother a bit horrified at what he was saying. Seto walked away and disappeared down the sliver of a hallway.

Hours were swept away never to be retrieve or re-lived again. The brief sandstorm had passed away a short while after noon broke, and the gang would of probably started to head to a city and airport so they could set their sights on home, but w/ this idea an ugly problem showed it’s face. Not even half of them could fit into that pathetic car to transport them anywhere, so for the moment they were stuck.

“OK, here’s my plan,” Tristan announced.

“If it involves leaving Seto and I stranded here…”

“First off, no it doesn’t,” he replied to Mokuba. Everyone was sitting outside in a ring formation, discussing ideas and ways to tackle this issue, everyone except Seto. He was off leaning against the side of a building feeling feverish and soaking in his aloofness. “Tea, did you ever get your cell phone back?” Tristan continued on.

“Umm,” Tea reached into the shallow pocket of her brilliant apple red skirt with grey, yellow, and forest green cross hatching, “yeah, why?” she said as she felt it’s hard, plastic surface.

“Cause we can call someone up then to come and pick us up or drop off another car or something.”

“And who do you propose we call Tristan?” Mai said.

“I dunno, anyone.”

“Yo, Kaiba! Do you have any ideas?” Joey yelled over at Seto, who was nodding off, “Hey, wake up! It’s not night time yet!”

“You always have to find some way to make a nussence of yourself Wheeler, don’t you?” he said, “figure something out for yourself for once.” Seto pushed off the building and walked away wishing not to be bothered anymore.

“Fine! We don’t need your help!” Joey barked at him as he left.

Tea watched as he turned into the building. “Ahh, I have to go to the bathroom.” She hopped to her feet and followed Seto’s footprints that he left in the pale, colorless sand. Mokuba crossed his fingers.

Unaware of the fact Tea had followed him, Seto let himself fall limp onto one of the beds, his worn out body, as weak and tired as it was, had reached it’s limit. How he could stay as perky as he’s been he’d never figure out. He heard someone else enter the room. “Tea?” his heart lifted a bit.

“Um, yeah, Kaiba, where’d you put the millinium rod? Cause the thing of it is-“

*Clank* Seto had quickly pulled it out from under the bed and threw it bitterly against the wall. The loud sound it made as it clashed against the wall made Tea flinch, she hadn’t expected him to throw it. He didn’t throw it at her, in fact he had thrown it at the opposite end of the room from which she stood, sending a strong message.

“Take it,” he spat.

She glared at him for a second, then moved over to pick it up. Right now she didn’t know how the rod’s magic might affect Seto, and it was Yugi’s. It was wrong for her to have handed it over to him to begin w/.

“Tea?” Seto said, his voice had calmed down and now came off as tender.

But Tea ignored him and went back outside. The second she passed through the cloth flap though she stopped and looked down into the millinium rod held in her grasp. What had she just done? Part of her wanted to run back immediately into the room and return it to him. No, she couldn’t do that, what was wrong w/ her? She wished it would just disappear right out of her hand.

“Tea? You took it back?”

Tea shot her head up. There Mokuba stood before her, his glassy, oversized eyes reflecting the deep navy sky painted over w/ pale pink clouds.

“Huh, oh, well it’s Yugi’s,” she said.

“You’re taking it back because you’re afraid he’s evil aren’t you?”

“No, it wasn’t mine to give away to begin with. I’m taking it back because it’s my friend’s,” she told him.

“Seto is your friend!” he cried.

“Um,” Tea became figety and nervous, she squeezed the millinium rod so hard her knuckles turned white, “I have to go, they’re expecting me back you know.” She brushed past him and headed back to Mai, Joey, Tristan, Yami, and Yugi.

Mokuba clamped his teeth hard together. He couldn’t just let it be, this was wrong. “Why are you ignoring Seto?!” he angrily yelled at her.

Tea didn’t even get 6 feet away. She stopped and turned back to look at him, “Mokuba?” she weakly muttered.

“How could you just of forgotten this past couple days?” Mokuba had so many things worrying him, so many thing picking at his stability, but he thought he could finally stop worrying about his brother being friendless. He wasn’t about to let Tea piss it all way. “He opened up to you, doesn’t that mean anything? I’ve never seen him open up to anyone before until now. Why have you just thrown it all away?” He looked at her, hungry for her reply.

“I- Mokuba. It’s really complicated and we just don’t know. I’m sorry my friends don’t trust him right now. My friends and I have been through so much together, I can’t just abandon them,” she explained.

“So you abandoned Seto?!”

She didn’t know what to say. Mokuba was exactly right. “Look, this is really hard for me-“

“-Not as hard as it is for him.” Mokuba cut in, his voice grew serious and low, “No one has ever cared for us before like this, until you. Even when Seto pushed you away, you still stuck by him. And it meant something to him, it really did.”

“Mokuba, what am I suppost it do?! My friends mean more than anything to me and they’re concerned,” she cried, “And I mean more than anything to them. Our friendship is forever.”

“Your friendship with him could be forever too…”

“I’m sorry Mokuba, I just can’t.” She slowly turned back around, staring empty into the ground. But before she could head off anywhere, Mokuba said one last thing that caused her to freeze up.

“He loves you!”

Tea quickly jerked her head back around, “Love? That’s an awfully strong word.”

“Well he does.”

“Mokuba, don’t take this the wrong way, but your brother doesn’t seem the type to fall in love,” she told him.

“I know, and that’s what’s so cool about it. I never thought Seto could grow so attached to someone, but he did, and it’s you!” Mokuba looked pained, she could see he was telling the truth. “He loves you, he told me! It was yesterday, when we went off for a walk…”

-- “Seto,” he said snapping his pendant shut, “I have a question. It’s about you and Tea.”

“What about me and Tea?” he lazily replied snapping his pendant shut as well.

“Are you guys like friends or something? I mean I’ve never seen you like this before,” Mokuba asked.

Seto had his eyes fixed over the sands of the desert as they bathed in the deep orange rays of the sun, “Yeah, well, no one’s ever cared for me like this before,” he replied in a tone that Mokuba never quite heard his brother use before.

“I care,” he said.

“Not like this, this is this is different…” his voice was so soft.

“Oh my gosh,” it hit Mokuba, his later bloomer brother was finally, “You lo-“

“Weird, isn’t it?”

“I never thought I’d see the day where Seto Kaiba falls in love,” he said joyously, “Tell her!”

“Mokuba, we’re going to have to go back to reality eventually. You’ll be placed in foster care, who knows where I’ll be, and once Tea meets her little friends again, she’ll forget about us,” he cooly explained.

“No, Tea wouldn’t do that!” Mokuba argued, “Tell her!”

Seto let out a weak sigh, “We’ll see…” he said, shutting his eyes slowly. --

“… And he was right!” Mokuba cried, “The second your stupid friends showed up you forgot about us!”

“… Seto loves me?” Tea slowly mumbled as if in a dream, and to be honest, not all too surprised to be informed of this.

“Yes, or at least he did. But then you started ignoring him,” he said calmly, “Tea, I understand that you would care much more for your old friends than you would ever for Seto, but you mean so much to him. Very few people have ever gotten to his heart, in fact there’s only 2, me and you. But once you’re there, trust me on this, you’re never coming out. You know, I always knew eventually down the road you’d be forced into choosing, but I thought it’d be Seto’s doing, not your friends, what does that tell you about them?”

“Mokuba, it’s not like that!”

“Are they really your real friends?”

“You know how close we are, of course they are!” she growled disgusted.

Mokuba paused, he paused for a long while, staring longlingly into her eyes. And then he walked away, off towards the rising silver sliver of a moon.

Tea watched him as he shrank away into nothing, she was alone now, left to think over everything that had just been told. The millinium rod was a retreat, for her to compare the Kaiba she once knew to the Seto she now knows. Tea stared into the gold for several minutes, studying the warped reflections. Her decision was made as she remembered she was wearing Seto’s shoes. He had been walking around bare foot this whole time.

The sun was swallowed up by the earth, a few white speckles had been sprayed into the deep heavens. The clouds that hung in the sky had transformed into a brass color, it was pretty.

“Where the heck is Tea?!” Joey grouched.

“Calm down Joey, girls always take a long time in the bathroom.”

“Hey!” Mai spat at Tristan, who snickered.

“She’s probably off talking to that brat Kaiba again. What the heck is going on with them?” Joey grunted.

Yami? It was Yugi, his spiritual essence hovered around Yami like a mist.

Yes Yugi? All their talking was done telepathically, both being souls trapped in the same body.

Don’t you think it’s kind of mean to assume Kaiba might go crazy from the millinium scale? Yugi had been neutral since the start of all this, in fact the truth was he was rooting for Seto. And Yami had been neutral too up until this morning, but something changed.

These items are dangerous. We have to protect Kaiba and Tea too. Yami replied.

Who do you think you’re kidding? This isn’t about us and Tea, this is about you and Tea. Ever since we saw them watching the sunset you’ve been weird. I can see your thoughts. I think you’re jealous.

Jealous?

Can you admit it or not? Talk to her.

I can’t.

Why not?

Yugi, I live inside a piece of jewelry, just a spirit who takes temporary control over your body. I’m not even sure how long I’ll be here…

What will it hurt? Hey, you 2 have been through so much together, how could she reject you? If it calms you down, I’m for it.

Different parts of Tea’s head pulled her different ways. Eventually Seto had come out of the room. If he had seen her, he gave no acknowledgement. Up against the grit wall, Tea just observed him for a minute. Once again she found him staring up into the sky speckled w/ silver. She walked up silently to him.

“Seto?” she barely murmured. He didn’t look back at her. “Seto?” she repeated, a little louder this time.

“So you’re calling me Seto again?” he finally said, his voice cold and dead.

“Well that is your name,” she playfully replied, but it was obvious Seto was in no such mood.

“I’m not sure I want you calling me by that anymore.”

She held out the millinium rod to Seto, despite the fact he wasn’t facing her, “Here, take it,” she insisted, “I didn’t give it back to Yugi. You don’t take back a gift.”

Seto stood stiff, still staring into the sky’s great vastness. Everything became a shade of blue as the stars and moon cast majestic silver shadows over the earth.

“Mokuba said you loved me.”

“Did he?”

“You’re not angry at him, are you?”

“Why would I be angry at him?”

“Because he either lied to me or spilled out your secret.”

Seto finally spun around to her, “Is it really that big of a secret?”

Tea looked away, “… no.” She already knew, ever since she first cheered for him when he dueled against Mai, she felt something changed. That was the turning point. She looked back over at him, “Seto, I’m sorry. It’s just- my friends just appeared out of nowhere, and you guys kept fighting over nothing, and they got worried about these stupid items and prophecies, and I didn’t know. We’ve been through so much, but th-“

“Tea, stop talking.” Seto took 2 steps towards her. She found herself staring into his eyes. She had never noticed before how they changed color. Sometimes they looked turquoise, other times they were almost lavender, now they were very distant and dark. Hope lived in them again.

And that left her to think about yesterday, when they almost- If her friends hadn’t suddenly shown up, would she have gone through w/ kissing him? The more she thought about if she’d have done it, the more she saw herself doing it.

He was so close to her, it should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t.

Are you sure about this? Yami asked Yugi.            

What are you afraid of?

They were slowly traveling over to where Tea had vanished off to. Yugi and Yami at this point had figured that, being gone for as long as she was, Tea had gone off to Seto. But they were OK w/ this. Yami just wanted to get the facts known and get the facts out there. What was Yami so nervous over? It’s not like Seto had any romantic interest in Tea…

Yami froze, and from a distance watched the lip-locked couple numbly. Yugi was in shock as well.

… that’s… interesting…”

I know there are about 35 more pages to the story, but it’s at this point when it begins to fizzle out. It’s more that it takes that many pages for the story’s thrust to finally die.

I wrote this story during a dark place in my life and it became a kind of oasis for me. I felt alone and full of anger and self-loathing, but when I was writing, those feelings dimmed and it was like I could breathe for a moment.

I’m sorry to anybody whose time I wasted with this nonsense, but this was once something very meaningful to me. That’s all.