A couple of days before the Duellist Kingdom started.
Seto Kaiba, the president of the Kaiba Corp, the only holder of the strongest duel monster, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and the older brother of Mokuba Kaiba, was sitting in front of a computer. Thinking to himself because of Yugi's words in their duel.
'You lost because you don't believe in the heart of the cards Kaiba!'
Just what was the heart of the cards that Yugi mentioned?
How could he acquire it?
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't come to an answer.
He reached out for his deck and drew a Blue-Eyes White Dragon and looked at it intently.
It was nothing more than a picture drawn on top of paper. How could it have a heart that Kaiba could resonate with?
Kaiba snorted to himself and put the card back into the deck.
Yugi must have said that to mess with his mind.
If that was truly his aim, congratulations because he succeeded.
These days Kaiba could not think about anything beside the heart of the cards, and it even started to affect his daily life.
He would be in a meeting with the shareholders, and he would suddenly drift, thinking about how to find the heart of the cards.
Then Kaiba punched his desk in anger and got up, putting on his trench coat.
Wallowing and pondering about such a thing was not the way of Seto Kaiba!
If there really were something like the heart or the soul of the cards, he wouldn't be able to find it like this.
Since Yugi said they existed, then he only needed to materialise them in front of him through science!
This was the Seto Kaiba way.
Kaiba then handed the management of the company to his little brother Mokuba and shut himself inside his laboratory.
His aim was to create a portable duel arena which he named Duel Disk.
This device would provide the convenience of allowing duels to take place anywhere and at any time. It would also be able to better portray the duel monsters. Hence, helping him realise the so-called heart of the cards.
Kaiba was truly a genius ahead of his time, and it was his destiny to change the world according to his whims.
Under his leadership the era of Duel Monsters was about to engulf the world!
*BANG*
Before Kaiba could even revel in this breakthrough, the door to his laboratory was kicked open.
The first thing in Kaiba's mind was not his safety or why someone would kick open the door of his hidden private laboratory.
It was the worry that something must have happened to his brother.
Otherwise goons like these would not be able to find his laboratory, let alone kick its door.
*CRASH*
Before they even had time to announce their intentions, Kaiba grabbed a metallic briefcase and stuffed the Duel Disk prototype in his hands and jumped out of the window by breaking the glass.
"WHAT!?"
The goons were flabbergasted. It was not the first time they saw someone jump out of the window, but it was the first time they saw someone jumping into a cliff...
Yes, Seto Kaiba's private lab was on a cliff, and below were sharp rocks protruding out of the water.
Even if he somehow managed to dodge them while falling, after he got into the seawater, the waves would push him into the rocks and take his life away regardless.
They looked out of the window and didn't even see Kaiba's cold body, but they were sure no one could survive a jump like that. Especially from this altitude.
"What are we gonna tell the boss?" The goon number two asked number one.
"Tell what? The truth, of course!" Number one then dialled a set of numbers on his mobile phone and called their boss and explained the situation.
Hearing the report, Pegasus was conflicted.
In order to make Illusion Society and, along with that, Duel Monsters the most profitable things in the world, he needed Kaiba's 3D technology.
He was too valuable to lose his life like this.
He had even kidnapped his brother beforehand so that Kaiba would listen to his instructions and work for him.
"Grab his deck and return to the island. I do not believe Kaiba boy~ would lose his life like this. So we can only make him come to us on his own volition."
Hearing their boss' orders, the goons quickly located Kaiba's deck and left the lab.
Five minutes after they left, a hand grabbed the broken window. It was unscientific how, despite grabbing glass shards, the hand was not bleeding.
Soon the owner of the hand pulled himself inside once again.
It was Seto Kaiba.
After jumping out the window, he had grabbed a protruding rock on the edge with one hand and hid under the window.
This was an inhuman feat, but for Kaiba it was just Tuesday.
"Maximillion! Pegasus! You will pay dearly for this!!"
Kaiba swore to take revenge on Pegasus.
Though it was unknown whether it was for the sake of his brother that was kidnapped or the Blue-Eyes that were stolen.
If asked, rather than choosing, Kaiba would just declare both.
If he encountered a scenario where he needed to forsake his Blue-Eyes in order to save his brother, he would just deny the premise entirely and answer that he was Seto Kaiba and he could do anything, including saving his brother without forsaking his cards.
***
Yutaka was sleeping soundly when he suddenly felt like he heard the roar of Red-Eyes Black Dragon.
It sounded in distress, which affected him, and he woke up as a result.
When he woke up, the situation in front of him left him confused.
There was a little midget leaning towards him and stealing his Star Chips from his gauntlet and his deck.
At first he was flabbergasted; why would anyone even steal his deck that was like Frankenstein's monster?
He didn't believe anyone aside from himself would even know how to pilot this deck in this era.
His second thought was that the thieves must be after his Red-Eyes, which instantly jolted him awake, prompting him to 'pin' the midget to the ground.
He had exerted quite a bit of physical strength, so Yuta was panting at this moment with a flushed face, which created a beautiful picture.
That was when Tristan arrived.
"...Yuta... I don't think your body is in good condition for such... *ahem*strenuous*ahem*.... activities."
Yutaka didn't even try to explain himself. This was an anime(?) world with different rules.
The moment he understood what he had done, he already expected something like this was going to happen.
Let alone this being an anime world, the foundational rules of this universe itself were different from his own world.
Why, you ask?
Because this world was created on the basis of card game rules.
Yes, you read that right.
Instead of physics, this world worked on card game rules.
Of course, this didn't mean that physics didn't exist; just like how there were card games back in his previous world, there was also physics in this world.
But it meant that card game rules could triumph over anything.
Imagine this scenario.
You confessed to a girl you liked, BUT she turned you down.
Then, not being convinced, you challenge her to a duel with the stakes that If she loses, she will give you a chance and you two will date.
Now, back in his previous world, that guy would have been sued for harassment.
But in HERE it worked differently.
There was a 90% chance of the girl agreeing to the duel, and if she did not know how to duel, suddenly a friend of hers OR another boy she liked would conveniently pass by and agree to duel on her behalf.
And if she lost, she would date him without any negative feelings.
So yes, being the strongest duellist in this world meant you could literally be the king of the world.
That was how Kaiba could do insane unscientific things like jump out of a jet without a parachute and still land safely while also being a firm believer in science.
Because card games in this world were science!
Now back to the problem at hand.
"Why did you try to steal my deck?" Yutaka questioned the midget pinned under him.
"I wasn't stealing. I was just borrowing it!" The midget tried to defend himself.
Finally understanding the situation, Tristan frowned and went to help Yuta, as he looked like he could faint at any minute again.
A part of him actually admired his tenacity.
His body was basically screaming that it wanted rest, but Yuta kept himself moving by his sheer will alone.
If he could read Tristan's thoughts, Yuta would have denied it and responded by saying he was literally being coerced by his Red-Eyes to save it. Otherwise, he would still be in the sweet land of dreams.
Now that he had Red-Eyes, his only goal was to just have fun and get rare cards to bolster his deck. Which was the exact reason why he was searching around for Bandit Keith in the first place.
"Get off me!"
The midget finally managed to move Yuta by biting his arm and tried to run away, but he was held up by the scruff of his neck by Tristan. His leg flailed around in the sky, but there was nothing he could do against Tristan, as he was too strong for a little boy like him.
"Now, let's see who this little thief is!"
Tristan lifted up the red bandana covering the midget's face and recognised him.
"Mokuba?"
Tristan had seen him in the Duel Arena before they left to take Yugi's Grandpa to ER for treatment. If he was not wrong, he should be Kaiba's little brother.
"I don't know who you are talking about." Mokuba denied the accusations.
How could a little thief like him be the little brother of the legendary Seto Kaiba, the strongest duellist in the world?
They had clearly gotten the wrong person.
Hearing that, Yuta frowned.
Another plot point he didn't remember from the anime.
He remembered Kaiba participating in Duellist Kingdom to free his brother's soul that Pegasus imprisoned inside a card, just like he did to Yugi's Grandpa.
After all, how could he forget such an absurd scene as Kaiba threatening to throw himself off the ledge if he lost the duel?
Then why was this midget not inside a card yet?
Yuta didn't believe Tristan lied or got the wrong person.
After all, he was a member of the peanut gallery, so how could he mistake the little brother of Yugi's rival for someone else?
That must mean the problem must lie with the boy himself.
"Oh! I got it!" Yuta hit his hand as if he realised something.
"What?" Mokuba asked, confused.
"He must be after my Red-Eyes Black Dragon. After all, it is the dragon with the greatest potential, even stronger than Kaiba's Blue-Eyes. So this kid must have gotten scared his brother would lose to me and came here to steal it." Yuta explained like he was some great detective that just solved a major homicide case.
"Hm... you might be right. After all, this kid's big brother stole Grandpa Solomon's Blue-Eyes and ripped it in front of us. He even declared that a 4th Blue-Eyes shouldn't exist because it could become his enemy." Tristan actually agreed with Yuta, and he was not acting.
If, just like Yuta and Yugi claimed, Red-Eyes Black Dragon had the potential to surpass Blue-Eyes, this was something that Kaiba actually might do.
"No! My brother didn't steal it! He won it in a duel fair and square!" Mokuba didn't want others to sully his brother's reputation, so he unknowingly gave himself away. It was too late by the time he had realised his mistake.
"Oh? So you really are Mokuba? Then why don't you explain why you were trying to steal my deck?" Now that the little kid had taken his bait, it was time to listen to his story.
Since it was an anime world, he should spill everything without suspense.
"I wasn't stealing it! I was just borrowing it!"
Mokuba defended himself once again.
"Fine, fine, let's say you were only 'borrowing' it. Why did you need to borrow my deck?"
Mokuba looked at Yuta up and down again before replying.
"None of your business! You just need to let me borrow your deck and Star Chips. After the tournament is over, Kaiba Corp will reward you generously!"
Yuta almost fell down once he heard his answer.
Where did the sweet Mokuba from the anime go?
Why was he looking at him like he was just some unreliable homeless man?
Granted, his body was not in the best shape right now, but he was still a duellist ahead of this era, okay!?
"Fine then, I am assuming that you wanted my deck because you wanted to duel, right? How about we do a little test? Tristan, if you don't mind?"
Tristan let the little guy down and looked interestedly.
Ah, this was precisely why he liked hanging around guys with the Yu-prefix. The life around them was always exciting.
"What are you going to do to me?" Mokuba asked, confused.
"Nothing. We are just going to do a little test!" After saying that, Yutaka brought out his deck and started shuffling it.
It wasn't just a normal shuffle; it was 'fancy'.
He was cutting and shuffling the cards in all sorts of ways like a real magician.
Even Mokuba was interested and couldn't take his eyes away from this impromptu magic show.
"Okay, here, take this deck, and you shuffle it as well."
Yutaka handed his deck to the little guy, who was excited to try it.
He seemed like he had forgotten what happened just minutes ago.
Even though Mokuba was a kid that was mature for his age.
At the end of the day, he was still a kid nonetheless.
But Mokuba failed to imitate him.
"That's okay. You can also shuffle it normally. I was just showing off just now."
"Hmph! "Here, take it." Mokuba flushed a little but shuffled the deck the normal way and then tried to hand the deck back into Yuta's hands, who promptly refused, confusing little Mokuba.
"No need to hand it to me. We are just doing a test, remember? So now, I need you to draw 6 cards from the deck and show them to me."
Mokuba got confused but started to draw cards one by one.
"Graverobber" Mokuba was surprised that the first card he drew was a trap card since, including his brother, most people don't like playing trap or spell cards.
"Tribute to the Doomed? What kind of bad card is this? Discard 1 to destroy 1!" Mokuba looked at the spell incredulously.
"Anyway, why don't you continue? Maybe there are more surprises in there?" Yuta didn't want to debate with a child about card advantage and the intricacies of the game and why it was a good card.
"Threatening Roar? Didn't you put any monster cards in your deck? Where is your Red-Eyes? Don't you have three Red-Eyes cards, like my brother does?" Seeing the second trap card he drew, Mokuba felt like there was some trick involved.
Yuta, on the other hand, received critical damage.
Did he think he didn't want to have 3 Red-Eyes?
Of course he did!
But it was already hard enough to find one of them.
He didn't have a giant corporation working for him to gather cards for him, okay?
"As long as you don't mention the number of my Red-Eyes, we can still be friends. Now keep drawing." He urged Mokuba to keep going. It was also a way for him to confirm the rules of this world and test one of his conjectures.
"Pot of Greed? Another spell! You changed your deck while you were shuffling, didn't you!?" Mokuba almost threw the deck to the ground, but he stopped himself.
Even if he was a little haughty, he was still the heir of the Kaiba Corp, so he was raised to be a gentleman by his brother.
"I cross my heart I didn't. Come on, Keep drawing."
"The fifth card... Harpie's feather duster?"
"Now onto the sixth," Yuta urged Mokuba for the last time.
"Blue frame, another spell... wait this is a monster card I finally drew a monster card, Lycanthrope!" Mokuba looked like he won the first prize in the lottery.
Even the little guy's perception had changed about Duel Monsters, treating monsters as rare things.
"Tch, too bad. It's a ritual monster, so you can't play it normally and need a supporting ritual card. You see, ritual monsters are one of the rarest and strongest cards, so they need extra effort to summon. If this was your first turn, your hand would have been stuck. Let's keep drawing. Since there was a Pot of Greed, we will assume you played that. Draw two more cards."
"Okay!" Mokuba excitedly agreed. Even he didn't know why he was suddenly excited to draw cards.
If he were asked, he would probably answer maybe because it was fun?
"Graceful Charity! Tch! Another Spell" Mokuba didn't even wait for Yutaka to urge him and drew again.
"Dragon Nails? Another spell. Why? Anyway, I drew Graceful Charity, so 3 more cards!"
Yutaka was about to say something and held himself back.
Did this guy awaken to gacha draws or something?
Suddenly he felt worried about the future of the Yu-Gi-Oh! world.
What if they suddenly change the genre to a gacha game from a card game?
"Stamping Destruction! Again!"
"Polymerization! Again!"
"Time Machine? Phew, at least I drew a trap card this time." Then he looked towards Yuta and asked excitedly. "Now what?"
"Well, it just proved my point. Even if you stole my deck to duel whomever you wanted, you still would have lost the duel because your hand got stuck." Mokuba's excitement was suddenly doused by Yuta's remarks, but he wasn't convinced.
"No! You must have messed with the deck. I bet there are not even monster cards in here, are there?"
"Then how about you shuffle the deck once more and I draw six cards to prove that there are monsters? If you don't believe me, you can also check the deck now. For you know, sleight of hand tricks," Yuta said as he moved his hand forward and an armtail appeared between his fingers.
Mokuba looked at Yutaka's magic and got interested again.
Maybe once this problem is over, he will invite a magician to teach him magic tricks.
They certainly looked cool enough for someone of his stature.
It was also a mature hobby, not childish like going to amusement parks.
Mokuba turned over the deck and saw that almost half of it was full of monsters.
Yes, the number of monsters in Yuta's deck had finally passed the measly 10 from when Mai saw it to today's 18 after adjusting his deck between duels.
Still, the number of spell and trap cards constituted more than half of the deck.
The cards did not have synergy between them either since they were not held together by an archetype, so the only thing that made this deck work was the draw cards.
Unwilling to believe his own bad luck, Mokuba made sure to shuffle the deck thoroughly before handing it back to Yuta.
"First draw! Red-Eyes Black Dragon!" Yutaka didn't even look at the card, as the moment he touched it, he could feel the affection of his Red-Eyes.
Mokuba's eyes, on the other hand, had grown as big as saucers. Before he could ask Yuta how he did that, he continued drawing.
"Second draw! Dragon's Gunfire" This time Yutaka had to look at the card since Red-Eyes was the only one he could pull this trick with.
He was not Yami Yugi.
Declaring the name before drawing the card... or Mai since she seemed to be able to do the same herself.
At the same time, Yuta wondered why he never remembered her doing that in the anime.
Or was this the world of the manga?
He never read it himself, but he knew that there was a manga of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Anyway, once he reached the Battle City arc, he would be sure since that was when the rules of the game became similar to the Yu-Gi-Oh! he was familiar with, so he could remember it more clearly.
Though, still, this did not mean he remembered every single duellist and duels. Just the general idea.
"Third draw! Graceful Charity"
"Fourth draw! Witch of the Black Forest"
"Fifth draw! Scapegoat"
"Sixth draw! Dragon Nails"
"Graceful Charity draw 3 more cards!"
"Sangan"
"Synthesis"
"Jinzo#7"
"Discard Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest. Add Cannon Soldier and Kuriboh to my hand! Set down one card and... oh right this was not a duel!"
Muscle memory was truly a mysterious thing.
Somewhere along the draws Mokuba had stopped commenting and started watching Yutaka intently, leading Yutaka to believe he was in a real duel and to play accordingly. It was only when he tried to set his card that he realised that there was no duel panel in front of him and remembered this was just a test.
Seeing how smoothly he played the deck, Tristan and Mokuba gave him little claps, to which Yuta humbly bowed.
"Anyway, do you understand now?" Yutaka asked Mokuba.
"Nope. Not one bit." Mokuba cheerfully replied.
This was fun.
His brother had never discussed Duel Monsters or played with him like this.
When they were younger the two would play chess, but Mokuba would always lose.
After they got adopted by Gozaburo Kaiba, Seto focused on taking over the company.
Of course, he didn't abuse or neglect Mokuba or anything.
But sometimes Mokuba would miss the days the duo played back in the orphanage, just like now.
Yuta almost fell over because of his surprise.
If he did not understand it, why did he clap anyway?
If they heard the question, both Tristan and Mokuba would answer; they didn't understand, but it looked impressive, so they clapped.
"It means, even if you 'borrowed' my deck, you wouldn't be able to pilot it?"
"But why?" Mokuba, who did not understand much about Duel Monsters, asked curiously.
Wasn't it just a game where you threw monsters, and the stronger one beat the weaker one?
"Because, Mokuba, every card has a soul inside it. I call them Duel Spirits. If a duellist resonates with their deck, they could draw any card they want, no matter how much the deck was shuffled or by whom. Sometimes they draw so many specific cards that you even start to wonder if they even shuffled the deck. Think about your brother. Do you ever remember him not drawing a Blue-Eyes in one of his games?"
Mokuba thought seriously for a second and realised that he had never seen Seto not being able to draw the Blue-Eyes White Dragon before.
Most of the time, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon would even be in Seto's starting hand. There were even times that all three of them would be in there.
Seeing Mokuba's realisation, Yutaka decided to hit the iron while it was hot.
"Now, do the maths. A duellist can have at least 40 cards in the deck. Though normally it would be between 50 to 60 cards. I am just a special case since I like thinner decks and use the least amount of cards. Then what is the probability of Kaiba doing that?"
Mokuba tried to calculate it, but before he noticed, the number was so small that he could not even do the maths anymore.
"That's because your brother's Blue-Eyes have Duel Spirits, and they resonate with him. Just like my deck. Since you were not me and tried to *ahem*'borrow' my deck, the spirits themselves rejected you and decided to hide inside the deck. So you were only able to draw spell or trap cards. Oh, there was also Lycanthrope but you can't summon it so it really doesn't count."
Mokuba agreed with Yuta's explanation. Since he was still a little kid who hadn't formed concrete views on the world yet, it was easy to influence him with some evidence.
Not to mention, there wasn't a single lie in Yuta's statement.
Ever since he was forced to play Scapegoat early twice, he has been suspecting some supernatural forces affecting his deck. Like the rule of Sakuretsu Armor.
For those unaware, Sakuretsu Armor is a really good Trap card that destroys one of the Opponent's attacking monsters, but it was a cursed card.
Why?
Because no one could actually activate it.
Whenever it was set in the field, it was either destroyed by a card effect or its activation was negated.
So the community jokingly called it cursed armour.
The question was, what if the card was actually cursed?
Since he was forced to play Scapegoat early twice, he was starting to believe it also had a rule similar to Sakuretsu Armor.
That got him thinking more.
He only played two duels with that deck, and both Cannon Soldier and Scapegoat were one-offs.
Then how was he able to pull off the combo twice?
Granted, his deck had search cards like Witch and Sangan to search for Cannon Soldier.
But there were no such cards for Scapegoat. He purely drew it both times from the deck.
Also remembering the antics of the sheep brothers, which even made him suspect the card had its own spirit, he started to theorise that maybe another person would not be able to play his deck.
Not to mention his deck's other combos like Jinzo + Kunai or Lycan + Tremendous Fire + Ookazi OTK or Red-Eyes + Dragon Nails and lastly Baby Dragon + Dragon support cards.
He even pulled off the last combo against Mai, but both times the sheep combo was the first thing he drew naturally, which was unscientific.
Yuta didn't think he was privy to the rules of this world like Yugi.
So he couldn't put in whatever card he wanted.
He had to put in a lot of search and draw cards even for just one combo to work.
But he was proven wrong just now with what happened to Mokuba.
Maybe he really was like Yugi, Joey and Kaiba, able to draw whatever he needed from the deck.
Was that going to change anything?
Nope!
Even if he slightly believed that he could be more flexible with his deck, he was still too much of a coward to change his deck building.
He didn't want to suddenly get his hand stuck during a shadow duel and lose as a result just because he tried to play acrobatics with his deck.
Stability was the best.
Just put in more draw and Red-Eyes cards; if there really were spirits in the deck, it would be even better.
If not, well, at least he could still draw whatever he wanted thanks to his draw cards.
Back to the present, Yuta thought it would be fascinating to see Kaiba's face when he noticed Mokuba believed in metaphysics.
It should be unbearable for a man of science like him.
The problem was he couldn't disprove Yuta because he didn't utter a single lie.
The best Kaiba could do was classify Duel Spirits as some bullshit sci-fi creature.
Like Duel Spirits were residents of a different dimension in the quantum realm that used their consciousness to project themselves into the world through the mediums known as cards. The reason they couldn't manifest in this world with their true form was because their dimension was a weaker dimension than ours, so they needed to use mediums such as cards to take physical forms and influence the world.
... Yuta was almost convinced by his own bullshit, so it was better to stop here.
Anyway, yeah. Kaiba won't be able to deny the existence of Duel Spirits to Mokuba anymore.
As he was lost in his own thoughts, Yutaka didn't notice Mokuba getting teary-eyed but holding himself back because a true man never cried.
He was a crybaby as a child, but he had made a promise to his big brother to never cry anymore, so he was holding himself back.
"Stop! Hand the kid over to us!" Two goons appeared from the forest and shouted towards them.
Tristan, being the fighting genius he was, didn't take them seriously and started to stretch his shoulder.
He was finally going to have fun... and then he gave up.
"How about we stop and have a discussion, like civilised men?" Tristan asked after holding his hands up.
Don't get him wrong. He wasn't scared of these goons of Pegasus. He could take them anywhere and anytime.
The problem was these goons didn't want to discuss martial arts with him and directly pulled out their guns.
Seeing that Yutaka also raised his hands.
He didn't want to die from a pistol shot.
If he was going to die in this world, it would be because he lost a shadow duel, not because of effing firearms.
"How about this: you can take the kid away If, and only IF, you beat my friend here in a duel?"
Tristan didn't hesitate to sell his good brother Yuta.
What if Yuta lost the duel and these guys took Mokuba away?
Well, what did it have to do with him, Tristan Taylor?
It was Yuta that lost the duel so Kaiba's wrath would be pointed at him.
The goons looked at each other, laughed and then put away their guns.
"Follow us," and started leading the way.
Yutaka was surprised.
Were they serious?
That actually worked?