diatu | ow the edge (open)

ow the edge (open)

Who: Kaiba (

blue_ice) and you!
When: One early September morning
Where: All over campus!
What: DUELS. In any and every game. Or try to talk him down from this madness, idk.
Warnings: Excessive edgy shonen rival behavior. Possibly some dark themes, will be labeled in subject lines!

Kaiba's request, in hindsight, was a foolish one. Every interaction between their worlds and this one thus far had been a disaster with unintended consequences, why would this be any different? And why would he risk his most priceless possessions this way? He could kick himself, but that's not going to save his Blue Eyes White Dragons. His hand trembles as he holds them, watching their attack and defense values slowly tick toward zero.

You are not the worthy heir we chose, says the trio of voices in his ear. Your emotions have made you weak. We seal our power from you until you prove that the spirit of a champion lurks within. Crush your foes with precision! Or are you now a coward?

No. He's no coward. Kaiba sweeps through the hallways with an icy expression, searching for prey. Any instrument they might hold for a game draws him...a deck of Fantastic Foils cards. A basketball. A chess board. A wand. Any game, anywhere...he absolutely must win. He swivels to face his chosen opponent.

"You. Duel me. Now."

Are you game? Or more inclined to tell him he's out of his mind? It's your move.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"???" He looks confused. "Really? Did... something happen..." He hadn't heard anything about humans and dragons, but, then again, it's not something he'd really been researching.

He feels his face color as Kaiba brushes aside his hair and their lips meet for the first time in what feels like forever. "But we're not an obstacle... n- not anymore, right... heh." He gives Kaiba a lopsided smile. He nods though, listening as they continue along.

"I think that's a great reason to keep fighting. It's the reason I fight. To be able to protect what means the most to me. My family and friends. My loved ones too." He smiles up at Kaiba. And for his future, obviously.

"I think she will. What you've decided to fight for... I think it's great. It's what anybody would choose to fight for and what most do, honestly. We fight for the same thing, Kaiba, and I think- hope- she'd be honored to help you reach the future you've got in mind."

"Mmm. She may think I've dishonored myself by relying on others, but I still make my own rules. They just so happen to include you."

Kaiba slows to observe their surroundings, mindful of the creeping thorns. He sees red lights in the distance...what could they mean? Likely not anything good.

"I never got around to explaining that. In this world, dragons were originally the masters of humans. With their far superior size and power, why shouldn't we be their slaves? Our pitiful existences were solely for the purpose of serving dragonkind, or so the only dragon I've ever spoken to has told me."

And he sure sounds unhappy about that. That had been a scary few minutes.

"The humans grew to resent their oppression, and so with the help of magic they launched a sneak attack, killing most of the dragons in a desperate bid for freedom. Only a few survive. The ghost below the castle, who tried to enslave Noa and I, and another one that Spyro seems to know---who thankfully sounds far less insane."

Kaiba scoffs as the wind rises, whipping at them as if being summoned by broad wings. A prelude to a trap? "Let's just get through this and I'll make her my offer. We might be getting closer...or it might be what they want us to think."

He frowns at that. "Really? I think that's just... silly. I don't think relying on others is a weakness. It takes somebody strong to be able to admit that they, themselves, have a flaw and, therefore, need to kind of, well, fill in the gaps using other people. Nobody's perfect, y'know, and to be able to finally admit that..." He trails off. "I don't know where I'd be without my friends. You only knew me briefly back then... but look how far I've come." He clenches a fist. "I never thought I'd get to this point, Kaiba, not in a million years."

"..." He blinks, surprised. "W- What?" Oh wow. Well that's definitely not the story he was expecting to hear. Yikes. "And what dragon was this? Are there anymore left? Aren't there a couple of dragon students here? Do they know about this? Seems kind of..." He makes a noise, seeming equally unhappy.

"This sounds all sorts of bad. For both sides, actually." Hm, so there are at least two dragons? "This is getting complicated..."

Yugi squeezes Kaiba's hand. "I'm sure you'll make her an offer she can't refused. She's not like those other dragons and you've already fought tooth and nail through many a tough battle. You're partners. Not enemies. Not master and servant. And we'll get through this too."

"I didn't notice you back then, but when I look back...you held everything together through all of that. You overcame incredible obstacles, led through inspiration, and finally showed me your strengh...and no matter how many times I insulted you or pushed you away, you kept seeing right through me. We're a team now."

He gives Yugi a fond look as they tread carefully. "I'll let you know if I find out any more, but the dragons won't really talk to humans. We're relying on Spyro as a go-between. But Blue Eyes...I have to prove my worth to her somehow."

Hopefully not through a death-defying stunt, but...the wind's picking up. The red glow intensifies, and there's a roar in the distance.

"Yugi, do you feel anything? Is that Gandora or a trap?"

He smiles at that and holds onto Kaiba's hand tighter. "And there's nothing we can't overcome. If you need any help with him let me know... though it sounds like talking to anymore humans isn't going to be a solution. It'll just make matters worse. Do you know any dragons that could try to, ah, smooth things over? Besides Spyro? Maybe having more than one could help?" Or maybe that, too, would make things worse. He honestly doesn't know. He's only just finding out about any of this.

"Hopefully this will prove to her that you're somebody absolutely worth fighting alongside." Hn? He lifts his other hand up to guard himself from the whipping winds. "It's not Gandora. I haven't summoned him. I only tried to... which is why we ended up here. I could summon him now, but he'd be much too large to fit in the maze. It's probably a trap." He moves forward carefully, but stops when the path in front of them starts to crumble, eventually giving way completely to an enormous pit of spikes.

Kaiba takes a sharp breath. "Kisara, maybe, but he might not like her human form. And I don't want to spread around who she is---who knows how the townsfolk would react. They only seem to tolerate Spyro because he's cuddly and looks harmless."

He rolls his eyes fondly as he moves...but that soon turns into a mumbled curse as the ground crumbles. He immediately summons a few vines and latches them to the walls, reaching for Yugi.

"Least complicated is probably a bridge."

He starts drawing debris from the walls, morphing and stretching it downward into a very knotted vine bridge. It's not the smoothest walk, but it should work...it extends most of the way, at least. He wobbles a little crossing, but they're almost there when the bridge stops.

"I'm out of material to modify. We'll have to blast across."

For his next trick...he flares out his coat, draws a glyph to manipulate the immediate gusts of wind in a certain direction, grabs Yugi...and jumps. He keeps casting, because this jump requires a lot of wind.

It's not the most graceful landing, but hopefully it's not a spiky one.

"It seems like we don't really have a lot of options then... And you're not wrong about him, heh. He's also really personable, which helps.

Yugi stumbles, reaching for Kaiba who is quick with his wand, helping him back onto solid ground and then using the broken bits to form a bridge for them to cross. Unfortunately there's no enough to let them get completely get across. Yugi frowns, his own wand in hand when Kaiba's already formulating a plan. "Blast our way across?" Before he can even piece together what Kaiba can mean he's shooting them across with a gust of wind. Yugi yelps, gripping Kaiba's hand tightly and pressing closely, because a bit more of a warning would have been nice.

He doesn't immediately let go when they land, but at least they didn't land in a bunch of spikes. "You've really gotten the hang of that thing for somebody that couldn't stand magic for a time, huh?"

Kaiba's not in too much of a hurry to continue. That fall had taken the wind out of him. So he clings to Yugi a little longer, giving him another kiss to his nose before carefully helping him up.

"I'd be an idiot not to use every tool at my disposal. And as unreliable as this particular tool can be...if it's what I have, it's what I'll use."

He slowly moves forward, arm in arm with Yugi. "Especially when the tool's used to protect what matters to me."

Another kiss, this time to his crown. That's you, Yugi.

"K- Kaiba." He feels his face heat up as he presses closer to Kaiba. He's in no rush to move too. He could use a bit of a break besides. "I know... I'm going to do what I can to master this craft too, especially if it's something I can use to protect the people I care about here, back home, anywhere, really. And I know that no matter the obstacles this maze throws at us we'll make it out of here." He leans up to give him another quick kiss.

"Ready?" He slides back and turns back to the path, using another quick spell to illuminate the entire corridor, showing that there are some hidden holes in the walls, the faint glimmer of metal hiding within - another trap. "Looks like we'd have triggered something if we would have just went ahead."

Yugi's quiet words and affection give him the strength to keep going. He smiles against his lips, distantly surveying the holes. That...could be dangerous. He straightens his robes, shifts into position, and lifts his wand.

"Wait for me to give the signal, Yugi. They won't hurt you."

He tries tossing a small object from his pocket down the corridor---nothing. He tries throwing a heavier stone on the ground. Still nothing. Looks like he's still going to have to go through with this. He fires a gunky substance at every hole he can see, summons a bubble around himself---

---and charges ahead. The good news is that his plan was mostly successful. Red lights dot the corridors as the traps activate, sharp arrows flying every which way. The combination of the rubber cement and his bubble shield block most of them.

Unfortunately, not all, as he goes down with a grunt once on the other side. One ripped through his leg and another his shoulder. Great. But the important thing is that they can't hurt Yugi now.

"I think I got them all," he hollers hoarsely, dropping to the ground with a thud. He uses his good arm to tear at his sleeve and pant leg, doing what he can to mop up. Not that he can actually die.

"..."

"...!!!"

What does he think he's doing?! As soon as he tells him that he's not going to be hurt he just knows Kaiba's up to something stupid. He seemed to have the right idea, but what fired from the holes was several dozen sharp arrows, which were all able to penetrate the gunk with little to no effort. Yugi is so glad that Kaiba was able to evade almost all of them, though he's hit by a couple, which has him immediately breaking into a panic. He casts a protection spell around himself and hurries after, trying to keep from losing his shirt immediately, which is hard given the state of his boyfriend.

"Kaiba, what the hell was that?! He kneels down alongside him, casting a spell to unravel his robes and turn them into bandages, which immediately start wrapping each and every one of Kaiba's wounds tightly. At least he always wears his regular clothes beneath, so he's still in his leather pants and shirt. "Why did you do that, there was probably another, less dangerous method to overcome that! You could have been hurt worse, Kaiba, or... or..." He growls, eyes filling with tears. "Just because you can't die here doesn't mean you can afford to be reckless!"

Kaiba looks up at him weakly. There's really not much he can say in the face of tears---they rip at his heart as Yugi patches him up He struggles to catch his breath, but at least his condition is stable now. The hardest thing to overcome is the lump in his throat.

"Better...better me than you," he whispers. "This might be our game, but you're the one who has to get to the end to find your dragon."

He feels guilty as hell, though. He stares at a spot on the ground. "But I should've asked you. It's not as though we're on a time limit...it just felt urgent. I'm sorry."

"Kaiba... I think you misunderstood, and for that I must apologize. But, here, let me set the record straight, and perhaps he can help us." Yugi takes a step back and wipes away his tears as he taps into his spiritual energy to activate the magical contract door that ties him to Gandora in this place. "Break free from your iron prison and join us, Gandora-X, the Dragon of Demolition-!" He lends some of his power to the duel monster who appears before them and roars, parts of the maze getting destroyed, because Gandora is much too big too fit. Yugi's wand is in his hand though and he's got to shrink him, so he doesn't completely destroy the place.

"It's not that I couldn't summon him. It's that every time I tried I ended up here. If I did again it would be okay, because I was already here." Gandora roared again, Yugi gently setting a hand on his head. He, himself, thankfully hadn't taken any damage so both him and Gandora were at full power, so it would be up to them to take care of Kaiba. "Gandora, help me get Kaiba up." They both went over to Kaiba to help him to his feet.

"...what..."

Yugi is very lucky that Kaiba's too out of his mind to react with more colorful language. He puts all of his weight on his good arm and forces himself upright to get a good look. He's beautiful, just as he remembers---not as beautiful as Blue Eyes, of course, but he's still having an Issue with his dragons right now.

Between his stubborn attempts to balance on his good leg, Yugi's firm hold, and Gandora hauling him with his claws, he finally manages to get his feet under him. He glances at a small fistful of arrows that he's picked up, some bloodied, and banishes the blood before morphing them into a cane with a whisper of a spell. He gently nudges Gandora to let him know he's okay before turning to Yugi.

"If you were together the entire time, why---why didn't you summon him before?"

"Because he doesn't exactly fit into the confines of the maze and I really didn't want to have to shrink him. I didn't know if it would hurt him or not, but I guess if you're going to be reckless, Kaiba, I don't have much of a choice, since we're going to need him to get through this now." Gandora makes a noise, but ultimately backs off, positioning himself behind Yugi in case anything tries to sneak up on him.

"And it was a risk. Who knows if something else might have triggered, like if we would have gotten sent back to the start or something. I didn't want to have to try, but I had no choice."

There's nothing he can really say. Kaiba's hair hangs in his eyes, and his posture's more hunched over than usual. Though some of that is the pain, of course. He's not so weak as to flinch, but he comes close.

He pushes on slowly, hoping to get a look ahead from the holes Gandora made, but they've mostly closed up. One of his cards is about to fall out of his pocket and he glances at it: 0/0. As he feared: time ran out. At the moment, that he hurt Yugi hurts even more than that, so he simply huffs and shoves it back in his pocket.

"Don't worry. Even if I could do something like that again, there's no urgency anymore."

"I know you were just trying to protect me, Kaiba, but I want us to work together. We're stronger that way."

Yugi catches sight of the card, but he's not quick enough to notice the values on it. He frowns though, looking to Kaiba and trying to gauge his reaction... it's probably not hard at this point, so Yugi just finds himself looking down at the ground, feeling guilty for having dragged Kaiba into this.

"There is an urgency now. You're hurt. Gandora, destroy the maze and get us out at any cost. You need power, yeah, so take all of mine." The orbs on Gandora's body glows, because, by default, Gandora doesn't have an attack power, so he zaps Yugi of all almost all of his, causing him to drop. He roars, bidding Kaiba to take Yugi and duck before all of the lights on his body erupt in red lasers, shooting the walls of the maze and destroying them. The maze starts to crumble, revealing other portions of it. Parts they had been through and parts they hadn't and, oh, there's the center.

"Yugi!"

Turnabout is fair play. Of course. Kaiba curses and tucks Yugi against him, curling over his body as best he can. His heart drops, and now he fully understands what he did.

Gods, he was stupid. And for nothing too.

He finally looks up when the red light fades, and there's the center, taunting them. Hell. He screwed up Yugi's chance to fix his own problem too.

He gently traces the side of Yugi's face, swallowing the lump in his throat and looking up at Gandora.

"I'm sorry. I'll protect him with everything I have. Just...help us, please."

Yugi is out cold. He's given almost all of his energy to Gandora, so the dragon could help Kaiba escape the maze.

Gandora roars, because they're going to have to work together to get to the center, which isn't too far, but some of the traps are still active. Kaiba is probably going to have to use his magic to build them a bridge, while Gandora can at the very least protect them while they cross.

That's fine. He can do this. Kaiba carefully drapes Yugi over his shoulders and rises on the cane, extending his good arm forward. He pulls together all his architecture knowledge to summon a sturdy bridge. He'll wait a moment to ensure that it's stable, nod, and then begin the long trudge across.

It hurts like hell. He really was stupid. But he made his bed, and now he has to lie in it.

"Yugi..."

He reaches up and squeezes Yugi's limp hand as he forces himself to keep walking.

As soon as Kaiba makes the bridge it's Gandora that steps out onto it first. He tests its strength and then moves cautiously, bringing his wings up to shield himself against any projectiles that are getting shot his way. Arrows, it seems, from across the way. It looks like some of the traps are still in working order, but better him than them. And his wings are thankfully able to keep him safe, so Yugi won't take any damage. The trip across isn't that long and soon they reach the center.

Gandora looks to Kaiba, waiting for him to step into the spiraling vortext to transport them out. As soon as they leave their wounds will all be healed and he'll vanish, leaving just the two of them back at the school.

Kaiba gives the dragon a grateful nod. It's been a rough trip, but they're nearly there. He reaches up to tighten his arms around Yugi one more time and steps through, immediately feeling a little better.

But this is no time to rest. Now that he has use of both arms, he shifts Yugi into a bridal carry and immediately begins the trek back to his dorm, without even checking to see if he stirs.

It's going to be a long night. And it's all his fault.

As soon as they step through the portal and Gandora disappears Yugi regains some of his lost strength. He stirs just a little bit in Kaiba's arms, though he's still in a bit of a daze. Turning into him, he keeps his eyes closed, letting him carry him back to his dorm, and it's only once they're there that he finally lifts his head and looks up at him.

"..." Though they had gotten out of the maze the look of disappointment on Kaiba's face. He wonders what had happened with the cards. He's almost afraid to ask.

"I'm sorry, Yugi."

He lays his boyfriend on the bed and sits beside him, taking his hand and closing his eyes.

"Neither of us got what we needed because I had to be an idiot. Look, I'll run it with you again when you're better so at least you'll have him."

"...so you lost you chance at your Blue-Eyes..." Yugi frowns, feeling an exobitant amount of guilt. And here he thought he could and would help Kaiba, but he only hurt him... and in more ways than one. "Kaiba, I'm so sorry." He ducks his head, hiding his face in his pillow.

ow the edge (open)

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