( finding power )
“So, lemme get this straight. In collecting cards, a seven year old kid is Edgeworth’s biggest rival.”
“Yep. Apparently, he’s the only other person in the world to own the Ultra Rare Premium First Edition of the Steel Samurai, and keeps up the bidding wars for the newest Steel Samurai cards.”
“I can understand Edgeworth, but how the hell does a little kid have enough money to be a problem??”
“Take this seriously, Joestar!”
“What’re you talking about, Caesar? I always take card games seriously.”
“You’re in a place to lecture me about my morals after you stuck with Kiryu.”
Yusei’s about to reply when he realizes that the words are bitter.
Hurt.
Jack’s been nursing the emotional wound all this time.
He can’t lose the anger altogether. “I don’t walk away from my friends, Jack.”
“Am I your friend?”
v MyAibou’s Yugioh stories (Source: Fanfic.net)
Ø https://www.fanfiction.net/u/852008/MyAibou
Ø Yugioh
Ø Warnings: uhm. Some parts are actually kind of creepy?
Ø Yugi/Tea, Joey/Mai
Here’s another of the five. I’m listing them first, because they honestly feel professional quality to me. It appears as a user rec, but I’m speaking specifically of the yugioh fic there (mainly the Revival and Identity series).
It has all my favorite ships (yugi/tea, joey/mai), plus it does that thing that the other five do in that it goes through all the consequences. I even kind of had an homage to it in one of my own. Yugi gets to come into his own, duels are written in an interesting way, and seriously, there are cliffhangers at which you’re not going to want to stop. Probably one of my favorite things about it is that it’s written the way the Orichalcos arc should’ve been written—creepy, Lovecraftian themes without ‘you can’t fight it’ b.s. and an actually interesting villain. If you think Yugi’s a boring character, you’ll think otherwise when you read this fic. Every character has nuance and interesting parts (even got me to not be annoyed at Rebecca). The ending caught me by surprise, but then, it shouldn’t—everything in the fic set it up perfectly.
She reaches out to draw a card, and her hand trembles, frozen. She can’t move.
“Aw, come on. You gonna just give up like that?”
It looks like a surrender. It’s anything but.
Something…something breaks, and reality shifts, and suddenly everything is moving backwards.
She watches in shock as Chloe puts cards back in her hand and on top of the deck. As her own hand changes back. Four turns ago.
“…your move or what?”
She blinks, shaking her head.
“Your head in this duel or what, Caulfield?” Chloe’s derisive words bring her back to reality. Probably reality.
Last time, that had provoked her into playing her Negate Attack Trap card, which had subsequently been wiped off the field with Harpie’s Feather Duster. This might all just be a hallucination brought on by the stress of this week, but…can’t hurt to be careful, right?
She shakes her head, giving a slight smile. “I’m ending my turn.” She’s currently got A Hero Emerges down, which didn’t work last time anyway, so it’s not as big a loss.
Chloe stares at her as if she’s grown two heads, but shrugs. “No skin off my nose. I draw!”
( not what he expected )
They try to suppress the news; Jack’ll give them that. They all try their little hearts out too, even the psycho clown, which was a great effort on their part, and the least Atlas can do is appreciate it.
They’re all worried. Of course they are. Made of junk like that rather than steel, there’s only one place this Iron Man could have come from. That, and his actions made matters pretty clear. Sector Security abusing their privileges were quickly targeted. The people of the Satellite were protected, even from each other. To many, that was merely more proof of the depravity of Satellite citizens. To some, it spoke of something different entirely—he was a symbol of hope, a veneer of civilization. He was their hero.
But to Jack—
To Jack, this was just fulfillment of an old promise.
He had barely managed to contain his excitement, when he saw the pictures. He couldn’t let the Iron Man’s identity slip, not even when it was so obvious. After all, who else had the technical know-how and hacking skills? Who else was stubborn as he was gentle, and still believed in the people of the Satellite, when Jack couldn’t find it in himself to believe in anyone?
Well. That was a lie.
But as a rule, Jack Atlas lied. He was paid to be a liar on national television. The people loved the constructed identity that was Jack Atlas. He had to pretend that Jack-from-the-Satellite was dead—even further, had never existed.
Goodwin knew. The clown knew. A few from the Satellite knew. It wasn’t in either Goodwin or the clown’s best interests to tell anyone, and the Satellite citizens couldn’t talk—who would believe them? And anyway, the fans would likely tear apart anyone besmirching their beloved Atlas-sama. It’s not like they knew anyone to tell, anyway, unlike Jack, who (restricted only by Goodwin and even then maybe not by much) was the darling of the media.
The point is, he should trust Goodwin. The man had done so much to raise him from rags to riches.
Fortunately, Jack knows better, and suspects that Goodwin does, too. The man, like so many others, was motivated by self-interest, but at least he was good enough to come out and say so. Oh, he also gave good lip service to doing things ‘for the greater good of the world’, and maybe he even believed that, but a large part of it was selfish too.
With Iron Man, Jack could only trust that Goodwin would do what was in his own interest, not Yusei’s. So it was Jack’s own little secret.
I told you you weren’t motivated enough. Now you are. You’re welcome, you selfless idiot. You’re a dragon now, and it’s magnificent. He smirks as he stares out his window into the lights of the city.
“Yugi! There’s tea!” Grandpa calls upstairs, and Yugi opens his eyes blearily, coughing a little. He’s tired and doesn’t want to move, but he doesn’t want to waste Grandpa’s work, so he finds the strength and manages to pull himself up from the bed. His steps are slow, unsure, and it annoys him a little despite how much it shouldn’t. It’s the Pharaoh in him that hates being weak because it puts him and others in danger.
When he makes it downstairs, he shuffles to the cup after a muttered thanks that he’s not sure Grandpa can hear and begins sipping. He’s distracted a little when someone starts giggling.
He glances up, blinking a little, and almost doesn’t realize that his friends are here. He’s tired and distracted enough that it takes him a bit to grasp that they aren’t actually supposed to be here.
“Took you long enough,” Tristan states fondly.
“Are you all right, Yugi?” Téa asks, looking concerned, and he covers a cough. He nearly goes for a hug but remembers last minute that he’s sick and there’s limits to how generous he should be.
“I don’t want to get any of you sick,” he mumbles, voice hoarse.
“Aw, come on, ya sayin ya don’t wanna play Duel Monstas?” Joey asks, grinning fondly, and Yugi starts shaking his head apologetically.
“No, I can barely think straight; I wouldn’t be a good oppone—” And then he catches the mischievous look on Joey’s face and fixes him with the flattest, most unimpressed look he can muster. “You’re counting on that because you want a win.”
“Aww, you’re hurtin’ my feelings,” Joey counters, but he winks when he thinks no one else is looking, and Yugi rolls his eyes, feeling cold and tired and a little dizzy.
“Yugi, we wouldn’t be here if we were worried about getting sick. Just—if you get me sick, I expect you to play nurse for me, right?” Téa says with a smile, moving forward to run comforting fingers through his hair, and he’s half fallen asleep on her already. He’s blushing a little but she doesn’t seem to mind too much when he hides that in her shoulder.
“Well, we know you hate being on your own, and you have the best game system out of all of us,” Tristan teases, too, and then soon he’s got his head on Téa’s lap and she’s running her hands through his hair and she and his other friends are arguing about the game, whatever they’re playing, and cursing each other, and the restlessness has turned to contentment.
Jack would probably be more touched by “You matter” than “I love you”. He’s heard the latter so much, after all, but to hear he’s had a lasting impact on someone else’s life?
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