Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Tira and Jonouchi's Dangerous Prank ❯ The Chaos Formally Called a Duel ( Chapter 3 )

“Jonouchi! Jonouchi!JONOUCHI!! We have a situation!” Tira hollered into her mike.

Jonouchi had been playing Capsule Monster Chess with Mokuba. “Shaddup, wouldya? Mokuba's listening.”

“Well then, go into the bathroom or something,” Tira snapped. “This is serious, you baka!”

Mokuba frowned. “Is everything okay, Oniisan? I thought I heard some one talking.” He thought his brother had been acting strangely all day long.

“Umm… I'm just testing miniature microphones,” Jonouchi said truthfully. Mokuba gave him a funny look, but didn't say anything in reply. He mentally promised to strangle Tira the next time he saw her.

“You safe? Believe me, it is BAD!”

“Tell me,” Jonouchi said skeptically.

“Okay. Before Kaiba left, he arranged for Yuugi to come duel him. Today. In, oh, TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES!”

Jonouchi didn't say anything for a bit. He was doing something rare - thinking. After a few minutes he came up with results. “I migh' have a plan,” he replied cautiously.

“Oh really. Do you realize that it will be another forty-five minutes before Kaiba gets back? Meaning you will have to spend fifteen minutes dueling Yuugi. A person who is no normal duelist. And unless you know how to get a hold of a deck containing three Blue-Eyes -“

“Just stick wi' me, Tira-chan. I got it covered.”

Jonouchi hunted up that young girl named Sakura. “Hey, Sakura!” he called.

The girl was in ear range, for she came over. “Since when did you call me by my first name?” she asked. “It's always been Ky.”

“Do you know where my deck is?” he asked her.

Oddly enough, she burst out laughing. “You mean you forget where you put it? That is the joke of the century! Why don't you try that giant, high-tech safe you put in? And just because you've probably forgotten, the password is your date of birth. 102589. Which you made it so you wouldn't forget. Ha! Ho boy, am I going to tell Amimi!”

Jonouchi squirmed. He knew that Tira was probably in the control room, laughing her head off. “At lest you're not as dumb as you look,” he muttered.

Sakura glared at him. “And you're a lot dumber than you look,” she replied. She studied his face. “Your eyes look different.” Jonouchi ran off.

“Brilliant detecting, Sherlock,” Tira declared, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “That is probably the second person you have made suspicious, as I doubt Mokuba was fully fooled.”

Despite her rudeness, even Jonouchi could hear the undertones of panic. He knew full well that the more worried Tira got, the more sarcastic she was liable to be. He couldn't tell if she was worried about the plan or Kaiba's reaction to it. The fact that Kaiba was a good three inches taller than him was what worried Jonouchi.

He approached the safe, and dialed in the password, trying to decide whether or not Miss Ky was more annoying than Tira. Before he could make up his mind, the door swung open. He pulled out the deck, checked to make sure it contained the three Blue-eyes, and settled down to wait.

 

***

About fifteen minutes later, Tira opened the link again. “I see Yuugi through the security camera,” she murmured. Jonouchi groaned, and got up to stand by the door.

`Yuugi' walked through the door, and observed Jonouchi carefully. “Aren't you going to say something?” he asked, his voice unusually deep. “It would be a welcome change if you didn't.”

Jonouchi felt a little queasy. Somehow, he felt uncomfortable around his friend when he was like this. “Listen, Yuugi -“ he began, reverting to an Osakan accent.

Either Yami didn't notice, or he didn't know enough about Japanese to tell. “Just duel me,” he replied. “I have better things to do than listen to your abuse.”

“Erm… righ'. Dueling,” Jonouchi said weakly. Tira had set up a Duel Table, forgetting that Kaiba hated them. Yami gave it a funny look, but put his deck in place.

“I'll go first,” he said, before Jonouchi had time to open his mouth. “I summon Neo the Magic Swordsman in Attack Mode, and place one card face down. That ends my turn. Make your move, Kaiba.”

“Um, I summon La Jinn, Mystical Genie of the Lamp in, er, Attack Mode, and I'll attack ah, Neo the Magic Swordsman,” stumble Jonouchi, with a vague sense that he was doing something wrong.

“I activate my trap card, Reinforcements! It increases my monster's Attack points by 500, making it more than powerful enough to destroy your creature.”

Jonouchi watched with a sense of panic as his monster exploded. He'd lost 400 life points already, and he'd probably drop another 1700 by the end of Yuugi's turn. “I end my turn,” he muttered.

“Before I make my next move, I have a few questions for you. Namely, who are you, and what have you done with the real Seto Kaiba?” Yami announced. Jonouchi's heart sank to the bottom of his coat.

“How'd ya guess,” he muttered, hoping Yami would recognize him. Tira stopped the tape ran downstairs. She knew he'd need some help.

“Kaiba may not be the kindest of men, but he is a noble opponent - unlike you. For your cowardly kidnapping attempt, I shall see that you pay!”

“Yuugi, Yuugi, it's me! Listen, Yug, it's me, Jonouchi!” Jonouchi pulled off his wig, letting his fair hair fall loose.

“Jonouchi?!” frowned Yami. “What's going on here?”

“That,” said a cold voice from behind him, “is exactly what I would like to know.”

 

***

“I'm - huh uh - here - huh uh - Jonouchi,” panted Tira. She took one look at the room - Jonouchi, his wig, Yami, looking highly confused, and Kaiba, who glared at her - and knew that Jonouchi had confessed.

“I see,” Kaiba replied. “What I don't see is how you expect to explain this.”

“Oh, don't worry,” Tira replied, in her most dangerously sweet tone. “Yuugi ought to be able to understand our explanation.”

“And what about me?” Kaiba retorted dryly.

“You?” asked Tira, as though she'd never thought of that possibility. “Why would we need to explain anything to you? It's not like you matter to us at all. Besides, what you don't know can't hurt us.”

If looks could kill, Kaiba would have a corpse on his hands. As it was, Jonouchi was a little worried Tira might get hurt. He thought of something that would at least distract the CEO. Putting his wig back on, he tried his best to return Kaiba's glare.

Kaiba spun around, a look of disbelief on his face. “Is there a mirror here?” he asked. Tira gleefully pulled out her digital camera, and even Yami stifled a laugh.

As Kaiba caught on, a thought occurred to him. “Did you think it was easy, living up to my work?” he asked Jonouchi, his threatening tone gone. “Would either of you try to pull this off again?”

Jonouchi and Tira thought about how their afternoon had gone. After a minute, Tira spoke for the both of them. “No, I don't think so. It was a lot more work than I thought it'd be.”

Kaiba almost smiled, though not at all pleasantly. “Good.” His glare returned. “Now get out, all of you, before I call the police on you baka.”

As Tira, Jonouchi, and Yuugi - who had returned to normal - fled, Yuugi remembered Tira's exact wording. “So you've given up on this whole plot, right?”

Tira gave her famous evil smile. “I just said I thought we wouldn't, not that we actually would!” she exclaimed.

As Tira's last words left her mouth, a collective groan rose from the boys. “Well,” commented Yuugi with a smile, “at least now things are back to normal!”