Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ University Daze ❯ No Matter What - Pt. 3 ( Chapter 13 )

*Warning* Not a thing. Again.

Caitlin: Know what?

Kali: What?

Caitlin: This whole fluffiness thing isn't turning out like I wanted it to.

Kali: What do you mean?

Caitlin: The story is writing itself! It ran away on me ...

Bakura: So catch it!

Ryou: *sweatdrops*

Caitlin: I also got asked about the title. Well, here's my explanation: This was supposed to be one chapter but it's turning into several. Therefore, the meaning hasn't actually happened yet.

Yugi: Can you give us a hint?

Yami: I think I know. *mysterious grin*

Caitlin: Well, I suppose. *ponders* Okay. It'll have something to do with those two sexy blondes. *points at said sexy blondes*

Marik & Malik: Yeah!

Kali: Sexy?

Caitlin: *blushes* Oops! Did I say that out loud?

Bakura: so does she own us yet?

Ryou: *looks at the lawyers* Nope. Not yet.

Caitlin: Damn. Oh, and maybe I should mention that for this chapter, I'm going with the Battle City tournament rules (as best I know them) minus the winner taking the loser's rarest card rule. Does anyone else dislike that rule?

Pairs: Yugi/Yami, Ryou/Bakura, Marik/Malik, Joey/Mai, Tristan/Serenity, Kaiba/OC?, Ishizu/Isis

Chapter 13

No Matter What - Pt. 3

Yami pulled Yugi down onto his lap and rested his chin on the hikari's shoulder.

//I hope this goes well. Even if Joey doesn't win, maybe Kaiba will respect him more. Joey is really good and he'll definitely put up a fight.// Yugi said, silently.

//For Joey's sake, aibou, I hope so too. But don't get too hopeful. Kaiba is extremely stubborn.//

Joey and Kaiba took up their positions and activated their duel disks, drawing their starting hands.

"Go big brother!" Serenity cheered. "You can do it Joey!"

He flashed a grin at her then studied his hand. He was nervous and his hands shook, just a little.

"Since I challenged you, Wheeler, I'll be generous and let you go first. Make a move, if you can."

Joey nodded and picked a card. "Then I'll place one card face down and summon my Kojikocy in attack mode." He kept a calm expression on his face as he made his move. "That's it. Your turn, Kaiba."

'It's probably a trap.' Kaiba mused. 'Foolish puppy.' "I'll summon my Battle Ox in attack mode and play one card face down also. Now, Battle Ox! Attack his Kojikocy!"

The Battle Ox attacked and Joey smirked. "Not so fast, Kaiba. I play a magic card, Block Attack. It shifts your Battle Ox into defense mode and leaves me free to destroy it. Kojikocy! Attack!"

The Battle Ox took the hit and disappeared, destroyed. Kaiba shrugged indifferently. "Oh well. It's not like you took any life points."

Joey frowned. 'Just you wait, Kaiba. I'll show you how much better I am than I used to be. I'm just getting started.' He drew a card and added it to his hand, thinking.

"Yeah, Joey!" Serenity cheered again.

"Well, puppy? Are you going to make a move or what?" Kaiba gave him a bored yawn.

That, of course, annoyed Joey a lot. But he remembered what Yugi had said about ignoring the comments and names and said only, "I call Gearfried the Iron Knight, in attack mode, and place another card face down. Your move."

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. 'Hmm. He didn't rise to the bait. He could have attacked my life points directly. Must be worried about my trap card.' He drew a card then placed that face down too. "One card face down. And I summon Kryuel in defense mode."

Yami and Yugi frowned. Ryou looked back with a puzzled look. "What's he up to? He doesn't usually play defensively."

"I'm not sure, Ryou. But with Kaiba, you can never be too sure what strategy he'll use on you." Yami answered. Yugi was tapping his fingers anxiously on the armrest.

"Joey'd better be careful. Kaiba's up to something." He muttered.

Joey was thinking the exact same thing. He drew and studied his hand for a moment before choosing another magic card from his hand and laying it face down. "I'll play this face down and sacrifice my Kojikocy to summon Jinzo!"

Rebecca made a face. "He's kinda ugly, isn't he? Pretty powerful though. An attack of 2400."

"That's not all." Pegasus smirked. "He's got a special effect too. Let's see how you deal with this, Kaiba-boy."

Kaiba glared at him, then scowled at the Jinzo. "Very clever, Joey. Now my traps are useless. Lucky for me you can't attack with him this turn."

"Yeah. I could attack with Gearfried, though. But I'm not going to." Joey waved at Kaiba negligently. "Your turn, Kaiba."

'Alright. Maybe the puppy has gotten a bit better since Battle City.' Kaiba glanced at his hand. 'He's still not as good as me though.' He pulled another monster card and said, "I'll sacrifice my monster to summon Swordstalker in attack mode, and I'll play this magic card face down."

Kaiba smiled evilly at Joey's look of consternation, then attacked Joey's Gearfried. "Swordstalker! Take out Wheeler's Gearfried!"

Joey was ready for that though. "Activate trap card Shift! Now your attack is directed at my Jinzo, who is more powerful by 400 attack points. Good-bye Swordstalker!"

"Wrong. Nice try, Wheeler, but I've equipped a magic card called Sword of Deep Seated on my Swordstalker making him stronger than your Jinzo." Kaiba grinned. "Good-bye Jinzo!"

"Ah!" Joey cried as his Jinzo was obliterated and one hundred of his life points were lost. 'Great. Jinzo was one of my best cards too.' Joey swore under his breath and delivered a tiny glare at Kaiba's arrogant smirk.

{Don't get too confident.} Kaiba blinked and looked up at Yami. {He's got more where that came from, Seto.}

{Stay out of it, Yami. I don't need your help.}

{No. I wasn't offering help. Just some friendly advice. You have to admit, he almost had you there.} Yami's voice was amused.

{Ha. Ha. Alright, yes. I'll admit he's better than he used to be. But he'll never win against *me* Yami.} Seto said with supreme self-confidence.

{Maybe not. But you'd better believe he'll go down fighting. Even then, Seto, perhaps you'll recognize the truth.}

{What truth?} Kaiba asked, confused. He got no reply though.

"Earth to Kaiba." Joey was watching him impatiently. "Are you done spacing out? I'd like to move along, if you don't mind."

"Whatever. My turn is done." Kaiba shot Yami a look then went back to concentrating on the duel.

It continued on for half an hour. Back and forth the two dueled, whittling away at each other's life points. Soon, however, Joey's worst fears were realized as Kaiba managed to summon all three of his Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

"Eeep!" Joey squeaked. Staring down three of the most powerful dragons in the game, he felt a moment of sheer panic.

"You can do this Joey!" Yugi called from the sidelines. "You have the cards to do it! Just trust your deck!"

Kaiba scowled at Yugi. "You stay out of it, Yugi."

Yugi sighed and leaned forward to watch the outcome.

Joey swallowed. He already had his Time Wizard out on the field face down. He needed his Baby Dragon now for this to work. And he only had two hundred and fifty life points left, while Kaiba had three fifty. It was a close duel and this was the last move Joey had to make.

He drew.

"Alright!" He wanted to jump up and down for joy, but managed to restrain himself and played his card. "Baby Dragon! In attack mode."

Serenity and Yugi cheered from the side.

Kaiba scoffed, not realizing what kind of trouble he was in (or simply not caring). "You're going to attack me with *that* little dragon? Please."

"Just you wait, Kaiba. I'm not done yet. Go Time Wizard! Time Roulette!"

"What?!" Kaiba mentally kicked himself. He'd forgotten that Joey had that card.

Everyone waited anxiously for the little arrow to stop spinning, holding their collective breaths. All, that is, except Kaiba, who appeared a little too calm.

The arrow stopped on a time warp and Joey released his breath in relief. "Time Warp!"

"Trap card activate! Spellbinding Circle!"

"No way!" Now Joey was kicking himself. He'd completely forgotten Kaiba's face down card.

"Sorry Wheeler." Kaiba gave him a smug grin. "But without your Time Wizard, you're history. Blue-Eyes White Dragon! White Lightning attack!"

That, of course, meant instant obliteration for Joey's Baby Dragon.

It was over.

Joey sighed and took off his duel disk, removing his deck and handing the disk to Kaiba. Serenity hurried down the steps and hugged her older brother.

"That was great Joey! You did so well! I'm so proud of you, big brother."

He returned her hug, though inside he was heartbroken. 'I'll never get his respect now.' He thought mournfully, watching Kaiba walk away over Serenity's head.

Yugi approached. Pegasus was busy with his walkie-talkie trying to find out if everyone was clear of the area yet. The others were moving around and working the kinks out of their limbs from sitting so long on the hard stone steps.

"It's alright, Joey." Yugi, with his newfound Power, was very sensitive to others' emotions, though he didn't need Power to tell him how Joey was feeling. "I think that was the absolute best duel you've ever fought."

"Thanks, Yug. I really appreciate that. But it didn't get me anywhere, did it?" Joey felt tears welling up. "He still doesn't think I'm a real duelist and he never will. I don't understand how you can put up with having a loser like me as a friend, Yugi."

"Joey!" Serenity gasped. She hugged him tighter. "You're not a loser."

"She's right, Joey. And so what if you lost to Kaiba. You're still my best friend, Joey! Remember our promise? At Duelist Kingdom? We said we'd be friends forever, always there for each other. No matter what." Yugi poked him in the stomach with one finger to drive home his point. "Are you going to back out on that now? Because I'm not."

Joey sniffled, then smiled. "No. I always keep my promises."

"Good."

Kaiba, who'd moved a little way away, but was still standing close enough to hear, unnoticed, had been listening with a little bit of surprise. Why did his opinion matter so much to Wheeler?

{Do you understand?} Yami was looking at him gravely. {The only reason he wanted to duel you, Kaiba, was to gain your respect. I know how he feels. It's hard enough to get your attention, but harder still to get any respect from you.}

{Buy why? I don't see why my opinion should matter so much.} A thought crossed Kaiba's mind suddenly. {He doesn't ... like me, does he?}

Yami blinked. {Ah ... I couldn't tell you, Seto. I don't think so, and he is still dating Mai Valentine, after all. Would you be offended if he did?} Yami's tone was a little curious and a little peeved.

Kaiba just gave him a look that said, 'What do you take me for?' {Yami, I just, in essence, 'married' you and Yugi. Do you think I would have done that if I'd had a problem with gay people?}

Yami sighed. {Alright. I get it. What I meant, more specifically, was would you be at all interested if any guy made a pass at you?}

{Gee, Yami. Are you asking me out?} Kaiba teased, getting a distinctly frustrated glare and a mental growl in answer.

{You know I'm not.} Yami snapped.

{Oh, grab a sense of humor. Look, not that it's any of your business, but I might be interested. But like you already said, it takes a great deal of effort to catch my interest.} Kaiba took off his duel disk and walked towards the throne, climbing the steps swiftly. {I still don't see why my opinion should matter so much.}

It was Yugi who answered. He'd followed Kaiba back to the throne and caught most of the conversation, since Yami hadn't closed the link to block Yugi out. "Your opinion matters, Seto, because you are one of the best. And, more, because you are one of the few people who can get under his skin with a mere glance."

"I repeat: So?"

Yami nodded wisely. "Yes, aibou. I think you're correct. Joey craves his enemies respect more than anything because it tells him that he really is a good duelist. In his own mind, at least."

"Yes. It's easy enough to gain respect from your friends. And we all encourage him all the time. But it's not enough, sometimes, to make Joey believe it." Yugi caught Kaiba's gaze. "Take Mai, for instance. She thought he was a loser wanna-be too. It took making it to the finals at Duelist Kingdom to gain her respect. And it helped him get as far as he did. And at Battle City he gained the respect of a lot of top duelists, including Malik and Marik."

Kaiba stared at him.

"Do you understand?" Yami asked again, quietly. "You, Seto Kaiba, are the one duelist left that he wants respect from. You could say you're the ultimate duelist, to him. He looks up to you."

"I never realized." Kaiba, despite his indifference towards the world in general, began to feel just a little bit guilty for how he'd treated Joey all these years. He looked down from beside the throne at the blond duelist, who was wandering around with Serenity showing her the hieroglyphs and even translating some for her.

"Well, my people say the area's clear." Pegasus announced, getting everyone's attention. "I don't know what you've got planned, exactly, but now is the time to do it."

Yami stood and walked down the steps to stand near the center of the room.

************************************

Caitlin: Cliffie!

*collective groans*

Kali: I'm still not sure about the title.

Caitlin: I never said it was this chapter you'd find out. This chapter took an incredible amount of effort to come up with you know.

Ryou: *waves small booklet around* No kidding! Look! She wore out a rulebook!

Bakura: Good duel. I'd have paid to see *that* duel.

Ryou: No, I'd have paid. You're not allowed to handle money.

Marik: Why not?

Malik: Because he's a Tombrobber and money tends to disappear around him. *laughs*

Bakura: Hey! *insulted*

Caitlin: I'd just like to say, for the record, that I don't know for sure if the cards I mentioned are actually in Joey's or Kaiba's decks. I just used 'em for my own purposes, Ok? I also don't know how accurate all my little strategies were but let's all pretend they're completely accurate.

Kali: In other words, don't flame her for a mistake if she made one. *glares at fanatical duelists*

Yami: And as always, R/R!

Yugi: We love reviews!