Yugi wants Atem to rediscover his passion for Duelling. What actually revives him is the words "three million yen."
This is a translation of an originalArtificial Intelligence work.
Original Title: 02 賞金王
Original Author: Gemini with 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
After dinner, Yugi held out the deck he had built with such care, wearing a concerned smile. Once, Atem's eyes would have blazed with fighting spirit in an instant, and he would have smiled fearlessly and said, "Nothing would please me more, Aibou!"
But the Atem of the present picked at the collar of his sagging T-shirt and shook his head weakly.
"…Forgive me, Aibou. I cannot summon the energy even to draw a card just now. I have to write the résumé for tomorrow's interview as well… and above all, I have no 'room to spare' for a Duel."
The moment he heard it, a violent shock ran through Yugi's whole body.
——The other me… the Pharaoh himself, refusing a Duel…!?
It was an abnormality on the order of the world turning upside down. The hardship of the living world had stripped away even his passion for Duelling, the anchor of his soul.
Yugi clenched his fists and swore it firmly to himself.
——This can't go on. I'll save the other me. Sorting out food and clothes and a roof matters too, but… more than anything, I want him to get that shine back. At the very least, I'll get him into one more Duel!
Having resolved it, Yugi had exactly one person in mind. The one and only rival who could tether Atem's soul to the living world and contest with him as an equal.
As luck would have it, Yugi was at that time visiting KaibaCorp regularly for meetings about developing and commercialising an original game of his own.
"Excuse me! I have to see Kaiba— no, President Kaiba. It's important!"
In a gap between meetings, Yugi pleaded desperately with the receptionist. But the response was cool.
"Mr Muto, I do understand, but the President's schedule is full for several months ahead. At present he is flying all over the world for the development of the new Duel Links system and inspections of our overseas bases — and in any case he is not in Japan today."
"That can't be…"
He had known it would not be easy, but having the reality put in front of him made his shoulders drop. The first lead towards saving Atem had been cut off at the outset.
It was just as Yugi was making his heavy way towards a sofa in the lobby.
"Huh? Yugi! What's up, why the gloomy face?"
He looked up at the familiar, energetic voice, and there stood Mokuba Kaiba, Vice President of KaibaCorp and Seto's younger brother.
"Mokuba…!"
"Your game meeting's over, right? Something bothering you? This isn't like the usual Yugi."
The small Vice President, worried at how plainly downcast Yugi was, spoke to him straight out.
Yugi hesitated a little, then steeled himself and looked Mokuba in the eye.
"The thing is, Mokuba. There's someone I really want to challenge Kaiba to a Duel."
"Someone wants to Duel Nii-sama?"
Mokuba looked surprised.
"Why didn't you say so sooner? …But you know how it is. Nii-sama doesn't bother with the rabble of Duelists these days. He's insanely busy running the company, and you could search the whole world and still count the people who can stand on his level on one hand——"
"He isn't one of the rabble."
Yugi cut Mokuba off, appealing to him with a serious look.
"He's the one Kaiba has wanted to fight more than anyone, all this time."
"…!"
Mokuba's eyes flew open. That man — the one his brother Seto Kaiba had burned with an almost deranged obsession for, and pursued across dimensions themselves. There was no way Mokuba could fail to understand what it meant, hearing it from Yugi's mouth.
Mokuba glanced quickly around and lowered his voice.
"…Right. So that's it. Understood. Nii-sama is made of pride, so he won't bite on a half-hearted invitation. But… if it's a formal challenge from 'him,' Nii-sama will drop whatever work he's doing and take it. Nobody knows that better than me."
Mokuba grinned fearlessly and took a dedicated mobile terminal from inside his jacket.
"All right, Yugi. This is Nii-sama's classified schedule going forward. When he lands, which airport, where the gaps in his time are… let's work out the strategy together — the 'best timing' to go straight to him and challenge him to a Duel!"
"Thank you, Mokuba…!"
With a reliable ally's help, the light of hope came back into Yugi's eyes. A revenge match, to rouse the warrior's soul in an exhausted Pharaoh one more time. The plotting to set that stage began to move quietly in the KaibaCorp lobby.
With Mokuba's help, Yugi succeeded in obtaining Seto Kaiba's classified schedule, mapped to the minute. But at this point the greatest problem of all rose in his way.
Atem was worn out enough to turn down even an invitation from Yugi with "I have no room to spare for that." Steering him into challenging Seto Kaiba to a Duel of his own accord was a near-impossible feat.
One night, Yugi spoke tentatively to Atem, who was sighing over a statement of apartment renewal fees.
"Hey, other me. There's a chance coming up to fight a really strong Duelist. …I think it'd be a great distraction for you."
But Atem only scratched his bed-headed hair listlessly and shook his head without strength.
"Forgive me, Aibou. The thought is welcome, but… as I am now, I find myself considering the reality that beating this 'strong someone' will not increase tomorrow's food budget. I would rather write a résumé for that night security post that pays fifty yen more an hour…"
Having no room to spare had turned the once-proud Pharaoh's thinking entirely "practical." At the part-timer's particular melancholy drifting through the edges of his words, all Yugi could do was ache for him.
A few days passed in that stalemate, and then a message from Mokuba arrived on Yugi's smartphone.
"Hey Yugi! We talked about Nii-sama's schedule the other day, but there's a Duel tournament we're hosting coming up soon. Why not enter this person you want to have challenge him?"
Concerned about how seriously Yugi had spoken about the Duel, Mokuba had gone out of his way to send him the details of the open entry bracket.
Yugi promptly showed the screen to Atem, who was hunched over the low table in the living room.
"Other me, Mokuba's invited us — there's a big Duel tournament coming up. You'd get to fight lots of Duelists. Want to go?"
"…No, Aibou."
Atem did not even look at the screen; he rolled up the sleeve of his sagging T-shirt and answered without strength.
"I say it again, but I have neither the Life (read: time) nor the stamina to spare for a hobby. More to the point, my stock of cold-brew barley tea has run out. I must go and make more…"
A complete posture of refusal. It was then, as Yugi half gave up and scrolled through the tournament PDF Mokuba had attached.
At the very bottom of the screen, characters gaudily decorated in gold leapt into his eyes.
[First prize: ¥3,000,000]
[Additional prize: one year rent-free in a newly built Domino City apartment tower (produced by KC)]
"Ah…"
Yugi went still.
The instant Atem stood up to head for the kitchen, Yugi thrust the screen in front of his face as hard as he could.
"Other me!! This! Look at this!!"
"As I said, I—… hm?"
The strings of characters on the screen — 3,000,000, and rent-free — flew into Atem's dead-fish eyes.
In that instant his brain calculated and processed, at terrific speed, the unpaid taxes, the throttled budget SIM, the merciless up-front estimate thrust at him by the real estate office, and the humiliation of the day he was thrown out of an illegally built apartment.
Atem's eyebrow jumped.
His worn-out spine snapped upright in an instant, as though bathed in the light of the Millennium Puzzle.
"…Aibou."
Atem's deliberation lasted precisely one second. He snatched Yugi's phone out of his hand and produced that sharp old Pharaoh smile——no, the smile of an extremely mercenary man awakened to the money game of modern society.
"What are this tournament's regulations? Restrictions on deck construction? When does entry close!?"
"Wh-what!? You'll enter!?"
"Of course! There is no reason for me not to take up this battle — this money survival! Wait for me, systems of the living world. This prize money, and the right to live rent-free… I shall wring them out of you with my draw!"
It was a mercenary motive, but at any rate, that glittering flame of fighting spirit was fully lit in the former Pharaoh's eyes once more. Whatever the motive, this will get him standing in front of Kaiba…! — and inwardly, Yugi made a fist pump of his own.
In fact, the tournament Mokuba had pointed them to carried one important regulation.
[Persons with a record of high placement in past official world championships, or in major tournaments such as Battle City, may not enter]
In other words, Yugi Muto, already famous as a legendary Duelist, could not even register: it was a tournament "for beginners and those without a record." But for "Aten," whose very family registry was dubious and whose official match data in the living world was a flat zero, it was a stage that could not have been more perfect.
"Heh. A back route where I am effectively unmarked, then. Interesting."
Atem registered on the spot, and the day of the tournament arrived.
The heat of the venue was tremendous, but with the world's top-class veterans excluded, the environment was, for a former Pharaoh back from the afterlife, nothing whatsoever but easy mode.
The other entrants, seeing their opponent Atem, let their guard down without exception.
After all, the man standing on the stage still had bed-head sticking up in a tuft, wore a T-shirt with a sagging collar and gave off a distinct air of "just off his fifth night shift of the week."
But the moment the game began, everyone present shuddered.
"My turn. Draw!——This ends it."
Flawless play with nothing wasted. Overwhelming game-making that saw through his opponents' tactics one move, ten moves ahead. Without meeting a single crisis, Atem mowed his opponents down — literally "lightly" — and shot up to the top of the tournament in no time at all.
Applause rippled through the venue.
Atem stood on the podium as champion, but there was none of the old divinity about him. Only a tired smile born of extreme relief, of now I have this month's rent and food money…
The tournament was hosted by KaibaCorp, but its President, Seto, was as expected away on an overseas trip. Standing in as presenter at the award ceremony was the Vice President, Mokuba.
"Congratulations on your victory! You're this year's— whoa!?"
About to hand over the prize certificate, Mokuba got a close look at Atem's face and literally jumped.
"You— you're really Atem!? …You really came back to the living world!"
"Hey, Mokuba. It's been a while."
"So when Yugi said there was 'someone incredible he wanted to have challenge Nii-sama' — that wasn't an exaggeration, that was you…!"
Mokuba understood everything. At the same time, he was shocked at how powerfully the former Pharaoh in front of him gave off the aura of a worn-out part-timer. That man made of pride, in a sagging T-shirt, clutching a certificate for three million yen to his chest with both hands as though it were unspeakably precious.
Mokuba cleared his throat and lowered his voice so the microphone would not pick it up.
"…Well, sounds like there's a lot going on. Anyway, congratulations on the win. As a KC privilege, the champion gets 'a seeded place in the next pro league's advanced tournament.' And if you name 'a particular Duelist you'd like to fight,' we can arrange the matchup from behind the scenes. …Nii-sama, for instance!"
Mokuba thought he had shown the finest possible tact. Accept it, and the dream match with Seto would be realised at once.
Faced with Mokuba's attractive proposal, Atem stared hard at the certificate in his hands — three million yen and the right to a year's free rent in a new apartment tower.
"…No. I am grateful, but I shall decline this time."
"Huh!? You're turning it down? You don't want to fight Nii-sama?"
Atem let out a deep, truly deep sigh. There was not a particle of the glory of victory in his expression. Only the sense of release from labour.
"To be honest, the Duels in this tournament offered me rather little to push against. …But more than that, I am fiercely tired just now."
"Tired…?"
"These past months the systems of the living world (read: taxes and shifts) have ground my Life down without pause, and my spirit had reached its limit. But now that I have this prize money and a new divine territory — an apartment, rent-free for a year — I can say my survival in the living world has cleared its first stage. …For now I want nothing but to get into that room as soon as humanly possible, savour a year's worth of security, and sleep like the dead without thinking about anything."
It was the mentality of a completely burnt-out part-timer.
A battle with a rival as mighty as Seto Kaiba would certainly shake the soul. But his greatest enemy at present was tomorrow's hardship, and having struck it down, he had not one millimetre of stamina left to spare for further combat (read: Duelling).
"I see… well, that's how rough it must have been. Got it. I'll make sure the arrangements go through."
Mokuba clapped Atem's shoulder with a wry smile. But as they parted he raised an index finger, as if suddenly remembering.
"Oh, right. Just so you know. Small as it was, this was an official KC tournament. Even from overseas, Nii-sama always goes through the results and the champion's deck list. …Especially when the champion's name is 'Aten' and the deck is this one. There's a very good chance he'll notice straight away and come challenging you to a Duel instead."
"…"
The moment he heard Mokuba's words, Atem fell completely silent.
The Pharaoh who once would have welcomed a rival's pursuit with a fearless smile now simply wore a distant look, as though his soul had slipped out somewhere.
"…Mokuba. I beg you, let me rest for a while. As I am now, I do not have the capacity (read: the balance left in my heart) to take that appalling intensity of his head-on…"
Seeing Atem so desperately in earnest and so utterly worn down, Mokuba could no longer help but sympathise. To have abraded that proud Pharaoh this far — the part-timer's life in the living world was fearsome indeed.
"Ahaha… all right. I'll throw Nii-sama off the scent for you. And I'll send a personal congratulations gift to that new apartment of yours. See you!"
Mokuba gave a dependable wink, stepped briskly off the stage and declared the tournament closed.
A few days after the tournament.
Atem was to set out from the Kame Game Shop, which had looked after him for several months.
"Thank you, Aibou. Thanks to you I have got a foothold in the living world."
"No, I didn't do anything. I'm rooting for your new life. Come and visit any time!"
Warmly seen off by Yugi and Solomon, Atem stepped into the newly built high-rise apartment tower in Domino City.
The room, close to the top floor, had spacious wooden flooring and a full wall of glass — a sacred territory so magnificent as to be beyond comparison with an illegally built apartment.
That said, there was nothing in the room yet. Only a bare, echoing space.
Atem spread his one and only possession on the floor: a futon gone slightly thin from never once being put away.
"Heh. This will do. First I lay out this futon, and then I sleep like the dead…"
He murmured it, and it was the instant he went to lie down.
Ding-dong.
The sound of a state-of-the-art intercom rang through the quiet room.
Atem opened the door, puzzled, and found a whole crowd of delivery staff lined up outside.
"Delivery on behalf of KaibaCorp, sir!"
"…What?"
The hours that followed were nothing short of a miracle of creation.
Elegantly designed furniture and the latest appliances were carried in one after another. A large refrigerator, a fully automatic washer-dryer (farewell, then, to the slovenly life of permanently creased clothes), and, enthroned as the centrepiece of the room, a plainly expensive, deeply soft double bed.
In no time at all, the room had transformed into a perfect space in which one could begin living at the highest grade immediately.
One stylish card was handed over by the delivery staff. A message was written on it in Mokuba's own hand.
"Congratulations on the win, Atem!
"Your housekeeping's catastrophic, right? Yugi told me.
"This should cover you for now. Don't worry about Nii-sama — just rest up first!
——Mokuba"
"…Heh. The finest Vice President there is."
The gentlest smile since his return to the living world finally came to Atem's lips.
Forgetting the automatic clothing rotation entirely, still in his sagging T-shirt, he dived into that brand-new, deeply soft bed.
The luxurious down bedding wrapped gently around the body of a Pharaoh exhausted by the rough waters of the living world. The throttled budget SIM, the encroaching terror of taxes, Kaiba's tenacious gaze — all of it receded into the far distance.
"Good night, living world… The win… is mine…"
In a sleep as deep as mud, Atem dreamed, for the first time in a long while, a truly peaceful and warm dream with no battle in it at all.
