A few days after the Memory War, Seto Kaiba walks into the Kame Game Shop carrying a letter of challenge from its owner. The old man wants to know why a boy nearly died on a castle rooftop. Kaiba wants to know nothing; he came to win a game.
Four topics, one board, and a wager on which grandson comes through the door.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 02 逆転の女神
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
That day the Kame Game Shop had an unusual visitor.
In his hand was a letter of challenge from the shop's owner.
"If it's my grandson you want, he's at school."
"There was an old man who saw fit to send me a letter of challenge."
Kaiba knew. This old man was an outrageous piece of work.
The lion throws its cubs into the ravine. Send the child you love out on the road. Things of that sort are said in every age and every country, and he was living them out to the letter.
The kind of man who would throw his grandson into the middle of the pride.
And since he could sit and laugh while he watched the boy struggle, he was bent out of true to an outrageous degree.
"Ho, ho. My grandson's been in your care."
"Which grandson."
"Which one, indeed. There is one grandson."
He said it and sipped his tea.
"I see."
Even as they talked there was no sign of a customer coming in. Did he have any intention of running a shop?
"Perhaps I'll close for the day. I'm in a business meeting."
Don't open and close on a whim. Beyond comprehension.
Click. Click. The sound carried in the quiet shop.
The ridiculous old man abruptly put on a serious face.
"You mustn't throw your life away so easily."
He understood that this was about Duelist Kingdom.
It was not that he had read the man's mind.
Was he saying he wanted his grandson kept clear of any hand in a man's death, however indirect? Rich, coming from him, with his own conduct set neatly aside.
Shimon's soul was, for the most part, this sort of troublesome personality.
"So that's what this is about. There wasn't one chance in ten thousand."
"Wouldn't a man like you have had other methods available?"
"The military satellites are live. I could have turned that castle into a honeycomb, if you like. Should I have started a war?"
"Hmm. That would be inconvenient."
Click. Snap. The sounds carried.
"You're very like an old friend of mine."
"I don't recall being that old."
"Cedric, his name was."
The old man began talking of his own accord.
He knew that man well. It was this soul's previous name.
The man who had fixed his eye on Solomon Muto, turned that eye toward Egypt, and in short manoeuvred him into bringing the Millennium Puzzle out into the world.
Though as it happened, it was the grandson who assembled it.
"Shall we have a wager?"
A wager now. That was the third topic.
"My instincts are sharp. It wouldn't be a wager."
"Now, now. If you win, I'll lend you my grandson for a day."
"…I don't want him."
"The rule is simple. Which grandson walks in here."
"There is one grandson, surely."
"So there is."
The same troublesome construction of a mind as ever.
The wager didn't work unless a grandson came. Had he forgotten declaring himself in a business meeting?
"And if you beat me, what do you want."
"Let me see. I was thinking of stocking Duel Disks in the shop."
"This is about the only shop in Domino City that doesn't."
Snap. A crisp, satisfying sound carried.
"Your friend's nickname would be Ceddy, or something near it."
"You know a great deal."
"I told you. My instincts are sharp."
"It's the eyes, especially. The very image."
These eyes were the same colour as that priest's.
However many cycles of rebirth were repeated, it did not change. Something like a marker. The colour of these eyes as seen by the men he had controlled with the staff; the colour as seen reflected in water; the colour as seen once mirrors had been invented.
Among the damnable things he had inherited, one of the few he could think of as not bad.
"Even the look in them is the same. As though I'd met Ceddy again—"
What happened to the wager.
The talk kept jumping back and forth; it wasn't a conversation.
It held together only because Kaiba's own working memory was wide enough to keep each topic standing on its own.
"But with the Ultimate Dragon crumbling — if you really had taken that attack, what did you mean to do?"
Back again. What happened to the wager, and the old friend.
"As far as your grandson is concerned, it's impossible. He couldn't do it."
"And the other one, as you people call him?"
"Was there not one grandson."
"Ah, so there was."
So much for there being one grandson.
How many times now. In the end he was conscious of it after all, wasn't he.
As Solomon Muto, that reaction might well be the correct one.
The top of a tower with the wind tearing across it, the bottom of the ravine at his back.
There was even a possibility that jumping outright would have produced the more marked growth.
That is, if Seto Kaiba had been willing to give up holding Yugi — no, Atem — in his arms.
"In any case, even then, it's impossible."
Because at that moment no road had been left by which Yugi — Atem — could bury Kaiba.
"Then why did you choose to win in that way?"
A way of winning that made the other man choose to lose on purpose.
Obvious.
Kaiba, like Solomon Muto, agreed with sending the child you love out on the road.
But being made to act on the idea that at least one fear of loss ought to be planted in him — that was because the memory said so.
"At that point, what good is winning by fighting normally."
Shimon. What is the use of a victory that takes no part in growth.
That remark was nothing but the memory making him say what he had not intended. Damnable. He knitted his brows.
Kaiba's own thinking, his own wish, was to fight normally and take the victory. And yet at times the memory did things that denied it.
At that moment, the memory of the soul indicated that what was needed was the growth of the king and the vessel.
He had not wanted to leave a wound on Atem that would never fade.
The memory got in Kaiba's way. It got in the way of a Kaiba who had only wanted to fight. Obey the memory, it said.
Damnable fragments of memory.
Snap — struck hard.
"Never mind. The grandson who comes in here will have a bad look in his eyes."
From the back of the shop came a voice saying I'm home. That was Yugi's voice. He had only been at school; it was to be expected.
"He usually comes in through the shop entrance, though. You may still change your answer, if you like."
Rich, from the man who had locked the door himself.
"I don't say a thing twice. My instincts are reliable."
"Grandpa, what happened to the shop?"
Yugi normally came in through the shop.
But today the shop lights were off and the sign had been turned to closed. So today he came home by the front door.
"A business meeting, apparently."
His mother said it.
"Huh, that's unusual. He always finds his games himself."
"It's Kaiba Corporation. I don't suppose even he could ignore that."
"Kaiba Corporation…?"
"Yes. The president himself. In person."
The president was Seto Kaiba.
Grandpa and Seto Kaiba. A combination that must never under any circumstances be allowed to meet.
Yugi broke into a run toward the shop.
Click. A sound.
"You're an old man without much road left. I'll tell you, as a souvenir for the next world."
"I've a good deal of living left to do."
"Do as you like. The card in my hand at that moment was Goddess of Reversal."
Swap the main line from the Ultimate Dragon to the Goddess of Reversal and the game was over. There had been no possibility of losing.
The damnable memory had made him throw his life away.
He ought to have been used to holding the memory down.
In fact Seto Kaiba was a man with a powerful self, and although the king and the vessel had been right beside him, he had never put out a hand; the barest minimum of conversation had sufficed.
But in that one moment, when it had been enjoyable, he let his guard down. His consciousness was taken over for an instant, and it swapped out one of the Ultimate Dragon's heads.
"Well, well. So a goddess was with you."
Transparent. He had only wanted to hear the truth of it. He had sent that letter of challenge for no other reason.
He simply hadn't been able to swallow the situation whole.
This old man was, after all, Shimon.
"To tell the truth, having talked with you properly, I've come to think your mental age may be somewhere around three thousand."
Another topic surfaced. The fourth.
"My age is the same as your grandson's."
Click. A quiet sound.
He surely did not believe there were literally three thousand years of memory in him, but he was not far off.
Though for Shimon, that too could be called a matter of course.
"And which grandson would that be?"
"There is one grandson, is there not."
How many times now, this miscounting of grandsons.
If Atem had been awake through those three thousand years it would be one thing, but the seal had stopped time. And Yugi was his age.
Bang!
The door flew open, hard and loud.
"Grandpa!"
The grandson who came in was not Yugi but Atem.
The grandson with the bad look in his eyes, that is.
"Kaiba! You—"
Cutting across Atem's words, the old man laughed heartily.
"Goddess of Reversal, is it. It seems the wager goes to you."
"Did you think you could win without even trying to?"
"Yugi, you mustn't come barging in during a business meeting."
The old man chided his grandson.
"Grandpa, but—"
Smack. The old man's attention had strayed, so he made a sound.
"Checkmate… ōte."
"Oh my, when did that happen. Even the way you place your pieces is like Cedric."
"It is the best move. Flatly, like a machine, you need only go on choosing it."
He threw back the line Cedric had spat, word for word. It made his skin crawl, but for the purpose of winning he agreed with it.
The memories had done exactly that. Flatly, like machines, for the king's sake. Bending their own lives out of shape to do it. To that he could not agree.
"Ceddy…"
"That friend of yours said the same thing, I expect. My instincts are sharp. Let this be a lesson — go and play gomoku on the veranda."
"Then — as agreed."
"Did you not say you didn't want him?"
"Having won, there's no help for it. I'll have them delivered. Within the hour."
"I didn't win."
"Don't imagine I'll permit a shop in Domino City that doesn't carry them."
Neither Atem nor Yugi had any idea what the situation meant.
Where they had hurried to, the two men with all that history between them, Solomon Muto and Seto Kaiba, were playing shogi, and Kaiba had won.
Grandpa was an expert at chess and shogi and old games in particular. Even with several pieces dropped, Yugi had never once managed to beat him. Grandpa was not the type to go easy. And yet.
"Yugi, my boy, I've gone and lost a wager. Would you let yourself be lent to him today, as the prize?"
"Huh? Wager? Prize? Lent?"
"I'll be borrowing your grandson."
"Wai— hold on, Kaiba. Why am I the one being taken? Grandpa?"
Too late. Solomon Muto sipped his tea and waved a hand.
He was not in the least concerned about Atem or Yugi.
Besides, there is one grandson. This one was Atem, not the grandson. There was no reason to do anything for him.
He put an arm around Atem's shoulders and headed for the car. The Puzzle was left behind in the shop.
"What wager. What did you do to Grandpa."
"He proposed it. Which grandson would walk in. If I won, he'd lend me the grandson."
"And you took it?"
"…I answered that I didn't want him. I don't want the grandson."
The grandson, meaning Yugi. He had no use for him.
"Then you didn't have to borrow anyone."
"Having won, there's no help for it. Though I'd say I was neatly palmed off with you."
"What kind of logic is that…"
"Atem."
"—!"
Say the name at his ear and Atem went red and shut his mouth.
This was what he had wanted all along. The memory, or Seto Kaiba. Probably both.
Sooner or later this soul would cross over to the land of the dead. The place that priest's memory had gone.
If the memory wanted Atem, he could not afford to take his time. That one was a thorough man, the sort to mount an operation on this scale.
"Where do you intend to take me."
"I thought I would let you know the taste of this world."
"…The taste of this world…"
Atem's face clouded. So there was only so much time left after all.
It was no wonder. Atem had far too many people who mattered to him.
Now then. Which of them would he make first.
At present it would be the vessel. For now, and only now, he would concede that much. It was a vessel that had waited three thousand years, after all.
The look of resolve in his eyes at that moment was something the memory knew. Something only this soul knew. An Atem the vessel could never know.
He would hand him over to no memory of any kind. He knew that one was thorough. If that one meant to enfold him from without, then he would simply fill him from within.
The car arrived at its destination, the Kaiba mansion.
He showed Atem into a room and had the taste of this world, literally, brought in.
That he had a weakness for sweet things, the memory knew.
He had often been picking at some fruit or other. Those fresh lips had looked far better than the fruit.
"This soul's vessel ends its role in this life."
"What will you do from here?"
"…Nothing changes. I'll do nothing. But I intend to settle it."
"I left my cards behind, if that's what you mean. Because you dragged me off so suddenly."
It was not with Atem that he meant to settle anything. A day would come for that too, in time, and that day would do.
"No matter. Not today."
"Ah. So that's… what you mean. You've got a difficult fate of your own, haven't you."
"Just so. If there is anyone who inherits the memory after this, he will despair before my power."
"You're… as confident as ever."
"If such a person appears at all. I intend to rewrite the system of this soul. Call it what mercy I can manage."
Atem, who had been looking at the heaped mountain of sweets and fruit, looked up at Kaiba.
"Can you do that?"
"There is no reason that one could do it and I could not. I will be the last to look at you."
"Seto… no — if it's you, Kaiba, you might be able to. But when you cross to the land of the dead, what happens to the memory?"
He was worried about integration, presumably.
They were separate entities, so they would remain separate. That was Kaiba's conjecture. The observation was still to come.
"Your concern is reasonable. But in essence, one need only not die and cross over to the land of the dead."
"There's no such thing."
"A reversal of thinking. Cross over alive."
The theory was not yet fully constructed.
Simplest of all would be not to let Atem cross to the land of the dead in the first place, but that too was a matter of time. It was already an anomaly that a man who had died three thousand years ago stood before a Kaiba living in the present.
"Reversal, is it. Come to think of it, what was that Goddess of Reversal Grandpa was talking about?"
"That is the old man's souvenir for the next world. He'll take it to his grave."
Atem evidently did not follow, and made a puzzled face.
A day might come to tell him the truth of that moment, but they had not built that much of a relationship yet. It was bound to be a subject he did not want touched. Pushing someone off into the ravine, and so on.
How many years would it take.
The seal had been broken and time had begun to move. As things stood, the time needed to catch this soul and hold it here was not enough.
Then he would have to catch him somewhere else.
As he had once before, Atem picked at the fruit.
Once before. No — that was not his own memory. This was a sight he was seeing for the first time.
Damnable memory.
He took a single grape and carried it to Atem's mouth, and Atem pecked it up without hesitation.
"I was nearly shot dead in the helicopter on the way to Duelist Kingdom."
"What?"
"I stopped the hammer with the Goddess of Reversal card."
"…Is that why you came to the helicopter alone? Is that what you were talking about with Grandpa?"
"This is the Goddess of Reversal story I can tell you."
Atem made a face that said he didn't quite follow.
He took another grape, but the table was in the way; he sat down beside him and fed him one more.
He tried a strawberry. Apparently not much to his taste.
A mandarin. It didn't suit him.
A lychee. This one he seemed to like.
So that this memory of today would be his alone to carry.
At the present stage the observation was overwhelmingly insufficient.
Goddess of Reversal
Even so, the hand was not yet complete.
Only when every card was assembled would he truly be able to catch him.
When he brought his face close, the eyelids lowered. And this, at a distance so near he could almost reach it.
Kaiba kissed him gently.
