#chapters: dragonsight

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Dragonsight:  Chapter 4

Those so-called supers were on their way. He snorted; they might be useful against small-time criminals who did not dream as large and strong as he did, who didn’t have powerful dragons as their bound slaves. They could do nothing against him.

First and foremost, he knew quite well that the five of them considered his greatest capture their ‘friend’. What a ridiculous concept. It was tantamount to calling a dog or a cat or some other pet their ‘child’ in his opinion. Animals were animals, worthy only of obeying a proper master.

Should they not obey willingly, then there were ways to train them properly. Such as the medallion he held now, or the collars that he’d created for his lesser guards.

He looked down at the medallion with a sense of pride. It had taken him so long to find it and he’d nearly lost his life in the claiming of it, but now it was his. Now he looked forward to having his silver-scaled slave devour anyone who dared to stand against him. When all the other dragons saw that he could overpower such a fierce beast, they would know they had no other choice but to cower before him as well.

He could not help but look forward to it. The collars he’d created for the guards took a long time to weave and enchant and he’d only been able to assure himself that small commands would truly work, such as ‘eat anyone who comes this way’.

He’d always wanted to be a dragon tamer, but any time he approached one of them, offering to be their master and trainer, the dragon ignored him. From the greatest to the smallest, they paid him no mind at all.

That wouldn’t happen anymore. The medallion saw to that.

And the dragons would see to it that he became the Master of the World.

Seeress watched, with the eyes of inside and out, for the slightest hint that anything was going to happen. She wasn’t going to call it ‘going wrong’, since sometimes the most surprising things could work out right, but when something did happen, she wanted to know about it.

Black Magician Girl kept them both concealed from whatever cameras and other surveillance worked in this place. Most of the people left inside – and there weren’t very many of those – just curled up wherever they could to stay out of the way, and wouldn’t have given them a look if they’d seen them in the first place. They probably would’ve been in slightly more danger of being cheered if the people had seen them.

But now they moved along, catching occasional glimpses of what was going on outside with their teammates and Kisara. Harpy Queen, Dancing Dream, and Entrancer dodged and spun here and there, not letting Kisara’s lashing tail or snapping jaws get near them. From the way she tossed her head and the pain in her eyes, Seeress thought the so-called dragon tamer pushed her more and more to fight them.

That can’t be easy. He needs to focus on her. That offered a thread of thought Seeress followed even as they kept on moving. If all of his attention was on Kisara and controlling her, then once she and Black Magician Girl got to wherever he was hiding, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself as efficiently.

Something about that twitched at her mind, something she thought she was missing. She couldn’t follow the thought all the way to the end, not with keeping the better part of her attention on making certain the two of them made it through with a minimum of disruption.

A dragon’s roar – and not Kisara’s – broke through her half-trance and Seeress focused her vision on what was going on in front of her.

Two dragons stood in front of what had been an elevator. Under normal circumstances, they could’ve simply flown up the shaft. But these two stood there, claws flexing, small tendrils of fire wafting about their mouths.

They were identical, covered in green scales and with a pair of sharp yellow horns on their heads, and even sharper claws ready to shred anything that came close enough. They tossed their heads around, dulled black eyes not focusing very well, but that didn’t seem to hinder them from focusing on the two people in front of them.

Black Magician Girl’s grip on her staff tightened. “Blackland Fire Dragons,” she murmured. “I don’t know who they are in human form, but they’re pretty tough like this.”

Seeress nodded, not looking away from the two dragons. They were looking at her and Black Magician Girl, but hadn’t yet moved toward them. They didn’t need to. If they kept the two heroes away from the shaft, then they couldn’t get to the false tamer and stop him.

A glint of something bright caught her attention and she looked a little closer. “Mana,” she murmured, not worried about using her companion’s true name. No one who could use it against them would hear her. “Do you see what I see around their necks?”

Black Magician Girl tilted her head a bit closer, peering. Her knuckles whitened. “Collars.” Again she looked and muttered something under her breath that her teacher Mahaado would likely have reprimanded her for.

Then again, if he saw what they saw, he would’ve said much worse.

Collars that reeked of blood magic and dragon magic at the same time. Which meant one and only one thing: dragon blood had been spilled unwillingly to create those collars. Likely from those who were blood-kin to these dragons themselves. Isis knew enough about blood magic so she could identify it and that would make the magic even stronger.

“Blackland Fire Dragons can’t see very well,” Black Magician Girl mused out loud. “They usually hunt their prey by sound.”

Seeress nodded, ideas flickering in and out of her thoughts. One of them would work, she could feel that, but she couldn’t pin down which one. That could mean either almost any of them would, or almost none of them.

Being able to see the future didn’t make planning battles easier all the time.

“Let me handle this,” the sorceress said at last. “I think I can get them out of here while you go on and deal with him.”

Seeress flexed her fingers, a small smile hovering on her lips. “All right.” This felt right, to let Mana do it. While not a dragon tamer herself, she knew a few things about them, mostly from discussing dragon magic with Kisara and one or two of the other dragons that the knew.

Just as well that Jounouchi is out of town today. I think he would’ve already torn this pretend tamer and had him for lunch.

Which wasn’t a bad idea, and one she grew fonder of with every anguished roar from Kisara, but why should Jounouchi have all the fun?

Black Magician Girl coasted over to the two dragons and waved her wand, sending out a wave of sound that couldn’t quite be called music. Both of them turned their heads toward her. Mana grinned at them.

“Hi there! So, I know you’re guarding this elevator, but we kind of need it right now. So, why don’t you follow me and I’ll take you where you can find some delicious food that isn’t going to complain about being eaten. Pretty sure I saw a fast food place right down the street.”

Seeress wondered just what kind of orders they’d been given. If they weren’t allowed to leave their guard post, then Mana’s deceptions might not work.

But carefully, ever so carefully, the dragons moved forward, their collars not giving them any problems, and before much longer, the way ahead stood clear.

To Be Continued

Notes: The flavor text on Blackland Fire Dragon: A dragon that dwells in the depths of darkness, its vulnerability lies in its poor eyesight.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Dragonsight:  Chapter 3

Isis very seldom bothered to run. When one could see the future on a more or less consistent basis, there wasn’t any need to. But now she did step along just a little faster, not entirely a run, but not not a run, either. The sooner that she found this rogue dragon tamer and undid whatever they’d done to Kisara, the better.

She tried very hard not to get angry. She wanted to, but anger would distract her too much, make her want to hurt this so-called tamer, instead of helping Kisara, and helping Kisara rang first and foremost in her mind. Freeing her meant that the city would be safe and then they could get down to explaining that mind-controlling a gigantic dragon wasn’t a good idea at all.

Some tamers needed that explained to them in the most painful ways possible.

Perhaps we should ask Kaiba to lend a hand in this. He considered himself the greatest of tamers, and perhaps he was. He and Kisara did have a significant bond of their own, and she doubted very much that he liked seeing the blue-eyed white dragon causing damage that wasn’t in the further cause of helping others.

Isis closed her eyes for a few seconds, focusing her thoughts on the CEO of KaibaCorp, wanting to see what his own immediate future would be. She couldn’t always see what he was up to; he wielded one of the few weapons that could block her sight. But since he very seldom wanted to use that weapon, she could see what he had in store for him.

Or normally. Just because he didn’t want to use it that often didn’t mean that he didn’t use it at all. Her vision remained blocked and she frowned as she opened her eyes.

If he’s using it, there’s trouble around him. Perhaps he was helping with getting people to safety? He wasn’t the most altruistic of people by any means, but it wasn’t absolutely impossible. She would have to find one of the others and see if they could figure out what he was doing and if he could be spared to help them.

But first she would have to find one who could help her get whatever it was that the rogue tamer had.

She turned her thoughts that way, picking through the myriad paths that the future held. Tracking down one particular thread, or even multiple threads, took a great deal of attention and focus.

Within the depths of her mind an image flowered: one of the tallest buildings in the city. It wasn’t one of Kaiba’s; those could not be entered by other dragon tamers unless Kaiba himself allowed it. He didn’t like intruders very much. But she knew which building it was, and in her mind’s eye, she could see Kisara in her dragon form, perched in front of the building, gulping down what looked like an intruder. What little she could see didn’t tell her who it was, but the pain in Kisara’s eyes told her everything else: it wasn’t a set in stone future. She could change it.

She would change it. She would make certain Kisara didn’t eat people like that, or at all.

She refocused her thoughts, now with the sense of the dragon tamer to bear down on. Without having seen him, this was harder than it might sound, but she tried it anyway, winding her way through Kisara’s potential futures. That would tell her what she needed to know.

Flash of light.

Medallion.

Bright gold medallion.

Carved with a stylized dragon.

A single drop of blood.

A dragon’s scream of rage.

Isis opened her eyes and held her rage in by force of will. That was what she saw, but she felt so much more. How many dragons’ lives had been sacrificed to create that medallion. How much it hurt for them to have to obey whoever wielded it.

It was put away for a long time. Then he dug it up and he’s using it.

Only dragonfire could destroy it forever, and at the time, no dragon had wanted to be close enough to try it, in case someone tried to rescue it.

Isis swore to herself that wouldn’t happen again. Once this so-called tamer – not even a proper tamer, one who could create a bond with a dragon or dragons through effort and emotion – was disposed of, then she suspected Kisara would be more than willing to get rid of this forever.

But she knew where the dragon tamer was now, and how to do what needed to be done. She moved more briskly towards the building, looking up in time to see her companions starting to gather around her once more.

“We couldn’t find out a whole lot,” Harpy Queen reported, preening nervously. “Except that we’re pretty sure he’s over there.” She jerked her head toward the building as they all got closer to it. “Hope you did better.”

“It’s definitely a rogue dragon tamer,” Isis agreed, slipping easily to her Seeress identity. There wasn’t much effort involved in that. “Kisara couldn’t tell me much other than that, but I did manage to see how he’s doing it. It’s an ancient amulet, one created from far too many dragons being slain. Only dragonfire can destroy it.”

Dancing Dream spun to a halt not that far away, but only for a few moments. None of them could afford to stop for more than a few breaths. “So how do we get there and get it away from him when Kisara’s the one on guard?”

Seeress considered that. “You, Harpy Queen, and Entrancer can keep her distracted. Black Magician Girl, you and I will slip inside and get the medallion.”

Entrancer sniffed. “I think I’d be of more use inside against him.” She wasn’t boasting; there were few of any gender who could resist Entrancer’s pheromones.

“If he’s done any research at all about us, he would’ve done his best to guard against as many of us as he can. That might be why he picked Kisara in particular,” Seeress said, moving to one side to avoid some of the falling debris. Exactly what made it fall she couldn’t tell, but more because she had the bulk of her attention on working out how to get into the building without harming Kisara.

Entrancer made a face. “You’re probably right. Does he have any other troops besides her?”

“Not that I’ve noticed, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up that he only has her.” Seeress didn’t dare to take her eyes off of the future, and while she couldn’t see any encounter with mooks on the tamer’s side, that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Only that it wasn’t likely they would encounter them.

The others nodded; they would make their own plans once they were on the way. Trying to plan too much could cause Seeress too many problems, not to mention getting them so tangled up in what could be or might be that they never got around to doing anything.

Black Magician Girl had teased more than once that with Seeress’s powers, it was not only easier for their enemies to just make up plans on the fly, but easier for them as well. Seeress wasn’t going to argue the point, especially now.

She turned toward Harpy Queen. “Are you ready?”

Harpy Queen flexed her talons as she spread her wings to cup the air. “Always.”

To Be Continued

Notes: Has anyone guessed who the other magical girls are, by the way? They're all canon characters. Some are more obvious than others, of course. I will be very disappointed if no one guesses Harpy Queen or Black Magician Girl ;)

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Dragonsight:  Chapter 2

Kisara wanted to do anything that wasn’t lay waste to the city. She’d gone out only to pick up a few things at a local grocery store where she knew the clerks wouldn’t bother her. She did her best to hide what she was, tucking her long white hair underneath a scarf and keeping her eyes turned away from everyone.

Anyone who saw her eyes knew they were the eyes of a dragon. Nothing she’d done could ever hide that. A dragon’s eyes could see into one’s soul. There weren’t many people who wanted to deal with that.

Only two could meet her gaze without fear. One was Kaiba Seto, who cared little for what anyone else thought of his soul. One was Isis Ishtar, whose soul glowed bright with purity and heroism.

As was only proper, as she was one of the heroes who defended the city against people like…

People like the dragon tamer who ruled her body now.

She drew her head back – or had it drawn back as if it were on a leash – and unleash a blazing gout of fire against a building, setting it aflame. She couldn’t tell if there were people inside or not. Most of this part of the city had been evacuated when she started to burn everything around her. But there were always people who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave…

She wanted Isis to find the dragon tamer and end this.

It would be better that Isis found whoever it was than if Seto did. Seto was also a dragon tamer. Seto did not take kindly to dragons being hurt.

He would tell her to destroy him. She would do so, and gladly, regardless of all else.

But Isis would simply eliminate the rouge tamer and that was all there would be to it. He would never again harm anyone, no matter which of them found him. His fate alone would depend on who found him.

She wasn’t sure of where Isis had gone, only that she’d sworn to bring this to an end. Kisara wanted that, far more so than she wanted anything else.

You’ll protect me, beast. A harsh, cold voice ripped into her mind and she yowled, hating the sound of it. Silence!

A dragon obeyed a dragon tamer, once their will had been established. But that required knowing the dragon. Frequently it could take days or weeks to create the proper bond.

This ‘tamer’ - that wasn’t the proper word, a true tamer was someone like Kaiba Seto, who respected dragons and cared about them and wanted to work with them for the greater benefit of...well, not everyone, but he made certain that no dragons were used like Kisara herself was being used right now.

I am the supreme dragon tamer! All of them will bow before me, and so will the entire world!

Kisara would’ve rolled her eyes if she could have. Dragon eyes weren’t built for that. But her distaste leaked through her thoughts and the so-called tamer lashed at her, yanking another howl of pain from her, followed by a lashing her tail that wrecked two buildings.

You’re nothing but a beast that apes human form...or did. You’ll never lie to another again like that. You are my beast, my slave, and you will remain that way, forever!

If he’d been in front of her at the moment, Kisara would’ve forgone her personal ethics of not eating human flesh and dined on him anyway. Threatening to keep her in chains, magical or iron, wasn’t the way to gain her assent for anything.

But he clearly didn’t want her assent, and likely wouldn’t have taken it even if offered.

Then an image burst into her mind, the shape of a building, one that wasn’t in the same area she was.

Come to me, my slave. Those foolish ‘heroes’ wish to stop me and you’re going to defend me against them.

Those were her friends. She’d do nothing to stop them and everything within her power to help them.

I said, come to me!

Without her will, her wings spread wide and the wind caught under them, lifting her up into the skies. She circled until she spied the building she’d been shown and settled down in front of there. It wasn’t one she recognized, but she didn’t get out enough into the city to know most of them.

What she did know was what it wasn’t. It wasn’t KaibaCorp or any building that Seto owned. Such a place would have his scent all over it, even if he’d never been there. Dragons knew who owned something merely by existing near it, and this place didn’t have an owner.

Not anymore, at least. There was the fading traces that indicated it had been owned not that long ago.

The ‘tamer’ had likely taken care of it. She wanted him gone more than ever.

At his direction she settled herself down in front of the building and waited for any sign of someone coming in to do...whatever to him. She couldn’t tell if anyone was on the way or not. They might not even know where he was.

But if they didn’t, then seeing her move would at least give them a hint. Domino City was big, but a dragon moving got people’s attention. If her friends didn’t know where she was, someone would tell them, sooner or later.

She still didn’t know what her captor looked like or what he wanted, aside from his ridiculous rantings about everyone bowing down to him. Even if her friends weren’t going to stop, having only one dragon at his command wasn’t going to make everyone else serve him.

But I won’t have just one dragon. I’m going to have them all, beast. I can control every dragon in the world, all at the same time!

Into her mind there flashed an image of a talisman of some kind, something sketched into a general frame of a dragon, not any one in particular. But it shone with magic to her mind and she knew that was why she had to obey the monster.

No. He wasn’t a monster. She knew monsters. She was one. She wasn’t going to insult them by using that word for him.

She didn’t know what to call him, but it would be something foul enough to match his madness.

You will call me master, beast! It is what I am! The Master of the World!

Kisara didn’t even deign to let a single thought slip by about that. He was mad, far beyond mad, and someone would have to take care of him. She couldn’t tell if it would be her or Isis or one of the others, but someone would do it.

If anyone comes near here without my permission, I command that you devour them at once. Give them no time to react. Eat them in one gulp and rejoice at serving your master!

Kisara’s mental lip curled at that. She’d never wanted to cause harm to anyone, let alone those who were going to come and help her. But the talisman’s power exerted itself, holding her in a wary fashion, and to her dismay, she could see familiar shapes moving toward her now.

One of them was Isis.

To Be Continued

Notes: I finally finished this, so updates will be regular, once a week, until I've got all the chapters posted.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Dragonsight:  Chapter 1

Seeing a dragon in the skies over Domino City wasn’t that big of a deal for the people who lived there. While no one knew who they were when they didn’t wear scales, everyone knew there were at least five or six people who could take the form of a dragon, and most of them did so in order to help others to whatever extent they could.

The one that soared over the city now was one of those, and perhaps the one most well-known.

Though not well-loved; dragons being known didn’t mean that they were welcomed or loved.

But no one truly expected the dragon form of Blue Eyes to settle down in one of the city gardens, take a deep breath, and blast the nearest buildings into flaming rubble.

“Get out of here!” Dancing Dream, one of the many heroes who defended the city from attacks, declared, spinning to a halt on one of the buildings not yet crushed by Blue Eyes’s assault. “We’re going to take care of this!”

“You heard her,” Entrancer murmured, waving one of her own hands to spread her subtle pheromones around. Those who caught a whiff would do whatever she told them, at least for a while. “Let us handle this.”

Harpy Queen folded her wings as she perched on a surviving tree. “It would be nice if we know how, though,” she muttered, just loud enough for her sister warriors to hear her.

Black Magician Girl landed not that far from Harpy Queen. “I don’t get it, though. Why is she doing this in the first place? It’s not like her.”

Seeress stepped from a portal she’d created, her eyes already on the raging form of their nominal ally. “I fear it’s the work of a rogue dragon tamer.”

The other four shuddered almost in unison. Most dragon tamers could be counted on to bend their efforts toward the dragons who actively wanted to hurt others, keeping them in check. But there were some who worked in other ways, and it was blazingly clear to all five of them that this could only be the work of one of those.

“Which one and how many of his body parts do I get to render non-functional?” Harpy Queen asked, rustling her feathers. Seeress allowed herself a small smile.

“I think we should deal with this on two fronts.” She looked from where the great dragon roared once more, a sweep of her giant wings bringing down another building. She could only hope the people had evacuated in time, but with all of this going on, even she couldn’t see every line of the future.

Entrancer nodded, eyes flicking here and there. “We’ll track down whoever is playing games with our friend.”

“And I will speak to her and try to find out if she can be helped directly,” Seeress agreed. While she didn’t have Harpy Queen’s lightning quick reflexes or Black Magician Girl’s spells to protect her, if she were going to die, she would know about it already and would see to it that she didn’t.

Harpy Queen and Black Magician Girl both rose up into the air, the sorceress gesturing with her staff so that Entrancer and Dancing Dream joined her in a sphere of levitation.

“We’ll let you know what we find out,” Harpy Queen said. “You watch out for yourself. And for her.”

Seeress bent her head. “I always do.”

She walked through the rubble easily, avoiding where it fell before it actually got there. There were definite benefits to being able to predict the future, in her opinion. She only wished that she’d seen this coming in time to prevent it.

The more she bent her future sight toward the great dragon, though, the more she suspected someone had used something in order to conceal their plans from her. It would hardly be the first time. Their team had prevented many issues simply because she knew where a villain sought to strike sometimes before the villain themselves got there.

Another howl alerted her to how close she was to the dragon now. She stopped and looked up, not at all surprised to see the glittering white scales above her. She’d planned her course so that her friend wouldn’t know she was there until she’d come this close.

Now she reached out and laid one hand on the tail as it lashed before her, missing the top of her head by little more than a hair’s width, knocking some of the top hairs off anyway.

“Kisara?” Seeress spoke softly, knowing well how good a dragon’s hearing was. “Can you hear me?” It probably wasn’t the right question. What she needed to know was if Kisara could answer her.

The dragon raised her head once more, drawing in breath in the way Seeress found so familiar, peering down toward her, ready to blast at a moment’s notice.

Seeress reached up now to lay her hand on the dragon’s muzzle, ignoring the smoke curling up.

“I know something’s wrong. Can you show me what it is?” There were many ways that a rogue dragon tamer could control the great beasts, ranging from enchanted amulets to spells cast via scales, just for the more common ones. But with a creature like Kisara, it would have to be something powerful indeed.

Seeress said nothing at all, waiting to see what kind of answer she got. It was almost what she expected: a pained, heartbroken whisper in her mind.

Isis? Is that you?

She smiled, not moving her hand away from the muzzle. Not all dragons could speak in human words in their transformed state. Kisara could, on occasion, but seldom did.

“Of course it’s me. Do you know what happened? Who’s doing this to you?”

I don’t know. Slowly the giant dragon shook her head, blue eyes filled with sorrow. I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to do these things, Isis!

“I know.” Isis ran her hand over the muzzle, feeling the warm, caring soul within. “The others are looking for whoever is doing this. I came to talk to you.”

I don’t know how long I can talk. I can feel whoever it is. They’re… they’re angry because I’m not raging. They want me to hurt people, Isis. They want me to burn the whole city!

Her tail lashed again and Seeress leaped out of the way just in time to avoid being knocked over by it.

“Do you know why?” Anything they could find out that would help matters would speed this along.

No. They just want me to ruin it all. I can’t fight this, Isis!

The raw panic in her mental tone made Seeress want to find out whoever had this scheme and ensure they had not future for her to see. But for now, she did what she could to calm the dragon down.

“Can you change back? You might not be affected if you can.” Even that wasn’t a guarantee. Magic held too many paths for anything to be certain. But it was worth a try.

Slowly Kisara shook her head. I tried when I first started. But I can’t do it. He won’t let me.

A low keen whined its way out of her throat, her sapphire eyes glazing over. Isis… I can’t...

Her head tilted back and another howl erupted from the depths of Blue Eyes’ throat, followed a heartbeat later by a lash of fire where Seeress stood. She wasn’t there anymore, though, hidden now where it would be less likely for the dragon to find her.

I am going to stop this, the diviner declared. And whoever did this will pay.

To Be Continued

Notes: The end of YGO Femslash Week 2017. I started four new multi-chaptered and I intend to see them all through to the end. I like this one quite a bit, too. I've had the concept of Kisara/Isis on my plate for a while now and this gave me the urge to finally write it. No, the rogue dragon tamer is not Kaiba in any way, shape, or form. I already know his role in this world. I could do a whole sidestory about what he's up to, actually. But another day for that.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Dragonsight:  Chapter 6 [done]

Kisara’s head whipped around, half of the windows shattering against her impenetrable scales. Her eyes widened at the sight of Isis with the medallion. All fell silent, save for the suddenly audible exhausted pants of Isis’s teammates.

Then Kisara, in human form, stood in the same room as Isis and the false tamer – Isis wasn’t sure of his name and was equally unsure of if she cared to know it. Slowly, wending her way through the shards of glass on the floor, she came over to Isis.

“Dragonfire can destroy this,” Isis reminded her, holding the medallion out to her. “If any dragon has the right to do it today, it’s you.”

Kisara’s gaze flicked between the medallion and the one who’d worn it. Then she reached her hand to take it, shuddering the moment it came in contact with her skin. It dropped to the floor as she shifted back to her dragon form, pulling her head back.

“No! Don’t you dare, beast!”

The not-tamer started to say something else, reaching into his coat, but before he could finish whatever it was, Black Magician Girl’s staff came down hard on his head, sending him slumping to the floor.

“I’ve been here thirty seconds and I’m already tired of his babbling,” she muttered, resting on the air to avoid the glass. “Are we done?”

Brilliant, searing gouts of fire burst out of Kisara’s mouth, melting almost all of the glass shards and rendering the medallion to nothing more than a charred bit of metal. One gigantic clawed foot landed on it, crushing that into powder with a bit of effort. Then Kisara stood there again in human form, trembling.

Isis stepped over and offered a hand to her, and the dragon reached for it, still quivering in reaction. Isis turned toward Mana.

“We’re done.”

Repairing the damage done would take time. Mana and a few other mages in town helped it get done faster, but nothing could be entirely fixed with a wave of wand, hand, or staff. Kisara did what she could to help, lifting heavy objects and setting them where they needed to go.

But most of what she did to help was stay out of sight. This wasn’t at all the first time that someone had damaged the city against their will, but she still could not take the looks tendered toward her.

Isis did what she could to soothe her, letting her stay at their headquarters, where no one would come to bother her.

“I should leave,” Kisara murmured one morning, roughly a week after the whole situation wrapped up. “It’s too dangerous for me to stay around here.”

Isis set a plate of sliced fruit in front of her. Kisara, like most dragons, fed mostly off of meat, but the thought of seeing meat even now didn’t appeal to her.

“If that’s what you want,” Isis said, settling down next to her. “But it could still leave you in danger. I don’t think there are any more of those medallions around, but if something happened, we might not be able to get to you in time.”

Kisara picked up one of the fruit slices and stared down at it before starting to nibble on it. Isis said nothing else; she didn’t think Kisara really wanted to leave, but she wasn’t going to dismiss her words like that. Now of all times, she didn’t need even a false wish ignored.

In other words, if Kisara wanted to think she wanted to leave, Isis wasn’t going to tell her that she didn’t.

“I don’t want to hurt people.” Her fingers trembled on the next slice of fruit, her voice wavering. “Why am I a dragon, Isis? My parents weren’t dragons. It just happened to me.”

Isis reached over to touch Kisara’s hand, offering what comfort she could. “I don’t know. I don’t know if you’ll find an answer to that either.” Mostly because she’d never looked. She preferred to use her powers in the defense of others, not to prod into the lives of those she cared about.

Kisara’s large blue eyes turned toward her and Isis ached to see tears in them. Words choked in her throat and Isis wished above all else to be able to wipe them away forever.

“You are not a monster to me. I’ve seen monsters. Real monsters, ones that care nothing for others or what their actions could do to them.” Far too many memories surged back on that course, some closer to her heart than others. “You care. You would hurt yourself to avoid hurting others. That isn’t always the answer. You protect people when you can and how you can. That’s not a monster. That’s exactly what you really are: a hero.”

Tears spilled slowly down Kisara’s cheeks and Isis offered her a tissue. Kisara took it with a weak smile and dabbed at her eyes, trembling still.

“I’m not sure if you’re right or not. I don’t feel like a hero,” Kisara said, after a cup of tea to soothe her throat and get herself under better control. “You took your life in your hands with what you did. You do that all the time. All of you do.”

“I knew I was safe. I was more worried about you,” Isis pointed out. How to say that she worried about Kisara because there would always be those who wanted the power she represented and cared little for what she wanted? How to say that she worried about Kisara because she cared so much about her, to the point that she would throw herself into fire, whether or not she knew she’d survive it, just to help her?

Knowing what was to come didn’t give her the words to say what could ease Kisara’s heart. But she tried.

“I will always worry about you, Kisara. I couldn’t not worry about you.” She still struggled to find the right words. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, no matter the danger or the risks.”

Kisara met her eyes, swallowing quietly before she spoke. “I don’t want to hurt you. Ever.” So much in those few words, and Isis touched her hand.

“I know.” She couldn’t promise it would never happen. That was a part of a person, whether or not one wore human shape. People of all kinds hurt other people, with or without meaning it.

Again she searched for words, and it dawned on her that Kisara hadn’t changed at all since coming to the base after that whole mess finally ended. To some degree, that iron will of hers remained bent, though not broken.

“Could you use some fresh air? I know that I could.” Again she sought Kisara’s eyes. “We could go flying?”

Kisara wavered for a few moments. As much as she might wish to deny it, she needed the skies as much as most beings needed air and sunshine and good food. A dragon was a dragon.

“All right,” she murmured at last. “Just for a little while.”

Instead of a portal, Isis and Kisara walked up to the roof, close enough so Isis could feel the heat of Kisara’s body. Their hands didn’t precisely touch one another, but brushed close together nevertheless.

Once up on the roof, Kisara breathed in the air, nose wrinkling. “I think I’d rather be in the country for the smells,” she murmured, a hint of a smile fluttering across her lips.

Isis didn’t blame her. Still, she waited, and in between one breath and the next, Kisara changed. Isis laid a hand on the dragon’s neck with all the tenderness she could muster.

“No matter what, you’re beautiful,” she whispered, knowing Kisara could hear her. “I’d miss you terribly if you left.”

Kisara only raised her eyes and there was such strength in there that Isis’s heart broke even as she mounted Kisara’s shoulders. With a great beat of silver-white wings, they took off, rising higher and higher, until high chill air wrapped around them, and it was just the two of them, forever and always.

And here, Isis whispered three words, and Kisara returned them with every beat of her wings and her heart.

The End

Notes: And that's the story done! I hope you enjoyed it! Also, if you want to know what happened to the wanna-be dragon tamer, I can write that. It involves the Kaibas, if you're curious!

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Breaking Barriers:  Chapter 3

Mokuba tightened his grip on Seto, trying to focus himself so he could get through to Noah. Noah. I’m here. Calm down.

His not-quite-brother didn’t seem to understand the concept of ‘calm down’ at that moment, as he kept babbling Mokuba’s name, and Mokuba suspected that if they’d both been physical, Noah would’ve been making it very difficult for him to breathe.

As it was, thinking was almost impossible when he was still trying to sort out his connection to the technological world and the internet itself, while Noah babbled incoherently and seemed to be trying to crowd inside the part of Mokuba’s mind that remained connected to him.

Noah! Mokuba did his level best to shout at him, and for a few seconds, Noah stopped his chatter and ‘looked’ at him. I’m all right. We were just in a cut off dimension for a while. But we’re back now. What can you tell me?

There was a sort of mental blink, then Noah resumed his usual refined, quiet attitude. If Mokuba hadn’t been a technopath himself, he might’ve even believed that his not-brother calmed down entirely.

That person who came to the office – I’ve found a lot of different names for him but I haven’t yet pinned down one that could be his real name – stole all of the records on dragons after he banished you and Seto. A couple of hours later, Kisara started to rampage through the city. I put in a call to Seeress and her people and I think they almost have it taken care of.

Mokuba glanced to where he could see not just Kisara, but the forms of the heroines dealing with the problem. He wasn’t sure himself, but he trusted they would do their duty to the city. They always did.

Anything else?

He has a few other dragons with him, but none as big or dangerous as Kisara. Most of the problem is property damage and injuries.

Mokuba ran through all of that. In a general sort of way, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. The hospitals would be crowded more so than usual for a while, but KaibaCorp had a division devoted to funding for that, keeping all kinds of personnel ready when events such as this turned up. There would be people and supplies ready to take care of the situation as soon as they could make it through to where they were needed.

KaibaCorp might not be responsible for this, but Mokuba knew how his brother thought, and though they both knew that Kisara could not be doing this of her own free will, since she and Seto were dragon and dragon tamer, he considered it part of his responsibility to deal with the aftermath of it.

Now for it to just become aftermath.

Some of the tension ran out of Seto just as they landed and dismounted Different Dimension Dragon. Mokuba looked up in time to see Kisara changing from her great dragon form, and a flicker of white hair showed as she entered the building she’d been standing in front of.

“I think it’s over,” he murmured, checking on his phone as he spoke. He typed for a few moments and Mokuba could tell he was sending a text to someone: their driver. They would need to get to their secondary office in order to take care of matters from here.

One of those matters would be the idiot who got all of this started in the first place. Mokuba had a few ideas on what he wanted to do with him, mostly involving hideous amounts of pain and probably having to live inside of a dimensional prison of his own for a few years. Fifty or sixty sounded good to him.

Not good enough, Noah muttered, keeping up with his thoughts as he virtually always did. I say leave him there until the great-grandchildren he’s never going to have are skeletons.

Mokuba couldn’t deny that the idea had a lot of appeal to it. But he wanted to know what had happened with Kisara before he made up his mind on what he would suggest when Seto asked his opinion on the matter.

I already know and trust me, you’re going to want something even worse than that.

The only reason Noah had any sympathy at all for Kisara was because Mokuba did, since he knew her via Seto. Noah didn’t have a lot of empathy for anyone who wasn’t Mokuba, and maybe the occasional other technopath. Mokuba didn’t expect otherwise. He knew his not-brother too well for that. Empathy was something that tended to require a physical body to have and Noah didn’t have one of those anymore.

The limousine – one of their limousines – pulled up, and Seto and Mokuba settled in it once Seto dismissed Different Dimension Dragon. Seto seldom used his dragons for his personal transportation, unless he absolutely needed to blow someone’s mind – metaphorically, at least.

Mokuba wouldn’t have been all that surprised if he’d descended to pass judgment on this fake tamer with every dragon that he knew in tow. The more he thought about that, the more he agreed with the concept. Noah rumbled in agreement in the back of his mind.

It didn’t take long, even with the rubble in the streets, to get to their secondary headquarters. Not many people knew this was where KaibaCorp had an office, and every Kaiba preferred to keep it that way. Only certain people even had access there who weren’t Kaibas.

Seto and Mokuba settled into the office, which was nearly an exact duplicate of the one currently inhabiting some other dimension, and waited. It didn’t take long at all for Seeress to show up, Kisara a few steps behind her.

Seto rose at once, eyes on Kisara. “Are you all right?”

Kisara kept her eyes down, her shoulders tight. She nodded, little more than a faint move of her head. Mokuba couldn’t read dragon body language like Seto could, but he knew Kisara, and he knew she was more or less lying through her teeth without saying a word.

“Where is he? What exactly happened?” Seto demanded.

“Black Magician Girl is keeping an eye on him,” Seeress said. Mokuba and Seto both knew their secret identities, but it was considered a breach of protocol to use their given names when they weren’t in uniform. Seeress’s didn’t look very different from her normal garb, save for the veil that she kept to hide her face. It wasn’t an ordinary veil, since no one else could take it off but her, and Mokuba suspected it had been enchanted so that no matter how much one knew her in her civilian identity, they wouldn't realize who they were looking at unless she allowed it.

Seto nodded. “I want him brought here.” He didn’t ask. Kaibas normally didn’t ask.

“I’ll let her know.” Seeress glanced toward Kisara, then back at Seto. “He had an amulet of some kind that he’d found in ruins. I can’t tell yet just where those ruins were. But it allowed him to control dragons.”

One of Seto’s eyebrows crept up the tiniest fraction. “Had?”

Kisara lifted her head, not much more than Seto’s eyebrow came up. “I destroyed it.”

“Only dragon-fire could. And I didn’t think anyone else had a better right to doing it than she did.”

Seto considered that before he gave an approving nod. “Was there any real reason behind it, or did he just think controlling dragons would be an interesting way to pass his afternoon?”

“He wanted to be a dragon tamer, but he wasn’t born with the ability,” Seeress said. “And he genuinely seems to think that dragons are lesser creatures that should be controlled.”

Dragon masters didn’t control dragons. They befriended them. They worked with them. They understood them. No true dragon master would ever want to use a dragon to hurt someone who hadn’t earned it.

With every word Seeress said, Mokuba added another five years to the punishment the would-be tamer was racking up. If this kept up, solitary confinement until the day he died would be the best option the guy could hope for.

“How many dragons did he have control of?” Seto asked. Seeress gave a number; it wasn’t in the nature of an army, but with Kisara under his power, he hadn’t needed an army. If they hadn’t been able to get to him and take that amulet back, they probably would’ve returned to the entire city on fire, not just a few places.

“Make sure they’re recovered and taken care of. I’ll talk to them as soon as I’ve finished with him.”

Mokuba could see Seto’s eyes from where he sat, and he wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see them slit for a few second: the eyes of a dragon. The mark of a true dragon tamer, to share the eyes of one’s companions.

While arrangements were made for further repairs and medical options, Mokuba got down to business getting his laptop replaced, and trying to convince Noah that now really wasn’t a good time to try to work out a way to give him a physical body again.

Not that the idea hadn’t occurred to him, but it would have to be something like an android or a robot, so they could download Noah's mind into it. It was a project that he and Seto had bounced between the two of them for some time now. It wasn’t at a point where they could actually do it, but they both sketched thoughts for the idea when they had nothing else to do with their time.

Noah wanted it. Noah wanted it very badly. And Mokuba had a pretty good idea that it would happen one day. But now wasn’t even close to the right time to start figuring out how to put it all together and retain everything that made Noah who and what he was. That would be the most difficult part, to keep Noah as himself, instead of a slightly smarter robot.

Mokuba being a technopath could probably help with that. But it still remained in the future for them all to deal with.

Noah. Relax. He knew why it was suddenly so important to Noah. If he had a way to interact with the physical world, he wouldn't have been so absolutely terrified when Mokuba and Seto vanished.

And on that note, Mokuba put in an order for one of their mage-equipped clean-up crews to hit up the KaibaCorp main building and clear up all of that mess with the office being partially twisted out of their dimension. They’d need to get it sorted out before complete operations could resume.

With that taken care of, and Noah starting to calm himself down just a little more, Mokuba stood up in time with his brother.

“Judgment hall?” Mokuba asked. Seto nodded, that hint of dragon’s eyes gleaming once again. Mokuba wouldn’t have been surprised at all to find that Seto had a dragon’s teeth as well.

Not that he’d need them to rend today’s target into quivering chunks, verbally or otherwise.

Together, the two of them headed back out to where the limousine awaited them, this time taking them to where Seto pronounced judgment on all of those who harmed dragons, or in rare cases, dragons who harmed others willingly.

Mokuba mentally rubbed his hands together. He loved seeing his big brother acting as the premier dragon tamer in all of the world.

Noah, do we have it set up to upload the video in real-time? And the social media?

I’ve already got it taken care of. His not-brother verbally preened, switching from worry over his own future to taking care of the interesting parts of running the KaibaCorp mainframe in the space of a heartbeat. There are people waiting to watch the stream already.

He paused for a moment before he chuckled. One of them is Jounouchi.

Mokuba snorted at that. One day Jounouchi and Seto would work things out to whatever degree they could. That day just wasn’t going to be today.

Only Seto and Mokuba occupied the room at first. Then one by one the dragons began to filter in. They all wore their human forms, with their eyes only marking them for what they were. They settled in quietly, Kisara among them, accompanied by Seeress, the only human there, until Black Magician Girl and the rest of their team entered.

And with them came the wanna-be tamer, softly glowing manacles on his wrists, and a furious look in his eyes as he glared all around. The moment he caught sight of Seto, he exploded in furious snarls that just happened to make words.

“What are you doing here? This is all your fault! If you’d just given me what I wanted in the first place, none of this would’ve happened! What gives you the right to pass judgment on me!”

Seto cast a glance at Black Magician Girl. “Shut him up.”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Black Magician Girl chirped before waving her wand. A band of energy now appeared over his mouth, keeping him absolutely silent. He still struggled, he still glared, but nothing more came out of his mouth. Mokuba definitely counted that as an improvement.

Seto stared down at him. “Since you asked, what gives me the right to pass judgment is that you used dragons - my dragons – to commit your crimes, and you committed your crimes against dragons, which puts you absolutely under my authority. I have every right and duty to ask any of them – especially Kisara – to roast you where you stand. Or to eat you, if I thought you wouldn’t poison them.”

The wanna-be paled and started to shake his head. Seto ignored him, calling instead for a reading of all the damage, emotional and physical, that had been done during the assault. The amount turned out a little more than Mokuba originally thought, but the exact details didn’t make a big difference. What mattered was Seto’s judgment.

“Because you have the extremely mistaken idea that dragons are servants or slaves, I have decided upon a punishment that will teach you a lesson: you will be collared to prevent you from speaking or from disobeying a reasonable command given to you by any of my dragons. And they will be able to use you to do anything they want that is reasonable. I will give them a list of commands I already consider reasonable and anything that’s not on the list will be passed through me first. You won’t be killed or put into any situation where you can kill yourself if you’re in that frame of mind.”

Seto met the would-be tamer’s eyes, his own bright and flashing and full of a deep rage. “This will be your fate until you can actually prove to me and everyone - everyone - harmed by your ignorance that you regret your actions.” A slash of a dark smile brushed by his lips. “Though I’m certain you’ll regret your punishment in no time at all.”

He rose to his feet, gesturing for Black Magician Girl to manage the collar. The dragons would take care of him after that.

Mokuba couldn’t imagine a better punishment. Though he still kind of leaned toward the idea of trapping him in a dimensional prison too. If he didn’t learn his lesson with the dragons, then maybe…

Are you done? Can you come see me now? Noah wanted to know. Mokuba let the last of the daily strain slip away, fully aware that the day was over with. He’d done everything that he could and anything else that turned up wouldn’t really need his attention until tomorrow, at the earliest.

I think so. It would definitely be a relaxing way to spend the evening. He caught Seto’s eye and glanced toward the laptop briefly. Seto nodded; he understood what Mokuba wanted. He would have his own way to relax after all of this.

And they would need all the rest they could get, to be ready for whatever the next day would bring.

The End

Notes: And that's it!

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Breaking Barriers:  Chapter 2

Series Title: Gifts of Power||Title: Breaking Barriers Characters: Mokuba, Seto, Noah||Pairing: N/A Chapters: 2-3||Words: 2,656||Total: 5,302 Genre: Family||Rated: G Challenge: Diversity Writing, H5, three-shot; Dice Gods Challenge: Mokuba Notes: This takes place in the same world as Dragonsight and details what Seto and Mokuba were doing before, during, and after Kisara's unwanted attack on the city. Summary: There was a very good reason why Seto didn't help with a mind-controlled Kisara attacking the city. It's a little hard to do so when you're not actually in the same world.

Mokuba wasn’t certain of how much time had passed. Anything even remotely electronic didn’t work in this place, no matter how much he tried to make it otherwise. There couldn’t have been a better method invented to stop him from doing anything at all and to annoy Seto to the ends of the earth and back again.

He still kept on trying, though, struggling to remember everything he’d ever heard about dimensional twists and pocket universes. It wasn’t nearly enough. He sort of hoped that there were people in Domino who could fix this and were doing their best to do it, but neither he nor Seto were the type to just sit around and wait for someone else to take care of a problem.

He wasn’t sure of what Seto was doing, but he trusted his brother to at least be thinking of potential escape plans. The way he sat with the Millennium Rod, his eyes closed, and as stiff as he could make himself, lent something to that theory. Mokuba had no idea of if the Rod could help at all, aside from being a fine way to skin the hide off the jerk who’d put them there.

That did sound like a pretty good way to spend some time later, though. He’d have to remember to suggest it to Seto.

After what had to be hours of prowling around looking for anything that could be useful, as well as scouring his brain for anything else at all, Mokuba had what he thought could be a small success.

He stared at the two small gemstone shards wedged into the door frame that should have led outside as if he were trying to determine their worth. He’d done that, actually, in the first few seconds. When it came to monetary value, he judged them probably not worth the trouble in the first place. He could tell magic had been embedded in them somehow, and they were probably connected to why they couldn't get out of here.

Spying a small piece of wood from what had been his desk – that had been crushed quite thoroughly and he suspected those dragons the intruder had with him of doing it – he picked it up and prodded toward them.

Toward them, not at them, because no sooner did the scrap of wood get within a finger’s width of them than he found himself hurled halfway across the room.

He wasn’t knocked out, not this time, but it took another few minutes before he could see clearly and sit up again. Seto abandoned whatever he was doing with the Rod to hover over him until then.

“I think I found something,” Mokuba murmured as soon as he could get the words put together in a coherent fashion. “I don’t know how to get through it, though.” Maybe if they had high explosives…

Clearly Seto needed to give more thought to what he kept hidden in his office if they didn’t have any.

Seto nodded, glancing over to the door, then looked back at him. “I’ve had a little luck. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Kisara.”

That didn’t surprise Mokuba in the slightest. There were many dragons that owed their allegiance to Seto in one form or another, but Kisara was the most powerful of them all. No one knew exactly where her lair was, or that much about her. She did occasionally work with Isis and her band of super-heroines, but that was about it. Sometimes she worked with Seto, too.

“Did you?” Mokuba started to hunt around for another bottle of water. They were going to miss dinner, and that would be very bad for a large number of reasons. Both of them had high energy needs, which meant lots of food at regular intervals. Going too long without would put them into far worse than a very bad mood.

“Not exactly.” Seto frowned, staring down at the Rod. While it normally conferred only the power to control minds, it could also link minds together, especially between a dragon and their chosen dragon tamer. It came in handy on more than one occasion, when Seto’s own abilities weren’t quite up to the task.

“What do you mean?”

“There was some kind of a barrier, and not entirely like this.” Seto gestured to what surrounded them. “It was like I could almost hear her, and then someone drowned me out.”

Mokuba stared down into his water bottle and decided that he very much disliked everything about this situation and everyone connected to it. Security was going to need an overhaul anyway, it seemed, if that guy got into KaibaCorp without being stopped or at least his little toys detected.

“I think what I found wasn’t what’s keeping us in here,” Mokuba said after a very long stretch of silence. He didn’t have his usual confidence in his words but he tried anyway. “It’s not what’s twisting us into this space, anyway.” He hated not having the words for what he wanted to say. “I think it’s just kind of… the lock on the door. If it wasn’t there, we could probably find a way to break the seal and get ourselves out of here.”

Seto nodded, eyes as thoughtful as Mokuba’s. “But that force field protects it. So if the field wasn’t there, we could destroy it, and get out.”

“Right.” Something put them into this not-space. The shards kept them there, locking the door. The force field prevented them from getting to the lock. Take out the force field and all the rest of it would go down.

Which left the very large problem of how to get rid of the force field.

Mokuba found what was left of the sofa, settled himself on it, and stared in irritation at the ceiling. He knew all the pieces but he didn’t know how to undo them all. He wasn’t doing good enough. He wasn’t helping his brother the way that he needed and wanted to.

He wanted to get angrier. But that wasn’t actually possible just then.

I’d probably blow up if that happened anyway. If it got Seto out of there, he’d do it without a moment of hesitation. But since that wasn’t an option, he had to sit there and think harder about something that he could do.

What made everything just a little worse wasn’t just that he couldn’t find the right thing to do. It was that Seto couldn’t either. He’d put his chair and desk back in order, as best that he could right now when they’d been half-destroyed, and sat there with the Rod in his hands, eyes closed, mind somewhere between this world and another, and not getting any closer to breaking through to Kisara than he had the first time.

Mokuba knew exactly how frustrated he was. Even without power, there had been times when he’d been able to communicate with Noah, if no one else. Since the first time they’d met, there’d been a link between the two of them that flowed almost as strong as between himself and Seto. There had even been times… well, that wouldn’t do any good right now.

But the point was that even without power, he’d been connected on some level. Now he wasn’t, and he couldn’t fully escape the worry that somehow or other, Noah wasn’t going to be there when they got back to their world.

The very idea of that sent even more chills through him, as if he didn’t possibly have enough from everything else.

He lifted his head to stare at the offending gem shards and their nearly invisible force field. What they needed was information of any kind on how to get rid of that thing, no matter how they got it. Books, the internet, someone who just knew about force fields and how to dispose of them, it didn’t matter. But here, sealed up in a room that seemed incredibly large when they could get outside and now vaguely reminded him of a cracker box, they had almost nothing.

Just each other, their own wits and information, and their own talents. With almost nothing to connect them to the outer world in a way that could get them anything else that they needed.

Mokuba liked a challenge, but he preferred one that they had some sort of chance of winning.

All right. We’re going to win this one even if we can’t They were Kaibas. Better than that, they were each other. The Kaiba money wasn’t going to help them out here. Only what they had would.

He racked his brain all over again. There had to be something that would offer a little help, somewhere in the dark recesses where he’d forgotten more than he could imagine right now.

His attention drifted over to Seto, who hadn’t moved from behind his chair for several minutes. That worried him more than he wanted to think about. How far was too far when it came to a dragon and their tamer and the bond between them.

What about all the other dragons that Seto had linked to over the years? Could they tell that anything was wrong? Could they do anything about it?

He circled about that thought for several minutes, trying to pin it down. Something felt very right about it and yet he still couldn’t put his finger on it.

What other dragons? He knew for a fact that Seto and Jounouchi hadn't ever properly bonded, though they’d skirted in that direction a little over the years. Jounouchi liked his freedom too much to try to make it official, though.

They’d have to take care of that. Mokuba recalled a mention that a low-level dragon tamer had tried that on Jounouchi once before, some guy named Hirutani, but that had been a long time ago. It didn’t make a difference right now, either. Just a mental tick on the list.

He ran over the list again. He knew that his abilities weren’t going to do a lot right now. Seto’s stood the best chance, if he’d made the right contacts.

Wasn’t that always how it was?

He pushed that thought away. He could speculate later. They needed solid information now.

One by one he ran over the list of dragons that he knew for a fact his brother had some sort of connection with. There had to be one that could help, or knew someone who could help.

If there was, an intrusive thought wondered, would Seto be able to contact it from here? Would his abilities and the Millennium Rod reach so far?

We have to try. It was the same mantra that had sustained them throughout their years with Gozaburo. If they didn’t try anything, they wouldn’t get anything but what he wanted them to get. Neither of them would settle for that.

Inch by inch Mokuba ran over the list until he wanted to scream. There was an answer, they both knew the answer, they just had to find the answer.

They were in a side dimension, a little pocket of reality. He started to mentally strike off all the dragons that he knew of who couldn’t do anything like that.

That still left several. He struck off more: all the ones that he could think of who could do that and yet weren’t connected to Seto. There were still a few more left.

He sat up. At the same moment Seto’s head came up, his grip on the Rod tightening, but his eyes wide with the same thought Mokuba had, Mokuba knew it.

They looked toward one another, two near-identical smiles of triumph.

“Different Dimension Dragon!”

Mokuba was on his feet a heartbeat later, crossing over to where Seto sat.

“Can you get in touch?” Neither Mokuba nor Seto could be absolutely certain that Seto’s current lack of success was because of where they were or something else altogether.

“I’m going to find out.”

Mokuba wasn’t surprised when Seto reached for a bottle of water of his own first. Contacting dragons wasn’t easy under normal circumstances, even for someone like his brother. They’d been here for hours and Mokuba couldn’t wait to get himself wrapped around a good steak. He didn’t think Seto would be any different. At least they were hydrated.

For now.

Finally Seto settled back in his chair, resumed his grip on the Rod, and closed his eyes. Mokuba stayed standing by the chair, nervous, sweat of tension pooling in the small of his back.

He didn’t know how much time passed. An infinity of it. No time and all time and every other kind of time.

And then something exploded in the center of the room and for the first few seconds, Mokuba saw a slim blue dragon there. Everything blurred – everything around the dragon – and when it cleared, a young man stood there, his hair the same blue as his dragon-skin.

“I came as soon as I could, Kaiba-sama,” the human form of Different Dimension Dragon said. “We have to hurry.”

Seto’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?” What has that idiot done? was the question he didn’t say but it hung behind his words regardless.

“It’s Kisara. She’s been attacking the city for the last couple of hours.” He shook his head. “Seeress and her team have been working on stopping her, but I don’t know if they can. I don’t think even they know if they can.”

Seto nodded, sliding the Rod back into the sheath he carried it in when he needed to go somewhere with it. “I know what the problem is.”

“Another problem is that time gets twisted when you jump through dimensions like I do,” Different Dimension Dragon said, ducking his head. “We might get there… after everything.”

Seto stood up. “We’ll deal with that when we get there. Ready, Mokuba?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Mokuba cast a quick glance at his laptop, then grabbed it. It might take more time than they had to get everything back in order, and it would go faster if he had something to work with, even something as battered and broken as this was.

Besides, being back in the real world would mean he would be connected again, even if his personal laptop didn’t work. The joys of being a technopath.

Different Dimension Dragon resumed his dragon form, Seto settled on his back, and Mokuba right behind him. The dragon threw his head back in a wild, proud cry, before he leaped to his feet, and crossed dimensional walls that neither Mokuba nor Seto could see.

There wasn’t anything between dimensions. It was here, there, and nowhere, all at the same time. There were slight flickers that might’ve been something, but if they were, Mokuba didn’t know what they could be. Other travelers, perhaps? The Different Dimension family was a very big family, and were the ones who could and did cross dimensions the easiest. There were others as well, but Mokuba couldn’t recall them all now.

Nor did it matter, when something twisted elsewhere and then untwisted and they hovered outside of the KaibaCorp building, quite a distance above the street. What first caught Mokuba’s eye was how the top floor wasn’t actually there: the part of the building where his brother’s office usually was.

From the sharp intake of breath his brother drew, Seto had seen it too.

“We’ll take care of that after we take care of him,” Seto decided. He tapped on Different Dimension Dragon’s shoulder. “Take us down to the ground.”

Different Dimension Dragon nodded and began to circle downwards. Mokuba could see all the damage done as they descended, and a heartbeat later saw Kisara, in full dragon form, knocking down a building.

Then, before he could comprehend anything else, words slammed into his mind, sharp and worried and raging.

Mokuba! Mokuba, are you there? Are you there?

To Be Continued

Notes: I had fun writing this. Still one chapter to go, for next week!

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Breaking Barriers:  Chapter 1

Mokuba didn’t always like being ignored. Most people paid far more attention to his brother than they did to him, finding a dragon tamer, the world’s finest duelist – Mokuba did not actually care who the official ‘King of Games’ was, he knew his brother’s skills – and one of the richest people in the entire world to be more interesting than his little brother.

Sometimes that annoyed him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have his own skills and powers.

Right now, he thoroughly enjoyed being ignored, because he got a front row seat to his brother verbally shredding an idiot who thought he could pull off the little scheme he’d put together.

Honestly, what kind of an idiot walks into big brother’s office and just tells him to hand over all of his dragon records, like they’re some kind of a burden to him?

Mokuba wished he had popcorn right now. But he’d been busy doing some small practicing with his own skills and that required a laptop more than it did a snack. His fingers continued to fly over the keyboard while he paid just enough attention to the man standing in front of his brother to get what information he needed.

Let’s see… His mind reached out to touch the international web. Noah? Are you there?

That was a ridiculous question. Noah was always there, because Noah had nowhere else to be. His attention might not necessarily be on what Mokuba wanted to know, but he would be there.

And he always kept an eye out for Mokuba’s calls anyway. Part o that made Mokuba a trifle nervous: they didn’t have the best history, after all. But today it could be useful.

Yes?

Noah appeared in Mokuba’s mind in the flawless image of who he’d once been: heir to the Kaiba corporation and a young genius with the same gift Mokuba himself had: technopathy. Noah had it on an entirely different level now that he lived in the data world.

We’ve got a small issue, Mokuba said, quite glad that thought and data moved at such speeds. Seto would keep the idiot talking while he and Noah worked out what was going on and figured out how to put a stop to it.

Do tell.

In quick bursts Mokuba passed what they knew on: that this dimwit strolled up through the security features with a couple of small dragons at his heels – already offending Seto since he’d done so without asking so much as a breath of permission to bring strange dragons into his territory – and casually demanding that Seto turn over his dragon records.

It took Noah a few minutes to stop laughing. Once he did, he had a single question.

Does brother intend to throw him out a window?

Technically Noah wasn’t their brother. They didn’t share any blood with one another. But they’d been adopted by his father after Noah’s not-death and legally they were related.

Mokuba sort of suspected that a lack of siblings in his original life was what kept Noah calling them that now. He’d never asked. Some things he didn’t want confirmed.

I think he wants to. That was only a tiny fib. Mokuba knew his big brother very well and from the moment the interloper crossed into Domino City without clearing his dragons, and without being a proper dragon tamer, let alone trying to demand all the records of Seto’s dragons, he’d all but signed his own death warrant.

Not to mention that just being around him made Mokuba’s hackles rise. He wasn’t a dragon himself, but you couldn’t hang around them as much as he and his brother did and not pick up on a few things. Something was really off about this guy and Mokuba wanted him out of the city before anything actually happened.

He tilted his head, bringing his attention back to the somewhat conversation going on between the stranger and his brother.

“They’re nothing but dumb beasts, Kaiba-san, as I’m certain any dragon tamer would agree. Why else would they need to be tamed in the first place?” The stranger smiled a smile that he’d surely practiced a thousand times. Mokuba wanted to wipe it off of his face, and maybe wipe his mouth off his face while he was at it. “Someone with your skills and talents shouldn’t waste his time with brutes like that. I can take them off of your hands.”

“You’ve said the same thing four different ways already and my answer is the same as it was then: no.” Seto tapped one finger on his desk in a particular coded pattern. Mokuba knew what that meant: get security.

That took a grand total of three seconds, since he just had to send a silent text over to that department. Someone would be on the way within a minute: one rule of KaibaCorp was that there were always two security members ready to go up to the boss’s office, no matter what. They didn’t get assigned to anything else when that was their role on the roster.

Not that Seto or Mokuba especially needed the help to defend themselves. Seto had an army of dragons who would gladly eat anyone who annoyed him too much, and if he were feeling in the mood, he could always use a certain tool of his that Mokuba knew he didn’t especially like, but knew how to use. As for Mokuba himself… a technopath of his level had a lot more uses for the internet than just generic porn.

He glanced back to see the results of Noah’s quick search for information on their intruder. There wasn’t much interesting there; he’d come from a perfectly ordinary town, didn’t have any real powers of his own, but an apparent knack for discovering enchanted items. Mokuba thought that should probably count as an actual power, or at least a useful ability. He could’ve made a decent living off that alone.

Then something else caught his eye: the stranger had made a recent trip out of the country, and come back with a couple of items that he insisted were magical, even if no one else could detect anything in them.

The images of what he’d brought flashed up on the screen with little more than a thought turned that way. Mokuba stared at them, a slow scrape of fear creeping its way up his spine.

I don’t like it either. Those are old magic. Almost as old as the Millennium Items.

Mokuba wasn’t going to disagree with Noah. He didn’t know where the magic came from, but from the designs on those images, he could tell they were related to dragons somehow.

There hadn’t always been dragon tamers. Most histories pinpointed their development to somewhere in the last couple of centuries, as dragons began to be more integrated into human society. No one knew where dragons even came from, only that there were on occasion people born in the world who could become dragons. It didn’t come from one’s parents and it didn't always get passed down to one’s children.

There were also dragons who couldn’t become human but there weren’t many dragons who weren’t at least as intelligent as humans, whether or not they could speak in human tongues.

Part of Seto’s duties as a dragon tamer was to learn about dragons, to figure out a way for dragons to live peacefully with others. Sometimes this required knocking heads together. Seto was good at that part of his job.

Part of those duties also included protecting dragons from anyone who wanted to hurt them that the dragons couldn’t somehow manage for themselves. Seto was extremely good at that part of his job.

In the few seconds it took for all of that to warp through Mokuba’s mind, he could see the stranger getting angrier and angrier.

“If you won’t give me what I want, then I’ll just take it myself!”

Mokuba was already on his feet and Seto as well, reaching for something under his desk: the Millennium Rod. Mokuba knew that he didn’t use it except in extreme emergencies, but anything that he considered a threat to KaibaCorp qualified.

If the stranger had intended violence on either Seto or Mokuba, then there would’ve been no contest at all. Seto would’ve had the Rod out on time to stop him and much of what happened afterward wouldn’t have.

Only the stranger moved fast, faster than either of them judged, and a small blue sphere crashed down at his feet, filling the room with a thick, foul smoke that filled their throats and blinded their eyes, and Mokuba couldn’t stop coughing. Nor could Seto; Mokuba could hear him clearly, even through his own coughing.

There were other noises, such as feet moving around and something being thrown here and there, and then Mokuba couldn't keep himself on his feet anymore.

The last thing he found himself fully aware of was Noah’s voice in the back of his mind shouting something he couldn’t understand, and then a horrible pain racked through him, and he couldn’t see or hear anything at all.

“Mokuba. Mokuba!”

It drifted into his mind that Mokuba was him and therefore someone was calling to him. He thought he blinked. He didn’t know for certain. He did know that he tried to wake up and he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

He groaned somewhere in there. Now he could feel hands on his shoulders, shaking him, and he tried to blink again. This time he did it, and when his eyes opened, he could see a little.

Not much. There weren’t any lights on. That wasn’t right. The KaibaCorp building was designed so that even in a power outage, they had backup generators ready to kick in. There should’ve been something that would give light.

Only there wasn’t. At least not the lights that he expected. As his senses slowly put themselves back together, he realized that what he now saw by were candles, dozens of them set all over.

His big brother prepared for everything.

And now Seto sat near him, staring at him, far more worry than anyone else would see in those blue eyes of his.

“Mokuba?” There was quiet concern in his voice. Mokuba pushed himself up a little, his head spinning a bit still.

“I’m all right,” he tried to reassure Seto. He didn’t think that was absolutely true, but the less his brother had to worry about, the sooner they could get this sorted out. “What happened?”

“It was that idiot. I never did get his name.” Seto snarled the words out, his anger focused on that fool most of all. “I don’t know what that gas of his did other than knock us out, but he ransacked the place looking for my dragon records.”

Mokuba sat up a little more, wincing. He needed something to drink; his throat cracked and parched. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Seto set a bottled water in front of him. He drank it down while hearing the rest of what happened.

“He didn’t find them.” Seto flashed a smile that most of his dragon friends would’ve been very proud of.

Mokuba wasn't surprised. He knew all along where Seto’s records were kept and the stranger hadn’t had a chance of finding them.

He looked around again. This was far too dark for afternoon. He glanced back at Seto, whose thought processes seemed to have followed his own.

“That was a few hours ago. It’s almost midnight.” Seto’s eyes flashed with rage. “He did something to the power system and a few other things before he left, and I can’t figure out how to undo them yet. I don’t think it’s technopathic in nature, but I can’t get any of the lights on or the doors to open. I can’t even get in touch with security.”

Mokuba jerked his head around to where he’d been sitting. His laptop wasn’t where it had been, but he quickly caught sight of it: knocked onto the floor, battered and broken. He could get it repaired or replaced within a day, since it was KaibaCorp issue, but until he did that, or until he could connect to another system or they could get the building systems going again, he didn’t have a connection to anything.

That sent a strong chill of its own all through him. He hadn’t been disconnected for the last three years. Even if he wasn’t using the internet or the systems for anything at all – and he kind of always low-level monitored everything in KaibaCorp for any sort of problems – it was a part of him. This was almost like losing an arm or a leg.

I’ll get it back, though. This was worse than if the power had been knocked out in a storm. Not only did they have the back-ups if that happened, but in that case, he could’ve hooked himself easily into something else to help with repairs.

Now he just had to wait. Kaibas, by blood or by adoption, weren’t very good at waiting.

Seto stood up. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with any of my dragons, but nothing works. It’s like I can’t reach beyond the building itself.”

Mokuba considered that carefully. “Doesn't sound like anything I know of.” He hated not being able to find the instant information on what the situation was. How was he going to help his brother like this?

Seto stared at the black space that had replaced the windows. Normally they had a magnificent view of Domino City. Now Mokuba couldn’t even see the stars, let alone any of the city lights.

That wasn’t right at all. Even with the power out, they should’ve been able to see the stars.

He steadied himself on his feet, taking his time to get more assured of his balance before he headed over to the window. They did have bullet-proof glass there, and shields that could come down in case of certain other threats, but they didn’t look like this.

Like a curtain of nothingness hanging just beyond his touch.

He shuddered at the thought, turning as Seto came up behind him, staring at the emptiness outside as if personally offended by it.

He probably was. Nothing that could get the jump on him like this wouldn’t offend him.

“What about the phone lines?” They needed to try anything and everything they could to get through all of this. The idea of asking for help wasn’t one that came naturally to either of them but sometimes allowances had to be made.

Seto shook his head. “I tried already. They’re not working.”

Something about all of that started to click into place into Mokuba’s head. He stared back at the windows, trying to work it all into a pattern that made sense.

“So we don’t have power, we can’t communicate with the outside, and it almost looks like we’re not even in Domino City anymore,” Mokuba said, each tiny piece fitting into place.

Seto nodded, sharp eyes focused on his brother. Mokuba warmed at the thought that even without his usual connections, Seto counted on him to be useful, to help.

“I think he might’ve done some kind of space twisting.” Mokuba started to gesture towards the remains of his laptop. “Noah and I saw a little about him before that. He had two items he dug up from somewhere out of the country. One could control dragons. I didn’t check on the other one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what did this.”

He waved all around at that. Seto folded his arms across his chest and stared thoughtfully at everything around them.

“How do we twist it back, then?”

Mokuba considered that carefully before he answered. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

To Be Continued

Notes: A new chapter will be posted on Friday for the next two weeks. You people wanted to know what the Kaibas did, so now you're going to find out!