#kudos to the tumblr user who has the mai is the reincarnation of amazoness paladin headcanon

[merryfortune]

we were lovers in a past life (maybe you were one of my wives)

Clover and Violets 2022

Day 23. Warmth

Title: we were lovers in a past life (maybe you were one of my wives)

Ship: Amazonshipping | Mai/Taniya

Word Count: 1,557

Rating: T

Universe: Crossover - Duel Monsters/GX

Tags: Canon Divergent, Reincarnation, Missed Connections, Bittersweet

   Oh to have friends in high places, Mai mused as she relished the fancy new technology that she had been gifted personally to from the Kaiba Corporation.

   She had idly expressed that she had been feeling a little bored lately to Anzu and Anzu passed that onto Yugi and Yugi passed that onto Kaiba who, in a huff, announced all of a sudden that he needed some good duellists to test some new hotshot technology that his company had been creating. It felt good, Mai had to admit. So she was put on the fast list and so far she really liked what she had seen.

   Even a few duels deep, Mai could tell that there was an evolution of the game on the horizon. Again. And that reinvigorated her taste for adrenaline and victory. There was just something dazzling about the new animations. They were wild, they were all but real. The new level of immersion went deeper and deeper, now without the need of VR goggles which was great because they gave Mai a headache and a bad hairdo after wearing.

   This was something else. She could feel the jungle when she used her field cards, the thick and sticky humidity, she could hear the swaying of foliage. It was like she was really out there, in the real world, and not locked up inside some sterile, white space which astronauts could use to prep for space travel. Because, to be honest, that’s exactly the kind of place Mai was cooped up in per Kaiba’s request if she was going to be one of his new playtesters. At least it was private. She just had to make note of her observations in writing or via an e-mail, and she was going to get paid for it later. Easy money.

   But it did pique Mai’s curiosity.

   If Kaiba wanted this to be a true showstopper, then Mai clearly needed to get up close and personal with her duel. Besides, there was no rule in the contract stating that all hands had to stay inside the ride like this was an amusement park fair. She saw it all as fair game and if it was a risk, well, it made her heart skip a beat.

   Her cards shuffled inside of the mount of her duel disc and then spat out her top hand. She looked through it and realised something: Amazoness Tiger… She hadn’t happened upon it at all in the previous simulated duels. Her other cards were repeats so Tiger’s presence stood out to her and it felt only right to make sure all her monsters got a chance to rampage so she summoned it after making sure her Cage was set up first.

   Mai watched, enthralled, as she was encased in the battle dome. The greater jungle just outside its bending bars, locked into place which were tough and gritty. She looked around and could already feel herself sweat in the simulated sun, the heat was padding out the duel and she chose her next card with care, with a smile and an accelerated heartbeat. Even she couldn’t escape the lust of the battle that the Cage inspired.

   Mai was delicate as she placed it in the correlating monster zone. There was a bluish flash which sparkled underneath her card and Amazoness Tiger growled. She felt a shiver go down her spine as the beast stalked forward onto the field, claws dragging through the dirt and tail whipping, irritated. Mai gasped, she couldn’t help herself, there was a new depth to how all her monsters appeared and Tiger was no exception. The detailing to Tiger’s fur was luxurious, brackish, with a defined muscle underneath.

   “Why have I been called here against my will?” Tiger asked.

   And Amazoness Tiger drew up onto her hindlegs and there was another flash. The silhouette of the tiger lost in it and became humanoid, a woman, became very much not a monster Mai recognised: a dark-skinned warrioress with mauve hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. She looked around, annoyed and surveying, her sharpness of her eyes heightened by the facial scar she bore, only to soften - with fear - when she realised where she was and who she was with.

   “Sofia?” she asked in a tiny voice.

   Mai took a step back. This… This was not at all how the previous simulations had been going. This was beyond a mere misfire, a card being placed down and being read erroneously, Mai had been warned of that. This was something else entirely, she held her fist to her chest defensively.

   “That’s not my name.” Mai retorted. “I’m Kujaku Mai and who the hell are you?”

   “Apologies, I’m out of line.” she said and she came closer.

   Again, with a softness seemingly not suited to the strength she embodied. Her eyes were confused - wanting - but also despairing. She did not want to intrude further on Mai who was just as lost as she was.

   “I am Taniya, of the Amazoness Tribe, I am the one and the same monster that you summoned but this… This is not an ordinary location for duelling.” she said and she looked around. “I recognise this gladiatorial arena well, it is all but the same one as we have back home. Whatever this realm is, I fear it.”

   Mai blinked and she disarmed herself, her scrunched up shoulders going down, “You do?” She was rather sceptical that anything could scare a woman who had the eyes and prowess of a tiger, after all.

   “Yes, I do.” Taniya gravely replied. “I fear that this place brings Duel Monster spirits too close to the surface. That is a talent only the select can wield, if an undeserving duelist were to summon monsters like that, the consequences could be dire. Not all of us were meant to fight with consciousness.” 

   “I don’t believe you.” Mai replied and then backtracked, flustered, with an erratic hand gesture. “Well, okay, I can believe the part about Duel Monsters being used for bad stuff and it having horrible consequences. Trust me. That is something that is all too easy to believe. I just. Don’t believe you are a Duel Monster Spirit, if that makes sense. I don’t know what you are but it feels more than that to me.”

   Taniya smiled a sad smile, it made Mai’s heart ache for what felt like centuries in just mere seconds.

   “Correct,” Taniya replied, “I am slightly more than a Duel Monster Spirit but it is the most apt descriptor for what I am.”

   “I see…” Mai chewed on her reply sceptically. The intersection of magic and science, it gave her the heebie jeebies.

   “You still don’t trust my word?” Taniya asked. “Feel me for yourself, I am flesh and blood, even as a Duel Monster, I have a heartbeat.”

   Mai was nervous but she allowed Taniya to take her hand. Taniya’s hands were warm, the crook of her bare neck and shoulders even warmer, like a hearth, like a home. Mai was still taken aback by it but even more so by the mournful way in which Taniya was in demeanour, like this was only a fragment of the entire woman she was. A very sad, very fragile fragment of her.

   Mai swallowed. She could feel the pulse of Taniya’s heartbeat beneath the skin. She was so very warm and Mai was so very attracted to it, truth be told. She looked up at Taniya and she could easily imagine what she looked like before that scar.

   “How did you…?” Mai tried to ask but Taniya shook her head, mildly embarrassed yet there was a flicker of nostalgia in her eyes. She had such beautiful, blue eyes, when they were full of light, at least.

   “It was just a silly mistake. An argument between myself and…” Taniya reminisced.

   “Let me guess, between you and Sofia chick, huh?” Mai asked.

   Taniya laughed, she had a bawdy laugh and she nodded, “Yes, you are correct, Mai.”

   “She must’ve been one hell of a woman.” Mai replied.

   “Correct again.” Taniya said with more of a concealed chuckle this time, an exhalation of her breath which was slowly letting go of the grief that seemed to have gotten lodged inside of her out of nowhere.

   Mai flicked her eyes up, shining and curious yet oddly guilty, she felt as though she ought to be for some reason, and she dared to ask, “Just who was she?”

   “May I?” Taniya asked in lieu of a reply, she pointed down to Mai’s wrist, to where her duel disc was attached.

   Mai blinked and lifted her wrist to Taniya. Taniya removed her deck and in doing so, it began to break the system since the system hadn’t been prepped or ready for a removal. The jungle and the cage around them began to glitch but Taniya ignored it, even as she began to become apart of it in the haphazard flashes. She looked through Mai’s deck and then found what she was looking for in the nick of time.

   She handed Mai back her deck and disappeared with the illusion of the duel. Mai turned over the face down card on top and it wasn’t lost on her, the resemblance between herself and the wavy, blonde locks and violet eyes of Amazoness Paladin.