There was a silence for a moment. Various people were thinking different things. The silence was interrupted by the starfish-haired young man.
"Kaiba!"
"What's the heir of the Kaiba Corporation doing here with his little brother?" The other brunette male in the shop asked, slight wariness and edge in his voice.
Seto smirked, hands in his pockets as he examined his surroundings.
"I heard Yugi's grandfather was a card fanatic, and my little brother is here to get his first cards."
A smile lit up on the taller blonde's face.
"Kaiba! You also play Duel Monsters? Perfect! You can play with us."
Seto smirked and stepped forward with his briefcase swinging lazily in one hand and the other in his pocket.
"Cut it out. You don't -" However his words were interrupted by a beep on his left arm. It beeped loudly once, twice, three, four, five, six, seven times? He was shocked and then carefully set his briefcase down before lifting up his sleeve. Revealed to all was a PDA and he silently read the screen taking in all of the information.
"I put mine on mute." The black-haired young man replied with a snicker.
"What do those beeps mean?" Yugi asked, confused about the entire situation.
"It's a sound a PDA makes when someone else is nearby that's compatible with a PDA. I guess Seto has one."
"Compatible with a PDA?" Yugi asked.
"I don't remember allowing you to address me by my first name." Seto huffed while he was reading his PDA. "Someone who can wear one of these has the potential to be a real duelist." He finished a brief explanation to Yugi out of some form of politeness.
"Yeah, it scans the people around, and it can gather any information that can be at least partially related to dueling on them. From there it can assess whether an N- I mean a person is compatible with one. Anyone that is compatible has the potential to be a Legendary Duelist in the future. Grandma made it as a feature so we can find strong Duelists, Duel Monsters is a lot more popular in America right now than in Japan. It also will keep a profile of anyone who is compatible on your device so you can remember them."
"A profile? That sounds kind of stalkerish." The lone girl in the group said.
"Doesn't matter, anyone who is a potential duelist is worth remembering and knowing about, even if you don't know the exact cards they play you can get a really good idea based on the profile. It's easier to show you all I guess, but there too many people sooo." He held out his arm and then smiled. "Please project my Duelist Profile."
"Understood." A robotic voice replied to the surprise of everyone but the Kaiba brothers. Soon a hologram was projected from the screen. It looked like a paper with a picture of him in the top left. He had a bright smile and one of his green eyes was covered by his hair being messy in the shot.
'Yuli Turgenev - The Lost Young Master
Yuli Turgenev, currently 15, was born in a family that loved to duel and believed that it was the best way to communicate. He looked up to his sister who competed on the world stage and learned to read through watching videos of her playing in tournaments. He was also able to learn basic arithmetic at this time due to the excellent tutelage and patience of Jameson. At the age of five Yuli would fly to Russia to visit his grandfather whom he was named after, unfortunately tragedy struck. However, thanks to his sister's heroic actions Yuli and their grandmother would survive the incident. For the past ten years Yuli has been living inside of a hospital. Now things are different and because of his grandmother's efforts he is now able to explore this world. Yuli would then set out to Domino City with the hopes to duel as many strong duelists as possible, with the belief that if he does he will find what he's looking for, even if he's not sure what it is. He is the sole heir to his grandmother's fortune and as such is commonly referred to as Young Master by most that interact with him instead of his name.
Favored Deck Types: Aggro, Control, Combo, Stun, Midrange, Ramp, Jank, Hybrid
Favorite Monsters: Black Luster Soldier, Amazoness Swords Woman, Rescue Cat
Favorite Spells: Painful Choice, Graceful Charity, Scapegoat
Favorite Traps: Solemn Judgement, Ultimate Offering, Return from the Different Dimension
Instinct - C
Luck - D
Draw - C
Comprehension - SSS
Strategy - A
Composure - B'
"There ya go. That's me or at least how it chooses to represent everything important about me as a Duelist. The only real notable things I guess is that I can play every type of deck and that I read the cards, I guess? Any questions."
"Yeah, what's my Duelist profile, that thing beeped seven times, right? That means all of us must be able to be a Legendary Duelist!"
The taller blonde was loud and boisterous with a smile, obviously excited at the prospect that he would be a Legendary Duelist.
"Doesn't sound that special when you put it like that." The sole female lightly chided.
Seto Kaiba huffed.
"Believe it or not, it's very special. At all of the tournaments I've attended since I've had this thing, it's beeped less than it has just now." Then with slow deliberate movements he set down his briefcase and opened it. Inside of the briefcase there were many black rectangles that seemed familiar to everyone.
"Seto, will I get one too?"
"Of course, Mokuba, that's why I took you here. I just wanted it to be a surprise, it beeped for you last night."
To everyone's disbelief there a hint of pride edging in Seto's voice, but he wasn't talking about himself.
"That's when I watched your last tournament match." Mokuba mumbled.
"Your Duelist Spirit must have ignited then. I believe that in this world there's something special about dueling, something special about a duelist. I call it the Duelist Spirit, it's kind of like the Duel Energy that my PDA uses! Still, I'm surprised you've managed to replicate my grandma's technology, and even more surprised you just give them away to anyone that can use them." Yuli responded with a bright smile.
"Duelist Spirit, I'm not sure I buy that nonsense but there is something special about being a strong Duelist. Replicating your grandmother's technology was simple. As for spreading these PDAs, at first I got a mission, but I realize that it's sowing the seeds for future strong rivals for me to crush and grow even further from."
"These things give you missions? That sounds an awful lot like a game, it does also rank your skills as Duelist. So it also comes with a way to gamify getting better at Duel Monsters?"
"Something like that." Yuli laughed. "However, I think I should let Seto explain."
"I told you to not address me so casually. Games are good for the mind and help develop your skills, and these PDAs do make getting better at Duel Monsters a game. That's not all however. I think we will need a proper demonstration. Unfortunately, you don't have a deck at the moment."
Then there was a long and distinct beep from both Seto and Yuli's PDA as they smiled, acknowledging what the sound meant.
"It's cool Kaiba. I issue an official challenge to duel, the format will be... 15 pack Sealed using the Expert Ruleset, the packs at this shop are only 100 yen right now, so we will each open 15 packs for a total of 75 cards and make a 40-card deck. We can choose any packs from the first series! The loser will pay for cards, and we can both keep what we open! With this we can have a decent enough duel for a demonstration of what the PDA is really about!"
"Hmph. I agree to duel using the Expert Ruleset but not with those worthless packs you're the Young Master, aren't you? Surely this card shop has some... more expensive product we can open?"
"Hey Yug, what's the expert ruleset?" The tall blonde asked.
"Well, you see Joey, it's like a normal game of Duel Monsters but to summon a monster with 5 or 6 stars you need to send a monster from your field to grave. That's called tributing and when you summon this way it's called a tribute summon. Any monster that has 7 stars or more will need two tributes to be tribute summoned. It also allows for direct attacks, and you won't lose if you don't control a monster. However, because direct attacking is allowed you each start with 4000 life points instead of 2000."
"Oh, I get it. Thanks Yug, that sounds like a really hard way to play." Joey replied with a bright smile as he affectionally put an arm on Yugi's shoulder.
"It's called the Expert Ruleset for a reason." Yugi mumbled with a blush, embarrassed at being praised by his best friend.
Solomon Muto of course replied to Seto Kaiba with a smile.
"Well... I do have two booster boxes of those limited edition sets that came with 9 cards in a pack."
"TCG sets?" Yuli asked in confusion.
"He obviously means Legend of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Metal Raiders." Seto snorted. "Fine product, that will do."
"Oh, I know those sets. So... what's the big deal, are they like expensive?"
Yugi shuffled uncomfortably.
"Those booster packs are really expensive, because they have the chance to contain extremely rare cards more often than normal and comes with more cards. It was only available for a very short time and Grandpa managed to win it and not buy it. I'm not actually sure what the price on these packs are. Some cards in this set... well I thought there were only 4 blue-eyes in existence until today."
"For your booster box of the Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon that would be 21 million Yen and for the booster box of Metal Raiders 15 million Yen should do. If there was any guarantee to the rarest cards, I would value them higher but because it is still sealed product, I feel like this is a fair price. We will duel with 15 packs from each set and make our best deck, that should give us a lot more cards to work with."
"36 million yen huh? That still leaves plenty of housing money, sounds great if you're willing to sell!" Yuli had an excited smile as he jumped in front of Solomon and grabbed his hands. "Please esteemed shopkeep! I really wanna duel him!"
Solomon Muto pretended to think about the price for a bit. In reality this was already multiple years worth of revenue in a single day, for product that he won in a tournament for fun ages ago. He was actually ecstatic and easily willing to make the deal.
"Hmmm, I'm not sure."
"Shrewd, you know the actual value of them. Fine, 100 million Yen for both of the boxes, final offer." This was of course a bluff.
Solomon Muto nearly choked and was afraid he'd have a heart attack.
"Sold!" Seto was inwardly surprised; the old man had no clue about the actual value. He had billions set aside for any of the limited editions sets around, the only other way to get them would be credits after all. He was still wondering how that woman had amassed even more wealth than he did, but all of his searches on her turned up nothing. As if she never even existed.
"Haha, the stakes are even higher! My heart's really pumping, let's do this Seto!" Yuli was thrilled, his heart pounding even more. He had never actually had a duel with stakes before, and his first duel would have this big of stakes! It would be like in a major tournament! Well, Seto Kaiba WAS the National Japanese champion, so it did make sense he figured.
"Stop calling me Seto." Seto Kaiba offered a card to Solomon Muto. "Here, I'll just pay for it first and I'll get the rest of the money from Yuli after I duel him into submission." Solomon almost fumbled the card and swiped it faster than almost anything he had done before. The sale was rung up quickly and then Kaiba took both of the boxes and laid them out on a table where people played before sitting down. "Sit next to me and pay attention to how I build my deck Mokuba, you can learn something."
Yuli took his seat across from Seto and smiled.
"I heard in Japan it's a sign of friendship to call each other by first names. You also called me Yuli earlier."
"That's because you currently aren't worth addressing properly."
"You! After this duel you're going to keep calling me Yuli and I'll keep calling you Seto but it will be because we will be friends! Card friends at least. You know it's lonely being at the top." Yuli actually had no idea whether it was lonely at the top or not, all he really knew was that he was a bit lonely.
"Well, if you're worth my time as a rival and not just as a punching bag then perhaps you may call me by my first name. Show me you're a true Duelist then." Seto unceremoniously opened the booster box. "We will each take turns picking a pack from the boxes until there aren't any left, and with 216 cards that should be more than enough for a complete 40 card deck. Don't disappoint me."
"Alright Seto! I'm going to show you exactly how I duel! Also, I'll be talking about my thoughts in building my deck out loud, so perhaps you'll learn something."
"Mokuba, be sure to ignore his speaking. I'll tell you exactly how you build a deck, fine then let's begin!"
