☥ Application
Your Name: Kukki
Age: 23
Username: shokora_kukki
Email: kukkimonster@hotmail.com
IM: Shokora Kukki
Character Name: Yugi Mutou
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime version)
Timeline: The end of the Battle City arc, before they get on the blimp that takes them home.
Background: Link is here, but it is very long. I'll type my own too since I want to get a feel for it myself. |D (Head canon is in blue.)
In Ancient Egypt, a war between two countries broke out, and to gain the upper hand, Pharaoh Aknamkanon had seven mystical items created which were called the Millennium Items. They succeeded, but it turns out that the power of these objects were too dark and powerful. Ninety nine souls were sacrificed to create them, and once Pharaoh Aknamkanon figured this out, he died shortly later of an illness. His son, Atem, inherited the puzzle and the title, though the former was stolen by a thief king named Bakura. With the seven Millennium Items in Bakura's possession, he summoned a ruthless monster called Zorc Necrophidia. After a long battle, Pharaoh Atem sacrificed his life to seal away the evil spirit within Millenium Puzzle, although Zorc had a part of his soul attached to the Millennium Ring. Atem had his own sealed to the Millennium Puzzle along with a binding spell so that only the one chosen to be rid of the curse could put it together. His own name was used to seal Zorc away, so he also had his memory wiped. All was well after that.
And this is where we focus our attention on Yugi Mutou, five thousand years later. As a child, Yugi lived a somewhat sheltered life growing up with his mother and grandfather (it's said that his father is constantly away on business trips and rarely ever visits). He was a happy child, modest and eager to please, having not experienced the reality of the world just yet. He would get his first dose in kindergarten, when he made his first bully. Yugi was quite small for his age (and had the craziest hair), and he never grew angry or defiant with anyone, so he was the perfect target. Not wanting to get the kids in trouble, Yugi never told anyone about this, save for his stuffed animals at night. After that, he would gain a new set of bullies and be picked on every year in school, causing him to become timid and hesitant.
At eight years old, Yugi's grandfather, Sugoroku, an archaeologist, had returned from an expedition through Egyptian ruins with a gift for Yugi. It was a golden box with similar colored puzzle pieces inside. Sugoroku knew that Yugi loved puzzles, and he likely overheard him talking to his dolls about his perils at school, and so he decided that he'd give him that in order to distract him and give him something to do. Hieroglyphics surrounded the puzzle, which Sugoroku translated that it would grant a wish to the one who solved it, and would also give them "something which can and cannot be seen". It did the trick; Yugi happily spent hours trying to complete the puzzle, feeling drawn to it every night. But while Yugi was definitely a gamer, and an impressive one at that, this one in particular was the most difficult he'd ever dealt with. It would be a very long time before he'd ever solve it.
At ten years old, Yugi met a girl in class named Anzu. She was having trouble with one of the assignments that was given, and when no one else would help, he helped her solve it with ease. After that, the two of them began talking, and soon realized that they clicked together the way friends usually did. Since then, they've stuck together. She was the first friend Yugi had ever made, and for a while, the only one. Things passed on the same way. Even though Anzu would stick up for Yugi, the kid was like a powerful magnet for them, and no girl can hold off anything like that.
At the age of sixteen, Yugi was an awkward teenager in high school who still looked like an eight-year old. Of course, this did wonders for the bullies, especially a certain pair named Jounouchi and Honda, who hated how indecisive and soft he was. He'd developed a crush on Anzu by then; Understandable, really, since she was the only girl who really cared for him. Eight years later, and Yugi still hadn't solved the puzzle. However, he kept it with him always, even brought it to school. He claimed that it was "a memento of his grandfather", despite the fact that he certainly wasn't dead yet. It's extremely important to him, as he calls it "his treasure".
One day, Jounouchi, frustrated with how "girly" Yugi was, decided to take a puzzle piece while Yugi wasn't looking and toss it into the school swimming pool. Yugi didn't notice, and the day went on until a huge hall monitor named Ushio came to him and told him that he'd be his body guard from now on. Random, he thought, and slightly weird, so he made a quick getaway. Only to later run into the thoroughly beaten forms of Jounouchi and Honda at the hands of Ushio. Yugi, being the selfless guy that he is, dove right in and told the bully to back off and to leave his friends alone. Of course, he got a beating for it, and a demand for 200,000 yen ($1,600 in the US) for his services.
Yugi didn't have that kind of money. And so, he decided to work off his worries by trying, once again, to solve the Millenium Puzzle. This time, he was closer than he ever was before! Every puzzle piece went into place, and before he knew it, Yugi realized that he only needed one more to complete it! Excitedly, he reached into the box… only to find it gone. He searched his entire room, but it seemed to be gone forever. Just when he thought he should give up, his grandfather approached him and said that a blond kid came by with the last piece - soaking wet, even though it wasn't raining. When he left, Yugi finally placed the last piece of the puzzle…
And that was when his life would drastically change forever.
It started that night. Yugi had blacked out, only to wake up in his bed, go to school with his newly completed treasure in a necklace around his neck, and find Ushio trembling and crying in front of the school, muttering about monsters and water (the manga has him rolling in leaves and trash proclaiming it to be money, but since we're going by the anime here…). He was in such a state that he had to be transferred to the hospital, and then expelled from the school due to his attack. This happened again and again, many times during occurrences that he couldn't write off. He'd be in the middle of a tense situation, then wake up and not remember anything about it, but find the object of his stress mentally destroyed. He started to worry, wondering if, perhaps, he was somehow responsible for their shattered minds (or, in some cases, completely mangled bodies).
Before we expand on that, let's rewind just a bit to after the Ushio incident. Jounouchi caught up to him, and told him that he had something for Yugi. "Something that can and cannot be seen". His friendship. The puzzle was already changing his life by giving him a friend that he could count on. It took a little while longer, but soon enough, Honda joined their ragtag group, too. And so they stuck together like a line of ducklings.
Now, sometime after this and before the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yugi had at least a few encounters with the source of his blackouts, although he never picked up on it. CANON CONTRADICTS ITSELF ON THIS ISSUE SO I WILL… TRY TO EXPLAIN IT MY OWN WAY. When he solved the Millennium Puzzle, he had activated a binding spell, and the spirit that had been sealed within it possessed him, using him as a host to play twisted Shadow Games with those who would dare harm his new body or cause it stress. Of course, Yugi wasn't told any of this, but considering how creepy this dark spirit was, the first instance probably scared the hell out of him (and canon can't seem to decide whether he did or didn't know about his other self beating his bullies into submission, so I'll just say he has a strong suspicion). The next meetings would take place once Yugi's pure soul started to change the other's, and so they weren't quite so intense or frightening. He was never able to speak to him (he claims that he talks, but the other him can't hear his voice), but he can watch what he does deep within the soul room, where they reside after they switch with each other. He grew used to his presence, referring to him as his other self, or "mou hitori no boku". It seemed that Yugi figured out that the spirit was bound to the puzzle, but not that it was responsible for the torture his bullies went through.
So now that the back story is out of the way, we can go to the interesting stuff. We have a complete artist change, and now Yugi is made ten times more adorable. One day at school, Yugi talks about how his grandpa has a rare card which is just vague enough to make Seto Kaiba, a multi-billionaire CEO who for some reason is going to a shoddy public high school, to think that it's the Blue Eyes White Dragon. He gets blocked, he gets mad, and challenges Sugoroku to a card game, which the latter loses. The other spirit, who we will we call Yami from now on, takes over and beats Kaiba down with Sugoroku's deck, then proceeds to Mind Crush him, which is about as violent as he gets. But eh, it's a pretty good method, considering it sends Kaiba to the hospital in a six-month long coma.
Now, this children's card game in this world is apparently as popular as football is in America, so word spreads quickly that Kaiba was beaten down by Yugi, and this is UNACCEPTABLE. Corporations break their contract with Kaiba! IT BECOMES WORLD NEWS THAT YUGI BEAT KAIBA. So essentially Yugi becomes a jock. Even though it was actually Yami. BUT NO ONE CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE ANYWAY. Ahem. An American named Pegasus J. Crawford decides to take advantage of this and proposes to those corporations that if he defeats Yugi Mutou, they will join up with him. That earns their respect, so they agree with that. Thus, Pegasus holds this big tournament and kidnaps the soul of Yugi's grandpa The Ring style to force him to duel his way to the top.
Which he does. But not without ~CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT~
The tournament took place on an island that Pegasus seized control of for this very event. Duelists around the world would gather and fight each other with card games, and each of them start out with a glove and ten star shaped chips that fit into them, and they're appropriately named star chips. Winning a duel means you win the amount of star chips you bet in the fight, and if you win ten of them, you move on to participate in the finals, which would determine who would duel with the man who created the game of Duel Monsters. Why, that would be Pegasus himself! The loser gets kicked off of the island. One note here is that Yugi gave up one of his star chips to Jounouchi so that he could participate, as he needs the prize money for his sister's eye surgery.
Probably one of the few important parts of this arc is Yami's duel against a now awakened Kaiba. During the duel, Kaiba took steps back according to his life points (like hit points in this game, and Kaiba takes like nine steps in the anime when he was supposed to take five) until he was standing on top of the steps behind him. He informed Yami that if he loses, he'll take the final step, which will send him plummeting into the ocean and cost him his life.
Yami struggles over this, but in the end, he does not care. He orders his monster to perform the final attack, and this does not sit well with Yugi at all. He flips Yami tells Yami to stop and abruptly takes control, which makes the monster stop just before he attacks and then be destroyed by Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragon. The fact that Yami went this far honestly scared Yugi into a Blue Screen of Death, so he spends an episode in a catatonic state. It's possible his suspicions over what happened to his mangled bullies in the past either grew or were confirmed, too. But seeing Anzu fight for his right to continue dueling reminds him that he has to have courage in order to keep going, and thus his cowardice is (mostly) elevated. He starts to trust his other self again, which will become extremely handy in his battle against Pegasus.
It was revealed earlier on that Pegasus holds the Millennium Eye, which can peer into another person's mind and see what they're thinking. This is how he's become practically unbeatable and world renowned for his skill. Along with this is the ability to steal a person's soul and seal it within a card, and with that, he managed to take not only Sugoroku's soul, but also Mokuba, Kaiba's little brother, and Kaiba himself. Yugi doesn't care about the prize money; he just wants to get these souls back. So, Yami duels with Pegasus, but soon realizes that he can't win with Pegasus' ability.
But then Yugi calls out to him, and for the first time, they're actually able to converse and understand each other. The strategy that they come up with relies completely on trust in the other's skill. For example, Yugi would place a card face down, but before Pegasus could scan his mind, Yami would take over, not knowing what the card is, but also denying Pegasus of that same knowledge. It works remarkably well, and they almost defeat Pegasus with this strategy… but he has other plans.
With the Millennium Eye, he turns their duel into a Shadow Game. There are apparently several levels to the severity of a Shadow Game, and this is one of the higher ones - the surroundings sap away the spiritual energy of the duelists, and once they're gone, they're… pretty much dead. Yugi, who has very little energy, starts to feel the effects immediately, which makes Yami take over more often than before. But without Yugi, their strategy will fail, so he urges Yami to let him keep going despite what it'll do to him. Soon enough, with only about two turns, Yugi's strength is sapped, and he collapses onto the stage (which makes Yami forget about the duel to beg him to wake up). Yami takes over soon after, swearing revenge. It's a close call, but he manages this, and Yugi's soul returns to his body. The trust between the two of them is higher than any time before this, and the two of them congratulate each other before agreeing that it wasn't just their victory, but all of their friends.
Since Yugi wasn't fighting for the prize money, he gives it to Jounouchi, who uses all of it to help pay for his sister's eye surgery. Thus ends the Duelist Kingdom arc!
Before the Battle City arc, Yugi replaces the leather necklace with a giant chain, thinking that it'll be safer (and probably fashionable). Of course, this proves useless when someone manages to steal it (well, he did practically give them the puzzle, BUT STILL). He's led to an abandoned warehouse, where he finds the puzzle nailed to the wall. He's then forced to, you guessed it, gain it back through a children's card game! Turns out that the perpetrator is Bandit Keith, an American duelist we met during the Duelist Kingdom arc, being possessed by some ~unknown force~. They duel it out, and it's pretty obvious Yugi doesn't really know what to do without Yami. Being the protagonist, however, allows him to gain the upper hand. But before they can finish the duel, Keith regains control of himself and starts to scream at whoever is possessing him to shut up and get out of his head. Turns out, this whole duel was to force Yami to take over and for the possessor to observe him. Realizing that the puzzle was the source of this torture, Keith grabs it and, against Yugi's protests, smashes it into pieces.
Considering this took eight years to complete, and how he and Yami have grown close enough to playfully tease each other, Yugi is very distressed over this. Momentarily, he's saved by Bakura, another friend of his. Now, Bakura holds the Millennium Ring, which means he has the still malevolent spirit of Zorc bound to him. But anyway, he hands the puzzle pieces to Yugi, who tells him that even if he has to work for another ten years, he will complete the puzzle. Bakura has ulterior motives behind this, and thus he leaves with a smirk, knowing that his plan is working.
Recall that I said he was only momentarily saved. Keith goes nuts again and destroys one of the machines, which causes a chain reaction that sets the whole damn place on fire. Yugi can't pull the puzzle out of the wall, and he can't possibly leave Yami to die in the fire, so he decides to stay there and try to complete the puzzle as fast as he can. He solves it much faster this time, though by then, he's taken in enough smoke to pass out. Jounouchi and Honda break in as soon as this happens, but they find that, even while he's unconscious, Yugi has an iron grip on the puzzle, and they can't pull it out of the wall either! Things are looking grim for our heroes! But then Yami's voice tells Jounouchi to use one of the metal bars to pull the nail out of the wall as a sort of pulley system. Yugi is saved! In the hospital, he tells them that Yami was probably helping him solve the puzzle.
Once he's out, he and Yami talk about the spirit's past, which Yami reveals that he doesn't remember. Yugi, still afraid from the fire incident, doesn't want to know anymore. Yami gaining his memories might mean losing him, after all. But he's comforted by Yami telling him that he wants to be by his side forever, and Yugi responds in kind that he'll give him his memories instead. Then they hold hands.
Yup.
Now, on to the Battle City arc! Which is unnecessarily long. While Yugi and Yami had their talk, Kaiba met with Isis Ishtar, who holds the Millennium Necklace, which allows her to see into the future and show others the past. She informs him of how Ancient Egyptians used to play children's stone tablet games and how Pegasus transferred their power into cards! But he made three God cards - Obelisk, Slifer and Ra, which proved to be too powerful and, if they were in the wrong hands, they could DESTORY THE WORLD. So, Isis plans on gathering them so that they're not used. Same old story. All but Obelisk had been stolen, though, and she wants Kaiba to hold a tournament to lure the other two cards there. To spur him into this, she gives him Obelisk. And so, Kaiba creates a whole new tournament with new rules - if a player wins a game, they can take a rare card from the loser.
BACK TO YUGI, who gains entry to the tournament for free since Yami he is a master duelist. Again, loooots of battles happen with only a few being important. One of which happens when Jounouchi becomes possessed by the same man who took over Keith, who turns out to be a blond Egyptian pretty boy named Marik (He uses the Millennium Rod to pull this off). At first, Yami is the one who duels him, but Yugi thinks he knows of a way to get through to him, and he can't stand feeling Yami hurt, and so he switches with him despite how dangerous it is. See, both of their legs are chained to an anchor above the sea, and they have a time limit. The winner receives a key to remove the shackles from their ankles while the loser gets dunked into the ocean to drown. But if there's no result by the end, both duelists end up with the latter result. And if anyone tries to intervene, Anzu is conveniently tied to a chair with another heavy object above her, and another possessed person will drop it on her.
The battle is heartbreaking for Yugi, but he wants to prove that he has the courage to do this himself. He manages to slowly get through to Jounouchi through memories and trust, until the very end, when he loses. Before he passes out, Yugi tells Jou that he loves (in the friendship sense guys :| ) and trusts him. This makes Jounouchi snap out of it and beg his own card, the Red Eyes Black Dragon, to attack him so that his life points are destroyed, too. This also allows both keys to be accessible. Yugi is unconscious and thus can't do anything about his situation, and Yami can't help him since the puzzle was taken off of him (which might contradict canon but WHATEVER YOU SAY ANIME), but Jounouchi manages to grab Yugi's key before the both of them get pulled into the ocean. Under water, he frees Yugi, and Shizuka, with her sight just restored, dives in to save Jounouchi.
An important thing to note is that before this, Yami found a link to his lost memories, but didn't tell Yugi. During the tournament though, Yugi figured it out, and told his other self that he'd still be by his side to help him. Throughout the arc, however, he grows a little more pessimistic about this, even having staring contests with the puzzle and having a good cry in bed over it. He knows that if Yami finds out about his past, there's a good chance that he'll leave them and never come back.
SO ANYWAY after a few more battles (one of which has Yami defeat his opponent with MAGICAL RAINBOWS that fruitcake), they, of course, make it to the finals, which is held on a large blimp and requires them to have their battles on top of it thousands of feet in the air where the slightest bit of turbulence could make them fall off and die a horrible death. There, it's revealed that the true reason behind Marik's intentions is a split personality that he created during his times of stress as a tomb keeper and living with an abusive father. Said personality took him over completely and, after many more episodes, challenged Yami and Yugi in the finals. There was no purpose to him wanting to win - no god cards, no ruling the world, nothing. This was just for fun and to watch them suffer. A condition of the battle was that, if Yami lost, Yugi's soul would disappear into the Shadow Realm and Yami would cease to exist. With each life point that was taken away, a part of Yugi's body would vanish to indicate this. After about five episodes, our big damn heroes win and manage to save Marik's soul, who shows them the hieroglyphics on his back, which contains "The Secret of the Pharaoh", a code that only Yami and Yugi can unlock. They head on their way to the blimp to take them back home, and that's when Yugi runs into his unfortunate fate of being locked onto a cruise ship.
Spoken / written languages: Japanese/Kanji and a little bit of English, although he's pretty bad at that. He'll get better at the latter once he realizes most everyone on the ship speaks it. He's been studying Egyptian and hieroglyphics to try and connect a little more with his other self. He's just as bad with that as he is in English.
Abilities: Heee is a normal kid and can't really do anything. It's his other self who does all the magic stuff, and they won't be able to switch places here. But apparently, the Millennium Puzzle has this ability, no matter who wears it, to make a card that they need appear if they really believe in it. So Yugi could totally win at poker if he wanted to. I suppose I can say that he is a genius when it comes to puzzles and games, as he did solve the world's hardest puzzle that no one else could figure out (or, well, lived long enough to do so).
He also has puppy eyes that could melt even the hardest soul with one look. Or… or disgust them.
Items: His Millennium Puzzle, a deck of normal cards and one card from his Duel Monsters deck - his Black Magician. Also his bling. And his clothes.
Third Person Sample:
Something was terribly wrong.
This was not the blimp that Kaiba had promised, although a cruise ship was preferable to one after a string of death-defying duels thousands of feet in the air. The gentle rocking of the waves seemed much more trustworthy than the turbulence that would occasionally rock the arena they had left mere moments ago. But even with this soothing motion, Yugi still felt that something was terribly wrong.
Namely, the giant hole that he felt within him that came from the missing presence of his other self. This was not good. This was not good at all. Yugi couldn't care less if he was on a blimp or a boat or even a train with accommodations fit for a first class passenger; that overwhelming emptiness was enough to make him hunch over and grip the puzzle around his neck tightly and call out in vain, Mou hitori no boku? Mou hitori no boku?!
The silence was enough to let him know that he was on his own. But who - or what, could've caused this? The only other thing that could overpower a Millennium Item was another Millennium Item, which narrowed down the possibilities, but Bakura's soul was lost and Marik had rid himself of the demonic one that plagued him. Shadi? Isis? Pegasus?
Yugi stared down at the puzzle as he pondered all of the possibilities, and each one left him more confused and doubtful. He wished his other self was here… He'd know what to do. Or, at least, someone. Where were his friends?
He had to find them. They could be just as lost as he was. Yugi stepped cautiously to the door, hesitated for a second (what if it was a trap?), and then pushed it open.
First Person Sample:
… I really don't think this is a blimp. You could've told us we were going home some other way, Kaiba… and you didn't have to scare us like that. Not that I'm ungrateful; I'm sure we all appreciate the change! After all of that, I think we all prefer the ocean over the sky. It's just that…
[Oh, he probably wouldn't know about his missing half. He'd be better off asking someone else.]
Has… [How to word this?] … anyone seen a passenger with a golden item on board? A necklace, a rod… Maybe an ankh? Could you please tell me if you have? It's really important to me.
Preferred Quarters: Preferably right beside Yami, if we're both accepted. :|
Age: 23
Username: shokora_kukki
Email: kukkimonster@hotmail.com
IM: Shokora Kukki
Character Name: Yugi Mutou
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime version)
Timeline: The end of the Battle City arc, before they get on the blimp that takes them home.
Background: Link is here, but it is very long. I'll type my own too since I want to get a feel for it myself. |D (Head canon is in blue.)
In Ancient Egypt, a war between two countries broke out, and to gain the upper hand, Pharaoh Aknamkanon had seven mystical items created which were called the Millennium Items. They succeeded, but it turns out that the power of these objects were too dark and powerful. Ninety nine souls were sacrificed to create them, and once Pharaoh Aknamkanon figured this out, he died shortly later of an illness. His son, Atem, inherited the puzzle and the title, though the former was stolen by a thief king named Bakura. With the seven Millennium Items in Bakura's possession, he summoned a ruthless monster called Zorc Necrophidia. After a long battle, Pharaoh Atem sacrificed his life to seal away the evil spirit within Millenium Puzzle, although Zorc had a part of his soul attached to the Millennium Ring. Atem had his own sealed to the Millennium Puzzle along with a binding spell so that only the one chosen to be rid of the curse could put it together. His own name was used to seal Zorc away, so he also had his memory wiped. All was well after that.
And this is where we focus our attention on Yugi Mutou, five thousand years later. As a child, Yugi lived a somewhat sheltered life growing up with his mother and grandfather (it's said that his father is constantly away on business trips and rarely ever visits). He was a happy child, modest and eager to please, having not experienced the reality of the world just yet. He would get his first dose in kindergarten, when he made his first bully. Yugi was quite small for his age (and had the craziest hair), and he never grew angry or defiant with anyone, so he was the perfect target. Not wanting to get the kids in trouble, Yugi never told anyone about this, save for his stuffed animals at night. After that, he would gain a new set of bullies and be picked on every year in school, causing him to become timid and hesitant.
At eight years old, Yugi's grandfather, Sugoroku, an archaeologist, had returned from an expedition through Egyptian ruins with a gift for Yugi. It was a golden box with similar colored puzzle pieces inside. Sugoroku knew that Yugi loved puzzles, and he likely overheard him talking to his dolls about his perils at school, and so he decided that he'd give him that in order to distract him and give him something to do. Hieroglyphics surrounded the puzzle, which Sugoroku translated that it would grant a wish to the one who solved it, and would also give them "something which can and cannot be seen". It did the trick; Yugi happily spent hours trying to complete the puzzle, feeling drawn to it every night. But while Yugi was definitely a gamer, and an impressive one at that, this one in particular was the most difficult he'd ever dealt with. It would be a very long time before he'd ever solve it.
At ten years old, Yugi met a girl in class named Anzu. She was having trouble with one of the assignments that was given, and when no one else would help, he helped her solve it with ease. After that, the two of them began talking, and soon realized that they clicked together the way friends usually did. Since then, they've stuck together. She was the first friend Yugi had ever made, and for a while, the only one. Things passed on the same way. Even though Anzu would stick up for Yugi, the kid was like a powerful magnet for them, and no girl can hold off anything like that.
At the age of sixteen, Yugi was an awkward teenager in high school who still looked like an eight-year old. Of course, this did wonders for the bullies, especially a certain pair named Jounouchi and Honda, who hated how indecisive and soft he was. He'd developed a crush on Anzu by then; Understandable, really, since she was the only girl who really cared for him. Eight years later, and Yugi still hadn't solved the puzzle. However, he kept it with him always, even brought it to school. He claimed that it was "a memento of his grandfather", despite the fact that he certainly wasn't dead yet. It's extremely important to him, as he calls it "his treasure".
One day, Jounouchi, frustrated with how "girly" Yugi was, decided to take a puzzle piece while Yugi wasn't looking and toss it into the school swimming pool. Yugi didn't notice, and the day went on until a huge hall monitor named Ushio came to him and told him that he'd be his body guard from now on. Random, he thought, and slightly weird, so he made a quick getaway. Only to later run into the thoroughly beaten forms of Jounouchi and Honda at the hands of Ushio. Yugi, being the selfless guy that he is, dove right in and told the bully to back off and to leave his friends alone. Of course, he got a beating for it, and a demand for 200,000 yen ($1,600 in the US) for his services.
Yugi didn't have that kind of money. And so, he decided to work off his worries by trying, once again, to solve the Millenium Puzzle. This time, he was closer than he ever was before! Every puzzle piece went into place, and before he knew it, Yugi realized that he only needed one more to complete it! Excitedly, he reached into the box… only to find it gone. He searched his entire room, but it seemed to be gone forever. Just when he thought he should give up, his grandfather approached him and said that a blond kid came by with the last piece - soaking wet, even though it wasn't raining. When he left, Yugi finally placed the last piece of the puzzle…
And that was when his life would drastically change forever.
It started that night. Yugi had blacked out, only to wake up in his bed, go to school with his newly completed treasure in a necklace around his neck, and find Ushio trembling and crying in front of the school, muttering about monsters and water (the manga has him rolling in leaves and trash proclaiming it to be money, but since we're going by the anime here…). He was in such a state that he had to be transferred to the hospital, and then expelled from the school due to his attack. This happened again and again, many times during occurrences that he couldn't write off. He'd be in the middle of a tense situation, then wake up and not remember anything about it, but find the object of his stress mentally destroyed. He started to worry, wondering if, perhaps, he was somehow responsible for their shattered minds (or, in some cases, completely mangled bodies).
Before we expand on that, let's rewind just a bit to after the Ushio incident. Jounouchi caught up to him, and told him that he had something for Yugi. "Something that can and cannot be seen". His friendship. The puzzle was already changing his life by giving him a friend that he could count on. It took a little while longer, but soon enough, Honda joined their ragtag group, too. And so they stuck together like a line of ducklings.
Now, sometime after this and before the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yugi had at least a few encounters with the source of his blackouts, although he never picked up on it. CANON CONTRADICTS ITSELF ON THIS ISSUE SO I WILL… TRY TO EXPLAIN IT MY OWN WAY. When he solved the Millennium Puzzle, he had activated a binding spell, and the spirit that had been sealed within it possessed him, using him as a host to play twisted Shadow Games with those who would dare harm his new body or cause it stress. Of course, Yugi wasn't told any of this, but considering how creepy this dark spirit was, the first instance probably scared the hell out of him (and canon can't seem to decide whether he did or didn't know about his other self beating his bullies into submission, so I'll just say he has a strong suspicion). The next meetings would take place once Yugi's pure soul started to change the other's, and so they weren't quite so intense or frightening. He was never able to speak to him (he claims that he talks, but the other him can't hear his voice), but he can watch what he does deep within the soul room, where they reside after they switch with each other. He grew used to his presence, referring to him as his other self, or "mou hitori no boku". It seemed that Yugi figured out that the spirit was bound to the puzzle, but not that it was responsible for the torture his bullies went through.
So now that the back story is out of the way, we can go to the interesting stuff. We have a complete artist change, and now Yugi is made ten times more adorable. One day at school, Yugi talks about how his grandpa has a rare card which is just vague enough to make Seto Kaiba, a multi-billionaire CEO who for some reason is going to a shoddy public high school, to think that it's the Blue Eyes White Dragon. He gets blocked, he gets mad, and challenges Sugoroku to a card game, which the latter loses. The other spirit, who we will we call Yami from now on, takes over and beats Kaiba down with Sugoroku's deck, then proceeds to Mind Crush him, which is about as violent as he gets. But eh, it's a pretty good method, considering it sends Kaiba to the hospital in a six-month long coma.
Now, this children's card game in this world is apparently as popular as football is in America, so word spreads quickly that Kaiba was beaten down by Yugi, and this is UNACCEPTABLE. Corporations break their contract with Kaiba! IT BECOMES WORLD NEWS THAT YUGI BEAT KAIBA. So essentially Yugi becomes a jock. Even though it was actually Yami. BUT NO ONE CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE ANYWAY. Ahem. An American named Pegasus J. Crawford decides to take advantage of this and proposes to those corporations that if he defeats Yugi Mutou, they will join up with him. That earns their respect, so they agree with that. Thus, Pegasus holds this big tournament and kidnaps the soul of Yugi's grandpa The Ring style to force him to duel his way to the top.
Which he does. But not without ~CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT~
The tournament took place on an island that Pegasus seized control of for this very event. Duelists around the world would gather and fight each other with card games, and each of them start out with a glove and ten star shaped chips that fit into them, and they're appropriately named star chips. Winning a duel means you win the amount of star chips you bet in the fight, and if you win ten of them, you move on to participate in the finals, which would determine who would duel with the man who created the game of Duel Monsters. Why, that would be Pegasus himself! The loser gets kicked off of the island. One note here is that Yugi gave up one of his star chips to Jounouchi so that he could participate, as he needs the prize money for his sister's eye surgery.
Probably one of the few important parts of this arc is Yami's duel against a now awakened Kaiba. During the duel, Kaiba took steps back according to his life points (like hit points in this game, and Kaiba takes like nine steps in the anime when he was supposed to take five) until he was standing on top of the steps behind him. He informed Yami that if he loses, he'll take the final step, which will send him plummeting into the ocean and cost him his life.
Yami struggles over this, but in the end, he does not care. He orders his monster to perform the final attack, and this does not sit well with Yugi at all. He flips Yami tells Yami to stop and abruptly takes control, which makes the monster stop just before he attacks and then be destroyed by Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragon. The fact that Yami went this far honestly scared Yugi into a Blue Screen of Death, so he spends an episode in a catatonic state. It's possible his suspicions over what happened to his mangled bullies in the past either grew or were confirmed, too. But seeing Anzu fight for his right to continue dueling reminds him that he has to have courage in order to keep going, and thus his cowardice is (mostly) elevated. He starts to trust his other self again, which will become extremely handy in his battle against Pegasus.
It was revealed earlier on that Pegasus holds the Millennium Eye, which can peer into another person's mind and see what they're thinking. This is how he's become practically unbeatable and world renowned for his skill. Along with this is the ability to steal a person's soul and seal it within a card, and with that, he managed to take not only Sugoroku's soul, but also Mokuba, Kaiba's little brother, and Kaiba himself. Yugi doesn't care about the prize money; he just wants to get these souls back. So, Yami duels with Pegasus, but soon realizes that he can't win with Pegasus' ability.
But then Yugi calls out to him, and for the first time, they're actually able to converse and understand each other. The strategy that they come up with relies completely on trust in the other's skill. For example, Yugi would place a card face down, but before Pegasus could scan his mind, Yami would take over, not knowing what the card is, but also denying Pegasus of that same knowledge. It works remarkably well, and they almost defeat Pegasus with this strategy… but he has other plans.
With the Millennium Eye, he turns their duel into a Shadow Game. There are apparently several levels to the severity of a Shadow Game, and this is one of the higher ones - the surroundings sap away the spiritual energy of the duelists, and once they're gone, they're… pretty much dead. Yugi, who has very little energy, starts to feel the effects immediately, which makes Yami take over more often than before. But without Yugi, their strategy will fail, so he urges Yami to let him keep going despite what it'll do to him. Soon enough, with only about two turns, Yugi's strength is sapped, and he collapses onto the stage (which makes Yami forget about the duel to beg him to wake up). Yami takes over soon after, swearing revenge. It's a close call, but he manages this, and Yugi's soul returns to his body. The trust between the two of them is higher than any time before this, and the two of them congratulate each other before agreeing that it wasn't just their victory, but all of their friends.
Since Yugi wasn't fighting for the prize money, he gives it to Jounouchi, who uses all of it to help pay for his sister's eye surgery. Thus ends the Duelist Kingdom arc!
Before the Battle City arc, Yugi replaces the leather necklace with a giant chain, thinking that it'll be safer (and probably fashionable). Of course, this proves useless when someone manages to steal it (well, he did practically give them the puzzle, BUT STILL). He's led to an abandoned warehouse, where he finds the puzzle nailed to the wall. He's then forced to, you guessed it, gain it back through a children's card game! Turns out that the perpetrator is Bandit Keith, an American duelist we met during the Duelist Kingdom arc, being possessed by some ~unknown force~. They duel it out, and it's pretty obvious Yugi doesn't really know what to do without Yami. Being the protagonist, however, allows him to gain the upper hand. But before they can finish the duel, Keith regains control of himself and starts to scream at whoever is possessing him to shut up and get out of his head. Turns out, this whole duel was to force Yami to take over and for the possessor to observe him. Realizing that the puzzle was the source of this torture, Keith grabs it and, against Yugi's protests, smashes it into pieces.
Considering this took eight years to complete, and how he and Yami have grown close enough to playfully tease each other, Yugi is very distressed over this. Momentarily, he's saved by Bakura, another friend of his. Now, Bakura holds the Millennium Ring, which means he has the still malevolent spirit of Zorc bound to him. But anyway, he hands the puzzle pieces to Yugi, who tells him that even if he has to work for another ten years, he will complete the puzzle. Bakura has ulterior motives behind this, and thus he leaves with a smirk, knowing that his plan is working.
Recall that I said he was only momentarily saved. Keith goes nuts again and destroys one of the machines, which causes a chain reaction that sets the whole damn place on fire. Yugi can't pull the puzzle out of the wall, and he can't possibly leave Yami to die in the fire, so he decides to stay there and try to complete the puzzle as fast as he can. He solves it much faster this time, though by then, he's taken in enough smoke to pass out. Jounouchi and Honda break in as soon as this happens, but they find that, even while he's unconscious, Yugi has an iron grip on the puzzle, and they can't pull it out of the wall either! Things are looking grim for our heroes! But then Yami's voice tells Jounouchi to use one of the metal bars to pull the nail out of the wall as a sort of pulley system. Yugi is saved! In the hospital, he tells them that Yami was probably helping him solve the puzzle.
Once he's out, he and Yami talk about the spirit's past, which Yami reveals that he doesn't remember. Yugi, still afraid from the fire incident, doesn't want to know anymore. Yami gaining his memories might mean losing him, after all. But he's comforted by Yami telling him that he wants to be by his side forever, and Yugi responds in kind that he'll give him his memories instead. Then they hold hands.
Yup.
Now, on to the Battle City arc! Which is unnecessarily long. While Yugi and Yami had their talk, Kaiba met with Isis Ishtar, who holds the Millennium Necklace, which allows her to see into the future and show others the past. She informs him of how Ancient Egyptians used to play children's stone tablet games and how Pegasus transferred their power into cards! But he made three God cards - Obelisk, Slifer and Ra, which proved to be too powerful and, if they were in the wrong hands, they could DESTORY THE WORLD. So, Isis plans on gathering them so that they're not used. Same old story. All but Obelisk had been stolen, though, and she wants Kaiba to hold a tournament to lure the other two cards there. To spur him into this, she gives him Obelisk. And so, Kaiba creates a whole new tournament with new rules - if a player wins a game, they can take a rare card from the loser.
BACK TO YUGI, who gains entry to the tournament for free since Yami he is a master duelist. Again, loooots of battles happen with only a few being important. One of which happens when Jounouchi becomes possessed by the same man who took over Keith, who turns out to be a blond Egyptian pretty boy named Marik (He uses the Millennium Rod to pull this off). At first, Yami is the one who duels him, but Yugi thinks he knows of a way to get through to him, and he can't stand feeling Yami hurt, and so he switches with him despite how dangerous it is. See, both of their legs are chained to an anchor above the sea, and they have a time limit. The winner receives a key to remove the shackles from their ankles while the loser gets dunked into the ocean to drown. But if there's no result by the end, both duelists end up with the latter result. And if anyone tries to intervene, Anzu is conveniently tied to a chair with another heavy object above her, and another possessed person will drop it on her.
The battle is heartbreaking for Yugi, but he wants to prove that he has the courage to do this himself. He manages to slowly get through to Jounouchi through memories and trust, until the very end, when he loses. Before he passes out, Yugi tells Jou that he loves (in the friendship sense guys :| ) and trusts him. This makes Jounouchi snap out of it and beg his own card, the Red Eyes Black Dragon, to attack him so that his life points are destroyed, too. This also allows both keys to be accessible. Yugi is unconscious and thus can't do anything about his situation, and Yami can't help him since the puzzle was taken off of him (which might contradict canon but WHATEVER YOU SAY ANIME), but Jounouchi manages to grab Yugi's key before the both of them get pulled into the ocean. Under water, he frees Yugi, and Shizuka, with her sight just restored, dives in to save Jounouchi.
An important thing to note is that before this, Yami found a link to his lost memories, but didn't tell Yugi. During the tournament though, Yugi figured it out, and told his other self that he'd still be by his side to help him. Throughout the arc, however, he grows a little more pessimistic about this, even having staring contests with the puzzle and having a good cry in bed over it. He knows that if Yami finds out about his past, there's a good chance that he'll leave them and never come back.
SO ANYWAY after a few more battles (one of which has Yami defeat his opponent with MAGICAL RAINBOWS that fruitcake), they, of course, make it to the finals, which is held on a large blimp and requires them to have their battles on top of it thousands of feet in the air where the slightest bit of turbulence could make them fall off and die a horrible death. There, it's revealed that the true reason behind Marik's intentions is a split personality that he created during his times of stress as a tomb keeper and living with an abusive father. Said personality took him over completely and, after many more episodes, challenged Yami and Yugi in the finals. There was no purpose to him wanting to win - no god cards, no ruling the world, nothing. This was just for fun and to watch them suffer. A condition of the battle was that, if Yami lost, Yugi's soul would disappear into the Shadow Realm and Yami would cease to exist. With each life point that was taken away, a part of Yugi's body would vanish to indicate this. After about five episodes, our big damn heroes win and manage to save Marik's soul, who shows them the hieroglyphics on his back, which contains "The Secret of the Pharaoh", a code that only Yami and Yugi can unlock. They head on their way to the blimp to take them back home, and that's when Yugi runs into his unfortunate fate of being locked onto a cruise ship.
Spoken / written languages: Japanese/Kanji and a little bit of English, although he's pretty bad at that. He'll get better at the latter once he realizes most everyone on the ship speaks it. He's been studying Egyptian and hieroglyphics to try and connect a little more with his other self. He's just as bad with that as he is in English.
Abilities: Heee is a normal kid and can't really do anything. It's his other self who does all the magic stuff, and they won't be able to switch places here. But apparently, the Millennium Puzzle has this ability, no matter who wears it, to make a card that they need appear if they really believe in it. So Yugi could totally win at poker if he wanted to. I suppose I can say that he is a genius when it comes to puzzles and games, as he did solve the world's hardest puzzle that no one else could figure out (or, well, lived long enough to do so).
He also has puppy eyes that could melt even the hardest soul with one look. Or… or disgust them.
Items: His Millennium Puzzle, a deck of normal cards and one card from his Duel Monsters deck - his Black Magician. Also his bling. And his clothes.
Third Person Sample:
Something was terribly wrong.
This was not the blimp that Kaiba had promised, although a cruise ship was preferable to one after a string of death-defying duels thousands of feet in the air. The gentle rocking of the waves seemed much more trustworthy than the turbulence that would occasionally rock the arena they had left mere moments ago. But even with this soothing motion, Yugi still felt that something was terribly wrong.
Namely, the giant hole that he felt within him that came from the missing presence of his other self. This was not good. This was not good at all. Yugi couldn't care less if he was on a blimp or a boat or even a train with accommodations fit for a first class passenger; that overwhelming emptiness was enough to make him hunch over and grip the puzzle around his neck tightly and call out in vain, Mou hitori no boku? Mou hitori no boku?!
The silence was enough to let him know that he was on his own. But who - or what, could've caused this? The only other thing that could overpower a Millennium Item was another Millennium Item, which narrowed down the possibilities, but Bakura's soul was lost and Marik had rid himself of the demonic one that plagued him. Shadi? Isis? Pegasus?
Yugi stared down at the puzzle as he pondered all of the possibilities, and each one left him more confused and doubtful. He wished his other self was here… He'd know what to do. Or, at least, someone. Where were his friends?
He had to find them. They could be just as lost as he was. Yugi stepped cautiously to the door, hesitated for a second (what if it was a trap?), and then pushed it open.
First Person Sample:
… I really don't think this is a blimp. You could've told us we were going home some other way, Kaiba… and you didn't have to scare us like that. Not that I'm ungrateful; I'm sure we all appreciate the change! After all of that, I think we all prefer the ocean over the sky. It's just that…
[Oh, he probably wouldn't know about his missing half. He'd be better off asking someone else.]
Has… [How to word this?] … anyone seen a passenger with a golden item on board? A necklace, a rod… Maybe an ankh? Could you please tell me if you have? It's really important to me.
Preferred Quarters: Preferably right beside Yami, if we're both accepted. :|