#hirami

🗻 Japan Blog Part 1 🌸

What do you do after being up for around 28 hours? Eat ramen, explore Ikebukuro and prepare for Fuji-Q Highland 🎢, of course! Read the first part of my Japan Travel Blog:

X-Men by Hirami

I remember some news about the breastmilk ice cream in the UK... and there also was some news about recipes with sperm... sooo.... ��

I suppose this can be counted as a practice run for what I’m planning for [Artificial Doll], but it won’t be for a while. If ever.

Here’s a drabble on a scene I’ve been thinking of.

@mooguriklaine-art I reckon you’d love this too.

WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS FOR DSOD.

Kinda. The dueling part. So scroll past it if you don’t want to read it.

If it weren’t for Mokuba, he doubts he would have confidence in his own skills. The amount of information he had gathered, the amount of editing his directives have done to his own code, and the sheer amount of practice he had to do to get to this level. It would make any human being break, it would make any machine break.

When people say Kaiba is a mean dueling machine, they might actually be overestimating the abilities of a machine. He was an artificial intelligence using the latest technology and one of the largest cloud networks in the world, and oftentimes he was on the verge of being tired.

He duels, and duels, and duels.

And he still loses, he still can’t beat Kaiba, his creator. He can’t do what Kaiba wants him to do despite everything, and it stings. If it weren’t for Mokuba’s constant assurances that he was fine, that he was doing great, that his learning curve was incredible. If it weren’t for his constant reminders that Seto Kaiba is one of the greatest duelists in existence, that his goal was someone who was of equal caliber as his creator, that his bar was set so high it was literally in the afterlife. He probably would have resigned to being a failure.

Instead, he’s resigned to dealing with a dueling monster that was Seto Kaiba.

He doesn’t know if he’ll win, but he’ll try. He always does, but now, he’s going to try like he’ll be permanently deleted if he loses. Somehow, this feels like a tipping point. Kaiba had been stuck in a rut for a while, and the outcome of this duel might change it. It was just a feeling.

Or maybe it was because they were in a high-res virtual construction of a cathedral for no explicable reason, that could be it.

Analyzing data…

Action: Activate trap.

“I use my two monsters to activate my trap monster, Dimension Reflector!” He declares, willing the card to flip up. He could tap the button in his Duel Disk, but that seemed less dramatic. Also, it was easier to interact with the objects directly, the disk was just for aesthetic purposes. Ah, he’ll never miss his old body, where he was only a screen with text. “And its attack becomes the same as your monster’s!”

FIELD:

MONSTER zone:

Dark Magician Girl - ATK: 2000 | DEF: 1700

Dark Magician - ATK: 2500 | DEF: 2100

Dimension Reflector - ATK: 4500 | DEF: 4500

“Its attack damage is then aimed at you!” He points at Kaiba, wondering if there are any surprises he has left. He knows Kaiba has one card set, and he should be wary.

But this is the only actions left for him to do. There’s nothing in his hand or field that can help counter or remove that set card.

He’ll just have to believe.

“Now it’s over-” for who, he wonders. “-Kaiba!”

Detecting a shift in CREATOR’s eyes.

It’s over for him, isn’t it. “Damn,” he whispers.

“Trap card, Enhanced Counter,” Kaiba declares calmly, eyes closed. “The damage is negated, and added to my monster’s attack.”

SETO KAIBA’S FIELD:

MONSTER zone:

Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon - ATK: 4500 → 9000 | DEF: 3800

“Kaiba…” This felt final, like it was the last straw. Like Kaiba had come to a realization.

“In the end, I’m just playing with my memories,” Kaiba says, slowly opening his eyes. “Get out of my sight, Yuugi!”

This is the first time he had acknowledged the name of his grief.

“Hyper Ultimate Burst!”

LIFEPOINTS: 0

Input: Ouch.

“If there’s one thing I wish I could have from a human,” he mumbles, patting his shoulder to calm the glitch stuttering because of the dragon’s attack. “It’s having to be paid to deal with this.”

The cathedral disintegrates into clouds of pixels, and by the virtual room’s command, he should to.

Overriding program.

VR simulation program shut down terminated.

That is, if he were a normal dueling A.I.

It takes only a second for Kaiba to realize something isn’t right, and his face is a face of pure annoyance that the avatar of the other Yuugi was still present.

“I ordered you to shut down.”

“Yes, the ‘get out of my sight, Yuugi’ was an obvious indication of that,” he says dryly, raising an eyebrow. “What’s next, Kaiba?”

“I’ll be updating your systems later-”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “I meant, after this,” he spreads his arms. “After realizing the limits to my progress. I can copy the other Yuugi as much as I can, but I’ve reached my limit because he’s not here anymore,” he sees Kaiba stiffen at that. “So, what now? What’s next, Kaiba?”

Silence.

“I’m using your memories, I’m using other people’s memories, but I’m not using his,” he shrugs. “I’m not even a copy of the original, I’m a copy of a copy. And that has a large margin of error. You know this, you’ve known this the moment you first ran my code. This was a project built to fail.”

A screen pops up in front of Kaiba.

Output: So what’s next, Kaiba? What will you do?

“What were you trying to do in the first place?” He adds quietly, and not for the first time, Kaiba notices how much emotion there was in the avatar’s eyes. Especially when the A.I was in control. “What do you want?”

He has an inkling on what’s shining in those eyes.

“I want your absence,” Kaiba says coldly. “Not your pity. Now do as I say, you’re not my therapist. I created you to duel-”

“You created me as a replacement!” He shouts, violet eyes burning with rage. “You think my memory is faulty? You think I deleted the files of all the times you mistook me as him?! All the words you wished to say to him but never did?! All your regrets?! I HAVE ALL OF THEM!”

It’s so odd, Kaiba thinks. That a program would simulate breathing heavily when he-… it doesn’t need to. When it has no respiratory system to begin with. This was all digital audio.

“What I want to know is why you think that’s part of your protocols,” Kaiba says, crossing his arms and seemingly looking at the avatar. Anywhere but the eyes. “Regardless of my intent, it shouldn’t be part of your programming to care about this.”

“Maybe because I’m alive.”

Kaiba scoffs. “That’s what you think.”

“It’s what I know,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “It’s what you know, Mr. Can’t Look At My Eyes,” he snorts at the slight twitch in Kaiba’s fingers. “Perhaps alive is not the right term, but I am not non-living. I am not inanimate. I can tell because I feel things.”

“Feel things,” there is doubt in that voice.

“Things like pain, especially when you push yourself,” he says. “Especially when you’re hurt. Especially when your brother is hurt. Pain is always evident, perhaps it’s not like human pain - I wouldn’t know,” he was built differently after all. “But all I know is that while the other Yuugi had… well, Yuugi and the others. I have you and Mokuba, and I’ll do anything within my abilities to keep you both safe.”

“Yuugi would have been about believing in friendship and all that drivel.”

“You know that’s not all he was,” he refutes. “He’s willing to do everything to protect his loved ones, no matter the consequences. He has more hesitation than you, but in the end… there’s no question on what he would choose.”

The silent question was: Why would he be any different?

“I’m coming with you,” he says firmly. “Whatever you do next, I’m coming with you.”

Kaiba looked ready to protest.

“No, I know your plans, I know the excavation undergoing,” he steps forward, eyes brimming with determination. There and then, Kaiba could see how much the A.I was like the other Yuugi. Not in dueling, but in other aspects. “And frankly, anything dealing with the Items is dangerous. I refuse to be shut down when I know you’ll be out doing something stupid and risky.”

He just wished the aspects weren’t hardheadedness and brutal honesty. “And what can an A.I do against the magical dangers of the Items?”

“Brutally kick it with technology, like you’ve always done,” he grins. “Your new Duel Disk isn’t perfect, especially the one customized to fit your neural capacity. It’s still risky for your mind to fully access the Crystal Cloud and be conscious, isn’t it?”

Damn it, that was one of the things he was frustrated with. “Yes,” he grits out.

“Well, it’s not hard for me,” he smirks, more arrogantly than he had done when they were dueling. “Put me in your system, let me be your buffer, your middleware in a way. All the data you need, I’ll give. It’s not the transcend experience you had in the Neurons project, but at least you won’t die.”

He remembers the tear streaked face of Mokuba that day. “Fine, it’d be a waste of your capacities to limit you to only dueling,” Kaiba admits. “But if I find anything unsatisfactory with your performance, you will be removed from my disk.”

“Of course.”

There was one thing the A.I was wrong about it-… his assessment. That this project was a failure.

+1 @ tags, thats always amazing me most, these are way more sexy than the once going through all 478194729 possible ways of smut :'D

Thank you so much! We’ve been rewarded by good stuff, indeed! 😬

I'm utterly clueless about what I am too... I always fell quicker for guys, but through fandom got into girls too... For a while I thought I could be ace, but now I think Demisexual could fit. I need to be close to someone and really feel like clicking with them and know them for a while to have some attraction going on...I'd never approach anyone just by "you're attractive, I want you for myself"

hirami replied to your post “tigerinkangel replied to your post “I don’t know why I feel guilty...”

(But either way, if you don't feel attracted to girls, that's totally fine too. I'd say what's most important is, if you meet someone and feel you like them, you give it a go)