Family Matters

Yu-Gi-Oh and its characters are the wonderful creations of Kazuki Takahashi. I'm not making any money from this, just having lots of fun.

A/N A big thank you goes to the wonderful Kitt Chaos, for permission to bring Patience and Daniel Morgan from her "Collateral Damage" story into this tale. Her insights and suggestions have been invaluable. And thanks also to my awesome beta Dragondancer 5150, for your extraordinary patience with my runaway punctuation and other goofs.

Prologue

He could hear her crying for him. Her fury and despair were echoed in her frenzied roars. She had been taken from him, could not find him, could not help him…

The why was obvious, his own blind arrogance. The stupid certainty that he was invulnerable, untouchable. Still, even if he had been so sure of himself, why take the needless risk of going alone?

Shame. In the harsh light of self recrimination he could not un-see the truth of it. He had been ashamed, had not wanted anyone to know the truth of his own beginnings. The orphanage, being adopted by Gozaboro, his rise to fame and power by his own brilliance and hard work, that story was well known. What came before, the loss of those who truly loved them, the bitter betrayal by those who called themselves family. Those deep, bitter truths were recognized only in the shadowed recesses of his heart. They had taken all that could be taken, then dumped him and his baby brother on the grounds of the orphanage in the dead of night. He still remembered the sound of squealing tires as the car drove off, leaving them shivering in the cold until morning when the staff found them huddled together under a tree by the gate. Mokuba was the lucky one, he had been too young to remember their name, a name he had erased from his own soul until that morning, when he had opened the envelope.

It was not that unusual for a fan letter to arrive on his desk, especially since that interview had hit the newsstands. This one had seemed no different, save for the lack of a return address. With no immediate crisis demanding his attention, he slit it open. An old photo had fallen out. He picked it up, and time stopped…


New York. Two weeks earlier.

Knowledge was power. In the right hands, used in the right way, knowledge could win wars and topple empires. The most vital knowledge was often obtained from the least likely sources, which was why he was risking food poisoning at a tawdry grease pit calling itself a "family" restaurant.

His luncheon companion certainly fit right into their surroundings. Cheap off- the- rack suit, vinyl briefcase, pathetic comb over.' Seedy', 'sleazy', and 'uncouth' were the words that came to mind. Still, if the merchandise being offered had any real value, he could tolerate an hour or two spent in such disagreeable company.

The "salesman" pulled a magazine from the briefcase and set it on the table between them. The young man – a boy, really- featured on the cover had in the last year become a household name the world over. His technological brilliance had revolutionized the gaming industry.

"I've read the article, Mr. Harper. Very touching human interest story, two brothers tragically abandoned, no clue as to their identity, adopted by a billionaire arms dealer, turning a highly successful company away from weapons manufacturing to game design and doing it for 'All the children of the world'. This is all public know-"

"Very true sir," Harper's smarmy voice was as rancid as the coffee. He flipped through the magazine, finding a certain page and indicating another photo. "But as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words."

The photo was of the same young man, this time as a boy of perhaps ten or eleven, playing chess with his brother, who appeared to be about five. "This was taken at the orphanage about three months after they arrived." Harper produced another photo from the brief case and laid it beside the first. "This was taken two years before that chess game!"

It was obviously the same children, just slightly younger. A man in an American military uniform knelt with his arms around the boys, his resemblance to the older boy unmistakable. Harper placed a third photo alongside the first two, the same man, his arm around the shoulders of a lovely Japanese woman. Even in the small faded picture her pregnancy was clearly visible. One hand rested on her swollen belly, the other held the hand of the boy who would become the youngest C.E.O. in the history of the Fortune 500…


He didn't remember when the photo had been taken, certainly not who had taken it. But he did remember the man kneeling with his arms around him and Mokuba, remembered more with his heart than his intellect that this man had truly loved them.

"Father."

His little brother looked to be two or three in the photo, so it had to be well after their mother's death. His mind's eye could no longer call up her image, but he was sure Mokuba resembled her.

"But he wasn't Mokuba, not then, and you weren't Seto…"

He looked inside the envelope, discovered a folded slip of paper upon which was written a phone number and a single sentence in English:

Here's another photo for your family album.

After several long moments, he reached for the keyboard on his desktop computer and googled three names. Within minutes he was reading several newspaper articles and an obituary, all written two years before. One survivor, no other family listed.

"You got it all, but it wasn't enough. No matter how much you had, it was never enough…"

This had to be dealt with, quickly and decisively. Unknown enemies had been attempting to undermine his authority at Kaiba Corp. for some time. The timing of this message could not be a coincidence. While certain precautions would be taken, this was something he would have to deal with personally.

'No more, you're not taking anything else from us. This ends now!"


New York. One week earlier.

It was an unbelievable story, better suited to those absurd thrillers his wife was always reading, than to the real world. Yet the proof was now in his private safe, verified by people with far more discretion than the late Mr. Harper. It was highly doubtful anyone would mourn his untimely passing, certainly not his former "clients".

It was one of those pathetic clients who had been airing his family's dirty laundry in hopes of settling a rather large debt. It seemed the young man's late uncle, a career Air Force officer, had met and fallen in love with an exchange student while both were enrolled at Berkley. Marrying despite opposition from both families, they had been stationed at several bases including Pearl Harbor where their older son was born. Tragedy first struck at Okinawa when the wife died of a brain aneurysm just two days after the birth of their second son, especially sad given that she had recently reconciled with her mother, her father having died the year before without ever speaking to his only child or acknowledging his grandson. The two motherless boys hardly had a chance to know their grandmother before she also passed away, never recovering from the grief of losing husband and daughter.

The bereaved father had done his best, aided by a substantial inheritance left to them by his late mother-in-law. Since none of his wife's remaining relatives wanted anything to do with them, he made plans to raise his sons in the U.S. as soon as his last term of service was complete. He was killed in a car crash just one month before his scheduled discharge. His older son was eight, the younger boy only three years old.

At first, it seemed that the boy's story might finally have a happy ending when it was discovered that their father had a brother living in the town of Domino where he taught English at the local university. The boys were sent to live with their aunt and uncle and cousin, then promptly forgotten. When the family returned to the states less than a year later, with far more money than a college professor's salary could account for and without their nephews, no one questioned the story that the boys had decided to live with their mother's relatives…

He would have liked to interview the aunt and uncle, but alas, they had died in a mysterious house fire two years ago, leaving their only son to inherit their estate. It had taken the lad very little time to squander his good fortune, mostly on drugs and gambling. It was these bad habits that precipitated the young man's current financial difficulties and forced him to put up his family history as collateral for the debt. How very fortunate that the proof of his claims had been packed away in a rented storage unit and not burned up in the family residence.

It was a stroke of luck that Harper's imagination had extended no further than selling this information to the highest bidder, a further stroke of luck that he had been the first potential buyer Harper had approached. Blackmail, he was now certain, would be no more successful than his attempts to turn public opinion against a certain gaming corporation and its upstart C.E.O. had been. The punk learned from his early mistakes, like that little uproar caused by his treating a quiet suburb as his personal playground, even hiring his most outspoken critic to head his Community Impact Division! This woman, Morton – no, Morgan, that was her name - was certainly earning her paycheck, not only undermining his efforts to show the company in the worst possible light, but also managing to transform her employer into an international hero. She was surely capable of using the threat of extortion to generate massive outpourings of sympathy and support.

But this new information would still be very useful. For some time, he had been seeking a way to remove the upstart from the picture, and now he had an opening. Using an untraceable cell phone, he punched in a number from memory. The gentleman he was calling had impeccable references for this sort of work, along with important contacts in several high profile companies.

"Mr. Kemo, I'll need you to assist a young man who will be doing some very important 'consulting' work for me. I've given him some very precise instructions. Please see that those instructions are followed to the letter."

"Of course sir. And when the 'work' is complete..?"

"Then his services will no longer be required."

Knowledge is power, Mr. Lewis, when used in the right way, at the right time. Oh, but you don't use that name anymore, do you? You seem to prefer to be known as Mr. KAIBA these days. I suppose you can't be blamed for that, the Kaiba name does have its advantages. Your little brother may be too young to remember, but I'm sure you haven't forgotten your American relatives. I do believe a family reunion is long overdue. Such a pity this sudden family crisis will keep you from attending the upcoming shareholders meeting. In fact, I'm afraid it would be best for Kaiba Corporation if another, more seasoned C.E.O. were to be elected. Someone who will move the company away from this card game fad and back to its roots…