Jigen Bakudan

by Ankh-Ascendant

Seto should not have brought his gun to school... but he did. Now he's the perpetrator of the first school shooting in Japan and he has to figure out a way out of this mess. - no pairings, dark, featuring mental instability and some death, and very long.

TITLE: Jigen Bakudan
CHAPTER: 1 - Oneshot
AUTHOR: Lythande ( setosgirl0 / neferseti0 / Ankh Ascendant )
DATE: 6-19-11
FANDOM: Yu-Gi-Oh
DISCLAIMER: I don't own YGO, or make any money from it.
PAIRINGS: none
TYPE: angst
RATING: PG-13/R
WARNINGS: character death, insanity
OCs: none
BETA: Silvershadowfire
WORDS: 15,658
SUMMARY: Seto should not have brought his gun to school... but he did. Now he's the perpetrator of the first school shooting in Japan and he has to figure out a way out of this mess.
NOTES: 1) This takes place after Yuugi's Dungeon Dice Monsters adventure with Otogi, but before Ishizu contacts Seto and before Battle City has been planned or begun.

2) This is a more realistic take on a plot than you'd normally find in YGO fanfiction, and as such is a little dark. I've spent the last three weeks as I wrote this wallowing in angst and realism, and I loved it. :) It brought me back to why I originally started writing fanfiction. I hope you like it as much as I like writing it. There is so much more that I know about this story than got written... If you're interested in why Seto did what he did, what happened after, what was really going on meanwhile, or the rest of an extended author's note/discussion, I wrote and posted an explanation of everything over on my website: fancy-random. Lythande. com/archives/1617 (spaces inserted to get around the link filter).

Jigen Bakudan

It was a Monday morning. The classroom was loud and relaxed as they waited for the last bell and their English teacher; she was habitually a couple minutes late, and no one was troubling themselves too much with punctuality.

Seto wished they would. The background cacophony and chaos of twenty-odd other students was getting on his nerves, and he wished that they would all sit quietly and wait for her, like he was doing, reading e-mails on his phone. He could do with some peace and order.

Jounouchi's seat was one row in front of him and one row to the right; that was the worst part of it all, because he had to hear every word that idiot and the rest of Yuugi's loser friends said over their pointless little casual duel. That stupid accent seemed to ride right over the top of the background noise, and he wanted to reach over there and throttle him with every 'de' and 'ya'. Couldn't he even be bothered to speak proper Japanese in school?

The group gave a spontaneous outburst of laughter, and Seto calmly sent his e-mail. He slid his phone into his pocket as he picked up his briefcase, released the hidden inner pocket, and reached inside. His mind was clear but basically blank, with nothing but that shapeless irritation floating around in it. They really needed to shut up.

The report of the shot and the recoil of the gun in his hand jarred him back to reality, two seconds too late. He saw the individual droplets of blood land on Yuugi's surprised face with unreal clarity, and watched Jounouchi fall aside with what seemed like exaggerated slowness with a hole punched clear through his upper chest. Jounouchi made a sound that seemed more surprised than anything; Yuugi gave a frightened cry and slid to the floor at his friend's side; another guy sitting in the next row, behind Jounouchi, cried out and grabbed his arm. It all seemed to be happening in high definition slow motion.

For a long moment the classroom was silent except for the ringing in his ears as the students tried to figure out what had happened; he was sure that none of them had ever seen a gun in someone's hand before, let alone heard one fired. They couldn't have any clear idea what had happened. Hell... he was holding the gun and he was as surprised as any of them.

His clearest thought was a regurgitation of a random fact, that the sound of a gunshot at close range was more than loud enough to permanently damage your hearing. He wished he'd thought to have ear protection in his briefcase with the gun.

Then the first scream sounded and the silence turned into a panic. The normally quiet classroom erupted into yells and a stampede away from him in all directions. In the midst of the pandemonium he heard the door open and the authoritative step of a teacher and he didn't think about it; the gun swung from the position it had found trained on Yuugi's face and fired at the doorway. His first shot hit a fleeing student who moved into his line of fire in the back, but the second fired even as he fell took the teacher down without a sound.

Some of his classmates escaped through the open door, tripping over their fallen comrade. Someone dragged the teacher out of the doorway, but he was already on his feet, and he slammed the door shut without even looking into the hall. No one dared approach it, and they all crowded into the corners away from him, screaming and crying.

This was a mess. He stepped away from the door, over the twitching, dying student, and mentally lashed himself - he should have dropped the gun the moment he realized what he had done. He had enough money, connections, and faith in a selective judicial system that he probably could have escaped any really serious repercussions. This was the country where they let international cannibal murderers back onto the street and made them into a spectacle, after all; his celebrity would probably only have grown.

But instead, what had he done? He had panicked, hadn't he? The gun tapped idly against his other hand. It was his own brand of panic, maybe. Self preservation instinct had taken over. If the teacher had just come running three seconds later... He would have had this thought through by then. She wouldn't have gotten herself killed by his knee-jerk reactions. Now this was much, much more complicated, and he needed time to think and plan, and he couldn't do it with people fucking screaming, not when all he really wanted to do was shoot them all...

"Shut up," he said calmly. No one listened. One girl in the corner in particular was screaming and sobbing, drowning out everything else. He was sure that if she would just stop, everyone else would and he could think.

He stepped in front of her and raised the gun. "Be quiet," he repeated evenly. She covered her ears with a particularly piercing scream, the hysterical edge grating on his every nerve. He squeezed the trigger. Her scream cut off abruptly as the back of her head exploded against the white wall.

There was another round of screams, then silence fell sharply over the room when he swung the gun back on them. That was much better. He turned back toward the door and waved everyone away from it again with the gun, ignoring them as they scattered. The shot student was dead now, and he ignored the body. There was a bright modern art piece of blood on the wall, misaligned with the blood spattered on the door, and a small dark pool of it underneath. He couldn't see any shadows on the floor or through the opaque window... yet. If they were coming it would be this way, though.

He still had no well-formed plan, but his self-preservation instincts were well-honed. He shoved the teacher's desk against the door; it opened out so the desk wouldn't stop anyone opening it, but it would stop them charging him. For further insurance he selected the nearest girl and waved her up onto it. "Sit against the door," he instructed her, and she obeyed him as quickly as she physically could. Good. They had seen what happened when they didn't obey him, and now they would, unless they wanted to be painting the walls as well. He might end up having to make an example of a hero... His eyes lingered on Yuugi crouched on the floor for a moment, but he didn't seem inclined to do anything rash just yet. They were all under his control... Good.

"You." He pointed the gun at a half dozen girls, watching them freeze or flinch in turn. One shrieked a little and covered her mouth, but he didn't hold it against her. "Close the blinds and line up in front of the windows."

They arrayed themselves to his order, spreading out when he saw they were trying to clump together and waved them apart. As soon as his human shield was in place he felt more secure, almost relaxed. Everything was under control.

And he was going to keep it that way.

He pushed himself lightly away from the desk and started with the girl blocking the door. "Cell phone." He held out his hand, the gun held loosely in the other. She looked only too happy to do as he asked and hand it over.

He grabbed the nearest bag in passing and dumped its contents, scattering pencils and notebooks and tampons across the desk, and used it for a phone repository as he circled the room. No one argued, although one guy tried to tell him he didn't have one. He stuck to that story until the muzzle touched his head, when he finally pulled it out and dropped it with the others. Yuugi's friend Mazaki was in the middle of a text when he got to her; he took it without waiting for her to finish and hit her with the butt of the gun to wipe the glare off her face.

He waved everyone out of the corner by the windows, opposite the door, and dropped the phones there and sat on the floor. The gun rested in his lap while he folded his hands, watching the rest of the classroom calmly over them.

Physically he sat motionless, while mentally he took stock of his situation. His resources consisted of one handgun with eleven bullets left, with no extra clips, his laptop in his briefcase, sixteen cell phones plus his own, ten male students, two of whom were injured, nine female students, seven of whom were already employed as shields, and two dead bodies. There was also the teachers' computer (pathetic) with internet access and whatever he could scrounge from the classroom, which seemed unlikely to be anything useful.

The fact that no further school authorities had come meant that the police had already been notified and were probably en route. His options were dwindling. Flight had not really been one since his second shot, but now he could discount it entirely. Having a shootout with police was too risky a venture, and his probability of escape was far too slim. Nonexistent, really. And if he did escape, what then? Spend the rest of his life in a country with no extradition treaty? That was hardly appealing. Then why didn't he release everyone and surrender now? Because... he couldn't. That was all.

"Kaiba..." He found that he was staring through Yuugi as he thought, and his eyes refocused on him when he spoke, then he glanced around the room once; aside from the group of Yuugi, Honda, and Mazaki clustered around their fallen friend, everyone else had clumped along the edges of the room, consciously or unconsciously avoiding the two bodies.

His eyes turned back to Yuugi again. The silence that soothed him seemed to be making everyone else more tense. All eyes were on him, but Yuugi seemed to be their spokesman... even though he should have known that if there was one person he was determined to shoot, it was him, he was putting the attention on himself. That was his 'too noble to save myself when other people are in danger' character flaw coming out. Heroic... He really couldn't stand a hero.

He didn't answer as he looked at Yuugi, and he seemed to have to gather himself before he tried again. "Kaiba, what do you want?"

"Quiet."

"I'm just trying to-"

"What I want..." Seto smoothly stood up again, gun in hand, "is quiet."

He saw Yuugi's eyes narrowing in thought, and they seemed redder to him... His eyes fell down to the gaudy pendant that was almost touching the floor as he crouched. He looked tense, preparing to spring and do something stupidly heroic.

His gun rose to Yuugi's head. "Take off the stupid necklace."

"Kaiba..." Yuugi's eyes narrowed further. The gun didn't intimidate him. "How about we settle this one on one, and let everybody else go?"

"No," he said simply. "I'm not going to play any sort of game with you. I'm making this very simple: take off the necklace, or," he swung the gun to point unerringly at Honda's head, "I'm going to put a bullet through his stupid hairdo."

Yuugi hesitated, gripping the Puzzle with one hand. Evidently he wasn't sure how serious he was. Surely, he must be thinking, he wouldn't just shoot Honda like that... even though he had just shot four other people.

"Yuug', no..." Jounouchi gasped out, still alive, and stopped with a grimace of pain.

"Don't do it, Yuugi." Honda glared up at him. One of his arms was wrapped around Jounouchi's chest, holding him up off the ground to help his breathing. Jounouchi, unfortunately, didn't seem to be dying right this moment; the hole was more in his shoulder than in his chest, and didn't even seem to have hit a lung, more the pity; he would just have to bleed out now. Honda was smeared with his blood, and looked like the gun between them was the only thing keeping him from some murder of his own. "This prick doesn't have the balls to shoot anyone unless it's in the back."

He shifted his aim and squeezed the trigger before Honda could move his empty hand from the floor. Blood showered them all from the ragged hole that the bullet punched through his wrist; Yuugi gasped and Jounouchi flinched, but Honda just went suddenly very pale and jerked that arm into his stomach with his lips pressed into nonexistence, hiding it behind Jounouchi.

The blond tried to move to see it and gasped in pain. "Hiroto..."

"I'm fine," Honda said in a low voice.

"You son of a bitch." Mazaki gripped Honda's opposite shoulder over Jounouchi's head and leaned forward, like she had to fight to keep from attacking him, gun or not. "You jerk, you're not going to-"

"I said I'm fine!" Honda cut her off and glared up at him again, and then shot a sharp look at Yuugi. "Don't listen to him, Yuugi. Don't give up the Puzzle. You can stop him."

He squeezed the trigger again, and this time the bullet that shattered his elbow jerked him half around, and he let go of Jounouchi, clutching his arm with a noise of pain. His breathing was ragged and he hunched over the mangled limb for a moment, but he looked up defiantly again.

"Keep talking," Seto invited. "You have a lot more joints to go through."

"Stop!" Yuugi cried, throwing himself forward between the gun and his friends and ripping the Puzzle's chain off over his head at the same time. "There, it's off, don't hurt them...!"

He took it without a word; Yuugi was reluctant to let it go, but he pulled it out of his hands, and held it up by the base of the chain to inspect it. The stylized eye on the front seemed to be watching him, and even though he knew it was just cheap fake gold there was something about the feel of the thing he didn't like. With a glance down at Yuugi, he turned and flung it into the wall with all his strength.

Yuugi cried out, but he wasn't the only one. The necklace exploded in a shower of golden pieces that peppered them all with sharp, heavy little projectiles and scattered around the room, rolling and sliding all over the floor. He felt much better now.

"Damn it, Yuugi...!" Honda sounded pissed at him for saving his life. What a great friend. "I said I was fine! You should have called one of those shadow games on him!"

"I couldn't let him hurt you or anyone else. He was going to shoot you!"

"It would have been worth it if you stopped him!"

"Stop being so ungrateful," Seto interrupted. "I really would have killed you. I still can, if you're so intent on being a martyr." He looked along the barrel of the gun at his face.

Honda gritted his teeth and glared up at him, but Yuugi stood up between them shaking his head. "No, Kaiba, please, just don't. We'll shut up, okay?" He shot a look at Honda, who grudgingly nodded. Mazaki seemed at least as disinclined to agree, but she held her tongue.

"Make sure of it." He pulled the gun back and put it in his pocket, picking up the bag of phones again and turning toward the front of the classroom, starting with the girl in front of the door. "Weapons." He held up the bag. "Knives, anything you're carrying. If I find out later that you hid one, I will shoot you; you will not be able to use it on me."

He wasn't very surprised that almost no one had one. He collected one pocket knife from a spike-haired guy who wouldn't meet his eyes, but that was it. When he circled back around to Yuugi and his friends, a quiet white-haired guy who was newer to the school and not a normal part of their group was crouching with them now, fashioning pads and bandages for Jounouchi's shoulder out of Yuugi and Jounouchi's jackets and Mazaki's bow; Honda was still holding him half in his lap for the treatment. Jounouchi was gritting his teeth and trying not to show his pain, from what he could see.

He considered telling the impromptu nurse to get the fuck away and let Jounouchi go ahead and die, but he'd have a mutiny on his hands if he did that, and he only had so many bullets. Instead he ignored him and held the bag expectantly toward Honda.

"I don't have any." Honda glared up at him, jaw clenched against another stupid outburst.

"Sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure, what the fuck do you think, I forgot that I packed my Kaiba-killer in my pocket this morning?" Yuugi gripped his wrist and he reined himself back, falling back to a cold glare.

He considered a moment before he believed him, then nodded toward Jounouchi. "What about him?"

"He doesn't."

"Fuck you..." the blond gasped out. "Don' need 'em..."

He kicked him in the chest, and ignored the cry of pain and Yuugi's noise of outrage, and the startled flinch of the nurse-boy. "Check his pockets anyway."

"He shouldn't be moved..." nurse-boy - Bakura, he finally remembered - protested. "There could be bone shards, he could die..."

"Good." He glanced dismissively away. "Check him."

Honda glared up at him and awkwardly did with his one hand, obviously taking pains not to exacerbate his friend's injuries, and to a lesser extent his own. A quick catalog showed nothing worse than a hentai flipbook in his possession.

"I'm almost disappointed in you losers." He slid the bag back into the corner and leaned against the wall above it.

"Make sure ta bring somethin' for ya next time..." Jounouchi couldn't even help being a smartass even when it hurt him to breathe, let alone talk. He was really determined to die today. "Coward, shoots people... deserves a knife in th' guts..."

And that fucking lazy accent...

"Shut that up before I shoot it again."

No one answered him, but Yuugi gripped Jounouchi's hand on the un-shot side and urged him to be quiet. It didn't take a lot of urging with the pain he was in. Bakura quietly moved on to wrapping Honda's wounds and fashioning a sling for him out of his own jacket, and a quick glance showed that he, or someone else, had already done the same for the second victim of the bullet that went through Jounouchi.

Everyone was good and quiet. He pulled his briefcase over to his corner and sat down, setting the gun in his lap to open it. Computer, check. Cards - like he would ever need those again. Still, there they were. For a moment he pulled out his deck and leaned back against the wall, looking at the three Blue Eyes on the top. They didn't calm his mind as they normally did, and he didn't feel the same unadulterated pride. Their pure power and perfect simplicity jarred with his current circumstances.

He was suddenly aware that they disapproved. That they were ink on card stock made no difference, he was sure that they were judging him and found him unworthy. Who were they to judge him? Him? They were tools, servants, his to control like everyone else. He would not be judged by them or anyone else.

"Fuck you," he told his dragons coldly, and flung the deck across the room. People flinched, but the cards fanned out harmlessly, scattered among the pieces of Yuugi's Puzzle.

"Kaiba..."

He lifted the gun and leveled it at Yuugi's head before he could finish the word, and met his eyes, daring him to keep talking. He almost wanted him to. Just one more word and he'd blow his brains out...

But Yuugi decided to shut up instead, depriving him of his excuse. When Yuugi shook his head and leaned back to squeeze Jounouchi's arm again, he lowered his gun and turned his attention back to the briefcase. He dropped the bag of phones and knives - knife - alongside his computer and arbitrarily picked up his Bluetooth earpiece. He turned it on and attached it to his ear, and pulled out his phone.

His fingers found and dialed Mokuba's number on instinct. His instincts had been a mixed bag today, but this was only natural.

Even though his brother should have been in the middle of class, it only rang one and a half times before it was cut off. "Seto?" His voice was sharp and worried. "Are you all right?"

"I've done something very stupid, little brother."

"You're right!" He glanced over his gun and let his gaze rest coolly on Honda, who obviously still didn't know how to activate his brain-mouth filter. "Shooting Jounouchi was the stupidest thing you've ever done."

He lifted the gun and shot him in the shoulder with only half his attention. This time Honda had to choke out a cry and bent double over Jounouchi.

"Seto!" Mokuba almost screamed. He really shouldn't be that worried.

"It's all right, Mokuba." His brother released his breath in a shaky sigh of relief. "Shooting the mutt was irrational..." he admitted, running the barrel of the gun over the edge of his knees before him in an absent way and watching it, "but it wasn't particularly stupid. Shooting the teacher was stupid."

"I was hoping it wasn't you..." Mokuba said quietly. "When I saw the news I kind of hoped it was someone after you..."

"If you hoped that, you must have known."

"I guess I did... Who's dead?"

He looked idly around the room, feeling himself relaxing. Nurse boy Bakura had scuttled back up to Honda to try to staunch the latest flow of blood, even though Honda was trying to push him away. Yuugi and Mazaki were huddled around the idiot smartasses like it wasn't their own fault they got shot. "The teacher might be; someone pulled her out before I could see. I imagine if she is it's public knowledge. A couple students. Jounouchi's working on it. Honda if he doesn't learn to keep his mouth shut before he runs out of joints."

"Yuugi...?"`

Mokuba's concern irritated him, and he stood up restlessly as his relaxation evaporated, and all the good Mokuba's voice had done him with it. His brother didn't have any business being concerned for these idiots. Yuugi looked up as he heard him approach, and he stood in front of him. "Not yet," he said, resting the barrel lightly against Yuugi's forehead. He saw Yuugi swallow thickly, but he looked up at him without fear. Did he think he wouldn't shoot him? There was nothing he really wanted more.

The gun brushed through Yuugi's bangs, deciding on a good place to shoot him and savoring the moment.

"Don't you dare!" Surprisingly strong hands grabbed his free arm and pulled him away from Yuugi; he let the momentum steer his gun hand right to the girl assaulting him. She was pulling herself lithely to her feet at the same time, but he fired twice in quick succession and she collapsed with a scream as they took out her knees.

"Anzu-chan!" Yuugi jumped over Jounouchi's legs and crouched down beside her.

"What... what just happened?" Mokuba sounded shaken again.

He turned his back on them and started slowly pacing a circuit of the room. His classmates either stared with wide eyes as he approached and passed them, or averted their gaze. Interesting that there were no intermediary reactions. "I just had a little resistance. I don't think she'll stand up to me again." The play on words made him smile a little.

"Did you kill her?"

"Does it matter?" His smiled faded and he glanced out the window as he passed; one of the girls flinched and fall back against it. Right, the blinds were drawn, he couldn't see outside.

Mokuba sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. "Just... try not to kill anyone else, okay?"

"I suppose you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"What?"

He finished his circuit of the room and leaned back against the wall in 'his' corner, tapping the gun on the drywall absently. "I thought better of you, Mokuba. I didn't expect you to be so transparent about being on their side."

"I'm not!"

It was all so clear now. He wasn't thinking clearly, that was obvious... he was being so predictable. Who was the one person he could be expected to call? Mokuba, of course, and all they had to do was get to him first..."They probably think they have they now that they have you. I suppose they figured you could be used to influence me. It wouldn't be the first time someone made that mistake..."

"Seto!" Mokuba's voice was sharp with alarm. "Stop and listen to what you're saying! It's me... I've always been on your side. Remember?"

His eyes narrowed at the order, and he stared at the windows for a moment, but then he suddenly dropped his head backward and slammed his hand wrapped around the gun back into the wall. His knuckles throbbed with a sudden sharp pain, warning him that he was going to break his hand if he tried that shit again, but it helped him focus.

"I remember," he murmured. Mokuba had never been against him, even when he hadn't been allowed real contact with him for years. One person he could always trust... "I remember, I got carried away."

It was true that he wasn't thinking clearly, though. How could he think Mokuba was his enemy?

"Are you all right now?"

"For a given value of 'all right'." He glanced around at all the stares, making most of them glance back down, and frowned. Their attention was inescapable; they were listening to him, even the ones who weren't looking. He couldn't allow that. Luckily, he had options; his language switched seamlessly to Mandarin Chinese. Mokuba's Chinese could use improvement, but he didn't have to speak it, just understand it, and that part was always easier. "I have a plan," he said, surprised to find that it was becoming true as he spoke.

There was an obvious pause from Mokuba's end, probably adjusting to the language switch. It was obviously confusing the people still watching him. Good, fucking spies. Mokuba adapted quickly though, and answered him in Japanese. "Okay. I can have a helicopter there for you in ten minutes-"

He gave a soft laugh. Really? Escape plans? Indefatigable. "It's a little late for that, Mokuba."

"...What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm not taking a helicopter anywhere." He jumped to German without really noticing. "I could get to it, but where would it take me? I could falsify the day's school and work records, I suppose, and make it seem as though I were never here, but even if I eliminated everyone here I would leave witnesses; about ten percent of the class escaped. Tracking them down and the police they reported to and anyone it might have filtered through would by now be pointlessly complicated. Escape is unfeasible."

"You can't be serious." Mokuba's voice got tense again. "You have to escape."

"No. And an extended vacation in Africa or South America does not appeal to me, even if I could get out of the country before-"

"Damn it, Seto, you know I don't speak Spanish." Damn, that was right, meaning their only other option was English, and that wasn't really an option in front of his classmates. Only two viable languages? That seemed so insecure. Of course, he hadn't even been paying attention when he'd switched again. Damn it, his brain had gone from stasis to overdrive. Now he was getting ahead of himself - and Mokuba knew it. "Just slow down and pick a language, and tell me what your plan is."

"Right," he said, eyes unfocused on the ceiling. His aching knuckles tapped on the walls, a nice rhythmic counterpoint to Mazaki and the other girls' quiet crying. One. One. Two. Three. Five. By that point in the sequence, his mind felt steady and whatever balance he had lost was regained.

"Escape is unfeasible," he repeated in German. "It would only create further problems."

"So... You can't be serious."

"I am," he promised.

"Seto!"

He didn't answer, but slid down into a sitting position in his corner. Pretty much everyone was staring at him again, but that didn't bother him. In fact he brought up a faint smile just to watch them all shudder and turn away. Only Yuugi's eyes stayed on him, and Honda's rose for a dark glare.

"Seto...? Do you mean... you're going to let yourself be taken in?"

"Not immediately." He raised the gun toward Honda without looking away from Yuugi, and Yuugi averted his eyes hurriedly back toward Mazaki. Good boy.

"Then..." Mokuba took a deep breath, making himself go on. "Then, at the risk of agitating the paranoia, I think you should talk to the police."

"I'm not talking to the police," he said at once, lowering the gun and turning his attention back to the conversation.

"They're already outside the school... I can see them from here."

"Where are you?" He frowned a little.

"Also outside your school, outside the barricades. Isono called and came to get me as soon as he saw the news about the shooting. I don't think they realize I'm here. Anyway, I can see them gearing up. If you don't talk to them, they're either going to bring in a hostage negotiator to try to shrink your head, or they're going to come in after you."

Valid points. He hadn't even been thinking about the police, but those were very valid points he should have already considered. But the idea of speaking to the police was... unpleasant. Mokuba was right, if they talked to him they were going to try to get inside his head, and that was simply not allowable.

"All right," he agreed. "You are right. Set up a dialogue; tell the police I'll contact them only through you. And act scared."

"I don't have to act, Seto," Mokuba told him quietly.

"I know... but act afraid of me."

Mokuba didn't answer or question his order, but he could hear him using another phone to contact the police. In the meantime he pulled his laptop out of his briefcase and let it boot up.

"Okay, we're talking. They want to know what you want."

"I don't have any demands - just time. Tell them I'll release one hostage every five minutes, as long as they leave me alone. If I have any suspicion that they're coming in, I'll execute everyone in here."

"Seto..." Mokuba sounded a little uneasy.

"Just tell them."

"Is it true...?"

"Yes."

"All right."

He half listened to Mokuba's conversation while he typed on the computer, forcing his way into the school's network. Really, password protection. How quaint.

"They gave a condition." He paused to listen. "If they hear another shot they're coming in."

"I'll still be able to kill ten of them in that time."

There was another lull before Mokuba came back. "It still stands."

"Good, then we have a deal. I'm sending the first now as a gesture of goodwill."

"They want you to start with the injured."

"They can have the ones who can walk."

He pointed at the guy who had been hit by Jounouchi's bullet. "Tanzaki, leave. The police are waiting outside." He didn't seem to believe him, and he stared at him for a second before his brain caught up and he realized he was serious. Then he jumped to his feet and slid up onto the desk with his injured arm held close.

"Wait."

Tanzaki paused with his hand on the door handle, and looked back, tense. He was so close to escape; Seto couldn't blame him for being worried. It was fully within his power to snatch it back, after all. He considered for a second shooting him just for the hell of it, after giving him that taste of freedom, but he couldn't... not with the police waiting, listening.

"Take that with you." He nodded toward Mazaki.

Tanzaki reluctantly slid off the desk and went back for her. "Let me help you, Mazaki-chan..." he muttered, putting his good arm around her and helping her to her feet with Yuugi's assistance. He kept one eye on Seto the entire time.

With Tanzaki's help she could stand, just barely, with most of her weight supported on his shoulders. She didn't really seem to notice; her eyes were fixated on him over her shoulder as they went across the room.

"I hope they kill you," she said, her voice trembling as they got to the desk and she had to stop against it. Her cheeks were wet and tears of anger and pain stood in her eyes. "I hope they bust in here and shoot you, and you have time to see them coming before you die, you evil son of a bitch."

He coolly waved them on, lightly picking up the gun to make sure no one made a run for it when the door opened.

The girl guarding the door looked longingly into the hall, but when she realized he was looking at her she ducked her head and made herself small and unobtrusive. No one else even looked like they wanted to try.

Silence descended back over the room after they left, and he used it to access the KaibaCorp servers and start going over relevant files.

"They're out," Mokuba reported in a minute or so.

"Mm," he acknowledged absently.

"Seto, um... Thank you."

That was almost funny, sitting here surrounded by hostages, holding an illegal gun which had been a murder weapon for some time, and being thanked. "I think that's incredibly misplaced."

"Well, you let them go."

"Convenience, not mercy. Keeping them or killing them wouldn't benefit me, and I'm not a psychopath, to kill them irrationally when it's better for me to spare them. You know that."

"Yeah..." Mokuba's voice was quiet, and he didn't sound entirely convinced. Maybe he thought he actually was unbalanced right now; he hoped he wasn't fooling himself like that, but it was a possibility. Mokuba did want to believe the best of him. He'd probably like the excuse of temporary insanity for this. Too bad it only would be an excuse, because he really was in his right mind.

"My hostages should give me another eighty-five minutes." He raised his eyes from the computer and looked at Yuugi and Jounouchi. "Well, seventy-five," he revised.

Mokuba didn't question the change, although he was sure he wanted to. "To do what?" he asked. Good, it was a much better question.

Although he wasn't going to answer it. "Work. It should be enough time. Let me concentrate."

"Okay," Mokuba agreed quietly, and fell silent.

He worked in quiet for a minute or so, but it was interrupted again; Yuugi, again. "Kaiba..." He glanced up to see Yuugi and Honda both looking at him, with Jounouchi leaning back between them with his eyes closed. The shock was settling in now. Still breathing though. He should institute a policy of shooting Honda whenever Yuugi opened his mouth; that'd end the interruptions quickly. "Why did you let Anzu-chan go, and not..." He looked down at Jounouchi.

He considered the small group for a moment while he typed. "She had nothing left to lose, and despair makes people do stupid things," he finally answered in Japanese. "I don't need anyone that unpredictable around. One way, or another..." He glanced down pointedly at his gun.

Yuugi's eyes narrowed, then he nodded and quietly. "Then thanks."

"Oh, you don't want to do that."

He turned his attention back to the screen. Four minutes already? He watched his computer's clock and when the minute changed he pointed at the last remaining girl who was not acting as a human shield. "You. Out."

"Me?" she squeaked out.

"Leave before I shoot you." He picked up the gun and pointed it in her direction while he typed with his other hand.

She stifled a noise and fled, scrambling over the desk and out into the hall, sobbing in panic and relief. He couldn't stand emotional breakdowns; if the door hadn't muffled her stupid noises he probably would have informed her of that. Maybe with a bullet.

Instead he returned the gun to his side without looking up.

"You should tell your hostages you're going to be letting them go," Mokuba suggested.

"I don't think so." His reply was automatically in German.

"They didn't hear you making the deal - well, they didn't understand," Mokuba reminded him, "and they'll be less scared if they know you aren't acting unpredictably and irrationally."

That was true enough. He thought about the point as he worked. They would be easier to control if they knew they were going to be getting out on a schedule, and if they didn't think he was acting at random. Then again, he did like to see them jumpy and fucking with their heads. It wasn't a natural instinct to give them information.

Smart, though. Damn it, he was smarter than this and an excellent manipulator on top of that. He shouldn't need Mokuba to tell him these things. Slipping...

"I'm releasing one of you every five minutes," he announced in Japanese. "Be quiet and behave and you will get out of here. Don't, and..."

He didn't really think he needed to finish that. He also really didn't think they needed to know there was precious little danger of actually being shot. Someone might get ideas, and they couldn't have that.

There was a vague reaction, nothing quantifiable, but his hostages did seem a little relieved. That was too bad. He had preferred them scared, honestly, although it wasn't smart. It was just an urge that was moderately controlling and highly sadistic.

It had been a long time since he was able to give in to sadistic, controlling urges. Months, at least. He hadn't had real freedom since his Death-T, and that duel with Yuugi, and that... interlude... he didn't really like to think about... He'd been behaving himself since then.

He'd been typing on autopilot wile his mind wandered, and he realized it when he heard muted talking on another line through his connection to Mokuba. He assumed he was talking to the police and didn't pay much attention until Mokuba's conversation turned to him.

"Seto, I'm getting reports... Are you hacking into KaibaCorp?"

"They're slow." He read over what he'd typed and deleted a large chunk of unnecessary gibberish. "You might want to do something about that."

"So you are?"

"Not hacking; accessing remotely."

"They don't really see a difference." He didn't answer, and Mokuba eventually went on to ask the question he knew he had been implying the whole time. "What are you doing?"

"There are some legal documents I need to review. I'm also updating the inheritance bylaws to explicitly include incarceration and heirs as young as ten." With that reminder, he started typing again, paying attention to his words this time. It needed to look official, and random phrases about 'behaving myself' were not going to help it stand up in court.

"Don't..." Mokuba sounded uncommonly upset.

"There are also certain hidden records I need to make public. You'll have to salvage as much of its reputation as you can; this is going to be a PR disaster."

"Seto, stop!" There was a note of desperation in his voice. "That's not going to be necessary..."

He paused and leaned back against the wall, looking toward the window, through the girls standing in front of it, in the direction where he knew Mokuba was. "After today, KaibaCorp is going to be yours."

"I don't want it!" Silence rang in his ear, and then a soft tone; Mokuba had hung up on him.

He silently reached into his pocket to disconnect on his end, and took a glance around the room. Lots of eyes averted as his came near them, but nothing particularly caught his attention. Everyone looked nice and behaved

No one to punish.

Instead of lashing out at someone, he turned his attention back to his document. Priorities.

Priorities...

Something nagged at the back of his mind, and in a few seconds he had to look up again, searching for it. Nothing looked wrong, but he sensed there was something...

"You," he said, pointing out a random male student sitting in front of the teacher's desk, the spiky haired one who had given up his knife, to buy his senses another moment of observation. "Your turn. Leave."

He didn't have to be told twice. In a second he was another hostage down, but he didn't feel any closer to pinpointing what was wrong. There was the girl on the desk with her head down, settling in again after letting him out, and the six girls in front of the windows, looking tired of their guard duty already, in various stages or tenseness and apathy. The body stretched out between the disarrayed students' desks and the teacher's, and the two guys in front of the teacher's desk at the opposite end, watching him with a mixture of wariness and hope, since he had just sent their friend out. The two guys in the corner between the desk and the window girls were looking conspiratorial, but they quailed under his gaze and didn't even register as threats. Bakura in the back corner with the headshot girl's body was watching as quietly and unobtrusively as normal. In the middle of the room the losers were quiet, both leaning over Jounouchi. Nothing was overtly wrong.

He narrowed his eyes at the room, then shook his head and focused on the computer again. That was a secondary concern. His priority was setting up KaibaCorp for Mokuba to take over as smoothly as possible, whether Mokuba wanted it or not.

No one interrupted him this time, and when he finished with the inheritance code he found that it was time to release the next hostage. Just to fuck with people, his ignored the friends of the student he had last released and pointed at the two boys in the corner. "One of you get out."

First they both hesitated, not wanting to be the selfish one, and then in the next second they both went for it. The winner ended up shoving his friend off the desk to secure his own freedom. It would be interesting to see how that friendship survived.

Not that he was going to be around to see, he supposed. Screwing with people was just a habit at this point.

He turned his attention back to his computer, and he had opened another document for editing when he stopped and looked up again, as his brain finally supplied him with an answer. The body. His eyes automatically turned to Bakura. "It's you."

Bakura's eyes widened a little. "Kaiba-san?" he asked quietly, shifting away from him... toward the dead girl.

He smoothly stood and approached, with the gun held loosely at his side. Bakura's eyes shifted nervously down to the gun, then to Yuugi and his friends behind him, then over toward the door, then back up to his face.

"Why would anyone be willingly sitting beside a body...?"

Bakura looked quickly at the corpse, and then met his eyes again. "You should have just ignored me, Kaiba..."

"I don't think so." He looked him over closely, trying to decide what he saw. There was nothing his conscious mind took offense at, but something was subliminally telling him Bakura was dangerous, and he trusted those instincts. Bakura was just wrong, and you should never trust an anomaly.

His scanning eyes jumped back down to the floor. His deck had scattered heavily in this direction, and he was standing on a couple cards. So that was it... "Give them back," he said calmly, and held out one hand.

Bakura looked considering. "Send me out next," he said shrewdly.

"I don't reward people for acting out. This is the only bargain I'll offer: give them to me and I won't shoot you and take them off your body."

"Would you?"

"I did worse to get them the first time."

"Then maybe you shouldn't fling them around so carelessly..." He reluctantly reached into his pocket.

Then he lunged forward. Instead of cards, a knife flashed in his hand, and Seto fell back a step from the attack, already raising the gun from his side. Someone cried out in Yuugi's voice; he barely heard them.

His gun was knocked aside and Bakura closed the distance between them almost instantly; his off hand intercepted the knife just as it reached his throat, sustaining a bad cut for his trouble, but it was infinitely preferable to being killed. He ignored the pain to grab his wrist, and twisted, pulling Bakura's arm up behind him and forcing him around. Bakura tried to sweep his legs from under him and he kicked his knees out instead, forcing him to the floor, slamming the gun into the back of his head and falling with a knee in his back. The grip on the knife loosened and he yanked it out of his hand.

There was another cry and he looked up this time, toward the disturbance. His last three male hostages were taking advantage of the distraction and making a run for it, and the girl in front of the door had yelled as she scrambled out of their way. Two were already beyond reach, but the last was still in the doorway, and he reacted without thinking. The knife flew out of his hand, and flew true, burying itself in his back as he slid through the doorway. He fell with a cry, and was picked up to his feet by one of the others, but they were gone before he could more than raise the gun to them.

He shifted his aim instead to cover the window girls, one of whom had crossed half the distance to follow the boys. She ducked and fell back into place in a visible panic. "Shut it, now," he said to the girl on the desk, and she immediately leaned out into the hall and closed the door with a slam.

Bakura started to push himself up on his knees to get him off his back, and he reached down with his bleeding hand to slam his head into the floor with only a glance away from his other hostages.

No one else was daring to move. He swept them all with a glare and an arc of the gun, and then shoved the barrel into the back of Bakura's head, making sure he felt it. He went tense and stopped fighting him, and he glared one final time over the rest of the room. There was no change; Yuugi looked torn and anxious, Honda was watching him blankly, Jounouchi was only vaguely conscious, and everyone else was hiding in plain sight, calm and obedient. Under control.

Good.

He looked back down at the back of Bakura's white head, easing the pressure on the gun that held him down. "The thugs are unarmed but the bookish pretty boy has a knife and knows how to use it... I should have seen this coming."

Bakura glared over his shoulder at him with an uncharacteristic snarl. Gone was the quiet and easily-flustered overachiever; now he looked almost feral. He must have been cracking under the stress. Or, maybe the bookish pretty boy was a cover; he had been carrying a knife after all.

He started to push himself up and try to throw him off again, but he kept his balance and only slammed his knee down in his back again. He took a grip on the knife hand once more and twisted it until he felt the wrist give way, then kept squeezing to break his hand.

"That's what you get for touching things that don't belong to you," he said when he finally felt the satisfying crunch of delicate bones, releasing his hand and digging inside his pocket. Kneeling on his back and pointing a gun at him were good enough to keep him down until he found the cards he had stolen, careful not to get them bloody when he freed them. There were more than he had expected, and he disinterestedly dropped everything but the Blue Eyes back onto the floor, looking the dragons over closely. The corner of one of the cards had been bent in the scuffle; he hit Bakura in the back of the head with his gun as he pocketed them.

Rather than showing pain, Bakura snarled in anger again. "I'm going to rip your fucking intestines out while you watch..."

"You're going to make me waste a bullet then." He pressed the gun against the back of his head. Bakura went still, but continued to glare at him. Was he going to be good? No, he didn't trust him to be cowed and obedient no matter what threats were hanging over his head, not this new wild defiant personality, and he couldn't keep someone that unpredictable around. There was to be no one he did not have under his control.

"Kaiba... no, please don't..."

He glanced up at Yuugi and saw the terror for his little friend on his blood-spattered face.

"How many times have I told you that caring for others is a liability, Mutou?" Yuugi's eyes went wide in alarm and he started forward, but he didn't pull the trigger; it would have been suicide with the cops listening for the sound. Instead he let Bakura go and stood up; he let him start to push himself up with his good arm before he slammed his heel down into his middle back. The way Bakura collapsed again was moderately amusing.

"Ryou-kun?" Yuugi scooted forward in alarm, but didn't quite dare to cross his path. He ignored him. A glint of gold on the floor caught his eye, and it wasn't one of the pieces of Yuugi's puzzle; with a frown of concentration he suddenly saw another gaudy pendant that looked like it should have been in a set with Yuugi's.

"You have one too?" He bent down and picked it up, dragging it over Bakura's head. There was a gasp from behind him as he inspected it. Unlike Yuugi's, he couldn't see a way to break it, so instead he tossed it at one of his human shields, who fumbled it. "Throw that out the window."

"I already did that once..." Honda said from behind him as she did as she was told.

He walked away without answering, calmly yanking the bow off of the uniform of the girl who had almost run, and Yuugi passed behind him to his friend's side with a quiet "Hey". She flinched and dropped her eyes, but he didn't hurt her and went back to the corner to observe.

"Yuugi-kun?" Shy bookworm persona seemed to be back in play, and he sounded very pathetically confused. Snapped under the strain then. "What's happening? I..." He trailed off into a moan of pain.

Seto's phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it for the moment; he leaned on the wall and calmly wrapped the bow around his hand in a makeshift bandage as he watched them. "Quiet." Yuugi looked up at him and gave a quick, obeying nod, shushing his moaning friend.

He was trying to gently help him up and murmuring encouragement underneath the insistent shrill ring of the phone. If he could just crawl over and join them despite the pain they could be one big happy mangled family, he supposed Yuugi was thinking. He just watched, amused; that wasn't going to work.

Bakura quickly let out a moan of horror and looked over his shoulder with a noise of pain, staring down at his own legs. They stayed splayed out on the ground without so much as a twitch. "I can't move... Oh, gods, I can't move my legs... I can't feel..."

Yuugi wrapped his arms quickly around his chest and pulled him close, keeping him from looking, and glared up at him. "Kaiba! What did you do?"

He smiled thinly. "Unlike your friend the mutt, I really don't need a weapon to kill or torture."

"But you broke his back, didn't you...? Why would you do that? Why?"

He directed his answer to Bakura instead of Yuugi. "That's what you get for being friends with him." Did he really need any better reason? He finally answered the phone, enjoying the expressions on their faces. Were they finally getting that he was serious? Was Yuugi going to finally learn something?

"Mokuba," he stated, not taking his eyes from them just yet. They were busy ignoring him, one paralyzed by shock, the other trying to pretend it wasn't his fault, the third just watching them silently and chancing a glare in his direction.

"I'm sorry, Seto." There was a distinct sigh of relief in his brother's voice. Who knew what he thought when it rang for so long.

He sat down and pulled the computer back into his lap, and finally let them go back to their insignificant interactions without his observation, rereading the legalese he was modifying. "I understand," he said, and he really wasn't angry. It was almost inevitable that Mokuba would become angry with him at some point during this emotional upheaval. At least he had called back.

"Why did three guys just run out? Does one of them have a knife in his back?"

"They escaped while I was distracted."

"Distracted doing what?"

Now that was a question Mokuba knew better than to ask, even under normal circumstances. Even if he got an answer, he probably wasn't going to like it. "It doesn't matter." He glanced up to see Yuugi helping Bakura roll onto his back beside Honda and smiled a little bit. That was a terrible idea, moving someone with a spinal injury. Bakura probably would have known that if he weren't so busy being traumatized. Really they all should have.

"Killing someone?"

"No. Taking back something that belonged to me. Non-lethally... but enjoyably." He touched the cards sitting in his pocket and watched Yuugi and his damaged-goods friends again. Every single one of them was seriously hurt, because of him. How did that feel?

Yuugi looked up as though he felt the eyes watching him, glaring murderously. He averted his face quickly to get himself under control, but not soon enough to hide that the glare had been there.

Apparently it sucked very, very badly. He smiled to himself and turned his attention back down to his computer again.

"The police... they're sending one off in an ambulance, I can see them from here. They say they want a hostage from you because of the one that was injured."

"They just got three. I think I'll keep the ones I still have."

"They are arguing that you didn't exactly let them go, and you hurt one." He paused. "They also say that the escapees told them about the fight. They want to know that Bakura is all right."

"He's alive."

"Seto... that isn't what they were asking. I think they want him sent out."

"Then tell them 'no'," he said in disinterest. "I will send another hostage in fifteen minutes, as my schedule called for."

Again Mokuba paused, and he could hear him distantly as he talked with the police on the other line. He didn't listen closely, working until he came back.

"They don't agree to that. But they would agree for you to send one now, and the next in fifteen minutes."

He considered that silently. It would knock five minutes off his intended time, but at this point the most important part of his work was done and he could probably spare it, if only to keep the police off his back. Now was not an opportune time to stand firm against their demands.

"Fine," he agreed, and surveyed the girls, all that he had left. He carefully set the earpiece aside so that Mokuba would hear as little as possible of what he said and pointed at the most emotionally fragile one. She flinched when he just looked at her. Good, she was almost broken. She would do. "Come here."

She slowly left the window and slowly walked toward him, looking around at the others with wide eyes for help that wasn't there to be had. Even Yuugi could only look at her with sympathy and give her a heartening nod as he held Bakura's hand.

She met his eye with obvious, animal fear and stood trembling before him; he looked back without sympathy. "I'm letting you go," he said coolly, and she didn't react. Probably waiting for the catch. "The police want to know that Bakura is okay. Let them know that he is."

"He isn't!" Yuugi piped up, and he glanced over to see the glare again. "You..."

"He needs a hospital, Kaiba," Honda added, his voice quiet and controlled.

"He'll get one, eventually." He looked back at the scared girl. "If you tell them that he's alive." She swallowed thickly. "If you tell them anything else and they come in here, you'll be the last one leaving, and you don't want that, do you?"

She shook her head fiercely.

"Good. Then you know what to say. Go."

She looked around, as though not sure he meant it, then edged backward. After a few steps she broke the eye contact and stumbled back to the teacher's desk. The whole room was silent, and he could see the way the eyes of everyone in the room weighed on her. The only sounds until she was gone were her sliding across the desk, and the opening and shutting of the door. He could even hear her retreating footsteps in the hall for a bit until the wall muffled them.

"Kaiba-"

"Be quiet, Yuugi," he said calmly, and picked up his earpiece again, switching smoothly to German and interrupting his brother's insistent voice. "I'm here, Mokuba. She's coming out now."

"Why did you put your phone down?"

"Busy." He picked idly at his bloody bandage, flexing his hand to test how much it still hurt, and decided he could type with it, although not as fast or for as long as he was used to. "Is she out now?"

"...Yeah, she's coming. Is she all right?"

"The stress has gotten to her, she's emotionally overextended. She hasn't been hurt."

"Good." Mokuba sounded relieved. "I don't think they'd have put up with that."

He didn't answer; it didn't really seem to require it. "Make sure all of these deals I'm finalizing get pushed through," he said instead.

"You're actually working? Why are you working now?"

"I won't be able to later," he pointed out. "There are some things I need to finish."

Mokuba didn't answer him, and he didn't push it. It hadn't gone well last time, after all. He was basically finished with the legalities, though, and now he had a little bit of business to complete for Mokuba before he handed it over to him.

How had he let so many things get started, and leave loose ends? It was organized, but there was so much more to be done than he had thought he had... He had always thought that he would have plenty of time. Now, he had less than an hour to finish everything for good. Here, here's a computer, now finish your life in an hour...

And he could, too. Everything was in a neat queue, waiting for his attention. Revise, sign, send, repeat, watch the pile dwindle. Things he had been pushing back off could be pushed back no longer, and he made decisions he had been holding off on without making even the good excuses he sometimes used not to. Things like this had become surprisingly easy.

The hardest part was the large collection of projects he had in planning stages for some unspecified point in the future, at various levels of development. He wasn't going to be able to work on them. Whether they went forward or not, they weren't going to be his... He was not in the habit of letting go of things.

"Seto." Mokuba's voice called him from his work, as it had many times in the past. "The police are getting impatient, they want the next hostage."

"They said fifteen minutes," he said dismissively. He wasn't about to let them dictate everything.

"It's been nearly twenty."

He glanced up at the clock in the corner of his screen and frowned a little. Fine then. He pointed at the closest window girl and flicked his hand wordlessly toward the door, eyes back on the screen already.

"Seto? Did you hear me?"

"She's on her way."

"All right."

His eyes scanned over his projects again. Clenching his unhurt hand tight for a moment, he sent them all to Mokuba. Giving them away. Letting them go. Relinquishing control of them. Now if they lived or died and whatever they turned into would be none of his decision. For something which was basically immaterial, in the scheme of things, it was surprisingly hard.

He watched his folder methodically empty itself, and then stared at his empty screen for several long seconds.

He was done with KaibaCorp.

With a conscious breath, he abandoned his work servers and connected to his home computer. 'Computer' was too simple a word for it, really; his home system had been a project all its own. The hardware, operating system, and artificial intelligence were all his own design; in some ways it rivaled the government's best systems, and in some ways it surpassed them. He wasn't really the artistic type, but it was a work of art in its own right.

As soon as the AI greeted him, he initiated meltdown sequence.

He had hoped to never have to use it, but as a cynic he had built the failsafe in from the ground up. In a few minutes it would take someone of at least his own caliber to retrieve anything like useful data from the system. Some of what he had there was irreplaceable; luckily, some of that was evidence of some things it would be very unfortunate for Mokuba or the police to find. And the rest of it... Well, he wouldn't need it anyway where he was going.

For a few minutes his computer would be occupied, deleting everything that had been ostensibly important twelve hours ago. He could have a break then; he could use it anyway. He was used to sitting for most of his day, either at work or school, but he was used to sitting at a desk, and the floor was unforgiving.

He got up to stretch his legs and rest his aching hand while his computer committed suicide and before he began the last third of his task, looking around the room again. Five girls left to go; he didn't think the four boys in the middle of the room were going to be buying him any time with the police. He didn't think they were going to be getting out of here at all.

So he had twenty minutes left after this. That should be enough time to write what he needed to, even if he gave himself a five minute break first.

"You." He tapped the shoulder of the first girl in front of the windows, the one who had nearly escaped before, as he started a slow pace around. She watched him and then bolted for the door, almost knocking his door-guard off the desk in her escape. He barely bothered to watch her.

His mind was already putting his thoughts in order as he walked around, assembling his letter in his mind. He didn't interrupt it by actively thinking, just let his mind work, and so he found himself looking blankly through Yuugi and his friends as he walked around them. Yuugi didn't seem troubled by it, and Jounouchi and Bakura didn't even seem to notice, but Honda was growing agitated the longer he looked at them. So of course he continued it.

"Do you want something?" Honda finally snapped as his path took him back in front of them. He noted absently that he was looking pale and tired, presumably from the blood he'd lost through his bullet holes... For a moment he thought he might have both him and Jounouchi bleed out, but that was just idle fantasy; Honda was still conscious, unlike Jounouchi, and he doubted either of them were bleeding seriously anymore. If they were going to die of their wounds they probably would have already. Honda was going to survive them for sure; he'd hold out hope for Jounouchi, though.

He could strangle them, he supposed. That would be satisfying. But no, Mokuba would hear what was happening and he wouldn't just stand by and allow that.

"I want to shoot you in the back of the head," he said absently. "Unfortunately I can't, unless I want the police knocking on the door."

"So that's the only reason you stopped shooting people, because they'll come shoot you?" He looked disgusted and angry and sick; sick probably because of the blood loss, although who knew, maybe it was also an emotional reaction as well.

"It's a reason. Are you going to argue with it? I suppose it did deprive you of your chance to be a martyr."

"Will you keep that shit to yourself? No one said anything about being a martyr but you." Honda held Jounouchi close to his chest and glared up at him. "Nobody here wants to die."

"You say that, yet you keep antagonizing me." He smirked faintly and shifted the gun out of his pocket. "You must have a reason to do that. I'm sure you'd look like a hero if the cops came and got me because of you, even if it was because I shot you. How noble to sacrifice your life for them, right?"

Yuugi looked between them and grabbed his friend's arm. "Honda-kun..." he said quietly.

He walked again, kicking Yuugi's arm away from Honda. "You stay out of this. He's trying to save you, you know." Behind Honda, but in Yuugi's line of sight, he sat on the top of a desk and idly pointed the gun at Honda's head. "But why would you do that when I'm going to let them go in the end?"

There was a subtle tensing in Honda's shoulder and a stiffening in his back. Was that what he had been seeing? There was something in his body language... He didn't know what he was seeing, but he knew what it meant. Just like with Bakura, he was reading him subconsciously. There was so much agitation there.

He kicked Honda in the back of the head. Not nearly as hard as he could have; he could have broken his neck or cracked his skull. He only wanted his attention.

Honda winced in pain and glared back over his shoulder at him and the barrel of the gun. He didn't let go of Jounouchi to hold his head, he noted. Most people would just on instinct.

"I asked you a question."

"Kaiba-kun, just let it go, please." Yuugi shifted up onto his knees, trying to diffuse the situation. "No one is fighting you." He must have thought Honda was too hot-headed to control himself, or that he was too unstable to do the same. So little faith in his supposed friends.

He kicked toward Yuugi, startling him into flinching, although he couldn't actually reach from this position. "Not talking to you."

"Seto, it's time." Mokuba interrupted him more strongly than he needed to. "If Honda's annoying you so much, you can send him with Jounouchi, or-"

"No," he cut him off, and pointed wordlessly at a random window girl. Mokuba shut up, and the girl scurried out, and no one else said anything until Mokuba reported she was outside.

"Now, you were saying." The gun weaved absently through the air, tracing circles and figure eights in his aim on Honda's face.

"He wasn't saying anything." Yuugi glared at Honda, who stayed silent, and then back at him. "He said he doesn't want to be a martyr, he doesn't want you to shoot him, so there's no answer for you..." He slowly sat back down again, rubbing Bakura's shoulder.

Seto completely ignored him, watching Honda. Honda averted his eyes from his friend halfway through; he knew it wasn't true. He was able to look up and meet his eyes, though; a challenge, clinging to Jounouchi at the same time... a challenge for his friends' sakes. So Yuugi was wrong, Honda was lying, and he was right - he had a budding hero here before him.

"Tell me why you'd risk your life for people who are going to be free to go anyway."

Honda glared at him.

"Honda-kun!" Yuugi's voice was authoritative, not shocked. Like he already knew and was telling him not to say it, or not to feel it.

Honda's eyes fell to Jounouchi, then he looked at Yuugi. Glared at Yuugi, actually. "Damn it, Yuugi, he isn't going to let you go! You know that! He might let everyone else go, might even tell me to carry Bakura out of here, but he was never planning on letting you or Jounouchi go. He's just going to save you for last and then shoot you." His glare switched back, even though Yuugi was still staring at him. "You can say you're going to release them all you want, but we know you're not. You never were going to."

"You don't know that that's true." Yuugi glanced up at him but focused on his agitated friend. Seto just watched the pair of them silently, observing without interfering.

"You're not that naive. You don't believe that."

"I want to."

Honda finally turned back to glare at Yuugi again. "But you don't. You're sitting here for the same reason, trying to keep him calm and talk him down, but if that doesn't work and he tries to shoot Jounouchi again you're going to jump in front of it or wrestle with him for the gun or something."

Yuugi didn't answer, and distinctly did not deny it. They stared at each other, both too noble and stubborn to relinquish their role as a hero, if only in their own minds.

He slid off the desk and walked back around in front of Honda again. "I can shoot you now, call in the police, and put an end to this," he offered, breaking their staring contest.

"No!" Yuugi cried, trying to get between them. Seto kicked him in the stomach to keep him out of the way. He landed on Bakura and they both made noises of pain.

Honda watched them and then glared up at him. "Fine, do it. I'm sick of this, if you're going to do it, just do it already. Stop fucking around." The knuckles of the hand gripping Jounouchi were white, but he looked up defiantly. Some people, he understood, translated their fear into anger. It probably helped them cope with it better. If that was true in this case, Honda was terrified.

"I'll even avoid your head. That way you can struggle with me for the gun until they get here."

"Stop talking about it and do it!"

He crouched down in front of him and pressed the gun to Jounouchi's forehead. "How about in the stomach?"

Honda went still and pale, clenching Jounouchi's shoulder tightly without a word. The way they were sitting, the bullet would go through Jounouchi's head, unless it lodged on his thick skull, and end up somewhere in Honda's intestines, maybe even in the floor behind them. It would kill them both - quickly and mercifully in Jounouchi's case, slowly and painfully in Honda's, but they would both die.

"What's the matter?" he asked quietly. "It would be a slow enough death that you could keep on fighting to protect everyone until the police could safely take me away. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Don't..."

"What was that?" He ground the muzzle into Jounouchi's forehead, leaving a deep red mark. The semiconscious blond made a weak noise of pain.

"I said don't. Just... leave him alone." Honda ground his teeth and dropped his eyes. Challenge averted.

He pulled the gun away. "Let this be a lesson to you... and you, Yuugi." Yuugi looked up at him silently. "I said I don't like unpredictability; I can't stand heroics. If either of you tries something noble, I'll kill someone, but it won't be you; it'll be him." He gestured down at Jounouchi with the gun. "And I won't use a bullet to do it; you won't even bring the cops running. So be good."

Without another word he stood up and paced around them again, drifting back to the window to send a girl out. While he heard her leave behind him, he paused at the window for the first time and pulled down a section of the blinds to look outside.

The parking lot was deserted for several dozen meters; at the perimeter he saw police cars and wooden barricades and a crowd of people. Civilians and media kept back, probably. Everyone was too far away to see clearly, but he could see a sleek black car in the crowd. Mokuba was in there, watching along with everyone else.

The girl he'd let go ran across the parking lot, into the arms of waiting police, and his eyes followed her to an ambulance. She curled up in the door of it, and it looked like she was beginning to cry.

People were looking his direction, but he couldn't have been more than a shape at the distance and he honestly doubted they could see him at all. Unless there was a sniper on a nearby rooftop. And unlikely as it was, if he didn't think there could be, why had he had human shield girls in the first place?

With a quick jerky motion he abandoned the window and sat near the middle of the room again, where any shooters would have to fire far too close to Yuugi and Honda for their comfort to get him. He'd known they were out there, why had he looked? He could actually feel the paranoia growing. Probably because it wasn't remotely irrational this time. They were there, and they could kill him. If he was stupid enough to let them, that was.

He wasn't that stupid. No more walking around, then, unless it was absolutely necessary. Only here and his corner were safe spots. He probably should have gone back there, actually. He did have work he needed to be doing. It was more secure to have a Yuugi-shaped shield in front of him though...

"Kaiba-kun," Yuugi said quietly, watching him as he sat in front of them. "There's something wrong with you."

He glanced down from the window and curiously met his eyes. "Did you figure that out when I put your grandfather in the hospital, when I put myself on the edge of a tower, or when I put a bullet in your friend's back?"

"No, Kaiba-kun, I mean it... You're not in your right mind."

He lifted an eyebrow and rested his chin on the hand with the gun, wordlessly asking if he could be any more redundant. "I'm a sociopath, Yuugi. That means I'm perfectly in my right mind, I just don't care. And this is not a new development; I've always been this way."

Yuugi shook his head a little and blundered on. "Even if you've always wanted to, you've never shot Jounouchi before, and you had chances. I think you're being influenced by something, or someone."

"And now you're going to talk about magic." He lazily lifted the gun and let it rest against Yuugi's forehead. "I really don't want to hear it."

Yuugi didn't so much as flinch. His intent violet gaze wasn't defiant, but calm and understanding. "You won't shoot me," he said.

"Once you're dead, it doesn't matter if the police charge in here and take me down."

"Seto..." Mokuba said quietly, but trailed off when he ignored him. Worried about setting him off again, probably.

"I think if that was true you would have shot me and not Jounouchi in the first place," Yuugi said. "You won't shoot me because you're resisting it. Someone is trying to make you kill me, and every time you almost do you hurt one of my friends instead." He didn't look away, but he saw him squeeze Jounouchi's hand on the floor. "But you haven't killed any of them either, because you can't stand to be manipulated."

"By magic."

"That's how you knew to break my Puzzle, and why you didn't trust Ryou-kun, and how you saw the Ring." Yuugi continued to meet his eyes, like he thought earnestness was convincing. "We've seen how good of a shot you are... You didn't miss when you shot Jounouchi-kun in the shoulder instead of killing him. You did that on purpose."

He really didn't want to listen to this brainless babbling. This offended him on so many levels... He wasn't in control of himself? Yuugi was so god-damned special that he was doing this all because of some outside grudge against him? And the only reason he hadn't killed these losers was because someone else wanted him to? He couldn't stand to listen to such ignorant sewage. His finger was slowly twitching tighter on the trigger without any decision on his part. His eyes were glued to Yuugi's; he wanted to see the moment he realized he was dead.

"Seto, you're late sending out a hostage."

He jerked the gun away from Yuugi's head and sat back on his heels, jarred by the return to his senses. He couldn't give in to that, not yet. Whatever he said, it did matter if the police got him before he was finished. Mokuba still depended on him.

He chose one of the remaining girls from the window and sent her wordlessly out the door. "She's out," he told his brother, and rested his arms on his knees, watching Yuugi again.

"Okay."

Yuugi watched him back silently, meeting his eyes again. Did he know how close he had just come to having his brains splattered all over his friends? If so, he didn't show it. Maybe it only supported his mindless theory, the 'you won't actually hurt me because you're a good guy on the inside' hypothesis he needed to be disabused of.

"There's a flaw in your reasoning," he finally told Yuugi conversationally.

"What?"

"You're laboring under the mistaken impression that I'm your friend." He coolly watched his face, analyzing the shocked expression that flickered across it and then faded away. "You seem to think that somewhere deep down I actually like you, or respect you, and I secretly appreciate the hand of friendship you keep shoving in my face. Some day, you're sure, you're going to break through my bastard shell and find the gooey center within, and I'll thank you for it. Well, you're wrong." He leaned forward with his fingers laced together and lowered his voice, forcing Yuugi to lean a little closer.

"The truth is that I hate you. I hate your wholesomeness and your idiotically optimistic worldview, and your willful blindness to the fact that reality is a shitty place where the friendly and weak are prey. There's nothing to respect, your existence offends me, and every 'Kaiba-kun' that comes out of your stupid little mouth makes me want to stick my gun in it."

"And the fact that you can't beat me or kill me gets to you, doesn't it?" Yuugi asked, with an expression of sympathy mixed with... something. Shrewdness? "Because maybe it means your cynicism is wrong."

He lashed out without thinking about it, not for the first time today, but at least this time he didn't shoot him; the butt of the gun smashed into Yuugi's jaw, and he actually fell over with a cry, holding his face.

Seto stood and walked around them, his pace quick and restless. He was visible through the window, but this was important. Better than his mind being visible to Yuugi's too-observant eyes. "I hate you," he repeated with some agitation. "I hate this poser..." He kicked Honda's arm in passing, drawing a choked noise of pain. "I hate that mouthy bitch I shot. I don't know anything about this idiot except that he associates with you, but he deserves my hate for that." He kicked Bakura in the unfeeling leg. "I especially hate you, though. In fact, the only one I hate more than you is this retard..." He turned and kicked Jounouchi in the ribs a lot harder than he needed to, hearing them crack. Then he couldn't stop; he kicked him again and again as he spoke. "This idiot loser who won't stay down... thinks he's better than he is... and thinks that he can get through life on determination and fucking heart and not brains or skill or being fucking worthwhile..."

"God, Kaiba, leave him alone!" His last kick ended up getting Honda in the face as he tried to shield his friend with his body. Jounouchi was making whimpering sounds of pain in his semi-conscious state, hiding weakly in Honda's protection.

He looked down at the set of them, breathing a little hard. The mutt couldn't have an unbroken rib left, and it looked like he had gotten his arm too... He was losing it. His control was fraying. With a deep breath he ran his hand through his hair and turned away, moving back toward his corner and out of shooting range.

"The reason I haven't outright killed any of your friends, Yuugi, is not because I secretly like you. I want to see them suffer... and I want to see you watch them suffer."

Silence fall as he went back to the computer again. The screen was blank; the home computer was dead. Good. Even Jounouchi fell silent, and he was able to open up a simple text file in peace. The only sound was his fingers on the keys as he slowly began to type.

"He has a point," Mokuba said into his ear in a couple minutes.

"I don't secretly want to be his friend," he snapped in Mandarin.

"No, I know that... but this isn't like you."

"To be a homicidal sociopath?"

"To act on it in public."

He paused, and had to smile a little bit at the screen. Mokuba... "You're right," he agreed, consciously getting a grip. "I know it's not. Even if he's absolutely correct and I have been influenced by outside forces, though, it doesn't change a thing. You don't get a pass on murder because a voice in your head made you do it."

"Are there voices in your head?" Mokuba actually sounded faintly hopeful. How terrible was that?

"No, little brother," he said gently. "No voices. I'm just... slipping."

"Well... maybe you should cultivate that idea anyway. I mean..."

"I'm not fabricating an insanity defense. I'm perfectly aware of the consequences of my actions; it's just nice not to have to care anymore."

Mokuba let that lie for a few minutes. He waved the girl in front of the door out it just as the minute rolled over, and she scrambled out of the room without looking back.

"You're going to get very bored in prison."

"Mm."

"Seto?"

"Yes?"

"You are going to prison, right?"

"Yes, I really don't think I could avoid that at this point."

"All right."

He ignored the subtext, pretending not to hear the real question, and let Mokuba relax with the lie as his computer absorbed him again.

Drying blood that dripped through his bandage made some of the keys gummy or slick, and the deep throbbing ache in his hand had never really faded and returned full force as he got into typing. Those faded almost instantly into unimportance, though.

Even with the distractions in the interim, his letter flowed effortlessly from his fingers and onto the screen. It was like it had been there for a long time, waiting to come out, and now that he was letting it out the words just poured... Consideration of the future faded from even the back of his mind as he lost himself in a straightforward list of names, dates, and explanations.

Welcome, Kaiba Seto, to your life... laid out in unimportant black text on an unfeeling white screen. It seemed fitting.

"I think a lot of things are going to come out now, more than I intended," he murmured absently as he neared the end. The sound of his own voice surprised him a little, and jarred him from the hypnotic catharsis on his computer. He found himself feeling very calm, seeing with absolute clarity again, finally. All of the distractions and clutter in his mind had been siphoned off into the file, leaving him drained and blessedly cold. "Remember," he continued, his voice stronger, "no matter what it is, you were a victim, always."

"What is it? What could come out? There's nothing-"

"Trust me, Mokuba, you don't know everything, and I prefer it that way. You should have some genuine shock, and horror if you can manage it."

"Tell me."

"There's too much to tell. It will come out at trial."

"Just one thing! Tell me just one thing you think will shock me."

He considered the challenge absently as he typed, thinking over the secrets he had from his brother. "I killed Gozoboro," he said finally.

There was silence on the other end of the line. He used it to begin reading over his file.

"That's not true," Mokuba finally said. "He committed suicide."

"That's the official explanation... Of course, it's really impossible to tell the difference between a jump and a push from that height," he mused absently.

There was silence for a moment. Mokuba was probably readjusting to the fact, maybe even coming to terms with the fact that Seto had such secrets from him. He knew he probably didn't like the idea, but he preferred it that way. Mokuba didn't exactly have much innocence to protect, but what he did...

"He deserved it," Mokuba said with finality.

"That is true."

"What else-"

"No, Mokuba," he interrupted calmly. "I'm not going to do this. I'm writing a confession."

"To what?"

"To everything."

"Seto..."

He didn't answer, and Mokuba was smart enough to know when he couldn't win, so he didn't push it.

"Mokuba,"

"Yeah?"

"Remember that you were always a victim. His, mine, everyone's. Live it."

Mokuba's voice grew quieter. "All right."

"You're going to have to show them everything, and cooperate fully with the police. You won't be able to hide your knowledge of everything, but what you can't, I forced you into. You've been at the mercy of your insane brother for years, and everything you did for me was the Stockholm talking."

Mokuba's voice was tense. "You don't have to tell me how to do this."

That was true. When it came to manipulation and acting, Mokuba was well within his league. "I'm sorry."

"If you were really sorry you'd escape."

Seto had to stop typing for a moment and bowed his head over the keyboard, enduring an unexpected blade of emotion that cut him. The hurt and accusation in his voice... He could picture him out there, curled up in a corner of the car's back seat with the phones, alone and trying to deal with this. Now he was dooming him to be alone forever. It was almost enough to tempt him to escape after all...

Well, no, it wasn't. That was a dramatic thing to think, but it wasn't true. He was far too rational for that; he couldn't. Even if he tried, now, he wouldn't be able to, and the attempt wouldn't accomplish anything.

"That wouldn't make your life any better."

"This won't either!" Mokuba sounded close to tears.

"It will. You'll have a clean slate; you'll inherit KaibaCorp without having to worry about the skeletons in the closet. You'll be able to rebuild from this disaster and nothing from my business or personal life will come back to haunt you ten or fifteen years down the road."

"Do you think that's what I want?"

"No." He printed the confession on the school's network and emailed it to his business address just in case, and shut down the computer. "But I want to have left my gun at home today. What we want doesn't change anything."

He had switched back to Japanese without really intending to; Yuugi looked up at him, and Honda spared him a glare before turning his attention back to Jounouchi. Seto watched them absently as he took the back cover from the laptop. Jounouchi was unconscious in Honda's arms but still seemed to be breathing, if only just, and Bakura was lying quietly with both of his arms folded over his face, either so far in shock he was disconnected from the situation or ignoring it so hard he didn't hear anything to react to. Yuugi was sitting on the floor between them with one hand on Bakura's shoulder and Jounouchi's leg, watching him back.

He was able to look at them without an uncontrollable surge of irritation, hatred, or... anything else, really. They were just there, basically unimportant little teenagers, and he felt no more or less for them than he had for any of their other classmates. He discarded his original plan without really thinking about it; he wasn't even going to bother to kill them. It didn't matter to him whether they lived or died.

But it was time for this to end regardless. He had missed two hostage release marks; they were all he had left to send, and the only two who could walk weren't about to leave their poor friends anyway. The police would be coming in soon whether he liked it or not.

He pulled the hard drive out of the computer and stood up, carefully crushing it to pieces beneath his shoe.

"I love you, Mokuba," he said as he picked up the gun again. "And I'm sorry."

"Seto-!"

He silently disconnected the call and raised the gun to his own head. Yuugi was already on his feet, lunging forward.

"No!"

The shot rang out in the small room.

Kaiba Seto was dragged handcuffed and blinking into the obscenely bright sunlight. He didn't resist or try to fight the police, and the media watched as he was complacently shoved into the back of a police car.

He watched the aftermath quietly through the window; Jounouchi's stretcher was rushed into a waiting ambulance, and Bakura's followed with a little less urgency. Honda and Yuugi came walking out under their own power with an entourage of police and medics, and although Honda was pale and unsteady from blood loss and Yuugi looked so physically and emotionally drained he could barely walk, they were greeted with enthusiasm bordering on cheers.

Yuugi hardly seemed to notice. He glanced up as he walked and their eyes met, for a moment; he looked away from the scene. Because of Yuugi the bullet meant for himself was lodged somewhere in the school's ceiling... he'd have to live with the consequences of this. The public spectacle, the humiliation and dishonor, and what might end up being the ruination of his company and his brother's life despite all he had tried to do for them...

He looked out the opposite window; Mokuba looked back at him. He was too far away to see much detail, but he was standing beside the car with Isono's hands on his shoulders and he wasn't cringing away or trying to fight him.

Did he accept it? He didn't know; knowing Mokuba, he knew he would act like he did, but he doubted he truly would. There was too much distance between them to see any more than that he was there, watching. But he hadn't turned his back on him, and that was something. That was everything.

The doors in front of him opened and closed, and he glanced toward the two officers who joined him. One wouldn't even look at him, but the passenger looked like he wanted to take out his own sidearm and shoot him. It was toward the latter that he spoke.

"You should have shot me."

"I'd like to," the officer said coldly. "But we aren't murderers."

He gave a humorless smile and leaned back, ignoring them and watching Mokuba as they drove him away.

~end~