Yu-Gi-Oh is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No infringement or disrespect of the original copyright holders of Yu-Gi-Oh! or its derivative works is intended by this fanfiction.
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Author's Note: This story is the conclusion of a five-story series (Impressions, KP Duty, Coming Clean, Face Voice Hands, and Beholden) about the shattering and eventual re-integration of Kaiba's persona through his often-antagonistic friendships.
For the most part, all five stories try to follow canon Yu-Gi-Oh characterizations and events as presented in the unedited second-series anime (with supplemental details from the original 38 volume manga): however, because a non-canon event (Seto being assaulted by the Big Five while soulless at Duelist Kingdom) has been added and two key characters (Pegasus and Gozaburo) have been distorted, these stories are by definition AR (alternate reality). While it is not necessary to have read all the stories that precede this one, this story does reference various non-canon fictional events from Impressions and KP Duty.
In terms of timeline, you can consider this to take place at least fifteen years after Duelist Kingdom (and thus at least year after the end of Face Voice Hands). Mokuba is in his late 20s, Kaiba in his early 30s.
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Beholden 1: Mystery
by Animom
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As always, he had chosen a flight that would bring him into New York well after midnight—and he knew that, as always, Mokuba would give his "apologies" to the guests. They'd never discussed it outright, but Seto suspected that his brother continued to schedule parties for the day of his arrival for that very reason, to give him a face-saving way to avoid an uncomfortable social occasion—and for that he was grateful. Then too, as as much as he looked forward to seeing his brother, he had learned that it was prudent to spend the first night sleeping in a hotel to gather his strength: Rebecca invariably planned activities for every hour of his visits with them.
Once the limo was underway he pulled out his phone. "I'm on my way to the hotel."
"It's too bad you'll miss the party," Mokuba said wryly. There was the sound of music and laughter in the background.
"It's still going on?"
"Yeah. Everyone's having a great time. We're not kicking them out until the neighbors complain."
Seto heard Rebecca say, "Tell that stinking party-dodging antisocial brother of yours I said hi, and wish he could have made it for once."
"Becca says hi," Mokuba repeated dutifully, than added, "Just so you know, there's more than a few people here disappointed that you didn't make it. Again."
"Tomorrow, Mokuba," Seto said, and hung up, closing his eyes and letting himself doze until the driver pulled up in front of the hotel.
His room, apparently, was the second best penthouse, as the manager kept going on and on about how sorry he was that the VIP suite had been booked by a dignitary who could not be relocated at such a late hour. Once the manager and cadre of bellhops had backed away Seto bolted the door and undressed, draping his jacket, pants and shirt over the chairs of the dining table then slipping gratefully into bed, where he spent a quarter of an hour trying to will himself into drowsiness before conceding that he was wide awake. He sat up, called room service to order a light supper, and then began to run water for a hot bath. As he took one of the hotel's complimentary bathrobes from the closet he decided that an extra housewarming gift to appease the Wild Hawkins might not be amiss and so rang the concierge, asking that an unopened magnum of champagne be added to his bill.
The enormous bathtub was barely a quarter-full when the knock came. "Room service."
"One moment." Seto retied the bathrobe belt, then opened the door.
The waiter wheeled in a small cart. Sliced pâté and fruit on a marble slab, the champagne in an ice bucket. "Shall I uncork and pour, sir?" he asked, taking two champagne flutes from the bottom shelf of the cart.
Seto raised an eyebrow. "Two?"
The waiter glanced at the clothes draped over the chairs. "For you and your—?"
Did they actually think he had a companion in the room? The presumption infuriated him. "No," he said, "I was going to give the champagne to someone as a gift, but I've changed my mind. Take it away."
"My apologies, sir."
"And the food as well. I've lost my appetite."
Once the chastened waiter had left Seto re-bolted the door, then went into the bathroom. The steam from the softly splashing water had released the scent of a hidden potpourri, and the subdued lighting made everything—the water, the gleaming fixtures, the spotless marble surfaces—sparkle and glow
He turned off the spigot, angrily pulled the stopper, and went to bed.
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There was a ringing.
His cell phone.
He snatched it from the night stand, squinting at the display. American number. West Coast area code. Caller unknown. "What?"
"May I speak to Mr. Kaiba Seto?"
"This is Kaiba."
"I hope I'm not interrupting any of your work meetings—it's 10 am there, right?"
"I'm not in Japan."
"Oh dear! Please accept my apology for—"
"Get to the point."
"My name is Dr. Stanton. I'm the director of the Sheridale Mental Health Center, and ... well, this may sound odd, but I think one of our patients here knows you."
"Five seconds."
"Mister Kaiba, a patient came to us years ago suffering from comprehensive amnesia. He couldn't—or won't—tell us who he is or what happened to him, and none of the usual processes—running his fingerprints, checking missing persons databases, even Interpol—have ever helped identify him," Stanton said.
"So?"
"The only thing this patient has ever said is kigh basetto. We couldn't find any translation of that phrase that made sense, and so for years have assumed it was just gibberish. Yesterday, however, our new art therapist reviewed the patient's file and suggested that since our John Doe draws pictures of what she tells us are characters from a game that your company manufactures equipment for—Monster something?—the words might be your name."
"And because of that you called me in the middle of the night?"
"We thought it was possible," Stanton said, with a hint of belligerence, "that if the patient knows you, perhaps you know him."
"Unlikely." Seto rubbed his eyes. "Millions know my name."
"I see." Doctor Stanton paused. "I realize it's long shot, but I'm begging you to try. There's not much time."
"There's urgency?"
Doctor Stanton sighed. "Normally I would never violate patient confidentiality, but under the circumstances... John recently had aggressive surgery for an osteosarcoma. Unfortunately the cancer has already metastasized, extensively, and the oncologist believes that John may have as little as a month to live. We're desperate to locate his family. I'm sure they'll gladly re-reimburse you the cost of airfare."
"Airfare isn't a concern," Seto said. "Time is."
"Could I at least send you some photographs and video to look at?"
"Acceptable," Seto said, and hung up.
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"Hello, hello!" Rebecca said as she opened the apartment door.
Seto tolerated her hug as he looked around for his brother.
"Mokuba's out," Rebecca said. "Trying to hunt down tickets for something interesting for us to see. I'll take those!" She grabbed his suitcases.
Seto, already feeling buffeted by her enthusiasm, sat in a wing-back chair next to the chess table.
"Coffee?" Rebecca called to him from the kitchen. "Or something alcoholic?"
"Coffee."
"Yeah, it's too early for a fuzzy head." She brought cups and a carafe on a tray. "Up for a game?"
"Of course," he said, pulling the game table close and swiftly setting out the pieces. "Black or white?"
"Black. I feel lucky."
He smiled faintly when her second move was bishop's pawn. "Latvian Gambit?"
"I know, right?" She laughed. "Still, no guts, no glory." She made a face as, a few moves later, he moved his queen to the edge of the board and put her in check. "Well, shit. So much for the Latvians. I might as well resign: you probably have at least a dozen ways to beat me at this point."
He sipped his coffee. "Eight. You're improving."
They had just started their third game when Mokuba returned, triumphantly waving small envelopes. "I come bearing private box seat tickets!"
"Move that piece and I win in five moves," Seto told Rebecca.
"Why can't I ever see the same things you see?" she pouted. "Five moves. Sheesh."
"Your coat is wet," Seto said to Mokuba.
"It rained a little. It does that outside," Mokuba said, slapping Seto's shoulder with the tickets. "You know, outside? That place with fresh air?"
"Overrated," Seto responded, leaning back in his chair and watching Rebecca point and mumble as she analyzed the board. His phone chimed.
"Go ahead and answer. I'll be a while," Rebecca said with a wave of her hand.
Seto looked at the display. It was the California number. "It's not important," hd told them, but of course Mokuba and Rebecca dug the story out of him and harried him to take a look at the pictures Doctor Stanton had sent.
The first attachment was a photograph, the profile of a man with shaggy ash-blond hair.
"An old KaibaCorp employee, maybe?" Mokuba said. "Though I don't recognize him if he is."
"That looks like a mug shot," Rebecca said. "Does KaibaCorp hire drug addicts?"
"Hundreds of thousands of them," Mokuba said. "The other file's a video?"
"Seems like," Seto said. Low-resolution and small, the clip was of a man with close-cropped white hair, crouched in a corner with his back to the camera. The weathered skin of his neck marked him as at least middle-aged. When a voice from off camera said, "Don't be shy, John. Show the nice lady your smile," the man gave a low, terrified animal bray, turning just enough to slap at the camera. The image spun: ceiling, face, floor, blackness.
"That can't be the same guy!" Rebecca took Seto's phone and replayed the clip. "What's up with his face?"
Mokuba watched over her shoulder. "He's half bandages."
"Perhaps he's violent." Seto walked to the window. On the avenue far below, swarms of New Yorkers hurried through the rain.
"He had a buzz cut. If he was in the military," Rebecca said, "maybe he's an old friend of Gozaburo's?"
"Most of his friends that we knew, or that knew us," Mokuba said, "were on our board of directors for a few years after Gozaburo died. Did he look like any of the Big Five, Seto?"
"No." The five men who had conspired with Pegasus to take over his company. The five who had tried to trap him in a VR and kill him. The five who had, at Pegasus' invitation, assaulted him while he was soulless at Duelist Kingdom. Seto found himself undoing the latch on the window, sliding it up. A gust of cool rainy air came through the flimsy window screen. Very few had ever known what had happened that weekend. The Five, who were presumed dead; Pegasus, who had withdrawn from public life years ago; Kurosuke, a personal aide of Pegasus' who had rescued Seto after the assault and given him medical care; and Jounouchi Katsuya, who, as far as Seto knew, had never broken his promise to keep the assault a secret. The duelist Mai Valentine had deduced the truth, but Seto had never confirmed it to her.
Avoiding Jounouchi and Mai's pity had been easy. Avoiding Mokuba's would have been unbearable.
"What're ya doing?" Rebecca asked, leaning against his arm.
Twelve floors down to the sidewalk. A fall of less than 2 seconds. "Sampling that fresh air I heard mentioned." He closed the window. "Your air comes with too much noise."
"That poor bastard." Mokuba had his sad face on. "You ought to go out there, Seto. If he knows your name, maybe meeting you in person will jog his memory. The way seeing Honda and Jou did for me."
Seto shook his head. "A waste of time. He's likely just another obsessed Duel Monsters fan."
"So?" Mokuba frowned. "C'mon, Seto, even if it doesn't help, at least he'll die happy."
"I only have this week. Why should I waste it on a stranger?" He scowled. "I'm supposed to be walking around outside and going to shows and eating authentic hot dogs with you two."
"Thanks for making it sound like punishment," Rebecca grumbled.
"Seto, all that will be around for a lot longer than that guy," Mokuba said. "That guy—he needs help. Now. You have to go." He turned to Rebecca. "Mind if I go with him?"
"Of course not," she said promptly. "It'll give you some quality Kaiba Brothers time."
"If that's what you want." Seto said with a sigh, setting up the chessboard. "Rematch?" he asked Rebecca.
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A corporation jet flew them to California, which was much warmer than New York had been. They crossed the shimmering tarmac to the waiting limo then sat without talking, watching the nondescript sprawl of shopping centers and generic housing fly by beyond the ribbon of the freeway. After a surprisingly long drive they pulled up in front of a sprawling two story beige building that seemed as though it had risen out of the barren and dusty earth. A concrete slab proclaimed Sheridale State Hospital—Department of Mental Health.
"This is a good thing you're doing," Mokuba said as they got out of the limo. "I hope it helps reunite him with his family. They'll want to take care of him, be with him until he dies."
The front door led to a small waiting area. An orderly behind a metal-barred window took their names, and a few minutes later they were buzzed through to a small lobby. A man in a suit and a woman in a white lab coat hurried toward them, their shoes clicking on the speckled gray linoleum floor.
"You must be Seto Kaiba," the man said as he extended his hand. "I'm Doctor Stanton. I want to thank you again for taking the time to come out here. This is Dr. Adel, our art therapist."
Seto folded his arms—he reserved handshakes for meaningful occasions—and said, "My brother, Kaiba Mokuba."
As Mokuba shook Dr. Adel's hand he said, "So you were the one who made the connection to Duel Monsters? Do you play?"
"I used to," she said with a faint smile.
"Can we get you some coffee?" Dr Stanton asked, putting his hands together and making what looked like an attempt at a small bow. "Have you had breakfast? We've got assorted pastries in the staff lounge."
"Our time is limited," Seto said.
"Of course." Stanton looked apologetic. "Doctor Adel will take you to see John. Stop by my office on the way out."
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Doctor Adel swiped her ID card and they passed though a heavy door into a large open ward that reeked of cigarette smoke. Patients in street clothes, pajamas or hospital gowns sat on plastic furniture watching a television protected by a safety cage or shuffled around listlessly. Sleeping cubicles ringed the room. On one side a nurse behind a barred window dropped pills into small paper cups. Next to the window an orderly passed out single cigarettes to a small group of patients, who hurried to use the electric lighters attached to the wall behind him.
Mokuba gave a soft, low snort of disgust. Seto held his breath: though not as repugnant as cigar smoke, cigarette smoke was not a smell he enjoyed.
They followed Dr. Adel through another ID checkpoint into a hushed hallway. Heavy doors with wire-reinforced windows marched away from them on both sides. Dr. Adel stopped at one.
"John's room." Inside, the man from the video lay on a cot, his hands attached by wrist cuffs to a belt around his waist. From time to time his head jerked and nodded.
Seto's stomach twisted with a sudden anxiety. Why had he agreed to fly across the country to help a stranger?
"Those restraints seem like something from a horror movie," Mokuba said.
"John has been very agitated lately," Dr Adel said quietly. "We've had to cut back on his usual medications so as not to interfere with his chemotherapy."
"You keep him drugged so that he's easier to deal with?" Mokuba asked, his militant crusader tone beginning to surface. "I suppose you use shock therapy too?"
Doctor Adel pressed her lips together, clearly biting back a defensive response. "As a matter of fact, ECT is often helpful for the type of psychosis John has. It calms him. Suppresses his compulsive behaviors. But you're right. It was overused in the early days of mental health care, especially in overly-crowded facilities."
Mokuba held up his hands. "Sorry. I'm sure you're doing the best you can. Is he a danger to himself and others?"
Doctor Adel didn't answer right away, as if weighing the sincerity of his apology, then sighed and said, "When he was brought in eight years ago he was put in solitary overnight for observation. I'll show you what he did by morning, but I warn you—it's somewhat distressing." She opened the folder she carried and took out several large photographs, handing them to him and Mokuba. "These are the pictures that led us to contact your brother."
The photographs showed a bare room whose walls were covered with large, crude drawings of magical symbols and creatures, including a crude Blue Eyes-like creature surrounded by lesser monsters.
"Yeah, definitely Duel Monsters," Mokuba said.
Seto shrugged. "Not very well drawn."
Mokuba looked closer. "Well, since he was working in the dark it's pretty impres—" He sucked in his breath and continued in a completely different tone of voice. "He drew these during observation?"
"What's observation?" Seto asked.
Mokuba's face was solemn as he explained. "When a patient is admitted they're put in a bare room and observed overnight—I guess since seeing how they react to stress and boredom can tell doctors a lot—but they aren't allowed to have anything that they could use to harm themselves. Stuff like belts, shoelaces, eating utensils, pocket knives ... and definitely no pens or pencils, either, right?"
Doctor Adel nodded her head. "That's right."
Mokuba pointed to the photograph he held. "So if he had no paint or brushes or chalk or anything you'd normally draw with, the only way to make these is if he he finger-painted the pictures. With his blood for paint."
Dr. Adel nodded. "Very astute. He used the bolts attaching the bed to the floor to lacerate his fingertips. He also apparently bit his arms and legs in an unsuccessful attempt to find a more plentiful blood supply."
"I … see," Seto said faintly. What would drive someone to tear at themselves like a rabid animal?
"That's not all," Doctor Adel continued. "According to the case notes John has attempted to repeat this behavior more than once. For health and safety reasons he's kept sedated and restrained during those interludes. And that's primarily for his own protection, not the hospital's convenience."
"Why not just let him draw?" Seto asked.
Mokuba nodded. "Yeah, I was wondering that too. Give him safe art materials? Non-toxic paint or something. Chalk? Crayons?"
Dr. Adel shook her head. "John rejects traditional media. He's compelled to paint in blood." When Mokuba opened his mouth she added, "Believe me, my predecessors have tried. One gave him pig's blood to paint with. He wouldn't touch it. Another sterilized a stainless steel fountain pen and pretended to stab his own leg and fill the chamber with blood—no, no, it was red ink," she added quickly, "but as soon as John had the pen he used it to open a vein in his wrist."
"Put a muzzle and gloves and long sleeves on him," Mokuba said, handing back the photograph.
"We've tried that too," Doctor Adel said. "If he can't get blood he'll draw with semen and feces."
Mokuba looked shocked and disgusted. "That's ... Really? Wow."
"Putting something of yourself in your work ... the sign of a true artist," Seto murmured, feeling a small triumph for goading Doctor Adel into an angry look.
"Creative expression is part of his illness?" Mokuba asked quickly.
Doctor Adel paused, then said, "I actually feel that it's an attempt to escape it, but the fact that he's non-communicative has made that difficult to prove."
"He's trying to draw because he can't talk?"
"Possibly." She hugged the file to her chest.
"There must be a better way to get through to him."
"I wish we could find it," she said. "Are you ready to see him now?"
Mokuba looked at Seto, and he shrugged. "Might as well get it over with."
Dr. Adel unlocked the door.
As they walked into the room the figure on the bed twisted to look at them. As in the video, the left half of his face was hidden by bandages; what was visible of his forehead, cheek, and chin were mottled yellow and purple.
"Post operative bruising takes a while to fade," Doctor Adel said.
"What kind of operation did he have?" Mokuba asked.
"Initially it was for removal of cancerous growths in the bone surrounding the eye socket, but I think they also removed tumors from surrounding soft tissue."
"Eye socket." Seto stared at the man on the bed, making visual corrections, peeling back the years to the man he had been. "He was missing an eye long before the cancer."
"Yes," Dr. Adel said with surprise. "That's exactly right. Do you know who he is?"
"A true artist," Seto whispered.
The man on the bed made an odd, garbled noise.
"He's an American," Seto said, noting how muffled his voice sounded. "Birth name Maximillion Julius Crawford. When he was twenty-one he legally added "Pegasus," using it sometimes as a family name and sometimes as a given name. He has an old scar on his left shoulderblade and upper arm."
The man on the bed was now struggling wildly against his restraints, his hoarse voice rising to a shriek as he screamed, "Oh God! Oh God! Save me. Save me! Save me!"
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Dr. Adel hurried them out into the hall as the doctor on duty and two orderlies rushed into the room to give Pegasus a sedative. As they followed her back to the hospital director's office the screaming behind them subsided, shut out by door after door.
Stanton looked up as the three filed in. "Well?"
Seto repeated what he'd told Doctor Adel.
"Fantastic! Do you have contact information?"
"His family is from Nevada. Near Las Vegas," Seto said. "He founded a company called Industrial Illusions. It's based in San Francisco."
"Odd that no one from that company reported him missing." Dr. Stanton said as he made notes, then stood. "Thank you for your help," he said, coming around to the front of his desk and motioning Seto and Mokuba into the hall, clearly planning on escorting them all the way back to the hospital's main entrance. "He's had chemotherapy, of course, and he'll have palliative care to keep his last days as comfortable as possible, but sadly he's never been coherent or cooperative long enough to meet the informed consent requirements for experimental treatments. I'm hoping we can set something up now that we have a way to contact his family."
As they entered the main lobby Doctor Stanton held out his hand. "I'm sorry we had to meet under such sad circumstances—it's always difficult to say goodbye to an old friend."
Seto pushed the glass doors open and stepped out into the blaze and heat, leaving Mokuba behind to endure Doctor Stanton's handshake and final words. "Lucky for Mr Crawford he had guardian angels helping us to get him back to his family and loved ones."
Mokuba hurried to catch up. "That was unexpected and weird. I assumed he'd died years ago. You didn't know either?"
Seto didn't trust himself to reply.
"Any chance you're going to tell me what's going on?" Mokuba asked carefully. "You seem upset."
"Nothing is going on." Seto stared at the sun-bleached landscape. "I'm looking forward to getting some sleep in New York."
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"Didja miss me?"
"Always, sweetheart," Mokuba said, kissing her on the cheek. "Always. Have fun while I was gone?"
"I had an offer from a co-ed soccer team," she said, "but I turned it down. I draw the line at re-enacting the Satyricon."
"That's my girl. No sense of adventure," Mokuba said cheerfully. "What's for dinner?"
"I'm feeling lazy. What do you say, chess partner?" she asked Seto. "Should we dump some greasy nitrate–loaded hot dogs in your belly, or let you off easy with Thai take-away?"
"Thai." The idea of food wasn't at all appealing, but he knew how to go through the motions.
As Rebecca went to the kitchen to get the carry-out menu she asked, "So it was Pegasus. huh?"
"Yeah."
Mokuba was still watching him: rather than meet those too-astute gray eyes Seto made a show of checking his messages. Amid all the usual clutter was a message from his lawyer. As a general rule he ignored messages marked URGENT—unless the sender was someone who who rarely used that label. He dialed, noting that his call was answered almost instantly. "What is it?"
"The legal department at Industrial Illusions contacted us two hours ago," his lawyer—who never wasted time on chit-chat—said, "to appraise us of an unusual document in their possession. We have examined the document, and though unusual it is both legitimate and legally binding. A springing power of attorney has appointed—"
Mokuba and Rebecca, who had been whispering to each other, now approached him with a handful of menus.
"I don't care. Order whatever," he snapped at them, then said to the lawyer, "Repeat the last part?"
"As Mr. Crawford has been determined to be non compos mentis and has no living immediate family or descendants, you are now his agent in matters of health care. Siegfried von Schroeder remains the fiduciary agent."
"Fax the document to me," he said. "I'll give you a New York number." He snapped his fingers, and Rebecca hurried to her desk for one of her business cards. He read the number to the lawyer, then said, "I'll call you once I've looked it over." He thumbed his phone and exhaled.
"What's happening?"
Seto walked over to Rebecca's fax machine, a dusty near-antique, "There is a document appointing a guardian for Pegasus in the event that he's physically or mentally incapacitated." He wanted to smash something. That scheming, vindictive, toon-obsessed bastard.
The fax machine blinked to life and began to buzz with the incoming transmission.
"His family, right?" Rebecca asked. "Didn't he have a bunch of aunts and uncles?"
Mokuba laughed in disbelief. "No way—don't tell me it's you? Can he do that?"
Seto pulled the first sheet, dense with text, from the fax machine tray. "It's me, and apparently he can."
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He studied the pages as Rebecca went to pick up dinner.
"So is it legit?" Mokuba asked.
"Legal says so. Except that I'd never agree to such an arrangement."
"Contest it."
"I might," Seto said. "After I find out why he forged the document. What he was planning."
"It was probably a joke. You know how he was."
Yes, I know how he was.
"If he was planning something," Mokuba said, setting out plates as Rebecca bustled back in with bags of carryout, "then either he knew he was going to wind up the way he has, or he's been fooling those doctors for years. Both of those are a stretch, don't you think?"
"Didn't he turn Industrial Illusions over to Ryuji and Zig to run before he retired?" Rebecca asked, opening containers. "Why not just make one of them his guardian? Are either of them are executors of his estate?"
"Good questions," Mokuba asked. "Do you know?"
The date.
"Earth to Seto. Hello?"
He couldn't contest it, because he probably had signed it.
"To the day," he said numbly.
"What?"
"Exactly six years after he defeated me at Duelist Kingdom."
Rebecca looked from Seto to Mokuba. "I don't get it. What's special about that, other than rubbing Seto's nose in a reminder of the defeat?"
Seto cleared his throat. "It means," he said tonelessly, "that I could have signed it when I was—" He couldn't go on.
Mokuba stepped in. "Pegasus was a weird guy back then. Like, criminally weird. Locked people up in dungeons. Did stuff that, uh, made people very open to suggestion."
"Like, drugged you? But you were kids!" She was enraged. "He should be in prison!"
"He had me add enough years to the date to make it legally binding." Seto clutched the pages.
"And had those slimy goons of his witness it," Mokuba growled. "I wonder what else he had you sign."
"So what are you going to do?" Rebecca asked. "File charges?"
"No." Seto felt something blaze up, an emotion he hadn't felt so strongly for years. Anger. "I'm going to take him out of that hospital and keep him from dying until I find out what he was up to."
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~ To be continued ~
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Many thanks, once again, to Dark Rabbit. I touched this chapter last, though, so all errors are mine.
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(09) 1 April 2014.