Childhood's End

Prologue

He lay in bed, rigid as steel. Outside his bedroom window the birds were calling the dawn, but he didn't care. He stared at the canopy above him, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them slowly. Finally, with a snarl of frustration, he swung himself out of bed and into his slippers. Like his pyjamas, the slippers were a light blue-grey in a cheap imitation of a Blue Eyes' hide. Kaiba walked across the room with brisk strides and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

When he asked himself again why he had bothered going to bed at all, the answer was because something was dragging his body down, rendering him incapable of work. Being up for most of the night thinking about it had done nothing to ease the pain, and it was good that the night of idleness was now over; he had rested in some way, and could work and talk and try to forget.

Emerging cleaned and brushed, he looked at the deck and Duel Disk resting on the table at the foot of his bed. It was then that he realized he wanted to sit and think about what he'd done. Why had it come out that way, as if he was a bad child who was supposed to sit in the corner. He hadn't been bad, had he? Of course not.

No, there was something at the back of his mind. What was it? It was something very important. Not about the duel.

Kaiba walked to the closet and pulled the sliding door open, and suddenly his anger swelled into fury. He struck at the hanging rack of clothes; leather bodysuits, long studded coats, suits, casual clothes all rattled as he moved them with one vicious sweep of his long arm. Breathing hard, he struggled for calmness and finally snatched at it, becoming not relaxed but cold, in a way that felt good, or at least adequate.

Yugi wouldn't beat him at taking his life back, too!

Wait, wait. What the heck am I doing? This isn't...? What is...?

Shaking his head roughly, he then chose his purple outfit. While snapping shut the padded metal armbands Kaiba studied himself in the dressing mirror, remembering the last time he had worn it. He noted with a small measure of satisfaction that Ishizu had been wrong after all: Kaiba had never returned the card to her, Yugi had gotten it.

Yugi!

He would get over it. It hurt now, but if he was strong he would overcome it, Tear his pain away, go back to "merely" being the eccentric millionaire CEO, get his life and his mind back in order before challenging Yugi again in the future.

But now look at that; he was so lost in himself that he almost walked into Mokuba, who was waiting on the other side of the bedroom door. Kaiba stepped back hurriedly, reaching out to touch the top of his brother's head as if afraid he had broken him.

With a burst of self-hate Kaiba remembered what he had been trying not to forget. There was no reason to ask what Mokuba was doing up this early in the morning on a day that wasn't a school day. Kaiba felt very sick, which he called himself.

"Seto?"

It took too much effort to keep from falling. Some part of Kaiba was still going on unchanged, and noticed wryly that he was at his weakest and for a moment too preoccupied to fight against it. Joey's words filled his mind. He said he was happy bein' all alone. So I guess what that means is he doesn't need you, Mokuba. Some big brother.

Suck it up. Now. Face up to how you made him feel. Kaiba crouched down to look at Mokuba, noticing for the first time that Mokuba was fully dressed, and wondering if he had been awake for as long as he had been.

"Seto, are you okay?"

"No," he said, wanting to be honest. "But I will be. I just have to be a man and get over it, that's all." After a pause, he decided to go ahead anyway and ask the obvious question. "Why are you up this early?"

"I was worried about you. You know, you worked so hard and, well, a lot of things happened that we didn't expect..."

Kaiba wanted to hug Mokuba and tell him it was all right, and thought with regret that, no matter how mature Mokuba could appear, no matter how much Kaiba believed that no one should be sheltered from anything, Mokuba was still so young... He shouldn't have to deal with this. He should have a childhood.

I think what Yugi said about you was right: you're filled with hate! Why don't you smile anymore? I know our childhood wasn't the best, but at least we had fun sometimes. And now, you're always in a bad mood, and I want it back the way it was.

"And what I said to you. I didn't mean it...there's more to you than hate...I should know that, even if nobody else does, and..."

"Mokuba." He had no right to tell his brother to forget, to dismiss it all even in the name of calmness. "What do you want to do?"

"Huh?"

"Look, I'm asking you. I'm not trying to justify what I said, and I have my own ideas about...things. I want to know how you'd like to deal with it."

Mokuba looked off to the side, clearly uncomfortable. Mentally Kaiba slapped himself, though he had no idea how else to approach the situation. That was no excuse for making Mokuba uncomfortable, idiot.

"Why don't we just...talk? Act like a family, I mean. Normal."

You will not take away the only family I have!

Kaiba closed his eyes and started to hate himself again...for being weak...for letting himself lose...

Stop that.

"All right, sure."

"Let's go downstairs. Are you hungry?"

"No."

It was too early for the kitchen staff to be up and Kaiba didn't want to see anyone else anyway, but he had taught both Mokuba and himself how to use everything in the mansion, because if you could help it, you should never let anyone have total control of even a small aspect of your life.

They sat on one of the big leather couches in the living room, not looking at each other but sitting close.

"So, are you going to duel Yugi again?" Mokuba asked this with a cheeriness that rang false in Kaiba's ears.

He knew his brother was afraid of the answer, and Kaiba felt a stirring in his chest, the word "duel" bringing up feelings he did not want now. His heart beat faster, and his body became electric with anticipation. But it was no agony to say, "No. Absolutely not. We're pursuing another dream, one that we're going to do together."

"The other Kaiba Lands, right?"

"Yes."

Kaiba looked over at Mokuba to see him smile, but wasn't entirely calm. He hated feeling vulnerable and overexcited like this. But he had to know. Should he wait? Mokuba was always the one who made the small talk. Right now, the silence was uncomfortable.

Is it over?, was what Mokuba had asked him after he had rushed back into his older brother's arms.

"Seto?"

"Hmm?"

"I wanted to ask you..." Mokuba gulped.

Kaiba realized that he was watching Mokuba intensely, waiting for something, and quickly looked away

"Um. When you said you needed no one, did you mean me, too?"

Oh, yes. The bomb had been dropped. He hadn't ever given much though to the distinction between Mokuba and everyone else. He had told Mokuba just hours before that he had been the one who had saved him. Obviously Kaiba did need him. "No. Of course not. How could I?"

"Then why didn't you say anything?" The sadness was starting to break through. Kaiba wanted to tell Mokuba that he could let it out now, didn't have to pretend happiness for Kaiba's sake, but it was too late now.

And immediately he knew the answer. At the time it would have seemed a logical one, but now it looked like nothing. "You don't show your vulnerability to your enemies, not at a time like that. I had just been humiliated, and couldn't let those geeks see anything less than an iron will." Even though it was the truth and Kaiba wouldn't take it back, it felt wrong for him to say this. "I know it's not what you wanted to hear, and anyway it's a pathetic reason. It doesn't explain away anything. I hurt you and there's no excuse."

He looked back at Mokuba, who seemed to be studying him, and Kaiba understood again that Mokuba was not a child anymore, that everything he had done and wanted didn't change the fact that Mokuba was different, that he had, like himself, grown up too fast.

"But Seto, why didn't you remember in the first place? When you said you were alone, that you rejected the past...why didn't you?"

Again, he automatically had a foul answer. "Because you're different, Mokuba. At the time I wasn't thinking about it, but you're the only person in this world that I care about. So I must have thought...I must have thought that you would know that, that you would instantly know that I left you out of those declarations, because you were above everything, different from everything." Kaiba paused, then drew an arm around Mokuba's shoulders, tugging him closer. "I'm sorry for upsetting you. I was stupid."

"That's all you need to say, Seto. It's not like I thought you didn't love me anymore..."

Kaiba couldn't help it; he sucked in his breath sharply, almost wanting to...what? To frighten Mokuba further by yelling at him, by protesting that of course he did, that he loved Mokuba more than anything else in the world?

"It's just that sometimes...when I think about what happened at the Duel Tower, when I look back on it, I was scared that you might be losing your mind. I'd never heard you talk like that."

Don't you realize it's my inner rage that pushes me forward!

Don't you realize that every single one of us is alone in this world, Yugi! Look at me! I've never had to ask for anyone's help!

His mind...? It would have sounded ridiculous coming from any other person, but hearing Mokuba say it made it real. After his first defeat by Yugi, he hadn't had a chance to let his rage and desire consume him, being swept up in the conspiracies of the Big Five and Pegasus. Then, somehow, he had gone back work, adult work. Grown-up work. Until he got the call to go to the Domino Museum. Then cry havoc and let slip the dragons of war. Oh yes. Hah.

"And when Noah made us look at our past, it just hit me how different you were back then, when I'd never really thought about it for a long time. I just thought that you had something you really wanted to do, and I needed to help you out because that's what a brother does. I didn't think there was anything wrong with you."

Against his will the formless, impractical desire for dueling flared up again. There was still no real sense of danger coming from this need, but it was so annoying. Why couldn't he have all of it under control? It had felt so good...

"Listen, if I've been neglecting you, hurting you in any way..." Then came ugly, melodramatic feelings of terror that Kaiba would have laughed at had he heard them coming from someone else.

Mokuba sounded shocked. "No, no that's not what I mean. You don't think that, do you? I was with you all the time at Battle City. Sure we didn't talk much, but it was really important to you." Suddenly he reached over and patted Kaiba's knee. In a softer tone he said, "So don't worry about that, okay Seto? You're the best big brother anyone could ask for." After a pause, Mokuba added, "You really liked it, didn't you?" He was gentle, not at all accusing. "I guess you're probably still thinking about it, and that's really okay--"

"No!" Kaiba shouted, immediately sorry because he made Mokuba jump. "No. I'm moving on, just like I intended to. Of course I still feel it, but it won't matter."

"Then...why did you decide that? Can you really just walk away?"

"I know I can. I may not know why, but I can. Partially because I'm sick of those morons and their speeches. I want to be with sane people for a while."

I've had about all I can take of you people!

He had suddenly felt choked, irritated, confined. He didn't want to see any of them ever again. Despite the feelings of loss that moved between anger and despair, he was sure in an instant that he wanted them out of his life, with everything over between them.

"For most of the day I'm going to stay here, but there's one place I have to go.

"Where?"

"To a vault. It's in the same building as the Blue-Eyes jet hangar, and it's where I'm going to put my Duel Disk and all the cards I own. I'm not going to touch them until we're through with this, and I'm locking them up just so I won't be tempted."

Mokuba chuckled, which made Kaiba smile, a bit.

"Are you going to hate them forever, Seto?"

"What?"

"Yugi and his friends."

"I probably will. It's not something I'm proud of, it just is." After a moment he add, "With Yugi I might have had some grudging respect, but that's it."

This time Kaiba thought Mokuba would understand, but instead he looked sad again.

"What is it?", he asked, worried for him.

"It's just that, well...they're the only people of your age that you've been around. Don't you think that if you put all this dueling craziness behind you, you might want to be friends with them? I mean, I didn't trust them at first, too, but I got to like them. They're not so bad."

"Why would I want to do that?" Kaiba tried to ask it nicely, but irritation and confusion slipped through. "I'm fine, Mokuba. There are over six billion people in the world. Most of them want everybody to be like them, but I say that at least some of them can live a life without any of the 'normal' things everybody else thinks they need to live.

"You were right about me at Duel Tower, Mokuba. I was obsessed, maybe close to losing it. I hate myself for what I did to you, and right now I feel sick of dueling. But being around people I despise won't do anything to change that."

"I know," said Mokuba. "It's way too early. But you don't think that maybe...?"

"I don't think so. But I'll try not to spend so much time hating them, move them from my mind. And if you want to be friends with them, it's all right. I wouldn't stop you, and I'd try to be civil." Then again, thought Kaiba, with the scenes he had caused around them, maybe Mokuba wouldn't. But he would go along if Mokuba was willing.

His brother nodded slowly.

Kaiba didn't like people to get worried about him. It was partly about the weakness implied, but with Mokuba it was making him feel bad. But there was more, wasn't there? After a long pause, Kaiba said, "I realize now that despite all my pretending to be a worldly, cynical, hard-skinned man of the hour, I wanted my life with you to be this perfect thing, us living in harmony, together forever. The idea of trouble in paradise has probably become so incomprehensible, that I was almost ready to think that any sign of the normal conflict that happens between people was a disaster leading me to call everything into question."

"Maybe that's a mistake we both made, Big Brother. But it doesn't mean anything. Or maybe it means we're just growing up, I don't know."

Growing up? Kaiba reminded himself as he sometimes had to that he was only sixteen, not the man he often pretended to be.

"You know what we should do? We should get up, play some games, and take your mind off of all this. How about chess? We haven't done that in a while."

"But I'd..." I can't think of a tactful way to say, "I'd beat you every time." It wasn't a problem before.

"Well, losing doesn't have to be bad," Mokuba said, apparently understanding. "Don't hold back, okay?"

"When do I ever?"

Mokuba chuckled and took Kaiba's arm off his shoulders, then ran off towards the game room.

Kaiba just sat still, brooding. For a while the only future had been beating Yugi; Kaiba had had no idea what he would have done after that. Would he have found a new obsession, or would he move on? Would he change? Those things didn't matter. What mattered now were the things that had actually happened. Kaiba repeated to himself again that he must try to deal with this in any way he could, take back his world. If that meant putting the cards aside for a while, he would do it. Kaiba pushed himself up off of the couch, refusing to dwell on the fact that it looked too easy.