Terminal Projections

by Cryptographic DeLurk

AU. After losing in the Battle City Quarter-Finals, Seto is convinced this is the end. But, after an unexpected turn of events involving the late Kaiba Noa, Isis proves to be far more morbidly fatalistic than Seto ever was. Isis/Seto. Noa Arc Rewrite.

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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AN: As a warning, this chapter contains some misogyny and misogynistic violence (as will the rest of the fic). It also contains some transmisogyny – no violent expressions of it, but there is misgendering, some outdated language, as well as some possible readings of the subtext that I am not happy about, but couldn't erase in their entirety. I'm not going to go into detail here in the notes, but know that I don't consider myself above critique and that I'm open to discussing it more in comments or reviews. Thank you.

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The Dark Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle had nodded silently as Gaia pierced the Deapsea Warrior's outer shell. Ooshita had screamed, as the lance ran through him. Gaia pressed him down, under the surface. A Deepsea Warrior could hypothetically breathe underwater, but Ooshita shouted loud garbled screams, like he was choking on the swamp water.

Yuugi walked across the field later, to see if he was still there. Yuugi took off his shoes and rolled up his trousers and waded through the algae and muck. Yami had warned him about everything from leeches, to the fact that Ooshita might be alive and pull him under. But Yuugi had insisted on checking anyhow.

"We have to!" Yuugi had met his eyes determinedly.

"Boh! Boh!" Kuriboh insisted. It clutched Yuugi's shoulder firmly in its tiny claws. Its large eyes blinked fiercely at Yami.

Yami frowned. "As you wish," he acquiesced.

Truthfully, he was afraid of Yuugi's reaction, if Yuugi pulled a bloody corpse up from under the water.

Yami flicked a cigarette lighter in his hand. You couldn't burn a swamp, anyhow.

He blinked. Where had he gotten a cigarette lighter from, anyhow? He flinched, and pitched the object away from him. It was as illusory as he was, floating above Yuugi's solid body, and it faded and disappeared as it got far enough away.

"Yuugi-?" Yami prompted worriedly. Hoping Yuugi had seen what he'd just beheld.

Yuugi hadn't. He was bent over, reaching under the water, with Kuriboh sitting content on top of his head. He could not see through the water – it was too murky – so he groped blindly for Ooshita. Occasionally pulling up handfuls of muck to throw to the side.

"Partner," Yami said, "I-"

The point was rendered moot, as the water cleared under Yuugi's hands. The majority of it swirled away.

"Boh. Boh!" Kuriboh protested, as the swamp disappeared from around them in a swirling mass of colour. It hurt his head, and Yami shut his eyes to shield them from the onslaught of light.

When he opened his eyes again, Yuugi was standing in only a couple inches of water. The algae on his feet drifted away, into the shallow puddle in the bottom of the empty swimming pool.

"I guess he's not here anymore," Yuugi said. He wasn't facing Yami.

"Boh…" Kuriboh slumped sympathetically.

They stood there for a moment. Yami looked up and outside the pool, at the hanging maple trees, and the chain-link fence.

"He was trying to steal your body," Yami pointed out. "You shouldn't be worried for him."

Yuugi nodded in agreement.

"He seems like a bad person... And he was trying to hurt Kaiba-kun before…" Yuugi turned and smiled. "But it feels bad to leave people behind, doesn't it? I didn't realise he wasn't able to return to his body, after what happened with Legendary Heroes."

"Ah… Right," Yami agreed.

Yuugi walked across the empty base of the pool, with Kuriboh bouncing happily after him. The walls of the pool were high on all sides, and Yuugi studied them so intently, he wasn't entirely paying attention to where he was stepping. His bare foot hit the bottom of a deck scrub brush, and it toppled from where it was standing, handle pressed against the edge of the pool. It fell over buckets of soapy water and bottles of abrasive.

Yuugi startled, and jumped back. He blinked down at the buckets.

He frowned.

"We have to go find Jounouchi and the others," he said firmly.

"Right." Yami nodded, much more easily this time. He looked around again. "Where have we found ourselves?"

Yuugi's lips pursed. He stood under the pool ladder. The bottom step was easily a metre above his head.

Yuugi looked up at the daunting distance, before turning back to Yami.

"This is the swimming pool in my middle school… Actually – it's a funny story – I got trapped in here, just like this, after we were supposed to be cleaning the pool wall." He laughed self-consciously. "I was waiting here for four hours. It was dark when Grandpa came and found me." He smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes. "The school admins were done for the day, and Grandpa had to convince them to come help get me out."

"Partner…" Yami soothed.

"Boh…" Kuriboh agreed. It leapt up, pushing itself straight up off the wall. It made it to ground level, and peered over the edge down at Yuugi.

"Wow!" Yuugi clapped for the Kuriboh, and watched as it preened from the attention. "Yeah, a lot of the guys could just jump up and grab the ladder and climb out like that. I'm sure Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun would be able to, if they were here."

"Boh! Boh!" Kuriboh said proudly.

Yami frowned. "Did the Big Five bring us here to trap us?"

Maybe their memories were not so separate. Because Yami could see the sneers, as they pulled up the extension ladder up and held it, tauntingly, just out of Yuugi's reach. They'd spent a good ten minutes, dangling the ladder above Yuugi's head, before tossing it into the bushes on the side of the pool deck and leaving.

"Did they want to trap us? It's possible." Yuugi laughed. "But it won't work."

Yuugi reached for his Duel Disk and fingered the cards in the slot.

"Come to me! Curse of Dragon!" he commanded.

The dragon sprung out from the portrait on the card. It circled in the air, before coming to rest at Yuugi's side.

Yuugi carefully climbed atop the dragon's back. He turned to Yami and beckoned him.

"I'm not the same person I was in middle school." Yuugi's face was determined. "I can't be left behind, not since I met you, partner."

Curse of Dragon roared, and carried them both safely to the pool deck, to where Kuriboh was waiting.

Kuriboh clapped for Yuugi this time.

"C'mon," Yuugi said, jumping off the dragon's back. "Let's go check out the rest of the school. We need to find the others."

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Checkmate!

The white Queen clacked against the board.

Mokuba sighed. He leaned back in his chair. He felt much younger, like a baby by all practical considerations.

"Chess is boring," Mokuba said.

Seto frowned at him. He pulled angrily at the collar of his blue turtleneck. "Chess is not boring!" he insisted.

"Maybe not for you," Mokuba whined. He rubbed his growling stomach. "I can't figure it out," he said. "Me and the rest of the kids can keep going until we've knocked out almost all of the pieces, but how do you trap the King?"

"Hn," Seto grimaced.

He didn't like hearing about Mokuba playing with the other kids. The other kids didn't like Seto.

"You just have to learn some basic positions," Seto explained. He gestured to the board. "This is Damiano's Bishop Mate." He reached to the side, grabbed a few of Mokuba's black pawns, and rearranged the board. "This is a Back Rank Mate." He rearranged the pieces again. "This is the Guéridon Mate… Understand?"

Mokuba hummed pleasantly, although he did not understand at all. Seto was a horrible teacher.

Seto sighed. He packed the chessboard, and the pieces, back into their dented tin.

Seto frowned, and Mokuba felt bad.

"Just you wait!" Mokuba enthused. "I'm gonna make a new version of chess!" he decided. "It'll be really exciting! And- And have monsters!" Mokuba nodded solemnly. "It'll be much better! And- And I'll beat you all the time."

Or at least he'd be able to give Seto a challenge…

Seto smiled. "Of course you will," he assured.

It almost drowned out the other voices.

You can't! Seto screamed. You can't take him away!

Seto-kun! You're keeping your little brother from finding a happy family… Is that what you want?

You can't have him! Seto screamed. I'll kill you! I'll kill you!

Say something to your new family, Mokuba.

Seto, Mokuba said, diligent and defeated. Seto. I want Seto. Seto.

He said it until they became bored. Long past the point he was bored.

Seto. Seto.

He was much hungrier after they returned him to the orphanage. Rejected, like a failed prototype on trial period, he thought. Even though he had done his best to get himself sent back… They had fed him spaghetti on a nice, white plate though. So at least he'd gotten to eat some good food while he was out.

Mokuba?! Seto had refused to eat. He'd refused to go to class. He'd tried to beat up every teacher and child in the playground, but only gotten himself scraped and bloody. Mokuba, his face peeled into a smile.

Mokuba smiled back.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Eventually the orphanage directors had started saying it too.

We would really prefer to place them in a home as a pair… They really are very attached to one another.

Mokuba! Seto cried. Seto beamed. You came back.

Ah, Mokuba remembered. This already happened.

He was standing outside the classroom, watching through the rectangular window on the door. Seto put away the chess pieces. His younger-self rubbed at his stomach.

This had already happened.

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It had been some kind of tourist trap. At the end of it, they had turned off the lights, to emphasise the total darkness of the limestone cavern. Isis had closed her eyes to try and emulate the experience, but she could already see the lights flicker back on in her mind's eye. Cornea, lens, retina, optic nerve. Even without them, it was impossible for Isis to walk into a wall, or off the side of a waterfall. Her feet would lead her to the exit.

She reached out anyhow, to feel the side of the cavern. The gristly texture of the columns and flowstone.

"Do not touch them, Miss!" one of the guides cried. And Isis pulled her hand away, startled by the noise. It was only after she had calmed herself that she realised it had been purposeful.

"The chemical composition of the limestone is very delicate," the guide explained. She was foreign. Her eyes were even paler than Isis's grey-blue. And her blemished and pale skin burnt red, even though she presumably spent most of her time deep below the earth and out of the sun. "The oils in the human hand destroy the surface, and make it impossible for the speleothems to grow any further."

The other guides were heckling their foreign co-worker now. Let the guests touch and see and have their fun. What difference did it make if the stalagmites and stalactites halted in their ten thousand year growth? Who cared what the caves looked like a hundred years from now… or a decade… or even in a week, after they had gotten their paychecks?

The Tomb Keepers?! Malik snarled. What is the Tomb Keeper Legacy?! What is any mere legacy, compared to the pain of this darkness? Compared to the death of my father?!

Our father, Isis had thought.

She preferred the person to the legacy too. But Iwt was dead and Malik was alive. Or he should have been at least.

The light was beckoning Isis's hand again.

She could see the entire history. Acid rain pouring down, flowing along the path of least resistance, filtering through the plateau and dissolving the rock, reforming it in spikes and pillars and caverns of pristine water. The natural miracles of the world – leading up to this moment.

Isis pressed her palm flat up against the cavern wall. She ignored the distressed wail of the foreign tour guide, and the laughs of the others.

Isis felt a tinge of sympathy, but it was for naught. If it wasn't her, it would be the other tourists that clogged the porous rock with oil and dirt and dulled it and killed it.

That was how the Tombs were, was it not? Perhaps once they had been natural caverns, alive and ever-changing, before Isis's ancestors had carved into the rock and covered it with blocks and murals. They had stopped change with the pressure of their hands, and swipes of pigment and the sharp strike of golden picks and Horus's golden eye. And now it was a necropolis. Catacombs filled with the corpses of humans and mineral formations alike.

But it was where she and Rishid and Malik had been born.

Isis blinked. These new caverns were dark, but no matter how little light the computer simulation was meant to provide, it could not touch the power of the Millennium Necklace. The gold gleamed all on its own, providing more light than even the fluorescence and fire that had once been used to light the tourist destination in reality.

The soles of her sandals curled around the rocky surface of the ground, unable to assimilate to its jagged grooves and points and edges. It was enough, though. She hiked up the skirt of her dress with one hand, and used the other for balance, as she made her way up the tunnel. A rock slipped out from under her shoe, and almost made her trip. She bit her lip almost in spite of herself. She wished to speak – to taunt and threaten the Dungeon Master, to tell him she could see through him, and wasn't afraid. But the future her was standing ahead, holding back a giggle.

Isis agreed. It was better to be light-hearted, and to save such words for a time they'd be heeded. She hastened to live up to her destiny.

The caverns turned this way and that, paths branching and merging, but Isis walked a straight line through them, even when she was led up to face the wall on the side of the tunnel.

Isis halted in front of it. She reached her hand out to the deposit of sandstone between the smooth rivets of limestone. Where its rough surface should have pricked her hands, it instead provided no resistance. Her arm phased through it.

It seemed even the great Seto and Noa Kaiba combined could not build a program to shape her memories into a computer-simulated environment without bugging up somewhere.

Isis knew already, but something turned her head backwards, down the path she'd come.

The Millennium Necklace and the footsteps that had once lighted her way had turned dark, dark as one should expect the deepest pit at the centre of the earth to be.

She turned her head opposite, up to where the computer-simulated tunnel wound upwards towards a computer-simulated surface. It was equally dark in this direction.

The only light there was existed through the cave wall. The Millennium Necklace shone as she stepped through.

It was fifteen steps of walking through what was meant to be solid stone, before she cleared it.

And then there was nothing at all. Isis lost all feeling in her arms and legs. She opened her mouth to gasp, but could not hear the intake of air. She could see nothing, except for the Future Isis, floating in space, smiling back at her past.

Isis realised, belatedly, that the computer no longer had any idea what sensory information to provide her unconscious form with, and had thus stopped providing any altogether.

She attempted to keep walking anyhow, focusing on the image of her legs turning over themselves. When that failed, she attempted to propel herself forward with thoughts alone.

Future Isis did appear to be getting closer. Dangling just out of reach.

What is she doing?! a voice hissed, as if coming from the next room. She's meant to be stuck in the tunnel, groping around for the exit. Not floating out of bounds.

Master Noa, I apologise. But I was sure she-

Silence! came the curt command.

Ahead of her, Future Isis seemed to writhe. Isis squinted, as if this would help her to see better.

(It had, once upon a time. Once upon a time, she had walked out of her home into the light of day, and she'd had to squint to see.)

I guess I just have to do everything my-self, the voice whined.

Isis's eyes widened as she finally recognised the pain on the face of her future self.

ReLoading.

Isis convulsed, as all her feeling came back to her at once. Her eyes welled up spontaneously from the pain, as he entire body fell into shock. Her lungs heaved, as she clung desperately to the air, which felt cold and electric.

Her knees hit the ground in rough scratches, and she clawed temporarily at them, until she could tell what were her own fingers. Her nose burned with the smell of rotting flesh. She struggled to her feet without thinking.

The light in the room was not the bright white and shining gold that reflected off the Millennium Necklace. It was created by the simulation itself. The fire pit roared in the mouth of the cave. It was surrounded with littered bones, shattered except for the row of skulls that lined the edge of the pit. There were humanoid figures dancing around the fire, in some obscene ritual.

Isis's eyes focussed. One such figure was standing right in front of her.

The Hitotsu-Me Giant screeched, its one eye widened to the point of popping.

Isis could see it lifting the club above its head. She had the time to react, to dodge under the blow. But her future self was holding her shoulder. Isis turned into the warm lighted embrace.

Crack!

Isis could not gasp. But, even if she could have, it would have been at the surprise of recognition, rather than at the depth of the pain. The sensation she felt as her neck snapped, as the vertebrae cracked and rolled over each, was entirely too familiar. A final burst of four thousand year old vengeance, before her nervous system severed itself entirely.

…

You worry way too much, Ootaki…
See, if you look at her brain waves you'll see she's only asleep. Not concussed. Certainly not dead…
It's just to make things a little more immersive. Add to the experience and all. You can reload from the save state and watch again, if you want. Have her neck sewn back together and split open as many times as you like – her real body is waiting safely for you…
Whatever, I don't care. You take it from here. I have better things to be watching.

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The sand castle was waiting at the orphanage when Seto arrived there – or the sand sculpture blueprint of Kaiba Land Amusement Park.

As he approached, he could have sworn he had seen children playing at the swings, and two downtrodden but hopeful brothers packing sand into their buckets, but when he arrived all that was left was the sand peaked into towers and statues and pathways.

What a joke, Seto thought, as he plunged his foot through it, returning it to rubble. The real Kaiba Land had looked nothing like it. The first Kaiba Land had been an indoor park – shut shortly after its opening, when Mokuba was unable to keep the rumours of it housing a death trap at bay. And the second Kaiba Land was still open, but the dreams of children were nothing like reality.

Stupid, Seto thought, as he stood in the sandbox he'd gone out of his way to approach, and looked down at the remnants of the sand sculpture he'd gone out of his way to destroy.

It took energy to drag himself back to the main path, but Mokuba was waiting for him, past the littered ghosts and memories that built the orphanage.

Seto remembered standing in the playground fighting for use of the handlebars. He remembered standing in the cafeteria and fighting for his portion of food and dessert. He remembered standing in the classroom and fighting to speak – to be heard, to not be told he was diverting attention from the other forty eager-to-learn idiots.

He remembered fighting for Mokuba.

He remembered fighting for himself.

Mokuba was standing in the hallway, aged almost a decade, but holding posture in a way that, nonetheless recalled to Seto the way a four-year-old Mokuba would stand slumped just outside of doors. Like he was afraid of the rejection that might face him on the other side.

"Mokuba!" Seto called, and Mokuba blinked as if leaving a dream.

"Seto!" he cried. He opened his arms, let himself make the last couple of steps forward into the rushing embrace.

If you could hug somebody from the other side of a room, that's what it would have been like. Like hugging an empty jacket. They pulled apart quickly.

"Seto, who was that green-haired you?" Mokuba asked quietly. Under the yellow fluorescence of the orphanage hall lights, he looked wan and sickly. "Why is he working with the Big Five?"

Seto shook his head. "It's not important," he quipped. "I'll tell you later," he lied. "For now – we have to get out of here."

Mokuba's wrist was small and thin, but it put up a surprising amount of resistance.

"Not yet," Mokuba frowned. "I'm watching the game."

Seto held back a clipped sigh. It was not the first time he'd had to adjust his plans to Mokuba's whims. It was necessary to do so, but he didn't have to be happy about it.

But then he looked through the window on the classroom door.

It was an ordinary game – a slow detailed exchange of knights and bishops and pawns. Of mad queens and kings. It impressed Seto, in spite of himself, the care and respect the players took to their moves. There was a thoughtful accuracy to the way a large hand moved to capture a rook.

Only it was Kaiba Gouzaburou making the capture, and a younger version of himself considering his next move quietly, before moving forward to take his opponent's bishop.

Little Seto was a tiny thing – skinny and lanky, with thick tufts of hair like molasses. He sat in a child's chair at a child's writing desk, and it was too small for him. His hands pressed into the plastic of the seat, and his feet dangled over the side, and scruffy blue-grey shoes like sky knocked against each other, only the very tips touching the floor. He did not smile, and he didn't frown. His expression was only a thoughtful and hesitant stare – one that could not belie the ambition in his heart that had led him to the CEO's heel, and prompted him to raise the chess board in challenge.

Gouzaburou was also sitting in a child's chair, backwards to face the same desk as Seto. He slumped over the top of the back rest, and looked over the chessboard. His feet planted firmly on the ground to each side, like the breadth of an unknown kingdom. He considered the chessboard with a light and ponderous expression, one that did not change after he made his move, and sat back to watch Seto make his play.

Seto pulled his right hand up (the left still pushed into his seat) and hovered it above the board.

They each had a supporter. A younger Mokuba sat sideways in a chair diagonally behind Seto, with a bored expression across his face. And one of the Kaiba Corp aides – named Ichida – stood in Gouzaburou's corner, far away by the door to the storeroom between one classroom and the next.

And, outside in the hall, Kaiba Seto was trying not to lose the ground he'd fought to keep.

"Mokuba, we have to go," he prompted, understanding what was next.

"Not yet," Kaiba Mokuba said impatiently.

And then it was too late, because little Seto moved his pawn, and placed his hand back down to his seat.

It was a long painful moment, where Gouzaburou just watched the board. But then he brushed his finger against the burgundy fabric of his suit, and over the gold button at his cuff.

Seto hadn't known at the time. Kaiba Gouzaburou wasn't exactly a man known to have nervous tics.

There was a rustle in the background, too far from the chessboard. A knock on the storeroom door, and a knock back. Little Mokuba held his seat, at the adjacent desk.

A message was being passed from one man to another through the open storeroom door, and then- "Excuse me, Kaiba-sama." The aide saluted. "There's an urgent call for you. You're expected on-line in the orphanage director's office."

Gouzaburou sighed. "Right now?" he scoffed. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of a game?" he gestured down to the board, and magnanimously across to his opponent.

The calm silence held in the classroom a moment longer.

The aide's eyesight dropped.

"Please, sir."

Seto said nothing. He held his legs still. Trying to keep them from racking against the legs of the chair and table, and sliding across the floor.

Gouaburou smiled, with some form of resignation.

The aide disappeared through the storage room.

"Well, business calls when business calls. There is no such thing as a rich man that isn't busy – at least, not for long."

He stood, and reached over the desk. With an almost casual display of ownership, he flicked his middle and index fingers at Seto's shoulder, and tapped him lightly.

Kaiba Seto flinched. But, on the other side of the door, his younger self didn't seem to mind. Seto only blinked down, unaware of the boundaries breached by that small application of pressure at his neckbone.

"Nosiree~" Gouzaburou tisked. "You can't laze about, and not take your calls, and hope that opportunity comes knocking on your own schedule. You have to stay busy. Remember-" he paused for dramatic effect, as if he was imparting some great wisdom onto his young protégé, "-that is how you stay on top of the game, boy."

Seto watched with wide, awed eyes. He nodded shyly, mind still caught on the chessboard.

"I'll be back soon to finish our game. Wait patiently."

Kaiba Gouzaburou's firm steps resounded off the floor as he crossed the room. His red suit blazed. Kaiba Seto could not look at him, he could just hear the footsteps, and then the rough sound of wood, as the classroom door slid open.

Kaiba Seto startled, he sprang back, as Gouzaburou walked out into the hall, right next to them. Kaiba Seto's eyes flashed to Kaiba Mokuba, and he resisted the urge to grab his younger brother and pull him to his chest, pull him back away, and cover his eyes with interlaced fingers.

But Gouzaburou paid them no mind, as if he could not even see them. And Mokuba had already stepped back, a crisp two steps. Mokuba's shoulders hung heavy, but his face was resigned – only the smallest sign of a frown pulled at the edge of his lips. And he watched his stepfather walk away down the hall and fade away, eyes wide open.

Kaiba Seto distracted himself from his brother. Inside the room, another drama was going on.

Like a baby being released from its swaddling cloth, Gouzaburou's exodus from the room had suddenly removed all the tension holding the young Seto together.

Slowly the feeling climbed up his toes. His knees were shaking. His breath shuddered.

Little Mokuba was watching him, sitting in one of the desk chairs, two spaces away. His brow scrunched up in incomprehension and concern.

"S- Seto? Are you-?" he began.

"Shut up," Seto said. It was without heat and malice, but filled with the utmost urgency.

He was a genius. A prodigy. He could read a chessboard like a book. Predict every outcome of a game a dozen moves in advance. Process every possible play – every capture and every pin and every sacrifice.

Which is why he knew. He could see it happening. The walls rising up around him, directing him forward to the sole and single outcome.

He was going to lose.

The nameless Mokuba sitting inside the classroom could not understand, but Kaiba Mokuba standing outside looking in, with the burden of years and experience, knew what was about to happen.

"Stop him," he ordered.

Kaiba Seto turned to his younger brother. "What-?"

"Stop him!" Mokuba turned towards him with more urgency. "I want you to go in there and stop yourself from the decision you're about to make."

Seto hesitated. When Mokuba crossed his arms and looked expectantly at Seto, it was as if the whole world had turned against him.

He grit his teeth. "Mokuba," he said, "these are just memories. I can't change the past. I can't stop it from having happened."

"So?!" Mokuba retorted. "That doesn't mean I want to watch it happen again. I don't want to watch you cheat. I don't want to watch the kind older brother you were turn angry and bitter. I don't want to watch you sentence yourself to years with that man," he spat.

Seto felt the grip in his hands tighten. The series of pinpricks in his head let him know that he was, in fact, a little bit annoyed.

"I did it so that we would have a future, Mokuba. I did it so that we wouldn't be tossed through foster care and pulled apart until we were finally dropped out on the street like dogs."

"He was horrible to you, Seto! He did his best to break everything good in you!" Mokuba protested. "There had to have been another way. I- I need to know you wouldn't do it again." This was said softer like a plea.

Seto paused.

Would he do it again?

He wasn't entirely sure what he'd find the strength to do, if he was the one sitting inside that room at the desk before the chessboard. Could he really feed them right into Gouzaburou's hands a second time? Could he really damn them to the endless terror and obscurity of the orphanage?

Mokuba was looking at him, pleading and expecting, and Seto realised it didn't matter.

If all he had to do was walk inside a room and interrupt a computer simulation to get Mokuba to drop the subject and follow him out of here – it was a pittance.

Seto walked up to the door. He hesitated only briefly before gripping the handle, pressing the door aside, and stepping in with his left foot.

The pit was opened wide beneath him, and he lurched downwards before he could process that he wasn't looking at desks and tables and blackboard and floor, but at the void of Domino under the Battle City blimp.

He flung his torso back towards to the hallway, and he hit the ground so that the air was knocked out of his stomach. Nausea swept over him.

"Seto! Nii-sama!"

Hands were all over him, as Mokuba hastened to help pull him up and back into the relative safety of the hall. Seto's legs dangled behind him, knees pressed against the wood. He pulled himself up so he was sitting on the floor, facing the open door, and the tempting call of city lights. His stomach rolled in his torso. Mokuba was clinging to his chest.

"I'm sorry, Nii-sama! I shouldn't have asked! I'm sorry. I'm sorry…"

This felt like a real hug, strong and desperate.

Inside the room, a much younger Seto stared at the chessboard. He made a quick calculation, took his one remaining rook and slid it sideways. He reached across the board, and commandeered a black pawn to pull it away from the king.

"Shut up," he said fiercely. "Not a single word. Don't say anything."

He bit his lip and, at his sides, his arms trembled uncontrollably.

Mokuba sat in his seat, looking more confused than wary. He kept obediently quiet.

The world was tilting inside that room. Suddenly the outcome didn't seem so set in stone.

Kaiba Seto watched from outside, as Kaiba Gouzaburou slowly returned from down the hall. He stepped up to the classroom, walked through the open door, and did not fall to his demise on the Domino streets. He slid the door closed behind him, and walked up to meet the younger Seto, who was again paralysed.

"I apologise for the interruption, young man. Now, where were we? …Is it my turn?" Gouzaburou pointed unassumingly to himself.

Little Seto bit his lip and nodded silently.

Gouzaburou sat back down in his seat. He contemplated the board for an acceptable amount of time, before moving a pawn.

Seto had to stop himself from sagging in relief.

Mr CEO had lost his chance to call foul play. Seto was four moves away from mate. Destiny had altered itself. What had once seemed a narrowing corridor, was now wide with the assuredness of salvation. He had saved them.

Seto bit back a small grin.

He was going to win.

Kaiba Seto was watching something different though. Outside in the hall, Kaiba Mokuba was still clinging to him (I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Nii-sama. I should never have asked.) but Seto was watching inside the room. As his younger-self was absorbed in the chess board, making his moves with newfound confidence, Gouzaburou was watching smugly. His face peeled into a cruel and knowing grin.

"Nii-sama," Kaiba Mokuba sniffed. "I'm so sorry."

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, Kaiba Seto berated. You thought you could get away with that stunt. You were playing against a grandmaster, you stupid little-

"It's okay, Mokuba." He pushed his brother up onto his feet and stood up shortly after. "Come on. We have to get you out of here."

.

.

When Isis awoke, she awoke unbound and unmoved, within the cave of the Hitotsu-Me Giants. The Monsters had returned to their place around the fire and, that they had not taken advantage of her unconscious state and roasted her above it, struck her as beyond the realm of concern.

There was a light above her, of both the Necklace and the simulation. And Isis pressed her palms into the rocks and craned her head and torso up. There was a shadow at the top of the cave, but she ignored it. It was not enough to affect the halo of light that surrounded her, and the direction that the Necklace led her.

It was easier than she expected to press herself to her feet. Her head felt remarkably clear and light, for someone who had had their head clubbed and neck snapped. She hoped next time would go just as smoothly.

Climbing the rope ladder that had descended proved to be more difficult. Her sandals slipped on the rope, and she had trouble pulling her legs up and around her dress. Several times she had to hold herself up by the power of her arms alone, and they strained weakly as she curled her body against the rope. And she felt irrationally fearful that the Hitotsu-Me Giants would notice her struggling, and drag her back down. But the giggles of Future Isis and the light proved the way she was meant to proceed, and the benefit of the Millennium Necklace meant never having to look back in regret, and feel yourself turn to salt.

When she neared the cave entrance, the rungs of the rope ladder had run out. Isis grasped the jagged edge of the opening with her hands and breathed hard, as she pressed herself up the remaining two feet. She scraped her chest against the rock face, as she shifted her weight forward over onto hard ground.

She gasped for air as she curled over the ground, but pressed herself up once more, to the full extent of her height. Dirt had brushed off on the front of her white dress, but she didn't allow it to affect the regality of her posture. It wasn't real dirt, but fragments of computer data that would wash away as soon as the simulation reloaded.

The shadow that had beckoned her up here could be seen clearly, now that she was out in the daylight. She panned her eyes down, careful not to tip her head in deference, to the penguin that was waving its wing at her.

Did he expect her gratitude for having rescued her from the cave? When he was the one that had put her there?

The penguin was beckoning her forward. Walking off along the cliffs, and turning back to wave her forward.

There was no future in that direction, though. No light from the Necklace. She stood firmly in place. After the penguin had shuffled back and forth a few times, distressed at its inability to direct her, she spoke.

"No, I will not come to you," Isis said firmly. "I will not be led around and toyed with like a pawn in your game. If you wish to challenge me, you will do it now, before my patience with your charade has run out."

She extended her arm straight out to the side and closed her eyes, so as not to flinch as the Duel Disk peeled out of her flesh and attached itself to her arm. Apparently the Dungeon Master was amused by her declaration, and had agreed to her request to expedite this process.

When Isis opened her eyes, she was surrounded by the arctic sea. Standing on the drift ice above the water, watching as snow fluttered down to the ground. She shivered, and the memories flooded her. Sitting in a private office in the Mogamma and being served a drink with perfectly square ice cubes. When she had first seen snowfall on business in Montreal. Except they overlaid older memories – memories of receiving the visions from that Necklace that would prepare her for these moments in advance.

The Big Nightmare Penguin was polite enough. He explained calmly, "Isis Ishtar. You are an Egyptian National. Twenty one years of age. Pentalingual, at least with regards to extant languages. A hundred sixty-seven centimetres – tall for a woman. As an aside, Egypt and Japan have very similar distributions for height measurements among their populations. Curious. Curious~" Penguin cleared his throat. "You work under your own company brand, but in close correlation with the Egyptian Government, the Supreme Council of Antiquities in particular. So far as the records indicate, your position in this business was established six years ago. There is little documentation of your family records, history of residence, or early childhood, seeing as you were raised communally as part of a traditionalist religious cult. Have I made any errors?"

Isis shook her head. She was choosing cards for her duel. Or letting the Necklace chose them. She did not judge the choices, but noticed that many of them were familiar and comfortable: Kelbek, Keldo, Zolga. Blast Held by a Tribute. She paused over Exchange of Spirit, before she followed Future Isis's hand past it. She wouldn't require it this time.

"You are knowledgeable," Isis allowed. "More knowledgeable than most."

"In a world of over six billion, that means little," Penguin said. "I would have known more, if Kaiba Seto hadn't gotten careless and let your position in the Battle City Finals go undocumented for so long. I didn't have much time to scrounge up the information that I did."

Isis continued choosing cards from the selection: Dark Elf, Spirit of the Books, Mystical Capture Chain, Fellow Traveller to the Grave.

"Tell me about yourself then," Isis said.

Penguin obliged. He began speaking of childhood isolation. The ideological bond he formed with the penguins he observed at the zoo, and his reverence for their concept of family and fidelity. The feeling that it had been too late for him. There were young men and women in today's age that decided to transition and live as the opposite sex, but he had been mindful of his social and societal position in his youth, and now he was stuck as an old man. Until he had died. Until Isis and the others came, and he could be reborn as anyone.

Isis was not really listening. The frozen sea was freezing cold. She wanted to curl in on herself – to grip her arms and rub them warm, to shiver and spasm. It seemed to take all her concentration not to do so. She bit the inside of her lip and focussed. Her body was in a climate controlled chamber at a safe twenty six degrees Celsius. Even if the simulation felt like death, it was impossible for hypothermia to take her. It was impossible for her to die here.

"Noa-sama is cruel, sadistic," Penguin said conversationally, as he drew his opening hand – five cards – from the Duel Disk. "I wanted the other girl. The one with the pale skin and the youthful innocence. Not this stoic foreigner."

Isis drew her own hand of cards from the Duel Disk. The cold was receding again, moving in and out with the tide of focus and distraction.

"By the standards of most, I am considered rather pretty," she said.

"Er-" The Penguin, Ootaki, seemed to feel caught out in a social faux pas and floundered. Isis was amused by how much the appearance of a squawking bird suited him.

Isis turned her head down and smiled wryly to herself. "But I wasn't what you were looking for."

Ootaki seemed to relax. "No, not exactly," he admitted. "There is a certain amount of risk and reward I'm putting on the line to fulfil my dream. The added burden of being a foreigner was not part of that…" He shook his head. "No matter. I will win this duel and take your body for the Big Five. The details can be sorted out later."

"You will not," Isis said plainly, without looking at him.

"You have no idea, do you, girlie?" Ootaki did not sound amused. "I know my odds. And the chances of you winning are less than four percent."

"You are confident in your mathematical calculations then?" Isis considered her cards.

"There are few things I feel confident in," Ootaki admitted, "but my knowledge of penguins and my ability to calculate are both unmatched. I didn't make it to the top of Japan's business world by chance."

Isis felt the fire of the tomb burning more strongly against the cold with every moment now. She would be taking the first turn against Ootaki.

"Chance? I see… Then you have failed already." Isis shook her head, more for her own tragedy than his. She knew what five cards he held in his hand: Giant Red Sea Snake, Bolt Penguin, Cold Wave, Driving Snow, Penguin Sword. From left to right, in that order. "You are tragically outmatched – for you deal in false premises. You say that you possess a ninety-six percent chance of winning, and that I possess a mere four percent. But that in itself is a falsehood. One of us has a hundred percent chance of victory. And the other – no chance at all.

"There is no such thing as chance in this world – there is only what will be, and what will not. The outcome of our match has already been decided."

Isis looked up. She drew from her deck and, without breaking eye contact with Ootaki, placed Fellow Traveller to the Grave directly into her Duel Disk.

She promised: "I will show you."

.

.

Déjà vu.

He had felt really, really angry only a moment ago. His fist had been swollen from punching the wall, and he'd had wood splintered into the sole of his sneaker. And, once the wood was gone, he'd found a layer of metal panelling. And Joey had broken through that too, with the help of a couple of conveniently placed bludgeons. And the jagged edges of the sheet metal cut the skin on his arms to ribbons. By the time he made it to the blimp, he was bleeding messily and hobbling from the splinters that had made it through the sole of his shoe to cut at the underside of his foot. But he could barely feel anything, he was so enraged. He couldn't find Yuugi and Honda and Anzu and the others, not on this blimp – he was pretty sure he was being played.

But it hardly mattered. As soon as he found Kaiba he was getting answers. And if he found the weird green-haired Kaiba, or the "Oo-" family, before then – it was fists first and answers later.

His anger carried him all the way through the corridor. He slammed open the first door he came across with his foot, and he winced when the splinters pierced deeper into his heel.

"Hey watch it!" a voice rang out from inside the room. "Didn't you see the sign on the door? There are patients in here! Try to have a little class, you buffoon!"

The effect was immediate. Joey stepped through the threshold. The worst of his anger dissipated, and the pain was all that was left.

"'Ey! It's just me – Joey!" he said.

Mai looked up at him. She frowned – somewhere between unimpressed and teasing.

"You think I don't know that, hon? What other buffoon would I be wasting my time talking to?"

She was lounging on the hospital bed, sitting on top of the sheets, with her legs crossed and extended out to the baseboard. Her purple jacket wrinkled over her shoulders. She slouched moodily over the mandarin she was unpeeling into her lap, and her breasts sagged down pleasantly into her corset.

"Well, uh…"

Joey tried to hold himself taller, with his shoulders straighter, even as the pain in his arms and hands and feet seemed to triple. He hated this about Mai. He felt the subconscious pull to be better around her – stronger and smarter and more impressive. But just being in the same room as her magnified every ache and desire and flaw standing in his way.

Joey sat down in the bedside chair. He dragged the legs of it against the floor, as he pulled it closer to Mai's bedside. And he tried to seem unassuming as he pulled off his shoes and started pulling the wood chips out of them.

They sat, in uneasy silence, each absorbed in their own task. Joey rubbed tenderly at his arms, but the bleeding seemed to stem prematurely.

Mai's nails flipped under the mandarin peel, pulling up in uneven strikes. The zest caught in her cuticles, and the juice bled out over the top of the comforter. She fumbled.

Joey watched her. If he failed to seem un-entranced by the shaking pull of her fingers, Mai did not let on.

Mai growled under her breath. "Fuck tangerines," she whispered venomously, as she set the half-peeled fruit down on the bed and crossed her arms.

Joey gulped. He turned down. He pulled the last couple of wood splinters from his left shoe, and let them fall.

"You seem upset," he said, tentatively.

Mai snorted. "Why wouldn't I be upset?" She tilted her head, and looked condescendingly at him, from the corner of her eye. "I'm sitting in a hospital bed trying to peel fucking fruit. Who wouldn't be upset about being sick and bedridden?"

Joey faltered.

There was something surreal, about the light cast through the windows and catching on Mai's hair, and the warm linen, and the feel of jagged wood still striking his hand.

"It's not the season for mandarins, is it?" Joey asked.

Mai huffed. "If you've got a problem with it, go get the watermelon from the fridge!" she snapped.

"Jeez, jeez, alright," Joey forestalled irritably.

He arranged his shoes on the ground, and stepped into them. The right one still was pierced with wood, but Joey held back his wince. He walked to the sink, stepped on the water pedal, and rinsed his hands, before turning to the mini-fridge across from the second empty hospital bed.

The fridge was secured with childproof latches, to prevent things from falling out during flight. Joey pulled at them, not quite understanding how they worked. His face reddened. He could feel Mai laughing, behind his back.

When the fridge finally burst open, to reveal a plate of cut watermelon slices, he was disappointed that it was the only thing in the fridge though. No meat, huh?

He pulled the plate from the fridge, balanced it in one hand as he pulled off a sheet of plastic wrap. He bundled it in his hand and threw it to the side, before returning to Mai's bedside. He placed the plate on Mai's lap, and didn't ask permission before taking a slice and shovelling it into his mouth, before Mai could protest.

She didn't seem interested in doing so in the first place. She seemed completely absorbed in reaching greedily for the watermelon. Joey pulled off his right shoe, and continued to pick the splinters from it. He paused, with his piece of watermelon still dangling from his mouth.

Mai didn't swat him away, even when he reached for another slice.

The watermelon was juicy. It didn't leave him feeling full though.

"So, uh, were's my sister?" he finally asked.

Mai snorted. She had finished eating a piece of watermelon, and slapped her hands – covered in juice – harshly against the sheets.

"You've already got one quality lady right in front of you," she preened. "What're you asking after her for?"

The comment seemed absurd and cruel.

Joey sucked a breath in through his teeth. "What the hell, Mai?! Shizuka's my sister – who I happen to know you like too! Are you really that goddamn jealou-?"

Mai leaned forward in her seat, and slapped him hard across the face before he could finish.

He felt his rage peak. He was about to yell, to grab her arm and twist until she cried out in pain, but he looked at her face and saw the pain and fear already there.

He hated this.

"You're always like this," he said instead.

Mai sniffed disdainfully. She set the plate of watermelon on the bedside table, slapping it over a box of tissues and an analogue clock. She reached again for the mandarin.

It was a moment before Joey tried again. He dropped the last of the splinters from his hands, and set his right shoe back to the ground, and wiggled his foot inside of it.

"Did he save you?" Joey asked. "Yuugi? Or the other Yuugi, I mean."

Mai frowned and flicked part of the mandarin peel into his face. She tittered under her breath, when Joey swatted it away to no effect. It fell short, and dropped to the floor, where it vanished.

"What difference does it make to you?" Mai asked.

The way Mai went from fearful to flippant…

"Fine. Fine!" Joey complained. "I was just worried about you is all!" he snapped defensively.

"Why?" Mai challenged. "I'm not your mother. I'm not your teacher."

She was talking about the stupid shit he had told her to deflect off the dream he'd had after his duel with Rishid.

Leave it to Mai to fling that kind of thing back in his face!

He thought about telling her she had in fact made several appearances as mother and teacher in his dreams. Will Kujaku-obaachan cook me an omelette wearing only an apron? Will Kujaki-sensei toss me in detention and punish me?

Joey wondered if he could climb onto the hospital bed on top of Mai right now. No, of course he could. Would Mai try to stop him? – that was the real question. Or would she let him stick it in?

It occurred to Joey that she, quite possibly, would let him. Which was enough to deter him from trying.

"Listen, I'm sorry if I let you think I didn't care," he grumbled.

Mai didn't say anything. She crossed her arms and turned away from him.

"I- I know you're scared!" he accused. "…I'm scared too," he admitted quietly.

Still, Mai wouldn't turn to him. She made a sound, and Joey couldn't tell if it was a dismissive huff or a strangled sob. Her shoulders held firmly though. She would not show him anything but her most poised and prim and unreachable.

He reached forward to her, to wind his finger down a lock of her long wavy hair. The strands brushed against his hand. But he had never had the courage and chance to do so in reality, so there was nothing to inform how it might feel in a dream.

Joey pulled his hand away.

"Ugh! You're so harsh, Mai!" he growled in frustration.

He had tried being kind and attentive. He'd tried being angry and forceful. What was he supposed to do if neither helped him manage her?

"Can't you be-" he sighed in exasperation. "A bit softer?! …Just a little bit?!" he pleaded.

The room seemed darker than when he entered it. The watermelon had disappeared from the bedside stand. The floor of the Medical Bay was white and clean swept.

Mai's shoulders slumped. The tension had left them.

When she turned to him, her eyes were wide and bright. Her face was warm.

"Ah, you want me to be like that," she said, almost to herself. "Okay," she announced. "Let's go."

She hopped up from the hospital bed.

"Wait, what?" Joey said, face reddening.

"I feel a whole lot better suddenly." Mai was pulling on her jacket. "Want to get out of here now?"

She reached for his hand first. He had to hurry forward to take it.

"Uh, mmm, I- uh-" He fumbled, unable to think of a proper answer.

"Where do you want to go, Joey?" she asked, pulling him gently towards the door.

Joey struggled for the words, but he swallowed any number of ill-formed grunts.

Cool. Smooth.

"Anywhere's fine," he said. "So long as it's with you."

.

.

"We've been running through this hallway for what seems like hours," the Dark Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle said softly.

Yuugi was more out of breath than him, having been the one to walk and jog and, periodically, run through the endless hall. The plaques above the sliding doorways had seemed to repeat themselves.

1-1. 1-2. 1-3.

But eventually the numbers had grown. 2-1. 2-2. 2-3. 3-1. 3-2. 3-3. Before they'd repeated again.

"Are you sure we're going anywhere?" Yami asked.

"We're almost there!" Yuugi panted, insistent. "It's only a matter of time. We're almost at the present!"

Images had flitted by in the windows, a boy sitting in the corner by himself. The soft tips of his nappy hair flying every which way. He had scribbled in his notebooks, in the margins of his assignments how much he missed elementary school. How much he missed being friends with the girl there.

Yami floated above Yuugi, who had no time to be looking through the windows and through the gaps of opened doors. The class bell rang, but break time was only a pitiful fifteen minutes.

The hallways were changing though – small differences in the colour of the walls, and the make of the doors, and Yami felt himself sink down to the floor. He was proceeding beside Yuugi now. He felt the weight in his steps, and the way his every movement had purpose and meaning and effect.

It had been a long time since he'd had flesh and bone at his disposal, and not just immobile pieces of shiny metal.

One of the doors to the side of the hall was unusual, but Yuugi didn't seem to notice. It was swung open, ajar, and Yami recognised it – the door to Yuugi's room at home. Grandpa Sugoroku had peered inside, and seen Yuugi talking to the air. But Yami had sat there and listened, as Yuugi explained everything to him during one of those light and breezy summer nights following Duellist Kingdom.

"That was my school," Yuugi said. "My high school. I go there six days a week, to try and learn things. And to hang out with my friends, of course."

Yami hadn't understood the concept of compulsory education. But, Yuugi had explained patiently. When he was done explaining school. He started explaining the differences he knew about school in other parts of the world. Then everything he knew about modern Egypt, according to his Grandpa. Then the universe, and the infinity of space, which led back to his science classes at school.

The world, it seemed, was more vast that Yami had ever expected. Larger than a puzzle box. Larger than a dark maze. Larger than anything that could be forgotten.

"I met Jounouchi-kun the first week of high school, yeah. Although, I think you'd know we didn't become friends until later," Yuugi had said, sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

Yami hadn't known what Yuugi was talking about, but he nodded, eager to not appear foolish, eager to keep the conversation moving. Eager to know more about Yuugi in his own words and, by extension, to know more about himself.

"And, Honda-kun – I was kind of apprehensive about him… for much longer. I think, I began to understand though… how much he and Jounouchi-kun struggled alone, but holding each other up…"

Grandpa Sugoroku had smiled, outside the door, and Yami had smiled inside.

"Let's go!" Yuugi was tugging on his sleeve, and Yami blinked and followed blindly away from Yuugi's bedroom door.

They were at Yuugi's high school now. That was right. In the hallway right outside the neighbouring classroom 1-A.

That was when Yami gasped.

"Yuugi! She's in danger!"

Inside Anzu was struggling as Kokurano held a cloth full of chloroform to her face.

"Partner?" Yuugi had said, questioning. Like he wasn't exactly seeing the same thing. "What are you-?"

"We have to help her!" Yami insisted. We have to help your friends!

Yami ran to the door. He pulled it open, and let it bounce against its track, before it shut again.

Anzu wasn't in the room. Kokurano was lying on the floor with his jacket spread open. Papers with predictions were attached to the inside of his jacket with safety pins. Next to his head the bottled of chloroform lay dripping on the floor. The fumes evaporated next to his head.

Yami's eyes widened. He remembered, through the vector of Yuugi's memories, that Kokurano had been withdrawn from school. It was rumoured that he had been hospitalised after suffering severe brain damage due to inhalant abuse.

All those psychic powers, and he didn't see that one coming~ Jounouchi had snickered sadistically.

Yuugi had fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat at the back of the class. You don't know that, Jounouchi-kun. Maybe he did see it coming. And just didn't want to say.

Yami looked to the back of the class now.

Sozoji was sitting there. Tapping his fist annoyingly against the surface of his desk. He didn't look at Yami, his attention was rapt on the hard wooden surface. He became angrier and angrier, pounding the desk with his fist – but it didn't seem he was doing this just to make a racket. He watched with horror, and tears sprang into his eyes. He rammed his hand down, trying to karate chop the desk, and only succeeded in breaking the bones in his hand.

When he stood, Yami curled in defensively, ready to strike back if Sozoji came after him. But Sozoji didn't seem to see him. He picked up his desk and threw it out the window – somebody screamed from outside.

Yuugi had heard that Sozoji had also withdrawn from school. He had gone deaf after a very bizarre injury to the Cochlear Nucleus. Perhaps he was picking up JSL at a specialised school.

Yami had had quite enough though.

"Yuugi!" he called. He backed up to the classroom door, tripping over the unconscious Kokurano on the way. But the door was jammed when he attempted to slide it open. The window on the door was fogged.

Sozoji was still raging, and Yami didn't want to stick around.

"Yuugi!" he called again, as he slipped past to the closest open door.

It led into the chemistry stockroom. Yami tried to divert to the next classroom, but the door was locked. He was forced to walk down the aisle of beakers, and Erlenmeyer flasks, and plastic bottles of powders and chemicals.

He'd been here before. He'd frozen a test tube in a block of ice, in the freezer right over there. Once it was frozen solid, he'd mixed the ingredients in the stockroom to make an explosive solution, and filled the test tube with it.

Kokurano and Sozoji and Ushio and Kujirada had made it out of their shadow games alive, after all.

Yami's breath picked up as he ran to the door at the opposite end of the stockroom. It should have led back out into the hall-

"Yuugi!" he called.

-but instead, it lead out into the school courtyard, decked out in banners and ribbons for its thirtieth annual school festival. Class 1-B's stand for the Carnival Games had been pulled apart and trashed. A large griddle was standing in the centre of the lot.

After the explosive had gone off in Inogashira Gorou's face, he had collapsed face first on the griddle.

Yami's eyes widened as he watched the slimy puddle of watery red gore evaporate off the grill. He hadn't stayed around long enough to really watch it happen last time. Gorou's nose was melting into the side of his face. It enflamed into an ugly charred black. He remembered, suddenly, having heard that Inogashira Gorou had been scraped off the thing. Fourth degree burns over the entirety of his upper body. The rest of Class 3-D had still wanted to sell okonomiyaki at the festival, but the school administrators had decided that the grills needed to cook it were obviously too dangerous. And, in any case, they didn't have a spare one – one that didn't have human flesh baked all over the top of it.

The burnt flesh barely had a smell to it now – at least not one that Yami could tell, immersed as he was in a body that couldn't have been his. Gorou was just bones burnt like charcoal. He remembered more vividly the smell of the criminal Tetsuo, the way the air had burned dry in a plume of vodka and hair and skin.

"Yuugi!" Yami called more frantically. He took off running.

None of this would matter, just as soon as he found Yuugi.

He tried to get to the entrance of the Domino High classroom building – back to where he had lost Yuugi in the halls. But, already, the environment was changing around him. He ran straight into the front door of the Kame Game Shop, and he was surprised at how much it hurt – to have a body rattled against a hard surface. The nerves on his hands pinched, and his shoulder shuddered in pain where it hit the door. Yami grabbed it with one arm, and used the other to open the door.

None of this would matter, just as soon as he found Yuugi.

But didn't it matter?

Imori Hajime hadn't died. But he was sitting comatose in the hospital. The doctors weren't sure what happened, and why he wouldn't wake up.

He was also sitting here, at the cashier of Kame Game. He lolled back in his seat – his eyes absolutely vacant of expression.

Behind him, on the shelf behind the counter, was the framed photo of Grandpa Sugoroku and his old friend Arthur Hopkins. The ripped Blue Eyes White Dragon card, tucked safely away in a chest. And the Chinese Dragon Cards were sitting next to them – tied tight with a ravel of thin rope and covering the rim of a jar.

Imori's soul was sealed away in that jar. And every time Yuugi walked past it on the way into his home, Yami would look warily at it and bite his tongue.

Because he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if he could get Imori's soul back out without losing Yuugi's. And he knew Yuugi would want to risk it if he knew, but Yami didn't want to risk it. And he didn't want Yuugi to know.

Yami rushed forward, towards the back of the shop. He passed the board games lined on the shelves, and ducked behind the counter, to where a door led into the house.

Because he didn't really care about Imori. And he didn't really care about Gorou. Or Kokurano, or Tetsuo, or any of the others either. Not compared to Yuugi. And not compared to-

There were a couple of them that Yami did care about.

He had been merciful, he thought. At the time it had happened, he had thought that at least. There was something rehabilitative in it, he had thought.

Anyhow, you couldn't be so brutal to a grade school student. Kaiba Mokuba, for all he had been a vile little thing, was a child looking out for his big brother. A day in a capsule pod wouldn't kill him.

And he didn't have an excuse or explanation for the mercy he had shown Kaiba Seto, only a determination that this couldn't be the end of him. A day in a Magic & Wizards card wouldn't kill Kaiba Seto, either. Probably wouldn't even damage him significantly, Yami had thought. The results of Kaiba's later tests in creating the Sensation of Death had surprised him. Could people really be so feeble? Break so quickly?

"Yu- Yuugi?" Yami's voice cracked, as he opened the door into the house.

He was back in a classroom, except the classroom opened up partway. Abruptly its walls stopped. Ivy hung down from over the top of its roof, where it opened up to the blue sky and green forest. The tiled pattern of the classroom floor morphed into cobbled stone. It was a walkway above the sky, edged with a small ridge that could not keep you from falling over to your doom.

Kaiba Seto laughed provocatively, from behind the remnants of his rotting soul – the rotting Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. And Yami could see himself standing there – as if it had happened apart from himself. He cowered behind Celtic Guardian. Let the green field of the monster's cape, Yuugi's sincere desire to save his grandfather, and the fear that hummed through his soul like a nightmare, block his vision.

"Yuugi!" Kaiba shouted. "Slit my throat with your card!" He jabbed his thumb up and commanded with a face that was sunken and fearful and, most of all, excited and absolutely thrilled.

And Yami was afraid even now, so he raised his arm and called the attack. And his eyes widened when he realised that Yuugi and Anzu and the others weren't there to stop him.

He wailed.

The door to the classroom behind him burst open.

"Stop! Stoooop!" somebody was yelling. And Yami thought it must be Yuugi, but then Yuugi was right there. He had caught up and rounded on Yami. And Yuugi was saying something completely different, as he collapsed to his knees right in front of Yami.

Yami was looking past him. "Stoooop!" he yelled frantically. But he was saying it many months too late.

"I found you! The other me!" Yuugi said, watery and elated.

He was crying, just as he had been during Duellist Kingdom. He stretched an arm behind Yami, even as Yami watched Kaiba jump off the tower behind him.

For a second Yami watched the empty space. Then he buried his eyes in Yuugi's shoulder so he wouldn't have to see.

"He would have jumped. He would have jumped – if it hadn't been for you," Yami croaked.

And it would have proven it. Yami had made Kaiba rebuild his heart. If it had been for naught- If he had shattered Kaiba's heart and had Kaiba's heart rebuilt for nothing- If amongst his punishment games lay not the power to even save one person…

Then, truly, he was only a spirit of great evil.

"You don't know that," Yuugi said. "We can't know what would have happened. It doesn't matter what might have happened. I was there, and Kaiba-kun lived."

Yuugi pressed his hand more firmly into Yami's shoulder.

"And you were there, and Kaiba-kun lived…" Yuugi whispered. "There's no taking that back."

Tears were wetting Yuugi's sleeve. Yami wiped his eyes dry. When he calmed, he turned his head up. He blinked at the great darkness. The classroom and the heights of the Pegasus Castle were gone. Instead, long streams of blue light, like a web, lit the dark terminal. There were four shadowy doors.

"I'm glad I saw this." Yuugi said.

He pulled away, holding Yami by both shoulders, at an arm's distance, and looking him straight in the face. Yuugi's eyes were still watery, but he was smiling.

"I was kind of looking the other way, pretending I didn't know the terrible things you did… In my body," Yuugi whispered, before continuing. "I thought I was only ignoring it to make things easier for myself. To try and pretend I didn't have anything to do with it."

Yami turned his face away. But Yuugi grabbed his chin and pulled it back up, forcing Yami to look at him.

"And- And maybe forgiving you did make things easier for me," Yuugi said firmly, "but I'm glad I did it now. I think- I think it was important for you too."

Yuugi inhaled deeply.

"I'm glad I saw this. I'm glad I could see how much you didn't want to hurt Kaiba-kun. Because now I know how much you've changed. And- maybe it's a little conceited of me- but maybe you were able to change because I was able to forgive you, because I was able to give you room to find yourself!" Yuugi declared.

For a second, Yami thought that Yuugi was a little foolish. And then he felt a little ashamed for thinking it.

If Yuugi said it, it was worthy of respect.

"That's what you believe?" Yami said smally.

Yuugi gave a watery chuckle.

"I do," he assured. "I don't regret it. Through everything you've blossomed and grown."

And, as if asynchronous to this point, the body Yami had been temporarily allowed here in this realm dissolved. And, again, he was only the other Yuugi.

.

.

There was something intangible about Mai, but in a way that only reinforced Joey's image of her. Even and especially when she was being sweet and pliant, why should Mai be anything but intangible and ethereal? It was simply her way to dangle herself within reach, and then pull herself away. The carrot, the stick, and the donkey.

There were a couple of searing hot kisses that informed no actual tactile sensation, and Joey left them wondering what they had felt like. But the mere idea that he had kissed her pleased him. Even if it also embarrassed him. He ended up pulling back, and sinking diagonally into the car seat, against the seat belt reel. He dug his heels into the carpet, pressed himself back, and watched her with what he imagined was a dumbfounded expression and swollen lips.

Mai smiled at him, warm and sympathetic. She shimmied over the gear shift – inviting him to look, if he didn't feel like touching. After a brief glimpse, she sat up straight in the driver's seat, and turned the keys in the ignition.

They drove between dreams. Joey watched her hair flow back behind the headrest, carried with the wind as they raced forwards. The starlight caught on her eyes and her cheeks, and it made her look younger somehow.

They travelled to the park, and to the beach, even to the bow of a cruise ship. When they had first met on that boat, at Duellist Kingdom, Joey had thought her an insufferable, jumped-up snob. Hot, but basically everything a woman shouldn't be otherwise. It was a way of rewriting that initial confrontation.

She leaned into Joey's chest, as they stood in front of the railing. And, well, maybe Joey leaned back against her a bit too. There were fairy lights strung around the railings, and stars glistening in the sky, reflecting against the water. And behind them the on-deck swimming pool – lit up for the night. And there were other passengers and waiters carrying tropical themed drinks, but at the same time they were all alone – no Ryuuzaki kowtowing to her whims and orders, clinging to her leg in the hopes of getting a look up her skirt, and inciting uncomfortable pangs of jealousy from Joey in the process. It was just him and Mai and the sparkling water and whispered conversations. And Joey couldn't remember what they talked about, if anything, but Mai wasn't upset with him for being unable to distract her from the water and the sky and the void.

They walked from there to a carnival. And, while Joey was distracted by the crowds of people, the fireworks, the spinning Ferris wheel – Mai headed straight for one of the booths, where she was offered a blue and orange BB gun.

She knocked out every bottle at the shooting range and, when she was done, blew at the muzzle of the BB gun, and winked at Joey. Her lips were lush and full, poised just above the tip of the gun. And, while Joey would have expected this type of provocative behaviour from Mai, it seemed to be offered almost innocently so. Her expression was guileless and cheerful, like she was simply going through the motions someone else had shown her, without understanding their meaning.

She accepted a giant pink teddy bear as her prize for clearing the shooting range, and passed it over to Joey as a token of her consideration.

It was an embarrassing thing for a guy to carry, even though he was flattered enough to not want to reject her, and so he clutched it in one hand. He let it dangle down and brush against the ground. He swung his arms aggressively as he walked with Mai, and let the teddy bear jolt about and whap the sides of passers-by. But when Mai didn't call him out for treating her present to him cruelly and carelessly, he became annoyed. What?! Was she just okay with him treating her present like trash?!

He clutched the bear against his chest, like a shield, and let his face burn puce. So what if he would have treasured anything she had given to him?! Even if it was something a bit silly… Even if he should have won it for her, instead of the other way around… It was only right to be grateful!

"It's too bad Yuugi isn't here," Joey grumbled.

Mai turned to him. Joey knew he must look ridiculous, with his knees knocking together, his face burning, and holding the teddy bear so close he was strangling it around the neck. He ducked his head down so it was partially obscured by the teddy, and spoke into its fuzzy, curly fur.

"He's really good at carnival games. Yuugi is." Or was it the other Yuugi? Both of them, really. They were both really good at games.

"Is he?" Mai cooed. "Yes, maybe we can invite him along next time," she offered.

Joey frowned against the bear. No, that was not the kind of response he had earned.

Seriously- What kind of guy would talk about how he wished his friends were there while he was on a date? The kind of guy that spent that date cowering behind a giant teddy bear that he'd let his woman win for him. The kind of guy that said awkward-as-fuck shit, just to make sure she was just as uncomfortable as he was. Certainly that was a guy that was deserving of ridicule. And, certainly, Mai would not have let this pass without ridicule, without at least a few snippy jokes or comments.

Except, no, he had a good reason to want Yuugi there. Didn't he? Yeah, he had been looking for Yuugi and Honda. And the rest of them. They'd been captured by the enemy. He had worried about his friends and then- Now that he thought about it, he was having trouble remembering his own narrative. It occurred to him that you didn't just walk from a cruise ship to a carnival.

And he didn't have the money to go on a cruise anyhow. Unless Mai just paid his way. How pathe-

He lost his train of thought when Mai grabbed his hand. She dragged him forward, racing through the hallway. The teddy bear was gone, and Joey hoped he'd had the good sense not to leave it at home where his dad could get at it. Maybe he'd asked Yuugi to hold onto it for him. That would have been the smart thing to do.

Mai stopped abruptly, and swung to playfully plant herself in Joey's path, so he'd collide against her body. At least she did feel like something this time. He'd held her star chips up over his head in Duellist Kingdom, and pressed against her briefly as she reached up, before clapping them into her hands.

Now his eyes spun at the building and hallway around him though.

"I- I didn't bring my family seal!" Joey sputtered.

Mai blinked up at him. "What? Honey?"

Joey saw now the key ring in Mai's hand – the red plastic heart keychain, and the room key. And the doors to the rooms in the love hotel.

"A- Ah- Nothing!" He laughed awkwardly. He couldn't tell her that he had mistaken the love hotel for a courthouse, assumed they were there to register marriage, and said the first dumb thing he could think of to try and get out of it.

Mai kissed him airily, pulling both of his hands into hers, before pulling away. "Just a moment and we'll be inside," she promised. She waved the room key in her hand, and adjusted it into the door. The label on the door had the number twenty-five, flanked by a pair of pink hearts. But the label on the heart keychain read, in a clinical black and white, Department 40.

And- Agh-! She was so cute and beautiful and sexy. And he wanted to go inside the hotel room with her. But he had to go find his friends. And, more importantly-

It just wasn't right.

"Uh, Mai-"

"Hm?" Mai paused. She had opened the door and, as she abandoned it, it swung ajar.

Joey steeled himself with a breath. "I dunno, I just- don't want this?" he tried. "Not like this anyway."

Mai looked concerned. "I don't understand."

Joey sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"You really need me to explain?" He'd hoped he could get out of having to put it into words. "Well, I-

"I guess I'm always asking myself where I went wrong with you," he admitted. "And what I need to do to be the kind of guy you'd want to have at your side. But I guess I already knew the answer. The truth is I know I'm a kid standing next to you. I know I'm a fuck up. And that all I know how to be is a worthless thug who can't do a goddamn thing to help anybody else out. But you and Yuugi-" He felt himself smile fondly, and ducked his head bashfully. "You guys were showing me how I could be a true friend. And a true duellist too."

When Joey peeked up at Mai's face, she still seemed confused.

"I dunno," he allowed. "I guess it sounds dumb. And I guess I better be pretty dumb, if I'm passing up my opportunities to get at you. But- I guess I think I've got a shot at being that guy. So, I dunno- Maybe you don't want to wait for me. And I can live with that. But I don't want you to just give up on me like this and treat me like I'm every other bozo you've tricked. I don't want you to put on a show for me. I want you… to believe in me to the very end, whether I succeed or fail."

Joey winced at his own words. But he smiled at the Mai who had told him to stand up at Duellist Kingdom, and pressed her handkerchief into his palm.

And for a second Mai just watched him. Her eyes were wide, not-understanding. But she blinked harshly, and she seemed to go back to normal. She drew herself up to her fullest height and her best haughty expression. And for a moment, Joey was relieved.

"I never believed in you," she said calmly. "You were never going to amount to anything. You were never going to be good enough."

Joey flinched. He'd opened himself up for it, and it was too sudden to shield himself from the sting that prickled behind his eyes. But still-

"She wouldn't say something like that… You're not her," he said, resigned. "Sure, I'm afraid she might say it. But I know better than to think she actually would… She's better than that. She might make fun of me, or storm off in a huff. But she wouldn't say something like that."

Not-Mai tilted her head. "Does it really matter what she would or wouldn't say? Whether or not she says it, you're the one that believes it."

"Yes! It matters!" Joey shouted vehemently. "Because I care about what she thinks! You, on the other hand- I don't give a shit what you think!" He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and draw his betrayal back in. "Which one are you anyway?"

Not-Mai reached into the pocket of her suit jacket. She pulled out a business card, bowed, and offered it to Joey with both hands.

He snatched it away and studied it: Ooka Chikuzen – Chief Officer of Kaiba Corporation's Legal Department. So Not-Mai was part of the "Oo-" family. Joey angrily stuffed the card in his pocket.

When Joey looked up the "Oo-" family guy – Ooka – was readjusting his glasses and smirking down at him. Ooka placed his hand against the door behind him, and flung it open. Instead of walking inside, it was like the courtroom came to him. It rushed forward, and Joey slammed into place, at the defendant's bench. A duel disk materialised on his arm.

For a few minutes, he was too frustrated to even speak and then-

"Yanno-" Joey seethed, as he gathered his cards together in his hand, "you've got a lot of nerve messing around in my head like that. Moving around my memories. Using Mai to get to me. And when she's in critical medical condition on the blimp after what Malik did to her. Don't you have any honour at all?"

"It's all part of the legal process." Ooka cleared his throat. "I simply sent an agent, an avatar, to aid in an undercover operation. Gathering evidence and discovery is an important part of the pre-trial period."

Joey shuffled the five cards in his hands, switching most immediately between Tiny Guardian, Gamble, and Bottomless Trap Hole. Flame Swordsman stood solemnly beside Joey, with his arms crossed.

"You think that's all you need to lock me away, huh?" Joey sneered. "That's all it takes, a little sifting through the files of evidence in my head?"

"Oh, not at all," Ooka allowed, from high atop the judge's stand. "I am well aware that this is not your first experience with courtroom justice, Joey Wheeler. But I've prepared all the necessary steps to see to your detainment."

Ooka bashed his mallet against the stand. And there, he transformed into a Duel Monster: Judgeman. "It's my turn. I summon Hysteric Fairy to the field! And end my turn."

The monster flew onto the field, snickering smugly. But Joey's line of sight hadn't altered from where it was pinned to Ooka.

"Prepared all the necessary steps to detain me? Oh, have you?" He smirked, and reached down to draw a card, inviting himself into the rhythm of the duel. "Well, I guess we'll just see about that."

.

.

"…Isis-san? Isis-san?"

The skin on her shoulder was tender, where it was pulled from the ice. She cringed in her sleep, before it seemed like her brain ricocheted back into place. She blinked up at the face that stared down at her.

"Isis-san? Am I saying your name right? I found you unconscious on the ice. Are you alright?"

Isis blinked. There was snow stuck to her eyebrows and eyelashes. He had turned her in her sleep, and propped her up against his bent knee. She could feel now where he was holding her shoulders, where the warmth was emanating from his hands onto her shoulders. The right one was burned, from where it had been pressed against the glacier, frostbitten.

"You are," she squinted, "not the Pharaoh. You are the face, the shell, the façade."

"E-Excuse me?" Yuugi Mutou said.

"We haven't met before," Isis replied succinctly. She struggled upwards, turning in Yuugi's arms to readjust her weight onto her legs. She saw what had happened now. She had shown Ootaki his fate. But, in the process of winning the duel, she had been too distracted to guard herself against the illusion of cold.

She wobbled as she pressed herself up on her feet. Standing next to him, she saw that she was over a head taller than him. Same as the Pharaoh. Of course, they shared a body.

"I've been travelling through the terminals looking for everyone," Yuugi was saying. "Have you seen any of the others? There have been a lot of strange places we've seen, but I haven't been able to find anyone else yet. Are our bodies really trapped in Virtual Reality? Kaiba-kun should at least know more about what's going on. I-"

Isis saw now that the drift ice she had been perched on for her duel had run aground. There was a rocky beach and snowy field, adjacent to the estuary and icy sea. Had it always been there? Maybe it had only just appeared a few moments before?

It almost didn't matter. The Future Isis was beckoning her back towards the water.

"Oh, god, I wasn't thinking! You must be freezing! Here just let me-"

Yuugi moved to remove his jacket for her. But it caught on his arm, or the nape of his neck, and he struggled to pull it off his back. He waved his arms up and down wildly, and spun in place, attempting to dislodge it.

Isis paid him no mind. She walked back to the opposite edge of the drift ice, and looked over the freezing water. The Future Isis took her hand and squeezed for a moment, before letting go and jumping into the water feet first. For a second Isis's breath caught, as she lost sight of herself. She was afraid of being left behind. But it didn't matter, she realised. It was her destiny to pursue. And even if she didn't breathe for her fear and surprise, it would be nothing compared to when her chest and lungs would compress, upon hitting the icy water.

She jumped in after, and couldn't think for a second as the cold stung her senses. But then she hit the teleportation point, and her senses faded as the environment restructured. She looked up and saw Yuugi Mutou through the ice, clutching his jacket to his chest, looking around wildly, and shouting in distress.

"Isis-san? Isis-san?!" His eyes darted around. She couldn't see him anymore either, could only hear remnants of his voice. "Son of a bitch- We finally found someone, and she disappears on us! And now we're all alone again! …Don't you – Language! – me," he sulked.

And then the voice and everything disappeared entirely, as Isis moved between the limbo of time and place. She would arrive with no interruptions this time.

.

.

Ooka cowered in front of the green-haired Kaiba. Joey watched, only half-listening, as Ooka grovelled and begged. The green-haired Kaiba's feet didn't even touch the floor. He floated above it, turned towards Ooka with his back to Joey, standing between them like a protector. Like a god of justice that, having recognised this unfairness, had descended to protect Joey and smite his enemy.

Joey remembered when Yuugi had stood in front of him like that, between him and Ushio. Except it was different. Yuugi's feet had been grounded, held apart past shoulder length (all wrong for a fighting stance). His arms had been outstretched. And, well, it wasn't power and justice that had saved Joey. It was just that there was someone else to stand with him on the losing side, in the knowledge that Ushio was going to pound them to the ground just as unsoundly.

In contrast to the way Ooka crumbled in fear in front of the green-haired Kaiba god, it was really the hopelessness of that whole situation with Yuugi that had touched him.

Yea- Yuugi was hopeless. Standing up for someone like Joey. Who everyone with any sense knew would never amount to anything decent. Hopeless. And a hopeless guy like Yuugi needed all the help and all the friends he could get. That's why Joey couldn't leave him alone after that.

The duel was almost called off when Joey spoke up. He hated Ooka, after what he had done earlier. But somehow he could never bring himself to not understand someone, once they had duelled. There was something he and Ooka were fighting for. Their struggle might be hopeless, but there was something that meant something in it.

The green-haired Kaiba listened to him. He didn't speak over Joey. Didn't insult him or look away. His entire presence radiated tact, if not respect. He didn't seem to understand why Joey wanted to continue the duel, but he let himself be persuaded. He shrugged, before walking out from between them and teleporting away.

Ooka's eyes were big with wonder, when Joey looked back at him. Ooka was hiding behind Dragoness the Wicked Knight, but Joey could see him.

"Well, that was weird," Joey shrugged.

Ooka composed himself, drew his body up menacingly. Judgeman presiding. But it was too late, Joey had already seen his fear.

"Heh~" Joey scoffed. He had no cards, and reached to draw. "You know, I really thought that Kaiba was the one behind this little stunt. But it was that other guy all along. Noa? Did you call him?"

Ooka's breathing was carefully measured. "Noa-sama." He swallowed deeply. "The true heir of Kaiba Corporation. Kaiba Gouzaburou's heir."

"They look alike," Joey said. He paused a moment to check his draw. To check the pillars along the walls of the courtroom around him. "Nah, not Gouzaburou and him, I mean. Him and Kaiba. That jackass, Kaiba Seto." Joey slapped his card down in the spell slot. "Pot of Greed. I'm drawin' two cards."

"Looks are the only similarity they got between them though," Joey laughed. "Man, I feel dumb now – thinking they were the same."

Joey looked at the cards he drew and smiled. They were just what he needed. He smirked at the Flame Swordsman, who nodded tentatively back.

"They are both young. And clever, but not enough to save them from their irreverence." Ooka said, attempting to pull himself back from anything that was too implicating for the middle of a courtroom. "And the similarities in their tutelage shows, even if Noa-sama is the rightful heir."

"Yea- I guess that's true," Joey admitted. "But that doesn't make 'em the same." He extended his right arm forward. "I call my Deck Master, Flame Swordsman to the field, and equip him with-" He held the card up so Ooka could see it, before sliding it into his Duel Disk. "-Burning Soul Sword! A cursed sword that slays its own allies, and adds their attack points to the equipped monster!"

Ooka grumbled cautiously. "But you have no monsters to tribute. Your Deck Master only has a thousand attack points, after both times you've activated his ability. You have only one card left in your hand. And you cannot summon another monster on the same turn that you called Flame Swordsman to the field." He huffed. "How will you defeat my fusion monster, which has over a thousand attack points?"

"Hey~ Ay~" Joey said. "Don't ya got a sense of patience at all? Before all that, don't you wanna know how I can tell Noa and Kaiba apart?"

Ooka didn't speak. But he answered with his silence, and an intrigue characteristic of the person who had dug through Joey's head, and pulled out Mai – like a rabbit from a hat.

Joey smirked. "Espa Roba and Insector Haga both cheated in their duels against me in the Battle City Prelims. And I didn't see fuckin' Kaiba jump in to rescue me then."

"…You say that like it's a good thing," Ooka said grimly.

"Well, it kinda is," Joey decided. "It means he's not one of you guys."

"And he's one of yours?"

"One of mine? Or Yuugi's? Nah~ Kaiba's in a special jackass category all his own. But I can tell you this much: He doesn't give a shit about the rules you guys painstakingly build to keep yourselves up at the top of your ivory tower. He knows there's something more important out there than that."

Joey thought about Shizuka. And Mai. And Yuugi. And all the ways he would debase himself if it meant shielding them. If it meant crawling out alive.

Ooka sounded amused this time. "And what's that, Wheeler-san?"

"Winning, for one." Joey said shortly. He inserted the other card he had drawn into the spell slot on his Duel Disk. "I activate Arduous Decision. I'm drawing another two cards."

Judgeman pounded his gravel against the wooden block at his stand.

Joey curled in on himself, shielding the contents of the cards against his chest, as the world spun around him.

"Ah, but the rules are something you have to deal with, Joey Wheeler-san. Even if I'm being held to the same standards of fairness."

Ooka was only a disembodied voice now.

"I told you I was well aware that this wasn't your first experience with courtroom justice, Joey Wheeler-san. I know you way better than you do. You stood on the witness stand, and you lied. And you've got nobody but yourself to blame."

The courtroom faded away, but Joey still stood, trapped between its bars and railings.

The men hadn't been dressed in suits, but they had on dress shirts that didn't match the drafty interior of Joey's apartment. It was pristine white collars, against the filth of a dirty floor, and an unwashed sink, and Joey's grubby face, round with youth.

The men had towered over him, and Joey had looked up firmly. His father was sitting, defeated, on the tatami mat, but Joey had known better than to be afraid.

Child Protective Services.

He hadn't known who they were, at the time, but he knew what to say to them.

Ooka's voice rang clearly, from outside Joey's memory.

"You looked them in the eye and told them that they had the wrong idea, that they didn't know what they were doing." The voice was soft and accusing, and it seemed to blend melodiously into the hum under Joey's own lip. "You helped your father pack up the apartment and run off to a different place that very night, before they could follow you."

Joey braced himself. He knew it was coming, just like he had back then.

"And he hit you for it." Ooka said. "The very same day you lied for him, he bashed you over the head with his arm. And then he fed you a sweet roll. And the taste of the sugar wasn't much of an anaesthetic."

Joey remembered the sugar. He remembered all the things he'd eaten. He'd eaten too quickly, but he forced his tongue over the meal, so he could remember the flavour and the half-achieved sense of fullness later, when his stomach was empty. And it hadn't saved him, but it had helped.

It hadn't saved him. He'd done that himself.

"Are you done?" Joey said.

The confining walls of his old apartment, and the condescending gazes of the social workers faded.

Joey had gotten too big for them. And he was almost too big for the courthouse he found himself back in. Too big and too great to be contained by Kaiba's stupid lawyers.

Joey looked up. He grinned at Ooka.

"What do you think you're doing here?" he asked. "You think you're telling me something I haven't heard before?"

Ooka seemed confused. He bashed his mallet against the judge's stand.

"You should know better, since you tried this trick once already. You think you can look into my head and see my weaknesses?" Joey crossed his arms behind his head and smiled. "You ain't gonna find anything I don't know is there," Joey laughed. "I'm an open book. An open wound that's already calloused and scarred. You're not gonna dig into my memories and find any tender, bleeding scabs."

For a second Joey felt a stab of pity for the man across from him. He had learned quickly. Other people were learning slowly. But there were people who never got it, no matter how many chances life gave them.

Ooka was an old man already. And Joey felt bad, because he seemed doomed to never understand.

"Listen," Joey tried to explain. "I don't regret what I did – I had my father and my sister to protect," he said seriously. "And I kept fucking up after that too, but I'm making it up to Yuugi – one step at a time."

Joey let his hands drop.

"I've already made my decisions," he said, "and I can live with 'em. You still gotta choose, though…"

"I-" Ooka faltered.

Joey flipped his two cards up into his outstretched hand. He held them firmly with his fist.

"Due to the effect of Arduous Decision, I've got two cards. If you pick a Monster Card, I can Special Summon it, and use it to supplement Flame Swordsman's attack. If it's not a Monster Card, I discard both cards and end my turn." He split the cards between his hands and held them up. "Now, choose, lawyer man!" he demanded.

Flame Swordsman stood at the ready, brandishing his sword.

Ooka paled. He slapped his mallet against the stand, and cursed.

The memories spun around Joey like a whirlwind. He stood in his father's apartment, at his mother's childhood home, on the school rooftop, in the alley of the soapland with Hirutani, and at the beach with Mai. He stood, soaking wet, and clutching the final piece to the Millennium Puzzle. But, no matter where Joey went, he grinned challengingly.

There was no helping it. Jounouchi had an excellent poker face.

.

.

The lot behind the orphanage had opened up into a wide and shallow sea. Seto walked ahead, along where the sand bars and stromatolites peaked out from above the warm, salt water. Other than that, the world was completely flat – with nothing but the sky and sunset and primordial waters all around them.

Mokuba trailed behind Seto. He still felt guilty and embarrassed from earlier, from his emotional outburst in the orphanage. He watched the stiff way Seto's arms swung back and forth in time with his gait, and wondered if it'd be too much to ask to hold his brother's arm. But he had already hugged his brother twice today, and he didn't want to seem burdensome or childish. So he rubbed the pad of his thumb against his ring finger, and let the sensation soothe him.

Mokuba tried to think of something to say. He wished he could listen to his brother talk. He wanted to fall into the easy pattern of providing nods and encouragement, as Seto ranted about the company, his enemies, his rivals, or his games. But Seto was silent, and Mokuba felt keenly aware that there was a moratorium on many of the topics he would have fallen back on. Seto had never cared much for CapMon and Gacha Games, but even regular chess was off the table, after what Mokuba had done earlier. And Seto's favourite game, Magic & Wizards, was also out, after what that woman had done in the Battle City Quarter Finals.

Mokuba tried to think of something to say about school. He remembered bragging to Yuugi and Honda about how he was too good for the place, to hide his anxiety about starting middle school. Yuugi was gross and chewed his ramen with his mouth open, and Mokuba knew that because Yuugi had been facing him with rapt attention the whole time. Honda had snuck an egg and extra vegetables into Mokuba's ramen bowl, and he had been calm and resolute when Mokuba snapped, yelled that he wasn't a child that needed someone to make sure he was eating right.

That was after they had all been in the Virtual World the first time. When Seto had been disposing the bodies of the Big Five. Cleaning up the mess that the rest of them had made.

But, although he was acing all his classes, middle school wasn't easy, absent his gang of friends from elementary school. And Mokuba felt a surge of frustration with Yuugi and Honda, for being shallow and insubstantial and easy to talk to. And then Mokuba was frustrated with himself, because he didn't really want to talk to his brother about school, even though he should. But why should he have to talk about something he didn't want to talk about, just because Seto was in a quiet snit about losing a couple of dumb games?! It wasn't his fault that his brother could be so goddamn hard to talk to. Except, no, it had to be, because it wasn't Seto's fault. And they weren't dumb games. Mokuba was wrong for thinking that.

He looked guiltily up at the back of Seto's head. Afraid that Seto had somehow picked up on his traitorous thoughts. Really, his brother was so tall, and capable and reliable. Mokuba still sometimes wished that he'd grow up to be just like him. Sometimes. He watched the brown tufts of his brother's hair for a moment longer, before he remembered to avert his eyes. He had never meant to look, with pitiful and clingy eyes, upon his brother's back.

He focussed his attention downwards, where water had flooded his shoes. Since it was warm, he didn't mind so much, but the salt and the friction of his cotton socks were starting to itch. He watched as ripples spread out from where his legs pushed against the water.

And, then, before he could grow too restless, he saw the ripples move back towards him.

Following his eyes to their source, he saw a figure beneath the ocean move forwards, emerging up out of the water. First lying like a fish, then crawling laboriously on all fours, in a march of evolutionary progress. And then the figure pressed itself up and stood, emerging from the sea foam like the nascent Aphrodite. She was completely clean and dry, seemingly untouched by the waters she had emerged from. Her hair and the white cloth of her dress waved gently around her, and her eyes and skin glowed in the sunset.

It was the woman who had defeated Seto on the blimp – Isis Ishtar.

Mokuba looked to his brother with concern. Seto didn't look back, though. His lips were pursed and scowling, his hands were clenched into fists, and his eyes seemed to radiate a murderous hatred. But he did not say anything or move away, as Isis Ishtar approached.

Mokuba frowned, crumpling under the desire to protect his brother from this woman. Although he had no idea how. Couldn't she leave them alone? Couldn't she see she wasn't wanted?

But, as much as Mokuba distrusted her implicitly, he couldn't stop the sense of relief when she spoke to break what had seemed to him an indestructible silence.

"I've been looking for you," she said. "Shall we depart?"

.

.

"Jounouchi-kun!"

Joey turned, one hand in his pocket. Yuugi was at the door of the rapidly disappearing courthouse. Yuugi was calling to him from the terminal. He ran up to Joey, face pinched with worry.

Behind Joey, Ooka and Chopman were burning. The scent of tar and gasoline and flesh permeated his senses. The Flame Swordsman stood among the wreckage, directing the flames of his burning soul to dance and consume. The final card grasped in Joey's hand, Shield & Sword, flew away from his grip and disintegrated into ash.

"Yuugi!" Joey called. He smiled and opened his arms, and let Yuugi come barrelling into them. "You found me," he said, pulling the frame of Yuugi's shoulders up into him. He nuzzled his nose against Yuugi's cheek.

Again, he breathed. You found me again.

.