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"Yugi-Oh A Time to Every Purpose"

Act I: Present Day

Chapter 9

"So, you were really, truly stranded on a tropical island with this delicate vision of beauty - ALONE - for eighteen whole entire days? I tip my hat to you and your good luck, Kaiba-boy! That is, if I was wearing one-oh, how silly of me!" Talking incessantly all the way down the hall to the girl on his arm, Pegasus giggles at Serenity's slight, radiant blush at his insinuations, as she explains to his query on how Seto was fortunate enough to scoop up such a delicious 'sprite' as Pegasus now called her.

"If I really had good luck, we wouldn't be dragged around by you, you insane asylum escapee." Kaiba breathes under his growl that hadn't ceased since Pegasus started this whole stupid escapade.

"I heard that, my young protege!" Pegasus sings out happily over his shoulder, wagging a finger in Kaiba's face as he pauses them at the double-doored entrance.

"I am nothing of the kind to you!" Kaiba practically shouts. His anger at the older man was seething to its limits.

"Seto, shhhh. Be nice." Serenity tugs on her boyfriend's long, white suit jacket sleeve. She quelled his anger with big, pleading eyes.

"Yes, Seto, do be nice." Pegasus seemed to be begging for a tongue lashing, but Kaiba calms himself in the refuge of Serenity's soft eyes.

Okay, old man, I'll play it your way for the time being. Hmph.

Kaiba simply rolls his eyes as he obediently follows the pair of artists into the darkened room. He didn't trust Maximillion Pegasus as far as he could throw him, however, for Serenity's sake, he'd just have to keep the peace.

"Peace, yes..." Pegasus repeats Seto's sentiments out loud, causing Kaiba to wonder if the crazy man still had a claim on his psychic abilities.

That thought was only intensified by Pegasus' reverential bow and kneeled prayer of some sort before a covered-by-curtain painting on the far wall. There was a strange sense of eerie silence that fills the large room and Pegasus had closed the doors purposely behind them.

Serenity begins to shiver in the cool darkness as the mysterious man with the silvery hair begins to light several candles placed strategically on statuesque marble pillars around the exhibit.

"What is this, Pegasus? More of your theatre dramatics?" Kaiba growls again, sensing Serenity's distress as she slips her frightened hand into his in the ghostly silent darkness.

"It is only the stage upon which the drama of my life was played." Pegasus enigmatically whispers to them through the darkness. "And so, perhaps, where YOUR drama began..." He adds, with a slight emotional choke, as his hands pull the ropes to draw the curtains surrounding his most cherished masterpiece and life-inspired work to reveal it for the first time, to the only audience it was meant for by his darling Cecelia...

"...My son."

Maximillion Pegasus announces to the world for the first time the existence of his only child-the little baby boy he had sent away in a fit of rage at losing his adored wife. The child who the nursemaid had taken to live with her and become a part of her own family that Pegasus had just traced. That adopted family had also been cruelly stolen from the boy by fire, not long after the nurse and her husband's real son was born. The two orphans were sent to an orphanage where fate and skill had guided the older boy to have them both be adopted by a rich man named Gozaburo Kaiba.

Maximillion was both shocked and awestruck by the fact, up till now, that destiny had kept him unaware of his son's existence, though their paths had crossed many times before...

Cecelia, forgive me...

"May I present my wife, Cecelia, and my newborn son. Do tell me what you think of it." The words coming from Pegasus' lips weren't half as impressive as the breathtaking portrait hanging on the wall. Serenity gasps at the sheer beauty in every detail of line there was-every shade, every strand, of the woman's hair was done with such painstaking precision and care, that, to Serenity's artful eye, it could only be a portrait of a true heart's love for another.

"...She's so...beautiful..." Serenity whispers through the inexplicable tears in her eyes. The painting evoked so much emotion, that Serenity couldn't hold back the tears.

It was of a woman so beautiful, so young and radiant, with long golden hair set in golden waves that cascaded around her pale shoulders. Her even paler face was both lovely yet tired, worn out at the same time it was blissful. But above all, on every feature, was love for the newborn child in her arms-a strikingly blue-eyed baby boy, who shared some quality of her indefinable grace.

The tears rolling down from the woman's eyes were so lifelike as they fall across the tiny baby's small cheek and onto the hand of the shadowy figure of a man at her bedside. His own tears, too, were spilt on the babe-awash in both his parents' tears.

For above the woman's head was a blinding, holy light-that to a sensitive soul, meant only one thing-as she held her baby, for the last time, it was also the first...

"She's...dying...isn't she...?" Compassionate Serenity was too enraptured by the beautiful painting to notice the way her Seto was staring at the picture with a curiosity he rarely gave art and other frivolous things that a businessman such as himself wouldn't deem to give a second or two of attention more.

But there was something about the woman pictured-something about the glow of her cheeks, the radiance in her eyes above her baby, even as her spirit was leaving her body. The drops of tears spilled in both joy and regret of a future lost were intermixed on the child's forehead.

"Eighteen years ago, I lost her. I lost the other half of my soul. And like a fool, I allowed my remaining half to slip away too, on that awful night. I was relinquished to despair and hatred, I lashed out...and sent my son away-so embittered and angered I was-a mere boy myself." Pegasus stutters at the replay of the moment in his heart as he explains to them.

"I had shut myself away in my own world of torment and regret. Searching, seeking out the unreachable, when all the while I could've had the piece of her that she had left me in order to live on. My son, I have finally tracked you down. Through fires, through orphanage after orphanage-one disaster after another-and at last to break through the barrier of my own disbelief. Somehow, I should've already realized it when I was the creator, and you, the champion-that you had my blood running through your veins, and my Cecelia's as well. Our lost child-lost no longer! That baby in the painting is my son; a man destined for greatness. In other words, you, Seto Kaiba."

Pegasus' hand falls upon Kaiba's shoulder. Kaiba's shocked eyes look first at the hand and then at the man who held it with a stunned contempt. He shakes off the palm as if it was a leper's and backs away from his silver haired rival in utter shock at the man's words.

"I-You-It can't be!" Kaiba yells in denial. "What game are you trying to play now, Pegasus!" He shouts in confusion, letting go of Serenity's hand as he backs away towards the door.

HIS son! No way! This nutcase is...my father! My real father! Absolutely not!

Seto Kaiba, a man who usually exuded confidence in everything, is, for the first time, completely unsure of anything. Serenity's eyes open wide at him, reflecting his surprise.

"Where did those rich jerks run off to wit my little sista? Geez! There's gotta be a zillion cobwebbed filled rooms in dis creepy ol' peoples mausoleum." Joey Wheeler angrily slams his coffee filled foam cup onto the museum's lunch counter. Its tepid liquid squirted from the cracks his force created in the weak styrofoam.

"Joey! Chill out, man! Awww, sheesh! Just look at my new shirt? This is just NOT my day!" Tristan once again skulks away in defeat, rubbing napkins on the big coffee stain on his new, white button up shirt as people around start chuckling at him and his misfortune.

"Sorry, pal! Accident!" Joey calls out after his friend. He, from working as a waiter at the restaurant, having to claim 'accident' almost on a daily basis. Good thing Mai was always there to calm the irate manager down with her soothing words and winsome ways, succeeding in keeping newcomer Wheeler in employment for spills yet to come.

It wasn't that Joey was exactly clumsy-not exactly-but he tried too hard. Mai always watched from her bar how the blonde boy would juggle holding too many orders at once, trying to please everyone. Plates clanked, overfilled glasses toppled, as they dripped across the floor in his haste to get them to their tables in one piece as fast as possible.

The big lug's got too much of a heart to be in this biz.

Mai often contemplated as she watched Joey sneak a free cupcake or extra refill here and there, to a little kid who already didn't have enough money to pay for the meal that Joey often footed from his own pocket.

He's got a real soft spot for kids-he'll make a great 'daddy' for someone some day...

Mai smiles a little too knowingly at Joey as Tea motherly tries to clean him and his mess up.

Boys are so trying!

Yugi soon comes to Tea's aid. "They'll turn up, Joey. Don't worry so much all the time. Pegasus isn't THAT bad, anymore now that his Millennium Eye is gone." Tea says in frustration as she gathers up the mass of napkins the clean up job resulted in.

"Yes, and since Kaiba's with your sister, she'll be safe." Yugi adds absently as he brings Joey a new coffee.

"Safe! Wit him? You gone nuts or sometin', Yug! Aww, man!" Joey and his styrofoam cup explode once again as both Mai and Tea sigh loudly in frustration as they begin the clean up they had just finished, yet again.

"Listen, Joey, as much as you don't care for him, Kaiba's really in love with Serenity. And I believe she feels the same way about him-from all of Tea's reports." Yugi gives his own love a look. Tea smirks back at him in the knowing, familiar way that said there were no secrets between them.

"Do ya gotta go and drag 'love' into it, Yug? I just had lunch." Joey, the tough guy, often feigned puking when it came to girly talk about that certain dicey word - LOVE.

"SOME of us don't mind the word being dragged out here and there, every now and then, if you catch my drift, you unromantic baboon." Mai strikes out, having this macho "eww" kind of guy getting on her nerves.

"Huh?" Joey, as usual, was totally clueless. He scratches his head as Mai storms out of the cafeteria where they had stopped by for a breather from the 'Serenity hunt.'

Shrugging their shoulders, Yugi and Tea soon follow. Joey races to catch up so, that he almost runs over some poor little kid who was running ahead of his classmates into the lunch room against his teacher's explicit instructions to stay together with the rest.

Good thing a pair of hands were there to scoop the boy up out of Wheeler's path of destruction just in the nick of time.

"Oops! Nice save, Bakura! Sorry, Kid!" Joey calls back as he bounds after the gang.

"Oh! There they go! I do believe I've missed them yet again." Ryou comments as he sits the little boy down on the lunch bench.

"Oh, well! That's their tough luck! We like having you around, don't we, children?" Rebecca eggs her students to back up her sentiments, to which they all wisely agree.

"Glad to oblige, ma'am." Ryou smiles back, tipping the kid's baseball cap down affectionately.