This is when I really started having fun with the story; the journey for the Millennium Items, and its follow-up arc, is probably my favorite section of the entire work. And something tossed in at the end of this section, here, should interest you all a bit. It certainly did me; I've incorporated many things into this story that I haven't before, and it made this story just as much a journey for me as it is for Seto.

XXXIII:

Know Thy Enemy


The concept of murder was a familiar one in the Kaiba Mansion.

Kaiba Gozaburo had not been squeamish in using questionable methods by which to further his status. Even his closest associates had walked on eggshells around him, fearful that he would view them as expendable liabilities at some point.

Gozaburo, like Shadi, like Akhenaden, like Shadi, like Seto, cared nothing for the repercussions of actions he deemed necessary, regardless of the severity of them. And if done to add to his influence, no action was unnecessary.

Considering his present company, Mokuba supposed he shouldn't have been surprised to hear the prospect of killing someone taken so casually.

And really...he wasn't sure he liked this Shadi person very much, anyway. He still shivered, remembering his nightmare.

"You should keep in mind, successor," Sethos said, "that Shadi is not a man to be trifled with. He will likely disallow assistance from me, as occurred with Thirak. If you are to prevail, you are to do so on your own strength. Sadin advocated personal strength above naught else. His descendant will be no different, I suspect."

Seto scoffed. "If I go into this believing he'll defeat me, I have no business finding him in the first place."

"Simply a warning, successor. You are less than a novice in the ways of the Ancient Games. Your skills lie in a modern iteration to which comparison is...laughable."

"Laughable?" Seto asked, somewhat sharply. "I've seen your Shadow Games, courtesy of Ishtar's necklace. I'm not sure you have much room to talk."

Sethos smirked.

He reached into a pocket and procured a Magic & Wizards card, a magic card called "Light of Judgment."

He tossed it onto the table.

"That...killed Thirak of the Ring."

Seto picked up the card and frowned.

"Consider, Seto, the amount of effort you exhaust in laying a simple card onto a table. I believe I retain the ability to speak critically in this matter."

Noa frowned. "...Gotta point."

"The true games were not limited to the use of the tablets the former holder of the Eye used to create the version you play," Sethos said.

"...Oh?"

"The truest form were known as Penalty Games. This is more than likely the way in which Shadi will challenge you."

"Penalty Games," Seto repeated. "The way Y—Atem used them, it seemed to focus more upon the 'penalty' than the 'game.'"

"Against those with no...training, Penalty Games are used as such. But to those of us able to counter such things, they become the contest themselves."

"So what...like a rematch?" Noa asked.

"...Something akin to such, yes."

"But to people like Shadi, the only game is that of the Penalty Game," Seto surmised. "No point in wasting time with a preliminary match."

"Indeed."

Seto frowned. "If there's anything I've learned about Penalty Games, it's that there's no way to predict them. So...no way to prepare for them."

"That is why they are widely viewed...were widely viewed...as the most prestigious of contests. The challenger begins at a distinct disadvantage, and requires a heavy amount of skill and determination to prevail."

Seto sighed and shut his eyes.

"...The story of my life."

XXXIV:

On the Offensive


"...He plans to challenge Shadi."

Malik frowned. "Confident. Or ignorant."

"Or both."

Rishid, walking into the room he and his siblings were staying in, crossed his arms. "He will be required to challenge the dark one sooner or later," he said.

"Yameth is strong, but Kaiba knows next to nothing about the games. How to deal with them. To mentally prepare for them."

"Doesn't he, though?" Rishid asked. "Seto Kaiba has been embroiled in conflict and competition nearly since birth. The Shadow Games may be of a sort he has yet to deal with, but this is not young Yugi Motou we speak of here."

Isis smirked. "Yugi Motou has proven many times his strength in the Games."

"No, Atem has. Yugi Motou's will is not strong enough to handle Shadi alone, but I believe Seto Kaiba's is. He has been hardened, conditioned, through hardship to handle this."

"He is powerful, but he lacks faith."

"Faith? Sister, I do believe you are being too romantic and idealistic about this. He has determination, strength, intelligence...and most importantly, motivation."

"He lacks faith in the power he possesses," Isis elaborated. "He doesn't even believe in it. He treats his calling as he has any other. His mind is too narrow to accept the full truth."

"...Sister, if what you have told us about Shadi contacting the little Kaiba is true, I believe he will not only prevail, but easily."

"What? Why do you say that?"

"Because, Isis. You have not noticed this part of him, and neither have many others, but I have: Seto Kaiba is as fiercely protective of his brother as a mother hawk. Shadi has threatened young Mokuba. That is enough, to me, to prove Seto will defeat him."

Mokuba fell asleep slumped in his brother's lap.

Seto didn't bother to move. He gently stroked the boy's hair unthinkingly, using his free hand to scan the map currently burning on his laptop's monitor.

"We leavin' tomorrow, then?" Noa asked.

"Most likely."

"The Ring will assist you in locating him," Sethos said, "but only to a certain degree. Its tracking will only be so effective. We must locate his general area before it will be of any use."

"He'll likely be somewhere in Egypt," Seto said. "For obvious reasons, that is where he has made his home. We'll have the best chance of finding him there."

"Indeed," Sethos said. "He may send more warnings to drive us away. That may assist us further."

"Forgive me if I'm not exactly enthusiastic about that idea," Seto muttered. "Bad enough Mokuba had to go through that once. If things go the way I want it to, he won't have to again."

"I surely meant nothing in the way of condoning his method of contacting you, successor," Sethos said quickly. "But the possibility exists."

"Yes...it does."

"And how is it you intend to locate him?" Sethos asked. "Surely you do not mean to walk. Egypt is hardly a specific region in terms of such a method of travel."

Noa smirked. "Perfect time to give my new toy a test run," he said.

"Pardon?"

Noa's eyes twinkled.

"I bought us a jet."

XXXV:

To Question the King


After meeting his cousin again after three millennia, Yami was a mixture of emotions: on the one hand, he was euphoric, having finally a corporeal form of his own that allowed him to interact with his friends – and Yugi himself – in a conventional fashion. He was more than thankful for Sethos's act of kindness; he was heavily indebted.

On the other hand, the idea of Seto Kaiba being destined to be the next pharaoh was quite trying on the spirit's mind. While he was more accepting of his rival than, say, Joey, he still considered Seto Kaiba to be less than morally sound.

It was, of course, true that Seto was devoted to his brother. That was his shining good point, and it was a prominent one. If there was one thing Yami respected wholeheartedly about his rival, it was his parenting.

But that didn't mean Yami believed him fit to rule.

Seto was a confusing paradox of selflessness and selfishness. While he was willing to give absolutely anything in order to help Mokuba, he was willing to give absolutely nothing in order to help anyone else.

To people he cared about, Seto was a fine person.

The problem with that was that the list of people Seto cared about was so small that it may as well not exist in the first place. He cared for Mokuba, held some odd species of acceptance for Noa, and seemed to get along decently with his ancestor.

Other than that, he seemed to care absolutely nothing for humanity.

Surely such a person should not be given a throne.

He had thought of that nearly every waking moment since discovering the truth of Sethos's words. He hadn't doubted his cousin, but it had taken him quite some time to realize he legitimately believed him.

That, though, was something else to consider. While Yami didn't put much stock in Seto Kaiba's sense of morality, he couldn't deny that Sethos was an entirely different person, even as he was nearly identical.

The most important trait Sethos had over his descendant was one that Mokuba had noticed: he was patient. Yami, too, attributed this to the millennia Sethos had spent confined within the Millennium Rod. From this patience, Sethos had learned to accept people. He was empathetic, as well.

He supposed that Sethos would be able to intervene if and when Seto used the power he intended to gain to ill-fated ends. Yami surely didn't believe he would have the same motive as Malik Ishtar had, but he wasn't sure he trusted him, either. Not sure at all.

Upon hearing from Noa the day before that Seto intended to look after Shadi, the overzealous tomb guardian who possessed the Ankh and Scale, he seriously began to worry.

He realized, of course, that if he decided to, he could simply withhold the Puzzle from his rival. A Millennium Item, in order to acknowledge a new owner, must be won.

If Yami refused Seto's challenge when it came, he could prevent such a calamity as he feared – although not necessarily expected – would happen.

Although...that felt wrong.

He believed his cousin. He believed in destiny. He believed in the wishes of the gods. And he wasn't sure if he could defy them in such a way.

Even if it felt like the right thing to him.

XXXVI:

Mutual Dependence


Sethos held none of the doubts that his cousin did.

The problem was that Yami still viewed his rival from an outsider's point of view. He had never made any real attempt to understand him any more than was necessary to gain a tactical advantage in dueling. He had no real desire to understand Seto, and so never made the effort to.

Sethos, on the other hand, saw the true Seto Kaiba.

It was true that Seto was – for the most part – a misanthrope. He harbored little to no faith in humanity as a whole. But the key to it all was Mokuba, as he was the key to everything when it came to Seto.

Seto only cared – to any real degree – about Mokuba. What Yami didn't realize was just the way in which he cared. Seto would never engage in a spree of indiscriminate homicide, or anything along those lines that Yami may have worried about, because of Mokuba.

The driving motivation to Seto's existence, besides protecting Mokuba and raising him, was to make absolutely certain that Mokuba admired him.

To make sure that Mokuba was proud of him.

The worst fear Seto had, as far as Sethos had seen, was breaking the idealistic view Mokuba had of him. This wasn't so much for the sake of himself – although surely Mokuba's pride and love of him was one of the few sources of comfort the young businessman could claim – as it was for the sake of Mokuba.

As it always was.

Seto didn't want Mokuba disappointed in him, to any degree, because he knew that that would hurt him. Irrevocably so. To Mokuba, one of the most concrete truths on the face of the planet and in the whole of humanity was that Seto was a good, reliable, trustworthy person.

If you took the time to earn his respect, that was.

And that, Sethos thought, would be the key to keeping the power his descendant would one day claim from corrupting him. Mokuba would be his brother's conscience, as he all but always had been.

Sethos had come to this conclusion rather quickly after beginning to live with the Kaiba family, and he had wondered if it would be possible to convince his cousin and his friends of it.

It was an odd state of affairs, really.

Mokuba idolized his brother, and so always kept absolutely sure never to do anything to disappoint him. He tried his hardest at every turn to make Seto proud, to make him happy, to make his brother's life as stress-free as possible considering his career.

On the other hand, Seto kept absolutely sure never to do anything to disappoint Mokuba, either. He made sure never to actually, legitimately, seriously upset the boy. Even in times when he acted in such a way as to make Mokuba uncomfortable, it was never severe enough to truly tarnish the boy's view of him.

Seto and Mokuba Kaiba truly were dependant upon one another.

Without the other's pride, approval, and love, each of them would find absolutely no will to live.

XXXVII:

Window to the Heart


It was when they finally began flying toward Egypt that Seto finally found himself sufficiently relaxed to go to sleep. Knowing that his brother was a light sleeper even when he was exhausted – as he surely was considering he had been awake for the past three days – Mokuba all but commanded the other two passengers on Noa's "new toy" to be quiet.

It took very little to wake Seto when he was sleeping. A particularly enunciated statement would be enough, even if the speaker wasn't actually trying to raise their voice.

Mokuba occupied himself by playing a portable game, with the sound muted rather than wearing headphones, while Noa watched DVDs of a recent television show on a portable player.

Sethos decided to look through his successor's collection of Magic & Wizards cards.

Seto had mentioned to him that it was an American business tycoon, the president of Industrial Illusions, Pegasus Crawford, who had created the game.

Sethos found himself impressed by the man's thoroughness. He wasn't sure how, but nearly every spell, every creature, every maneuver he had ever seen used in a true game was represented in Crawford's version, with a vivid visual representation and a surprisingly accurate description and adaptation.

He wondered if perhaps the abilities of the Millennium Eye were more widespread than he had realized. Though the artifact had been originally owned by his own father, he was largely unaware of its capabilities, having never harnessed its power himself.

But somehow, Crawford had covered just about everything. There were even spells represented by cards that the spirit had never heard of or seen, but seemed to be entirely viable.

He also found himself surprised at just how many of the various cards his counterpart owned. He had found out from Noa that Seto owned at least one of every card Industrial Illusions had distributed to the public, and even a few that hadn't been. Most of the cards he owned were one of several copies.

The spirit of the Millennium Rod spent the better part of six hours simply sifting through the cards in Seto's collection, to the point that Noa and Mokuba wondered just how he could remain so engaged.

Hundreds, thousands of creatures and spells, each painstakingly created to properly represent its actual counterpart. Crawford had taken out the danger, the dark edge, to the games and had created a version purely based on skill and intellectual prowess, allowing for the masses to take part in a rite that had once been reserved entirely to a selective sect of the upper class.

Sethos found himself smiling at that. It was a brilliant move financially, and had allowed for something he had never even considered, and yet thought was a fascinating idea.

Seto considered Pegasus Crawford to be a menace, a parasite, but Sethos thought that perhaps he wasn't as bad as that.

He was about to ask Mokuba and Noa if they knew anything about the man when he came across one particular card. The artwork was as vibrant as a sunrise, its description as perfect a representation as he could have imagined...the card – cards, for there were three – was well worn, but obviously cared for, a testament to strength and nobility. A weapon of terrible power...of incomparable beauty.

The Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

XXXVIII:

Kisara


Noa chuckled when he saw the awestruck, enraptured expression on Sethos's face as the spirit dropped a handful of cards onto the table he sat at, keeping three in his hand.

"...Found 'em, didn'tcha?"

Sethos didn't answer immediately, as if he couldn't hear. He looked far off, lost in his memories or in some sort of hallucination, as if the pictures of the dragons Noa knew him to be looking at were speaking to him. He looked like an acolyte to a new religion finally looking upon the glory of his god, as if what he held in his hands were everything that mattered in the whole of existence, as if it were the Holy Grail itself.

"Huh?" Mokuba asked, looking up.

"I think Seth found himself Aniki's Blue-Eyes cards. He looks like a virgin at his first strip club or something. Wonder if we oughtta give him and the cards some 'alone' time."

Mokuba scrunched up his nose. "That's gross, Noa."

"Tell me," the green-haired Kaiba said. "I don't wanna think o' him having improper relations with a playing card any more'n you do. But look at 'im and tell me that ain't what it looks like. I mean, hell."

"Maybe Seth remembers them. I mean, the old Shadow Games used to be played with real monsters. Maybe Seth used the Blue-Eyes, just like Niisama."

"That, somehow, doesn't legitimize it any more. If anything, it makes me more freaked. He looks about ready to lick the damn things."

Indeed, Sethos's hand was creeping closer and closer to his face, as if it were a magnet attracted to a slab of metal. He seemed unaware that he was even doing it, a completely involuntary reflex.

"Oi," Noa said, not as sharply as he likely would have, except for the fact that he knew better than to defy Mokuba when it came to the boy's orders regarding his precious Niisama. If Seto woke up due to any noise caused by anyone or anything before at least twelve or thirteen hours had gone by, the boy was likely to blow a gasket.

Noa really didn't like dealing with a mad Mokuba. The kid was pretty damn scary when he wanted to be.

The word was spoken sharply enough, however, to catch the spirit's attention, and Sethos looked up and blinked, eyes alternating between Noa and Mokuba and back to the cards.

"Looks like ya found a few ya like," Noa said. "Blue-Eyes cards, right?"

Sethos nodded dumbly.

"Figured. Moku's sayin' you prob'ly knew the real deal. That right? Was the Blue-Eyes a real dragon?"

Again, Sethos nodded.

"No shit? Huh. That's pretty cool."

Sethos looked back down at the cards and glanced at each one more closely. Sliding each behind the others as he studied them, he finally after a minute or so placed two of them back with the rest of the cards on the table and flipped the one remaining around to show it to the two brothers.

There was no discernable difference between it and its two counterparts, but when Sethos spoke, it was with such conviction that it was impossible for him to be wrong.

"Kisara," he said in a reverent whisper.

"...Huh?"

"Her name is...was...Kisara."