Title: Sow and Reap
Author: Serena J
Rating: R for use of the f-word and some sexual content
Genre(s): Romance, Angst
Pairing(s): Primary Seto/Joey/Atemu
Spoilers: none
Beta: Mishiko
Disclaimer: Just the words, not the folks.
Summary: When Seto takes an impromptu vacation, he turns everyone's life upside down.
Interlude #2: Mokuba's Perspective.
Interlude #2
My name is Morio Abdulatem.
Actually, it's not but that's the name I signed on the convention register. Mai and I grinned at each other as I handed the pen to her boyfriend Yugi.
I don't use my real name anywhere but at home. I have a passport issued in my false name by special Government request. I also have a concealed weapons permit. Both will tell you who I really am if you have the security clearances to find out; not that it ever gets that far.
Usually, I get caught with a knife or a gun, and then the local authorities take me into custody and try to call my parents. I'll show them my ID and the permit and they'll insist that both must be fake – which they are, but not in the way that matters. They will then run both through the computer. Ten minutes after they type my name in, the highest authority in the building comes to wherever I am, apologizes for the inconvenience and insists on paying for my trip or my convention pass or whatever. It's actually pretty funny.
It would be funnier if I didn't actually need a fake name and a concealed weapon.
Mai, Yugi and I grabbed our luggage and headed to our room. This weekend we were at a comic book convention in Okinawa. Last month, it was an LRPG con in Kyoto. The month before, it was The Kaiba International con in downtown Tokyo. So long as it's in Japan and Dad's security knows where I am, I can go pretty much anywhere I want.
Dad's security are a tricky bunch. They are absolutely loyal to KaibaCorp in general and Kaiba Gozaburo specifically. He runs it like a shogunate. Once a year, he even goes on training missions with them. It's a smaller group, but I still wouldn't take a bet on who would win between them and the Army. And if a war broke out, they would follow Dad, not the Emperor. Scary, scary guys.
Except that they all feel a little sorry for me so they don't always tell Dad where I go or when. The rule pretty much is if they didn't have to get me out of it, Dad doesn't need to know about it. So I get to hang with my friends and get away with anything just short of murder and Dad gets to believe that I'm the good son.
If he knew the truth, he'd have a stroke.
Mai pays for everything when we go to these things because she's over 20; Yugi's 18 and I'll turn 14 this summer. Though she always 'pays', I provide the actual cash flow. I have money in my Kaiba accounts and I get my allowance every week. And then Morie has an on-line bank account that is funded by a few investments that Dad and my brother, Seto, don't need to know about. If anything ever happens to me, Seto and my 'governess' Isis split that account and a few other assets. Dad taught me: know, but don't show, everything you have.
So anyway, for the convention, Mai booked us as a double king-sized suite with hot tub. Yugi is always overwhelmed by opulence but Mai and I love it. The first thing we do is wait for security to give the room the all clear. They put cameras in over the main door and over any other possible entrance, angled to see who comes and goes, but not to see what goes on in the room. I could get stoned out of my mind and so long as no unauthorized person opened the door, security wouldn't bat an eye. Really; I tried it and they didn't.
After security does their bit and gives me the room key, we go in, lock the door and get naked!
Yugi is the aggressive one in bed, actually. People who know Mai wouldn't believe that, but really she likes to cuddle more. Yugi's enthusiasm for anything fun puts him on the top of the stack or the first to try any crazy new idea.
I don't like sex. Not that I've actually had sex – I'm 13! – but I don't get excited like other people do. I just like being naked.
Sometimes, when they've finished, I'll cuddle with them. It helps me sleep. I feel safe between them. I feel safe sleeping with Seto too, but that rarely happens any more. I haven't slept with Dad since I was 9.
Generally, I do research. I use the time they're being bunnies to find as many local newspapers, libraries and temples as possible. The older the better. Then, during the convention – when there isn't something I want to do – I go check the archives and the places I find. Sometimes it's a waste of time. But sometimes I find interesting things.
We're early for the convention, but late for archive I want to go to first, so after I get bored watching Mai and Yugi go at it, I get dressed again and go down to the dealers room. Comic cons are fun but I like game cons more. Really, I'm only here because the orphanage Seto and I was in was not too far away; which means that there's a good chance my biological parents are buried in the area.
I don't really remember my bio-father. He's this blur in my memories of a Christmas party when I burned my hand on I light I wasn't supposed to touch in the first place. Seto held me and told me everything was ok and someone I think of as father bandaged me. I kind of remember my father's funeral. I remember sitting with Seto, in black kimonos, and having to be very still. My brother is very good at being very still, but I hate it. So every time I moved, he held me still. I remember that the whole day was very, very sad. That's not much really, but I was only five at the time.
But comic cons are for fun, not depressing thoughts. I goofed around the dealer room for a while and then wandered through the artist's room until Yugi and Mai came down. We got some food, found some duelist and some dice games and played both for a while. And then we got some more food. You know, convention stuff. Around midnight, we went to bed – all three of us, together.
It's always a large man, in my dreams. He's wrapped in black and I can't see his face. I just know that he wants me; to take me away. He's a bad man. You would think these nightmares started recently, after I was kidnapped. But really, I've had them for as long as I can remember. Seto was always there at first, always holding me at night, always promising to keep me safe. He thinks I don't know that I'm the reason we didn't get adopted for the first year. We were young and cute and then a prospective family would find out that I wake up screaming five days out of seven. I told Seto to go without me. He wouldn't.
He gave up a chance for a real family to protect me. I don't think anyone knows how much my Nii-sama loves me. Or what I would do for him. I'd die for him. I'd kill for him. People talk about Seto being heartless. They have no idea how much heart he has.
But my nightmares. They've gotten better over time, but I still wake up screaming sometimes. Yugi and Mai are almost used to it. That's why they let me sleep with them. I'm less likely to have a nightmare and it's easier to calm me down if they're right there with me. Tonight, I could almost see him. I felt like he could touch me. Seto couldn't stop him; Dad couldn't stop him. I almost called Nii-sama at four in the morning just to hear him say, 'I won't let him take you.'
Even so, I was up and out by seven.
I went to the local newspaper office. I had to beg – even shed a few tears – but finally their librarian agreed to let me search their files. I'm not going back that far. Not more than 15 years. Everything I need information on happened after that.
Mostly I look at obituaries. If they have funeral tapes, I scan them. Over the last year, I've downloaded some interesting details. For instance, my bio-father's last name was Abdulatem. Funny coincidence, huh?
Actually, no. It's my Dad being ironic. Using my real last name to hide my adopted one. I don't think he knows I remember it. But really; I was young, not stupid. I knew my name and becoming a Kaiba didn't make me forget it.
'Abdulatem' is not a common name in Japan. In fact, it's not common anywhere. It's Coptic, from Egypt – like Isis, another coincidence. There are maybe 300 speakers of Coptic in the whole world. Anyway, I have only found one guy named 'Abdulatem' in Japan in the last 15 years. He was a professor who studied air pressure at TIT – Tokyo Institute of Technology. I can't think of a more boring topic but apparently, he was very interesting to several government officials.
Abdulatem was working with a biologist and they discovered a way to make concussive force grenades. They were non-lethal and did not use any form of projectile but could render an area of people unconscious for some time. I didn't read the details – I couldn't care less about that – but his partner's name was really interesting. Kaiba Kisara. And guess what? They ran away together and settled in the Okinawa area to start a company to develop these force grenades into something that police worldwide could use instead of guns.
I'll bet my Dad was really interested in that.
The archive's obituaries didn't list either Abdulatem or Kaiba. I switched to their video collection. The tapes were raw footage, no sound or commentary. I played them fast-forwarded to get through as many as possible. Apparently, they had a cameraman who would go to a cemetery and just film everything for the day. In about the middle of the tape, I saw a boy who looked familiar. Brown hair, stone face.
Seto.
I went back to the beginning of the event. The cameraman got to the grave site at the same time that the hearse did. As the staff got the urn, someone opened the passenger door and a tall man with brown hair and glasses got out. He was carrying a black-haired infant. Behind him, a brown-haired boy got out. I couldn't see him clearly, but it was the same kid that made me rewind the tape. The priest tried to give the urn to the tall man but he indicated that Seto should carry it. Together, they walked from the car to the funeral site.
The camera zoomed to follow them and focused on the tombstone for a moment. The kanji read 'Sapphire-eyed Daughter of the Dragon'. Then he moved to focus on the priest as he began chanting. Another priest was handing out incense.
About a third of the guests looked Middle-Eastern and seemed confused by the rites. A pair of priests spent some time explaining to them what to do. I noticed that the Japanese guests did not move a finger to assist the foreigners.
Finally the camera returned to the man and the boy. To my Father and Seto. And me, probably, around three days old.
It was a normal funeral. Apart from the apparent bad blood between the races, nothing unusual happened really until the chant ended. Father and Seto stood up to leave and were stopped by a teenage-girl and a boy about Seto's height. They spoke for a moment and the boy gave something to Seto. Father seemed grateful and hugged them both, carefully so as not to drop the baby. Both of the children asked and were allowed to look at the baby and the girl kissed the tiny black head. Then a procession started and everyone placed flowers inside the casket.
My mother's casket. They were placing flowers around her head. I cursed that the cameraman couldn't get an angle to see her. Even in death, I have never seen my mother's face.
Seto and my Father were the last two to pay their final respects, and then father handed the baby – me – to Seto and closed the casket himself.
Suddenly, the camera swiveled to someone just arriving. It must have been loud because everyone the camera passed was turning to look too.
The large man. The man in black. The bad man in my dreams. He snatched incense and flowers from a priest's hands and stormed to my Father. There was an exchange and if I had to guess, they were yelling because in the middle they both stopped and looked at Seto and me. Nii-sama was rocking me in his arms, his face close against mine. I know, without seeing his mouth, without hearing his words, what he is saying.
"I won't let him take you."
I stopped the tape and took it with me.
Yugi and Mai left me a note with their itinerary. I had the room to myself for another few hours. I played the video again, paying close attention to as many faces as I could see. I didn't recognize any of them. I did notice that Nii-sama's expression changed after Father handed me to him. He was no longer stone faced. He smiled. He looked at me and smiled.
And then, the bad man arrived. I couldn't see his face clearly from any angle on the tape. After he and father argued, the bad man pushed past father and reopened the casket. He looked at the woman inside for a moment, placed the flowers inside and closed the lid. Then, he walked past everyone, apparently without another word. The cameraman followed him as he got into a white limo and left. A white limo with a corporate logo on the back. The Cameraman saw it too and moved to catch a better shot of it. He got it clear and in focus for three seconds.
KaibaCorp.
Who the hell is Kaiba Kisara? And which Kaiba attended her funeral?
There is a KC office in Okinawa – in Japan, we have an office almost everywhere. I took a cab there. It was closed, but I have an employee ID so I let myself in and took the elevator to the top floor. I needed two security codes; one to operate the elevator at all and one to access the executive suites. Once there, I picked a desk at random and logged in.
Everything inside the Kaiba system was recorded. This was going to be in the security system and I was going to need my personal codes to get any kind of access. Basically, that meant that if I was about to delve into Dad's secrets, he was going to know about it within the next twenty minutes. Was knowing who Kaiba Kisara was that important?
Not really. Except….
Except what if she wasn't married to the guy that was holding me? What if the irony is that my real name IS Kaiba?
What if Dad really is my father?
That, I wanted to know.
I started with corporate history. Who started the company, who developed which products, which Kaibas were on the payroll and when. I found myself, still an employee in good standing. Nii-sama was on suspension.
I am not blind to the abusive relationship between Dad and my brother. When I was little, I used to try to convince Dad not to be so mean to Nii-sama. He told me that I would understand when I was older. What I grew to understand is that Dad saw Seto as a sword. When Dad adopted us, Seto had been shaped but crudely. Dad needed to temper him, sharpen him and make him a weapon worthy of the Kaiba name. I also grew to understand that I would never be that son for him. There was never even a moment when he considered leaving his legacy to me. If something happened to Nii-sama, I would not be heir to the Kaiba family name. Oh, I'd be taken care of. I'd get money and property. But not power. I will never be head of the family. That honor falls to Kaiba Seto or no one. One day I'll remind Dad that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
Seto's suspension was another in a long line of petty cruelties that Dad has visited upon my brother which Seto will tolerate as part of his guilt for not being the perfect son. Dad keeps winning the battles and Nii-sama keeps collecting scars. But one day, Seto will win the war.
I'm not blind to their relationship. I stay out of it because I love them both.
I found a long line of Kaibas. The family is actually quite large. I opened a link to the Ministry of Vital Records and did a little checking. Dad's father had two brothers and two sisters. That whole generation had passed away, but all of them had at least three children. Some of the resulting children had children.
Dad had a sister – my Auntie, Noah's mother. I found Noah's birth certificate; it listed his mother but no father, leaving me to wonder if the man I thought was my uncle was Noah's father. I flipped back a few pages. Dad's birth certificate showed that he was third of three live births. But I could not find the certificate for the middle child. Death certificates were even more frustrating; not finding one could mean that the death was not recorded. I found a pair of surprises in the Ministry of Marriage and Divorce. A Marriage certificate had been issued for Dad but was voided and sealed.
I linked through a Kaiba system back door into TIT's personnel system. KC and TIT did a lot of joint research and being able to draw on their staff at will was one of Dad's requirements for the partnership.
And then, in a list of TIT graduates, I found her. Kaiba Kisara, Biology PhD. 'Pictured on page 46 with Master's candidate Kaiba Gozaburo'.
It took me an hour to find the actual document. No one had it on line but someone at the campus library found it and agreed to send it to me at home. I was shaking when I hung up the phone; in the next few days I was going to see my mother's face. I turned back to the computer to see if I could find why Dad's older sister had been erased from family history. We are Japanese; we don't do that sort of thing.
"Please leave your hands where I can see them." The unfamiliar voice was accompanied by the very familiar sound of a gun being cocked.
I put my hands up slowly. "You are making a mistake," I said calmly. "I have ID."
"Stolen."
"May I turn around?"
"Move and I'll shoot." The voice was young and scared. "Soto to base. I have the intruder." There was a burst of static. "I understand. OK. Stand up. Slowly."
My heart was pounding, racing. I glanced over my shoulder and saw it briefly before turning back to the computer. A KC .38, similar to the one I carry, but Soto's was the standard issue while mine was custom designed by Seto. The other difference, of course, was that one was pointing at the back of my head. "Is that a KC .38?" I asked, letting my voice quiver a bit.
"I said stand up!" he ordered.
"Are you going to shoot me?"
"I will if you don't stand up!" I shivered. I almost didn't move but at this distance even a blind man could hit a target. I stood up. "Who are you?"
"Would you believe me if I said Kaiba Mokuba?" This was a bad time to tease security, but I couldn't help myself. He started it.
"Fine. Don't answer." He walked up behind me, put the gun's barrel on the back of my neck and reached for my right arm.
I fought not to moan out loud, but the gun barrel was too much. He grabbed my arm and pulled it behind me. I wanted to let him cuff me. Maybe he'd put the gun barrel in other, more sensitive places. This is why I don't like sex; I can't find partners who want to play with my toys.
Common sense quickly reined in my sick fantasies and while he was trying to hold me one-handed – rookie mistake – I pulled my gun left-handed and turned around. He jumped and fired and the bullet went past my neck close enough to burn as it went by. That was enough to get me all the way hard.
They were always stunned to find themselves disarmed and flat with me sitting on top of them. "I'll bet I'm enjoying this way more than you are," I said as I cocked his gun again. I had my legs wrapped around his hips and he turned pale as my real meaning sunk in on him. I used the barrel of my gun to stroke his torso. "Bulletproof." I reached back with his gun and stroked his crotch. "Not bulletproof."
"Don't…don't…oh, God…please…."
Kaiba Security doesn't whimper, I thought with disgust. "How long have you worked here?"
"Two weeks."
"If you live through this, quit."
"Yes, sir."
I kept stroking him with the important barrel while I pulled his radio. I changed the frequency. "Tamura. This is Kaiba. Where are you?"
It was a moment before he answered. "Kaiba-san? My apologies, sir. There is an intruder at the Kaiba Office and we were asked to assist."
Apparently, the exchange scared Soto as much as my sitting there did. Or maybe it was the proximity of live ammo to his privates. I grinned at him and moved the gun to someplace dry. "I don't suppose you're on the 12th floor, by any chance?"
"No, I'm out front. Where are you, sir? Just by chance."
"I happen to be on the 12th floor doing homework." I had a sudden thought. "Tamura, when I got back from Paris did my security protocols get reactivated in all the offices?"
There were a few moments of silence. "We're checking, sir." There was a little more silence. I rubbed Soto's gun along his cheek, wishing our positions were reversed. "Kaiba-san? This office was never informed of your safe return home. Your ID and password were flagged."
"But not disabled?"
"We wanted to catch anyone who used them, sir. We wanted to talk to them." Talk was probably the last thing they had planned for my kidnappers.
"Tamura, I'd like to stand up now." Actually, I wouldn't but Soto looked freaked out enough. "If I do, is anyone going to shoot a me?"
There was silence for a moment again and then I heard Tamura's voice from radios surrounding me, calling them to stand down. I stood up.
"Kaiba-san!" Three members of my own security were leading the pack. They had big guns. The images gave me another shiver.
One of them noticed the bullet hole in the wall and another caught the red mark on my neck.
"That was me," I said, daring Soto to say something.
"But sir, you couldn't have…."
"I think I know when I have fired a round," I said flatly. "This is all a small misunderstanding. I didn't check in with the security office here when I came in to do a little homework. Officer Soto surprised me. I got a little nervous and fired. I'm sure that explanation will satisfy everyone." I looked at Soto. "Isn't that what you remember?"
"Yes," he said simply.
I looked at the ranking officer in front of me. "Fujimoto?" He bowed. "As far as training exercises go, I think you all did quite well. I could have escaped Soto, perhaps, but I could not have gotten past all of you. Excellent job. Now, if you will excuse me, I'd like to finish my research." Fujimoto ordered the men back. Soto paused and almost found the balls to ask for his gun back. I locked it, kissed the barrel and offered it. He looked a little sick and let me keep it.
I downloaded everything I could to a thumb drive. Then I went into the machine's history and erased my searches. It wouldn't hide my trail; just give me more time to decide what to tell Dad. This one, he'd hear about.
Then, just because, I looked up gun porn. Pictures of naked people and guns. Some male, some female. Sometimes rubbing against skin, sometimes inserted into rude places. I found myself rubbing Soto's gun against myself as I looked. I had a feeling that this wasn't a healthy fetish. But there was something so hot about guns. Something I found both phallic and yonic at the same time. Something I found more erotic than any other image – even watching people have sex in the bed next to me.
Monsieur Bernard was as close as I'd come. But I told him that he had to play my way – not in the locker room at school and not with the other boys. He said that I was too young to tell him what to do. I told him if he wanted to play with me, it had to be my way and if he ever tried to touch me against my will, I'd feed him his own dick and stab his eyes out. I didn't know at the time just how sick he really was.
The thing that scared me, though, through the whole kidnapping wasn't the danger of being hurt or the threat of being a sex slave. It wasn't even the thought that I'd never see Seto or Dad again – although that was a close second.
What really scared me down deep? What still catches me off guard at odd moments and makes me shiver, is the fact that, if Bernard had used a gun instead of a knife in Hat Yai, I would have let him do whatever he wanted.
I sighed heavily. It would be embarrassing to have to explain a stain on my pants and I had a hot tub I could be discrete in at the hotel. I started to log out and stopped.
KaibaCorp never had a bio-weapons division that I knew of, but it was worth a quick search. There was a security lock on the search but I overrode it. There was only one folder.
It had been created 16 years ago by Kaiba Kisara.
Inside, was her journal; the log of the experiment she was working on with a young Arab idealist. You could almost read how she fell in love with him. You could also read how worried she was about her family approving of their work. It stopped abruptly. I copied the folder and took it with me too.
I erased the bio-weapon search and the porn search and turned off everything.