Chapter Ten: The Truth

Disclaimer: I had a dream where I was surrounded by money, I had a famous manga turned anime and several people where making fanfics about my creation. Then I woke up.

A/N: IDEA FROM KILNORC'S REVIEW! Thanks, BB!

Marik paced back and forth, not stopping even when a blade nearly nicked his arms a few times as they flew across the room. "I want her."

"Chill."

"I want to make her scream and cry."

"Chill."

"I need her pain."

"Knock it off! We'll take her tonight." The thief balanced a knife on his fingertip, watching as a small trail of blood left the tiny wound to travel down his hand. "I'll send them after her."

Marik snorted. "And risk getting caught by Kaiba's guard dogs? I think not."

Bakura's eyes shone as he leaned forward from his laid back pose. "She leaves with the kid." Flipping the blade, he caught it between two fingers and threw it through Marik's legs to hit a painting behind him. Marik never paused to realize how close that was to emasculating him nor did he even care. "We'll get her when they leave again. After all, he and the brat look-a-like leave for the office then she and the kid walk around the town. We'll snag her then."

"And have Kaiba bearing down on us?"

"Unless we make it look like someone else did it."

Marik looked at his partner in crime. "And how, pray tell, are we to do that?"

Bakura grinned evilly, his voice coming out in hisses. "Manipulation."

Kaiba watched as his kid brother's were loaded into a limo and driven off to the mutt's party. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tea sigh as she watched the disappearing limo's taillights. "You're free to do as you wish for this one evening," he said, noticing that she turned her head in his direction. "You're not needed now; I have no use for you."

As she watched her master leave, Tea held out a hand. "Please wait." His head turned in her direction as he paused. "Why did you buy me?"

"You were familiar." Walking out of the room, he had to remember exactly why he bought her. It wasn't that the mutt or the King of Games wanted her, but because it was her eyes. They reminded him of something in his past, something that once had great joy and meaning in his life before it was ripped away.

Gozoboro, his step father, he used to have friends over constantly. But there was a change in him one day as he kicked out a friend. Giggles once filled the great manor but now they were gone, never to return. He did remember something about that day, after seeing a man stand up to his step father, his wife cowering, trying to plead with both her husband and Gozoboro but it was tear filled eyes, innocent eyes that shouldn't have been crying in the first place, eyes that looked between the two fighting men and him. He remembered holding a hand but then it was pulled away and screams filled his ears.

He and Mokuba were adopted by Gozoboro so that he may teach his son that having siblings was another way of survival. Noa was the same age as Mokuba, both two years old when the screams were heard, when the darker side of the eldest Kaiba was shown, when their lives changed forever.

"That House was weak, every member weak, lower than slaves and now they will never return!" That was Gozoboro's prediction about the crumbled House, the last that was ever heard of before all records of its history was destroyed, the manor burned and family separated.

That joy will never return, the happiness will never fill the Kaiba manor now and it was because Gozoboro betrayed them. Seto Kaiba grit his teeth, blocking the memories out. He needed to think of his duties as a Lord, not remembering what he did as a child.

Carrying a small backpack, Tea traveled through the city. She had passed by Tristan as he was on his way to Duke's party, his jacket blowing in the breeze as he raced forward on his motorcycle. A girl was on his back and from her colors, she too was of the House of Wheeler. Tea was sincerely glad that she wasn't going to the party, not just because of her master's orders, but because she didn't want to embarrass her charges, being their plaything and all.

Familiarity came to her as she traveled through paths untaken by everyone else, roads forbidden by everyone else. Tall weeds suggested that where she walked had never seen the care of a person, never known the feel of hands that dig in the garden. Tea turned her gaze from the weeds, never slowing her pace, turned and saw how far she was from town. Across the busy city of Domino, she saw on a hill Kaiba manor, the mansion that was now her home.

Tea continued her walk, brushing off the briars that clung to her clothes, the leaves that caught in her hair, finally stopping, leaning against a giant ruined pillar to take off her shoe and dump the dirt that traveled through her socks. Once her shoe was back on, Tea turned to look at the support she was leaning on. Vines traveled up the pillar, crossing with other vines, perhaps from the same species, leaves covering the stone's color from her eyes. Looking past the pillar, past a few iron rods that would have been a gate, Tea saw the framework of a manor.

"I know this place." Walking down weed infested walkways, passing by crumbled fountains, the feeling of déjà vu returned. Picking up the fallen cherub's head from the fountain, she brushed off the dirt. "You've seen the history of this. Tell me, what happened?" Still holding the marble head, Tea walked up creaky old wooden steps, listening to the planks groan from disuse from so many years. The wrap-around porch, dirty, dusty, yellow from pollen, creaked loudly as Tea walked its path, finding what would have been the front door.

A fireplace and mantle still stood and to its left, a charred couch, a pillow black and cracked. Some of the walls still remained up but only in pieces, showing that they were once a brilliant shade of red, beautiful English ivy molding circled the walls, kissing the floorboards. Walking room by room, she viewed everything with a heavy heart. Who ruined this lovely house by burning it to the ground? Who would ruin a home where a wife laughed with her child and a husband adored his family?

A small doll sat in a chair all still in a room. Paintings and portraits leaning against walls, light shining in through broken windows, a small tree growing in the corner of the room, but Tea's attention was to the doll. Picking up the poppet tenderly, Tea set down the cherub's head and traced the face of the doll, feeling the different fabrics that had been used, gently squeezing to know the softness of the fluff inside. She had a doll like this, she was sure of it.

The chair still held its color, even throughout the years. Its pink surface yielded to the rose carving in the back, petals and leaves, chipping in the corners. Why are they familiar? Setting the doll back down, she turned to the paintings, flipping through them to find out some sort of history. Coming to the last potato, the size of a poster board, Tea's breath caught in her throat.

In the painting was a father, one arm on his wife's shoulder, deep blue eyes sparkling under proud lines of his eyebrows, breath of his forehead and laugh lines on his face. His wife with wide cheek bones, heart shaped face, held her husband's hand with one hand, a knowing smile on her face, vivid green eyes twinkling with youth . They were in love, they were happy. But it wasn't that the woman looked exactly like her mother or that the man resembled the memories of her father, but it was the fact that she was in the painting. Both her mother and father's hands on her shoulders, her hands on her doll, dimples in her chubby cheeks, short brown hair pulled back with a head band, the color of gold. Gold, their color, her color.

"I'm a Lady?"