Since it has been a while since the last update, here is a brief synopsis of everything that has happened so far:
Chapter 1: Seto has given up dueling, plans on moving to America at the end of the summer. Seto and grandpa do not get on well.
Chapter 2: Jounouchi visits the Kaiba mansion, finds that its only contents rile up unpleasant memories in the Kaiba brothers.
Chapter 3: Jounouchi and Shizuka visit their comatose father in the hospital. They are both struggling to process the events that occurred in ancient Egypt and their places in the new world that has been created.
Chapter 4-5: Mokuba finally discovers the truth behind Seto's ancient past
Chapter 6-7: Jounouchi begins to doubt Kaiba's mental stability and more layers of mystery are revealed at the Kaiba mansion dinner party
Chapter 8-9: Kaiba surprises everyone (including himself) by offering to help Jounouchi forge the documents necessary for him to pass as a Japanese citizen
Chapter 10: Reunions with old friends and pondering the uncertainty of the future (and mysteries of the past) put both Jounounchi and Kaiba on edge during the Industrial Illusions gala.
Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and/or favorited. I love you all. More thanks to the people over at r/yugioh for helping me with the dueling "scene." As short as it is, I'm clueless enough about Duel Monsters that I still needed the help.
Warning: there is some dark imagery in this chapter. The rating will also probably (definitely) be going up in the next chapter. Get excited?
Title for this chapter comes from the song Break Me Out by The Rescues
xx
Seto shut his eyes as the warm, electric air whipped across his face. His throat tightened, heart raced. The same celestial flame that had burned him to the ground the first time the Other Yuugi had roused the card's dormant spirit touched him again—and it roared.
Even after that first fire had gone out, the embers had continued to smolder inside him. And the echo of her roar had only became more agonized—an endless intoxicating call that beckoned him closer to the void—not to fall, but to kick off from the ground and soar into the sun.
Seto's eyes snapped open, and he crashed back to Earth.
Mokuba had always had a habit of twirling his hair when he was nervous. It was standing on end now, sticky and matted with the same sweat that trickled down his forehead. His toes were grinding into the ground, his lip beginning to bleed where he was biting it. His eyes were shrapnel—and completely impenetrable to doubt or fear when he should have been terrified.
Seto leaned forward, nearly pressing his forehead against the glass. For a moment he could see everything at once: Mokuba—one small spark refusing to falter in the face of the raging inferno towering over him—and his own pale reflection floating above them. And above, around, somehow between and inside them was a small girl with a broken collarbone and failing voice, a girl whose body had shattered under the weight of her own glorious soul.
But Seto blinked, and the girl had gone. All he could see was a glistening silver projection. It was nothing to fear, possessed nothing to revere. What had once been a powerful crescendo was now a tepid and empty silence that hung off the walls of the testing facility. And yet—
The sight still made his heart stop.
He still had to bite his tongue to keep from crying.
Seto jerked away from the window and pinched his shoulder blades together.
"How is he doing."
Isono looked up from his monitor, slightly startled. "Quite well, actually. Heart rate is normal, blood pressure too—"
"Hm." He crossed his arms and frowned. "The duel disk must not be delivering enough power."
"Excuse me, sir, but—isn't this a good thing? I need hardly remind you of the difficulties we've already encountered trying to market a device that has the reputation of sending able-bodied teenagers to the hospital."
Seto turned back towards Mokuba. "I just want the game to feel exciting."
He pretended that he couldn't hear Isono scoff behind him.
Mokuba was, in fact, doing remarkably well. Allowing the computer to get three Blue Eyes onto the field had been a poor move and one that—Seto had noticed—could have easily been avoided. He was surprised that Mokuba hadn't seen the opportunity or—perhaps, having seen it—failed to grasp it. Yet, his eyes weren't widened by the realization that he had made a mistake, his face betrayed no tremor of shame or regret. And—Seto noticed—he wasn't looking at the cards in his hand or his monster on the field. He wasn't even looking at the dragon at all, but through it, to something that Seto couldn't see.
Even as it was beginning to wrap its jaws around him, Mokuba didn't tremble. He grinned. He smiled like the sun, like a blast of fresh air, as if he were reuniting with a long-lost and half-forgotten friend. He smiled as if he had been that friend, and he was finally coming home.
The dragon was lunging towards him, fast and fierce enough to tear the ground out from under his feet and bright enough to drain the color from his skin and loud—loud enough to fill every void in in the universe with a cruel, rapturous, angelic scream and Mokuba was the darkness in her eyes and the shadows in her heart and had they always been this way—so intertwined—as if they had burst from the same small singularity?
"I discard my Dragon Zombie to activate my spell card." Mokuba spoke like a still, dark ripple. "And I play—Lightning Vortex!"
She had been dismantled—dissected—by knives of light and shadow. There had been a rupture that ran from the blackness beyond the stars into the center of the Earth and everything had erupted with darkness and emptiness and death. Her blood was crusted on his arms. Dripping down his chest. His voice shook when he tried to call her name. Her eyes were open but she didn't see him—she was staring, just staring ahead…
She had crumbled into ash between his fingers. But—still half-blinded by light and by black grief—Seto thought that he could glimpse what those ashes had become.
The arena was clear. Mokuba turned around and smiled.
"That's enough."
"What?"
"The simulation is over."
"Wha—but why?"
Seto sighed and turned away. "Because I said so." He gestured towards Isono. "Turn it off."
Mokuba rushed at the glass. "I was about to win!"
"That's conjecture."
"I was!"
"You had no monsters on the field."
"Neither did you!" Seto spun to face him. "I mean…the computer…"
"This was just a training exercise. The final outcome doesn't matter."
Mokuba scowled. "You can't be serious! You've always said—"
"When am I not serious?" Seto closed his eyes and frowned. When he opened them again, his gaze was unfocused. "You did very well. Remember what you have learned for next time." He marched out of the observation deck, shutting off the lights in the testing arena as he went.
Mokuba hurled his duel disk to the ground and raced after him.
"Nii-sama—"
"We're not discussing this."
Mokuba slid between the elevator doors just as they were about to close on him. "You're right—we're not. That's the whole problem!" He frowned. "You never give me a straight answer about anything!"
"That's not true." Seto eyed the numbers flashing at the top of the elevator door. 28 29 303132. He tried to suffocate the warm, syrupy, rushing feeling.
"It is though! You never told me about moving, you never told me about Egypt, and now-"
"You want to move, we already talked about Egypt. It was…too complicated."
Mokuba's expression cooled slightly. "I know, but…it just doesn't feel the same as it did before…" He shifted the weight between his feet. "You're not telling me everything, either. I can tell. And it's affecting me too, now."
Seto sighed like a begrudgingly unclenching fist. "I know. But I'm still trying to figure it all out for myself, Mokuba. It's…" He swallowed his words and wished that he could swallow more—wished that everything could disappear back inside and him and disappear so easily.
"What?"
"Nothing." Mokuba looked scared now. Scared and small and alone in a way that he hadn't in the duel arena.
"Why do you not trust me anymore?"
Seto felt the elevator jolt to a halt; its walls begin to reach in and strangle him. "I—what gave you that idea?!"
Mokuba shrugged. "I know that all the Egyptian magic and stuff is confusing, but it started before that—you know it did."
"Wearenothavingthisconversation."
"But that's exactly what I mean!" Mokuba thrust his hands forward and far apart. "Why can't we even talk about it?"
Seto's only reply was rigid silence and pulsating veins.
"I was thinking about it the other day—when things really began to change. At first I thought it must have been when we moved in with Gozaburo, but that wasn't really it—was it? We could stand him for a little while, when we were together… And then I thought maybe it was the first time you lost to Yuugi…but—but—" He words became thick with memory. "That wasn't it, either. It was, it was—"
Seto grit his teeth. The earth was rattling again. It was steaming. It was lying, ignorant and half-asleep, totally unprepared for the vicious creature that was descending upon it—moments from ripping it apart.
"It was when Noa died!"
Seto slammed his fist into the wall. That name had been forbidden between them for so long that it had stopped existing, but now it came back in fire and twisted steel.
Mokuba's voice was trembling. "We used to be friends, when we were all together. I just…I wish we could go back to the way things were before."
Seto grimaced and spoke in angry shades of black. "That's not possible. He's dead."
"I know, but—" the elevators doors slid open, and Seto whisked past him down the hall. "We're not."
xx
The floor was shaking. The windows were rattling. The air was electric, bristling with fire and fear.
Seto was clinging to the edge of the desk, knuckles white, face whiter.
The office roared with silence and no one looked away from the screen when the lightning bolts began to fall. No one blinked and no one coughed or cowered even as the air started to swim with smoke and acid and ash and the stench of burning flesh and screaming. Endless endless endless screaming.
Only he did. His shoulders were shaking and he was gagging and his insides were about to come pouring out of his throat.
But that wasn't true. Because he wasn't Seto anymore. Seto was locked away in a box inside a box and Seto might have been screaming but he—he certainly was not. He was a smug boy with a sharp, haughty smile and neatly filed nails and bright green hair. Seto was dead and buried in a pile of rubble and blood and he—he was standing here, back straight, staring ahead, unblinking—unfeeling—not thinking at all of that little boy that they had thrown into the furnace that morning, just moments after his eyes closed. They hadn't even bothered to change him out of his hospital gown, they hadn't taken off the emergency room tag and it had melted into his wrist. They had remembered to cover his face in a long, white sheet. He wasn't thinking at all of all the little boys who were joining him now.
Gozaburo clapped him on the back and it took all the strength he had not to collapse in on himself under the weight of his hand.
"You've done well, for once." He laughed, then turned to address the rest of the room. "Now that this Solid Vision technology has demonstrated its potential, prepare a memo for our clients in Italy." His smile was raw and bloody. "I believe we have just witnessed something of massive significance here—the dawn of a new world."
xx
There was a knock on the door.
"Kaiba-sama…?"
Kaiba jerked upright and grimaced. His desk was a mess. Several stacks of paper had fallen on the floor. His Blue Eyes figurine had toppled over, and she wasn't facing him.
"What."
"There is a, um, Jounouchi-sama here to see you."
"Sama?" He muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's a first."
"He says that it's very important."
Kaiba rolled his eyes. He placed a finger to the side of his neck and winced. His heart was still racing.
"Send him in." He wasn't going to get any work done anyway.
Jounouchi stumbled slightly at the threshold. "I have to talk to you." His voice spun and wavered the same way his feet did when he was trying to get somewhere in a hurry.
Seto sniffed. "They have phones for that."
"Well—" Jounouchi rolled his eyes. "I tried that! But—" he gestured towards the trash can at the side of Kaiba's desk, which was overflowing with discarded telephones. "You've made it pretty hard for people to get a message to you!"
Seto looked back and forth between Jounouchi's exasperated face and the spot on his desk where his phone had once been.
"I even tried email, but it kept sending back errors!" He huffed. "And Mokuba said you threw out your cell phone? Well, whatever. I didn't want to have to come down here, but—" his irritation evaporated, and his eyes became dark and dull. "I need your help—with the—thing."
"I already told you—"
"I know! But—" he stepped deeper into the office, first frantically, but then with greater caution. "I had a plan all laid out, right?" He spoke in a tense, low whisper. "I was going to wait until summer was over, when Shizuka wouldn't be around and stuff, then take the train to Tokyo and do the papers myself, but…" He turned away.
"Get on with it."
"Well…." Jounouchi ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes were glistening. "I'm going to have to go over there sooner than I thought…"
"So."
"I don't know how! I don't know the first thing about breaking into office buildings or making forgeries or anything! I thought I would have time to figure it out, but," he shook his head. "But no, it has to be now. As soon as possible."
Seto sighed. "Hm. I assumed you wouldn't have any trouble navigating the criminal underworld, given your background."
Jounouchi shot him a bitter glare. "Hah, that's rich. Do you even know what Domino City gangsters do? Or have you just watched too many movies? Cause let me tell you, it's not that glamorous. And I was never even that good at it. No," he laughed. "I'm no criminal mastermind, but you are. That's why I came here."
Seto raised his brows. "I'm not a criminal."
"Yeah, of course you are. All rich guy types are. And you've done it before, so there's no one more logical to ask."
Seto groaned. His head was pounding so hard he could barely see. "I don't want to get any more involved in your personal drama that I already am."
"That's the thing, though." He grinned the same way he did when he drew a lucky card just in time to claim one of his trademark come-from-behind victories. "You're already involved. You've invested in me, you can't turn your back now."
Seto frowned. "Says who."
"I think it's something they call a conscience? I'm sure you've got one locked away in there somewhere that you take out for special occasions."
"Hmph."
Jounouchi grinned. Kaiba was still scowling, but his posture was less rigid, his eyes less defensive.
"Ah, c'mon. I know you're not working—let's go on an adventure!"
xx
They left just after the sun set. Jounouchi had watched it sink into the horizon from the longue on the seventh floor—a thick smear of freshly slaughtered fuchsia, a color rich and sweet enough to eat.
Jounouchi had tried to convince Kaiba that they had to leave at once, but he had insisted they wait until the end of the day. So he had wasted six hours prowling what little of Kaiba Corp headquarters was open to the public and dodging the scathing glares of its employees.
But now the office was flushed out, leaving Jounouchi in the jaws of his mounting anxiety. He had tried dodging that, too—but it always seemed to find him. Lurking in the seams of the carpet, the casements of the windows, inside a crack in the bathroom window—every crevice had rattled static and black.
He sighed and looked out the window. The red seeped out of the sky and into all the cracks and fissures and filled them up. It flooded the building one floor at a time, soaked every surface, and tugged at the heels of the man who was standing behind him now, watching him as he gazed out the window.
Pressed against the window, Jounouchi's silhouette was the tallest shape on the skyline.
"Do you want to go or not."
"Huh? Ah—yeah! I've only been waiting for you for ages!"
"I was working," he sneered. "I have more important things to do than run errands for you." Seto had spent the last six hours arranging and rearranging his office furniture.
"Have you ever considered how many times I've come this close to punching you in the face?"
Seto grinned. "So what's stopping you?"
"Sometimes I ask myself the same question," Jounouchi mumbled.
They didn't speak again until Kaiba's keys were in the ignition.
"So? Are we gonna go or what?" Jounouchi tapped his fingers on the dashboard, seething at Kaiba as he leisurely adjusted the mirrors.
"Tell me why."
Jounouchi sighed and scowled. "Don't tell me I have to convince you again. We just went over this!"
Seto turned to him. "I don't like being told what to do, and I definitely do not like having to change my plans for other people—especially without just cause. So tell me why. Why tonight. And make it good or we're not going." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, leather seats that were always slick and cold.
"Well, you remember how we—met—at the employee dorms?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"My dad's…friend was supposed to meet me there that day, but he never showed up. For a couple days I thought—hoped—that he might have given up, but—" he shook his head. "No luck. He called me again last night, told me that he'd report us all in a week if I don't pay him whatever it is that my dad owes him. Heck, I don't even know how much it is. I don't want to know. So," he smiled, weakly. "I just want to get this whole thing over with as soon as possible. I need to get on with my life and not—well—not feel so afraid all the time. Like I'm just some faker and everyone's about to find me out. So long as this thing is hanging over me it's like—like I'm not even a real person." He laughed to hide the way his voice was beginning to shake. "Me and Shizuka are on the edge of losing everything, and it's up to me to do whatever I can to keep that from happening." He stuck out his lip defiantly. "That a good enough reason for you?"
Seto continued staring at him for several moments, eyes wide around the edges, as if Jounouchi had just revealed an unexpected trap card that sent his entire strategy crumbling to ruin.
He turned the keys and the engine rumbled like a tank and whined like a falling bomb.
"It'll have to do."
xx
After fifteen minutes on the road Jounouchi was already wishing that he had taken the train.
The Domino City lights were dust behind them, the dark and quiet of the country ahead ripped to shreds by the glowering headlights of Kaiba's car. Jounouchi's heart kept time with the pounding of the engine. And the road was jagged and sharp; each time Kaiba made a sudden turn Jounouchi was sure that it would be their last. They were clinging to the edge of the coastline, just moments away from careening into the ocean.
"Hey—hey, Kaiba." Jounouchi poked him on the arm, trying to ignore the warm, sticky feeling seeping up through his chest.
"Don't touch me."
"Try to guess what I'm thinking about."
"Why do you insist on irritating me."
"I just want a distraction, okay?! I feel like I'm going to be sick."
"Just don't do it in the car."
"Ugh!" Jounouchi flung himself against his seat. "I'm just kidding."
"No, you're not."
Jounouchi glared at him. "Hmph. Okay, Mr. Know-It-All, what am I thinking about then?"
"Knowing you—probably nothing."
"Nope."
"I'm genuinely shocked."
"Guess again."
Seto sighed. "No."
"God, why are you so stubborn?! It's just a stupid game."
"I'm not your babysitter. Leave me alone."
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but leaving you alone might be a bit difficult given our current, uh, situation."
"You could ride in the trunk."
"Cute. Okay, I'll start you off: animal, vegetable, or mineral? Mineral. There, you have nineteen more."
Seto side-eyed him. "I'm going to make you ride in the trunk."
Jounouchi grinned. So long as they were talking, the world racing past their window didn't seem so ferocious and dark. The claws of the Ministry of Health building couldn't seize him. The night was swallowed up by the promise of tomorrow, and all he could feel was the stirring of a glorious sunrise aching to be free.
"No you're not."
"Don't test me."
Jounouchi laughed. "Geez, doesn't it kill you being so serious all the time? Would it really hurt that much to lighten up every once in a while—and you know, actually have fun?" He gulped when Kaiba turned to face him, face bristling with cold fury. "You might want to, uh, keep your eyes on the road…"
"Who do you think you are."
"I d—"
His voice steepened. "Oh no, I get it. You think you're being funny, right? Or helping me? That's always been the explanation you and your idiot friends fall back on. You've all made it your project to fix me, and you expect me to be grateful. And for what—for fucking with my mind, bossing me around, never giving me a moment of peace of quiet?!
"And," he growled. "You had the nerve to expect me to embrace some—mystical bullshit—that destroyed the reputation of my company, endangered my family, and fucking nearly killed me and get offended when I wanted nothing to do with it! You thought it was all so easy," he sneered. "Just ignore the fact that it's dangerous, just fling yourself into this situation that you don't understand and can't control and that is going to fucking destroy you. Ignore all your doubts and just believe everything anyone with some stupid piece of Egyptian jewelry tells you and do everything they say because that's the nice thing to do."
The tone of his voice changed suddenly from glowering coal to splintered ice. "You always talked about believing as if it were a choice I could make. None of you have ever understood me at all, but that's never stopped you from telling me how to live my life. Just cut it out."
"Oh, uh," Jounouchi suddenly noticed that he had begun to cower against the far side of the car. "Well, maybe you've got a point. It just seemed natural at the time, that you would be involved. I never really thought—"
"That I was a fucking human being? No, you never did."
"Hey, that's not fair! We stuck our necks out for you a lot. More times than you deserved!"
"So that you could continue to use me."
"That's not true! Yuugi, Anzu, and me—we all think of you as a friend! Geez, can't you at least see that?!"
Seto continued to glare at him for several moments. Jounouchi suddenly felt that the night had become several shades darker. "Have I seen it before."
"Uh, what?"
"Your—whatever it is you're thinking of. Have I seen it before."
Jounouchi smiled. "No. Not in person, anyway."
Seto turned back to the road.
"You know, uh, I don't mean to be bossy or anything—but if you want people to understand you, it might be easier if you open up to them a little bit."
"I never said I wanted anyone to understand me. I said that I don't want them shoving their judgment down my throat."
"Okay, fine. Just don't get annoyed when people don't get you, then."
"Is it unique."
"There's only one as far as I know." He paused. "Do you really want to be all alone?"
Seto's jaw clenched. "Just drop it."
"I don't know…it just seems kind of…lonely."
"I don't live by your standards."
"Is your life really so miserable that you just can't stand to share any part of it with anyone else?"
Seto's eyes flashed in his direction, but he only responded by tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
"I mean, just speaking from personal experience, the only times I've tried to shut people out as hard as you do was when I was…ashamed of myself I guess. Like, I didn't want anyone else to know what was going on my life because I didn't even want to face it myself. Is that's what going on with you?"
"Why do you care."
"Because I care about you!"
"Because you pity me."
"Well, kind of, yeah. If you want to be blunt about it."
Seto grimaced as if he had just said a fowl word. "Don't."
Jounouchi snickered. "Look who's being bossy now."
"I'm under no obligation to change my way of life just to make you more comfortable."
"Just thought I'd give you the opportunity, that's all."
"Hn."
Jounouchi watched the ocean churning beyond the passenger window. He considered breaking the silence several times, but everything he wanted to say was consumed by black, swirling waves and dragged to the bottom of the ocean floor.
"Does it still exist."
"Not really."
"Not really? You have to give a yes or no answer."
"Technically it still exists, but not in the same form it was made in."
"What are you talking about."
"It's—broken. Most people probably wouldn't recognize it if they saw it now, unless they knew what they were looking for." He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "It took you forty-five minutes to ask that one question."
"I wasn't aware that this game had a time limit."
"It doesn't, but geez, you could try to move it along a little."
"I'm strategizing. But I'm not surprised that that concept is unfamiliar to you."
Jounouchi chuckled. "I don't think you're strategizing. You're stalling. You have no idea."
"I—"
"Nope. None.."
"That's not true."
"Oh yeah? Prove it. Ask me another question. Right now."
Seto flexed his hands against the steering wheel. "Alright," he seethed. "Here's one I've been meaning to ask: how does a kid whose father fucked over his entire family with gambling debt get the bright idea of stacking his deck with chance cards? Now there's a pathetic strategy."
"I—I—well, I never thought about it that way before…"
Seto smirked. "It seems like you say that a lot. Do you prefer to have your cards do all the thinking for you?"
"No! That's not it at all!" Jounouchi leaned his head back and gazed out at the road racing by. "Those cards have saved my butt when I was in some pretty tight situations."
"Exactly. Relying on luck is the last resort of the completely desperate."
"Well, they do come in handy." Jounouchi sighed. "But I think there's more to it than that…I-I think…."
"Well?"
"I guess you don't get it because you're always trying to be in control of everything all the time. Growing up, I never had control over anything. I couldn't change what my parents did, what people thought of me. It was like the whole world was just—I don't know—spinning around me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And I was just being dragged along. Luck was always something someone else had and I never did. I guess I like having it on my side every once in a while for a change."
"That's so stupid."
Jounouchi bristled. "You asked a question, I gave an honest answer. If you don't like it then that's your problem."
"Luck doesn't get you anywhere."
Jounouchi snorted. "Then what does? Beating people up and whining? I tried to do it that way, too—it didn't turn out that well."
"Conscious action."
"There's no such thing."
"Of course—"
"Conscious of what? You just can't know everything. You can't control everything."
Seto made an angry sound in the back of this throat that morphed into scorching laughter. "Of course. That explains so much."
"Explains what?"
"It's no wonder you all lapped up all that mystical nonsense so easily. You think life is all miracles and luck and destiny. You've never even tried to own your own actions."
"Hey!" Jounouchi slapped the dashboard hard enough to make the bones in his arm rattle. "I did try! And you know what happened?! I only hurt people!" The words rushed out of him like billows of steam, and they burned on contact just the same. "And can you be so arrogant, so pig-headed, that you honestly believe that you aren't lucky to be where you are?! You think someone just handed Kaiba Corp over to you because you deserved it?!"
Kaiba had turned away from the road again. The lines of his face were frozen solid, but his eyes were thunderstorms. "Yes, that is precisely what I think." He swallowed and didn't speak again for several moments. "It wasn't luck. It wasn't destiny. I earned my position through the choices that I made. And at least I can acknowledge that. I've never tried to shrink from my responsibilities or hand them off to anyone else or any superstitious bullshit."
"Neither have I."
Seto scoffed. "And the heart of the cards? Don't try to convince me that that's anything more than some kind of psychological security blanket."
Jounouchi scowled. "Yeah, well, you didn't have too much of a problem with it when you needed a security blanket yourself. And you know it wasn't bullshit! We went to ancient Egypt!"
Seto fell silent. When he spoke again, his voice was tense, cold, and small. "Did we really?"
Jounouchi gawked at him. "Yeah—of course we did! Did you hit your head on the way back or something? We were there."
"What makes you so sure."
"I—" He could feel the fire blazing against his face, could hear Diabound's sickening roar. He remembered dark caves and the blistering sand and battered lifeless bodies left to rot in the streets while the sky above them shattered and shook. "I—I just know. I mean, don't you remember?"
"I remember entering a state of altered consciousness. Beyond that it's impossible to draw firm conclusions. And besides," he added, somewhat ominously. "Nothing changed. I looked it up."
"Looked up what."
"Twenty-four acts of genocide have been committed since World War II-the exact same number as before we left." When Jounouchi's only response was furrowed brows he sighed and continued. "Do I really have to spell it out to you? Wherever we went—it doesn't matter. Nothing we did made a difference. Everything is exactly the same as it was before."
The world suddenly erupted with light. They had entered Tokyo.
Jounouchi leaned away from the window. Even past midnight the city was a roaring rainbow of fiber-optic streets. Jounouchi was amazed that the earth didn't crumble under the weight of city's endless eyes and arteries, that it didn't drag the stars down into its orbit. The night seemed to fray at the edges and the fact that Tokyo was the first city in the world to see the sunrise suddenly struck him with a new significance.
"This place can't be real," he murmured.
"Out of all the places you've been—this is the one you think is make-believe?"
"It's just so big."
The layers of the city peeled away as they continued driving. The candy and sunshine colors faded from the sky, the streets grew quiet and cool and followed straight, sensical lines.
Seto stopped the car.
"Time to get out."
Jounouchi bristled. "We're…there. Already? Man, time sure flies when you're having fun, right? Ha…"
Seto narrowed his eyes. His lips were twitching. "You're not chickening out now. Come on—get out. We're walking the rest of the way."
Jounouchi's hand hesitated a moment on the door handle.
"Hurry up," Seto barked. "We're going this way."
Jounouchi followed Seto's shadow through a large park, trying to avoid looking at the building looming ahead, trying to remember to breathe.
"I can't believe I'm actually doing this…"
Kaiba grunted. He wasn't looking ahead, either. "Just stop talking." He pulled a large dark object out of his overcoat.
Jounouchi's footsteps quickened behind him. "What is that?"
"Relax—it's just a Taser. A necessary precaution."
"Just don't point that thing at me."
"Don't get in my way and I won't have to." He chuckled and the air around them turned cold and rigid. The moonlight seemed to cut against his face, giving it a maniacal sharpness that Jounouchi had last seen on the frightening little boy who had sworn to drive Yuugi down to hell one holographic Blue Eyes attack at a time.
Jounouchi glanced again at the gun glimmering in his hands.
"Well are you coming or not." His voice was cold, jagged—but strangely small. Jounouchi was familiar with the caustic tone of Kaiba's mockery, the carefully paced and calculating way he talked when he was trying to prove a point. This was something entirely different, and it made his heart pound even as he had to bite down to keep his teeth from chattering.
He thought of his bed back at the game shop. The way Yuugi's room was never completely dark because of the skylight and Yuugi had told him that Atem used to appear in that light and that had been the first way he had ever seen him. He had thought it was a dream.
And he thought of Shizuka asleep down the hall. Soon she would go back home.
He gulped, and his eyes darted to the building looming over them, to Kaiba, who looked like he was about to start spewing smoke. He suddenly understood why he hadn't told Yuugi and Shizuka where he was going—why he hadn't told them that he was going at all. They would be worn away in these brutal, steel-tipped nights.
Kaiba stopped him at the door and tried to wrench the papers out of his hand.
"Wait here."
"Wha—" Jounouchi pulled away. "No way! I'm doing this myself."
Seto rolled his eyes. "Don't be an idiot. You don't know what you're doing—you said that yourself."
"So, what—I'm supposed to just hang out down here? Why did you bring me here in the first place?" He rubbed eyes. "I could be sleeping right now, you know."
"Because I'm not your errand boy."
"Or you just wanted the company."
Seto lunged forward, snatching the papers out of his hands.
"Hey, you can't—"
"Wait here."
"Those are mine."
Seto laughed. "No, they're not. Now wait here and don't make a scene."
"Oh, I'm the one making a scene?! I—"
He was alone. Kaiba had vanished.
Jounouchi snorted and leaned against the wall. "Out of all the people in the world…" He glared up at the rows of dark windows and sighed. He forced himself to unclench his fists. In a few hours the sun would rise, and he would never have to lurk in the shadows again.
xx
The building was shaking out of its foundations. They were screaming and crying, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. They didn't know what was coming for them and they never would know because the instant it hit them they would be gone.
Seto stumbled down the hall. It was exactly as he had left it—these government buildings were frozen in time.
He counted five doors.
The lights flickered.
They had told him not to run. But what else could he do when the walls were collapsing and the shadows were catching up—tugging at his clothes and coiling around his neck? And what else could he do if he didn't make it in time and he was too late to stop them and there was nothing he could do. He was sliding down the hall and there was nothing he could do.
He counted five doors.
Kaiba tugged open a file cabinet, tore out a manila folder.
The same way they tore out his IV.
Rearranging names on a family tree was just like rearranging the borders on a map. It was like blasting off cities and blasting off people. It was just like watching the flatline on a heart monitor. It was changing his clothes and dying his hair and burying his parents and changing his name. It was turning off the television when the demonstration was over.
But the city kept burning. Their partners kept clapping. The city kept burning and the people were still screaming as all the iron in their blood became gold and what did gold become if not more blood?
And his hand was still warm under it suddenly wasn't.
For a moment, after he took out the old file and before he put in the new one, he was no one. The Jounouchi family was floating in space, flickering in and out of existence.
He laughed. The lights came back on.
All he had to do was erase some lines—a messy web of names and dates—and write in the new ones. And the Jounouchi family was standing on earth again. And so was Mokuba.
But there was one more coin to flip. He stared himself in the eye and they both knew that it would always come down to this. This hallway and this room and this stack of yellowed paper.
He let go of Noa's hand, and the light was roaring in him now and blasting through him until there was nothing left but gold and screaming.
The building was shaking again.
xx
"Hey—hey! Anybody home in there?!"
Seto squirmed away from the pressure on his shoulders. "S-stop shaking…"
Jounouchi stepped away slightly and stared down at him. "What happened to you."
"Nothing. I-I'm fine."
Jounouchi scoffed. "You call this fine?! I mean…" His voice dried.
"Let's just go. I want to get out of here." Seto leapt to his feet, and the whole world was pounding and dark and angry. He sat back down.
"Yeah, you're not going anywhere anytime soon." Jounouchi paced slow semi-circles around him, each one slightly tighter than the one before. "Give me your keys, I'll drive back."
"Absolutely not. I'm fine. Just—" He jerked himself upright, breathing heavily and clutching his side. "Give me a minute." He began staggering towards the car.
"You're never going to make it."
"Just shut up!"
"Okay. You're fine. Totally normal. So…did you do it?"
Seto nodded. "Your family's all legal now." He stumbled over the loose gravel path. "Of course," words forced out between ragged breaths. "There's still the paperwork for the school and the hospital." He was stumbling as if he were re-learning how to walk. But with each step the screaming softened into a smooth, low moan, the ghosts clawing at his chest lessened their grip, the shape of the dead little boy floating in front of him resolved into a shadow, into a light post, into Jounouchi—running towards him.
"That's amazing!"
Seto flinched when Jounouchi flung his arms around his shoulders. "Get off of me!"
"Nah." Jounouchi's voice was explosive warmth and sunshine rushing against the nape of his neck. "I'm gonna hug you. You've earned it."
"What a dubious honor."
Jounouchi laughed, and as quickly as he had appeared—he was gone, streaking through the darkness. Seto could just make him out—running laps around the pond. His reflection was skipping across the sky.
Jounouchi flung himself down on the damp grass and grinned up at the diminishing night. He was bigger than the sky, higher than the lights flashing at the top of Tokyo tower. And he could run laps around the whole world and never get tired.
"Get over here. We're leaving." Seto was a pale, crumbling smudge in the darkness. The harder he spoke the more his knees buckled.
Jounouchi stood, slowly, but didn't come any closer. He could feel the earth swelling up beneath him, as if a volcano were erupting at his feet. Perhaps he was the volcano. There was magma surging in his veins.
He knew that Seto was still yelling, but his voice was smoke and it was blowing away and Jounouchi was a force that had been born in the very center of the earth and was now, finally, breaking through the surface.
Every step was the biggest he had ever taken, every breath sharper and shallower. His thoughts were too big and too blurry for words so he didn't think—only reached forward into the darkness and pulled Seto down to face him.
All the shadows were flayed and slaughtered. Sliver lightening and spurts of liquid gold. Fire. And simmering blood.
Seto pulled away. "Why did you do that?" He was pale and fragile enough to be crushed by moonlight. His eyes were wide and round and for a moment Jounouchi was reeled back to Duelist Kingdom—to the forest and the gun pressed against his jaw and all the fear that seemed to fester there—and it seemed that they had made a great journey through asteroid belts and empty space to return to exactly where they had been before.
"Are you afraid?" Jounouchi was still clutching Seto's lapels.
"Is that why you did it?" Seto's face was the cool, calm surface of a denoted bomb.
"I—I don't know—"
Jounouchi flinched when Seto grasped his hair, and he held his breath as he pressed his fingers against his scalp. But his other hand hovered just above his skin, trembling as it traced the outline of his spine.
Seto could hear someone giggle over his shoulder. "You can't do this on your own, you know." He closed his eyes and when they kissed again he saw no charred landscapes or fireworks or scars. He saw silver claws and electric blue water and, he thought, fleetingingly—before all his thoughts were melted down—perhaps that was what he had been trying to see when Mokuba was in the duel arena and he had wanted to shatter the glass.
"Come on," one of them mumbled, soft enough to float on the silence. "Let's get out of here."
