Kaiba Mokuba was every bit as much a Kaiba as his big brother. If Yugi had ever doubted it, the proof was before him now.

Shortly after Jounouchi had returned from his errand (which apparently had been a lot more interesting than he had implied it would be when he had left), a luxury sedan had arrived at the game shop to bring him, Yugi, and Anzu to the KC Tower. They were taken around to a private back entrance in the parking lot, and ushered into a private elevator which whisked them direct to the top floor, whereupon Honda met up with them and lead them to Kaiba's office.

And since they had arrived, Mokuba had been hard at work, intent but collected, methodically going over all the data he and his brother had gathered in the past weeks. The narrowed set of his eyes was as familiar to Yugi as the cards of his own deck; he had faced that same intense will in too many duels to ever forget it.

Though it was strange to him, to see that look in Mokuba's gray eyes, not Kaiba's blue. Yugi and his friends had seen this side of Mokuba before, mostly when he had been managing various KaibaCorp tournaments, but never for very long. When he was with them, Mokuba usually acted--not exactly like the kid he was; Yugi was familiar with grade-schoolers from working at the game shop, and Mokuba was about as much like those kids as Kaiba was like a normal teenager--but still a child, at least, in the shameless way he would boast about his big brother and cheer him on, in how he would talk and laugh with all of them. So much smaller than his brother, so much younger, not just in years but in everything. Kaiba always seemed older than them somehow, but Mokuba for all his gifts and intelligence was still a child.

Which was exactly the impression Mokuba made an effort to cultivate, Yugi realized, watching him now. He looked the part, worn jeans and scuffed sneakers, round cheeks and the new tousled yellow hair; but this Mokuba was hardly more a child than his big brother, all the same.

Oh, the cheerful, playful boy wasn't an act, not like Kaiba's fake smiles when they first had known him, before Death-T. Mokuba's child-side was real enough, but it wasn't the whole story. This, now, was the brother who Kaiba relied on, responsible and driven and terrifyingly competent. A businessman--the vice president of a corporation employing some two thousand people, and he bore the weight of that responsibility proudly and strong. Like a Kaiba.

Yugi saw that discipline falter only once this night. When they first arrived, Mokuba was alone in the executive office, sitting on the couch working at his laptop. He greeted them gratefully, but before they could ask any questions the office door opened again and Isono entered. The Kaibas' primary assistant walked right past Yugi and his friends as if they weren't even there, and halted before the couch.

"Mokuba-sama?" he asked, staring questioningly at the bowed, bleached blond head.

Mokuba glanced up, started to say, "Oh, good, that was fast, Isono--"

Only to be interrupted by Isono grabbing his arms, almost knocking his laptop off the table. "Mokuba-sama! It's really you! You're really alive!"

Mokuba blinked. "Um, yes, Isono, that would be how I could call you to ask you to come here--"

"I couldn't believe my ears! There's been rumors, of course, especially with Seto-sama being the way he's been, but there always are, with accidents. No one took them seriously, it didn't seem possible--Seto-sama will be quite relieved to see you, I assume he already knows, but--oh, Mokuba-sama, it's so good to have you back! And not dead!"

"It'd be kind of disgusting, if I were," Mokuba remarked, but his expression was more uncertain than sardonic as he patted the man on the arm. "Yeah, it's really me. Alive. I'm, um, sorry..."

"Of course not, sir. I'm sure there were reasons," Isono said, pushing up his glasses enough to wipe his eyes and blowing his nose on a plaid handkerchief.

Mokuba stared up at his employee, and for that one moment he looked his age, young and helplessly confused. "I--I'm really sorry, Isono."

"Please don't be, Mokuba-sama," Isono requested, respectfully, then let go of his vice president's arms and straightened up, tugging the creases out of his black suit. "Now, there must be a lot to do. What did you call me for?"

Mokuba likewise sat up straighter. "No one saw you coming up here, right? No one should have seen me, either; I'm still publicly dead, barring those rumors you mentioned, so I'll need you to make my calls--" And like that he became Vice President Kaiba again.

Strange to witness that change, almost like looking at two separate individuals. "Stranger than it looks to our friends when it's me dueling instead of you?" his other self pointed out, when Yugi remarked on it. But this wasn't the same. The pharaoh was a different person than he was, a different soul. Mokuba was the same person, and yet...not.

He wasn't the only one who had noticed, either. Yugi caught the looks Honda kept shooting Mokuba's way while Jounouchi related their MainBrain escapades, and Anzu was also watching the boy, brow creased like she was trying to solve a riddle. Mokuba himself didn't pay much attention to any of them, not even to contribute to Jounouchi and Honda's story, being too absorbed with his computer work.

He was polite enough to wait for Jounouchi to finish speaking before he asked, "Anzu? You did get in to see Nii-sama in jail, right?"

"Oh! Yes, of course, I saw him. I should have told you sooner," Anzu said, contrite.

Mokuba waved off the apology. "It's okay, I wanted to check out what I downloaded before I looked at Nii-sama's files anyway. But you got the code from him?"

"Yes, Kaiba-kun didn't hesitate, he gave me the code immediately."

"Of course, Nii-sama knows I need it. I wouldn't have a chance of cracking his computer; he wrote all his own security protocols."

"I've got it right here." Anzu took a slip of paper out of her purse, sat down on the couch next to the boy. "He's worried about you, Mokuba-kun."

Mokuba dropped his head, short bleached bangs hiding his eyes, his tone momentarily depressed. "But Nii-sama should know I can handle this, I've helped him with enough things like this before."

"He's not worried that you wouldn't be able to do it," Anzu told him. "He's worried about you, that something might happen to you. He got upset when I told him that you were going back to MainBrain tonight. But, Mokuba-kun, he wasn't afraid that you were going to fail. I think he was scared that you'd do it, but get caught. But he told me to tell you that he was counting on you."

"He did?" Mokuba's blond head came up. "Nii-sama said that?"

Anzu nodded.

"Well, of course he did!" Mokuba exclaimed. "He always can count on me!" He plucked the slip of paper from Anzu's offering hands, read the password once, then crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it to Isono without looking. "Please burn that right now, Isono."

"Yes, Mokuba-sama," Isono said, and went to Kaiba's desk to fetch an ashtray.

"So," Jounouchi said, leaning over the back of the couch, "if you're not going to be sneaking into MainBrain anymore, why not show everyone you're not murdered after all, and get Kaiba out of jail?"

Mokuba was already typing rapidly on his computer. "Sorry," he said, distracted, "I really got to work on this. And it's getting late. You guys have been a big help, but there's not much you can do now, so why don't you just go home? Isono, have the driver take them back."

Jounouchi rolled his eyes. "We're not useful anymore, so we're dismissed? Typical. Seen one Kaiba, seen 'em all."

Mokuba looked up at that with a guilty start. "Sorry," he said again, more meaningfully. "I appreciate all your help, really I do. But there's a lot to do now, I have to decrypt the files from MainBrain, and go through everything my brother put together on who could've betrayed us, and I don't know how you can help with any of that. But you've already helped me and Nii-sama so much--thank you. Really, really, thank you."

"Aww, forget it." Jounouchi was staring down at his sneakers.

"You're welcome," Anzu accepted the gratitude for all of them. "But, Mokuba-kun, are you really going to work on all that tonight? Like you said, it is getting late; can't you go to bed now and wait until tomorrow?"

"No," Mokuba replied, and the determination in his voice showed in his eyes, turning them steel-gray. "I can't. My brother's in jail--I can't wait, I have to figure this out as soon as possible."

"Oh." Anzu nodded. "We should leave you alone so you can concentrate, I guess." But she looked at the boy's small form hunched over the computer with an unhappy expression, and Honda didn't look any more pleased.

Yugi stepped forward. "Is it okay if I stay?" he asked. "I might be able to help somehow--I'm not great with computers, but decrypting is like code-breaking, and I have played with a lot of codes."

"I guess you can stay," Mokuba allowed.

Anzu looked relieved. "Good--then, good night, Yugi, Mokuba-kun."

"'Night, kid," Honda said, reaching over the couch to ruffle Mokuba's hair, then Yugi's. "'Night, Yugi. Try to get my 'cousin' here to get some sleep?"

Mokuba rolled his eyes; Yugi nodded agreement, and echoed the farewells. "Good night, everyone," Mokuba told them, and Isono saw the three of them out to the elevator.

Once they were gone, the pharaoh turned to Mokuba, asked without preamble, "Mokuba, as Jounouchi-kun asked, why aren't you publicly announcing that you're alive to clear Kaiba's name?"

Mokuba looked down, avoiding that sharp gaze. Yugi might have chided his other self; the boy didn't need any more stress now. But he was just as curious. Mokuba's devotion to his brother was a constant, sure as the rules of any game; for him to be so unconcerned about Kaiba's situation...

Only he wasn't; that much was obvious in the way he bit his lip, still not meeting their eyes. "It's important that MainBrain doesn't find out yet that KaibaCorp's vice president is around. They'll know by now that their data was stolen, but if Nii-sama's still in jail, out of contact, then they'll think KaibaCorp won't be able to do anything with the data. They'll think they have the time to fix things; they'll think they're winning. And when people think they've already won, they get overconfident, they make mistakes." He glanced up at Yugi through his bangs, a sly look. "You know that, Yugi. You and my brother, I've watched you duel."

Which was about the closest Yugi had ever heard Mokuba come to admitting his brother's faults in strategy. And it was a sound tactic, though Yugi couldn't help but think there was something more to it that Mokuba wasn't mentioning.

And wasn't going to, either, Yugi suspected, even if asked. So instead he inquired, "How can I help you with the decrypting, Mokuba-kun?"

"I'll let you know," Mokuba told him. "Thanks, Yugi."

That gratitude was premature; several hours later, past midnight, Yugi still hadn't done much. The computer work far exceeded his basic understanding of programming, and his other self had even less familiarity or comfort with electronics. Mokuba cracked the files himself, spending most of the hours hunched over his laptop with his fingers flying over the keyboard, and the rest of the time devouring chocolate at an impressive rate. He appeared to have candy bars and snack bags stashed in every drawer and cabinet in the office.

The only reason Yugi didn't feel completely useless was that Mokuba talked to him as he worked. Sometimes just blowing off steam, complaining about the slowness of his processor or the incompetency of the encryption--Yugi picked up that Mokuba was unimpressed with his opponent's proficiency. On occasion Mokuba wanted his opinion, asking him whether he thought MainBrain would try that or this, or what Yugi would do when presented with a particular problem.

Yugi answered as well as he was able, sensing that what he said wasn't nearly as important as what was said to him. Mokuba was using him as a sounding board, a way to keep himself on track; and also as a distraction when he got too impatient, talking instead of fidgeting or whacking his too-slow computer. Yugi wondered if this was how Mokuba worked with Kaiba, wondered how many long nights of mutual work and discussion the brothers might have shared. Mokuba did it so naturally that Yugi thought the pattern must be familiar to him, though he had a hard time imagining Kaiba like this, chatting so easily and carelessly.

Or maybe Kaiba just let Mokuba talk while they worked, let Mokuba fill up the silence in the big lonely office before it drove them both mad. Kaiba had admitted how hard it was, working without his brother, and perhaps that was because of more than simply the doubled workload. Yugi wondered if Mokuba had any idea. The boy knew his brother was counting on him to solve this problem, was immensely proud of that trust, but maybe Mokuba didn't realize that Kaiba was even more counting on him to come through it whole and unharmed.

Kaiba wouldn't care overly much if MainBrain took over KaibaCorp, Yugi suspected, as long as Mokuba was okay. He would be furious, but in the end he would undoubtedly find a way to get the company back, with his brother's help.

But if they got Mokuba, too--if the ruse they had played became reality, if ever there were a real version of the false funeral Yugi and his friends had attended before--Yugi didn't know if Kaiba would be able to work again, after that. If he would be able to recover his company, or anything else; if he would even care, with the one he cared about more than anything gone.

Yugi wondered if he ought to tell Mokuba any of that--it was something the boy ought to understand, should realize already, but...

Before Yugi had decided whether to say anything, Mokuba shoved back his computer and spat a few foreign words that Yugi didn't know, and which he strongly suspected a kid of Mokuba's age shouldn't know either. "What's wrong?"

"Everything!" Mokuba cried. "I've decrypted most of it, it's all here, everything they've been doing to our accounts, the worms they infected our system with to make the changes. Except there's no names."

"But there's proof, right? That KaibaCorp really isn't bankrupt, and that MainBrain did it?"

"There's proof--not any evidence we could give to the police, because of how we got it, but enough stuff to prove we're solvent and sue them, easy. But we still don't know who in Kaiba Corporation is the saboteur, and until I figure that out, none of this does us any good. We can't let him get away, we don't know what he knows, or if he's done more damage that we haven't found."

"But you have Kaiba-kun's files, too--wasn't that what he was looking into, who's been doing it?"

"Yeah. Nii-sama had it narrowed down to eight of our programmers and accountants. They all had the opportunity and high enough access to be able to make the necessary changes in our system. Nii-sama was going to run some tests, changing their accesses, trying to get proof, but then he was arrested, and I don't have time to test them now."

"There should be some way to figure it out," Yugi said.

"There's got to be," Mokuba said. He flopped back on the couch, brought up his balled fists to rub his eyes. "I got all this data, I know exactly how he did it. But I've gone over all of Nii-sama's notes, and any of the eight of them could've done it. They wouldn't even have to be that good, the instructions are all laid out in these files, someone at MainBrain wrote the hacks for them. All the saboteur had to do was keep track of the current accounts and upload the worms at the right time. And we don't even know why they're doing it, whether MainBrain's paying them, or whether they've got a grudge against KaibaCorp or what. MainBrain's files don't list bribes or blackmail or anything about the saboteur personally. All of Nii-sama's suspects have possible motives; he thought any of them would have done it, under the right circumstances. And if we go after the wrong person, then the real saboteur might catch on."

"But the real villain must give himself away somehow," Yugi's other self maintained, an unseen presence at Yugi's side. The pharaoh was following Mokuba's explanation as intently as them, his incomprehension of the computer systems compensated by his eternal determination to win the game. "To be as dishonorable as to betray his employer, and not even by his own cunning--letting others plot, and merely taking their orders, he's weak-spirited, pathetic. And the weak always defeat themselves."

Yugi blinked, turned to him. "What did you say, other me? About taking orders?"

"They did, isn't that what Mokuba said? That everything is recorded in those files, all the orders that were given, the precise instructions."

"That's it!" Yugi gasped.

"What?" Mokuba looked back and forth between Yugi and the rest of the office, trying to see the pharaoh's invisible figure. "Did the other you figure something out?"

"I think so," Yugi said. "Mokuba-kun, you said the files you took from MainBrain's mainframe had instructions and programs for the saboteur, didn't you?"

"Yeah..." Mokuba nodded slowly.

"But isn't the reason you had to break into MainBrain's headquarters because their computer system's not online? So the saboteur couldn't have accessed it from here at KaibaCorp, he had to have some other way of getting the instructions."

"Right," Mokuba nodded again, frowning, then sat up. "So someone at Mainbrain had to send everything to him. And the saboteur would've needed the most current account numbers for MainBrain's worms to work, so he must have been online with someone at MainBrain who could access their mainframe as he uploaded them." Then he sighed, a frustrated noise, his shoulders sinking. "But that doesn't help, Yugi. Even if the worms and instructions were directly emailed to the saboteur--KaibaCorp doesn't monitor the content of its staff's internet use or emails. Nii-sama always says that he values his privacy, and there's no reason our employees shouldn't rightfully value theirs. We don't even log visited IPs by account; all we keep track of is personal bandwidth statistics."

"But you wouldn't need the content," Yugi said. "Not if you have peoples' bandwidth statistics--that'd be how much they downloaded, and when, right?"

"Yugi," Mokuba said, jumping to his feet, gray eyes wide, "you're brilliant! You're as smart as Nii-sama! If I compare the times the MainBrain data was accessed and the sizes of the files, with the times and sizes of files downloaded by the accounts of the eight suspects--"

"Then the match should be the saboteur," Yugi said. "At least I think it would be."

"Yes!" Mokuba pumped his fist, threw himself down on the couch before his laptop and resumed typing. "It'll take a while to pull the account data from our servers and run the comparisons," he said over his shoulder as he worked. "We probably won't get a name until morning--you should go home, Yugi, you're looking tired."

Yugi shifted on his feet, not totally comfortable with this dismissal, even as he tried to hide a yawn. "Mokuba-kun, once you know who it is, what are you going to do?"

He knew Mokuba well enough to know that he must already have this next step worked out--a Kaiba was never without a plan. But Mokuba still hesitated, before saying, "I'm going to meet with him personally, and give him a chance to turn himself in."

"But..." Yugi wondered if it were just too late at night for him to be making sense of things, or whether that was really as crazy as it sounded. Mokuba had always been the sane one, compared to his brother... "Mokuba-kun, wouldn't it be safer just to have whoever it is arrested? If you talk to them personally first, then they might get a chance to tell MainBrain that you're alive..." Yugi stopped, because Mokuba was nodding patiently, like he had already thought all this through.

Yugi's other self beside him murmured, "Yes, and that's what he wants."

"He wants--you want MainBrain to know, Mokuba-kun? But..." Then Yugi finished thinking it through himself, saw it suddenly, as clearly as he might predict an opponent's play in a duel. And Mokuba's expression was all too familiar, the same daring, dangerous look Kaiba got when placing a card face down on his field. "You want them to find out you're alive. There's a trap set for them, and you--you're putting yourself in it as bait."

Mokuba wasn't nodding anymore. But he wasn't denying it, either, and Yugi recognized too well the steel in his gray eyes. His brother's eyes, for all their different hue, and Yugi realized what Mokuba had not been saying before, what he had left out of his answer hours ago. "That's the real reason why you're not publicly announcing you're alive. Why you're letting the police continue to hold Kaiba-kun. So that MainBrain targets you, instead of him. Mokuba-kun..."

"Yugi," Mokuba said, "did Nii-sama tell you whose plan this was?" He didn't let Yugi answer, though he had already been told; faced Yugi, fearless as when he had confronted Yugi in Duelist Kingdom, challenging him to save his brother. "From the beginning, it was mine. My solution. And my brother's counting on me to see it through to the end. That doesn't just mean saving KaibaCorp--it means making sure MainBrain never tries anything again, and making sure that no other company is tempted to. We're taking them down."

He said it quietly, but so certainly it wasn't even a threat, but a promise of retribution. As impossible to dissuade as an attacking Blue Eyes, and as confident of victory. But Yugi couldn't help but recall Kaiba a couple days ago, working alone in this office, and think that he might be failing him somehow. He had sworn to Kaiba not to risk his little brother's life, and if he were responsible for identifying the saboteur, responsible for putting this plan into effect..."Mokuba-kun, if I go home now, will you promise to call me as soon as you know who it is? I might still be able to help."

Mokuba hesitated. Kaiba would have immediately and angrily refused, but it hadn't been so long ago that Mokuba had come to Yugi when he needed help, and Yugi and his other self had never failed him. He didn't fear debt to friends as his brother did. "Please," Yugi requested.

At last Mokuba nodded. "All right, I'll give you a call tomorrow when I have it worked out."

"Thank you." He would have another chance to talk Mokuba out of it tomorrow. Still, Yugi tried one more time tonight. "Mokuba-kun, what's to prevent them from going after Kaiba-kun in jail? If MainBrain doesn't know you're alive yet, and believes your brother is still a threat..."

Mokuba blanched, but held his ground. "If they go after him," he said, "then Nii-sama will handle it." Though there was fear in his eyes now, where there had been none before. But his resolution never wavered, and Yugi knew then that there would be no stopping him, tonight or tomorrow.

A Kaiba indeed. "I'm sure Kaiba-kun can handle anything," Yugi said, meaning it, and was answered by Mokuba's smile, his first all that long night.


to be continued...

As always, thanks so much for the reviews - I really appreciate knowing someone's still interested! This story's starting to wind down (up?) to the finale, but it's got a bit of a ways to get there yet. There might be some delays; once more I humbly beg for the dear readers' patience as I try to fit in fanfic'ing with the rest of my life. But never fear, all will be concluded, in due time!