"HEY, uh…Seto? There's something I've been wondering for a while…"

Seto, who was putting the finishing touches on Mokuba's birthday gift, turned away from the computer screen and glanced curiously at Noa. "Yes?"

Noa leaned on the edge of his brother's desk, licking his lips as he thought about how to bring it up. Finally coming up with nothing else, he decided to be blunt. "Uh…well, do you remember when you gave me my laptop? And you said you thought you'd formatted to hard drive?"

"Yes…"

"Well, there was a folder still on there…I deleted it like you asked, but…what was it? I realize it's something serious, but…I just wondered."

Seto frowned, and in his face Noa could easily see the man's displeasure at the topic. Sighing heavily, Seto ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the ceiling. "I had hoped you would forget about seeing that…"

"H-How come?"

"It's…it's…something I'd rather not remember."

"…Oh. I-I'm sorry, Seto, I shouldn't have--"

"Don't worry, kid. I…guess you should know. Everyone you associate with knows about it…I guess there's no point in leaving you in the dark. Better you hear it from me than from anyone else…after all, I did it."

"What…what was this DT thing?"

Seto stood and slowly began to pace about the study, hands clasped behind his back. "Death-T…or the Tournament of Death…the height of my stupidity."

Noa's eyes widened slightly. "Tournament of…of…"

"This had to be…what, two years ago now? Yes, two years last month. This was…just after I'd met Yugi Motou, just after our first Duel Monsters match…after he beat me for the first time…this was only…a month or so after that match.

"Suffice it to say, I was…incensed that someone like Yugi Motou had defeated me at my own area of expertise…I would never hear the end of it…I'd lose all credibility. The only reason that my employees accepted my being CEO at the age of sixteen was because of my popularity with the younger generation. I was one of the most popular people on the face of the earth because of my gaming prowess. I was at the top of the gaming world. It got to where I had to fight off crowds of children begging to challenge me, not to try to beat me, but to see just how badly I would beat them. And, obviously, that popularity brought attention to Kaiba-Corp, which in turn brought money. And that was the sole reason I still held my position. Otherwise, the Big Five would conspire to take it from me…"

Seto glanced at Noa, who was nodding. He knew as well as Seto did the truth of that. Noa knew the Big Five all too well.

"It turned out I was right," Seto continued after a moment. "As soon as word leaked out that I had been beaten by some punk nobody…well, Gansley decided to take initiative and attempt a takeover. Didn't work, but the fact is they tried it…and my current board is pestering me to beat Yugi, too…damned idiots."

Seto sighed again, leaning against the wall. "So, I tried to come up with something that would beat Yugi. What could I do to destroy him? Well, he has a circle of friends, and a grandfather…ah! There we have it. I'll devise a way to get rid of them, and then Yugi would either be so blinded by rage that he would make mistakes, or he would be so depressed that he would make mistakes…either way, I'd have a distinct advantage.

"So Death-T came into being. I wanted my revenge, damn it, and here was how I'd get it. I spent sixty-five million dollars making that damned thing…people thought I was like Francisco D'Anconia…never made a mistake in business…every venture successful. But Death-T was my San Sabastian Mines…except I really thought Death-T would work." (1)

Noa had been reading Atlas Shrugged, and he understood the reference. But he was wondering now just how this Death-T had been such a monumental failure…well, obviously, it hadn't resulted in anyone's death. Yugi's grandfather was still alive, as were all of Yugi's friends and Yugi himself…so obviously no death had occurred. But still…what had it been?

"The odds were stacked against him at every turn. In the laser-tag arena, his opponents had real guns, where Yugi had a toy. In the haunted house, I'd hired a serial murderer to chase them. In the puzzle-box arena, I was positive they would all be smashed…how many two-ton blocks plummeting down from the ceiling can you avoid before one finally hits? But, to be fair, I'd expected Yugi to get past those first three stages…I hadn't anticipated Wheeler, Taylor and Gardner to survive, too, but they did."

Seto was being vague, but Noa was getting the gist of it. All in all, Seto had been out for blood. That was the point. Seto had been prepared to commit homicide over losing a game. Not just a single murder, either, but four.

"Then came stage four…Capsule Monster Chess. I'd been against Mokuba participating in Death-T, but back then I really didn't care too much about his personal welfare…if that was Mokuba's choice, so be it. Might as well use him to my advantage."

By the look on Seto's face, Noa could tell he was deeply ashamed to admit this. And to tell the truth, Noa was surprised to hear this from Seto. Just about the only thing Noa had thought he'd known about his stepbrother, without a single doubt, was that Seto loved Mokuba. No one else.

And to hear that there had been a time when even Mokuba hadn't been important to Seto? It was…it was just…wrong. So fundamentally wrong that he may as well have said thatdrinking rubbing alcohol was healthy.

"Back when dueling was still done in hologram-producing box arenas, that's when this was going on…I hadn't created the Duel Disk prototype yet…So dueling was still done sitting down. The same held true for Capmon, the game Mokuba was infatuated with at the time. He doesn't play all that much anymore; he's trying to learn the ins and outs of Duel Monsters..

"Anyway, Mokuba was positive that he'd be able to beat Yugi this time. Yes, he'd played once before and lost, but this time he thought he held the advantage. And he did. Mokuba held no qualms about cheating in order to win back then…I was a horrible influence on him. In any case, the rules of Death-T 4 were thus: the duel box was locked from the outside after the players entered, and only the winner was allowed to exit. The loser would be subjected to a penalty game, a holographic nightmare that was tested on various subjects and was determined to drive the average adult completely insane in ten minutes flat."

Noa was even more disconcerted to hear this. What mostly disturbed him was the fact that Mokuba had cheated in a game. Mokuba was a gamer in almost every sense of the word…people like that didn't need to cheat. Even when Noa himself had been a virtual god, where cheating would have been as simple as blinking, he hadn't cheated to win. What was the point in cheating? It didn't prove anything. It didn't show skill, didn't show superiority…why?

"Well, Yugi won again. I can't say I was surprised that he'd won. I'd been counting on him to win. If Mokuba won…what good did that do me? I was going to beat Yugi, damn it, and that's all there was to it."

"Did you…did you stop the penalty game before it happened?" Noa asked warily. Of course he had. Mokuba wasn't insane. He was perfectly fine. He seemed a little distracted, sure, but he was fine. So, obviously, the penalty game hadn't happened. Seto had stopped it; he'd come to his senses and stopped it.

But Seto gave a humorless chuckle. "Stopped it? Give me a break, Noa. I sure as fuck didn't stop it…I started the damn thing! I pressed the fucking button that started it! If not for Yugi, Mokuba would probably be slobbering in a rubber room right now! And why? Why! Tch…because I was stupid. No reason other than that. I was an idiot. I can't even venture a guess as to why…to teach him a lesson? To show him what happens when you lose? I was prepared to condemn my brother to death over a game! A fucking game! By that mentality I should have shot myself as soon as Yugi beat me the first time! If I was so harsh with Mokuba, why in the fuck did I give myself another chance! Why was I so bound and determined to beat Yugi Motou no matter how many times he beat me, if I was willing to kill my only family for losing twice!"

Noa frowned, adepressed expression on his young face as Seto continued to interrogate himself. It hurt him to watch his elder brother like this. It was so obvious that Seto had changed from the man he'd been during this Tournament of Death. The man who'd made Death-T had been Gozaburo with a young face. This Seto was no Gozaburo. There was no way in hell to confuse the two of them…not for someone who knew both of them personally. Gozaburo had been so much worse than Seto…would Gozaburo have spent so much time and effort giving Noa a body back? No, he was satisfied with the virtual reality. Would Gozaburo have congratulated Noa on a job well done? No, he would have expected better. Would Gozaburo have been impressed at a stalemate in a game of chess? No, he would have expected better, even though his opponent had been the best in the world. Gozaburo had been a perfectionist. Seto was a realist. Seto was grounded. He knew how the world worked. Gozaburo hadn't known how the world worked; he'd only known how he wanted the world to work. He'd done what any intelligent person would have done in that situation: he worked toward making the world how he wanted it…but his plan - so similar to that of the machines in the Matrix trilogy - had been hopeless to begin with. Tyranny only ended one way: with a knife in the back.

"Seto…" Noa murmured gently. "Stop berating yourself, huh? You're not the same man. The man who created this Death-T was a shadow of my father…you're nowhere near what my father was, anymore. You've risen above him in every aspect. My father was an idiot. You shouldn't compare yourself to him."

"I never compared myself to him, Noa."

"Yes, you did. Not in so many words, but that's your mindset. You're thinking that what you did two years ago is something my father would have done…and you're right. But here's the difference: you realize now that what you did was wrong. Do you honestly think that my father would look back on what he did to me, or to you and Mokuba, and admit it was wrong? No. He'd blame it on my mother, probably, for being a spineless whore or whatever other insult he happened to like at the time."

Seto smirked. "I know the truth of that…he was always ranting about your mother when he was alive…screaming obscenities and throwing chairs…you'd have sworn he'd been drunk or on cocaine…but it was blind rage. What exactly is it that your mother did to set him off like that?"

It was obvious Seto didn't want to speak anymoreon the subject of Death-T. Noa could tell, not only from the sudden change of topic but from the look on his face.

"Oh, she left him after he turned me into a program. Mom was sad about my death, but she was able to move on after it. She was willing to live on with only my memory…she thought my father was being obsessive and unhealthy about it…he was so incensed that his heir had been taken from him that he refused to admit it. All in all, I'm glad he didn't give up, but I know it was unhealthy. So Mom left him. Didn't stay to see if his experiments worked. I wish she had…it might have made my years in virtual reality a little more bearable if I'd had her around…but part of me is glad she left. In that condition, I'd have been a burden on her."

"Have you thought about contacting her now?"

"I doubt it would come to any good. She most likely wouldn't believe me. I tried sending her emails that first year…she never responded to a single one of them. She probably thought it was some kind of sick joke…if I tried contacting her now, she'd probably think the same thing. I think I'll just let her alone…let her move on. I have a new life now…I'm happy with that."

Seto smiled slightly. "Well, hopefully we're good enough for you."

"Don't worry…you are."

1. Francisco D'Anconia is an important character in Atlas Shrugged. He is a prodigy, a businessman with a golden touch. No venture he ever attempted ended in failure...until the San Sabastian mines. This was a huge failure, resulting in absolutely nothing good. The difference between Death-T and this is that D'Anconia knew the mines would fail, whereas Seto had hoped to succeed, as he says.