Chapter Twenty-Five: Something You Can't Touch

"And the world champion remains Seto Kaiba!"

"Kaiba! Kaiba! Kaiba!" the crowd cheered. Kaiba accepted the first place trophy and held up his Duel Monsters deck in triumph.

Kaiba ignores the memory and walks toward the door of the school, knowing he only has so much time before that product demonstration.

"Where are you going? I thought we were going to get together after school today," Yugi says between breaths as he tries to catch up.

"Can't," Kaiba says without stopping.

"Why not?"

Kaiba frowns as he stops to explain. "Yugi... I need to do a product demonstration for Kaiba Corp. in a couple hours. The problem is... I don't know what I'm doing a demonstration for... I need this time to figure it out." Kaiba suddenly thinks of something. "Wait... You remember that briefcase you gave me at school the first day I came back?" Yugi nods, a confused look on his face. "Do you know what's in it?"

"Not really... Why?" Yugi asks.

"I think that whatever's in it is what the demonstration is for," Kaiba says. "One more thing... Are you good at riddles, Yugi?" Yugi shrugs, looking even more confused. "Answer me this: what is something you can feel but not touch?" When an answer doesn't come, Kaiba begins walking away.

'Something you can feel but not touch...? Why does that sound so much like my 'Something you can show but not see' riddle?' Yugi wonders as he watches Kaiba walk away. 'Of course, the answer to mine is 'friendship'!' Yugi thinks happily. 'But I don't know what the answer to Kaiba's riddle is...'

'What in the world is Pegasus up to?' Kaiba thought with a frown while he sat on the front row in New York's duel stadium. He watched as Pegasus talked to a crowd of children near the table in the middle of the stadium, teaching them how to play Duel Monsters. 'How long is this going to take? It should be interesting to watch Pegasus duel, but I have other things I could be doing... Hmm... Keith doesn't stand a chance against the inventor of the card game... He's just a prize hunter. Sure, he's won all the big prizes here in America, but Pegasus is the creator of the game. He knows all the secrets, every strategy...'

"Ladies and gentlemen! The creator of Duel Monsters and CEO of Industrial Illusions, Maximillion Pegasus! ...Against Keith Howard, aka Bandit Keith!"

'Wait... Why is Pegasus just sitting there?' Kaiba thought.

"Hey! What are you doing? The game's started already!" Bandit Keith said angrily.

"Hey, Tom, come here!" Pegasus called to a boy.

'Wha...? What's going on? He wrote that kid some type of instructions?' Kaiba thought, amazed.

"Ahh... Hello, Kaiba-Boy!" Pegasus said, sitting down beside Kaiba and crossing his legs.

"Pegasus?" Kaiba said in surprise.

"Oh, by the way... I took a look at the proposal! Duel arenas... What a great idea! I would love for my company and Kaiba Corp. to develop it together! Let's make it a reality!"

"Sure..." Kaiba replied. He could only stare at Pegasus in bewilderment as the man sat there watching the duel.

"Agggh!"

"Wow! Tom wins!" Pegasus exclaimed with a smile. Kaiba gasps. Pegasus uncrosses his legs and stands. "Well then, Kaiba-Boy, we'll talk more about those arenas in detail, later," he told the teen and walked over to the duel table.

"Tom is the winner!" Pegasus said and held up Tom's hand in triumph.

'No way! Pegasus... How did he do that?' Kaiba wondered.

Kaiba comes out of the memory just as the limo stops at the mansion. When stepping inside, he sees a maid dusting the front room. "Miss..." he calls to her.

She stops dusting and looks at Kaiba. "Yes, Mr. Kaiba?"

"Have you seen the silver briefcase that used to be in that chair?" Kaiba asks and points toward the chair he's talking about.

"Yes," she answers. Kaiba lets out a sigh of relief. "I believe I asked Mr. Mokuba about it Saturday night and he said he would take care of it."

"Where's Mokuba now?"

"I believe he's in his room, Mr. Kaiba," she answers. Kaiba hurries up the stairs and opens his brother's bedroom door.

"Mokuba, you had the briefcase last," Kaiba tells his brother.

"Huh?" Mokuba asks.

"The last time I remember having it is Friday night. The maid told me that you said you would take care of it - and that was Saturday."

Mokuba's eyes widen. "Oh... I remember that, now..."

"Where did you put it?" Kaiba asks urgently.

"I... I don't remember..." Mokuba says. "I'm sorry, Seto... I just don't remember..." the younger brother says, being on the verge of tears.

"Well... Tell me what you do remember."

"I was going to put it in your room, but... when I got close to the door, I saw you leaning against the wall, and then you went into your room... and I heard something break..." Mokuba tells his brother while looking away.

"I'm sorry, Mokuba... I didn't think anyone else was there..."

"That's over now... It's okay..." Mokuba tells his brother.

"So... What did you do with the briefcase after that?" Kaiba asks softly.

"I just can't remember... I guess I left it in the hallway... Maybe someone found it and put it somewhere else."

The brothers split up to search the mansion. After about an hour, Kaiba tries looking in the study. He finds the briefcase on the floor next to the desk. 'Of course... Why didn't I try looking in this room first? If the briefcase is work-related, it only makes sense that someone would put it here. Now that I think of it, I probably saw it here two days ago when Mokuba and I were in this room, but I just didn't think about it.' Before going out the door, Kaiba glances at the titles on the bookshelf. 'Looks like Kaiba likes philosophy,' he thinks, noticing that several of the books deal with that subject. He pulls out a random book to look at it, titled Also Sprach Zarathustra. Flipping close to the middle of the book, he begins to read a little of it.

"Maybe I can even get my grandpa to show us this super-rare card he's got."

Kaiba looks up from the book, thinking 'Rare card? Could they have found the card that I've been searching for?'

He clutches his head, not liking the strange experience. It was as if Kaiba took over his head for a second, similar to what happened once or twice before while remembering something recent. After getting over the incident, he puts the book back on the shelf and leaves the room. Mokuba comes out of another room and notices his brother.

"You found the briefcase!" Mokuba says happily.

"Yep. Just did," Kaiba replies. He bends down and opens the briefcase, then turns it around for Mokuba to see what's inside. "Now... any idea what it is?"

"I can't tell... It's not identifiable, yet. If this is what the demonstration is for, then it looks as though you were already behind schedule, or else you would have made it look more appealing..." Mokuba says while staring at the raw materials. "I do recall you spending a lot of time in that workroom of yours during the past several weeks before you lost your memory. I never really asked you what you were working on..."

"Wait... The workroom?" Kaiba asks. He remembers how familiar the room felt when he found it a week ago. Then the next morning...

"It's your private studio. You would come in here when experimenting with machinery. Inventing and fine-tuning, mostly," Mokuba told him.

'I think there's something about the room Mokuba didn't mention... Or maybe doesn't know about...' Kaiba thought. 'But it could just be my imagination.'

"I think the answer to what this is lies in that room..." Kaiba tells his brother.

The brothers hurry to the workroom, but quickly discover that it's hard to find something when a person doesn't know what they're looking for.

Kaiba notices a computer close to the drawer he was looking in. "Could there be something about it on the computer?" Kaiba asks.

"Yeah! That's a great idea, Seto! Maybe there are even some notes about what you were going to say!"

Kaiba shook the mouse to make the computer wake up. 'This looks like an older model... Maybe Kaiba uses this one while working on his inventions, and the laptop when doing more important things... But, it looks like his hobbies and his work go hand in hand a lot... If he does have notes about the demonstration on this computer, then I wonder if he could also have a copy of them on the laptop,' Kaiba thinks as he waits for the computer to come out of standby. A screen comes up that reads, "to begin, click your user name". To the right of that, there's the name "Seto Kaiba" and a small picture of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. He clicks on the name and a textbox appears with the words, "type your password" above it. Kaiba types several characters and presses the enter button on the keyboard. When the computer finishes loading, he clicks on the start menu and rolls over to "My Recent Documents". 'Looks like Kaiba keeps the software updated. I have to wonder, though, if he's able to get newer operating systems before they officially get on the market...' Kaiba thinks. The computer shows fifteen recent documents. He hesitates. Which document, if any, would deal with the machine in his briefcase? He then remembers the dream he had this morning.

'Mheh, heh... Something you can feel but not touch,' Kaiba thought with a smirk as he took one more glance around the room, then turned off the light and closed the door. 'I'm almost ready for Monday...'

'If that was a real memory... Then Kaiba definitely worked on this machine in here. I got a good look at the room during the dream and it was this one. But what could that riddle mean? I can feel memories but not touch them... Feel the pain, the emotion... But that doesn't have anything to do with Kaiba Corp. So... Maybe I should think of it this way: what else can't I touch?' Kaiba's mind goes back to the duel he had with Pegasus. 'I can't touch a hologram... Could that be the answer?'

Hmm... Well, looks like there's some people who know about Gozaburo. I think the dubbed anime says Gozaburo ran away, so I was trying to keep it Y7.

I wonder if that whole "feel but not touch" thing makes sense... I had trouble explaining it in the next chapter. By the way, with the line "I have to wonder, though, if he's able to get newer operating systems before they officially get on the market..." I meant that, well, I don't have a older computer, I have XP, and this story takes place in 1996 or 1997 or so. So, I went by my own computer and added that line in.

One more note is that the "Also Sprach Zarathustra" book scene was originally in a very early chapter, as his first memory. But I took it out, because I thought it would be more meaningful to have his first memory because of Pegasus. So, if it sounds a little odd (or redundant, since I thought of a similar scene later on), then it could be because it wasn't meant to be here.