Seto woke before the sun rose and dialed the number Leon gave him for his hotel room. An older woman answered in German, and Seto did his best to respond in her language without a warning, but his conversational German wasn't as polished as he would have liked. Thankfully after a moment she directed the call to Leon.

"Good morning," he mumbled. "Sorry about that. My brother made me bring my caretaker. She decided to filter my calls. I guess it's a good think you speak German."

"I realize I'm calling early," Seto said, but it wasn't exactly an apology. "I needed to get feedback from on you what we discussed at my vacation home."

"Oh, right. Is this about when you wanted me to help Mokuba relax?"

"Yes. How did that go? Did you have any success?"

"Um, yeah, actually. We played some games, ate the pizza that you ordered—thank you for putting me up for the day, by the way."

"It was for the cause," Seto dismissed. "What did you think of his behavior after that point?"

"He calmed down, significantly."

Seto may have wanted to hear that, but now that Leon had said it he realized that Mokuba acting like himself in a few isolated situations wouldn't fix what had happened to him—whatever that was exactly. Seto hoped to understand it sooner than later, and a bit of evidence would go a long way.

"But then he said something weird."

"Yes?" Seto urged.

"He mentioned that he's interested in being at home alone for a few weeks. He even said he'll invite me over."

"Home alone? Why does he think I'll let that happen?"

"We were playing a game and he seemed very relaxed, and like himself. It was a relief, really. But it was still unsettling. Mokuba's not usually lazy, and if he thinks that when you go over to Germany to finish the job he was supposed to do, you'll let him just hang around the house doing nothing, I don't really think he knows you. Even I know that won't happen."

"I never said I was going to Germany."

"You didn't?"

"Not to him, especially. And I don't think it's a good idea to leave him alone that long. I couldn't expect him to want to get on a plane again so soon to come with me, either," he said, although he doubted that was a real problem. It was more about what the press might say.

"That's true. Then why does he think you're going?"

"It must be an assumption on his part. I'm organizing another team to go instead. Smaller this time, for many reasons. Did he say what he intended to do with that unrestrained freedom?"

"Not specifically."

"But he wanted you to come over."

"He mentioned the idea, but I think he only did because I was sitting there, like it was an expectation. He otherwise sounded like he had the whole 'vacation' planned out in his head. That's just a guess, though. He didn't say anything else about it."

He wants to get rid of me, Seto thought immediately.

It made perfect sense. If someone had already managed to—either through technological sorcery or actual sorcery, which Seto could no longer deny as a possibility—re-awaken Mokuba's body and put another person in it, the next move would logically be to do something about Seto himself.

If someone was trying to infiltrate his corporation, or simply his life, it was actually a genius move. Seto could wind up having an 'accident' himself, and whoever this person was working with—because there had to be at least one other person involved but it seemed like more—could move in and make a show of adopting Mokuba. Given that only a Kaiba could run the Kaiba Corporation, years down the road everything would fall to him, and the public would never know a thing.

The whole plan was pure brilliance.

"Kaiba?" Leon questioned when Seto had been silent too long.

It was brilliant, but it was already well underway. Seto could appreciate the strategy all he wanted, but he still had to find a way to stop it before it was too late.

"Kaiba?"

"I'm here," Seto said, checking in again.

"I didn't notice anything else out of the ordinary," Leon said over the phone. "I'm sorry I can't help you any more than that."

"I understand," Seto responded, with all the politeness his frustration would allow him.

Leon had been a fair ally while Mokuba was recovering, but even though they came across the same evidence of the boy's behavior, Seto hadn't made his theory clear to Leon.

"May I ask one final question?" Seto asked.

"Of course."

"Given what you've observed, what do you think happened to Mokuba to change his behavior?"

Leon took a moment to answer.

"I wasn't there, of course, so it's hard to say."

"I'm just looking for your opinion."

"I think it's possible that between the accident and the stress I'm sure he's dealing with, maybe he's traumatized. Have you considered that?"

"Trauma doesn't manifest itself in the ways that I've seen him acting. I've looked into that."

Leon sighed. "Honestly—and this probably sounds crazy—sometimes I feel like he's a completely different person. Have you thought about having him talk to a professional? Even if it's not trauma, maybe it's something else."

"Let me tell you what I believe."


Seto knocked on the boy's door. He heard slow shuffling inside and eventually the door opened.

Seto tried to ignore the surge of emotions that rushed him when he saw the boy, wearing Mokuba's favorite pajamas, dressed the same as all the times he had wandered the house for half a morning on low-key weekends and a rare day off. Seto had never approved of the sloth, but he longed for one of those lazy Sunday mornings with his brother.

It was the expression that allowed Seto to steel himself. Mokuba would have looked sleepy, maybe a little confused given the hour. But the teenager standing in front of him looked hostile. Then the expression softened to something resembling irritation, but still didn't fit Mokuba's face.

It was only an expression, and it gave Seto zero evidence that there was truly anything wrong under the surface of that skin, but no matter how irrational he felt, he still could not shake the sense that he was right.

"What?" Mokuba asked. There was a tone to the voice that he couldn't place.

Seto took a breath, then remembered that he'd managed to avoid Mokuba since the press conference. He'd asked Isono to ensure he was busy during the airing, but that didn't mean he couldn't access it later. Seto expected Mokuba knew what he'd said.

"I'll be going out this morning. I expect you to stay home and keep busy. You should be able to get back on track with your school work."

"Will you be going to Germany yourself soon?"

The question came out of nowhere, and reeked of eagerness. Seto kept himself guarded.

"I don't expect so."

"Oh."

"Why would I?"

"The project still needs approval, doesn't it?"

"That doesn't mean I have to be the one to go. I'm sending another team."

Seto wondered if he should have said that. Mokuba's sudden curiosity had him on edge, and he was wary about giving him too many details.

"Did you want me to go away for a few weeks?" Seto asked.

Mokuba startled, like he'd been caught stealing an extra dessert.

"No, I just wanted to know. Is that okay?"

Seto ignored the question, like Mokuba had ignored what he had said. He considered repeating himself about the school work, but knew that he would do what ever he wanted once as long as Seto and his employees we're watching him like a hawk, and there was little he could do about it. But given Seto's newest revelation, he wanted to spend as little time around Mokuba as possible.

So he walked away.


At eight o'clock in the morning, someone buzzed at Seto's front gate. The last thing he wanted to do, even without seeing who it was, was to open it. But at a glance at the security screen that he wasn't sure why he took, he could see the distinctive spiked hair of the two front passengers in a beat-up white vehicle. Given the events of the past few weeks, he couldn't quite come up with a valid reason not to let them in, aside from the fact that he was even less interested in visitors than usual.

So when the two had parked the shabby old car and climbed the front steps, Seto opened the front door before they could knock.

"What do you want?" he asked flatly.

Seto was dressed in unusual attire for himself. Instead of his fitted jeans, he wore more formal black slacks and a black dress shirt, accessorized by a glossy silver tie embellished with faint, almost indiscernible diagonal blue stripes. A large black trench coat was slung over one arm and Seto carried a small, flat wooden box in the same hand. He looked like he was preparing to leave.

Atem spoke up. "We knew that if we'd only tried to call, you would have told us not to bother."

"Then you probably shouldn't have bothered," Seto retorted.

"We had wanted to… visit with Mokuba. But we know how the situation looks, and we certainly know how you feel about it, so we came to see you instead."

"You don't know how I feel about it, I assure you," he said quietly. "Why did you come to see me instead? If you want to spend more time with what's left of my brother, I am no one to stop you."

"Atem and I," Yugi said, "Well, we talked it over last night, Kaiba. We agree with you, about Mokuba's... state."

Seto's expression shifted quickly from a blank mask to a disgusted sneer.

"Mokuba's "state"?" Seto spat. "Mokuba doesn't have a state! Mokuba—the brother I knew and looked after for nearly fifteen years—is dead. And this," he gestured first to the polished wooden box in his hand, then to himself as a whole, "is for him. He's gone, and he is never coming back. If I can't bury his body, then the very least my brother deserves is a formal send-off."

Yugi and Atem stared at Seto a moment, then shared a look with each other.

"You're giving him a funeral," Atem said solemnly.

Seto didn't respond.

"May we…? I mean, would it be alright if…?" Yugi tried in a weak voice, but wasn't sure how to get the words out.

Seto let out a sigh.

"It won't be a formal affair, nor will it be open to the public. But if you feel so compelled… I will permit you to be present if you wish to be."

Yugi offered Seto a little smile and a nod.

"Come to the Domino harbor in about an hour. Know that this is not a public event, but... you may bring the others if they wish to come. He..." Seto seemed about to say something but stopped and shook his head. He made a move to close the door. "I still have a few things to prepare."

Yugi and Atem both offered their farewells and stepped back from the door.


By nine-thirty, Seto's yacht was slowly creeping through the foaming sea waters. Seto stood at the rear before the railing, peering out over the water. His dark coat covered his shoulders and buttoned up his chest. For all his formalities of dress, the air temperature over the water was too cold to even let it show. The wooden box was open, displayed on a small stone pedestal, but Seto's eyes were on the water below him.

Mokuba's plane had crashed before it reached the ocean, but somehow a burial at sea seemed appropriate, if only because nothing about Mokuba's tragic accident and end had seemed appropriate.

The box contained a small picture of Mokuba, along with a faded photograph of the brothers' parents, whom the crowd standing behind him had never seen. The crumpled remains of Mokuba's locket and leather cord had been folded neatly and laid into the purple velvet interior. Next to the box was a small bouquet of white roses tied together with a violet satin ribbon to match the box's interior.

Seto had been silent ever since the crowd had met him at the dock. He'd noted their arrival with a nod, then led them onto the ship. But he turned around and addressed those gathered behind him.

"I feel compelled to thank you for coming. Not for myself—if I had it my own way none of you would be here for this—but, on my brother's behalf, for deciding to honor Mokuba's life today."

Most of the attendants made some attempt to clean up their usual appearances.

Yugi and Atem were present and standing at the front, only a few feet from Seto. They dressed in nearly matching black jeans and shirts. Behind them Anzu stood in a dark top and skirt that hung past her knees. Honda and Jounouchi stood beside her. Both appeared to have cleaned up and shaved, but wore their usual t-shirt-and-jeans ensembles.

Isono stood off to one side with hands clasped in front of him and his head slightly bowed. His typical business attire was technically funeral appropriate, but he'd taken off his security glasses for the first time that even Seto could remember seeing.

Leon looked like he felt the most out-of-place. He'd donned a traditional black suit, but the expression on his face betrayed that he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to be there—or perhaps if he even wanted this ritual to be taking place at all.

Seto didn't meet any of the faces in the crowd as he prepared to speak his version of a eulogy except, on occasion, Leon's.

"Mokuba was only one of thirty-seven passengers and staff aboard the aircraft when it crashed," Seto said slowly. His voice sounded sterile, but not as mechanical as he almost expected himself to sound. "Thirty-five of his fellow passengers also lost their lives in the tragic event, and as such, I do not deem my brother's lost life as extraordinary by any means, except that he was the one passenger aboard that aircraft whose life affected mine to such a degree."

As he delivered his unprepared speech, Seto realized that these were the words he'd wanted to offer to the public during his press conference. He'd wanted to show those hurting that he shared their grief; he'd wanted to show them that he felt their losses, more personally than they knew. He hoped against hope that he wasn't speaking these words merely to scratch that itch. He didn't want to use Mokuba's final send-off for self-satisfaction.

But what he really hoped to accomplish with the words he believed Mokuba would never know he'd spoken, he still wasn't sure. Perhaps it was part of the grieving process. Or maybe it was sheer social expectation that drove him to say anything at all.

Maybe part of him was beginning to grasp at any attempt of reconciliation. Of comfort. Seto shifted suddenly, so that his gaze was aimed at the wooden box displaying Mokuba's picture rather than at the people he wished hadn't come. He knew beforehand that he'd feel offended—violated, even—at their attendance of such a personal nature, but all the same he knew that Mokuba deserved to have an audience larger than one to witness the burial of his casket, even if it was only a symbolic one.

The image of Mokuba's corpse flashed in his mind before he could push the invading thought away. But the alien feeling of his flesh returned to Seto's fingertips, and he forced his hands into his pockets and rubbed at the fabric lining to urge the sensation away.

"Mokuba didn't deserve this utter befouling of his remains," Seto continued, "that prevents me from giving him a real burial and laying his body to rest. And I cannot give him that chance as the situation exists, without my actions being dealt with as murder. But I will not sully my brother's memory with such an act. If the world wishes to see him as a survivor, then I will let them.

"As for myself—and all of you, I gather, or you would not be here—the truth is known. Nothing makes Mokuba's death stand out as more tragic than that of any other passenger who lost their life. It is in his life that he has been cheated, dealt a worse hand than any other, and it is for his life that I now mourn."

Seto reached into an inner breast pocket of his coat and retrieved a Duel Monsters trading card. He stared at it silently for a few seconds before placing it into the box, face-up. The fierce and radiant face of Seto's prized Blue Eyes White Dragon sneered up at him. He closed the lid, and lifted a fine chain from around his neck. Hanging on the end of the chain was a tiny bronze key, and he used it to lock the box.

"Mokuba is, and has been for nearly as long as I can remember, the only family I have known. That fact does not change now that he's gone, but I am no more alone than I was when he lived, if only for the simple fact that he lived. That he enhanced my life to such great effect for as long as I had him by my side, will continue to be my strength. My only hope now, is for that strength to be sufficient for me to right the wrong that has been done to him…"

And to manage against the imposter in my house until I do, he added silently.

Seto picked up a long bundle of cord slung over the railing and wrapped it tightly around the delicate wooden box, then tied it in a knot for the box to hang from.

"I have failed my duty to protect you in life, Mokuba," Seto said quietly, as if he believed Mokuba were inside the box in his hands. "For that I do not deserve your forgiveness. My only job remaining as it pertains to you, and my only chance to reconcile my failure against you, is to ensure that the memories of you carried by those of us who still live will not be compromised."

Seto heaved a sigh and closed his eyes. With one hand he gripped the locket hanging around his neck while he slowly lowered the box overboard with the other hand. The rest of the crowd stepped up to the railing to watch it descend. Anzu was crying quietly, a tissue pressed to her cheek, but at the far end of the group, Leon was sobbing and hiccuping audibly.

When the box reached the water Seto let go of the cord and watched it slip down to the waves and sink out of sight. Then he retrieved the bundle of roses and loosened the ribbon. He took one delicate flower for himself and split the rest, passing three to his right and four to his left. Nobody questioned how Seto had known to account for exactly eight.

He stood in silence while he examined the flower. A wave of emotions he'd been pressing down for days passed through him and he felt himself tremble. His hand clenched on the stem of the rose while he fought for control.

When Seto was satisfied that the weakness he felt was passing, he calmed himself and realized that he had pressed his thumb onto a thorn. He brushed his fingers over the edges of the white petals, and where his pricked finger touched, the flower turned red.

This will not be the last time I bleed for you, Mokuba.

He tossed the rose into the water. When he spoke, his voice was barely loud enough for those beside him to hear over the hum of the engine and the waves crashing against the hull.

"Goodbye, dear brother. You will be missed."

Seto turned away from the railing the second the words escaped his lips. He didn't watch the others toss their flowers into the water, and he didn't remain for a moment of grateful appreciation over his brother's friends. He made his way back into the ship's cabin and closed the door behind him. His part in the ritual—the part he was willing to allow others to witness—was over.