Chapter 36

These warehouses. God how he'd been dreading reaching these warehouses. Any second now Nesbitt would appear wearing Tristan's body like some kind of mask and he would have to stare into a twisted version of his lover's face. Just that thought alone was enough to fill him with more dread and disgust than he knew what to do with. As he and Mokuba made their slow way around he found himself half holding his breath as he waited for his brother to say...

'Hey, is that Duke up there?'

'What...?' Kaiba barely had time to lift his gaze towards him when the others arrived.

'Hey look its Duke,' Joey half laughed, 'hey Duke...'

'It's not Duke,' Tristan cut him off, 'it's Nesbitt.'

Before anyone had the chance to do or say anything else, Duke was leaping down from his position on top of one of the warehouses ready to attack. Automatically Kaiba grabbed a nearby metal pole to defend himself. He knew Nesbitt would have it out of his hands in seconds, but that didn't matter, it was still the most logical reaction. Everything which happened next happened almost too quickly for Kaiba to process and before he knew it a little robotic monkey, with a head shaped like Duke's hairstyle, was attacking the phoney.

'What happened?' Kaiba took advantage of the situation in order to talk to Tristan. 'Why isn't it you?'

'I made a promise to you I wouldn't lose again, remember?' Tristan half lowered his head. 'You really think I would break it?'

'I'm glad, but... you've just changed history; how do we know this won't have consequences.'

'I'm sure it will, but I convinced Duke to take the hit for me to lesson the impact. Nesbitt has his body and we have our Monkey.'

'I just hope it's enough.'

'Me too, but shouldn't you be locating a bike about now,' Tristan's gaze was focused on a point passed him.

Kaiba turned to see Duke knocking his brother unconscious and riding off. Giving a heavy sigh, he pulled himself away from his conversation with Tristan and made his way into the warehouse he knew the motorbike he needed was stored in. The second he saw the bike his palms began to sweat. It had been a long time since he'd been in the driving seat of any vehicle and he wasn't completely convinced he would remember how to do it.

Still, what choice did he have? This was what was supposed to happen next and mounting the bike he was relieved to see how familiar everything looked. He started it quickly, tearing out of the warehouse after Nesbitt and praying he hadn't lost too much time. Not that it really mattered, because it wasn't as if he was ever going to catch the guy. Kaiba barely felt as though he'd learnt to balance on the bike, before Leichter appeared, clad in his trench coat-Jinzo disguise.

Almost exactly like before Kaiba skidded to a stop in front of him. Only this time the skidding was a little less stable and he lost control of the bike. Fortunately he was able to stop it from dragging him along the ground with it, but barely.

'That's quite an entrance you made there Mr Kaiba,' Leichter's voice drolled with southern tones, 'I never would have figured you for such a careless driver.'

'There are a lot of things you never would have figured me for Leichter,' Kaiba met and held his gaze as he carefully pulled himself up from the ground and winced against several bruises forming down the left side of his body.

'So you already know who I am,' he gave an almost exaggerated shrug, 'can't say I'm disappointed by that. So what say we get this little duel of ours underway? I assume you remember the rules.'

'Of course,' Kaiba willed a dueldisk onto his arm and was almost relieved to see that it resembled his modified version.

'That dueldisk isn't regulation issue Mr Kaiba,' Leichter wagged a finger at him, 'we wouldn't want you cheating now.'

'I wouldn't exactly describe this as cheating,' Kaiba half smirked as cards began to slowly descend in front of him, 'so worry less about the look of my dueldisk and more about choosing a deck which could actually beat me. Not that you really stand a chance of course.'

'I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you Mr Kaiba.'

'Well I would be,' Kaiba felt a slight amount of relief move through him as his deck appeared in his hand and he could instantly tell it was a brail version, 'because I'm suddenly feeling a whole lot more like myself and this duel is going to be even better than I remember.'

'Did you find them?' Mai watched him mope his way towards the bed.

'Does it look like I found them,' he slumped miserably down, 'and even if we did find them now it's bound to be too late,' he squeezed his eyes shut.

'Don't say…'

'Don't believe it isn't,' he cut her off. 'Don't believe they haven't.'

'But I can't…'

'Stomach the thought of it? You wouldn't be the only one,' his face filled with an angry kind of disgust. 'I'm just as bad as my Khine.'

'What do you mean?'

'Don't you remember Kayma? What… what she did? What she had?'

'But that was an accident.'

'And this is deliberate, so that just makes it worse.'

'Joey…'

'Leave me alone.'

What?'

'Leave me alone Mai, I don't want to see you right now.'

'But Joey…'

'Get out of my site now Mai.'

He could tell how hurt she was just by the look on her face, but as bad as it made him feel he just needed to be on his own right now. His world had spun completely out of control and he felt completely and utterly disgusted with everyone and everything. Nothing felt right or good to him anymore. Everything just felt sickly and tainted and he felt as though he'd never be able to shake the feeling.

'That which goes for gods, does not go for mortals,' he murmured, half taking to the deity inside of him, 'but he's no more a mortal than he is a god; that's why they wanted him dead,' he squeezed his eyes shut again and cringed in on himself. 'I failed, I failed.'

'Failure is simply a matter of opinion, isn't it?' The familiar voice was filled with dangerous undertones.

'Ni,' he opened his eyes and slowly sat up in order to confront the god before him, 'how are you here? I thought the Mistresses...'

'Please, you don't really think we haven't all found our ways around those barriers by now,' he rolled his eyes, 'give us a little bit of credit. Or maybe you should just give me a little bit of credit, because I have most definitely taken advantage of it more than the others have.'

'What do you want?'

'Believe it or not Grandmother, I'm here because of my aunt,' a strange little smirk appeared on his face.

'What?' Joey half frowned at him.

'Five years ago, as your daughter was losing her power, she called to all the gods to take what she'd seen from her so that she didn't have to remember it herself. But I was the only one who heard her cry, which is no surprise considering how close they all were to their final judgement.'

'Take what she'd seen from her?' He half shook his head. 'She never said...'

'Of course she didn't,' he laughed, 'do you really think she wanted any of you to know she'd dealt with me? The darling daughter of Order forced to make a deal with the devil; how would that have made her look?'

'Considering the circumstances I really don't think any of us would have cared.'

'Perhaps not, but she did. She cared because of the one image she begged me to leave her with. Not that I didn't get to see it anyway, but... when I saw what it was I just had to allow her to keep it,' his voice came out like a darkly amused whisper.

'What...' Joey hesitated, 'what did she see?'

'That this is all about the child,' he pronounced each word with a deliberate kind of slowness, before chuckling with dark amusement.

'I... I know those words,' Joey couldn't be sure if the confusion he felt was genuine or just because he didn't want to know what those words were supposed to mean now.

'Of course you know those words; you had half a dozen or more restless spirits forcing them down your throat not so long ago,' Ni sounded almost impatient. 'Well, not so long if you happen to be an immortal, but I guess it's a long time if you're not.'

'Those words were about Kayma,' Joey tried to sound more confident than he felt, 'about how her story was starting to repeat. But we stopped all that the second I found out about Crovell. No child was lied to so no child will repeat her fate.'

'Because Crovell is Kayma?'

'Yes.'

The laugh which rolled out of Ni at that moment was enough to set Joey's teeth on edge, not to mention every frayed nerve in his body. In a flash of anger he was on his feet, swinging his fist in Ni's direction, only to have the devil disappear from where he was standing and reappear behind him.

'Now, now, now Grandmother, will you really let this child's temper rule you like this?' Ni wagged his finger. 'You must have figured out by now Kayma was not the child they were all so concerned about.'

'No,' Joey shook his head, 'I don't believe you. You're a liar at the best of times and you have no reason to tell the truth now.'

'But why would I lie about something so... beautiful?'

'Beautiful,' he gagged, 'what you're suggesting...'

'Where have these sensibilities come from Grandmother,' Ni gave an exaggerated shrug, 'you slept with your own son and has his children. Or is that something you chose to forget now you're trapped in that male body of yours?'

'What the First did... a part of her knows it was wrong… but what goes for the gods does not go for mortals.'

'But your son is not mortal.'

'But my daughter is. And even if she wasn't neither of them are gods.'

'Perhaps,' he struck an almost thoughtful pose, 'but believe me when I say what's about to happen is needed Grandmother and I will no more let you stop it than I'll let you be a hypocrite because of it. This is and has always been about the child; Adam, not Kayma.'