It's been a long time since a scene popped into my head, fully formed, without the need for thought or planning. It's odd that such a scene would show up on Mother's Day, of all days, but I've long since grown out of questioning these things.

This was primarily inspired by the 2012 Tom Cruise movie, "Jack Reacher," inspired by Lee Child's series of novels (specifically "One Shot"). Not in any particular measure of plot or intrigue; more just in sheer badassery.

Not to say I'm a badass or anything. I let Seto handle that part for me.

See for yourself:


1.


It was raining, and that was just what he needed.

Closing his eyes as he backed against the wet stone, Seto waited. Acclimated. Centered himself, and prepared for what he had to do. It wasn't going to be pretty, and it wasn't going to be easy unless he did it perfectly. The timing was everything.

He ran over everything in his mind again. From the first step to the seventieth. He felt sharp corners pressing up against his back, and smiled to himself. Always keep sensitive materials protected. Carrying the heavy metal case was a burden, but now that water was pelting down onto the cool silver surface like bullet casings, he felt vindicated.

He lifted up the case in his left hand, keeping his right free as he crept forward again.

He hadn't run into any of his target's security team, and he attributed that more to the overblown sense of confidence swelling Crawford's head than any ineptitude on the part of said security team, or particular expertise in stealth on the part of Seto himself. It was almost surprising just how short-sighted a man could be, once he thought he was all-seeing.

Almost surprising.

Seto flexed his right fist, feeling the sweet ache of blunt force trauma ghost-walking across his knuckles. He grinned. There was something satisfying about watching people cross lines. The best-case scenario was to keep people from crossing them at all, but vengeance wasn't a bad second-best.

He stopped moving, and straightened.

"We can do this two ways," came a low rumble, right up against the back of his right ear like a lover. "One way is easy." Seto mouthed the next trite line in this little script along with the new man's voice: "The other is hard."

Cute, Seto thought. Almost quaint. He slowly but smoothly slipped his right hand underneath the sopping wet cloth of his coat; he didn't have to hide the movement, because it was expected. His captor was confident, just like Crawford was, and was probably already congratulating himself for seeing his hand move. His captor thought it said something about his own observational skills.

"Think carefully, sir." He probably had a shit-eating grin on his face, because that was expected, too. "I'd hate to see someone as lofty and important as you get hurt. I'm a lot stronger than you are, and I'm pretty bad about holding back. I never did learn that lesson."

Seto sighed, and held out his arms.

"Good boy," Saruwatari said, and still managed to grin as a metal briefcase made acquaintance with his right cheekbone. The big man crumpled against the stone wall of the castle and fell in a heap.

Seto sighed again, straightened the collar of his shirt, and turned back around.


2.


He walked through the dungeon like he owned the place, his face noncommittally furious. His clothes dripped onto the floor in time with his stride, and he had to focus on the unpleasantness of his soaked body and clumped hair plastered against his forehead to keep himself from running. He sidestepped the camouflaged pressure plate that sounded the alarm.

The briefcase, aside from housing his legal weaponry, made a surprisingly effective physical weapon as well. A great number of Pegasus Crawford's private security took involuntary naps on the job after knocking back the elder Kaiba's sharp-cornered, stainless steel sleeping pill.

He found the holding cell by following the congestion of the halls; the more bodies clogging the arteries of the castle, the closer he was. Seto thought that if his target hadn't so tragically underestimated his opponent, he might have tried at least one red herring, if not six. It would have been just like Crawford, in his prime, to corner Seto after sending him to a cell that was home to a stuffed rabbit or something.

Crawford was far from his prime; he had already fallen like a flamboyant Icarus, and would choke on his own flower-scented wax long before falling into the sea.

The boy was huddled in a corner, one leg shackled to the wall. He was dressed in the same jeans as the last time Seto had seen him, and the same shirt, except now both were coated in a uniform of grime. His sneakers were scuffed beyond recognition; only one was on its proper foot. The left was tossed against the opposite wall. He was holding a little locket in both hands like a priceless gemstone.

A sad little smile crossed the elder Kaiba's face, and his free hand reached to the spot on his chest, under his shirt, where that locket's twin lay a bare inch from his heart.

Seto stepped up to the cell almost jauntily. "I made you wait," he said.

Mokuba leaped halfway out of his skin, and his wide grey-violet eyes gleamed like swamp-lamps. His little throat worked madly as he wrestled with his own hopes. "...N-Niisama! Niisama!"

Seto's smile widened. "Keep your voice down, kiddo. We're not out of the woods yet."

Mokuba seemed to choke, as though his entire body were jumping to follow his savior's orders. He pushed himself forward onto his knees, and looked like nothing so much as a kneeling acolyte.

Seto set down his briefcase and bent to work at the cell's padlock.

Mentally, he counted: one. Two. Three.

On four, the voice of a red-sparkled devil rose up in the darkness: "Good evening, Kaiba-boy. What a surprise, finding you down here."

"The definition of a surprise runs completely counter to what this is, Crawford," Seto said flatly without looking at his antagonist. "You delight in playing word games. It's tantamount to playing with your food."

"Considering the tone of your voice," Crawford pouted, sounding hurt, "you don't want to play with me."

Seto whirled, sent a lightning-blast into the air, and watched with grim satisfaction as Pegasus Crawford fell backward; he landed spread-eagle on the floor, a neat and smoldering hole between his eyes.

The Millennium Eye, once so glistering, lay flat and insulting beneath the spider-web curtain of the man's silver hair.

By the time Seto opened Mokuba's cell, the remaining members of Crawford's team, including the man called Croquet, had found them. Before they could speak, Seto said: "I have video evidence of the deal your former employer made with my directors. I have a transcription of the phone call made to Adachi Saruwatari to deliver my brother to this island, and every other form of correspondence that has led to the scene in front of me. Every single one of you has been implicated in this farce seven times over." Seto held up a slim cellular phone. "I made sure to photograph the state you've kept him in. For good measure."

Croquet sneered. "And the rest of your...evidence?"

Seto choreographed a glance at the briefcase, because that was how it worked.

Croquet gestured. "Take it. We have more substantial evidence that you've murdered a man in cold blood, for no better reason than to keep a young boy safe."

Two hulking men stepped up from behind Croquet, and fell dead to the floor following the private thunderstorm of Seto's sidearm. "I've already sent every solitary piece of evidence to any authority in the country with a sliver of jurisdiction here."

Seto lifted his brother into his arms, kicked aside the briefcase, and smirked as he watched Croquet and his chess pieces surrounded by assault weapons and the booming shouts of sixteen agents from about seventeen agencies.

"Checkmate, you pretentious fucks."


3.


The pod whirred to a stop like a fighter jet reaching the end of the runway, and as Seto opened his eyes again it was purring like a contented hunting cat. The visor lifted from his eyes, the cushions slid away from his ears, and he reached out on either side of the exterior shell as its glass shield swept away.

He rose, lifting his legs slowly, and checked the screen built into the far south wall: it was well past 4 AM.

Seto tightened his tie, adjusted the collar of his shirt, and donned his coat. He walked slowly. By the time he made it back to the main house, it was after 5. In the kitchen on the ground floor, he found Mokuba foraging through the refrigerator in his pajamas, hunting for breakfast.

"You're up early," Seto muttered, and reprimanded himself for the errant banality of the observation. He hadn't properly slept in eighty hours; it was beginning to show.

Mokuba glanced at his brother and gave a crooked little smirk. "You're up late," he said. "What've you been doing?"

Seto stepped up to the boy and pulled him into a one-armed hug. "Out with the pods," he said, and ruffled Mokuba's hair before bending down and kissing the top of his head.

Mokuba smiled up at him; he was surprised by this display of affection, but not displeased. "Working on a new scenario?" he asked.

It was Seto's turn to smirk.

"...Something like that."


Ever wonder what Seto does to unwind? What he does when he's stressed out? I have.

This chapter isn't to suggest that Seto even protects Mokuba in his downtime. More that he's obsessed with fixing past mistakes, so as to settle his mind. It just so happens that a lot of those mistakes have to do with Mokuba, and his protection.

Okay. So maybe Seto even protects Mokuba in his downtime.