Chapter 43
'Wh-what?' The word trembled out of Mokuba's mouth. 'Wh-what do...? I don't...'
'You killed my son,' Duke crossed the room towards him, 'do you really think a crime like that would go unpunished?'
'I...'
'When you killed Drake, I felt like my insides had been torn out and all I could think about was making you feel the pain that I was feeling.' Duke roughly pulled up Mokuba's shirt revealing his chest and stomach, both of which had been badly mutilated. 'Your stomach, your liver, your kidneys, most of your intestines, your heart, a fair part of your lungs,' he lightly traced the mangled scaring with his fingers 'I wanted to completely gut you and I would have too,' he gave a half laugh, 'if Catilin hadn't of stopped me when she did.'
'I… I… I…' his eyes filled with tears, 'I should be dead.'
'There's a reason we call your future counterpart the gutless demon.'
'Heartless monster,' Tristan chipped in.
'Stomach-less beast,' Kaiba smirked.
'Monster with no heart,' Duke pulled up Mokuba's right sleeve to reveal the edge of a tattoo on the underside of his still bound right wrist.
Mokuba stared at it for a moment, before noticing both his brother and Tristan were holding up their right arms. His eyes went up towards them and he couldn't help but notice the strange, matching tattoos on the undersides of both of their wrists. Something told Mokuba it matched his own and a feeling like cold sweat moved through him.
'You cursed them because you feared the power they would gain in death,' Duke's voice was slick with anger, 'but you cursed yourself because you were afraid of losing yourself to the other Win parts. You watched Mai and Catilin become one being after they died and couldn't stand the thought of that happening to you, because they didn't want what you wanted and you were afraid of losing everything.'
'So... so I cursed myself with immortality?' Mokuba shook his head. 'I don't... I don't understand...'
'You really are a baby,' Duke gripped Mokuba's collar so tightly it was hard to breathe, 'don't you get it? Immortality was the only way you could guarantee remaining separate from the other Win parts. And you had to remain separate from them in order to gain enough power to take over the multiverse for yourself with the First in some token position. God I hate her.'
'The First?' Mokuba stared at him.
'Who else? She lets you get away with murder and says it's because she's powerless to stop you, but I don't believe that bull. The First doesn't stop you because she doesn't care. She might not be the gutless monster you are, but she's just as much of a heartless fiend. How else could she so calmly standby and watch everybody suffer when she could have so easily stopped it? When she could have so easily stopped you.'
'And she has the nerve to call it her guilt,' Kaiba's voice was filled with disgust.
'I... I don't understand,' Mokuba's eyes watered with tears, 'how... how did things end up like this?'
'Sixteen years ago her host fell under the control of Sta and the other Wen,' Tristan's voice was cold. 'Joey was wounded badly, but he didn't have to die. She let him die because she believed her host had made her vulnerable. Things quickly destabilised after that, although it took a long time before we really started seeing the effects of it in our reality.'
'Although we could all see what it was doing to you,' Duke gritted his teeth as the look in his eyes burned its way into Mokuba's soul. 'To begin with we just thought you were hurt over the way the Pure had treated you, and it was the Pure by the way and not Kaiba who treated you badly, but for some reason you just couldn't be made to see the difference. No matter how hard Kaiba and Tristan tried to convince you they were in control and the Higher Beings who shared their bodies weren't going to try anything anymore, it didn't matter, you didn't believe them and it just pushed you further and further away.'
'But then nobody believed us at first,' Kaiba balled his hands into tight fists, 'they all thought we were the bad guys. It wasn't until the chaos started breaking into our reality and your true colours started to show that people realised the truth. We might have gone about it all wrong, but we were the ones trying to stop the multiverse from falling apart.'
'So... you're saying they... the Pure and Win are the good ones here?' Mokuba wasn't sure how he felt about that idea.
'They were the ones who knew things needed to change,' Duke gritted his teeth, 'but by the time the rest of us were on the same page they were it was too late. There was nothing we could do to reverse the damage and every attempt we made to try and stop it from getting worse was foiled by you and anyone else still loyal to the First. Eventually we realised trying to change our present was pointless, we had to find some way of changing the past.'
'So that's why...?'
'Well would you look at that, the baby monster might not have a stomach but he sure as hell has a brain,' Kaiba cocked an eyebrow at him.
'If you knew I had no stomach why did you offer me food?' Mokuba almost didn't want to ask the question, but it was out before he could stop it.
'Why do you think?' His brother smirked.
'Because you wanted to be cruel.'
'We have to entertain the girls somehow,' he indicated callously towards the sisters. 'And you girls are entertained, right?' Kaiba grinned at them. 'This is as much fun for you as it is for us, right?'
'The baby monster's fun to play with,' Lilac's eyes shone with excitement.
'If you're a good girl you can have your own chance to play with him later, if you like.'
'Does that go for me too uncle Seto,' the expression on Hazelnut's face was hard to read.
'I'm not the one who plays favourites, remember,' he shrugged, 'if you want to earn a chance to play with him then who am I to stop you?'
'Are you... are you going to tie me back in the chair now?' Mokuba forced himself to speak just to end the conversation they were having.
'After we've finished eating,' Kaiba flicked a dark look in his direction. 'Until then feel free to stretch your legs, but if you know what's good for you, you won't leave this room. Tristan and I've figured out a way of killing you and, baby monster of not, I am prepared to do it.'
'You,' Kaiba narrowed his gaze on the kid.
'What's the matter Kaiba,' Crovell folded his arms, 'I thought you'd be happy to see me at this point. I am Crovell Lutoni after all, or hasn't that come up in conversation yet?'
'It has,' he continue to stare the kid down, 'but I'm assuming that thief in control of my brother's body has something to do with you.'
'Personally I prefer calling him a gutless demon,' Crovell smirked, 'but I guess right now thief is an appropriate term for him.'
'So is Yugi here then?' Tristan's gaze moved idly around the room they were in.
'Yugi?' Crovell frowned.
'We asked for his help with the Mokuba problem, I assumed he would have come here.'
'I've not seen him, but Jo's off collecting the others now so maybe he's with them. Although I'd rather he wasn't, that's just another body I'd have to account for and I was trying to keep the numbers as low as possible.'
As he was speaking Ahna, Catilin, Mai, Duke and a blonde girl carrying the baby Crovell entered.
'You trying to be funny sis?' Crovell cocked an eyebrow at her.
'I just wanted to see how it felt to be older than you for once,' the blonde girl smirked.
'I'm sure,' he rolled his eyes and made his way towards her.
'Are you sure you wanna be the one to do this?' The girl passed the baby over to him.
'Who better to stop me than myself?' Crovell shrugged, before taking a deep breath in and turning his attention back towards the others. 'Okay, anyone who isn't currently wearing a dueldisk, I have a little gift for you.' He nodded towards the table in the corner and three strange looking dueldisks appeared. 'Nobody really duels anymore, but I still had quite a job convincing your future counterparts to part with these for a while,' he gave a half laugh. 'The black one with the gold trim actually belongs to our Kaiba, our Duke refused point blank to let us take our Catilin's. Which means,' he gave Catilin a strange smile, 'you'll also be using our Kaiba's deck.'
'What?' Kaiba glared at him.
'It couldn't be helped,' he shrugged again, 'we needed three and this was the only way to get it. But don't worry, all three Blue Eyes were taken out, that was our Kaiba's one stipulation. Now,' he turned his attention back to the others, 'the gold one with black trim belongs to our Tristan and the dark green one with orange trim belongs to our Duke. I'm not about to stand here and tell you two your future counterparts are champion duellists, you can hold your own for sure, but you're not even in my league never mind Yugi or Kaiba's. The truth is you both mainly duel in situations like this, so your skills and your decks are more... survivor level.'
'Does that mean things like this happens a lot,' Catilin tilted her head to one side.
'In our time line, yeah, but I'm hoping that's one of the things which will change.'
'Okay,' she wondered over to the table and removed the deck slotted into the card dispenser on the black dueldisk; slowly she began flicking through the cards. 'There really are no Blue Eyes in this deck.'
'Of course not, no future self of mine would let anyone use my Blue Eyes,' Kaiba's tone was as firm as it was passionate.
'You really don't change,' Crovell smirked and shook his head.
'So how exactly is this going to work?' Mai's voice was filled with more than a note of uncertainty. 'I mean, I get that we use the holograms to attack them, but…'
'Well it's actually quite simple,' Jo tilted her head to one side, 'in an annoyingly complicated way. See most of them are too far gone now to even remember what a hologram is, so to begin with they will believe they have taken damage from the attacks, which should be enough to get them to tap into their Elemental powers.'
'But isn't that risky for us.'
'Of course,' she folded her arms, 'but I never said this plans was without risk and eventually they will work out the monsters they're attacking aren't real. When they do, it'll be time to lead them into the great hall.'
'Why? What's gonna happen once they're in the great hall?' Catilin blinked at her.
'Well that's when we try to remind them of who they are. In theory by this point some of them should have started coming round anyway, so it shouldn't be too hard.'
'It feels strange,' she tilted her head to one side, 'we're about to use an evil game for a good reason. But... I guess the games not so evil anymore.'
'I'm not sure if I'd say that exactly,' Jo pulled a face, 'but then again I've faced off against the Game Master and nothing could compare to... him...'
'Why did you say him like that,' Catilin frowned at her, 'is the Game Master not a boy?'
'Err...'
'Who is the Game Master anyway?'
'It doesn't matter,' Crovell shook his head, 'explaining would just needlessly complicate things and waste time.'
'Okay,' Catilin bounced on her heels for a moment. 'So when are the wolves suppose to get here?'
Jo and Crovell exchanged a worried glance, but said nothing.
'You said the wolves were supposed to attack in the morning, right?' Catilin acted almost oblivious to their tension. 'That's why everyone had to get up early, so we would all be ready. Well the morning's almost over now, so that means the wolves have to get here soon, right?'
'Well you see that's just the thing,' Jo bit her lip and averted her gaze, 'they should be here already.'
