Pegasus's shoulders rose and fell with his breath. From this angle, Seto couldn't tell if he was ready to scream or sob. He merely waited, counting the agonizing moments it took for Pegasus's thoughts to find their way to his mouth. He wondered if, even now, he delighted in prolonging the answer.

"I want to talk to you," he said at last. "No dodging questions or deflecting."

He turned so Seto could see his face, but stared straight passed him to Croquet. "Show him to a room with a computer," he ordered in a tone that was not to be questioned. "No one's leaving and running the risk of drawing premature attention to the island. Don't ask me." He straightened to normal height, features lined with fatigue but otherwise neutral. "I'm sure you've done the same thing a hundred times trying to perfect the prototype. Mokuba will be fine."

He shrugged past Seto, who was too stunned to reply, and pointedly refused to acknowledge Croquet's hand on his shoulder as he made for his bedroom.

"This is about Mokuba."

He only realized his face was wet when Seto called for him and fingers moved instinctively to check that his eye was covered. He couldn't face him now.

"Not you."

He needed to slam doors, throw his lavender soap at the shower wall until it disintegrated into nothing. Like sea foam gurgling to the shore after high tide. Life from remains.

"Not me."

It could have been about him, for once in his life. If he only knew how to let someone worry and look after him.

Another call of his name. Footsteps drawing closer.

When had he stopped walking?

"Take the desktop from the drafting room if you need it," he murmured, but doubted he could be heard.

As more men began to shuffle into action behind him, Pegasus crossed the formal dining room, ignoring the pattern of feet following him back the hallway. The irony of intending to set Seto up across the hall was lost with the intrusion of his solitude—the entire wing was usually his and his alone—so he pushed it down, swung open his bedroom door, and collapsed soundlessly behind it.

Half an hour passed before Seto had a computer in front of him. The monitor of the desktop was larger than Seto had used back at KaibaCorp, and in place of a mouse, it had a tablet and pen. Seto requested a change and that took another quarter hour.

And that just left time to contemplate Pegasus's price. Seto expected more than that, a demand for him to agree to stay, or his right arm. The plan Seto had devised would put them all at risk. The idea was to draw Gozaburo to Seto and away from Mokuba. That meant that any supporters actively searching for Seto would head this way.

Seto was fairly certain he remembered Pegasus admitting he would hand Seto over if it came down to that.

He hadn't expected much internet speed on a remote island, but it was better than anticipated. He went through the security checks to ensure the system wouldn't be that easy to track, and ran through his hidden funds to make certain nothing had been tampered with.

If Isono already had plans to get out of the country, Seto didn't need to worry about fake documentation. He picked a city in China that only had one road in and out, a population of under three thousand, and zero ties to anything Kaiba-related. He set up the travel arrangements and called Isono to fill him in, instructing him to send someone to Barcelona in their place and to wait for Seto's leave. The more distractions and fake trails, the better.

And as an extra precaution, Seto logged into an account he knew Aizawa helped set up, purchasing three tickets to London under fake names.

To test the computer, Seto tried hacking into Industrial Illusions's server. He made it through, but it wasn't fast enough. At that speed, Aizawa would cross the ocean before Seto made it inside KaibaCorp's system.

Croquet never left the room, but stood guard over by the door. Seto turned to him and ignored the obvious negative set of his mouth to say, "Is there anything with a better operating system?"

Croquet shook his head.

"I won't be able to do this without a faster computer."

Seto barely finished his sentence before Croquet walked out. At least this time, Seto didn't hear the door locking behind him.

Pegasus groaned at the knock on his door, pulling a shirt on and tossing his wet hair over it. "What?"

"Mr. Kaiba is requesting faster equipment."

Pegasus frowned despite himself. "What did you give him?"

"The desktop from the drafting room."

He was silent as he motioned for Croquet to follow him to the office. His laptop would be useless for what Seto needed, but the desktop he used to digitally enhance his duel monsters should do the trick.

"Help me get this unhooked," he mumbled, bending down to organize the various cords. Croquet obliged, and in a few minutes was holding the tower with a look of deep concern.

"Are you sure this is wise?"

"It doesn't matter if it's wise," Pegasus chided, shooing him just as hurriedly back to Seto. "It's all we've got." He wasn't thrilled with the idea of Seto uninstalling his software to make the thing run faster, and hoped quad core processing would help enough that it could be avoided, but worse things were at stake than a few tedious loading screens.

Seto turned immediately at the opening of the door, too quick to hide his surprise at Pegasus's entrance. "This is my personal computer," he began as Croquet set it down. "Assuming we're all still here tomorrow, I'd appreciate you leaving it in one piece."

Seto nodded, waving the servant away when he bent to help him. It was bad enough the man insisted on hovering the way he had, let alone trying to help "speed up" the process. Seto counted mere seconds from boot to fully functional OS, no doubt to appease Pegasus's impatience.

He resumed trying to hack I2's server and found the speed suitable. The kind of virus he'd need to send to corrupt the backup file was layered. Slow, but devastating beyond repair. KC's system had been hastily re-encrypted and was rife with errors that made finding the virtual reality simulation nearly impossible.

If not for his impeccable memory, allowing him to recognize the file down to the letter, he might've taken an entire evening to locate it. He checked thoroughly to make sure everything was there; the last thing he needed was for Aizawa to save someone's consciousness to a flash drive and use it against him later.

Provided he made it through this ridiculous scheme.

Once he'd altered the code enough that it couldn't be duplicated any further, he worked on taking it down. Pegasus had taken a seat on the bed and was watching intently. Croquet resumed his perch by the door and kept a steady hand on his weapon as if someone from their own ranks might suddenly burst in and start shooting.

He started calibrating the virus, doing everything in his power to avoid their eyes even if they weren't deliberately watching him. Pegasus's habit of staring at the ceiling was more distracting than if he had been.

By the time he had everything ready a few hours later, he was holding his breath for the virus to be faster than expected. He folded his hands and clicked upload, watching the progress bar on the screen. He felt Croquet's eyes flicking over curiously, but neither man said a word.

They let him work, and watch.

Twelve percent in twenty minutes was exceptional, but it'd slow way down once it got to the more complex material. The only thing left to do was wait it out.

He moved the chair back from the desk, taking short breaths to keep the anxiety bubbling up from his stomach at bay, and faced Pegasus.

"You said you wanted to talk," he said. "Now's as good a time as any."

Pegasus sat up, still fighting through his emotions. "You can't be serious."

The roll of Seto's eyes, nervous and calculated, said two things. They'd be at this stage for a while, and there would be no other time to fulfill the request if they didn't move beyond it. So he smoothed his hair, still damp from his shower, and moved to the edge of the bed.

Croquet took the hint and shut the door, leaving them as alone as circumstances allowed.

"Question for question," he began. "No more lies."

Seto nodded, silently gesturing for him to get on with it.

"Have you ever been in love?"

He couldn't hold back the scoff. Of all the simple things he could've asked, knowing what he was contending with, Pegasus had to start at the most ridiculous.

But Pegasus seemed honest in his desire for the answer. Seto checked the screen for a distraction, thinking through all the possibilities of why that had been the first question asked, then remembered something.

"I have to call Isono," he said, reaching into his pocket for the phone.

The call lasted no more than ten seconds. "Go now," met with "We're ready," and Seto ended the call as not to delay them further. Aizawa had to have noticed the intrusion by now, probably tracking it to Seto as he pocketed the phone once more and tried to think through the question.

He didn't know what Pegasus expected from him. If he had been in love before, he might have chosen to lie. But there was nothing to hide with his admission. Pegasus must have expected a negative response, so why ask a wasted question?

"I have loved. I have never been in love."

Seto expected Pegasus to press on the subject, insisting that Seto must have been in love at some point in his life, but the follow up question, if there was one, remained unspoken.

And then it was his turn. Pegasus must have known Seto's first question, but he needed to hear the answer regardless. He had to ask without being able to follow up right away, but get at least some sort of a clear answer.

"You admitted to using this—" he paused to gesture to the computer. "—as an excuse to get me here. Why?"

The answer couldn't have been to help him, not with everything said to that point. Maybe keeping him from Gozaburo was a benefit, but Seto just knew Pegasus had a selfish reason underneath the guise of charity.

Pegasus met his eyes, keeping a neutral expression. He wondered why Seto's first question would be one he knew the answer to. "I told you," he said quietly. "I wanted to know you. You may not like the answer, but there's still no deeper reason behind it."

He closed his good eye as Seto's gaze hardened, and held up a hand as he gathered his explanation. "We've been business partners for years. You came to me a boy staring down a dream, became a man the instant you made your proposal, and never looked back. I wanted to know what else made you smile the way you did when I praised SolidVision. What brought out that smug confidence when we shook hands for the press. What else made them tremble, though you'll swear to me they didn't."

He paused, giving a brief shake of his head. "I regret that a few years ago what I thought I needed from you trumped what I wanted, but—"

Brown met blue again. "That's another answer for another question."

He didn't wait for Seto to accept or reject his answer, but did hold off until the boy had taken the obligatory glance at the screen—14%—and resumed eye contact.

"Which of your accomplishments are you most proud of?"

'I wanted to know you' was a lot different than 'I wanted you.' It explained nothing, and throwing out trivial details from their past didn't justify the answer. If anything, it served to add to Seto's anger. Kidnapping him because his hands had trembled as a child?

Seto needed to break the eye contact before he started ranting, so he checked the screen again, still at 14%. He hoped the conversation wouldn't last as long as the virus took.

But his answer. He had a lot of accomplishments and took pride in each of them. He supposed he could have lied and said SolidVision, but Pegasus wouldn't believe it.

"Mokuba," which he realized was an insufficient answer to the question. "I can't take credit for how he turned out. Not really."

It didn't sound like much of an accomplishment when he phrased it like that, so he added. "I'd like to think I made it possible."

He ran his tongue over his teeth and jumped to his next question instead of waiting to see if Pegasus would turn down his answer. "You really thought holding me hostage, allowing me to wake up gagged and bound to a table, taunting me about being at your mercy, threatening Mokuba, threatening to keep me, you thought that would make me inclined to open up to you?"

"See—" Pegasus held an arm out, nearly leaping off the bed. "That," he continued, "That's what I'm talking about. What do you mean you can't take credit for how he turned out? You raised him from baby on up. Where else should the credit go? Of course Mokuba's a wonderful, resilient boy, but you can't deny it being due in part to having you as a role model. You carry all the marks of pride, but seldom let yourself feel it, I'd bet. You're not a bystander in his life, Seto. You're his whole world."

The wave of emotion seemed to settle as he fixed himself back on the bed, crossing one leg over the other as he worked out his reply.

"I didn't expect you to react so badly to the sedative. You could've sliced your jugular on the way over. Given the nature of the situation you understand why I couldn't have you acting like a maniac on the way to the island. That's why you woke up gagged and bound. I make no excuse for the rest. The only thing I can offer you is an explanation. I was angry. Irrationally angry. That came out of me in visions of all the things I could do to you, just like I'm sure your anger was vented on all the things you could do to me, if only in your own head. I'm not saying we're the same; we aren't. I took you from your brother and dangled both of your lives in front of you. It was wrong." Seto's eyes, which had been fixed on the screen, willing it to move to 15 percent, found his again. Wrong was a gross understatement.

"What were you expecting me to want?"

He let the comments about Mokuba slide. Pegasus shouldn't be given an opinion on the subject.

"You were angry?" he said instead. "What did you have to be angry about? Me trying to get away from you when I woke up after being kidnapped, in your dungeon, tied up, with no explanation, and you taunting me? Angry that I fought back? Insulted you? No, that's not my question."

Seto practically heard the entire scene play out before he answered. Come now, Kaiba. Here I am trying to help you and you're still lumping me in with all the rest. Or possibly Don't you see that's the attitude I'm trying to save you from? Because you need a savior. It could have been Of course it matters. I'm trying to build a relationship with you. Sure, you might not want it, but I'm not giving you much of an option.

There was still only the one answer though. He couldn't even think of a decent lie.

"What do they all want? The specifics hardly matter."

His foot bounced while Seto willed himself to stay seated. He had to keep an eye on the virus's progression, make sure that no one put a stop to it. He settled for interlacing his fingers, squeezing and then stretching them out.

Pegasus would probably want the specifics.

"How did you expect this to play out?"

"We're different, you and I," he said, his voice was too distant from the start. Seto turned to the computer for lack of a better distraction, then forced himself to focus on what he knew would be a ridiculous answer. You kidnap children; I build them theme parks. We're different. Move on.

"I never see the end. It detracts from the present." He took a breath through his nose and struggled to let it out. "Too many things are cut short in the prime of their potential, lost to deadlines or destinations, all because people made a plan for them. I didn't have a plan for you, Seto. That's the first thing I want you to know."

He could sense Seto getting impatient with his answer and tried to make the thoughts easier to wade through. "I expected to talk to you and have you talk back. I expected us to get closer. I expected to tell you about Gozaburo when the time was right and the threat was over, because I expected it to be over by now. I expected to annoy you with business propositions, but instead I antagonized you with threats. I expected you to doze in a lounge chair on the balcony, not in a corner of the dungeon. The expected mattered a little less by that point, because it wasn't you who was preventing what I expected, it was me, but I expected anyway. I expected things to start to change. I expected to salvage what I started, that you'd want to stay even a few days here and there like friends do. I expected to understand why I feel the way I do when I look at you, but I don't."

He let the breath out, long and slow, and Seto pointedly ignored how his body shook with the motion. "I don't."

He didn't look at Seto when he asked the next question. "What will you do about Kaiba Corp?"

The answer bothered him, but not as badly as he thought it might. Apparently Pegasus had assumed Seto to be someone else entirely when he plotted to kidnap him, possibly still the young boy with trembling hands. Two days wasn't that long when Seto considered what Pegasus had in mind.

"You expected it to be over by now?" he shook his head and had to hold in a smirk. "That would make my last two victories over him meaningless. And no, also not my question."

Pegasus didn't push subjects like Seto expected him to. There might be a point when Seto answered too vaguely, but if his last answer didn't hit that limit, Seto wondered how much Pegasus would let him get away with.

They had plenty of time, if the loading bar was any indicator.

"I'll have to assess the damage before making a decision, see what all he's destroyed. My work wasn't just the building. Everything's backed up."

Seto didn't know if he would be left enough to start over, and even should the virus work, he would still have to deal with Aizawa and the supposed thousands of followers who had been planning his death. Making some grand reappearance might not be possible any time soon.

"Does that mean you've given up on me?" Seto asked, using the same wording Croquet had confirmed earlier. "That I'll be at liberty to go?"

He couldn't believe that Pegasus had suddenly decided to give up this effort after all he had gone through. People didn't change in such a short time, not unless, maybe, he had only wanted the young boy and ended up displeased with the man Seto actually was.

"Why did you say it like that?"

A hundred things floated through his mind. Nights they might have spent admiring the stars, pointing to ones Mokuba favored to have Seto repeat the astronomy, verbatim, on his behalf. Talk about dragons and mythology, and how the only sort Seto believed in was that, which his legacy might create when it faded through the ages.

Everything fades eventually.

The way they looked at each other when the cashiers giggled excitedly, grouped together and gossiping, too shy to approach. The soft hmm on Seto's lips as he slid into the car, because sixteen was still a child even if it was only a few years behind him. The shared philosophy of softness, fondness, for children. Never voiced but always acknowledged.

Idealized notions of the soul across the room, that in truth was just as much a mystery as when he'd started.

"Let's be real about this. No more fantasies." The same knife Seto used a thousand times had found a new way to twist. "I pushed you to a line and you drew it. If I kept you here, you'd spend every waking moment in misery. I expected resistance, I expected anger and grudges. Not repulsion. Not 'you are worse than him.' I've given up the method of keeping you here until we've built the kind of relationship this feeling came from the last time I felt it."

He leaned closer and Seto instinctively rolled the chair back to make up the distance. "I haven't given up on the boy who came to me with trembling hands that later rebuilt a corporation. I haven't given up on the person right here, right now, who'll do it again, or choose not to. I'm not giving up on you, Seto. I wouldn't know how."