"What do you mean you don't have it in stock?" asked a very angry Seto Kaiba. He had come to the Moto family card shop to purchase some Duel Monsters booster packs for his brother, Mokuba, who was at his side, and was rather annoyed that the shop didn't have the exact packs he was looking for.
"I'm sorry, Kaiba," said Grandpa. "But the Labyrinth of Nightmares packs haven't come in yet- I'm not expecting them until next week!" Kaiba was about to say something, when a voice floated in from upstairs.
"What's going on in here?" asked Yugi. He stepped into the room a second later, followed by Tori... who stopped in the doorway and stared at Mokuba, who was staring back at her. Both looked completely surprised to see the other.
"What are you staring at?" Kaiba demanded. Tori ignored him and kept staring at his younger brother.
"Mokuba?" she asked. He nodded.
"Torina?" She nodded back, as a single tear cascaded down her cheek. There was a pause, then Mokuba suddenly rushed over to the girl and wrapped his arms around her.
"I thought you were dead!" they exclaimed together.
"He wouldn't tell me what happened to you!" Tori continued. "All he would say was "that's none of your concern." I thought you were gone forever!"
"Seto never mentioned you after we got home," replied Mokuba, traces of crying in his voice. "You said your uncle would kill you if he found out, and I thought he really did!" Tori held Mokuba tighter.
"It's all right, Mokuba- I'm here."
As the two of them maintained their embrace, their company just looked at them in awe... except for Joey. He remembered something Hikaru had told he and his friends about the Duelist Kingdom. His head began to nod as he started to grin.
"Torina," he said. "This is your friend from the Duelist Kingdom, ain't it?" Tori nodded and tried to let go of Mokuba, but the young boy refused to release her from his grip.
"I'm not going anywhere, Mokuba," she said, reassuringly. "Promise." Mokuba let go of her and she looked over at Joey. "I met Mokuba shortly after my uncle had him brought to the castle..."
"Wait a second," said Kaiba. "Mokuba, who is this and what the heck is she talking about?" Mokuba looked at his big brother and smiled.
"Seto, this is Torina- her uncle is Pegasus." As soon as Mokuba said that, Kaiba began to glare at Torina, who glared right back.
"Don't look at me like that!" she said, angrily. "You think I'm proud of who my uncle is? You couldn't be any further from the truth if you tried!" Her gaze went soft as it shifted over to Mokuba. "This is the big brother you were telling me about?" Mokuba nodded. "You're sure?" Another nod. Tori sighed and looked back at Kaiba. "If anything you should be thanking me, not glaring at me."
"Keh," Kaiba said. "Why should I thank you?" Joey suddenly felt his blood temperature begin to rise, although he didn't know why- Kaiba was getting into it with Torina, not him. Torina's eyes narrowed.
"My uncle may have been cocky enough to use his own name as a password," she said. "But, I am sorry to say, he's not that stupid."
Kaiba couldn't believe what he was hearing. Pegasus had used his own name as the password- how else had he been able to break into the Industrial Illusions mainframe? As he was pondering over what he had just heard, Tori continued her story.
"I saw Kemo bring Mokuba to the castle that day," she said. "Even after all I had been through with my uncle, I couldn't believe Uncle Max would stoop this low. The castle is filled with secret passages, but choosing the right one was the hard part..." As his friend told the tale, memories of the Duelist Kingdom played in Mokuba's mind, starting with the day he met Torina.
He didn't know what to do- locked in a tower of the Duelist Kingdom palace, Mokuba was scared. He knew he had to get out of the palace and find Yugi Moto- he was the one person that could make his brother lose his company... but how to get to him was a completely different story. Suddenly, a large stone in his wall began to move, causing Mokuba to jump up and back away. Seconds later, the stone stopped moving and a girl's head popped out from behind it.
"Oh good," she said. "I hoped I'd picked the right passage." She looked at Mokuba and smiled. "Hi! I'm Torina Pegasus- who are you?"
"Mokuba," he said. "Mokuba Kaiba." Torina nodded.
"I thought so. I heard Uncle Max talking about your brother, but I never thought he'd bring you here." Torina noticed the look of hate on Mokuba's face when she mentioned her uncle's name, causing her to smile, slightly. "I know what you mean- I'm a prime example of the "you can't pick your relatives" mantra- que cera, cera." That got a laugh out of the younger Kaiba, which made Torina feel much better. It had been a long time since she had heard laughter fill these dismal hallways. "So what are you doing here, Mokuba?" she asked. "I've heard rumors, but why don't you tell me what's really going on." Mokuba waisted no time in telling Torina the story- his older brother, Seto- whom he described as the greatest guy in the world- had left home after losing a Duel Monsters battle to Yugi Moto, another name Torina had been hearing recently around the castle.
"Pegasus is trying to take over my brother's company," Mokuba said. "If he can beat Yugi Moto in a duel, the head honchos of KaibaCorp will let Pegasus take over! But only a Kaiba family member can control the business, so they brought me here- they're trying to control me like I'm some sort of puppet!" Torina bit her lip for a moment, then smiled.
"Wait here, Mokuba," she said. "I've got an idea." She slipped back behind the wall and returned moments later with a hat, bandanna and a two or three bed sheets. "All right, Mokuba," she said as she handed him the items. "If you aren't here, my uncle can't control your brother's company. Just use the bed sheets to get out the window and get to the docks. Tell them you've lost all your Star Chips and they'll get you out of here. This should help too- use it to find that brother of yours." Her hand went to her pocket and she pulled out one more thing- a small wallet. She handed it to Mokuba, who looked inside- there was over a thousand dollars inside. Mokuba, unsure of what to say, wrapped his arms around her. Torina was taken aback for a moment, rather surprised by the hug. After a second, she put her arms around him as well.
"Thank you, Torina!" he said. "How can I ever thank you for this?" Torina began to chuckle.
"You can pray for me," she said. "My uncle's gonna kill me when this hits the fan."
"Why don't you come with me, then?" Mokuba asked. "Your uncle's a creep, so why do you stay?"
"Mokuba, it's going to be hard enough for you to do this alone. My uncle is going to have men looking for you as it is- if I come with you, there'll be even more. I have to stay here this time, but I promise, we'll see each other again..."
"Right about here is where you come in, Seto," Torina said, shaking Mokuba from his memories. "Not more than an hour after I left Mokuba, I was on my computer in my room, when I discovered something rather interesting- someone was trying to hack into the Industrial Illusions mainframe. When I did a scan and discovered it was you, I went to see what your were trying to access- a duel between Yugi Moto and one Seto Kaiba. There wasn't a very realistic way for you to be two places at once, so I came to the conclusion that the dueling Kaiba was an imposter."
"Where does the password come in?" asked Kaiba. Tori's smile widened.
"I knew what the password was, thanks to some eavesdropping on my part, so I could get into places other people couldn't. I knew you would have a lot better hardware where every you were, compared to my laptop anyway, so I changed to password from what is was to what I figured you would think it was."
"How would you know what I thought?" asked Kaiba.
"My uncle has a file on everyone- I looked through yours after I heard him talking about you to Kemo. You have an... um..."
"Well?"
"You have a way of seeing the worst in people- from what I read about you, I could tell that you would think my uncle is so sure of himself, that he would use him own name as the password- in reality, he used mine." There was a pause. "After I changed the password, I tried my hardest to keep other people from discovering you- set up blocks and stuff like that. But one of Uncle Max's employees walked in on me..." She brushed her bangs back to show a scar on her forehead. "As you can see, that didn't go over well with my uncle."
Kaiba chose that time to tell Mokuba it was time to go- Yugi figured it was because he needed time to process this new information. Mokuba and Tori said their goodbyes, both promising to see the other soon. After they left, Yugi looked at Tori- more specifically the scar on her forehead.
"Tori, how did he do that?" asked Yugi, taking note of everyone's eyebrows raising at the name 'Tori-' he guessed they expected Torina to tell him off over calling her that. But she didn't; she just shook her head.
"They tell me I walked into a door," she replied. "Though, I remember it quite differently."
"What happened?" asked Tea. Tori looked over at her friend, no expression on her face.
"Well, there was a door involved but I didn't walk into it- my uncle backhanded me, I spun around and slammed into it. Let me tell you, the guy's a heck of a lot stronger than he looks." There was a slight pause- then Joey spoke up.
"Tori," he said slowly- he wasn't sure how to ask this. Ever since Tori started telling her story, he felt... he didn't know what he felt or why he felt it, but something inside of him did not want to hurt her. "If Pegasus was like that, then why..." The feeling became stronger, so strong, Joey didn't dare continue.
Tori loved the way Joey said her name, with his heavy Brooklyn accent in full swing- where most people would pronounce her first name "Tah-rina," he always said it like it was spelled: "Torina." And now, as he called her by her nickname, he emphasized the 'O' even more. She really loved the sound of his voice. She looked at him and gave a soft smile.
"You want to know why I stayed, Joey?" she asked. Joey nodded, though regretfully. Even with her smile trying to cover it up, he saw a great deal of sadness in her eyes when she asked that. And it did more than tug at his heart strings- it nearly ripped them out. "I guess I stayed for my dad, Joey," she continued. "Before he died, he had asked me to stay a night with my uncle while he and my mom went out to dinner. I didn't want to, but he made me a deal." She put her hand to the Millennia Diamond. "He told me if I stayed with my uncle, he'd let me have this- his Millennia Diamond. So, to keep my promise to him, I stayed with my uncle... until a voice inside me asked to think about what Dad would want more- me to keep my promise, or me to be happy."
A tear began to run down Tori's cheek, causing Joey to do something completely on impulse- he went over and wrapped his arms around her. Tori returned his embrace and began to cry into Joey's shoulder as he smoothed down her hair.
"S'all right, Tori-girl," he said. "He ain't gonna hurtcha any more." As Yugi watched them, he had to hold back a smile- he knew what was happening, even if Tori and Joey didn't.
"What are you smiling at Yugi?" Yami asked telepathically. "Forgive me, but I don't really see the joy in this."
"Just a feeling I have, Yami," replied Yugi. "We'll have to wait and see what comes of it."
"I'm sorry," Tori whispered. Her head was still buried in Joey's shoulder as she said that and Joey was still holding her close. "I just miss them so much and living with my uncle did nothing to help that- he just made it worst."
Joey knew how she felt- his parents might not have died, but when they got divorced he had been separated from his beloved little sister, Serenity. She meant the world to Joey and he was crushed when she left. He had battled in the Duelist Kingdom Tournament for Serenity- she was losing her sight and needed an operation, one that was too expensive for Joey's parents to afford. He entered the tournament to win the money, and though he didn't come in first, he was still able to do what he went to the Tournament to do.
Tori had never felt so safe in her entire life. Sure, Hikaru had been able to protect her from her uncle's mind control powers, but no one could save her from his beatings. But as she stood there in Joey Wheeler's arms, she felt like there was no one in the world but them. But she knew all good things have to end sometime- she let go of Joey, looked into his eyes and smiled.
"Thanks Joey."