Lightning-Dono: Can you believe it? I nearly cried while typing the last several paragraphs to the last chapter. ;-; I'm big on sibling relationships (Not incest – just siblings loving each other in a brotherly-sisterly way.) so it was kind of sad to write all of that.
This is a short chapter, just to show you how the others react to Mokuba's sudden death.
Answers to teh reviewahcan't think – I don't mind the cussing because it's all true! ((sends Gozaburo and the nurse to hell)) Mwahahaha.
-----
"Oh my Ra, no freaking way!" Malik was screeching at the top of his lungs. He and Rishid happened to be watching the evening news that was on, just to kill some time. Malik was bouncing up and down on the couch, in horror or in happiness no one could tell. Rishid was sitting cross-legged on the ground on the other side of the room, meditating and humming endlessly. The humming halted once Malik started the screaming.
"What?" Came a grumpy voice.
"MOKUBA IS DEAD! KAIBA MOKUBA IS DEAD! OH MY RA! OH MY RA! OH MY-," Malik found himself drowning within the depths of his brother's cloak.
"Never say the name of the All-Powerful Egyptian God in vain!" He warned, watching his brother dangerously. "He shall not take that as praise but as a demeaning comment to his very existence!"
Malik was silent for a moment. "But don't you know what this means?" The remote nearly went flying out of Malik's slippery hands as he tossed himself around the couch, apparently not to find his comfort spot.
"What?" It seemed as though Rishid's favorite word of the day was 'What'.
"I might be taken in as Kaiba's brother and I could be as rich as...I don't know! Really wealthy. Kaiba makes tons of yen each year and half of the profit would be mine. He and Mokuba split it 50-50, right? And Isis is, like, going out with him or something! My chances would be even better!"
"What about me?" Rishid asked, feeling a bit left out of his brother's plans.
"Well, I haven't figured all the small details out yet, but-,"
Rishid used his wise ways to try and put reasoning into Malik's head. But usually whatever people said just went out through his other ear. "Now that Kaiba has lost his one joy in life, I don't think he'll want another brother for a while until he can take the current loss."
"And maybe I'll even get my own vacation house. I suppose it will have to be a large, marbled mansion. I don't want a trashed up cabin," Malik concluded, ignoring Rishid completely. "Now what were you saying?"
Rishid sighed exasperatedly. "Nothing of any interest." He paused for a second. "Not to you, anyway," he muttered as an afterthought, wondering how insensitive Malik had gotten. He certainly was happier than when Yami no Malik was controlling him, but it tainted him a bit. Malik no longer saw the things in life that could please just about anyone but looked beyond that to see things that no one would ever want him to do. That included trying to get Kaiba to adopt him as a brother. Even the very thought sent shivers down Rishid's spine.
- - - - -
Jounouchi sipped deeply on his milkshake, shaking it about to get some more in sucking range of his straw.
"This really beats the ones that I try to make," he grinned, his eyes wandering cheerfully around the room to all of his friend's faces.
Yuugi was calmly watching the TV, Anzu was stitching a button back onto her jacket, and Honda was snoozing on the couch. It was a beautiful evening in Japan. From the Game Shop if you went out back, you could sit down and see the stars through the clear skies that were no longer dotted with clouds. Pale raindrops no longer fell from the sky as they had done a mere couple days before.
Suddenly, a breakthrough report came on and Kaiba Mokuba's face appeared in the top right-hand corner.
"Well, that's typical. The Kaiba's get to have the whole news to themselves," Jounouchi snorted, nearly sending milkshake flying from his nose. Honda jerked away in disgust from the noise.
The news lady talked and then turned the camera to one of the guards that had been stationed by the closet door as soon as he saw the dirty footprints in the hallway leading to that shelf.
"I know something was wrong, but we wanted, to wait for the suspect to come out. We assumed that he was stealing money as the world knows that Kaiba Corp is possibly the wealthiest company. Who knew that they were..." The man sniffed back a tear, wiping his eyes for a moment. "after Mokuba? He was found dead in a killing machine inside that room."
The foursome gasped. Anzu's hands flew to her mouth, her fingers creeping up her face in order to shield her eyes just incase they decided to show a corpse. Yuugi sat stunned, not being able to believe a word that man was saying.
"It's a lie!" Yuugi finally shouted, to everyone's surprise. "They can't have done that!"
"They did, Yuugi! It's awful!" Anzu started crying melodramatically into her arm, moaning all the while as though she were in emotional pain.
Honda was staring wide-eyed at the screen, his expression reading just what Yuugi had just said.
Jounouchi, however, nearly burst into tears instantly.
"What's wrong, man?" Honda asked out of curiosity when he saw Jounouchi's face contorted with sadness.
"Shizuka-chan loved Mokuba," he whispered, sounding as though the world had just crumbled at his feet. "She would be heart-broken if she heard this."
The brown-haired teenager groaned, shaping his lump of hair into a shark fin once more with hair gel. "You're not going to rob your mother's house of a TV so she can't watch it, are you? And if you are, don't forget the radio." His hair had been down, giving him the look of an extremely shaggy dog, which, extraordinarily, looked quite good on him.
"Don't make a joke out of it!" Jounouchi snapped angrily at his companion, who was more or less surprised at this action that Jounouchi never used on his close friends. "How would you feel if you lost your brother or sister? Or if your sibling lost someone close to them? Would you be sitting there poking fun then? Huh?" He fell back onto the floor, staring dully at the ceiling. "I just can't believe it. He was only twelve." Jounouchi pushed himself back up into a sitting position. "Who would target a boy as young as twelve!?"
"You feel strongly about this, don't you?" Anzu fingered her hair, twisting it back and forth nervously, as though expecting a murderer to come bursting through the door.
The blonde sighed, shaking his head disappointedly. "You guys just don't understand. He meant a lot of Shizuka-chan. He was like her other side...But younger and male."
They all turned to stare at him. The awkward silence grew into embarrassment. Noticing his tough position, Yuugi decided to break through.
"Maybe if we listen more we'll learn who it was," Yuugi suggested, glancing in a semi-light-hearted way around the room, darting to each frowning face.
"Good idea," Anzu agreed, pleased that someone had come up with a way to bring back the peace and unity between the members of he group.
"When the hood was off, the assassin appeared to be none other than renowned Kaiba Gozaburo, previous head of Kaiba Corporation."
Expressions went blank.
"He killed his own son?" Anzu whispered.
