Chapter Twenty-Two

"You touch him and I'll slit your throat."

Ryou shot Bakura a startled look and dashed into the room after Yami and Yuugi. Seto had taken off quite suddenly (Koto had vanished the minute they set foot inside the building, for reasons Ryou hadn't yet been able to pry out of Seto), leaving the rest of them behind and quite confused as to where he was going. Yami had been uncharacteristically nervous since then, and Bakura had kept a firm hold on Ryou, leading the hikaris to believe that something wasn't quite right.

The moment they walked into Yutou's bedroom, everything was confirmed.

"Hey, Pharaoh?" There was no malice behind the question; shock, maybe, but no trace of the contempt with which Bakura usually spat Yami's title.

"Yes?" And again, no indication of any enmity between the two; indeed, they very well may have been discussing the results of a recent baseball game, or something of the sort.

"How long has Kaiba been able to do that?"

"As far as I know, never."

Yutou was floating ten feet above where he normally should have been…obviously something a little more than that, since he was thrashing around as if a particularly irate animal had hold of him, clutching at his throat and gasping for air. To Yami, Yutou glimmered faintly with Shadow magic, but he wasn't sure Bakura could see it, not having been a sorcerer in a past life.

"Kaiba!"

No reply. Yami stepped in front of his hikari, just in case, and tried again. "Kaiba!"

Again, the pseudo-Seto made no indication that he'd even heard Yami. He wasn't answering to his own name. Instead, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile that was all too familiar to Yami. "Stay back, all of you," he ordered when Honda made a move as if to go to Jonouchi. "He'll be fine. Don't get anywhere near Kaiba."

They took the command surprisingly well; Yami had the tendency to slip back into Pharaoh-mode when under pressure, and this was no exception.

Jou screamed like a frightened animal when Seto came close to him, tossing his head back and kicking at the mattress in his attempt to sit up. He was injured, badly injured, and it was a wonder he could even move, let alone fight so furiously.

"What are you doing to him? Kaiba Seto, what the fuck are you doing to him?" Jou, needless to say, wasn't exactly comfortable with the concept of magic; it equated a little too closely with ghosts in his mind. Not to mention, he'd never seen anything like this from Seto of all people; he'd stubbornly maintained his 'magic-doesn't-exist' theory for years, up until the yamis had been granted their own bodies.

"Does it bother you?" The bastard didn't even sound like Seto, Seto had never sounded apologetic in his life! He didn't talk like that! Jou let out another fresh cry when the thing wearing his lover's body reached for him. It wasn't even Seto's other personality, it was something else, something…sinister. Dangerous.

"You fuckin' touch me an' I'll rip you apart," Jou growled. "Let him go!"

"As you wish," Seto sighed, with a dismissive wave towards Yutou. The blonde fell to the ground with a grateful wheeze, clutching his aching throat. "I don't understand why you want to protect something like that," he snarled with a quick glance towards the elder man. "Just look what he did to you." Seto (?) sat down on the bed next to Jou and began untying the ropes. Jou tried to bite him several times until Seto's long fingers closed around his jaw, cold blue eyes meeting stubborn amber. "Behave."

"Let go a' me," Jou whispered.

"Don't be foolish," Seto said gently, running his fingers through Jou's blood-matted hair. "I'm here to help you." Jou jerked away and bared his teeth. "Growl all you want, little one. Frightened puppies bark the loudest. I understand."

"I'm not frightened!" The last knot slipped free and Jou massaged his broken wrist tenderly, wincing as the blood began to flow back into his limbs. Seto shook his head and placed a hand on Jou's chest.

"Relax, little one," he said calmly, closing his eyes. Jou didn't, he had no intention of listening to this…this thing, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Seto began a chant, a slow, rhythmic chant in a language Jou had never heard before.

"My gods," he heard Yami cry, but it was distant, as if he were miles away rather than two feet. "Stay back! Get away from him!"

The chant continued and Jou couldn't help but repress a shiver; it was eerie, and the room seemed to be growing colder by the second. A harsh wind whipped at his hair, undoubtedly generated by Seto, since they were still inside. Jou squinted into the wind and blinked once.

Seto was glowing.

Blue flame rippled along his arms, dancing over his whole body and centering on Jou's chest. Seto's hands against his flesh were suddenly white-hot in contrast with the rapidly-cooling air around him and the frigid wind. A helpless glance towards his friends revealed that there were having trouble bracing themselves against the wind, as Yuugi had collapsed onto the ground, clutching the carpet with all his strength, and Ryou was sliding steadily backwards. Bakura was already against the wall, holding onto Otogi and Mokuba to keep them from being flung through the open door, and Yami had one hand on his hikari's shirt and the other on Honda's sleeve.

"What are you doing?" Jou yelled, but his voice was lost in the gale Seto seemed to have dredged up from nowhere. "Seto, what's going on?"

The brunette ignored him, just kept right on chanting (odd, it was the only thing Jou could hear through the howling winds) and for a brief moment the flames shone so brilliantly that Jou screwed his eyes shut and cried out in pain. A shock of pain jolted him suddenly and he arched his back, screaming as the heat coursed through his entire body, burning him alive, tearing and scorching, and it was agony, pure agony, he couldn't stop screaming…

And then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone. Seto's chanting had ceased and the winds died into a gentle breeze that eventually faded into nothingness. Jou collapsed forward, catching himself before he fell face-down on the bed, panting.

"There," he heard Seto say. "All healed."

And he was. He bruises were gone, every last one of them, the burns and scrapes were nowhere to be seen…even a long, jagged scar he'd had slashing across his hip from his gang days had vanished, leaving behind smooth, unmarred skin. Jou put a cautious hand to his chest and pushed down, expecting his broken ribs to grate against each other and they didn't; Seto had even healed those.

"How did you do that?" Jou asked, dazed. Yutou had scrambled into a corner and was watching the brunette on the bed with huge, terrified eyes. "Seto, how did you—"

"Seto is dead."

Jou blinked. "What?"

"Stop playing with him," Yami snapped. Jou had never seen the pharaoh look so furious; his violet eyes gleamed with the faintest hint of crimson, and his entire body was tense; Yuugi was wincing from the hold Yami had on his shoulder. "You've got a sick sense of humour, Seth."

"Pharaoh? I didn't expect to see you here." Seto (Seth?) smirked at the shorter man, but it wasn't Seto's smirk, it was…something else. "How have you been?"

"Yami, what's going on?" Jou asked desperately, pleadingly. "Who is this?"

"High Priest Seth," Yami growled. "My cousin and Kaiba's yami."

Jou fainted.

oooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo

"Unh…" Jou threw a hand over his eyes. His head ached, and he was so tired…his arm was trembling from just the effort of holding his arm up and shielding his eyes.

"He's waking up!"

"Thank the gods."

"Where am I?" Well, that was what he meant to say, but it came out more like "Whr'ma?" Which might have been why no one understood him. Jou opened his eyes slowly, squinting in bright artificial light as he stared up at the slowly revolving ceiling fan. He jumped when the ceiling was suddenly gone, replaced by pale skin, chestnut hair and crystal-blue eyes.

"Get away from me!" he yelped, shoving Seth away and scrambling back. It was him, that…that thing controlling Seto! He'd nearly killed Yutou, and Jou didn't have any idea how he'd done it…the elder man had been writhing in midair, there was no way that was normal. Even by Jou's skewed standards.

"Yeah, he's awake." Jou shot Ryou a grateful look—thank God, they hadn't left him alone with this monster. Odd, though, it seemed like Bakura was trying to hide behind Ryou. It didn't work very well, since Bakura was quite a bit taller than his slight hikari.

Seth seemed to be somewhere between hurt and mildly amused, but he pulled back and let Jou have his space. "I saved you, little one. I don't think that merits such disrespect."

"Shut up," Yami snapped crankily from his position leaning against the wall, apparently as far from Seth as the room would allow. Yuugi stood next to him, looking worried and rubbing his yami's shoulder comfortingly. "Stop being such an ass, Seth. Can't you see he's scared?"

"I don't know why. I saved him from that…Yutou thing."

"You…who are you?" Jou asked, clutching the covers to his chest in a ridiculously feminine manner, as if he had something there to hide. He was shivering, but he wasn't scared, he wasn't. He'd faced down more than this before—hell, there was no way this guy was crazier than Pegasus. Or Marik, or Malik, or Dartz, or—actually, Jou wasn't entirely sure why his initial reaction to Seth had been to scream. It seemed obvious now, away from the floating, thrashing Yutou and the terror of being tied down and tortured that Seto would have a yami, he'd heard Yami mention Seth several times. And Seth had healed him, which was probably the only reason Jou was conscious right now.

"Seto's yami," Seth said, sliding his hand under Jou's bangs to check for fever, and Jou let him, with an apologetic smile. "I think you're completely healed. It's been a while since I've tried anything like that."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Why…I mean, not that I'm not grateful or nothin', but why're you here? I've known Seto since he was sixteen, an' I never knew he even had a yami. Why now?" It was true; he was fairly sure that Seto himself had never met Seth.

"Seto needed me. I'm not as bad as Atemu makes me out to be." He jerked his head at Yami, who didn't seem to be taking the arrival of his cousin very well. "Far be it from me to deny my poor hikari anything he needs."

Yai's face darkened even more. "And what, dear cousin, do you mean by that?"

Seth smiled at Yami, either egging him on, or completely unaware of his temper. "I haven't neglected my duties as a yami, Atemu. I've taken care of him—"

"Oh, yes, fine care," Yami interrupted. "You could have killed Yutou any time you wanted to, why on earth didn't you step in thirteen years ago, when it could have made a difference?" Jou hadn't ever seen Yami this agitated, and he wondered exactly what the sorcerer-priest meant by 'duties.' Were yamis supposed to protect hikaris? Now that he thought about it, they all had—well, Marik and Yami more so than Bakura, but still…it wasn't that Yuugi, Malik and Ryou were weak, it had just always seemed natural for the yamis to keep their hikaris out of harm's way.

"I did what I could!" Seth's playful façade was abandoned in favour of a more immediate conflict, and his blue eyes clouded to a stormy gray with anger. "Your hikari wanted you. He believed in you. I couldn't very well possess a child that refused to accept that I existed! You know that, Atemu! It wasn't my fault, what happened to Seto! I tried! I scared him more than Yutou did!"

"Now there's a surprise," Yami snarled. "You think it had anything to do with your charming personality?"

Thwack.

Yami rubbed the cheek where his cousin had struck him, wincing a little. "I went too far," he consented, the closest to an apology he'd ever given in the time Jou had known him. He gave his cousin a wry grin.

Seth grinned right back at him and clapped him on the shoulder. "It's alright. You've always been a bit pigheaded."

"Me? You're ten times as stubborn as I ever was. And you always got me in trouble for all the jokes you played on the royal advisors."

"They were too stiff for their own good, anyways," Seth said with a wave of his hand. "Besides, you were the heir, they couldn't really do anything to you…"

Jou shot Yuugi a bemused look and the little hikari returned it with a puzzled shrug. Seth and Yami were chatting amiably now, and Bakura seemed to be trying to hide behind Ryou. "They seem…uh…friendly?" Yuugi sat down on the foot of Jou's bed, shaking his head.

"I don't get it any more than you do," he said faintly.

"Um, excuse me," Jou said. "Hey, guys?" Yami and Seth paused. "Yeah, sorry—I was just wonderin'. What'd you do with Yutou?"

The room went silent.

oooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo

"You left him there." Jou's voice was flat, golden eyes devoid of anything but disbelief. "You left him there. How on Earth do you overlook a thirty-five-year-old man having a mental breakdown!"

"We were more worried about you," Yuugi said, toying with the cuff of his shirt. "You weren't in very good shape, and I guess…" he gestured helplessly. "We just sort of…forgot."

"Damn it." Jou buried his face in his hands. "Damn it, damn it, damn it. He could be anywhere. He could be dead. How could you just leave him there?"

"He's better off dead anyways," Seth said, leaning his chin on his palm. "I distinctly remember you threatening to kill him several times—I'm failing to see the problem here."

Jou sighed and dropped his hands. "Look, what he did, yeah, it was wrong on so many levels. And yeah, he can be a complete prick when he wants to. But…you weren't there, you didn't see him. Something happened to him when he was younger. He completely freaked out when I mentioned his family…he's just as screwed up as Seto."

"Tell me you're kidding." Mokuba slammed his fists down on the table, steely gray eyes narrowed and he was practically baring his teeth at Jou. "You're seriously suggesting that you feel sorry for him? After what he did to you, after what he did to my brother? He's a rapist, he's crazy! He carved his name into Seto's chest! Don't you dare suggest that he's the victim!"

"I'm telling you, something happened to him!" Jou met Mokuba's glare with one of his own. "People aren't just born like that! I mentioned his family, and he panicked! It was exactly like mentioning Yutou's name around Seto—something happened that he's not talking about!"

"Who the hell cares? He raped my brother! If you cared at all about him, if you really loved him—"

Jou backhanded him and Mokuba froze, head still facing in the direction it had been so abruptly turned. Pain wasn't a part of Mokuba's life, he'd never been in a fight before, and to be hit by Jou of all people… "How dare you," Jou hissed, low and deadly, eyes blazing from under furrowed brows. "How dare you try t' pin this on me. I don' need t' prove myself t' you, Mokuba. I love him, don't you ever say otherwise!" Jou's furious whisper was steadily escalating into frenzied screams. "I've done everythin' I could for him! I let Yutou take me, because if I didn', your brother would've been killed!"

"What?" Mokuba blinked, looking shocked by the revelation and taken aback by Jou's temper all at the same time.

"Didn' know that, did you? Yeah, Yutou had fuckin' snipers hidden in the press conference. He'd 'a killed him if I didn't go. So don't you dare insinuate that I haven't given enough for him."

Mokuba's eyes filled with tears and he sat down rather abruptly, burrowing into the shelter of his folded arms. "I'm sorry," he sobbed. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any of that—I've just been so worried—"

"I understand," Jou said with a sigh, taking his seat. "But Mokuba, you have t' be able t' see past revenge. Would killing Yutou really change anythin'? I mean, Seto'll still cry, he'll still hurt and he'll still have nightmares whether or not Yutou's breathin'. Whatever happened to Yutou wasn't his fault. He jus' needs help, an' he'll probably never get it."

"I'll find out." Otogi's emerald eyes were unusually serious, and he wasn't even toying with his hair. "He's right, Mokuba. Yutou needs help. If Seto…if Seto had turned out like that, wouldn't you try to do something?"

"Of course I would," Mokuba said miserably, slumping back over the table. "But Seto…he wouldn't, he just wouldn't." He shook his head, raven hair flying. "I know my brother. He'd never rape anyone."

"Don't be so sure," Seth said darkly. "He's come close, Mokuba."

Jou flushed and looked away. Mokuba's eyes widened and he grabbed at Jou's shoulder. "He didn't. Tell me he didn't." No, he couldn't have! Seto loved Jonouchi, he wouldn't…he wasn't Yutou…Seto was the exception to the rule, he had to be. His brother wasn't like that! "Please, Jou. Tell me he didn't…didn't…"

"Of course he didn't," Jou said softly, still avoiding Mokuba's eyes. "But I think he knows why Yutou did what he did. You've got to understand what's going on in his mind, Mokuba. You can't judge a person's actions without considering their reasoning—when Seto's stressed, he gets aggressive." Jou closed his eyes and leaned his head against his knuckles.

"Kaiba—mmph!" Jou had barely made it into the car when Seto grabbed him bodily and threw him down onto the limo seat. "What're you doin'?"

Kaiba's teeth closed on his throat and Jou choked. "Nnn … Seto … dat hurts … " He could feel the blood vessels rupturing below the skin, bruising a mark of ownership on his neck.

"It's supposed to," Seto growled, claiming Jou's lips, sliding his tongue into the pup's mouth. He tasted like fear.

His hands busied themselves with Jou's shirt, undoing the buttons swiftly, although he was close to just ripping it off. Jou struggled, beating futilely at his powerful back with half-pinned arms. "Please," he panted when Seto finally broke away for air. "Please don't do this—"

"He equates sex with pain. He doesn't…doesn't understand that it's not supposed to hurt, because to him, sex means Yutou holding him down and forcing him to do things he doesn't want to do." Mokuba turned to Seth, who was very determinedly staring out the window. "If Yutou went through that—and it's a safe bet to say that he did—he's become addicted to a sense of control that he never had when he was younger. It's got nothing to do with Seto. Yutou doesn't know how to love. All he knows is violence, and that's the only way he can express affection."

"Have you got a computer in here?" Otogi asked suddenly.

"Yes," Seth answered. He gestured to Seto's desk, where a sleek black laptop was sitting in its place of honour on the polished mahogany. "It's on, I think." Otogi sat down in Seto's chair and opened the laptop, and then a rapid succession of keystrokes followed, punctuated by the occasional click of the mouse. "Might I ask what you're doing?"

"I'm trying to find out what Yutou owed Gozaborou. Jou said Yutou trained Seto as a favour to Yutou, right? And I'm willing to bet, if it would have made Gozaborou look better in the public eye by doing some poor kid a service, it'll have made at least one paper…" He trailed off, frowning at the screen. "Maybe not."

"How can you possibly have searched that fast?" Yuugi asked. "Maybe you missed something." Otogi raised perfectly-formed eyebrows.

"I'm Otogi Ryuuji. I don't miss things."

"How narcissistic of you," Bakura commented.

"If it didn't make the paper, maybe Yutou did something illegal."

"Besides raping children?"

"Shh," Mokuba told Yuugi. "He can't hear you anyways."

And it truly didn't seem that Otogi could—his eyes flicked so quickly across the screen that Jou was starting to feel sick. He was typing furiously, brows furrowed in concentration, and a pink tongue darted out occasionally to swipe subconsciously across his lips as he worked. They were silent, dead silent for a good ten minutes, and then—

"Hah!" Otogi slammed his fist on the desk in triumph. "I got it!"

"What," Yami said skeptically, eyeing Otogi, "did you get?"

"Hacked into Domino Police database—sure enough, our boy was born a little outside of the city, father was—"

"Wait," Jou said, narrowing one eye. "You hacked into a police database that quickly? How? Aren't they supposed to be well-guarded?"

"You'd think that." Otogi winked at him. "But I am a genius, don't forget that." He cracked his knuckles and continued. "Anyways, born in the suburbs, father moved them into an apartment in your side of town, Honda. Yutou was six at the time…his father got a new job, something in public services, it doesn't really say…"

"Why do that have so much on him? I mean, that's a pretty thorough file."

"Yes, well, seems like Yutou was quite the troublemaker in his high school days. He was arrested about six times before he graduated. Stupid things, too, like stealing food from convenience stores and pick-pocketing. And he also tried to…ah…solicit his services to an off-duty cop."

"He was a prostitute?"

"Seems like it, doesn't it?" Otogi frowned again. "That doesn't make any sense. He came from a middle-class family; granted, he wasn't wealthy, but there was no reason for him to have to do that. That seem right to you?" He shook his head. "He did a few months in juvie for that, and then a week after he was released he got arrested again on charges of assault and battery. Ooh, that's interesting."

"What?" Despite himself, Mokuba was interested. He shouldn't have been, he knew that, but…it made Yutou more human somehow. He'd never been anything more to Mokuba than the monster that broke his nii-sama, and even as a child Mokuba had lived in mortal terror of the man. Seto would go into his room and he'd come out…empty. After a while, he didn't smile anymore, and he wouldn't look at anyone. He'd just curl up on his room with the lights off and his blankets pulled over his head. Mokuba asked everyone that could possibly answer what was wrong, and they told him that Seto was ill, and Mokuba had believed them. Of course, he'd been too small to realize that Yutou's touch always lingered on Seto a little too long, that he watched Seto a little too closely. But this…this was Yutou before. Before he'd become what he was now.

"I think I figured out what Gozaborou did for him. It seems that Yutou had been working at Kaiba Corp as an intern for a year, and he was off parole. He was doing well, he'd stopped selling himself on every street corner…everyone thought that Yutou was over his rebellious phase, apparently. Of course, no one knew where the rebellion had come from—his father was an upstanding citizen, owned his own property, his own car and his own gravesite…Yutou killed him."

"What?" Jou didn't even turn to see who'd spoken; his heart had stopped. Yutou killed his father?

"You can't love me! No one can love me! I'll kill you!" Seto screwed his eyes shut, tears finally spilling down his cheeks and he shrieked as loudly as he could, "I'LL KILL YOU! EVERY LAST FUCKING ONE OF YOU! JUST LIKE I KILLED HIM! I HATE YOU!"

"What?" Jou drew back, blinking stupidly at his koi. "Seto…who'd you kill?"

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK? I KILLED GOZABOROU! I THREW HIM OUT A FUCKING WINDOW AND WATCHED HIM BURST ON THE PAVEMENT!"

"My God," Jou whispered. "He is just like Seto."

"He didn't just kill him." Otogi looked slightly green. "You should see the autopsy pictures. The man was mutilated. The landlady let herself in to the apartment while Yutou was at work to check the water heater and she noticed that something smelled odd. She found Kamimura-san dead in his bedroom. The doctors said he'd been there for a week and half, and Yutou had just been going about his everyday business. Yutou pleaded insanity, and Gozaborou testified. I think he swung the case for Yutou…he was a Kaiba, after all, and the jury trusted him."

"Well, that explains—" Yami began, but Otogi cut him off.

"Hey, Mokuba?"

"What?"

"Did you…did you know that Gozaborou adopted Yutou?"

"He did what?" Mokuba's mind was blank. It was a joke, it had to be. A sick joke, but a joke nonetheless. There was no way, no way it could be true.

"Yeah, it was one of the conditions of Yutou's release…he had to have someone that would be responsible for him, and Gozaborou paid for all his therapy. Best doctors in the world. He never told you?"

"No…no, I didn't know…Yutou's my…my brother?"

"So it would seem. So it would seem."