Chapter Two
Chess and Blue Eyes
Seto was late again. He strode into the first floor library with his sleeves rumpled (as if they had been rolled up and then smoothed down again), his fingers twitching and an expression on his face that was both abstract and intense, all of which told Mokuba he had been in the Kaiba Corporation Labs again.
"Niisama," said Mokuba tentatively. No response. Seto sat down on one of the armchairs and tinkered with a piece on a nearby chess set.
Mokuba had thought that once Seto took over Kaiba Corporation, he would have more time to spend with him, not less. And even when Seto came home, he was like this, tired and unresponsive. It was almost as bad as the times Gozaburo made him study all day long.
Mokuba squirmed impatiently. Normally his brother didn't like to be bothered right after he got home, but this time Mokuba had something important to say.
"Niisama, the social worker came twice today."
Seto's eyes turned to him sharply. "What?"
"And the second time she brought the police. The butler wouldn't let her in, but she said that sooner or later…"
Seto's hand curled into a fist. The chess piece disappeared inside.
"…I'd have to be taken into custody," he finished.
The fist pounded on the chessboard. Mokuba flinched. The chess pieces scattered, wildly, violently, clattering as they fell.
"Damn it!" Seto yelled. "Why are they so damn persistent with us! Sixteen year old drug addicts with not a dime to support themselves have kids, and nobody tries to take them away from them, but when I try to get custody of my brother, they tell me I'm too young!" He pounded the chessboard again. "Damn it!"
If his brother was this mad, things must not be going well. As he watched Seto rant, Mokuba thought of the orphanage again. It was a small, cozy house with a swing in the front yard and a little room to play games, and lots of kids running around and being totted to and fro by kindly old women. But without his brother, it was the loneliest place in the world.
"Seto," he asked quietly, "are we going to be separated?"
The noise stopped. Mokuba looked up. His brother stared at him with a composed, mildly amused expression on his face. "What gave you an idea like that?" he said.
"The social worker says it's against the rules. She kept telling me…."
"Who makes the rules Mokuba?" Seto asked him.
"Um, councilmen, I think."
"Wrong. Those with the money make the rules. Those with the power can change the rules." A chilly smile crossed his brother's face. "Listen carefully," he said. "What I am going to tell you is more important than anything you may learn in school. In the game of life, this is the only thing you need to know to play: Rules are arbitrary."
He paused. Mokuba, who had been standing, folded his legs and sat on the floor next to him. Seto unwound his fist and flipped the single white piece through his fingers,
"Chess, for example," he said. "Chess is one of the oldest and most structured games in the world. It was played since the eleventh century at least. Back then, though, there was one important difference. This piece," he said, holding up the slim white figure, "was one of the most useless pieces in the game."
He was holding the queen. "But that's the most powerful piece," said Mokuba.
"Back then, the queen could only move diagonally, like a bishop, and only one space at a time. But the queen began to change during the fifteenth century. Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know."
"In Europe, during the fifteenth century, some of the most powerful rules were queens. Queen Isabella of Spain. Queen Elizabeth of England. And so the rules changed.
"Know, this Mokuba: the rules won't change on a whim. People make them change. People who have power. The rule in life is simple then: if you want things to change, be stronger than everybody else."
He set the piece on the chessboard, the only one still standing, and straightened it.
"But isn't that… sort of… cheating?" asked Mokuba.
"It's manipulation of environment," said Seto. "No, it isn't cheating."
"So then we won't get separated." He blew out his breath in relief.
Seto nodded. "That's the most important thing for me, Mokuba. That's what money is for. It may buy us many things. But the only thing money is really good for is power."
Mokuba nodded. Money equals power, power equals change and change means you could do anything. Well, not everything.
"But there's some rules that can't be broken," said Mokuba. "I mean, even with money, you can't just murder people or anything, right?"
An eerie light possessed Seto's eyes. "You can get close."
Mokuba gulped. Sometimes his brother really scared him.
His brother stood up, eyes their calm and normal blue. "Enough about the social worker. We were going to have a bonfire tonight. Is everything prepared?"
Mokuba grinned fiercely. "We have all of Tousama's things in a big box and the wood is piled high."
"Good."
Mokuba sprinted ahead, down the hall towards the backdoor. He could hear his brother's footsteps, steady, following him. Mokuba threw open the door and told the butler to get the fire started.
Mokuba took the old cardboard box he had put everything in and proudly showed it to his brother. "Here it is, Niisama. Here's all of Tousama's stuff."
"Once the fire has started, we'll throw the whole box in," said Seto, barely glancing at it.
Mokuba nodded. His brother was…well, not smiling exactly. But his face was calm and the edges of his lips curled faintly… and that was the closest Mokuba had seen to a real smile for the last six years.
The butler doused the wood with gasoline and threw in a match. The wood burst into flames. Red tongues licked the black night. Smiling happily, Mokuba looked toward his brother. Seto stood straight, with orange glow against his face. His eyes were adrift and his expression suddenly became troubled.
"Mokuba," he said, "bring me that box now!"
Mokuba walked over. "What's wrong?"
Seto snatched the box from him. Restlessly, frantically, he began rooting through the box, throwing old papers and floppy disks aside.
"Niisama, what...?"
Slowly, almost shaking, Seto drew out a Blue-Eyed White Dragon card.
"Were you going to burn this?" Seto asked, looking coldly at Mokuba.
"I…but you said you didn't want it anymore."
0 0 0
Mokuba had been there when Seto bought his first pack of Duel Monsters cards, with a little money Gozaburo gave him for allowance. He had snuck it into one of his textbooks and hidden it for the entire day. Later that night, Mokuba had crept out of bed, just after his stepfather had gone to sleep.
Seto was yawning into a book on advanced logarithms. "What time is it?" he asked when he saw Mokuba.
"Two o'clock. Tousama's gone to bed."
Seto slammed the book shut. He took out a book on computer sciences and slowly drew the cards from a CD case in the back.
Mokuba held the flashlight. The beams glinted over the metallic covering. Seto smoothly ripped the pack. Something flashed underneath. Breathless with suspense, Mokuba peered over to look, while his brother brought the card out for both to see.
It was the Blue Eyed White Dragon.
For a moment, they both just stared, without saying anything. The picture was holographic, the scales shining silver, the eyes glaring blue. Mokuba looked at the attack and had to choke back a yelp.
"Three thousand! That's more than…!" He glanced backwards to make sure no one else was around. "That's more than I've ever seen. That has to be the strongest duel monster there is."
Seto stared at the card, as though entranced. "This card," he said at last, "is very precious to me. Because it represents all the power I may one day have. Someday, perhaps, I will be a worthy master of such a powerful card."
"What?" asked Mokuba.
"Nothing," said Seto. He put the Blue Eyes into the CD case and closed the book shut. "It's late. You should get to sleep."
"But the rest of the cards..." Mokuba protested.
"All worthless," said Seto. "This is the only card that means anything."
The next day, after school, Gozaburo called Seto and Mokuba into the dining room. He had just returned from an important meeting, and he looked pleased with himself.
"Know what I've got here?" he said. He pulled out the Blue-Eyed White Dragon card.
Mokuba was shocked. How had he found it so soon? From the corner of his eye, he saw his brother's eyes grow dark and his fists tighten, but Gozaburo didn't seem to notice.
"This," Gozaburo said, "is the single most powerful card in Duel Monsters, that fancy new card game going around. It was given to me by the creator of duel monsters himself, Pegasus J. Crawford."
Given? Mokuba jolted. Then it wasn't Seto's?
"Pegasus J. Crawford and I are on the verge of signing a deal," he continued. "Crawford's industry is in silly games, but he has higher ambitions for his pet project, this duel monster game. For that he needs Kaiba Corp. As a token of his goodwill, he gave me this Blue Eyed White Dragon, a card so rare it's worth ten thousand American dollars."
Ten thousand dollars? Mokuba's eyes popped. He knew the card was strong, but he didn't know it was that valuable.
"How rare is it?" Seto asked, almost off-handedly.
"There are only four in the world."
And Seto got one on his first try? Mokuba knew that his brother didn't believe in things like luck, but still, getting a Blue-Eyed White Dragon card on his first try….
"It goes to show you, what power can do," said Gozaburo, with a laugh. "I have no intention of making a deal with him. But he doesn't know that, so I forced him to give me the most valuable card in the game. This will go into my safe with the rest of my conquests." He laughed again. "Now you boys get back to your studies."
Mokuba turned to leave, but stopped when he noticed his brother wasn't moving. Seto was standing there, shaking. "That's the strongest monster in the game," he said through clenched teeth and clenched fists, "and you're not even going to use it."
"What I do with my own things is my own business," said Gozaburo coldly. "Get back to work."
For a moment, Mokuba really thought his brother wasn't going to listen. His eyes seethed, a strangely murderous blue. Then, he made a cold smile, and turned to leave.
"He may have a Blue Eyes that looks exactly like mine, but mine's is more valuable," Seto muttered, as he headed to his pile of textbooks, "I will create a deck for mine: the strongest deck in the world. My Blue Eyes will make me champion. His will gather dust in his safe."
"Niisama, he won't notice if maybe... if maybe we take it..."
0 0 0
"No, Mokuba," said Seto. "I don't want his polluted card. It can rot in his safe, and he can rot in hell."
Now Seto held Gozaburo's card in his hand for the first time, fondly stroking the outer edges and staring deeply into the shining picture.
"I changed my mind," he said, and put the card in his pocket. "I'll keep this. Our foster father was evil, but even from evil men, there are some things worth taking."
Then he walked up to the fire and fed the rest of the box to the flames.
(For future referenece, the 0 0 0 will mark a pause or space break. For some reason the document formatting won't let me do space breaks or asteriks or anything else.)