The address, in the warehouse district by Domino Port, turned out to be a two-floor stockroom. The padlocked entrance was watched by an elderly security guard, who emerged from his little box booth as they approached, holding up his hand. "I'm sorry, sirs, no one is allowed inside this late without a key."
"No problem," Jounouchi said, turned to Kaiba and whispered, "Gimme a man-en."
Kaiba handed over a bill, preoccupied by the dragons gliding overhead. Red Eyes had followed them as well and now perched on the warehouse roof, twisting its horned head down on its long neck to peer into the dark second story windows. The Blue Eyes was still circling.
He didn't hear anyone inside the building. Nor did the dragons, else they would have done something by now, he should think.
Jounouchi was talking to the gray-haired guard, displaying the ten thousand yen note. "Why don't you just give us your keys and treat yourself to dinner and a late night movie? We'll be gone by the time you get back, promise. We're just looking for someone."
The guard eyed him. "Sir, there's no one inside. And if you are attempting to bribe me, I regretfully must inform you that I will call the police on your punk asses."
"Uh." Jounouchi stuffed the offending bill into his pocket and backed away, whispered to Honda, "I think we could take him..."
"No way!" Honda whispered back, "I'm not beating up some poor old guy. Besides, look at those whiskers, what if he's a kung fu master or something?"
"Point. Hey, Yugi, your other you isn't in a shadow game mood, is he?"
Kaiba sighed, walked up to the man himself. He looked over his shoulder into the guard's booth--antique computer probably as old as he was, and just a radio, not even a TV--then looked back to the man. "What are you making working here, seventeen hundred thousand a year? Eighteen? Seventeen, right. Starting salary for Kaiba Corporation security is three million yen, with full benefits. Experienced guards start at thirty-four. More if you're willing to work with children."
The man stared at him, then said, awkwardly, "My grandsons are three and five, I enjoy babysitting them..."
"Excellent." Kaiba pulled out his checkbook, scribbled a reasonable amount and added a zero for good measure, signed the check and handed it over. "There's your contract and signing bonus, you start tomorrow evening at Kaiba Land. Where are the keys?"
The guard gaped at the check, hesitated almost half a second and then dropped the ring into his outstretched hand. "But, sir," he said, touching his cap politely, "as I said, there's nobody inside. The last folks left before I got here tonight."
"Who owns these offices?"
"The building's owned by my employer--previous employer. But the offices inside are rented out to small businesses and organizations needing temporary shipping rooms or storage and the like. I think all eight are leased to different people at the moment, sir."
Most of the small warehouse was taken up by a loading dock big enough for half a dozen cars or a couple trucks. Kaiba and the others spread around the floor, unlocked the doors of the eight private offices and switched on the lights. Five of the offices were equipped with desks or tables; two had boxes stacked on shelves; and the last was empty but for a broken filing cabinet and a couple folding chairs leaning in one corner. All were deserted; as the guard had told them, there was no one in the building now.
No one except Black Magician, standing beside the last office door, arms folded and staff in hand. He ducked his head to Yugi in a definite, if unnoticed bow, then nodded at Kaiba in a way that was just as definitely not a bow, and motioned for him to enter.
Kaiba ignored him. Outside he glimpsed the Blue Eyes touching down on the pavement, curving its neck to peer inside through the stockroom's raised garage door. Kaiba stepped aside to let it see the useless emptiness of the final room. "There's nothing," he said. The dragon rumbled.
"You say something, Kaiba? What're you looking at? Somebody out there?" Jounouchi glanced out the garage door, oblivious to the Blue Eyes' growl, then shrugged and pushed past Kaiba into the last office. Standing in the center, he turned an exploratory circle with his hands in his pockets. "Doesn't look like anything's in here."
"No," Kaiba said, following him into the room anyway.
"That guy might not have been lying about bringing Mokuba here. But if this place was just the drop-off point, it was a few days ago, they'd be long gone by now. I mean, they wouldn't have wanted to keep him here too long, with other people around."
Obviously. Kaiba couldn't be bothered to answer something so self-evident. The bonkotsu wasn't saying anything, just barking to fill up the silence. He preferred his dragon's growls, real or not.
"Hey, Kaiba. You with me?" And now Jounouchi was gawking at him. Kaiba realized he had been staring out the door at the Blue Eyes again. Tearing his eyes from the dragon's shining gaze, he subjected Yugi's friend to an unapproachable glare. This had about as much effect as it ever did, that is to say, none whatsoever. Jounouchi leaned forward instead of taking a step back, frowned into his face. "Geeze, have you been sleeping at all, Kaiba? You look like shit."
"That's unfortunate," Kaiba returned, "I might end up being mistaken for you."
Then nearly lost his balance when Jounouchi whacked him on the back. "There you go!" For some reason he sounded bizarrely cheered. "That's the real Kaiba!"
"Who the hell else would it be?"
"I know what you're going through, Kaiba. I'm a big brother, too, you know; I'd be climbing the walls now if I were in your shoes. But it's gonna be okay. Like Yugi said, we'll get Mokuba back. So you just hang in there."
Black Magician had joined them in the office, and was now insistently gesturing for Kaiba to approach. Kaiba grimaced. "I'm hardly in such a state that I'd need your encouragement."
"Or our help, either, right?" Jounouchi shrugged. "But Mokuba does. So here we are. You're a smart guy, even if you don't need us, why look a gift horse in the mouth? Don't you business-types have a term for that? 'Exploiting all available assets' or something?"
"'Assets'? I believe the word you're looking for is 'annoyances'."
Jounouchi just elbowed his shoulder again. "Yeah, that's the spirit." He leaned in closer, dropped his voice to a confidential mutter. "If you need to take it out on us to keep it together, then you do that. Like I said. I understand."
"I don't want your understanding," Kaiba said through gritted teeth.
Jounouchi flashed him a grin. "Which is why I'm giving it to you." A wicked grin, and yet there was no malice in it at all. Like their mutual hatred was some kind of a joke they both were in on.
Black Magician coughed, insistently loud, then raised his staff. He was frowning, and the head of the staff might have been glowing as he pointed it at Kaiba, very like the initialization of his primary attack. Kaiba took a step back from that glimmer, before reason could override instinct.
Jounouchi, however, oblivious to the nonexistent threat, had been taking a step forward at the same time; the result was that he walked into Kaiba. Kaiba automatically shoved him away, and Jounouchi stumbled back into the filing cabinet, knocking it over with a loud clatter and an outraged squawk from Jounouchi as he went tumbling backwards over it.
Black Magician's staff came down, clanging against the metal seat of one of the folding chairs, loudly enough that Kaiba started. Had anyone else heard that--but of course they wouldn't. And certainly not over the noise Jounouchi was making as he struggled to get up and right the cabinet, which now sported two broken drawers instead of one, according to his swearing.
Kaiba registered this slapstick only peripherally, and paid no more attention to the shouts and pounding footsteps as Jounouchi's friends came running. Black Magician was staring at him adamantly, but Kaiba wasn't looking at the face of the card, either. Something glittered in the folding chair's joists, just under where the staff had tapped the seat.
He grabbed the chair, seat and back, and pried it halfway open, enough to untangle the string wrapped around the steel piping. It was arranged too carefully to have merely fallen; it must have been deliberately tied, in such a position that the seat blocked it from most angles, so it had gone unnoticed. Though the knots were clumsy, fastened by fingers fumbling blind. Someone sitting in the chair, perhaps with their hands bound behind their back, could have just managed to wrap the cord in such a way.
Kaiba picked the knots loose, senselessly careful not to break the string. The tremors in his hands had stilled, or else he had stopped noticing them in his concentration. Vaguely he was aware of Honda and the two Yugis crowding into the office behind him, though they were ignoring him anyway, bunched around their friend, helping him up. "Jounouchi, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, just tripped--"
"Oh, man, look at this," Honda muttered, metal corners screeching painfully against the cement floor as he shoved the file cabinet aside.
"Is that..." Yugi swallowed.
"Blood," his other self answered grimly.
Kaiba looked over, straightened and crossed to them in two long strides.
"It was in the filing cabinet, they must've just stashed it there..." Honda showed the tangled length of rope, held in his hands with the dainty repugnance with which one would handle a dead rat. It had been tied in knots and then cut, the severed loops just wide enough to have wrapped around small wrists.
The rough, fibrous cording was dotted with flaking rusty brown. "Kaiba-kun," Yugi was saying, somewhere too near, all tremulous concern, "it's not...it's going to be..."
"Kaiba, it's okay," Jounouchi was saying on his other side. "We don't know for sure that Mokuba was here, that might not be his blood..."
Black Magician said nothing, his head lowered, staff slanted in the crook of his folded arms.
"No," Kaiba said. "Mokuba was here. They brought him here. They held him here," and he raised his hand, the unknotted string looped around his fingers so the pendant dangled over his knuckles, gilt edges catching the light, the card-shaped locket an exact match to the one hanging around his own neck.
to be continued...
Much thanks for the reviews! Mm, dragons...now I need to get to bed before I start seeing them myself. Hope you're still enjoying the story! (If anyone was wondering, it's really just urban legend that any amount of sleep deprivation can make you 'legally' insane. There's no governmentally recommended limit; though as any grad student can tell you, there are pretty pronounced, if temporary, psychological and physiological reactions to going too long without sleep. Don't imitate Kaiba, boys and girls, he's an experienced professional in the art of mental instability!)
