It was impossible. Completely, unreasonably, insanely impossible, and they should tell him so. "Someone just played a Blue Eyes White Dragon," Kaiba said. "Not one of mine."

Yugi and the others didn't say anything. Kaiba studied his computer display. The duel disk had already shut down, but that second might have been enough. The network couldn't pinpoint so brief a signal within less than twenty-five meters, but cross-referenced with the other data gathered--one of their twenty addresses appeared within that circumference, attached to a lease signed by a name on Malik's list. Not the same man who had rented the warehouse, but Ghouls, like the jackals they were, skulked in packs. And this was the only possibility. The last hope. "They're on the second floor of an office building on the south side."

Kaiba was prepared for debate. He expected the bonkotsu to stupidly ask who, for Yugi to ask how he knew. He expected them to demand explanation, to check his logic, to protest the tenuous nature of his conclusions. Even with the card's exact stats and codes, even with intimate knowledge of the duel disk system, faking a Blue Eyes should be out of the question. The system should only acknowledge the three registered cards, and Kaiba himself didn't know how he would play a Blue Eyes on it without one. Completely impossible. That reading must have been only a momentary glitch in the system. Completely hopeless, and Yugi and his friends should know enough to tell him so.

Instead, Yugi blinked, just once. "All right," he said. "Shouldn't we get going, then?" and they all started for the elevator down to the garage, without so much as waiting for Kaiba to call down to his driver.

Getting into the car, as he gave the address to his driver, he overheard Honda muttering, "Are we sure about this?" but Kaiba had no opportunity to reply before Jounouchi immediately answered, "Yeah, we are."

Yugi nodded agreement. "Kaiba-kun said it was the Blue Eyes," he said, and nothing more, as if that was enough. More than enough.

Hunched forward in the seat, watching out the window as they pulled onto the streets, Kaiba called the private security team that had been on standby for the past four days, and ordered them to set up a cordon around the block where the Blue Eyes had been played. The place was square in the city's most disreputable neighborhood, unsurprisingly. But the lack of law enforcement could work in his favor.

"Don't approach the office building, but search every car or truck that either comes from that building or stops there when passing through. Tell them we're running a test, preparing for a show, be vague on the details. Whatever you have to say to convince them. Just make sure that no vehicle leaves that block carrying my brother," Kaiba ordered his people. Without police approval such measures were illegal, but of course his security team head didn't mention that. Nor did Yugi or his friends, though they were listening to him issue the instructions. He could see the pale ovals of their faces turned toward him, floating behind his reflection in the car windows.

Not until after he had ended the call and returned the mobile to his pocket did Yugi finally remark, "Shouldn't we call the police now, Kaiba-kun?"

"No," Kaiba said.

"But you told your own guys not to go in--" Honda began.

"Makes sense." Jounouchi nudged Kaiba's shoulder. "If you send in the cops or your goons, someone might screw up, get Mokuba hurt--so we're going in alone, right? Taking out these kidnapping bastards ourselves?" He cracked his knuckles, a shadow of an eager grin on his lips.

Kaiba could have denied it, could have told them that he would handle it himself. That greater numbers might panic his enemies, and risked spoiling any possible element of surprise he might have. But if the Ghouls were expecting him then that wouldn't matter anyway. And he had let the three of them come this far. Little reason to fight them now and waste his last vital energy on pointless argument.

Besides, they were far from alone, whatever the bonkotsu might think. If he looked out the rear windshield he could see the forces arrayed behind them. Scales and swords and suits of armor shining under the streetlights, gliding or sprinting or hovering, an army of monsters filling the deserted 3 AM streets.

Every block they passed, more joined the march, swooping down from the night sky or slipping out of dark alleys. Kaiba could name every monster's stats, but there were many whose origins he couldn't determine. More than the combined forces of his and Yugi's and Jounouchi's decks. The hell if he knew where those others might come from, though he recognized a few of the creepy beasts of Bakura's occult deck, and the pair of stomping barbarians he recalled Honda carrying all the way back in Duelist Kingdom. And that trio of delicately winged beings would be from a feminine deck; if Anzu played, she might favor such tamely conventional beauty.

All that vast host was following them, and at its vanguard, one on either side of the car, soared his Blue Eyes, two dragons flying tandem, the sweep of their great silvery pinions brushing the windows. Kaiba looked, but saw no sign of his third, either ahead or behind.

He wasn't surprised; he knew where the dragon was. Once it had found Mokuba, it wouldn't have left his brother's side. It hadn't needed to; Mokuba had figured out a way for its roar to be heard even several kilometers away.

And now he was going to his brother, finally. But not alone. He hadn't been alone since this whole mess had begun, even before he had started hallucinating. Even without his brother.

That fact would have to be dealt with eventually. And he had never been a coward, to shirk unpleasant duty. Kaiba cleared his throat, turned back from the window. "Yugi," he said, quietly, though not quietly enough that Yugi's head didn't instantly turn towards him. "I owe you," Kaiba told him.

Yugi stared at him with wide soft eyes, and reached out, not casually unthinking like Jounouchi did, but carefully, laying his hand on Kaiba's arm only for a moment. "Kaiba-kun, you don't owe us anything."

But the other Yugi, sitting in the empty space next to him with his arms crossed, spoke over his partner, also looking at Kaiba but with less of that softness. "Yes, you do," the pharaoh said. "All of us, and him the most. We wouldn't be here helping you if it wasn't for him, and you know it. When you get Mokuba back--" when, he said, like it was certain, only a matter of a little time, and Kaiba wondered what more he would owe for that mercy--"When Mokuba is safe, you'll be indebted to my partner, and don't believe that you can buy yourself out of it with something as cheap as your company's wealth or another helicopter ride."

"Other me," Yugi whispered, with shocked, berating urgency.

"I know what I'll owe," Kaiba said, steadily, because it was pointless to be enraged by truth, and besides the pharaoh was trying to piss him off; he wouldn't be played that easily. "What I'll owe all of you."

"Really?" Jounouchi inquired. "What? Oh, tell me it's a check with a lot of zeroes."

"Or maybe he could loan you enough rare cards for you to actually win a duel--" Honda muttered, or started to, until Jounouchi's elbow knocked the air out of his lungs and cut off the end of it.

"Like I'd need it--I can beat this jerk fair and square, if he'd listen to me long enough to take a challenge--"

"Jounouchi-kun, Honda-kun..." Yugi said, smiling helplessly at his friends.

But the other Yugi's gaze stayed fixed on Kaiba. "You'll accept his challenge, next time Jounouchi-kun makes one," he said. "You'll do it. Anything he and Honda-kun asks. And Yugi--you owe my partner even more. For Yugi, you will make the challenge. A duel, or a chess match, or a video game--something that doesn't mean anything at all, no contest or tournament, no title at stake. Just the game. And he can decide if he wants to play, or whether he wants to wait and have you ask again."

"Other me," Yugi whispered again, "you can't make someone have fun--"

"Have fun?" Kaiba repeated.

"'Well, a game would be, wouldn't it, Kaiba-kun? I mean, later, after Mokuba-kun's safe--you've been going so hard out, you could use a break..."

"A game," Kaiba said. "That's what you want." All he wanted, out of anything Kaiba could offer. For four days Yugi had been in his office, a constant, diligent annoyance. It had been Yugi who had called Malik, who had helped get the address where they were headed now. Yugi's cards outside, right behind his dragons, Black Magician and all the rest, every bit as irritatingly insistently helpful as their master.

Something in Kaiba's expression made Yugi nervously duck his head; saying, "Forget about it, Kaiba-kun. Let's just get Mokuba-kun back. That's what's important."

As if he would ever forget; as if the only reason any of them were allowed in this car wasn't because he couldn't afford the time to send them away. Kaiba checked his watch, leaned forward to instruct his driver, "Faster. I want to be there in five minutes."

"Yes, sir," the driver said, bowing his head obediently, and hit the accelerator to roar through the next red light, with all the monsters on their tail.

He got them there forty kilometers over the limit and with a minute to spare. Kaiba made a mental note to give the man a bonus for successfully avoiding police attention, as he got out of the car and surveyed the block. The sidewalks were empty and dark, looming buildings casting more shadows than the streetlights and neon signs could dispel. There were no lights outside their destination, the office building's unlit windows blacker squares against the featureless gray concrete.

Save for three windows on the far corner of the second floor, glowing pale yellow even this late at night.

No one was near the building. There was a dark van parked on the corner cutting off most of the lane, which Kaiba knew belonged to his security people, and a matching shape at the other end of the block. With luck whoever was behind those bright windows hadn't bothered to look out in the last half hour to notice.

A Kaiba never relied on luck. He should have ordered them to be less conspicuous. Too late for that now. If the Ghouls realized, if they panicked--frightened men were unpredictable. Dangerous, and his brother was still in their hands. If they decided to cut their losses and run, they wouldn't leave evidence behind. No witnesses...

"Okay, you guys take the front, Honda and me'll go around and sneak in the back," Jounouchi said. "First one to find Mokuba wins!"

"Wait!" Kaiba hissed, but the bonkotsu and his friend had already snuck into a shadowed alley and disappeared.

"It's okay," Yugi said, reassuring. "They know what they're doing, Kaiba-kun, they'll be careful. Trust them."

Trust them. Like it was that simple. No doubt or worry in his expression, just faith in his idiot friends, and such unwarranted confidence should be the height of stupidity--but this was Yugi, and Yugi, whatever else Kaiba might think of him, was not stupid.

Mad, then. Insanity must be contagious. Though Kaiba supposed believing in flesh-and-blood people (however great idiots they might be) was less crazy than believing in hallucinated monsters, whatever yardstick of sanity was used, so at least he had Yugi beat on that measure.

And the laugh rising in his throat at the patheticness of that thought confirmed he had lost any last remaining vestiges of sense. That, and the strange calm feeling in him, that kept his hands steady, that relaxed his tight chest enough for him to breathe. Like the hope he felt looking at his dragons, like the sure belief he saw in Yugi's expression now. Faith, trust. First one to find Mokuba wins...

It went beyond all reason to think they could still succeed, after so many days of failure, that he could still protect Mokuba, that with nonexistent monsters and these few clueless idiots he might yet save his brother.

But then he had left reason far behind already, hadn't he. Four days past.

He almost lost control of the laugh this time, covered it with a cough. "Come on, then," Kaiba told Yugi, and strode toward the building, not needing to look back to know Yugi was right behind him.

Yugi stayed right behind him as they climbed the cement stairs, stepped back only enough to give Kaiba room to break the window with his elbow and open the front door. They entered the dark vestibule side by side, footsteps guided by the hazy glow of streetlights outside.

Behind them, wings rustled and claws scraped on the floor, but Yugi obviously didn't hear them and Kaiba didn't look back. No time for hallucinations; all his attention was focused forward. His brother was here, right above them. It was all he could do not to call his name, to strain to hear his voice.

"Kaiba," and that harsh whisper was enough for Kaiba to be sure of which Yugi was with him now. No sign of the other one when he glanced down, translucent or otherwise, just the pharaoh, his self-assured strides surprisingly cat-quiet. "If they are holding Mokuba here," Yugi remarked, "then they'd be foolish not to keep guard over their main entryway--"

He stopped, abruptly, both speech and step, as a single light overhead flickered to life.

"Of course," Kaiba answered him, stopping as well, as two masked figures emerged into the corridor before them. "You know I prefer to confront my enemies head-on."

The gray florescent light glittered on metal in their hands. A gun barrel, unmistakably, aimed at Kaiba's head. Kaiba faced that man. "You took my brother," he said, and the calm he felt now was not the useless reassurances of hope or faith, but the simple, obliterating white heat of pure rage. "I've come to get him back."


to be continued...

Winding up to the finale, should only be a few more chapters, I think. Which is about 5 chapters more than I was originally planning on, but hope everyone's enjoying the journey! As always, reviews are most profoundly appreciated.