A pin could have dropped all the way in Kaiba's office and Joey could have heard it from his spot standing next to Duke, among the rest of his friends in Kaiba's ridiculously fancy kitchen, staring down at the floor.

This wasn't the same kind of sticker-shock as Mokuba's panicked cries for help. That time, Yugi sauntered into the middle of Kaiba's office with his clipboard and goofy hat and dumbfoundedly bamboozled them all. How were any of them to know that video games, pizza and sleepover would end up being murder mystery night? And…double murder night, at that?

But this time, Yugi stood among the rest of them in the crowd, just as shocked and surprised as the rest of them. The confident game master was not here.

"Yugi," Téa said, after finally finding a teeny tiny voice. "D-did you know about this?"

Yugi frantically shook his head.

"I…"

Serenity covered her mouth with her hand, her face whiter than a sheet. "T-that's a lot of blood on the floor."

Duke took a shaky step forward and dropped to his knees next to the knife. "This can't be a real – okay. I take it back. That's a legit kitchen knife."

Joey suddenly spun on his heel and marched out of the kitchen.

"Dude!" Tristan called after him, "Where are you going?"

"He better not be going to tell Kaiba that his brother is dead or someone's going to come back to life and legit kill us all," said Duke.

Hurried footsteps pounded across the hall and Joey was back minutes later with one of the pool cues in his hand, and he ever so slowly took small steps towards Mokuba in the center of the room.

"Okay, I know that one of us is supposed to be a killer, but one: do you really think that someone actually killed Mokuba, and two: do you really think that thing would end up protecting you from whoever is actually the killer?" asked Duke.

Joey glared at him. "One: I'm making sure Kaiba don't flay me alive. He was a convincing corpse too. And we know Mokuba can be a sneaky little con artist if he needs to be. I just wanna make sure if I poke the stiff I won't become, I dunno, an infected zombie. Aaand, one of ya killed my pal Mokuba, so yeah! This is absolutely protection!"

"Joey," said Tristan, "that's a pool cue."

"It's better than nothin!"

"And who said anything about zombies?!"

"Who said anything about more than one dead body!?" said Joey, and he, at a safe distance, poked Mokuba in the side with the pool cue.

Mokuba didn't move.

Joey poked him again. "You still in there, kid?"

Mokuba still didn't move.

"Okay…we have to do something," said Téa, "Someone has to tell Kaiba that his brother is…you know…"

"He ain't dead, Téa."

She put her hands on her hips and stared at Joey with a cocked eyebrow. "Oh, no? Then what was the whole thing about getting the pool cue for? What, were you just trying to see if he played the part better than his brother?"

"We already know he plays the part better than his brother," said Atem, "Kaiba probably would have said something snarky by now."

Tristan snorted. "Look at you dragging him like that. I didn't expect that from you, Atem."

Atem shrugged. "I am more than capable of pointing out his faults."

"Let's be honest though," said Duke, "if Joey poked Kaiba with the pool cue to see if he was dead, Kaiba probably would have snatched the stick and then beat Joey with it without even getting up off the floor."

Joey snapped his fingers and pointed at Duke before sidestepping Mokuba and crossing the kitchen. "Now that sounds like Kaiba! Well…since the rich kids are dead, guess the house is ours now. Who wants to see what's in the fridge?"

Serenity's jaw dropped. "Joey!"

"What!? All this death is making me hungry! And dinner got interrupted – for the second time!"

Téa grabbed the opposite end of the pool cue and dragged Joey back to join the others. "That doesn't mean you get to raid their fridge."

"Oi! Téa! No one else is gonna eat it!"

Atem coughed politely and stepped away from the others, eyeing Mokuba and the bloody knife curiously. "We were all in the dining room when the power went out and came back on…would someone really have had the time to rush in here under the cloak of darkness to kill Mokuba?"

"Someone must've," said Yugi. "But that doesn't help single out anyone since we were all in the same place."

Joey tapped the pool cue against the polished tile flooring. Yugi was right. Unless they kept on with the Bakura theory, they were all in the same boat from before dinner. Before long there would be another round of yelling and finger pointing, and all for the sake of going nowhere.

"Well clearly the killer hated the Kaiba brothers."

Tristan snorted. "Who doesn't?"

"And after we bought you all pizza," muttered a low voice from the floor, "that's extremely rude!"

"HAH!" Joey laughed and pointed with the cue. "You are alive!"

Mokuba laughed and sat up. "No, technically I'm dead. The big, mean, serial killer got me."

"Well then," said Tristan, "I suppose that means it wasn't you who killed your brother after all. So who was it?"

Mokuba's eyes widened innocently. "I couldn't say, it was dark."

"They didn't say anything?"

Mokuba shrugged and made a show of thoughtfully tapping the end of his nose with his index finger. "Maybe they did. But telling would be cheating, and I want to see how the game ends."

"But you can't!" said Tristan. "You're dead, like your brother. Don't you have to just…stay here?"

"No!" Mokuba said. He got to his feet and brushed a few bits of broken glass off of his sweater. "I can follow you guys around if I want to. That's what being a ghost is all about!"

Joey glanced back and pointed in the general direction of the study. "But – what about Kaiba!?"

"The difference? Between me and Seto?" said Mokuba, with a wide, sneaky grin plastered across his face, "is that I believe in ghosts, therefore I'm allowed to haunt. Seto doesn't, so he has to stay behind."

"Well that's funky logic but I'll take it," said Duke.

"Oh – I got something for you then, Mokuba," said Yugi, and he stepped forward and shoved his hand into his pocket. Into Mokuba's open palm, he dropped a button shaped like a smiling ghost with a chat bubble of "Boo!".

"Aww, it's so cute!" Serenity cooed, "did you have that prepared for whoever would end up dying?"

"Kind of," said Yugi, "I made a couple of them. It was supposed to be for Kaiba if he initially wanted to be a more active participant in game night, but since Mokuba wants to follow the story, he can wear it instead!"

"Oh, I love it!" Mokuba beamed and pinned it to the front of his shirt. "So…does this mean now you have to avenge both me and my brother?"

"Yes," said Atem, at the same time that Joey said "no."

The two of them looked at each other.

"Look, man, clearly there's a psycho running around killin' people," said Joey. "I'm just tryin' to stay alive now."

"Yeah, it's looking more like Roland is hiding around the place," said Tristan, "or, Bakura if you're still on that theory."

"Guys, Bakura isn't –" Yugi started and then threw his hands up into the air. "You know what, never mind."

"Roland sounds like a more likely option," said Téa, "I mean, he's been close to Kaiba and Mokuba for years. I'm sure if we exaggerate enough, there's a reason he'd want to kill his boss-es."

"All the shenanigans during Battle City and that Orichalcos mess come to mind," said Duke. "With all the explosions and soul-stealing and…well, just about anything that happens anytime he or Yugi activated a duel disk? I don't blame him one bit. Kaiba probably took years off his life!"

Atem puffed out his lip, crossed his arms, and turned away from him with the haughty pout of a child who didn't get his way. "Well excuse me for trying to stay alive."

"Atem, we were talking about Kaiba."

"Then I will be offended on his behalf!"

"Still though – that's as good a reason as any," said Serenity. "It's better than trying to find a reason for why one of us could have killed Kaiba – and then poor Mokuba!"

"I mean," Joey muttered, "they have terrible taste in pizza."

His eyes then widened and he backed away from the others, brandishing the pool cue wildly in front of him. "It wasn't me though!"

"Alright, then we search the house for Roland," said Atem, "and it should be fairly easy to find him if we all split up."

"But what if someone else turns up dead?" said Tristan, "If we're all somewhere different in the house, we won't be any closer to finding the killer."

"Then we should split up in pairs," said Atem.

"But if it's not Roland, whoever gets paired up with the killer might be killed!" said Serenity.

"AHA!" said Yugi, "then we would have discovered who the murderer is, and then game over for them!"

"And then game on for pizza and video games!" said Joey.

Téa turned to Serenity. "A stupid question, I know, but is there any time, any time at all, where your brother isn't thinking of food?"

Serenity let out a loud, defeated sigh. "Joey takes pizza very seriously."

"Don't we all know it," Téa mumbled.

"Okay, so. Pairs. Who's going with who?" asked Yugi.

Duke and Tristan both raised their hands at the same time. "I'll go with Serenity!"

"No no, we're not going to do it that way," said Mokuba. "I got a better idea." He reached into one of the upper cabinets next to the microwave and pulled out a bowl, then gestured for the others to follow him out of the kitchen.

They passed the dining room, where both Joey and Tristan grabbed a slice of pepperoni on the way through to the foyer. Yugi snuck back into the living room for his clipboard and deerstalker cap, and then rejoined the back of the herd moving down the familiar hallway to Kaiba's office.

Seto was still sitting behind his desk when Mokuba led the way into the study, and he waved his arms to get his brother's attention. "Sorry, bro. Game's back on. You gotta get back on the floor."

Without looking up from the laptop, Seto pointed to the floor. Black electrical tape marked the general outline of where he was lying at the start of the game, and that definitely wasn't there before. "I'm haunting the site of my death."

"Dude, that doesn't count. What if we need to examine the body?"

Seto didn't skip a beat. "You already did that."

Mokuba shook his head and reached for the stack of sticky notes on the edge of the desk. "It's cool, guys. If I can be a walking corpse, Seto can haunt his office."

Now, Seto looked up and his eyes fell on the ghost button pinned to Mokuba's chest. "You're dead too?"

Mokuba beamed. "Yup!"

The temperature suddenly dropped several degrees and the coldest stare any of them have ever seen swept through the study. Kaiba didn't say anything; he didn't have to. His eyes spoke for him.

Whoever killed my brother is next.

Tristan whispered in Joey's ear. "I think he forgot this is just a game."

"…Yeah…"

"It's alright, Kaiba!" Atem said, striding further into the office than anyone else. He stopped next to Kaiba at the side of the desk and placed a hand over his chest. "I swear, on my honor as a duelist and your eternal rival, that I will avenge both you and Mokuba's deaths and I will drag the soul responsible here for you to pass judgement!"

"Damn, Atem, it's just a game."

"It's about honor!" Atem gasped. He raised his hand and started counting off. "First, Kaiba was killed in cold blood in his own home, surrounded by the people who are supposed to be his friends –"

Seto cut him off. "—Debatable."

Atem stopped short, mouth still open. He caught eyes with Kaiba, then lowered his hand and shrugged. "Alright. Surrounded by his closest rivals and those who are supposed to be Mokuba's friends."

He looked back at Kaiba. "Better?"

"Better."

Atem nodded solemnly. "Excellent." He cleared his throat. "Second. To add insult to injury, we accused his closest friend and then his brother of committing such a vile act!"

"…Kaiba don't have friends, remember?" said Joey.

"Whether he chooses to admit it out loud or not, Yugi and I are most certainly his friends," Atem shot back, "and then framing me for the crime wasn't bad enough – they had to go and murder Mokuba! An innocent child!"

"The kid's a little con artist!"

"I take offense to that," said Mokuba, in a voice that made it clear he was genuinely the opposite. "But really I'm more insulted that you all immediately thought it was me."

Atem coughed. "So no, it is not over the top to defend my friends and bring peace to their poor souls." He turned to Mokuba. "Now, your plan?"

"Huh? Oh – right." He had been so enthralled by Atem's rousing declaration of justice that he almost forgot why he brought them back to the study in the first place. "Seto, I need a pen—oh, never mind I see one."

Seto raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

Mokuba finished writing Atem's name on the sticky note, pulled it off the pad, folded it up, and tossed it into the bowl. "Everyone seems to think that Roland is a serial killer, so we're going to search for him, because no one has seen him since he signed for the pizza and he's the only one who's been able to move around unseen to murder us both – with motive."

He bit his lip and looked up at his brother. "Apparently we're bad for his health."

"Uh huh," Seto said flatly. "So what is this?"

"We're splitting into groups, because if we search on our own, our murderer will probably strike again! But if we're in teams and someone else dies, it'll be clear who the killer is and the game will end."

"…I see." Cold blue eyes settled on Yugi. "And is this supposed to take you all over the house?"

Yugi grimaced. "Sorry…I didn't think that, uh…the line of suspicion would go this way."

"I was very clear about what I would and would not allow for your game."

"C'mon Seto…" Mokuba pouted and tugged at Seto's sleeve. "We gotta get avenged somehow!"

Seto glanced at Mokuba, then to Yugi, before reaching across his desk for his earbuds. Once he had one of them in his ear, he clicked his KC pin. "Roland, where are you?"

"Cheater," Duke mumbled, but like the rest of his friends, couldn't help but watch Seto crack a chuckle at whatever he was hearing over the little radio.

"If he's really talking to the dude, at least we know he's actually still in the house," said Tristan quietly. "This search won't be for nothing."

"True that," said Joey.

Seto plucked the earbud out and set it back in its little case before casting a curious smirk across the group. "It would appear one of you already knows where Roland is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Téa, but before anyone could attempt an answer for her, Seto kept going.

"Nevertheless, I will let you search."

Joey pumped a fist in the air. "Yess!"

"On one condition."

Joey slowly lowered his arm back down.

Seto clicked a few keys on the laptop before turning the entire thing around to face them. Displayed on the screen appeared to be a camera's eye view of what Yugi guessed to be the upstairs hallway.

"I can confirm to you that Roland is somewhere…findable…in the house. However…."

He pointed to the set of double doors closest to the camera lens. "This room is off limits, and I will be watching you, whoever ventures upstairs."

"Spook-man ain't in there?"

"No," said Seto. "He is not. Nor is he in the one with the locked door. It is locked for a reason. Don't go inside."

"We won't," said Téa.

"Can't get in if it's locked," Joey whispered.

Téa glared at him. "Don't blow this for the rest of us."

Seto nudged the bowl. "Keep going."

Mokuba nodded and scribbled a name on the next five sticky notes and tossed them into the bowl before passing the bowl to Yugi. "You want to draw names?"

Yugi smiled. "Kaiba can!"

Seto sighed and held his arm out for the bowl. "There's how many of you left?"

Tristan did a quick head count. "Six."

Seto shoved his hand into the bowl, tossed around the small slips of paper, and dropped the first two that he grabbed into Mokuba's hands. "First two get to go to the basement."

"…Aaaaaaaand it's gonna be…." Mokuba said, slowly unfolding each paper. "Atem and Serenity."

"Dammit," Duke and Tristan both hissed under their breaths, and Joey couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at them.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Duke said quickly.

Serenity giggled, but then stopped short at the rather suspect look Joey gave her for it.

"Ground floor," said Seto, depositing two more slips into Mokuba's waiting hand.

"Looks like…Joey and Téa."

"That means we're upstairs, dude," said Tristan, to Duke. "How much you wanna bet Roland has been hiding up there the entire time?"

"Either that or the basement," said Duke, "I think we would have run into him here already – we've already been all over the place."

"Well, I think it's time to get started," said Yugi. "I wonder what clues we'll find along the way?"

"What makes you think we'll find any?" said Joey, "You think Kaiba's ninja would be sloppy enough to leave tracks behind?"

"There have to be clues!" said Atem, "this isn't a real murder—eh, I mean double murder. It's just a game. So there has to be something for us to find because how else can we win?"

Serenity clapped her hands together. "Then let's go!"

Mokuba tossed the scraps of paper into the trash can beside his brother's desk and tucked the bowl under his arm. "Duke, Tristan, Seto's gonna have a cow if you toe even a hair in the wrong place upstairs, so I guess I'll wander up there with you. We'll just drop this off in the kitchen on the way."

Rather than step back towards the door with the others, Yugi grabbed the chair in front of the desk and sank down into it. "Have fun searching! Gather any clues you find and we'll take a look at everything after you're finished!"

"You ain't comin' with us?" asked Joey.

"I think I'm going to hang back – don't want Kaiba to feel abandoned or anything," he smiled, "and besides – I don't want to end up becoming someone's alibi if the killer decides to be up to no good."

"But it was Roland, not one of us," said Serenity, "no one else could have killed Mokuba!"

"Then you better find and haul him in here so I can fire him…from…beyond the grave." Seto deadpanned, and then shrugged at the lameness of his sentence. "He knows at least a dozen different ways to kill someone with his bare hands. How lucky for him that he can show off on the six of you that are still left."

He leaned back in his chair and watched, extremely satisfied, at the horrified, panicked looks on both Serenity and Téa's faces. Joey's brow completely scrunched up. Clearly he was trying to decide if he was joking or not, and the overuse of brainpower made him appear almost constipated.

"The dude's got no reason to come after us," Tristan said hesitantly, "He works for you."

"Yeah," Seto said flatly. "And now I'm dead. And so is Mokuba. In a house full of witnesses."

Téa leaned over to whisper into Atem's ear. "What did Yugi get us into?"

Atem could only shake his head back.

"Suddenly I don't think I want to split up and search the house. This room is safe," said Duke.

"This room," said Seto, "belongs to the dead."

"Yeah," Joey said flatly, "and speakin' of, you're supposed to be on the floor!"

Seto merely reached for the coffee mug on the edge of the desk, only to find it empty, but rather than be put out over it, he merely smirked back at the group. "You think Roland's going to just sit around in a closet and wait for you to find him? He's probably already plotted at least one more murder, maybe two."

"You're just sayin' that to scare us."

"I'm not the one who walks around with a firearm every day," said Seto. "Did I also mention that his favorite pizza is pepperoni and bacon?"

Joey's jaw dropped open. "That's my pizza!"

"Not if you're a corpse."

Joey spun on his heel, latched onto Téa's arm, and bolted from the room. "C'mon we gotta save the world!"

Yugi, who had been trying his hardest to hold in a straight face throughout the entire time, burst into a fit of giggles once the rest of his friends filed out of the office after Joey.

"What was that?"

"Motivation," Seto said. "If they were going to chicken out in here any longer, I probably would've murdered them myself. I forgot that food is the only language Wheeler speaks."

Yugi laughed. "No, not that. That whole bit about Roland! Did you see the looks on their faces! You terrified them!"

"I know. It was great."

Yugi beamed. "I didn't think you were going to go ham like that."

"If that's the narrative they've created in their heads, I didn't see any reason to not encourage it. He hates pepperoni though; if he was going to swipe anyone's pizza, it'd be Mokuba's."

Yugi leaned forward and propped his elbows up against the end of the desk. "You're really having fun with this now, aren't you?"

Seto stared at him for a few moments. "You know, I think I am." His eyes suddenly narrowed. "Tell a single soul and you'll be the next to die."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," said Yugi. "But I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. I was a little worried that even being the dead body at the start that you wouldn't have a good time. And then after Joey made off with your phone…."

"Oh no. Watching them panic and flail around is immensely satisfying," said Seto, reaching back into his pizza box. "Who knows. Maybe I'll even go back onto the floor after all this."

Yugi's eyes lit up. "Really?"

Seto smirked at him and turned the pizza box around to face him. "We'll see."

"That really does look good. Are you really offering me a piece?"

"Would I have turned the box around otherwise?"

Yugi chuckled under his breath. Of course not. Everything Kaiba did had a purpose behind it. But he also knew, from Mokuba's prior accounts, that Kaiba eating without being near-forcibly prompted was a rare sight to behold, and he didn't want to just take his food away.

"How about a trade? Want a piece of mine? Téa and I are sharing a veggie one. It's really good!"

Seto shook his head.

"Okay, well, while they go search, let me go grab a plate and I'll come back!"

Seto turned back to the laptop as Yugi bounded back out of the room. That was what Mokuba had said a short while ago, and next thing he knew, someone he used to trust murdered him in the dark. Yugi may not be a suspect in his little game, but that didn't protect him from being bludgeoned by a duel disk…or whatever happened to Mokuba. He heard the scream and the sound of something breaking.

His guess was the mansion's front hall, but really there were only a couple of carpeted rooms on this floor, so whatever shattered could have been almost anywhere.

Yugi, however, did not meet the same fate as Mokuba, and managed to return to the office with two slices of veggie pizza in one hand, and both a soda can and a bottle of water in the other. The water was pushed across the desk to sit just to the side of Seto's elbow.

"This is what's on mine," said Yugi, showing off his plate. "You sure you don't want any?"

"I'll pass," said Seto, after wrinkling his nose at it. "There's green peppers on it."

Yugi looked down at it. "Not a lot. You can pick them off if you want."

"No thanks," said Seto. "It makes everything around it taste like green pepper."

"Well, if you're sure," said Yugi, and took a huge bite. "Oh, so good."

He swallowed and popped the top of the soda can. "You think wherever this place is delivers to midtown Domino? I wouldn't mind ordering from them when we have board game night at the shop."

"I honestly have no idea," said Seto, and shrugged out of his bloodstained suit jacket. He got up, draped it over the back of his chair before sitting back down.

Yugi raised a hand while he guzzled down a big gulp of his soda. "Oh – I've been meaning to ask."

Seto raised an eyebrow at him.

"When you first arrived at the mansion tonight, you were wearing the same clothes, but you definitely didn't look like a horror movie victim."

"Roland spent the last hour before we came back staining and tearing the jacket. The real one is hanging through there." Seto pointed towards a door along the side of the room. "What good is having a murder game if you don't make it look realistic."

Yugi smiled and took another bite. "I should have known you'd go for the extra flair."

Seto eyed the deerstalker cap. "You're one to talk, Detective."

Yugi laughed. "Okay, I wanted to go big too. But I will say, the way you –"

The electricity in the mansion suddenly cut off again. A shout echoed from elsewhere in the house.

Yugi was able to see what was in front of him, thanks to the light streaming from the laptop, and he put his pizza back down onto the plate and shifted in his seat to face the door.

"That's not good."

"Well," said Seto, after a beat. "I suppose one of the Nerd Herd is about to go. So sad."

"Wow," Yugi said, not even bothering to hide the grin on his face. "You could sound a little more apologetic. This won't look good for your image to have a bunch of dead people in your home."

"What good is an image going to do me now? I'm dead. And, considering these are supposed to be your friends," said Seto, "you should be a bit more upset over it."

"Touché," said Yugi as the lights turned back on. "I'm sure they're gonna be running around in a moment. Want to place bets on who probably died?"

"I could but there's no point."

"Are you turning down a challenge?" Yugi gasped. "Kaiba!"

Seto merely grinned devilishly at him and then made a show of angling the laptop away from Yugi, even though he couldn't see what was on the screen in the first place. Yugi stared at it, then to him, and then back again.

"You watched it happen, didn't you?"

"I did."

"How did you know who to watch?"

Seto's smirk didn't even waver. "I was watching everyone."

Yugi gasped. "That's cheating!"

"Roland and I installed a specific set of cameras just for this purpose," said Seto. "You didn't think I was just going to play dead on the floor for hours, did you?"

"I…I mean I thought you were going to do emails or whatever, if your phone didn't get taken," said Yugi. "But wait. How were you watching but didn't know Mokuba was killed?"

Seto rolled his eyes. "I didn't start snooping until they all left the office. If I knew someone was going to die during dinner, I'd have gotten off the floor sooner."

Someone screamed and then footsteps thundered through the house once more.

"Sounds like a herd of elephants," Seto muttered. "Just how much pizza did Wheeler eat?"

Atem appeared in the door way seconds later, incredibly out of breath. "Yugi!" he panted. "Come quick!"

"What happened?"

"Roland has struck again! A fiendish double murder!"