Seto and Yami sat through a long session of grievances. It was only an hour but it seemed a lot longer. This was the reason they avoided them as often as possible. Then someone shows up that they never expected.

"Excuse me, sire."

"Yes, what is it?" Seto asked. He's never in a good mood on days like this.

"Well sir there's a woman outside demanding an audience. She keeps ranting on something about kidnapping."

This was the last thing they wanted.

"Fine show her in." Seto said.

"Seto are you crazy? She'll wake Mokuba for sure!"

"We have to deal with that witch one way or the other."

Just then, Ivera came in with Noah in tow.

Seto and Noah's eyes locked. "Is there something you wanted?" Seto asked not breaking eye contact with Noah.

"Yes, I am here for what belongs to me."

"And just what might that be?" Seto asked breaking eye contact with Noah to look at her.

Noah looked over and glared at Yami holding Mokuba. Yami tightened his hold on Mokuba. Mokuba unconsciously started to whimper. Yami whispered loving soothing words to the boy to calm him.

Ivera raged at that. "Stop it!" She yelled.

Everyone looked at her.

Seto looked at Yami. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. Mokuba was whimpering so I was trying to comfort him. I was whispering things in his ear to try to calm him."

Seto looked back at Ivera. "What's your problem?"

"My problem is the way you're codling him."

"So, Yami's codling him, so what?"

"The problem is it will be that much harder to break him!"

Seto blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me! I said…"

"I heard what you said but I didn't understand it."

"Quite simple. I have a court order signed by a friend of mine, who happens to be a judge. He said that your forcing me to sign away my parental rights is against the law. He signed this and said once I gave it to you, you'd have to turn JJ, over to me!"

"First of all, his name is Mokuba! It has been since the day he was born; I should know, I named him."

"How could you have named that brat?"

"Simple, unlike you I can prove who he is. He is the prince of this castle. My father was a bastard. He'd spread lies about my mother sleeping around when it was he who was doing the sleeping around! For all his faults, he was meticulous when it came to business. He never did any legal transactions without keeping a copy or making a note of that transaction. I often thought when I found no documents and the way my father talked about how he hated my brother for killing my mother I thought he killed him. Truth be told I hated him too at first. My mother was dead he was alive why should I care. But Yami reminded me I promised my mother I'd help take care of him. The moment I held him in my arms I knew, I just knew we'd be together again someday. When I first saw little Mokuba there and held him in my arms, I didn't have any doubts that it was the same feeling. I did for the longest reject the thought that he really was my little brother by birthright. I guess a part of me didn't want to accept what you did to him. But when the whole truth was revealed and I found that I really had a true family in both Mokuba and Yami I truly accepted it."

Yami was sad that he didn't include Maura in that but didn't know how to convince him to accept her as a part of his family. Finally, he said, "The millennium rod that I'm sure you all have heard of is an heirloom passed on from one generation of Kaiba to the next. Little Mokuba here can hold the rod, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he is the prince of this castle. As such, you have no hold over him. So, unless you can produce a legally binding paper and witnesses to the late king signing this paper and their names on it, then I'm afraid you have no standing to take what is not legally yours to take! You might note incase your thinking of talking to a forger that I am a master magician and can cast a spell to prove the authenticity of the document in question."

"So you can take your little piece of paper and…"

"Seto…" Yami warned, so he wouldn't think to say something bad or nasty that Mokuba might hear. He had feeling that all of Ivera's yelling more than likely woke Mokuba. Though the boy hadn't stirred much, it was just a feeling.

Seto growled slightly and said, "Fine, you can eat that paper. It's worthless. Besides that even without the millennium rod as proof, we filed for legal custody. I didn't have any problems."

"So you filed for a name change as well."

"Why should I do that? I can call him what I please. I did have the clerk check the town records and no one by the name of JJ, has been ever been adopted, nor anyone by your name filing adoption papers. Oh and as for your judge friend, you might want to mention to him next time you see him, that I make the laws and I can change them just a easily if I so chose!"

"Why now? Mokuba's hasn't lived with you for this side of six-months. Why the sudden urge to get him back now?" Yami asked.

"Simple really, I have a small business of sewing and a few other things. I'm hosting a big dinner party. Normally I have the parties catered and JJ, helps serve. I wouldn't hire any other servers but something's like the turkey were just way too big for JJ."

"I d-drop it a-and b-broke an an-antique p-platter w-when I t-tried to p-pick it up." Mokuba said softly.

Mokuba had said it so softly that Yami had been the only one to hear him. It was just as Yami had suspected she did wake him.

"What did he say?" Seto asked Yami.

"He said that she asked him to serve the turkey one year and it was too heavy for him to lift and he dropped it consequently dropping an antique platter in the process." Yami said. Repeating what Mokuba had said and reading between the lines of what obviously happened.

"So, what did you do beat him in front of all your guest?" Seto asked.

"Of course not. Noah took him out in the woods and tied him to a tree and left him there."

Seto's eyes went wide. "Just exactly how old was he?"

"Noah, honey do you remember?"

"Of course I do mother. How could I forget? I thought it was fun. Of course, I thought it was just a game. I was 12 at the time, let's see here that means JJ there would have been about 7 maybe 8. Mother often warned him if he didn't straighten up, we'd abandon him."

"You tied a little seven-year-old child to a tree and you thought it was a fun game!" Yami demanded to know.

"When she told me to take him and find a nice tree I did. There was only one thing I regretted at the time."

Seto glared at him. "What's that that you weren't old enough to want to rape him?"

Noah glared at him, "Don't be stupid. I said at the time. I didn't reach puberty till I was 14. I heard a lot a kids hit it at 13."

"I made sure he saw a doctor regularly and he said that it wasn't uncommon for some children to be late bloomers. I was just thankful he was all right."

"Let me guess, Mokuba never saw this doctor."

"Waste my money on him? Not a chance.

Noah interrupted. "As I was saying, no I had no desires to touch the brat at the time. In fact there were even times, I threatened to drown the little rat! No, at the time I was just a naïve twelve year old doing as he was told. What I regretted was I wasn't tall or strong enough to hang him up in the tree. I tried climbing up and leaving him hanging but I couldn't get him up high enough. The only way to do it was to hold the rope and swing down."

"Why didn't you?" Seto asked.

"Simple I couldn't keep him up there and tie it up at the same time. I tried."

"Noah, what did I tell you about climbing trees? You could have gotten hurt or had a seizer."

"Mother I almost never had a seizer. I only had a few and those were mostly at night or early morning. The doctors often said I needed exercise."

"Just how long did you leave him?" Yami asked, but didn't get and answer as they were still arguing.

"T-two n-nights." Mokuba said crying.

"Oh my god." Yami said hugging the boy tight.

Krystyn had told him said that Mokuba had a fear of abandonment now he knew why.

"What did he say?" Seto asked. Mokuba was speaking so softly that he couldn't hear him.

"They left him there for two days and nights!"

Seto growled, now his rage was really boiling over! "That's it, I want you out of this castle and don't come back! Mokuba belongs to us! Nothing you can ever say or do will ever convince us to give him to you!"

Ivera glared at him. "I can't afford to hire anyone this year and I need him back! Though I can see that you have coddled him way too much, it will be a lot harder to break him in this time."

"I told you you're not getting him back! Now if that's all you came here for…"

"No, I also came for my daughter!"

"What? Why do you think she's here?" Seto asked. The girl hadn't even been there an hour and her mother already knew. From the way Asana talked, he didn't much believe she called and told her.

"I have my sources and they say that Asana is here in this castle!"

Heather had a few spare maid uniforms and gave a couple to Asana. It seemed they were about the same size. Asana had been going to go talk to the king about her assignment, she could only imagine what he'd give her when she opened the door she hear someone call her name. She wasn't really paying attention so she didn't recognize the voice. "Did someone call me?"

Everyone turned and was surprised to see her.