Chapter 6: Ghosts and Gods

Roland Isono had never intended to let his life pass him by.

"They'll carve my name in a hall of fame," had been his boast to a friend when they were on the high school baseball team together. But when graduation rolled around, it did so without any interest from professional scouts, and since Roland was unable to get by with his neglected academics, college fell from the option table.

He took the next opportunity that came his way—a full-time job as a club bouncer. The job was meant to be temporary, something to earn cash while he figured out a back door into NPB.

"Gonna be third baseman," he told his coworkers, who always grunted disinterestedly. "Takes a strong arm. Quick mind. Gonna be the greatest they've ever seen."

But the years passed without his permission, and he was still standing by the same door night after night, and soon enough, baseball was like a dream he'd once had that he couldn't quite remember after waking.

"Will you work for that club forever?" his mother asked him.

"Of course not," he said at first.

"Maybe," he said eventually.

"Yes," he said at last.

Then the club ran out of money, and with no smart investments or savings to his name, Roland would, too, if he didn't find another job. He was thirty-seven years old, and sports dreams had faded into nothing. The job he took was once more the first option that came his way: hired muscle for Gozaburo Kaiba.

He'd intended to have a family, once upon a time. In high school, he'd loved a girl with all his heart, and when graduation came, she asked if he was going to marry her.

"I will," he promised. "As soon as I'm in the big leagues. As soon as I'm set."

Rina went to college, wrote him letters for two years. Then came the last one, where she said she was tired, said she wouldn't have minded waiting if she still had hope. If Roland had really loved her with all his heart, he would have dropped everything and driven to her, told her everything she needed to hear in person.

But he just wrote back and said, "If that's how you feel."

"How can you be my son and still so stupid," his mother said.

"We were dumb kids in high school," he said. "I'll find someone new after I'm third basem—"

"Ai-ya," his mother said, tossing her dishtowel in his face.

Of course, he never made it into baseball, and by the time his heart ached for a family, his illustrious bouncer career had already trained him to be irritated at the sight of anyone. Any girl who came to the club only got a second glance from him if she was drunk senseless or hysterical, and neither condition fostered romance, only headaches. Plenty of girls flirted, but their interest was in free entrance, not in him.

He missed Rina. But Rina was married to someone else.

"I don't know how I'm your son but still so stupid," he told his mother.

Working as a bodyguard to Gozaburo Kaiba did him no better than the club, and the day came when Roland realized he was officially past prime. His chances at family life slid off the table just as baseball had, and it was pointless to shed tears over his fate when he'd dug all the holes himself. The good advice from his parents, who were happily married with two kids, and the example of his little brother, who was happily married with two kids, hadn't been able to beat sense into his thick skull until it was too late.

Roland was forty-nine years old. He'd resigned himself to his fate.

It was about that time when his employer adopted two kids.

The event happened with no warning—Gozaburo visited an orphanage to boost publicity but then returned with two orphan boys in tow, Seto and Mokuba Akiyama. Roland was shocked, to say the least. Through the years, Gozaburo had made clear his disgust at and dismissal of the idea of fatherhood.

The attitude was ironic, of course, considering Gozaburo had a biological son who'd been born the year Roland started working for the man. But the boy's mother had died of illness four years after his birth, and Gozaburo's already-limited taste for anything gentle had died with her. His son had been given to a full-time nanny's care, and when the boy unexpectedly died a year later, Gozaburo hardly seemed to notice. Following the cremation, the afterthought-funeral had been barely a lunch event, after which Gozaburo instructed the mansion staff to remove all photos and other "bothersome" evidence of his son's existence from the house while he left to conduct a business meeting as usual.

He'd had no change of mind or heart in the seven years after that, yet he still adopted the two brothers and made them Kaibas. Roland would never forget the day they walked through the door of the Kaiba mansion for the first time, ten-year-old Seto with his head high and expression daring, far too mature for the baby-fat curves still in his cheeks, and little five-year-old Mokuba hiding in his brother's shadow, clutching Seto's shirt like a lifeline.

Despite Roland's resignation to his place in life, he loved those two kids the instant he saw them.

"I wish I'd adopted them first," he told his brother.

"They still need you," Anton said. "Kaiba's barely human."

It was true. Whatever Gozaburo's motivation had been for taking on the two boys, it was nothing fatherly or caring, made evident immediately by the rigorous tutoring schedule he arranged for Seto and the harsh consequences that accompanied any failure within it. Head of staff at the mansion was a gargoyle named Hobson; he was put in charge of educating the two boys. After he raised a belt to Seto for getting one answer wrong on a three hundred–question test, Roland "accidentally" broke the man's hand in a door. Unfortunately, Hobson was undeterred in his mission; he simply avoided Roland whenever possible, and with his own job duties to manage, Roland could rarely intervene the way he wanted to.

Gozaburo was far from bothered by Hobson's discipline measures—he inspired them. Roland lost count of the number of times he was forced to watch his employer raise a hand against Seto for minor and sometimes completely imagined infractions. But the more it happened, the more he noticed an interesting thing: It was always Seto. Hobson and Gozaburo both made plenty of threats against Mokuba, but whenever they did so, Seto would draw the attention back to himself through whatever means necessary.

He was protecting his brother. Literally taking beatings for him. Not even twelve years old, and he was the bravest person Roland had ever met.

It soon became apparent what Gozaburo's driving adoption motivator was: He wanted an heir. He'd taken Seto in by choice because of the boy's sharp mind and ambition. Mokuba had been part of the package, and as long as he wasn't underfoot, Gozaburo seemed to forget he existed—helped along, of course, by Seto's obvious intentions to keep things that way.

Gozaburo took every opportunity to push Seto to his breaking point, deprived him of sleep and loaded him with instruction on every topic imaginable for a future at KaibaCorp: business, history, economics, finance, engineering, technology, public relations. Every time Roland saw the blue-eyed boy, he had a different textbook in hand. In each subject, he was given "practical tasks" with no allowance for failure. But despite the withering requirements, Seto surged ahead at full speed. He built computers, designed weapons, created investment strategies, cleaned imagined press scandals, and although he almost never made a mistake to begin with, if he did, he never made it twice.

Roland never saw himself in Seto, not even close. They weren't just cut from different cloth; Seto wasn't cut from cloth at all. The boy was a force of nature, built for things Roland both couldn't imagine and couldn't wait to see.

"You don't even work for Gozaburo Kaiba anymore," Anton said, shaking his head. "You work for Seto Kaiba."

"Damn straight," Roland said.

That statement turned out to be a prophecy. The inevitable day came when Seto outsmarted his adoptive father and performed a hostile takeover of KaibaCorp. When he did, Roland was firmly at the fifteen-year-old's side, and as a result, Seto promoted him from hired meat to trusted advisor. Even when others from Gozaburo's original structure deserted or betrayed the boy, Roland never wavered. He proudly offered his young employer whatever services he could, wherever he could, and as the years again passed, he watched the boy come closer and closer to being a man. And he couldn't deny the sense of pride he felt while watching, the kind he imagined he might have enjoyed if he'd built his own family.

But sometimes he had to remind himself that Seto had not yet made the complete journey—that although he managed an international corporation with grace and held more responsibilities at seventeen than most men did by retirement; although he had talents, abilities, and ideas far beyond his age; at heart, he was still just a boy. He had the egocentricity of any teenager, and he deserved it; he deserved every little bit of childhood that could still be granted to him after all that had been stolen.

That included fun in a gaming tournament, and it included the chance to be heckled by a kid brother and given the attention of a pretty young woman.

And it was Roland's duty to provide Seto with whatever service he could.

Shortly after the announcement of the participants for the second duel of the semi-finals, Yori had reappeared in the room and tried to convince Mokuba to participate. Rather than growing excited when Seto's name was announced as he normally would have, Mokuba had instead become more despondent, and he barely mumbled responses to any of Yori's prodding. They'd been at it for ten minutes already; the duel was likely half over, especially with Seto's track record of quick, decisive matches. But no matter how Yori tried to convince Mokuba that Seto needed him, the younger boy only retreated further into himself.

"I'm a hassle," he muttered.

As well he should be—Roland had his own kid brother to attest to the fact. But even on Anton's worst days, Roland wouldn't sell him to a circus no matter how much he threatened to do so. Seto's feelings were no different, and in fact, even stronger, as his actions under Gozaburo's reign of terror had proven.

"I think I see"—Roland spoke up firmly, entering the conversation for the first time—"what needs to be done here."

Yori blinked, hesitating in whatever new argument she'd been about to try. Mokuba remained curled up like a pill bug on the bed, shirt collar drawn up to his eyes, crumpled between both of his fists.

"You're gonna take me home?" Mokuba said miserably, never moving his gaze from the floor, voice muffled as much by his tone as by his shirt.

"You remember what I taught you about bare-knuckle boxing?"

That got the boy's attention. His forehead wrinkled under a frown.

Yori pursed her lips but remained silent, perhaps curious.

"I think it's time you go tell your brother what's what," Roland continued. "Beat some sense into him if you have to."

Mokuba released his shirt and sat up abruptly, eyes widening to the size of rice bowls. "You want me to box with Seto?"

"I think he needs a good punch to the gut."

Yori seemed to be fighting a smile. Mokuba seemed to be fighting a heart attack.

Roland removed his sunglasses, allowing himself to break formal character in order to stare hard at the boy. "Seto may think he knows everything, but you and I both know he can't even microwave ramen. So I think it's time someone told him he's not always the boss and that you have a say in things, too."

Yori raised an eyebrow at that, squinting at him in a way that made him feel she knew exactly what he was up to. Perceptive and pretty—his young employer was even luckier than first anticipated.

Mokuba seemed to be warming to the theme. "Yeah . . . I do get a say in things. It's my life, too!"

Roland used his half-folded glasses to point toward the door. "Go teach him a lesson."

With his face set in uncharacteristically hard lines, Mokuba leapt to his feet, heading for the exit. Yori cast Roland one more sidelong glance, but then she moved to follow.

As the door slid closed behind them, Roland let out a sigh. He hooked his sunglasses in his collar and checked his watch. Now that Seto was taken care of, it was about time he followed up on tournament proceedings with the airship staff, got a feel for where he could assist.

He'd never intended to let his own life pass him by. He certainly couldn't allow Seto to make the same mistake.

Mokuba charged his way to the observation deck, but once he got there, he froze.

Because the first person visible was Marik.

Seto really hadn't disqualified him. Even after everything.

Most of Mokuba felt terrified as he stared at the sandy-haired Egyptian, stared at the hollow eye on the rod tucked through his belt, but there was a tiny flare of anger—of fury—that also reared its head.

Mokuba chose the anger.

He marched forward, eyes blazing. Marik noticed him after just a few steps. His hand dropped to the rod. He smirked.

And Mokuba walked right up to him, like the maniac was nothing more than a bully on a playground, and punched him in the stomach as hard as he could.

It was a knee-jerk reaction based on Roland's talk about boxing, which Mokuba was actually rather pitiful at, though he hated to admit it. Seto could hold his own in Aikido, but Mokuba couldn't even punch a bag without hurting his hand, no matter how many times Roland tried to fix his form.

But Marik's shocked face as he doubled over, his sharp grunt of pain and the way he stumbled back, was more than worth the throbbing pain stretching from Mokuba's knuckles through his wrist.

"Stay away from me and my brother," Mokuba snarled.

And then he kept marching, past a big bully Ghoul who looked as shocked as Marik, until he stood at the front edge of the viewing platform, the closest to Seto he could get without climbing on the dueling field (which he would if he had to).

Behind him, he heard Marik laugh. He did his best to ignore it, instead fixing his eyes on Seto.

Seto, who was getting that look as he stared back. The one that always heralded, "Do what I say, Mokuba," or "This is for your own good, Mokuba."

As much as Mokuba hated his brother's cold business face, he hated that face even more.

And it was time Seto knew.

"You're a jerk!" Mokuba shouted. It wasn't strong enough. "You're a dick! You're a selfish son of a BITCH!"

"Mokuba!" Seto roared back, eyes wide and eyebrows down, like he was actually going to lecture Mokuba about language at a time like this. (Even though Mokuba's own mind was already running in horror. He'd never sworn in front of Seto before, much less at him. But even though he wanted to die from embarrassment, he didn't back down.)

"Oh, dear," Seto's opponent drawled. "It seems your ghosts are becoming real."

"You don't get to decide everything just because you're older," Mokuba pressed on, ignoring the albino, "or because you have custody. We're brothers—that means we should be in it together. We should mean the same thing to each other. You don't get to make decisions for me."

Seto's shocked expression had already died away to cold dismissal.

"We can talk about this—" he started.

"Later?" Mokuba shook his head. "Right. So you can pawn me off on Roland again or have time to land the blimp and ship me back home."

"Yori, take Mokuba back to your room."

Mokuba stared in open-mouthed rage. Seto was actually ignoring him and petitioning Yori like she was some kind of babysitter. Like Mokuba was three years old and throwing a spoiled temper tantrum instead of thirteen with every right to be furious.

Yori put a hand on Mokuba's shoulder. He was ready to punch her, too, until he heard her say, "I saved you once, Seto. Not this time."

Seto looked like he'd been slapped. Mokuba felt a wave of courage. But before he could let loose the next tirade on his mind, Yori squeezed his shoulder.

"Look at the duel," she said quietly.

Mokuba frowned—because honestly, he didn't care about the stupid duel—but he looked anyway.

And then he hesitated.

"You're losing?" he asked, eyes back on Seto.

Seto stiffened but said nothing.

"Well, stop," Mokuba said. He didn't want to think about Seto having problems right now—this was his time to be selfish.

Seto snorted. "It's not that simple."

There was something in his eyes Mokuba didn't like. It was like when they'd first come to Gozaburo's mansion and Gozaburo had started pushing Seto day and night, working him to death. Before they'd become Kaibas, Seto had smiled often; he loved games; he knew how to have fun. After Gozaburo's suicide, Seto rarely smiled, but he still loved games, and he knew how to make a business out of them.

But there was that time with Gozaburo, the in-between time, the time when Seto didn't seem to know if he should smile or not, didn't seem to know what he wanted or what he was supposed to want. There were times when Mokuba would see him and he would just be Seto, familiar as anything. There were other times he walked like Gozaburo, spoke like Gozaburo.

And there were scarier times, times glimpsing him in the hall or at a window, and he didn't look like anyone, just this wanderer out of place and going nowhere.

That in-between time was the nightmare, the transition between who Seto was at the orphanage and who he became at KaibaCorp, the time when Mokuba somehow knew if he wasn't careful, he could lose his brother at any time—because Seto always had a look in his eyes that said he was on the edge of something, sometimes gripping, sometimes slipping.

The same way his eyes looked now.

"Why can't it be simple?" Mokuba demanded, chest tight. "You beat every opponent, so beat this one. What's hard about that?"

"You can sure have a go at it," the albino said. His smile had never wavered since he last spoke. "I'll even end my turn. So let's see it, Kaiba. Let's see you fight ghosts with brute force; it's worked so well thus far."

And Seto had that look in his eyes, stronger than ever. He didn't even move to draw a card.

Mokuba knew exactly what the look was. But he would never name it out loud because a name would make it real, and it shouldn't be real. Life should be nicer. It should be easier. The anchors and the docks and the kidnappings should never happen. Older brothers should never be in danger of losing fights.

They should never have to look scared.

"Fine, then!" Mokuba snapped, jabbing a finger at Seto. "Lose if you want to, be a jerk if you want to, but you won't be rid of me. I'll be standing right here whether you win or lose because that's my choice. And I get just as much say as you do. We're brothers. Forever."

His big brother stared at him for a long moment, and he didn't say anything. Mokuba wondered if he'd try to send him away again. Maybe this time he would call Roland and—

Seto's eyes changed.

And he drew a card.

The spirit of the ring was no fool. He could read the shadows like extensions of himself, and it was no challenge discerning when Kaiba lost his fear. The shadows swirled above the field in discontented circles, whined at him the unfairness of it all that they should lose their easy prey.

He ignored. The shadows served his purposes, not the other way around. And as Kaiba sacrificed his monsters to summon a god—which the spirit's vengeful ghost couldn't possess—the spirit had bigger concerns than howling shadows.

The spirit hated it when plans went awry, mostly because he'd be forced to invest his time in coming up with a new plan rather than executing the old one.

And he much preferred the executing.

Blue lightning split the darkness, made the shadows shriek. A hulking giant rose behind Kaiba, broad shoulders stretching Dark Sanctuary's illusion, expanding it to accommodate the form of the god of the obelisk, the monstrosity that could crush cities in its steps.

"Long time no see," the spirit drawled, staring into the god's burning red eyes without fear.

In his mind, he saw Egypt. Saw the blue god beast against the storming sky, saw its giant hand coming for him. He remembered the burn in his shoulder as he dove off his horse and hit the sand, remembered the scream of his animal choking into silence, the snap of bones and burst of blood as the god crushed the horse's body in one fist like a grape.

The spirit narrowed his eyes. "I still owe you pain for that. Good horses are hard to steal."

The entire blimp shuddered under the return growl from the god. Perhaps they recognized one another. Or perhaps the giant was simply a dumb beast waiting to be ordered in every movement; it had certainly been that way under the pharaoh's command.

The spirit had no monsters on the field. He'd been counting entirely on the combination of his trap card and vengeful ghost. Not that he regretted the strategy—he'd nearly finished his Ouija Board message. One more turn, and it would have been his victory. He didn't feel much bitterness at the change in fortune. Of all people, he was most aware of life's fickleness.

But something did surprise him. Not something he felt: something he saw.

Obelisk flickered in his vision, disappearing for a moment to be replaced by a small albino form standing barely three feet before the spirit.

"Now who's seeing ghosts?" Kaiba said with a smirk.

Of course, the spirit recognized the irony—he himself was the real ghost, not the white-haired boy who stared at him with sad eyes.

The shadows stirred, began a low cackle.

And the spirit was no fool; he knew it was not Kaiba who now made the shadows eager.

"I trusted you," the fake Ryou said quietly.

Kaiba's ghosts had never spoken.

"I invited you," the boy said.

Kaiba's ghosts were better.

"Poor you," the spirit said, and despite his attempt to make the statement condescending and scathing, it didn't sound like anything. Just pointless air.

"Talking to yourself," Kaiba drawled, "and just when I was starting to think you were one of the more competent people in my tournament."

"Looks like Kaiba's back to his old self," said a brown-haired nobody.

The spirit ignored them, focused only on the young albino. Neither of them said more; there was no more to say. The spirit had never needed anyone's permission. He was out for vengeance, not forgiveness.

So he spread his arms wide, stared down the brown-eyed innocent whose life he'd stolen, and said, "I'll take everything you've got."

While the onlookers cheered or gasped, Kaiba ordered his monster to attack. At his word, the god monster was back, swinging a massive fist toward the spirit just as he'd done thousands of years ago.

But this new encounter wasn't real. As impressive as he looked, this Obelisk was a hologram, and rather than crushing bone, he would only crush lifepoints. The shadows would clamor for blood at the spirit's loss, torment his soul a bit, but he had faced down the true gods in a true body, young and scared and fighting all the same. The current battle was barely an echo, a joke compared to his past.

So as the attack came on, his gaze never wavered. His heart beat in a steady, measured rhythm.

And perhaps it was the distraction of remembering the past that blinded him to his host's movement, or perhaps he just never saw it coming because he overestimated the boy's intelligence. But just before Obelisk's fist connected, he felt a desperate pull at his mind, felt Ryou struggle for control.

Stupid of the kid to choose that moment. If he'd have succeeded, he'd have taken on the full attack of a god, and even a holographic one would have been enough to snap Ryou's weak knees.

The spirit held his grip on mortality.

And Obelisk's fist crashed down on him, bowed his stance and dizzied his mind, filled his ears with the dying screams of memory.

But he didn't kneel.

His lifepoints emptied. The duel ended. Kaiba seemed shocked to see him standing after the attack, and they stared each other down while the referee bellowed out Kaiba's advancement in the tournament.

Then the spirit turned and left the field. He didn't offer his ante of Dark Necrofear; if Kaiba wanted it, let him come treasure hunting. But it wasn't the spirit's to give.

He stumbled a little at the thought. Scowled at himself. Although he wanted to demand an explanation from Ryou for his foolish actions, he instead pushed the boy from his mind, filled his thoughts with all the fresh, raw memories of god monsters in Egypt.

All that mattered was vengeance. It was the only reason for his existence. His loss in the tournament meant nothing because the tournament had never mattered to begin with; all that mattered was being in the location where the items had gathered. It was time to resume his own treasure hunt.

And after his defeat at Kaiba's hands, it seemed only fitting he should start by claiming the rod.

Note: Hello, Thursday, we meet again. I made it this time, haha. Ugh, I love the Kaiba siblings so much; this was such an enjoyable chapter to write for their sakes. I also enjoy every section from the spirit of the ring's POV. But what do you guys think?

Next update will be Thursday, September 12th.