Still Water

by stereonightss

Crossed souls slip in and out of the river of dreams. But will their transit spell their demise? Or will it lead to something new for all mankind? Rivalshipping. Post-DSOD.

4. Chapter 4

Yugi launched a blast of light from the end of his red scepter, right into the mouth of a humanoid creature with the face of a saber-tooth tiger. The creature rocked back, wailing, cranking its hairy arm up to retaliate. Yugi braced for the blow but it never came. The end of a spear had burst through the creature's chest, stunning it to stillness. The wide cat's eyes welled up with blood.

"Our win!" came Kaiba's voice from behind the creature. He pulled out the spear and the creature slumped to the ground. "That's your bonus, go ahead."

Yugi picked up the glowing green disk above the creature. The game chimed a pleasant chord and Yugi watched as the gem on the top of his scepter turned into a crystal mace head.

"We can move ahead to the boss now. At our stats we don't even have to bother resupplying before going through the forest."

"Let's go!"

Yugi trotted over to Kaiba and the two stepped into the dark forest.

They hiked easily, Kaiba slicing through hanging vines, Yugi levitating fallen tree trunks that blocked their path. Alone in the woods with the sunlight speckling the leaf-mottled ground, Yugi felt free to gaze openly at Kaiba. He looked good in the close-fitting white armor, the spear balanced across his wide shoulders. Kaiba caught him looking and gave a sly smile.

"How are you finding the haptics?"

Yugi swung his scepter experimentally, tapped the crystal end on a nearby tree. The gentle kickback flowed down his arms. He sunk the end of the scepter into the lush dark earth, felt the resistance grow as it pushed deeper. He felt the weight of his own long black cloak where it skated over his calves as he spun around.

"Incredible. The physics are so real."

Kaiba shifted the spear to his outside shoulder and stepped close next to Yugi.

"We put a lot of effort there. The idea is for the game to be completely immersive."

He placed his hand on the back of Yugi's neck, sifted his fingers through the hair. Yugi shuddered and leaned into the touch.

"For example, you're sensitive here in real life. So the fact that your body responded appropriately to the in-game stimulus is a good indicator that we've achieved immersion."

Yugi felt warm all over. Now he understood why Kaiba wanted to beta this particular fantasy game. He laid his fingers over Kaiba's and smiled.

"Did you take me here to test the gameplay…or the haptics?"

Kaiba laughed low and knowing. He stuck his spear into the ground.

"What do you think?"

Yugi pulled Kaiba to the side of the path, where there was a fallen tree. He stepped up onto the tree trunk and braced his hands on Kaiba's shoulders. Kaiba cocked his head. They stood eye to questioning eye.

"So you don't hurt your neck," Yugi said, leaning in so their noses brushed.

Kaiba closed the distance, hands on Yugi's hips. Soft, gentle.

"It's not bad," Yugi said, smiling against Kaiba's cheek.

"You're not won over," Kaiba said, hands brushing lower.

"If I'm being honest," Yugi said, arching his body to press against Kaiba's rigid armor, "I miss the other senses. Taste. Smell. The soap you use, you can't program that into the game."

Kaiba slid his hand along Yugi's thigh, tracing the curve of the quadriceps, the sartorius, feeling each muscle ripple under his fingers as he neared the juncture of the hip.

"But the sense of touch. Even temperature," he said, tongue hot and wet on the soft skin under Yugi's jaw.

"It's very close," Yugi said. "But nothing's like the real thing."

Kaiba laughed into Yugi's neck. The rich vibrations tickled Yugi's hands through the plate armor chest piece.

"I'll give you the real thing," Kaiba said, stepping back. "If you can clear the level."

Yugi hopped off the log and grabbed his scepter from where it stood in the earth.

"Which way?"

Kaiba took up his spear and continued along the steepening path.

When they reached the mouth of a cave they were panting from exertion. Kaiba leaned heavily on his armored knee, gauntlet clacking against the steel plates on the high boots. Yugi took a knee beside him, mopping his brow with a corner of the heavy cape. Something shot out between them with a whipping noise and Kaiba instinctively pulled Yugi to him, shielding them with his armored back.

"It's started," he said.

"Inside the cave?"

"We'll draw it out."

Yugi rolled out from under him and held up his spiked scepter, ready to cast a light shield.

"Come out you slime!" Kaiba shouted, spear at the ready.

There was a slurping sound and a low rumble, and out of the mist of the cave came the hulking mass of a demon, slick amphibian head and arms, figured turtle shell on its back. It rose up on its slime-slicked back legs and let out a gurgling cry.

"It has magic resistance, and my spear will be almost useless against the shell," Kaiba said, reaching into the pouch on his belt for a potion. He tossed it to Yugi. Yugi caught the potion and drank half, then handed it back to Kaiba.

"The markings on its shell," Yugi said, crouching down in front of Kaiba. "It's a puzzle. If you can cover me for a moment I think I can figure it out."

They moved easily, perfectly in tune with one another. This game utilized no PowerLink technology, they weren't connected mentally or physically, and yet Yugi felt as though he knew instinctively where Kaiba was, what he would do. It was an easy dance, one he knew automatically by rote. He cast his spells and swung his mace with a dance-like exuberance. There was excitement, a blooming joy, as they took down the boss together. With Kaiba bending to cooperation, even letting Yugi lead, they won in minutes, each wearing giddy, triumphant smiles.

"Nicely do—"

The game cut out abruptly.

Yugi was already stepping out of the game pod by the time Kaiba managed his exit. His own pod opened with a whine and a rush of air.

"Excited, are we?" Kaiba said as he swung his long legs over the edge of the game pod, down to the ground. He smoothed out his crinkled sleep clothes, soft, white Egyptian cotton pants and shirt.

"We beat the level," Yugi said, eyes twinkling. He was wearing black athletic shorts and a black sleeveless shirt. They looked a mundane mirror of their game avatars.

Kaiba smirked and took his hand.

"Let's go to the parterre. It's warm out tonight."

They walked quietly through the long halls, down the wide staircase. The house was quiet, dark except for low-lit sconces spaced widely on the Venetian papered walls.

Kaiba unlocked the wide French doors into the courtyard.

"We'll have privacy. Mokuba's room is in the south wing."

Yugi gasped as they entered the courtyard. It was thick with lush greenery, most of it budding, some early blooms spicing the air with a thin, pleasant sweetness. He heard the murmur of water somewhere toward the far corner, could make out a wide pond in the moonlight.

"Come."

Kaiba led him to a rattan loveseat that hung from the bough of an ancient maple. It was half-enclosed, padded with embroidered Persian pillows, the Kaibaesque excess colored with a surprising sensuality Yugi was coming to love. Kaiba folded himself into the rounded swing, bracing it still with a long leg left on the ground. He beckoned to Yugi.

Yugi climbed up, tucking his body between Kaiba's legs. He kicked off his shoes and tangled his legs with Kaiba's, resting back against Kaiba's chest. Kaiba's chin settled down into his wild hair.

"Comfortable?"

Kaiba draped his long arms around Yugi, hands resting in Yugi's lap.

"This is nice."

Kaiba took a shuddering breath in and hugged Yugi, squeezing almost painfully tight. When he let go, the air seemed to draw all the tension out of him. Yugi felt the large body beneath him relax all over.

Yugi placed his hands over Kaiba's, drawing them up to his belly, lacing the fingers together. So this is what it feels like, he thought.

"Yugi."

The name was almost whispered. Yugi wiggled to the side, craned his neck to look up at Kaiba.

Kaiba's eyes were luminous. Yugi felt their clasped hands move low in his lap. The blue eyes, half-lidded now, went nearly black in the moonlight. Kaiba's voice was hushed but intense, husky in his ear.

"The world is changing around us every day. I've seen it turn beneath me. I've made it turn," he said, spreading his hand over the tight, nervous place under Yugi's belly button.

"The links world is going to change the way people communicate. It's going to change their priorities. Once we've finished testing the effects of prolonged use, we're going to deploy it worldwide. To people of all creeds and echelons. It's a precious thing that has to unfold in the right way, in the right time."

Kaiba's voice resonated in Yugi's chest. Yugi leaned into the sound, surprised to realize just how much he really loved Kaiba's little speeches, surprised that he always had.

"It's going to grow beyond its ability to self-regulate some day. When that day comes, I want you to reign with me."

"Seto…"

"I've fought my whole life alone, with only Mokuba to think of. I fought against you, against him, so hard that I turned around to fight myself. It changed me. You did that."

Kaiba's grip tightened.

"I want to fight with you from now on, by your side."

Yugi turned until he was kneeling between Kaiba's outstretched legs, hands on either side of Kaiba's hips.

"I've fought by your side before, and I'll do it again. Whenever you need me, I will," he said.

"Yugi…"

Kaiba cradled Yugi's face.

"Shape this world with me. I know we feel the same way. We both hunger for a time when mankind evolves beyond its utter confusion and chaos, its avarice and violence. We can wake them with the links world. We can create that future."

Yugi smiled, placed his hands over Kaiba's.

"I'm with you. We have some pretty different ideas about just how to shape the future, as you say. But that's why you need me, isn't it?"

He leaned in to place a soft kiss on Kaiba's lips.

"When to control, when to let go. When to force, when to submit. It's a game," he said, eyes full of knowing, dancing with light. "If that's what you're asking, I'll play."

Kaiba's eyes went from half-lidded to narrowed. He slid his hands up Yugi's thighs, fingers skirting under the shorts.

"You'll play with me, hm?"

"Mmmmhm."

Yugi brushed his fingers down Kaiba's neck, tracing over the adam's apple, down to the dip between the collar bones. He undid button after button until the shirt fell away, sliding off Kaiba's muscular shoulders to bunch at the arms. He paused to apprehend the sight, trace the memory to permanence: moonlight, spring breeze, the increasingly ragged rhythm of Kaiba's breathing. The blue eyes cutting through the darkness. It was the first memory he filed away in a place that wasn't for sharing, a place that was all his own.

A painful spasm wrenched Kaiba from sleep. He was on his hands and knees in a dark stone room. His wrists ached, his palms stung as though he'd braced himself from falling. He shifted his weight back to his knees and rose slowly, trying to account for his surroundings.

There was a cool, familiar weight on his arm. He traced the gold contours with his eyes.

"It'll all come back to you, I'm sure."

The voice sent a jolt through his spine.

"Get up."

Footsteps echoed behind him. He rose to his full height and turned, eyes adjusting to the flickering lamplight.

Atem stood before him, quaking with a dark rage.

"Kaiba."

"Yuu—"

"You know better than to call me that here."

Kaiba's head swam. The weight of the cape on his back, the kilt on rough his thighs, the heavy gauntlet on his arm, it cowed him. His last recollection was drifting to sleep, spent and sweat slick and curled against a warm weight. He summoned his focus.

"Atem."

"Got your legs back?"

Kaiba balled his fists, body instinctively responding to Atem's defiant posture.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it? To fight me? Go ahead."

Kaiba's mouth drew into a tight line.

Atem jackknifed his arm and the DiaDankh opened with a metallic scrape, a sound like a sword unsheathing.

"Diaha!"

Kaiba punched his own arm out to the side, tiers of the DiaDankh catching the lamplight in flashes of gold as they unfurled.

"Whatever made you so angry," Kaiba said, meeting Atem's glare with his own, "I'll crush it right out of you."

"You asked for this," Atem said, forehead glowing under his heavy gold crown. "I'm just finally giving it to you."

Curse of Dragon appeared coiled around Atem and screeched, then lurched forward.

Kaiba raised his disk bearing arm as a shield but the whip of the dragon's tail cut a gash from elbow to shoulder and knocked him down, sending him skidding, scraping along the stone floor. Kaiba grit his teeth and chewed the pain and his rage down into single thought: defeat him.

The warrior Duos appeared before him, sword drawn.

"Attack!" he yelled, lurching to his feet.

Duos leaped into the air and sunk its sword into the dragon's head. The dragon screeched and whipped around and Duos threw its weight against the sword, splitting the dragon's skull with a wet crack.

"Come, my eternal servant," Atem yelled into the dissipating fog left in the dragon's wake.

Mahad appeared in a swirl of smoke in his magician's black and purple, staff ready and glowing. His face went from fierce to worried when he saw Duos. Duos stood en garde in front of Kaiba, who was bleeding from the gash on his arm, panting, clutching at his scraped and bloody thigh.

"My king, he's forgotten how to properly summon," Mahad said, but Atem's eyes were locked on Kaiba.

"Black burning!" he shouted, and Mahad complied with a wince.

Duos sublimated into nothing, and the blowback hit Kaiba in a hot wave.

"Why are you doing this?" Kaiba shouted, trying to focus his mind through the pain. If he could call the Blue Eyes—

"Finish him, Mahad!" Atem shouted.

Mahad stepped forward, staff raised.

"Forgive me, my friend," he said, and swung the staff down with his full weight behind it.

There was a thunder crack and a blinding flash of light and Atem raised his arm against it. He felt a powerful blow hit him at the core, a dull radiating pain like that flowed up his throat and and out his nose till he tasted blood running warm over his lip.

When the light died down he saw Mahad's staff lay on the ground beside him, knocked away. The Silent Magician stood with her arms splayed, guarding Kaiba.

"So even his spirits come to your aid," Atem said softly.

They all stared silent as the smoke cleared and the swirling dust died down. The only sound was from the rhythmic drips of Kaiba's blood as it plinked against the floor.

Atem broke the silence with a ragged inhale.

"Do you love him?"

His voice rippled with emotion.

"Do you?" Kaiba spat blood and foam onto the ground, face twisted in pain and anger and disgust. "What, you want him all to yourself? Do you know how perverse that is? You were the same person—"

"No," Atem said, hand raised in warning. "We were the same body."

Atem brushed past Mahad, past the still-guarded Silent Magician. He stood square in front of Kaiba, their gazes leveled by Kaiba's pained lean.

"Answer my question," Atem said as he wiped at the blood that dripped slowly from his nose.

"Don't be foolish," Kaiba said, sneering. "Of course I do."

Atem closed his eyes.

"I'm not his keeper. And even if he wants you, you're a ghost. I'm still not convinced this isn't a dream."

"Listen to your senses, Seto," Mahad said.

"I promised I'd deliver him to you, didn't I? We've been training for it every day. It's only a matter of time before we can stabilize the quantum dimensioning long enough—"

"Kaiba, listen," Atem said, fatigue in his voice. "You may have delivered him to me permanently. It isn't meant to be his time yet. But we received a warning."

Kaiba struggled to his full height. What little color there was left in is face drained completely.

"What kind of a warning?"

Mahad sighed and put himself between them. He inclined his head toward Atem.

"My king. May we go to the gardens? It pains me that a friend should bleed under our own roof, and you could do with a bit of healing yourself."

Atem stood, finally resigned: lips parted and smeared with drying blood, mauve eyes glassy and full of grief. He pressed his DiaDankh closed.

"Fine."

Mahad's magician's robes vanished, leaving a simple linen shift and belt. He placed a hand on each man's shoulder.

Kaiba slid his DiaDankh closed and the Silent Magician vanished, leaving a wisp of white smoke.

"Come, Seto. Let's tend to your wounds."

Mahad sat them side by side on a bench under a balcony dripping with hanging vines. Tall palms that marked the corners of the courtyard whispered in the wind. Mahad said a silent prayer of gratitude to the fact that they had taken the fight out of each other. It was easier to treat them that way.

"Chin up," Mahad said, nudging Atem. He pinched his thumb and forefinger into a ring and blew through the ring, directly up Atem's nose.

Atem coughed and sputtered but by the time he recovered, the color had returned to his cheeks and his eyes were clear.

"Drink this," Mahad said, materializing an earthenware cup.

"Yes, Mahad," Atem said, taking the cup.

"Now you. Stand up, please," Mahad said, beckoning to Kaiba.

Kaiba stood with a grumble and Mahad laid his broad palms over the scraped plane of Kaiba's thigh. There was a sizzling sound and Kaiba hissed through his teeth. The wounds closed under Mahad's skilled hands.

"This you ought to do yourself," he said sternly to Atem. "Come, help me."

Atem set down the cup and stood, face something between guilty and indignant. He cupped Kaiba's shoulder with his slim, dark hands.

Kaiba made to jerk away but Mahad held him by the wrist.

"Let him. We don't want you carrying this back to your waking life," Mahad said, nudging Atem with his hip. "Do we, my king?"

"I'm sorry I took out my anger on you," Atem said quietly.

Kaiba smirked, thoroughly satisfied with the picture of Atem, subdued, submitting in apology, dried blood smeared on his blushed cheek.

"Next time I'll give you a good reason to get angry, and by then I'll have remembered how to use this," he said, lifting his DiaDankh.

Mahad took Kaiba's elbow between his palms and pressed close to Atem. The two chanted in whispers and blew softly into the still-weeping gash that ran from Kaiba's elbow to his shoulder. Their breath was like ice on his skin, prickly-painful and cool. The skin knit itself together, leaving a long pink scar.

"Use your palms," Mahad said, pressing the center of his palms along the mark.

Atem slid his hands from the round curve of the shoulder cap to the plane of the bicep where the scar ran. Kaiba shivered under the touch, warm and shockingly gentle—not unlike the way that Yugi had touched him just hours before. He could smell Atem's hair, patchouli and firesmoke and honey, and he was struck by the tiny differences he could discern between the tan man before him and the pale mirror he left in the waking world.

Atem's ears were smaller, his nose just a bit more pronounced. The hands were appreciably different, though roughly the same size: Atem again the leaner, the more angular, but surprisingly softer version. Atem was built a little more lean all over, a little bit sharper in a way that was down to the bone and not just the age gap, which was closing and would soon move in reverse. Yugi continued to age, but Atem seemed frozen at the age he sealed himself in the puzzle, the age he died.

They were different people after all. Two different but uncommonly similar people. With Atem at his side and Yugi so fresh in his mind now, he could see it in the collarbone, in the jut of the hip, in the discernible high arch through the woven hemp slipper: a world of subtle differences that called for confirmation, for a tactile inventory, a rubric, a metric. He swallowed back the image of them side-by-side.

The pain of Mahad's healing magic was a welcome distraction. It wasn't the first time Kaiba had viewed the god of games with hunger in his eye, but it was the first time he worried someone may notice. He shifted in his thin linen kilt and tried to collate his feelings toward the man before him.

Hunger and anger and bloodlust mixed with his unwavering respect and awe for the mind behind those infuriating mauve eyes. It was an intoxicating combination. Theirs was a deep and violent history, a rivalry that was birthed in mutual intrigue and came of age in hate, only to mature into a deep respect, a bond, a promise to strive. The endless road of battle clearly stretched into the world beyond. If there was a world beyond even this, Kaiba knew it stretched there too. To color that holy bond with his desire would be a disservice—and so he smothered his hunger. It went down easy with thoughts of Yugi curled up in his sheets.

"That's the best we can do for a wound that deep. The rest, time will mend," Mahad said as they stepped aside.

Kaiba lifted his arm, rolled his shoulder. The pain was gone.

"Thank you," he said to Mahad. Then, turning to Atem, "Both of you."

Mahad nodded and Atem sat down on the bench again. Kaiba took his place next to Atem.

"Now tell me. What's happening to Yugi?"

Atem clasped and unclasped his hands.

"He may be in danger."

"Of what?" Kaiba's voice came pinched with outrage, though he tried his best to calm it.

"Let me explain the context," Mahad said, leaning against the trunk of a tall palm tree. "Yugi possesses the godseed. It was planted in his brain at birth. It's what made him able to bear the soul of the pharaoh. Had he lived his natural life three thousand years ago, it would have sprouted and taken root slowly over the course of his lifetime, like yours did."

"The problem is, it's blossoming too fast," Atem said.

"The—technology you use to transcend dimensions apparently accelerates the growth of the godseed."

"I'm trying to be patient," Kaiba said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What are you talking about when you say god seed?"

"Exactly that. It's the seed of godly wisdom, given by the gods themselves. It's part of what makes the Plana who and what they are. It's said that it's the seed of the celestial lotus from which all creation came," Mahad said.

"The pineal gland. It's a small area of the brain directly over the pineal gland," Atem said. "Only Plana possess it. And Yugi's is a special kind."

Mahad made a circle with his fingers, and a smooth plane filled the space between.

"Look into this. You'll see the lotus in the garden of Ra that grows from Yugi's spirit."

Kaiba peered into the glass in Mahad's hands. He saw a wide expanse of still, dark water. The water was dotted here and there with water lilies. Mahad angled his hands and there came into focus a grouping of lily pads, each with a lotus blossom on top: one a vibrant blue like the lilies of the nile, one a rich purple, and one yet a tight green bud.

"This bud is Yugi's soul flower. It's already broken the water. It could bloom within the next year."

"It isn't due to fully bloom for at least another ten," Atem said wearily.

"I see." Kaiba stared at his empty hands. "And what would happen if it does?"

Mahad clapped his hands together and the glass disappeared.

"We can't know for sure. Few have survived the blooming of the godseed without the transfigurative ritual called the trial."

"If he doesn't take the trial? It could manifest as a tumor," Atem said. "He could have seizures or hallucinations. His body could just give out from the strain."

Kaiba stood, fists clenched tight at his sides.

"And PowerLink caused this?"

Mahad looked at Kaiba with something akin to pity.

"He pulls physical matter through the barrier between worlds. He stands on the east bank of the river of life night after night calling to Atem, and we hear him way on the other side because of the strength of his presence. It's all highly unusual," Mahad said softly. "All we can do is make our best guess about everything thats's happening."

"I don't understand. I crossed over alone. I've had more exposure to the Dimension Cube than he has by orders of magnitude. Why him and not me?"

Atem laughed, and Kaiba wondered if he'd gone entirely mad.

"You underwent the trial when you became a high priest. Your godseed bloomed under the guidance of the priests, with all their magic to protect you," Atem said, looking at Kaiba with a peculiar fondness. "Or don't you remember, Seto?"

"It's beyond me to question your occult nonsense any longer," Kaiba said, cradling his head.

Mahad placed a hand on Kaiba's shoulder.

"His best chance is to undergo the trial. Here with us, where we can protect him to the best of our abilities."

Kaiba's eyes were resolute when he lifted them to meet Mahad's.

"What do I have to do?"

Atem stood, straightening his mantle.

"Come again, the way you came before. Bring him with you. We'll take care of the rest."

"He isn't ready yet," Kaiba said. "We haven't even begun the aeronautics training."

"There's no time. You have two weeks, maybe three on your side before he'll start to manifest serious symptoms of the blooming," Mahad said gravely.

"Then I'll make it happen in one," Kaiba said.

Atem bent to pick a tiger lily from a cluster in a low garden bed. He carefully twirled it by the stem.

"He likes tiger lilies. Will you bring it to him for me?"

Kaiba cautiously took the flower.

"What do you want me to tell him?"

"You can tell him that we've asked him here. But don't tell him about the trial," Mahad said.

"I'll do as you say. But if he asks me directly why we're coming so soon, I won't lie to him."

The three men stood in the quiet of the garden, eyes on the red and orange flower in Kaiba's hand. Mahad clasped Kaiba's shoulder once more.

"You aren't going to ask what happens if he fails the trial?"

Kaiba turned his icy gaze on Mahad.

"He won't fail."

"Our faith in him is the first test of the trial. No, I don't think he'll fail," Atem said, giving Kaiba a confident little smile. He placed his palm on the center of Kaiba's chest and gave him a good push, speaking into the rush of air that followed:

"See you on the other side."

Yugi turned slowly, deep in sleep, sun spilling over his face to tap gently on his eyelids through a slim crack in the curtains. Kaiba bit back the irrational stab of jealousy he felt as the a breeze through the open window lifted the curtains so that the sun spilled down Yugi's hip, down his bare leg to kiss the soles of his feet before running back up his body as the curtain settled. Face framed in golden light, Yugi looked held by the sun. Kaiba pictured him as antidote bathed in moonlight, hair matted, lips plump with use, hands clawing at the dark sheets that only half covered him now. It calmed Kaiba some.

He stared at the delicate flower in his hand. He wasn't sure if he should bring it down to the lab for analysis, stick it in the mass spectrometer where Yugi would never see it, where he could isolate any unearthly contaminants for study. He thought about crushing the flower between his large, trembling hands. He laid it on the pillow next to Yugi's head instead.

He slipped on a dark blue robe and walked to the wide oak secretary in the corner of his room. He rolled up the cover on the desk and pulled up a holofield, bending forward for a retinal scan. He swiped his fingers over the felt surface of the desk and a keyboard projected out from the bottom of the holofield. He pinched outwards to scale it up so that it was more comfortable for his hands.

He brought up all of the medical data he had compiled on Yugi, plus every record that had been digitized since the time of his birth, knowing but not caring what kind of fees he would have to pay if anyone ever managed to track his access. It was to his advantage that all medical databases in the country were handled by KC server farms.

Kaiba read the files rapidly, tagging anything even remotely unusual for further review. Yugi's medical history was routine until about age eleven, when he became suddenly accident-prone. Kaiba quietly fumed as he reviewed notes on various sprains, two x-rays of fractures, a concussion and one clean break of his wrist. Dental records showed a cracked tooth that had been repaired with a cap. Some other minor incidents—and all of that was just what made it into the record. It was startlingly familiar to Kaiba as the son of Gozaburo, and he wondered, not for the first time, how much of their history ran parallel.

There was surprisingly little medical data during the period of time between Death-T and Battle City, but Kaiba had some basic read outs from DuelDisk vitals monitoring, data kept for purposes of measuring stress response. Kaiba heard Yugi sigh and the ruffling of sheets and he allowed himself a moment to watch the sun trace up and down Yugi's compact form again, a kouros in miniature, like the David with a punk's hair for all its balance of softness and muscle and the proportionally outsized hands. Kaiba wanted to freeze the moment for safekeeping, knowing heavy in the pit of his stomach that there was a storm coming for the both of them. He pressed on through the data.

Finally he made his way through the records of their training to the FMRI taken after the first time they ripped matter out of ether with the PowerLink drive. He stepped through it frame-by-frame, scanning for anything unusual, any clue that would make sense of what he'd heard way on the other side of the riverbank. Nothing about the scan was normal because nothing about the way Yugi's brain functioned was normal. He checked for structural defects and areas of decreased activity. He ran through the scan forwards and backwards, checking and re-checking and then checking again.

When Kaiba saw it his mind went cold ear-ringing blank, as though a bomb had gone off. It was small but distinguishable, right where Atem said it would be. He wasn't a neurologist, he couldn't have been expected to see it the first time around, especially when they weren't looking for—

A tumor.

He wasn't a neurologist, he wasn't any kind of doctor. He should have had the scan reviewed right after it was taken. He didn't because the project wasn't public and he'd overestimated his own abilities. The urge to break something was overwhelming, so he balled his fists so tight that his nerve ran cold from the wrist to the elbow. He wasn't a neurologist, he couldn't have been expected to catch it, he should have caught it anyway and it was his responsibility because it was his technology and now his life felt like an empty stream of events leading to this one terminal failure.

He closed the holofield and walked heavily to the foot of the bed. It pained him to look down at Yugi, trace the shape of Yugi's body with his eyes. He didn't deserve this.

Yugi blinked the room around him into focus. Unfamiliar vaulted ceiling with crown molding like an old hotel, soft navy blue sheets that smelled like cedar and rain and the salt musk of their bodies and Yugi's blood rose all the way up to the tips of his ears as he remembered. They were in Kaiba's room. Kaiba stood at the foot of the bed, watching him with an unreadable expression.

"Morning," Yugi said, voice cracking with lingering sleep. Yugi shifted and a little velvety object slid down the pillow to brush his cheek.

"A lily!" hesaid, taking the speckled red-orange flower. "How did you know?"

Kaiba's face flashed tension then forcibly relaxed.

"It's from him. I dreamed last night."

Yugi's eyes went wide. He pulled himself upright and looked at the flower in the filtered morning light let in by the sheer white curtains. It was flawless and fragrant and warmly alive and it had the same quietly awe-drawing quality that the cards and the cartouche had, the same little note of impossible rightness that floated in the back of his mind when he looked into Kaiba's deep blue eyes.

"You saw him in your dream?"

Kaiba gazed up at the ceiling, wondering just how many exponents he'd have to use to measure the distance his spirit traveled in sleep last night.

"I hesitate to call it dreaming anymore."

Yugi cupped the flower to his lips, inhaled long and quiet. His eyes darkened with a private sadness that made something in Kaiba rage.

"I wonder why he comes to you," Yugi said, flicking a sheepish glance Kaiba's way. "You know, and not me."

"There's no accounting for taste," Kaiba said, stepping around to Yugi's side of the bed. He tucked a rebellious golden curl behind Yugi's ear.

"Right. Some of us have expensive taste," Yugi said, softly dropping the flower to the bed. He stood and took up the end of the belt that kept Kaiba's robe closed and he gave a little tug.

"You mean me? I'm a simple man," Kaiba said, feeling his tension drop with each little tug of the belt.

"I meant myself," Yugi said, letting the robe fall open. He slid his hands into the robe, gripping Kaiba's hips.

Kaiba's ragged intake of breath was a lust-drenched sob and he bit it down and chased it with a deep, desperate kiss. Yugi pushed the robe off and down his arms and they let it slide to the floor. Yugi ran his hands down Kaiba's thigh, breaking their kiss to look where he'd felt an unexpected texture.

"Oh my god," Yugi said, suddenly stiff, alert. "What happened?"

Kaiba looked down at his own leg. There were ragged streaks running down his thigh, the pink of freshly healed scrapes. He had a fist-sized bruise on his hip, and a thin white scar that ran up the length of his bicep.

Yugi touched the scar lightly, brows knit in worry.

"How? When did this happen?"

"It's not important," Kaiba said, grabbing his wrist. "Listen to me. We have to cross over. I can't explain to you what's happening because I don't fully understand it myself. We have one week to prepare."

Yugi scanned Kaiba's face. Kaiba's eyes were pinched at the corners, his mouth small and drawn. Yugi recognized the look even though he'd only seen it once before: it was the look Kaiba wore when he stood on the edge of Pegasus' tower, deeply desperate, recklessly committed.

"Cross over?"

"To where he is," Kaiba said.

Yugi's heart thumped in the back of his throat, threatening to cut his air off.

"Please," Kaiba said, pressing Yugi's hand between his own. "Trust me."

Yugi winced at the word 'please.' Kaiba begging didn't sit well with him. He felt his body ripple with anticipatory tension. His senses sharpened, his eyes hardened.

"Okay," he said, swallowing. "What do I have to do?"

"Kind of sudden, don't you think?" Jounouchi said between bites of curry.

Bakura poured batter into a muffin tin, careful not to spill.

"It's very sudden," he said over his shoulder. He wiped his hands on his white and yellow gingham apron. "It's sudden and it's strange."

He brought his bowl to the table and sat down opposite Jounouchi.

"To brand it as a Battle City reunion exhibition is insane to me," Jounouchi said, waving his fork. "I mean, he lost Battle City, doesn't that look bad for him to bring it up?"

"It was one of their most popular tournaments to date," Bakura said, pushing the curry around in his bowl. "It's not the worst idea from a marketing standpoint."

"Yeah but why now? And why so sudden?" Jounouchi said. "I don't like what's going on between them, something's definitely off and whatever it is, Yugi's hiding it from me. It's almost like…like…"

"Like they're together?" Bakura supplied, taking a small bite of rice.

Jounouchi sagged against his chair.

"Yeah. It's…"

"Confusing?"

Bakura was staring at him, eyes dark but wide. Not a glare, but not his usual detached kindness. It was something new that twisted Jounouchi's guts into a tight knot: blank and darkly seeing, clear and focused, like an animal's eyes. Jounouchi felt like he was being dissected alive.

"Malik was here recently," Bakura said, voice disarmingly even. "He'll be back for the exhibition. I'm glad, to be honest. I didn't think I'd see him again so soon."

"You…you guys…"

Jounouchi placed his fork down, feeling as though he had walked into a spider's web and that anything he could say would only trap him more.

"I felt surprised on some level the first time we hooked up," Bakura said, licking the back of his spoon. "But that was the same level that had been in denial a long time."

Bakura took a little bite of curry, taking time to chew and swallow.

"It should come as no surprise though. Me, Malik. Kaiba, Yugi." Bakura laughed quietly and Jounouchi flinched at the memory of the ring spirit.

"I mean, you've seen the way he looks at Yugi. You can act surprised. But I know you're being obtuse. It's not that you don't understand, it's that you don't want to understand."

Jounouchi had pressed back against his chair, a subconscious retreat. He fumbled for something to say.

"I…ugh, this is all so complicated," he said, fists balling up in his lap.

"Wrong," Bakura said, leaning back. "It's simple. It's just not easy."

Jounouchi clenched his jaw, fists tightening in his lap. He opened his mouth to speak, but snapped it shut again. His eyes started to well and he looked up at the ceiling to keep his frustration from spilling over.

Bakura's eyes softened.

"It doesn't have to be hard. You've known Yugi for how many years?"

"A long time," Jounouchi said quietly.

"And of all his friends, you know him better than most."

Jounouchi sighed. He folded his hands behind his head.

"I thought so."

"It's true. And you know it's true."

Bakura examined his own distorted reflection as it morphed over the surface of the spoon. Jounouchi let out a ling sigh.

"You're right. I guess I coulda guessed."

Bakura smiled, and the two of them relaxed.

"I wish I didn't have to guess. I wish he woulda told me outright."

Bakura took a spoonful of curry, reminded himself to cook the roux more next time.

"He probably didn't tell you because he's still figuring himself out. He's always been open and honest with us, I just feel like he's the kind of person who keeps things to himself until he's really really sure."

"Makes sense," Jounouchi said, brightening. "Still, Kaiba? All the people on this earth."

Bakura shrugged. "He's pretty cute. Objectively speaking."

"Oh come on, not you too," Jounouchi said, raking a hand through his hair.

Bakura laughed.

"Kaiba's not my type. But Yugi sees things in people right away that the rest of us don't," Bakura said, crossing and uncrossing his ankles as he thought about their petite enigma of a friend. "I used to think I could read people well. But he's always two steps ahead of me."

"That's how I feel when I duel him," Jounouchi said. "He's on another planet."

Jounouchi bent to eat and Bakura watched with a smile as he emptied the bowl.

"I'll put those mini cheesecakes in the oven," Bakura said, standing. "Takes about forty minutes. We'll review our decks hm? I'm excited, I never got to play in Battle City for myself."

Jounouchi handed Bakura his empty bowl.

"You're one hell of a cook, man."

Jounouchi watched Bakura blush and smile and drop his gaze, suddenly demure. He was so soft for someone who could be so scary, Jounouchi thought with a shake of his head. Bakura was even more incomprehensible than Kaiba. Then again, the apron, the baking—could have guessed, after all.

"So you and Malik huh?" he said, cracking a smile. "You gonna be able to take him out if you face him?"

Bakura slid the muffin tray into the oven and turned to flash Jounouchi a coy smile.

"You didn't read the whole invite, did you?"

Jounouchi shrugged.

"It's a tag team tournament."

The Kaiba brothers sat at the chef's table in L'heure Bleue, glad for the noise and bustle of the kitchen, as it filled the gloomy lulls in their conversation.

"Is it bad?" Mokuba said as switched plates with his brother.

"To be honest, I liked the tartare better at Le Coucou," Kaiba said, taking a sip of Bordeaux.

"Are you being serious?" Mokuba said, inclining his head toward the sommelier who hovered to the side, indicating he would like a Bordeaux of his own now, though if you asked him, 'needed' was a more appropriate verbage.

"Nii-sama, I meant the tumor."

Kaiba placed his fork down and patted his lips with the dark blue napkin in his lap.

"It's small, but it's too deep in the brain to biopsy."

"Why haven't we seen any sign of this in any of the hundreds of test subjects for Neurons? Those tests have been going on for almost two years."

"I have a feeling it's got something to do with PowerLink specifically."

Mokuba took a generous sip of wine.

"Well what about you? You need an MRI to see if it's effected you the same way."

"I do not. I," Kaiba said, pausing to drain his glass, "am immune."

Mokuba hated this. His brother rarely drank, and almost never to excess. When he did, it reminded Mokuba of their paternal uncle, a violent drunk with a mean streak. The years between their father's death and the orphanage were in a lot of ways harder for Mokuba than Gozaburo had been.

"I can't talk to you when you're like this. You're not making any sense."

Kaiba straightened up in his chair and nodded a thank you to the understated grace of the quiet sommelier as he backed away, leaving Kaiba's glass full of Chateau Auson Grand Cru again.

"Mokuba."

It came out more forcefully than Kaiba had intended, and Mokuba shot up in his chair like a scolded child.

"Mokuba," he said, softer this time. "I find myself in a difficult place, full of difficult challenges."

He looked openly at his little brother, disinhibited and full of emotion.

"You know that I would never choose to leave you, right? Never again. Not unless I absolutely had to."

Mokuba shrunk in his three piece suit, seeming for all his editorials and all his net worth and achievements like a little boy.

"Where are you going?"

Kaiba took a long, measured inhale. He counted to ten as he let it out.

"I'm launching the prototype. At the end of this week."

"No way!" Mokuba said, fighting the urge to stand. "It's just a prototype. It's barely even finished, let alone tested. And anyway it's not meant to be piloted by one person."

"I'm taking Yugi with me."

The color drained from Mokuba's face.

"I don't believe you. This, the tournament, the living will…you're playing a joke on me. A joke. Right, Nii-sama?"

Kaiba swirled the wine, watching the dark dripping streaks it left on the glass.

"I've given Isono power of attorney. But he will defer to you at every point, should you want to make decisions for yourself. I have full confidence in your ability as interim CEO in my absence."

"You're talking like you're gonna just disappear," Mokuba said, tears sliding down his cheeks. "It's not fair. What the hell is going on with you? Why are you doing this?"

Mokuba reached for his brother's hand. Kaiba let him.

"Please, tell me what's going on."

"I've been receiving…information. From a source that I believe is reliable."

"One source?"

Kaiba gripped Mokuba's hand and lowered his voice to a hushed growl.

"From what I've been told, the only way to fix the problem caused by PowerLink is to use the dimension cube to bring Yugi to the other plane. It's my fault this happened in the first place, so it's my responsibility to fix it, no matter what. Do you understand?"

Mokuba sighed.

"Can we start over? Can you tell me everything from the beginning, and don't hold anything back because you think it's crazy or because you think I can't handle it. I've seen enough crazy stuff happen the past few years that I feel like nothing you say could surprise me," Mokuba said, fighting back the sob that had lodged itself in his throat.

"And you suck at lying, so don't lie."

Kaiba sat back. To verbalize out loud the things he was dealing with was to acknowledge, finally, the para-natural phenomenon that had been coloring his life since the day he met Yugi Mutou. Even with all that he'd experienced first hand, it was a difficult pill to finally swallow.

Mokuba stared at him, daring, determined, open, expectant. The color was back in his tan cheeks, his head was held high. He was a strong kid, and soon he would be a strong man. For the first time in their relationship, Kaiba leaned into the comfort of his younger brother's competency and support.

He told Mokuba everything, from the beginning. Told him about the visions he'd had in front of the stone slab and on the blimp. Told him things about the memory world he'd held back, about Kisara and the blue eyes, told him about the way his body vibrated when the door to the next life opened to take Atem away from them. Told him about Diva, about the horrific, impossible things he saw before the world went black around him. Told him about the rushed, intense conversation he'd had in the palace beyond when he crossed over with the dimension cube.

He told Mokuba about the dreams. About what it felt like to be connected to Yugi in that deeply intimate, viscously revealing way. About the battle and the flowers, about Mahad. About Atem.

He didn't tell Mokuba about the trial. The words wouldn't even queue up in his mouth.

Mokuba cocked his head.

"You talk to the Black Magician? What's he like?"

Kaiba laughed.

"After everything I just told you, that's what you want to know?"

"Can you talk to the Blue Eyes too?" Mokuba said, eyes wide. Kaiba hoped he'd never lose that boyish excitement about things.

"Mahad was a man once. He says he knew me."

"In your past life?"

Kaiba scowled.

"To say it like that underlines how ridiculous this all is."

"It's not ridiculous, or you wouldn't be flying a suicide mission into the great beyond to get your boyfriend the magic potion he needs to live," Mokuba said, folding his hands behind his head.

"A suicide mission…" Kaiba drummed his long fingers on the table.

"We won't fail. We can't. I'll make the final preparations on the prototype myself. I'll leave the launch and recovery teams in your command."

Mokuba studied his brother's face, wine-flushed and clammy at the temples. Signs of stress. Signs of worry. But lucidity in the eyes, and the grade of determination that Mokuba knew better than to test.

"I know you're gonna do what you're gonna do no matter what. And I'm behind you anyways, always. Just promise me one thing, okay?"

Kaiba nodded.

"Promise you'll come back."

"I have every intention of coming back."

Mokuba extended his right pinky, gripping the locket around his neck with his left hand.

Kaiba lifted his own locket to his lips. They linked pinkies and kissed the lockets.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Mokuba relaxed.

"Okay. Good."

They traded bites of their entrees, cassoulet and braised rabbit and riz noir, and polished off the Grand Cru with higher spirits. They went over the tournament matches and double-checked the flights and accommodations of the duelists and invited guests. Mokuba stepped out to make a call to his primary media contact to secure primetime coverage. If they were going to do this, they'd do it right.

When he returned, the sous chef had just brought them a cheese board. Mokuba sampled a crumble of cantal. Kaiba ignored the cheese board in favor of his café noisette, from which Mokuba determined he probably planned to be up most of the night working.

"So why the tournament? There's so much to do to prepare for the launch. Why now?" Mokuba said.

Kaiba hummed against his cup.

"Why indeed. The next few days of training will be hard. I don't want him discouraged before the launch, it'll make it hard for us to pilot the launch pod if he's scared or depressed. I thought it would bolster his spirits to have all his friends around."

"You're throwing a going-away party," Mokuba said.

"If you want to call it that, yes."

Mokuba grinned and pumped his fist.

"I'm glad you said so. Since it's a party, I'm gonna make sure it fuckin rocks."

Kaiba hid his smile behind his espresso cup, deciding just this once not to hassle Mokuba for cursing.

"Welcome, welcome," Sugoroku said, stepping aside to let Kaiba through the front door of Kame Games.

"My grandson isn't here right now," he said, leading them through the back toward the stairwell to the house. "But you probably knew that already."

"I did," Kaiba said, gripping his briefcase.

"Well," Sugoroku said, one foot on the stair. "Come up, I'll put tea on."

They walked up the narrow carpeted stairs, and Kaiba felt a pang of anxiety. He was a stranger in Yugi's childhood home, visiting it for the first time without him.

"Have a seat, boy," Sugoroku said, gesturing to the couch.

Kaiba sat on the little couch, taking in the games and artifacts that lined the shelves, the pictures and the human touches that gave the place a sweltering warmth, so unlike the wide halls of the manor. It reminded him of his first home, the first he could remember, and he closed his eyes against the feeling. He unlocked his briefcase and removed an envelope.

"Here," Sugoroku said, handing Kaiba a steaming cup. He sat in an arm chair on the other side of the coffee table.

"Thank you."

They blew on their tea for a few moments of comfortable silence. Finally, Sugoroku said,

"So? Let's have it. You're here on business?"

Kaiba cleared his throat.

"Yes and no. I feel I owe you an apology for the way I treated you when Yugi and I were in high school."

Sugoroku laughed and waved Kaiba off.

"Please. Don't think I don't notice that you shut down any competition that crops up in this neighborhood. Zoning violations? Revoked business licenses? You're creative, my boy, but you're not subtle."

"Subtlety was never my strong suit," Kaiba said, smirking. "I am sorry, though."

"I appreciate you saying it to my face, I do. But that was years ago. It seems to me you're a different man now."

"I'm not sure I believe that people change," Kaiba said.

Sugoroku winked at him.

"Change is the wrong word. You've matured, grown up. You're gentler now, more patient. Love will do that to a man, you know."

Kaiba held Sugoroku's eyes for a long while. Somehow, the intensity there reminded him of Atem. Kaiba felt himself slowly begin to melt under that scrutinizing but compassionate gaze.

Kaiba slid the envelope across the table.

"All the same, I'd like to give this to you."

Sugoroku carefully opened the envelope and peered inside. He arched a brow.

"That's quite an apology, son."

Kaiba inclined his head.

"It can't make amends for the loss of your Blue Eyes, but please consider it a token of my remorse."

Sugoroku chuckled jerked his thumb at a frame on the wall. The torn Blue Eyes sat taped together in the frame.

"I'm not so easily separated from the things that are important to me. She didn't much like when I dueled with her anyway," he said, smiling. "But thank you, truly."

Kaiba nodded and sipped his tea.

"So I hear you're taking my grandson on an expedition. For an indefinite amount of time."

"I have no way of accurately gauging how long it will take us to complete it."

Sugoroku sipped his tea loudly and narrowed his eyes. Kaiba met his gaze with an even focus.

"Well, send the young king my regards. We all miss him dearly, you know."

Kaiba flinched.

"How did you—"

"Don't worry, my grandson didn't tell me anything. It's just, you get to be my age and you put things together quicker than you used to. Chalk it up to intuition, hm?"

"You have a remarkable intuition, Mr. Mutou."

"Please, please, call me Sugoroku. Yugi is quite fond of you, you know. All his friends call me grandpa. You're welcome to as well, of course," Sugoroku said, setting down his tea. "As for me, it's been hard not to call you Set since I recognized you in those TV replays of Battle City."

Kaiba balked.

"What? You can't possibly mean—"

Sugoroku laughed openly, slapping his knee.

"You don't remember me, high priest? I'm the only one after the king you couldn't best at dueling. I held your hair when you underwent the trial yourself. I was wondering if my grandson would have to endure it after all, and here you are with my answer."

Sugoroku savored the look of animal confusion on his once fellow priest's face.

"Come now, child, don't look so surprised. It doesn't suit you."

Kaiba sighed rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"You remembered? You knew…you knew his name the whole time?"

Sugoroku fixed Kaiba with a knowing smile.

"Once my grandson finished the puzzle, it started coming back to me in stages."

"From what I know, we all could have died if they failed. You would gamble our lives that easily?"

Sugoroku lifted his chin and smirked. It sent chills down Kaiba's spine for how much it smacked of Atem.

"I'm the finest gambler you'll ever meet. My intuition never fails."

Sugoroku waved his hand dismissively.

"Yes, I could have told them, but it would have broken the magic. The important thing is that they figured it out for themselves. It had to unfold exactly the way that it did this time, or it wouldn't have worked."

Kaiba shrugged in acquiescence. Being talked to like a child by an aged version of his longtime rival was equal parts infuriating and bizarrely comforting.

"Order beats chaos in the end." Sugoroku said, smiling. "You can bet on that, son."

Kaiba steepled his fingers in front of his lips.

"This trial. You've seen what he's about to go through. Will he be all right?"

Sugoroku crossed his arms. He thought about it for a moment before he answered.

"My grandson has a knack for surprising those who underestimate him. You should know as much."

"First hand," Kaiba said, crossing his legs.

"Have faith," Sugoroku said. "It all happens for a reason. You discovering some way to cross to the other bank, and right at the time when he needs it. Yes, it feels like destiny to me."

Kaiba used to hate the word destiny. He wasn't sure he liked it just yet. But this time, maybe just this once, he didn't resist its application to his affairs.

"So, since you're here," Sugoroku said with that familiar smirk. "Shall we play a game? I think you owe me a rematch."

They took out their cards to duel.

Mai looked at her freshly manicured nails. They were just the right shade of purple to match the stonework buttons of her custom DuelDisk. She considered the shape at length, wondering if she should have picked coffin over stiletto. It was too late now either way.

"Jounouchi! I'm leaving this spot in two minutes," she shouted, folding the kickstand on her Suzuki GSX. She hiked up her leather skirt and mounted the bike.

When she'd received a package from a Kaiba Corporation courier, she wasn't expecting an embossed invitation to a Battle City reunion exhibition, and she definitely wasn't expecting a bespoke outfit, black leather corset, skirt and vest, complete with arm warmers and Italian leather thigh high boots. She was no stranger to gifts from admirers, but this read less as a gift and more as a costume—a thoughtful, expensive costume, one she'd definitely wear again, but a costume designed by a seventeen-year-old all the same. Mokuba had included a little handwritten card that said

It's showtime, baby!

xoxoxoxo

-M

She was about to send the whole package back when she noticed the little pendant, a silver harpy's claw gripping a brilliantly polished amethyst orb. Something about it softened her indignation, and she'd be lying to herself if she said the thought of having a second chance to be the Duel King didn't appeal to her.

The thought of seeing Malik again gave her pause, but every time his bewitching violet eyes flashed in her mind's eye, she thought of Mokuba's emphatic, pleasantly messy handwriting: it was a play, just showtime, a chance to fight with no threat of annihilation, where all the smoke and the fire would be holographic and no one would bind her limbs, and she wouldn't lose herself this time, even if she lost the match.

Mai could put on a show with her eyes closed. But today the fire in her chest called for something more. Despite herself she was jittery. A part of her was out for blood, eyes open and sharp like a hawk's, scanning the street for motion as she waited for Jounouchi.

She caught the swing of the closing door out of the corner of her eye and her breath hitched and her focus snapped to the walkway.

Jounouchi was on one knee, tying his red converse sneakers. They styled him in cuffed Levi's and a tight white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had a black leather motorcycle jacket slung over one arm, a braided leather wristband on his drawing hand and a silver cuban chain around his neck.

The tight shirt accentuated his muscular arms and chest, and the jeans hugged him like they'd been moulded to his body. The sight of him warmed the cold fire in her chest. Hair in his eyes, jaw set, she could almost feel his thoughts, determination and fear mixed in with a visceral excitement that put everything into sharper focus. When he stood, he tossed his head back and rolled his shoulders and gave her a wide grin, and she couldn't help but sigh out some of her tension and mirror his good mood.

Jounouchi slid into the moto jacket, unzipping the right sleeve to accommodate his duel disk, and gave her an apologetic wave.

"Sorry, sorry! Let's go yeah?"

"You're lucky I like to make an entrance," Mai said, tucking her hair into her helmet. She tossed Jounouchi the spare.

Jounouchi climbed onto the bike behind her and put his hands on her hips. Mai counted her teeth with the tip of her tongue to distract herself from the warmth and the pressure as his knees settled against her thighs.

He laced his fingers together over her exposed navel. She turned over the engine to mask the involuntary shudder it drew.

They roared through the narrow streets of Jounouchi's neighborhood and down onto the highway. She found herself having to focus harder than normal on keeping their balance. His chin on her shoulder was intimate and distracting and when she missed the exit for the coliseum and she chided herself.

"Hey, what took you so long today," she cried over her shoulder.

"I had to finish something. For Yugi. I've been an asshole lately," he said.

"Why am I not surprised!"

Jounouchi's good-natured laugh in reply made her hands tingle. He'd filled out the past two years, lost some of that baby fat that had her second guessing the heat in her belly that made her want to tease him more than all the other boys.

No, she could tell he wasn't like them by the way he was gripping her waist, firm but sweet, not using the opportunity to grope her like other boys would. He wasn't a boy anymore. He wasn't like the middle aged men either who all longed to possess her. He was more self-assured, more confident, too simple and warm-hearted to try and impress her with gifts or flattery.

He'd bought her dinner the night before at a neighborhood noodle spot, and though she felt woefully overdressed in the cramped booth, their banter flowed easy and he'd even impressed her some with his ideas on strategy, suggesting edits to their decks to play to the warrior archetype they both favored these days.

Maybe she'd finally let him—

"Shit," she said, the sound of it lost in the engine roar. She'd missed another exit daydreaming and now they were guaranteed to be late.

"Hold on," she yelled over her shoulder as she hit the throttle and cut across three lanes of highway traffic, barely missing an eighteen wheeler, to catch a patch of dirt on the median she could use to pull an illegal U-turn.

Jounouchi clung hard, stunned by the sudden speed, and hoped against hope that she couldn't feel his dick pressing up against her leather-clad ass. He was wound up from the night before, hyper sensitive to the smell of her hair and the surprising firmness of her thighs and the warm, soft skin of her belly where his hands rested.

They'd spent the night before eating and talking and preparing for their matches and he had wanted to kiss her but the moment never came. When he met her at the noodle spot for dinner he was struck by her beauty and the intelligence in her eyes and she teased him just a little less than she normally did and he wondered if he was even worthy enough to try. He felt worthy only at the very end of the night, when he'd beaten her soundly in a practice duel. She looked at him different when he won, something wicked and hungry coloring her warm blue eyes, but then she excused herself, leaving him the smell of her perfume to think about.

And he thought about it. He thought about it in the shower, thought about how she patted the red paint off her lips with the noodlehouse napkin, each spoonful of food revealing more of the natural coral color of her lips. He wanted to see her completely bare, wanted to comb fistfulls of her wild golden curls with his fingers, wanted to see her face flushed with need and exertion and not rouge. He thought about the spectacular variation in her voice, from the shrill bark as she called her moves in battle to the high ringing laughter to the dark growl of anger. He spilled into his own hand when he thought of the rare times she'd said his name softly with fondness in her voice, and the echo of it stayed with him until he forced himself to sleep.

He wanted to smell the spice of her skin beneath the perfume, wanted to taste her right at the moment she came undone. That's if he could even undo her, from the tight corset to the million eyelets on those back-laced thigh high boots.

Jounouchi had his work cut out for him, but there's nothing he liked more than a challenge.

They leaned into the acceleration together, and Mai just barely kept herself from letting out a haughty bark of laughter. She could feel his arousal, but she could also feel the rhythmic, even press of his chest as he breathed. He was primed but in control. She smiled. Just the right attitude for a fight.

They pulled up to the entrance of Kaiba Coliseum right behind a red Ducati with two lean riders. The four of them cut their engines and dismounted and took off their helmets and shook their hair out, and when Mai met the bright violet eyes of the dark skinned youth in the gold jewelry her body tensed involuntarily.

Jounouchi put his arm around her and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"It's okay, we're safe. No shadows around here," he whispered.

She trembled a little as she exhaled.

"Plus," Jounouchi said, winking, "we're gonna wipe the floor with them this time."

Bakura met Jounouchi's eyes and they nodded a greeting.

"Yo, Bakura!"

"Jounouchi," Bakura said, smiling. He smoothed down his wild white hair and tugged the sleeves of his new shirt over his hands to cover the scar there. Mokuba had sent a package to Bakura's apartment with two invites and an impressive gift—for him and for Malik. When he'd first opened the package, panic seized his guts, pinching him with the idea that somehow everybody knew about them. He thought to himself, if they didn't know now, they would know soon. Mokuba had sent them matching outfits, grey cargo pants and a black hooded crop top for Malik, a matching set of grey overalls and a long sleeved black hooded t-shirt for him, overlong in the arms with holes for his thumbs. The matching DuelDisks were over the top, even for the Kaibas, with Malik's in gold and onyx his own in silver and moonstone.

That morning when Bakura had looked at himself in the mirror, he was shocked by the effect. With their hoods pulled up and his sleeves pulled down almost to the black-lacquered nails and Malik's bare arms so stacked with gold that he made the sound of many muffled little bells as he walked, they had a mercenary charm. Lean and tall and faces shadowed under the hoods, Malik's eyes glowing like a cat's and his own dark and shark-empty, they looked every bit as lethal as they'd been in their regrettable pasts. Bakura wondered if they were being cast as the villains in Mokuba's little play, but they looked so good together that he let it slide.

He'd been confused at the accessories that were nestled in with the headsets. A silver drop earring with an onyx stone for him, and a gold ring with a smooth inset moonstone for Malik, sized to fit the index of his drawing hand.

He'd touched the earring absently as they appraised one another in the mirror and said with concern on his brow 'We look like a couple.' Malik had grinned and grabbed his hand and kissed each knuckle with a smile and said 'I know.'

The weight of the spectacle they were about to partake in hit Bakura in a wave, bowling him back and then sucking him forward as it receded, in toward the looming coliseum.

Malik walked up to Mai, intending to offer his hand, but Mai's shoulders hitched up and he kept his distance.

"Hello, Mai."

"Malik," she said, composing herself. "I got your letter."

"Oh," he said, slipping his hands in his pockets. "I mean it, what I said."

"I know you do. Thank you," she said. She smiled at him with her lips only and he felt a pang of remorse.

"I'm all right. We were different then," she said, closing the distance between them to place a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll say," he said.

They smiled at one another and the both of them relaxed some.

"We're up first, hm?" Bakura said, stretching his drawing arm over his chest.

"Yup," Jounouchi said. He cracked his knuckles and shot Malik a predatory grin.

"This is a show match, but my pride is still on the line."

Malik hummed and crossed his arms. Bakura smiled an icy, sharp-eyed smile.

"I wouldn't expect anything less than your best," Bakura said.

"Come on, boys," Mai said. "It's almost time."

Isis Ishtar tossed her long black hair over her shoulder, reveling in the soft brush of it against her spine. The clothes the Kaiba brothers had sent her were a close enough approximation of her old linen shift, but lower cut, closer cut, whether by design or by accident she didn't know. She'd been given a long cream colored keffiyeh embroidered in gold and lapis blue, and as she wrapped it around her head and shoulders she marveled at the way it brought out the blue in her eyes. She slipped on her ancestral gold and then slipped on the delicate gold choker that had come with her blue and gold duel disk. She patted some lip gloss on her full lips and swept the kohl powder from the corners of her eyes. Satisfied, she slipped her deck into the slot on the DuelDisk. The answering chime raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

Rishid stood in the hallway that lead to the viewing box. His placid green eyes were betrayed by his twitching fingers, which he drummed against his thigh.

Isis took him in. In dark denim and a black blazer over a maroon t shirt, he looked as different as she looked the same. When they'd decided as a family to move beyond the Tombkeepers' ways, Malik had helped him shave off his ponytail. Now his hair was thick and glossy and hung in waves down to his chin, half obscuring the scarified hieroglyphs on his face. She caught a flash of gold at his ear, an elaborate cuff that played off the rich warmth of his skin.

"Rishid! It's been months," she said as she approached him.

She caught the scent of sandalwood when she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek in greeting and it made her pleasantly dizzy.

"This isn't how I expected we would reunite, the three of us," he said, flashing her a rare but brilliant smile. "Still, I'm glad."

In that moment she came to the startling realization that the man whom she'd considered her brother and protector and a source of stability for her whole life was appealing to her long-neglected physicality, and she hastily shoved the thought to the back of her mind.

"I got the proof in Arabic for your next book," she said, pushing aside her keffiyeh so she could look at him as they walked side-by-side. "Very moving. What a magnificent subject you've created. The ecstatic color I expected, but the rawness in this volume came as a pleasant surprise."

He looked at her opaquely and it made her itch all over, made her wish she had the tauk again.

"I'm surprised you're surprised," he said. "They're very plainly about you."

Isis had no time to process, for as soon as Rishid had spoken, they were at the threshold of their booth in the east tower. The automatic doors slid open and the roar of the crowd in the coliseum drowned out her thoughts, and for that she was grateful.

Isis was unaccustomed to crowds. All those years spent underground alone had shaped her into a private, quiet person. She gazed down onto the duel field where Kaiba was embellishing his opening speech with wide sweeps of arms and well timed flourishes of the tails of his long white coat. She followed every curl of his fingers, leaning on his magnetism to help her drown out the shouts of the crowd and the lights and the music.

Her eyes flicked up to the tower opposite their own and for a moment she was sure the world had cracked and let the pharaoh through again.

Yugi Mutou leaned on the banister of the west tower, gazing down at Kaiba on the field. He was taller than she remembered, more developed. He was draped over the banister with his chin resting on his fist, a soft smile on his lips. Too soft to be the pharaoh, though the eyes were keen and focused and lined with kohl and she second guessed herself more than once. But then he met her gaze and gave a wide smile and an open-handed wave and she knew it was the sacred vessel after all.

"He's come into his own," Rishid said at her side.

"We won't have an easy time with them," she said, absently touching her neck where the tauk used to sit.

"We were never meant to beat them anyway," Rishid said with a smile.

The stadium lights cut out and they leaned over the banister themselves and gazed down at the field where Kaiba had disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Out of the smoke and the hush of the stands two platforms rose, and she recognized her brother's hazy silhouette at once. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with the thief's vessel, both of them hooded and smiling darkly. The platform opposite them rose into a spotlight and she laughed at the picture painted by the two blondes, looking like they'd been ripped from those romantic American biker movies Malik liked so much.

Looking at both teams, it was easy to see who was cast as the villain. It hurt her to imagine her brother taking up that role again, even if it was for show. But she searched his face and found no trace of the pain he'd harbored for years: he looked relaxed and happy and he gripped the thief's vessel's hand and they traded coy smiles as the lifepoint meters flashed 8,000.

Their match was fast and vicious, an exercise in brute force versus strategy, with team Jounouchi calling out one heavy hitting monster after the other. Team Bakura countered well enough with Malik's formidable wall of defense, allowing Bakura to lay and execute a network of traps. In the end Mai's Harpy's Pet Baby Dragon equipped with the effects of time magic swept the last of her brother's lifepoints and Malik and Bakura both threw off their hoods and shouted some prewritten lines about rematches and revenge but when the platforms descended into the fog once again, she caught them laughing and holding hands and leaning in very close for dueling partners.

Rishid caught her biting her lip and he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"He's happier than he's ever been," he said.

"I know," she said, covering Rishid's hand with her own. "I just wish he would tell me what's going on in his life. I feel like a stranger to him lately."

"He takes his time with opening up," Rishid said. "He always has. He'll come around."

She turned the thought over in her head. The thief's vessel was quiet and kind but she recognized the depth and the darkness in his eyes, the secretive sense of knowing, the distance from the lightness and ease of everyday life. He would either be Malik's downfall or his salvation.

Kaiba caught her eyes from the facing tower where he stood by Yugi. He tapped his wrist—it was time.

"Let's go," she said, and stepped into the booth's elevator with Rishid.

They mounted their platform and it slowly rose through the fog. She felt the weight of the cheers and the million eyes at the base of her skull, a headache threatening to bloom and she took a deep breath against it. She flinched when she felt the warmth of Rishid's hand at the small of her back, but when she looked at him his face was so resolute that it stilled something deep inside her.

"This is a game," he said. "No one's destiny hangs on it. We should have fun."

At that moment the crowd exploded in riotous cheers, and she realized it was because team Mutou had ascended through the fog.

They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, wide-stanced and arms crossed. Yugi looked shockingly like the pharaoh in head to toe black, tight black vest and black ringed harness and black belts stacked and black bracelets and black studs on his boots. The glowing red stones of his DuelDisk highlighted the red undertones of his wild dark hair. Kaiba beside him practically glowed, his usual boots and coat and gauntlets all remade in stark, glossy white.

"We've passed many moons in the shadows waiting for this time," Rishid shouted.

"You want another beating that badly?" Kaiba said down the bridge of his nose.

Isis caught herself—she hoped she remembered her choreography.

"Kaiba, you defied destiny once. But now I will avenge my family's name," she said, tugging the corner of her keffiyeh so that it came unraveled around her shoulders. A well timed gust of fake wind blew it out of her hands, and her long black hair fanned out behind her.

"Do you really think you can defeat me after seeing the extent of my power?" Kaiba said.

Yugi tucked his chin and glared, and when Isis hardened her eyes in response, he winked at her. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

"Let's let the cards decide who's worthy," he said.

"Duel!" Rishid and Kaiba shouted in unison.

The turns passed quickly and before she knew it, Isis was enjoying herself. Her deck was an old friend she didn't realize she'd missed. It felt good to fall into the rhythm of dueling, and with Rishid at her side it felt like a four-way dance. Kaiba moved like a fan dancer, wrists curled and arms wide and broadly sweeping, and Yugi wove around him like a sash, playing off his traps, laying sacrifices for his monsters, diffusing every strategy before she or Rishid could complete them. She found herself leading Rishid, relying on his intuition to back her moves, surging forward at the breaking wave of power that was team Mutou's monster lineup.

When they finally lost, Isis was flushed and giddy and she could feel her own heartbeat pulsing against the thin chain of the choker she wore.

"That was a good game," Yugi said.

"Thank you," Rishid said with a bow of his head.

Malik was there to meet her when their platform descended to the corridor. He met her with a kiss on each cheek, then pulled her, stunned, into a hug.

"It's been too long," he said into her shoulder.

She placed a hand on the back of his head.

"Kaiba keeps you busy doesn't he."

They parted and Rishid stepped in, and Malik grabbed his forearm and they clapped one another on the bicep, and Malik made a small gesture with his finger against Rishid's wrist as they parted. Rishid nodded as he grabbed Malik in a hug.

"It's good to see you, brother," he said.

Malik relaxed into the hug and hummed in agreement.

"Hello there," said a voice from behind them.

The three of them turned toward Bakura, who stood smiling gently with his hands clasped in front of him.

"Thank you for the book, Rishid. It was lovely."

"Ryou," Rishid said, placing his large hand on Bakura's shoulder. "My pleasure. I'm glad you liked it."

Isis smiled at the thief's vessel and he gave her a polite bow.

"If you're going to come to Egypt with me to meet the others," Malik said with a smile, "you should learn the customary greetings."

Rishid offered his arm to Bakura.

"Grab here, one shake," Malik said, taking Bakura's opposite hand. "Now tap here."

"Welcome to the family," Rishid said as he squeezed Bakura's arm.

Isis bit her lip.

"Malik, you—"

She saw the intensity in her brother's face and she checked herself. She had her objections to this…friendship, but she weighed the dubiousness of the history she'd been taught against her brother's happiness and decided that it didn't matter. They were new people, this was their chance at a real life.

"You've put on weight. Thank the gods, I was getting so worried about you."

Bakura and Malik traded relieved smiles.

"Let's head up to the tower," Rishid said. "I'd like to watch the duel."

By the time they got up it was clear that Yugi was pacing the match, with Kaiba laying out support cards, smug smile on his face. Mai and Jounouchi were building up power, but Yugi diffused their attempts to attack turn after turn. Yugi had gathered sacrifices and when his turn came he looked over at Kaiba and cocked his head, and Kaiba crossed his arms and gave a little laugh through his nose.

"I offer these sacrifices," Yugi said, selecting Gold Gadget, Black Magician Girl and Silent Swordsman Level 4.

"To activate the ritual Chaos Form," Kaiba continued.

"Come forth, Blue Eyes Chaos Max Dragon," they said together.

"I have a strange sense of deja vu. There was a story," Rishid said. "A fierce battle against Hittite cavalry. They had a trebuchet and Greek fire. But the king and his high priest summoned the dark ritual magic together, and the whole army was vanquished by a single dragon."

"Is that unusual," Bakura said. "Two people summoning one ritual monster?"

"It was," Isis said. "Ritual magic demands personal sacrifice. It isn't supposed to work if another person gives of themself in your place."

The Blue Eyes Chaos Max Dragon that swept the field and team Jounouchi's lifepoints glowed red where it should have glowed blue, and the crowd erupted into shouts and cheers.

"Weird. I wonder if that's a special edition variant," Malik said.

"Something like that, I think," Bakura said with a frown.

Yugi's breath came ragged and his fingers buzzed. He was completely rapt, senses at their height. He felt every trickle of sweat, every shifting strand of hair as he turned on his platform to face Kaiba directly.

He knew in some distant part of his mind that Mokuba had mounted the central platform, that he was stirring the crowd to frenzy with that bred-in instinct for rhetoric, for the dance-like gestures that made good use of the lean frame, the long limbs he was rapidly growing into. Tense and hushed, the enormity of the final, deciding clash between the king of games and the de facto king of Domino city itself descended on them.

For all of the thousands of people and the glare of the lights and the smoke and the roar, the only thing that mattered was Kaiba.

Kaiba looked at him as though to say, don't hold back, don't you dare hold back.

He held back nothing. It came in fits and rushes and with it came a mounting tightness in his gut, in between his eyes. Every card he drew was one piece of the puzzle he was constructing move by move, and the picture was Kaiba, the shape and the form was Kaiba, with his arm out and the fingers splayed, Kaiba with the shining blue eyes surging at him like a tsunami, like the sea itself, Kaiba like the pale arctic moon looming, shining bright and white on Yugi's cheeks and eyelids, shining over his lips and his open palms.

It was Kaiba on one knee, fist braced against the ground, dripping sweat onto the platform as his lifepoints reached zero.

It was Kaiba looking up at him from that posture of surrender with smiling lips, with awe in the eyes, with hunger, with love, bowing his head again, not in submission but in the binding oath of loyalty, and Yugi felt it, felt Kaiba's full regard, felt he'd taken Kaiba completely, finally, to the full depth of his heart.

But then Kaiba looked up again and the image fractured into chaos, and terror crossed the blue eyes and suddenly Kaiba was punching a button on the platform floor and they were being swept down and away from the crowd and the lights where Mokuba was again at the podium, but with a metallic bite in his voice as he gave the closing speech.

Yugi was dazed and clammy and proud and he thought of Atem, wished Atem could have seen him, could have seen them fighting with such spirit.

When he collapsed into Kaiba's arms he thought for a moment he saw the both of them peering down at him, wine-warmed violet and lapis blue, and he was happy to finally have them there with him as he sunk comfortably into quiet and darkness.

Kaiba's limbs iced over with abject fear, and only his long-practiced self-control kept his voice from cracking as he patted helplessly at the blood flowing from Yugi's nose with his bare hands and said,

"Get the medic. Go. And my chief engineer, tell—tell him that the launch date has been moved up. Two days, we. We have to leave tomorrow."

Mokuba counted down the seconds in his mind, giving voice to Isono's fingercounts from the prompter box. At three, two, one, he ducked behind the podium and activated the emergency exit trap, which dropped him five feet down a narrow chute where he could crouch and slip through a round portal to the shaft in which hydraulic lifts of the duel platforms docked when not in use.

He glanced up at the flickering projection of his own feet. There was a smiling face stamped into the heel of his left shoe, a little easter egg for him put there by his brother. It filled some of the hollow feeling inside of him.

A short climb down the chute and he crawled through the serviceway to the waiting area, and Isono's sharp heel clicks were already echoing down the hallway.

"All good up top?" he called.

Isono stepped into the waiting area.

"Flawless exchange, Mokuba-sama."

Mokuba tugged on his tie and dug his smart phone from the pocket of his trousers.

"Let's default to protocol three, I'll confirm with you once I see how they're doing. What happened?"

Isono walked Mokuba back down the hall toward an elevator bay.

"Mr. Mutou collapsed after the duel. They're in the med station now."

Mokuba grit his teeth.

"Was the PowerLink system engaged?"

"No, Mokuba-sama. It was Solid Vision only, as per the instructions."

Mokuba swiped through the messages on his phone and groaned.

"The launch date—this is gonna be impossible. I have to make some calls, Isono, can you check on Yugi for me?"

"Of course."

Isono left Mokuba at the elevator with a nod of his head.

The younger Kaiba's brow was creased with some age-inappropriate cocktail of worry and focus and it made Isono want to take the phone out of his hand. It made him want a cigarette. Isono took inventory of himself, reigning in the strange collection of feelings that the Kaiba brothers, particularly Mokuba, provoked in him. He wanted to smooth that tousled hair down and put on a movie and make sure Mokuba ate.

He walked briskly to the med station instead.

What he saw when he got there made him sweat. Mutou looked all right, if a little pale, sitting up and drinking an electrolyte supplement, monitoring devices fixed round his arm and at his temples. He was smiling and batting away Seto's attempts to fuss.

It was Seto, blanched white and fingers trembling, that piqued Isono's concern.

"Seto-sama, Mokuba-sama is attending to some last minute schedule changes. He suggested protocol three."

Isono watched the broad shoulders pinch and rise together toward the last clinging evidence of boyhood, the still-large ears. Then he saw something he would never forget.

The reigning king of games broke into an easy smile and laid his palm on the back of Seto's arm. And just like that, the tension flowed out from every heightened peak, the lips softened, the eyes melted.

"Does protocol three have ice cream?" Yugi said, amused, scratching at a little bit of dried blood that clung to his chin.

"Yugi!"

"Because I am, like, so hungry right now."

Isono swallowed a smile. He was a disciplined man.

Seto sighed, something between exasperated and resigned. He checked the readouts on each monitor. He shined a flashlight into Yugi's reluctantly open eyes, one and then the other.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I promise," Yugi said.

Seto looked at him a long time.

"Proceed with protocol three."

Isono gave a curt bow.

"I'll prepare the car, Seto-sama."

In the murmuring and the milling as they waited in the private causeway at Kaiba Coliseum, Kujaku Mai's shrill voice cut like a knife.

"Oh come the hell on!"

Her's was the first, but not the loudest reaction to the XL stretch Hummer that had been modified to look like a Blue Eyes White Dragon.

"Your carriage, my lady," Mokuba said, opening the rear door with one hand. The other he stretched toward Mai, and she took it with an amused sigh. Jounouchi mussed Mokuba's hair as he ducked inside. Rishid helped Isis fold herself into the seat, restricted as she was by the tight hug of the dress around her hips and knees. Malik snuck a discrete pat on Bakura's flank when he bowed into the limo and then slipped in himself.

Mokuba glanced back at the Coliseum and saw his brother's distinctive figure through the frosted glass. He got in the limo and shooed Jounouchi over to make room.

Mokuba took a deep breath. He was ready to run interference on any signs of trouble. He didn't want his friends to know that Yugi wasn't well.

Yugi's bright laughter from down the causeway cut his worry. He watched the two of them bicker quietly as they walked toward the limo, saw the tired but affectionate look on his brother's face and he heaved a sigh of relief.

Yugi bounded into the limo with a wide grin, Kaiba close behind him like an elongated shadow.

"Yugi!" Jounouchi said. "That was fuckin awesome. Cut him right down. You're my hero!"

"I'm right here, you know," Kaiba said, more amused than angry.

"Everyone played beautifully," Yugi said. "Really."

"That speech was incredibly moving," Isis said, smiling warmly at him. "I had no idea you had such a way with words."

Kaiba smirked and crossed his legs. Yugi looked from him to Isis and then back again.

"You people are too much," Mai said, wrinkling her nose. "I mean, really, a coronation?"

Yugi cocked his head. He looked at Mokuba, who crossed his legs and smirked, a perfect mirror of his brother.

"I gotta say though, it's a hell of a classy move, Kaiba," Jounouchi said. "Putting the crown on his head yourself. Never thought I'd see you kneel, but then again I never really thought you and me would hang out, and here we are."

"Speech?" Yugi squeaked, looking up at Kaiba. "Crown?"

Mokuba met his brother's eyes and stuffed down his barely contained laughter.

Kaiba cleared his throat.

"When we were busy, I may have engaged a pre-programmed scenario involving solid vision and a modified AI I programmed for an older project. It wouldn't look good if you disappeared after our duel, not with all of those people watching."

Yugi's eyes went wide.

"Oh my god, I have so see this. I made a speech?"

"I have a video on my phone," Bakura said, holding his phone out to Yugi.

"Hey! You know that recording events is against the rules!" Mokuba chirped as he snatched Bakura's phone.

Mai grinned and drummed her manicured nails against the wrist hold of her DuelDisk. She angled her piercing blue eyes at Yugi.

"So what could suddenly be more important than this dog and pony show of a tournament, your majesty?"

Kaiba blanched. He met Mokuba's eyes, and Mokuba sat up to speak.

"Oh, well," Yugi said, mischief in his eyes. He placed his open hand on Kaiba's thigh. "I signed an NDA, so I'm afraid I can't say."

A hush went over the limo. Yugi was smiling, but it didn't reach the sudden intensity in his eyes. He looked pointedly at Jounouchi.

"That information is for top level clearance holders only, not peons like you," Kaiba said. Ever the showman, he draped his arm over Yugi's shoulder and swept his eyes over the faces before him, daring them to say something.

He was still in fighting spirit from the duels and his restraint had been all but stripped by Yugi's episode, and a part of him would relish a proper take down. The rest of him was too overwrought to care what anyone thought anymore.

For three tense seconds no one said anything. Then, shoulders shaking from the force of it, Mai practically shrieked with laughter.

"Hey, driver," Mai said. "What's your clearance level?"

"His name is Isono," Bakura provided with a helpful smile.

"There's only one person cleared for full access," Kaiba said archly.

"Top level," Yugi said. "Very exclusive."

"Okay, gross, we get it," Mokuba said, hiding his face in his hands.

"This is unexpected," Rishid mumbled, suddenly rather interested in his own shoes.

"It's really not," Malik said as he rolled his eyes.

There was giggling and mumbling in reply.

Jounouchi caught Yugi's eyes, hoping he could transmit some of his remorse. Whatever did cut through the bustling in the packed limousine was enough, and Yugi nodded as they traded real smiles, full of fraternal warmth.

"I swear to god," Mai said, huffing, "if this whole tournament was elaborate foreplay for you lovebirds, I don't care how expensive these boots were, I will never answer a KC tournament invite ever again."

Mokuba groaned. Kaiba let out a rich, vaguely unhinged laugh.

"Don't be ridiculous. If that were the case, I would have chosen a more private setting."

"Considering it's you, I wonder," Bakura mumbled.

"Okay, okay, everybody," Yugi said, holding his hands up. "I may as well come out and say it. This is all for me."

That quieted everyone down.

"I," Yugi said, looking up at Kaiba. Kaiba shrugged as if to say 'do as you will.'

"I mean, we're going away for a while."

He looked down at his own lightly trembling hands, folded in his lap.

"We're taking a trip. Somewhere special, to do some work. An important trip."

He looked up from his hands to the group of friends and brothers-in-arms who had stood with him in his quest for the pharaoh's final freedom. Their alert, friendly faces erased the lingering traces of pain in his head.

"I'm not sure when we'll be back. It could be a long time. So we had this idea that we could see everyone, you know? All together again."

A new kind of quiet settled over each and every one of them.

"Oh, honey," Mai said, voice soft and sweet for a change. "You could have just said so."

Rishid weighed his words, and finally said:

"No. No, I'm not sure if it would have drawn us all to the same physical place. And clearly, it was important to you that we were all here. I'm honored."

"So am I," Bakura said, nodding.

"Of course it's important to me," Yugi said. "You're my friends."

"Even after everything we put you through," Bakura said.

"It's astounding," Malik said quietly. "I hope I can grow to be as forgiving as you one day."

"We all owe you a great debt. You and the pharaoh had such a profound effect on each and every one of us," Isis said.

The mention of the pharaoh sent a hush over the cabin of the limo. Kaiba let out a long shuddering exhale.

"We don't deserve you, man." Jounouchi said at last, eyes suspiciously glassy as the lights of Domino gently streaked his face red and blue through the tinted window of the limousine. "We love you. I love you."

"Good luck, wherever you're going," Mai said. "Don't be away too long."

"Guys," Yugi said. He felt hot, suddenly clammy, overwhelmed by the genuine sentiment in their warm glances. He swayed a little and flopped back against the seat, against Kaiba's outstretched arm. Kaiba cupped his shoulder and the pressure steadied him.

"Guys, I—" Yugi murmured, quieting as the limo lurched to a halt.

"Seto-sama," said Isono from across the partition. "We're here."

Malik leaned back against the wall of the balcony that looked out over the central gardens at Kaiba manor. It was cool and dark and fragrant and from the shaded balcony he could look in on the gold-lit great hall and all its inhabitants with impunity. Looking into the warmth and the movement from his quiet place in the shadows, he felt at home.

He watched with a gentle affection as Ryou took Mazaki Anzu's new American boyfriend by the arm and showed him this and that and plied him with food and kept him apprised of the conversations that were happening in rapid, alcohol-slushed Japanese. Ryou's English was the most polished after Kaiba's, just about on par with Anzu's.

If he wanted to, Malik could have called upon his semi-conscious knowledge of English too. It was one of the many languages he'd absorbed as he took possession of mind after mind with the rod. Doing so made his head hurt, and he was feeling antisocial besides, so he left it to Ryou.

He took a silver cigarette case from his back pocket and flicked it open. He dragged one long brown finger over the little line of hand-rolled cigarettes and popped out the one on the end, slipping it between his full lips.

He glanced in at the happy little party and saw that Ryou was duly engaged, translating what looked like an animated conversation between Honda and Otogi and the boy named Drew, whose name none of them could really pronounce. He lit the cigarette and took a long, hungry inhale.

"You know those things are poison, right?"

Malik's violet eyes snapped to the other corner of the balcony, but the rest of him stayed still.

"It takes a lot to sneak up on me," he said.

"I have the homefield advantage," Kaiba said as he stepped into the half-light bleeding through the open French doors.

"My only vice nowadays," Malik said, lifting the cigarette to his lips. "I see you like your poison in a glass."

Kaiba laughed and tipped his neat whiskey in Malik's direction.

They stood in companionable silence through half of Malik's cigarette.

"It's good work, what you're doing," Kaiba said between sips. "Important work."

"I appreciate that coming from you," Malik said, looking Kaiba up and down. "You look tired."

Kaiba looked at him sidelong.

"If we're gone a long time, Mokuba will cede that subdivision of the philanthropy department to you. It will remain a Kaiba Corp subsidiary, but you'll be the major shareholder."

Malik took a thoughtful drag of his cigarette.

"You don't plan to come back from wherever it is you're going."

Kaiba drained his whiskey.

"These days I find it difficult to plan for more than what's right in front of me."

Malik snuffed out the butt of the cigarette against the bottom of his shoe.

They watched the din of the party from their perch on the darkened balcony for a long while.

Isis was chatting amicably with Mai, the two toasting teacup to champagne glass over something that made them laugh and shake their heads. Rishid was reading from his book of poems, in Arabic from the shape of his lips, Ryou translating for the small crowd to the best of his ability between alternating stanzas. Jounouchi was hovering near the bar, eyes intermittently darting over to the table where Mokuba was entertaining Shizuka with an animated story.

And then there was Yugi, slouching against a high-backed chair in a far corner. Anzu was sitting across from him, leaning in, hands fidgeting in her lap. They were talking close and trading damp, conciliatory smiles.

"Tell me, Orpheus," Malik said as he pulled out another cigarette. "You sure you're doing the right thing?"

Kaiba pushed himself up and took a step in toward the light.

"I have no doubts."

They held one anothers' gaze.

"Good luck then," Malik said with a nod. "I'll send up a prayer for you."

Malik flicked the flame alive from his gold engraved zippo and watched through the billowing smoke Kaiba's outsized form pass fully into the warmth of the great hall.