So this collection of oneshots has instead become a continual plot. I'm not sure when it happened, but there you go. I will be following a rather consistent time-line, here. I may skip around on occasion, but it won't be like I'd planned originally.

This chapter is a follow-up to Part One, and sets up the first major "arc" of the story. Consider it something of a prologue, if you will. I introduce a couple new characters, here, along with a return of Connor Brinkley, who I've become rather fond of as things develop. I hope you are, too, because he'll be here for a while.

Beware: there be fluff ahead...and an angry threat or two. 'Cuz you know, this is Seto Kaiba we're talking about, now, isn't it? This should be fun. Enjoy.


1.


His knock was the same as the rest of him.

Sharp, quick, authoritative. Enid Brinkley knew who it was before she even got up from the couch. She had never met Seto Kaiba before, and unlike the vast majority of other residents of Domino City had not read any of the stories about him. She knew his name; she was not so closed off from society as that. But having no use for tabloid stories or most newspaper headlines, the only thing she knew about him was that he was wealthy, and was the older brother of her son's best friend.

He stood ramrod straight, as if posing for a statue, dressed in an immaculately pressed suit that had probably cost more than Enid's car. His hands were not clasped, behind his back or in front of him, but lay still at his sides, relaxed and unmoving. They were thin hands, deft hands, and the sort of strength that had resonated through his knock seemed out of place for them.

Enid half-expected him to show her a badge or FBI credentials, considering the stone-set severity of his face, and finally understood on seeing that face in person how such a young person could have amassed as much wealth, as much fame, as he had.

"Good evening, Mister Kaiba," she said as she opened the screen door and invited him in. He did not speak, choosing to stride into the Brinkleys' living room silently.

He did not sit when she offered.

Enid sat back down and took up the tea she had begun to drink when his knock had come, taking a sip and setting it back down onto the table. "I would have given Mokuba a ride home," she said. "You needn't have come all the way here."

Seto started to say something, and Enid – long experienced with the innately maternal skill of reading faces – saw indignant anger there.

He stopped himself. He visibly calmed. Steadied himself.

"Thank you," Seto said, voice almost perfectly steady. "That will not be necessary. I...much prefer to pick him up myself."

"I see," Enid said, and wondered why Seto's eyes were still slightly wide, and why his mouth was suddenly much thinner than it had been.

Seto drew in a breath.

"Sorry," he said, and it sounded as if he were forcing himself to say it. "I've had a long day. I'm...tired."

The words sounded shaky, foreign, and the look on his face was uncertain, confused, and most of all frustrated. He ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head irritably.

He said, "Where is Mokuba?"

He almost barked the words like a command, voice much clearer and steadier now. It looked to her as if he were settling himself, and thought it wouldn't be wise to ask him what the matter was.

Instead, she rose to her feet.

Smiling with amusement, Enid crooked a finger at him to follow her. "Come with me. You have to see this."


2.


Enid led Seto through a short hallway and into a quaint, compact kitchen. A dishwasher in one corner, opposite the sink, was running.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked him, even though she knew the answer. Seto knew that she knew the answer, and that it was simply a lifetime of polite habit that had made her ask. Enid glanced back at him, smiling, and it was a sudden, startling realization:

He found that he liked her.

"No, thank you," he said simply, and found the words come easier to him this time. Enid nodded, unsurprised, and beckoned Seto to follow again, leading him to the adjoining dining room.

The room was dominated by a thick, polished wooden table, and the table was dominated by sheet upon sheet of binder paper. Two textbooks – one English, one math – lay open in the center of the mess, numerous pages of each marked with post-it notes. Pencils and notebooks, and a calculator, were stacked next to the books.

Connor Brinkley lay with his face in an open dictionary, fast asleep, a pencil still balanced precariously between two fingers of his right hand.

Mokuba sat at the opposite end of the table, glaring heatedly at a sheet of paper in front of him – covered with scratched-out equations – and wasn't far behind his friend. He was blinking furiously in an attempt to force himself to focus.

Seto watched silently, amusement curving his lips ever so slightly, as Mokuba slowly slumped forward. He smacked his head on the corner of one of the textbooks, and shot back upright, staring owlishly at nothing.

"Mokuba, dear?" Enid said, and it sounded so natural from her. "Someone's here."

Mokuba shook his head, commenced another fit of blinking, and looked around, noticing his brother for the first time. "Niisama!"

Seto chuckled. "I see you've been busy."

"I hear it told," Enid put in, "that the boys' English teacher has decided to allow them to make up partial credit for their...mishap."

"Did she?"

"And in exchange for helping him," she continued, "Connor has been helping Mokuba with his math."

Seto raised an incredulous eyebrow and glanced at his brother quizzically. "I checked your grade last week, Mokuba. You're getting a B."

Enid looked surprised as well. "He is? I thought..."

But Mokuba shrugged. "You always get As, Niisama," he said by way of explanation. "Especially in math. Connor does, too."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yes," Enid confirmed proudly. "A whiz with numbers. That's my boy. He just...has trouble with English."

Seto seemed impressed.

Then he blinked. "You...came here...right after school to...do your homework?" he asked.

"We were gonna play a game," Mokuba said, shrugging again. "Y'know...after we got done. But..."

Seto's face positively glowed.

"I see," he said, and there was laughter in his voice. He might have smiled, but his face stayed relatively still. But there was a brightness to his eyes, a lightness to his stance, and he may as well have been beaming.

Mokuba's face split into a grin.

"Well, kid," Seto said, gesturing at the pile of work on the table, "it seems you've had a productive day. But it's time to go. Gather this up."

"Yes, Niisama."

Enid approached the table and gently shook her son's shoulder. "Connor. Wake up, honey. Mokuba's leaving."

Conner snapped up, the left side of his face red and slightly damp with drool, his blond hair skewed so wildly that Seto had a forceful image of Yugi Motou, and blinked. "Huh? Wh—oh, crap."

"Connor?"

"Sorry, Mom," he said immediately, almost before she admonished him. "I...I didn't mean to crash on you, bro. Sorry 'bout that. Uh...you get it now?"

"Kinda," Mokuba muttered as he yawned involuntarily. "Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow, huh?"

"Sure. See ya."

Conner looked up at his mother, then finally noticed Seto. He jumped slightly. "Oh! M-Mister Kaiba!"

Seto nodded. "Hello, Connor."

"I, uh...I was...um...we forgot to call you."

"I'd noticed."

"We, uh...that is, I...we...didn't...uh..."

"If I had found you two playing a game," Seto said, "there may have been something to discuss. Put it out of your mind. Mokuba, you need to open your backpack in order to put things into it."

Mokuba blinked, looked down, and groaned as he unzipped his backpack and began stuffing his work inside. Connor laughed.

"Yeah, ha-ha," Mokuba muttered. "Nice hair."

Connor instantly began combing back his hair with his hands. Seto smirked, and Enid was smiling. "It was nice to see you again, Mokuba," she said. "Come back anytime."

"Thank you, Missus Brinkley."

"Oh!" Connor said suddenly, grinning. "My dad's gonna be home this weekend! Maybe you could...like..."

Seto didn't wait for Mokuba to ask, and Enid was already nodding. "We'll see, kid. I'll check with Roland about the Re-Cal conference. We should be able to make do without you there."

Mokuba grinned again.

"Thank you for having him," Seto said to Enid.

"Oh, of course!" she replied brightly. "I haven't seen Connor this engaged in his schoolwork since he was four." She ruffled her son's already wild hair.

Mokuba got up, slinging his backpack over one shoulder, waving goodbye to Connor as he sidestepped the table. He started to move toward his brother, but swayed and fell against him instead.

"It's almost ten, Mokuba," Seto said with a smirk. "Be careful before you end up like me."

Mokuba grunted.

He started to walk again, swayed again, and stumbled over one foot. Seto caught him by the free strap of his backpack and quickly lifted him up, ignoring a groan of protest that didn't sound very convincing. Enid smiled as Seto carried his brother out to the living room.


3.


"So...you're the great Seto Kaiba."

Seto didn't stop, opening the door with his left hand while he held Mokuba against him with his right. He had tried to set the boy down, but Mokuba had protested with an incoherent grunt, so tired that he apparently didn't care how ridiculous he looked.

"I am Seto Kaiba," Seto said once the door was open and he had shifted his brother to a more comfortable position for the both of them. "I am also busy. And if you are finished informing me of my identity, I am leaving."

The speaker was young, about sixteen. The speaker was male, the speaker was greasy, and the speaker looked like a rejected applicant for blink-182.

He wore a black Iron Maiden t-shirt with the sleeves cut off (badly, as if he had been wearing it when he'd attempted to do it); faded, crumpled, too-baggy jeans with a line of what looked like a hundred staples down the side of one leg and purposely frayed hem; worn black boots; and his hair - shaved at the sides and styled in what Seto might have called a Gutter Mohawk – was a badly-dyed green.

He wore a multitude of bracelets on each wrist, and completing the ultimate punk-rock loser cliché was a chain attached to his belt loops, which held a belt that was too loose to be of any use whatsoever.

"Sure, sure," the poster child for the My-Daddy-Doesn't Hug-Me movement said. As he did, Enid walked into the room with Connor at her side, and both frowned at the teen as if he were some breed of parasite. "I'm sure you've got a lot of price-gouging and profit-mongering to do. Don't let me stop you."

There was a beat of silence. Seto seemed legitimately surprised for a moment. He quickly recovered.

"If your vocabulary is any indicator of your intellect," Seto sneered contemptuously, "then you couldn't stop me if I loaded the rifle for you and painted a target on my chest."

Mokuba smiled.

The teenager did not.

"...What'd you say to me?"

"Save the theatrics, nimrod," Seto muttered as he turned a round and stepped out onto the porch. "You aren't intimidating enough for them to work."

He shut the door with one foot.

Stopping to adjust his hold on Mokuba, Seto heard Enid speak through an open window behind him to his left. He tilted his head.

"How dare you embarrass me like that?" she demanded. "I did not allow you into my house to make a fool of yourself and of me in front of my guests!"

"Cool your jets, Enid. That guy's a tool. Who cares what he—"

Seto heard the unmistakable smack of flesh on flesh, and almost laughed.

"Don't you speak to me like that, you miserable little delinquent! I don't care what you think of him, he was a guest in my house and you will treat him with respect!"

"Mmm...Matt...Kerns..." Mokuba mumbled. "Con...Connor's cousin. He's...he's stupid..."

"I don't know what my brother has been letting you get away with," Enid continued hotly, "but it won't happen here! You have been harassing poor Mokuba about your stupid fixation on hating his brother every time he's been here, and I've had enough!"

Seto stiffened.

"Mokuba..." he said.

"Nngh?"

"Sit down. Stay here. I'll be back in a moment."

Mokuba mumbled something.


4.


Seto sat Mokuba down on a small bench to his left, covering the boy with his suit jacket (which Mokuba immediately wrapped around himself as he closed his eyes) and turned around, knocking quickly on the door. Enid was quick to answer.

"May I...?"

Enid opened the door and gestured. "Go right ahead."

Seto strode inside.

Matt looked apprehensive. "...What?"

"You have a problem with me," Seto said coldly. "Tell me. I'm listening."

Connor was staring at Seto openly, and Enid seemed transfixed as well. His body was as still and rigid as it had been before, but there was a particular glint to his eyes, and a twitch in his jaw. Something about the removal of his jacket made him especially threatening.

Matt didn't move. He didn't speak.

After a while, Seto raised an eyebrow. "No?" he asked. "Then it's my turn."

He stepped forward. "Mokuba is not my sponsor. He is not my spokesman. He is not my agent. If you have a problem with me, you will tell it to me. I will not tolerate Mokuba being held accountable for whatever you think makes me a tool. I don't care what problem you have with my 'profit-mongering' or whatever other bastardization of English you learned on the latest System of a Down single you think I'm guilty of, you will never bring it to my brother."

Matt took an involuntary step backward, and Seto took another step forward. The air was sizzling with tension, and it wouldn't have surprised either observer of this confrontation if fire had shot from Seto's eyes.

"You are not to speak to my brother again. If he is here, you will leave. If he walks into a room, you will vacate it. You will be silent in his presence when it is unavoidable that you be in it. You will not speak of me, or him, again. This is not a request."

Seto turned to leave again.

Matt stared after him for a moment, then scoffed. He manufactured a laugh, and Seto stopped on a dime. "You know what?" he said in a voice that made Seto's teeth clench. "Fuck you, man. You ain't my mother. I'll do whatever the fuck I want to your precious brot—-hulghk!"

Seto's right hand clamped tightly around Matt's throat, thumbnail digging into his windpipe. The teen's eyes bulged. Shifting his grip slightly, Seto hauled him off of his feet, and his eyes were wide, feverish, and manic.

"I...restrained myself for Missus Brinkley's sake..." he hissed. "I have been polite. I have been clear. Apparently, it has not been enough."

Matt gurgled and hacked, twitching in Seto's vice-grip.

"I do...not...tolerate...threats made against my brother. I do not tolerate people bringing problems to him on my account. I do not tolerate pompous, mistakenly arrogant, public-school reject would-be gangsters bullying him. Burn this into your memory, Matt: I am stronger than you. I am faster than you. I am meaner than you. I am better than you. And you will never speak to my brother again."

He threw Matt backward, and he crashed into the couch, gulping great mouthfuls of air as the purple tinge to his skin started to lessen.

Seto turned on his heel and glanced at Enid as he moved to leave. "I apologize for my conduct."

"I apologize for his," Enid replied.

"I will bring Mokuba here on Saturday afternoon."

"I'll be sure to expect him."

Seto nodded. "Thank you. Good night, Missus Brinkley."

"Don't mention it. It's our pleasure. Good night, Mister Kaiba."

Enid walked away, pointedly ignoring her nephew, as if to tell him: you asked for that.

Seto gave a fleeting nod to Connor before leaving.


5.


"Hey...Niisama?"

Seto made a low sound in his throat to show that he was listening. Mokuba's voice was slurred; it was clear he was barely awake.

"Thanks."

"Don't worry about it, kiddo. That...thing needed a kick in his discolored teeth."

"He called Connor 'n idiot for likin' me..."

"And what did Connor say?"

"He as' me for...pencil."

Seto chuckled.

"And he called you a...a...'profit-mongerer.'"

"And what did you say?"

"I asked him 'f he'd ever thought of takin' up...bath-mongering."

Seto actually laughed.

Mokuba slipped in and out of sleep and semi-coherence several times while his brother drove them home, and by the time they finally pulled into the front gates of the Kaiba Estate, it was ten-thirty.

"Why the zombie act, Mokuba?" Seto asked as he carried Mokuba through the dark halls of the mansion, flicking on lights when they were absolutely necessary. "You look like you ran two marathons this morning."

"I was...u-up at...three...two...sumfin'...got...started. Lotsa...lotsa work, for...the...the thing. Yeah." Mokuba made a nonsensical gesture with one arm.

"Two?" Seto asked incredulously. "Mokuba, why would you do that? It's no wonder you can't walk. Come on. Time for bed."

"I...I still...gotsa lotta...lotsa stuff...mebbe jus'a...bit..."

"Hush," Seto said, a bit harsher than he'd meant to. "You're going to bed, Mokuba. You sound drunk. You don't have to work yourself ragged. You did well today. Very well."

"I was jus'...tryna be...r'spons'ble. Like...you always sayin'."

Seto smiled. "You did well, little brother," he repeated gently. "Now no more arguing. You're going to bed."

"...Mmmmm...'kay."

Seto shook his head, chuckling.


6.


Mokuba's bedroom was the same as any other boy's bedroom. That was to say, it was a complete mess. As Seto stepped over his brother's various toys and clothes, he made a note to have Mokuba clean it before Saturday.

Aside from the obstacle course that some cultures called a floor, there was a simple wooden desk, a single chair, a couple shelves, his dresser, and his bed.

Which, as luck would have it, was currently a bare mattress with sheets piled up near the foot of it.

Shaking his head again, sighing, Seto set his brother down on the chair and quickly made the bed, locating Mokuba's blanket only after tossing a few shirts over his shoulder and nearly cutting open his right palm on an unusually sharp action figure.

When the task was completed, he lay Mokuba down – remembering in a sudden flash doing this every night when the boy was younger – and tucked him in.

Violet-gray eyes still remained obstinately open, and Seto reached over to one of the shelves, where sat a 3-disc CD player. Clicking a few buttons with practiced flicks of his fingers, he adjusted the volume and sat down at his brother's chair.

Soft acoustic guitar began to flow from the speakers, and Seto caught himself whispering the lyrics as he stroked back his brother's hair.

"Here's to you...like brothers tonight...tried and true, fading...in the twilight...well, I can hear you breathing...see your picture on the wall...I would give you my wings...if they'd help you at all..."

Mokuba smiled, and shut his eyes.

"Good job today, kid," Seto said again, returning the smile. "I'm proud of you."

"Niisama...prou'me."

"That's right." Seto leaned down and kissed Mokuba's forehead, something he hadn't done for several years. "Niisama's proud of you."

He set the song to repeat, lowered the volume a bit more, and left the room, smile widening as he saw that Mokuba had put up a poster of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon on the back side of his door.

As he shut the door behind him, Seto laughed softly.

"...Love that kid."


END


The song that Seto plays for Mokuba to help him sleep is the same one quoted at the very beginning of the chapter. The lyrics that Seto repeats are the first verse. I chose this song primarily because I find it soothing, and the sort of song that Seto would choose as a lullaby.

To anybody wondering why Seto was acting so strangely with Enid upon first meeting her, he was attempting to be nice for Mokuba's sake. But he isn't all that used to being polite to people on a normal basis, so he was a bit awkward about it.

The character of Matthew Kerns was put into the story on a bit of a whim. He was inspired by any number of people I have met, and I'm sure you've met people like him, too. If you haven't, count yourself lucky. They aren't exactly nice to be around.

Side note, I like System of a Down and blink-182. My references to these two bands were not meant as a shot at them; it merely seems to me that Seto would not be particularly fond of them. I think you will agree with me there.