I received a complaint recently in regards to how I've crafted this story. Seto's overprotective display toward Matt Kerns in chapter three, Matt as a character, Hunter and his flunkies, Joey's dialogue...I'd just like to set the record straight, here. I suppose we could debate about whether or not it's necessary for Joey to speak in the particular way that I've decided, but in regards to Matt, and Hunter, and Seto's tendency toward violence...those are important. Very important. I have specific reasons for them that will come to light later on. Hopefully, you'll see what I mean when we get there.

A bit of backtracking on my part, for the sake of completion, by the way. While writing this section, I decided to add subtitles to multi-chapter storylines to keep them connected and yet distinct, if that makes any sense. So, since "The Boys" is a section with two parts, I will divulge their subtitles here: part one is "Peer Pressure," and part two is "Distress Signal." This has little to do with the story itself, of course, but in case you wondered, there you go.

With that out of the way, on to this chapter. As I mentioned in the ending author's note to "Manifestare," this next storyline will span three chapters. And to show you just how long I've been reworking, fine-tuning, and editing this story, I'll mention that this chapter's first draft was completed on October 25th of last year. Kind of frightening when I think about that. But, for those of you who've done their homework, you will know the significance of that day: it just happens to be Seto's birthday.

And so, in trying to be topical, I present to you all, "Twenty-Fifth," part one of Mokuba's quest to find his Niisama a birthday present.


1.


He was distracted, and he couldn't tell Connor why.

He couldn't tell anyone why. It was classified information. Information buried so deeply that he had a feeling even his brother would forget it, and it would become a secret to him, if Mokuba didn't remind him each time it happened.

Seto's birthday was coming.

Of course, Seto would like nothing more than to forget the day even existed. Mokuba had a feeling that his big brother had all but convinced himself that October was the only month of the year to skip straight from the twenty-fourth to the twenty-sixth, like a perpetual leap year in reverse.

Mokuba loved birthdays, but then, he guessed that was because he was a kid. Kids always loved their birthday...right? It was an unspoken rule. One's birthday was a personal holiday, an annual excuse to be happy. Like Christmas without the traffic.

Come to think of it, Seto didn't much care for Christmas, either.

"Hey. Mokuba. You okay?"

"Huh?" came the standard response as the black-haired boy stared confusedly at his friend. Connor quirked an eyebrow at him, and Mokuba laughed. "Sorry. I, uh...I'm tired. I didn't sleep much."

This was true.

The thing about Seto Kaiba's birthday was that it was a worldwide—or at least countrywide—mystery. Knowing that he would be buried in cards and gifts and flowers and marriage proposals and left ears if his "adoring public" knew the particular date of his entrance into the world, Seto had done his level best to ensure that October 25th was only one in about...well, 365 guesses. There were rumors regarding this elusive day tying it to every day of the earth's revolution, and Seto liked it that way. Every so often, he did get a card or two from fans who were so sure that they had it right, but he could discard them easily.

Aside from certain members of the staff at a certain hospital in southern Nevada, and government officials, the only person who truly knew Seto Sasaki-Yagami Kaiba's birthday was Mokuba. He didn't even think Kaiba Gozaburo, with all his connections and contacts and technological know-how, had been able to figure it out.

Then again, Gozaburo wouldn't have cared, so it was a moot point, anyway.

Because of this shroud of mystery surrounding the significance of the hallowed date that was October 25th, Mokuba had to be very discreet about finding his Niisama a present each year. And it was just that: a present. He had quickly come to realize that Seto would accept a single gift from his kid brother without complaint, but anything more was too frivolous for his tastes.

And this year, he had come up with absolutely zero ideas for what to get.

He knew that Seto wouldn't care. He knew that Seto would just go through Saturday like it was any other Saturday, and things would be fine. It wouldn't bother him. It might elicit slight surprise, but Mokuba knew that his brother honestly wouldn't care.

But that wasn't good enough.

Mokuba had taken it upon himself to remind his big brother that his birthday was something special, that the day he'd been given life was something important. As the only person who knew about it that cared enough to acknowledge it, it fell to Mokuba to do it.

Niisama needed a birthday present, damn it.

Seto might have said that the report he'd turned in to Miss Lorwell, a manifesto of his Niisama's most shining virtues, was enough of a gift to last him several years. And indeed, Seto had made a point to take his brother out for ice cream when he'd gotten home on the day that he had read it, something that he very rarely did.

But as much fun as that simple trip to the ice cream parlor had been, for both of them, it just wasn't enough. Not by a long shot. Nope.

"If this is how you get every time we get a minimum day," Connor said, grinning, trying to lighten the suddenly somber mood, "then maybe you should ask Missus Keltcher if you can stay late. "

Mokuba grinned, but it was a distracted grin. He had a very limited window of time to come up with something. He usually had something by now. When he'd been little, it had been easy. He could just give Seto a toy, or a drawing, or a handmade card, and that was fine. When Seto had turned thirteen, Mokuba had presented him with the crayon-drawn Blue-Eyes White Dragon that he knew Seto still carried in the locket that Mokuba had given him when he'd turned fifteen, hidden behind the photo.

He'd stopped using the age-old solution of handcrafted gifts after one of the cleaning staff that Seto had come in every few days to clean up had knocked the—admittedly atrocious—dragon statue that he'd made for Seto's eighteenth onto the floor, snapping the head and cracking one wing in half.

Seto never made much of a big deal out of the presents Mokuba gave him, because that was just his way, but Mokuba couldn't remember ever hearing his brother yell as loudly as he had that afternoon. He hadn't admitted it, but that screaming match was a very fond memory in the young Kaiba's mind. He'd felt warmth, and gratitude, brighten his mood for days afterward.

Seto still kept the pieces of that statue in one drawer of his private desk.

As he climbed into the limousine sent to pick him up—Seto usually picked him up these days, but the early dismissal today had come as a surprise, and Seto hadn't been able to leave work in time—Mokuba turned and smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, Connor. I'll be better tomorrow. I'm just tired."

Connor waved it off. "No biggie. See ya tomorrow."

"See ya."

As Travis Copeland pulled out of the parking lot and toward Kaiba Manor, Mokuba leaned back and brooded. Seto would have been proud.


2.


Every Monday and Thursday, Seto had a cleaning crew come in to keep up maintenance on the mansion.

He gave them specific instructions to (usually) only clean those rooms—any number of them—that he and Mokuba did not actively use. So the front parlor, the ground floor kitchen, their bedrooms (and adjoining bathrooms), and Seto's office, were almost never touched by professional hands.

Mokuba thought that the practice was somewhat stupid, but Seto held firm. "I'll not have you becoming lazy," he said, "because I happen to be 'successful.' If you want to spend your own money to hire someone to clean your room, that's fine. Go right ahead."

He understood his brother's logic, but that didn't mean he had to like it. But he liked the idea of using his money to hire some stranger to clean his room for him even less. He had better things to spend it on. So he grudgingly accepted that Seto was right...like always.

Usually, this scheduled clean-up was done before either Kaiba brother came home, but today, Mokuba opened the front door to find a young man attacking the landing with a vacuum. Realizing someone had come in, he looked up and switched off the device, giving Mokuba a smile of greeting. "Ah! Good afternoon, Mokuba-sama," he said. "Early day, I see."

"Yup," Mokuba said, shrugging, and felt heat rush to his face at being addressed in such a manner. Seto had long gotten used to being referred to by title, but Mokuba had yet to. It still made him slightly uncomfortable to have a "-sama" attached to his name. It didn't feel right. Sure, Seto was an important person, but...he was only honorary vice-president. He didn't actually do any of the work that came with that position. He did some things for the company, but not many, and certainly not often.

But, people insisted.

Mokuba, conscious of the fact that this man would end up picking it up if he dropped his backpack on the floor like he usually did, kept it slung over his shoulder and stepped into the parlor, and up the stairs toward his bedroom; and in the hall, he saw a young woman sweeping the floor while a second man moved behind her, dusting the artwork on the walls. They moved with a breed of efficiency that was stunningly mechanical, so meticulous that it couldn't possibly be human. Mokuba couldn't help but stare for a moment.

It was no wonder; Seto only hired the best.

"Good afternoon, Mokuba-sama," said the young woman.

"Good day, Bocchama," added the man.

Mokuba blushed, but nodded, and stepped past them toward his bedroom. They smiled as they watched him for a moment, then turned back to their work. Mokuba was glad when he finally reached his door and pushed it open, finding himself more and more uncomfortable; Seto's solitary lifestyle had caused Mokuba to rather expect silence to reign over their home. Having people, especially adults, other than Seto here made him nervous.

When he saw someone inside his own bedroom, his heart fell, and he felt betrayed.

They'd even infiltrated his private space.

He was about to say something until he realized that the man was standing on a spotless floor; the mess that Seto had been harping on him to "deal with" over the past few days was nowhere to be seen. The man—dressed in a rather nondescript suit and wearing a white bandana over his dusty blond hair—saw him and smirked.

"Seto-sama broke his own rule today, it seems," he said, and Mokuba felt a touch of relief that he hadn't given him a title like the other three had. He could handle "Seto-sama" just fine; in fact, he thought it sounded rather nice, really.

"Huh?" Mokuba offered, unsure of what else to say.

"Well, my guess is, you did something that really lightened his mood recently," the man said, winking, and Mokuba did not mention his report, "since he had us clean up your space, too. Give you a bit of a break, eh?" The man chuckled. "Well, good timing, because I'm just about done here. Seto-sama said he'll be home late, so he asked me to pick up his office, too. Sounds like he's in a deep hole this time. Doesn't want to worry about housework tonight. So...I'll be off, then. Enjoy."

"Uh...thanks."

The blond man slipped out the door.

Mokuba didn't know who this man was, but he thought he rather liked him. But that was only a cursory thought; he was more fixated on what he'd said. He dropped his backpack onto his bed and fished out his phone.

He punched in a number.

"...Niisama? Hi. Are you feeling okay?"


3.


To anyone looking in, he probably wouldn't have looked any different than he ever did, except perhaps that he was typing even faster than usual. Of course, that in itself would have been a true sight to behold.

It was inside, in his whirling head, that Seto Kaiba was almost overwhelmed.

This holiday season was no different from any other, really, but that wasn't all that comforting. That just meant he'd been swamped like this every year for the past four, which didn't help him now. He thought cynically that nothing but a needle filled with liquid energy—straight from the sun itself—injected straight into his heart would help him right now.

He sighed heavily, shaking his head and forcing that absurd thought out of his mind. He had no time to think that way. He irritably slammed a finger onto his intercom and snarled that he didn't have time for phone calls right now, and was so used to people heeding his orders that he was legitimately shocked when the voice of his receptionist came back not two seconds later.

"I think you want to take this, Master Kaiba."

"I think I know what I want, thank you very much," Seto snarled, "but unless you've uncovered the secret to cloning, I don't think—"

"It's Young Master Mokuba's number, sir."

Seto blinked.

"...Right."

He almost heard the smirk.

"Niisama?" came Mokuba's voice from the speaker a few seconds later.

"Hey, kid," Seto said, turning back to the sheaf of paper on his desk and shuffling it around, trying to find the correct order. He found the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips.

"Hi," Mokuba said. "Are you feeling okay?"

From anyone else, the concern, the worry, in that question would have offended him. To anyone else, he would have said, No, I'm dying of a heart attack right now, you idiot, why aren't you calling 911 yet? Get the hell away from me; I don't have time for you.

To Mokuba, he said, "Sure, kiddo, no problems," in a perfectly calm tone of voice; more than calm, it was soft. "I'll be home late, so pick out something in the refrigerator for dinner, all right? I packed a few things last week."

"Okay. Thanks. Um...you're not going to go three days without sleeping again, are you?"

Seto actually found an urge to laugh. "Don't worry about me, Mokuba. I was made for this. I won't lie and tell you I'm having the time of my life, but I'll handle it just fine. You just get your homework done, and don't eat ice cream for lunch again."

"Yes, Niisama," Mokuba said exasperatedly, but Seto could tell that the boy was smiling. "But only if you promise to eat something, too. I know you think you can get away with ignoring it."

"Yes, doctor," Seto replied, half-sharply. "Understood. Now, I'm busy, so I have to go. Behave yourself while I'm gone. I'll be home around nine-thirty."

"'Kay," Mokuba said, and he did a decent job of hiding his disappointment. "I'll see you later, Niisama."

"Always. Goodbye, Mokuba."

"Bye. Love you."

"I love you, too, kiddo."

He terminated the call, let the smile that had been fighting its way onto his face come all the way through, and didn't find himself so irritated at the world anymore. He found the specific file he had been looking for, leaned forward in his chair, and lost himself again.


4.


The blond man who had cleaned Seto's office and Mokuba's bedroom was Clinton Lanyon.

And he remained the only worker on Seto's cleaning staff that Mokuba felt even marginally comfortable around, mostly because he didn't treat Mokuba like some sort of prince. And so when it was Clinton, and not any of the others, who knocked on his door a half-hour after he'd left, Mokuba wasn't all that bothered.

"Heya," Clinton said, flashing a smile. "I, uh...found something in Seto-sama's office, and I'm not sure whose it is. Don't look like his. I thought it might be yours. Uh...well, anyway, here. Whatever it is, it's private. So I don't feel right doing anything with it."

He passed Mokuba a thick, worn book that turned out to be a journal. He didn't say anything—except a word of thanks—when Clinton handed it to him, but Mokuba knew instantly that he'd never seen this book before in his life.

"We're gonna be leaving in about fifteen minutes or so," he said. "Everything's just about cleared up around here. Ah...Vicky made some chicken salad for us. There's some left over. Dunno if you like chicken salad, but...makes a mean sandwich. Anyway, uh...nice seeing you. You take it easy, a'right?"

Mokuba nodded distractedly, not hearing half of what Clinton had said to him, because as he opened the book, he realized what it had to be. He forced himself to look up, smile, and nod as Clinton left the room, closing the door behind him. Mokuba looked at the Blue-Eyes White Dragon he'd pinned up for a long moment before turning his attention back to the item in his hands.

He opened it again, and looked at the inside of the front cover.

In the top right corner, written vertically, Mokuba saw a group of simple, but practiced, Japanese letters. He quickly recognized that it was a name, written in the hiragana alphabet. He sounded out each symbol, lips moving slowly.





"Ya-ka...er, no. There's the...Ya-ga-mi...Se-to."

His brother's journal. His brother's name, before they had been adopted by Gozaburo; which meant, at the very least, that it was seven years old. Mokuba looked at the date printed—in tiny, meticulous handwriting—on the first page.

"10-25-94," it read.

Mokuba had been born in 1996.

With a sudden jolt, Mokuba marveled at the thought that he held in his hands a journal that his brother had started keeping when he had turned six years old. He stared, unable to see it. The earliest memory he had of his brother's face was from six years after this journal had been given to him.

Looking around, as if expecting Seto to leap through the window and snatch the book from him, he felt a rush of sudden adrenaline. In the next breath, he felt ashamed. He frowned, directing it at the book as if it were taunting him.

This is Niisama's, he told himself. I shouldn't be thinking about...no. Niisama trusts me. He wouldn't...he wouldn't want me to...but...but...

But then he knew.

And with that knowledge, he felt a bit better. Not much, but a bit.

He jumped up from his chair, turned to his stereo and turned it on. As music started playing, he hopped onto his bed, unable to keep a smirk from his face, and opened the book again. There was no use arguing now. There was no way. Nuh-uh.

How could he not?

He started reading, and the part of him that argued against it fell silent.


5.


Mom says I should start writing my thoughts down.

I don't know why, but Mom's smart. She knows things. Dad says he used to do it, too. So I guess it's okay. This book they gave me is really nice. I don't want to mess it up. But Mom says that won't happen, because I write like a typewriter. I don't know what she means. My hands don't click-clack or anything. Do they?

It's my birthday. Mom says I was born at 5 in the morning. That's why they gave me this journal. Dad says he got one for his sixth birthday, so I should get one too. Mom picked it out. I got a chess set. The board folds up so you can take it with you, and there's a little bag for the pieces, too. It's nice. I like chess. Mom still beats me, but I can beat Dad every time now. He says it's not fair. He says I must be cheating. But I don't like to cheat.

I got to eat at Reg's Barbeque restaurant tonight. I like the chicken they have there. We don't go out to eat too much, because it costs a lot and there are bills and groceries and stuff like that, but today Mom said we could. The waiter even gave me a piece of cake when he found out it was my birthday. That was nice of him. He even got some of the other people to sing a song to me. It was kind of embarrassing.

I asked Mom once why we celebrate birthdays. Don't we grow up all the time? It doesn't happen in one day, does it? How come we don't celebrate every day? Mom said birthdays are special because they remind us when we came into the world. She said birthdays are a special time, a time to be happy and remember all the good stuff that happened since last birthday. I guess that makes sense. If I get to have barbeque chicken and cake every time my birthday comes, then I think I like birthdays. I wonder when people started doing that. I think I'll try to find something about it at the library. I'll ask Mom if I can go tomorrow.

I don't know what else to write. So I guess that's when I should stop.


Mokuba couldn't help but smile as he read.

The funny part, he thought, was that Seto's handwriting—and his spelling, and his everything—had been so much better than Mokuba's own, even when he was so young. He could tell that it was his brother, because it just...sounded like him. He tried to picture a tiny little Seto, sitting at his desk, maybe with his legs dangling down from the chair, not quite reaching the floor because he'd been pretty short up until he'd become a teenager, writing in this book on his birthday.

It was a nice picture.

He flipped through the rest of the pages, about two hundred or so, and each of them was filled. Not a single space was left vacant. Every line was covered by Seto's neat, miniscule handwriting. Some pages had drawings, and Mokuba blinked in surprise when he saw them. It had never struck him that Seto might know how to draw. Not really. Or, at least, not things like this. Trees and animals and houses...and they were far better than anything Mokuba had ever seen a child create. He smiled when he thought that that just figured; Niisama was good at everything.

But as he flipped over the last few pages, something fell out.

Mokuba picked up what turned out to be a tiny photograph from his lap and looked at it.

It was a young woman, with jet-black hair, slender and beautiful, sitting on a bench in front of a lake. She was dressed in a violet sweater, with a wide collar, and faded blue jeans. She was smiling, and something about that smile was just...nice. It wasn't just that she was pretty. Even though it was a photograph, probably years old, something about this woman's smile made Mokuba feel warm. It was sincere, and even in the stillness of the picture he could see it brighten her eyes, which matched the sweater she wore.

The woman was wearing a gold necklace, with a locket, over that sweater. She had a thin gold ring on one the third finger of one hand, folded over the other in her lap, and in that hand she held a single red rose. A sudden realization hit him, and when he looked on the other side of the photo, faded and graying, he saw tiny writing in one corner, this time in English, that confirmed what he already knew.

"Yagami Yuki – 11-28-95," it read.

Mokuba turned back and looked at the woman. And he suddenly felt tears in the backs of his eyes. Because now that he looked again, he saw it. Saw it more clearly than he'd ever seen anything, and he was ashamed that it took him so long to see it.

Yagami Yuki.

This woman was his mother.


END


Yep. More Japanese characters this time. I'm starting to learn the language and, like a child ecstatic with himself for figuring out a new trick, I want to use my new knowledge in any way that I can. Hiragana is the first alphabet I learned, and from what I've read is traditionally the first alphabet taught in Japanese schools. So, it's the first alphabet Seto learned, according to my rationale.

Also, for those who don't know, "Bocchama" is a title which translates to "young master." I first heard it in the first-series anime directed at Seto, and I thought it fitting for it to be directed at Mokuba now that Seto has taken Gozaburo's place as the resident "Kaiba-sama."

Anyway, that aside, I think you can see that Seto was quite a different person in his youth according to my theory, and I think that's an easy conclusion to come to. One of the things I wanted to touch on is what sort of person he was before he lost his mother. That, in my opinion, is the most defining event in Seto's childhood, and what really started him down the route toward the person he would later become. If Gozaburo was the blacksmith that molded him, then Yagami Yuki's death is what stoked the fire and prepared the metal to be formed.

You may notice that this story has more original characters in it than is usual for me. I've tried to give personalities, and names, and lives to any number of people in Domino City that aren't duelists. Let's face it; it's a big city. And not all of them go around with duel disks on their wrists. Joanna, Clinton, Connor, Enid, Matt, and all the rest of them, are just my way of branching out a bit. Make things more interesting.

You'll get to meet yet another new face in the next section, by the way. I hope you like her. And with that, I will leave you. 'Til next time, all. Thanks for joining me.