To say that I have been having personal issues lately would be a grave understatement. There are, of course, the usual pitfalls that come with creative writing in general; that is to say, in the time since my last update, I have been dealing with a rather severe writer's/editor's block, which was only exacerbated in the past couple months by...certain realizations. It's never a good thing to realize that you feel like your life is going nowhere, and it's made all the more infuriatingly confusing when it isn't necessarily true. I won't get on a sermon, here; I've talked about these problems too often with friends and family. Suffice it to say that I forgot myself for a while, and it's taken me a ridiculously long time to truly remember why I started posting these stories online in the first place.
Practice? Yes. Catharsis? Yes. But there's a much more fundamental reason that wasn't coming through for a while, and it's this: because I love this language, I love these characters, and most importantly I love this story, and sharing it with you.
I'm sorry. I was lost for a while, but I'm back now. And I won't let myself get lost again (knock on wood).
This arc has been difficult from the offset, and it's still difficult. There are any number of details in the later sections that I still need to go over. But this chapter is kosher, I assure you.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
This is, "Impending Demise."
1.
Siegfried tossed his head back and laughed; deep and sincere. Mokuba might have been fooled by that laugh into thinking this was just a casual meet between old acquaintances, except for that the man's right fist held a deadly weapon trained on him. The chair he sat on was uncomfortable, but he paid little attention to that. He strained to keep his eyes on the enemy's face, and ignore the gun. Ignore the gun, ignore the gun...but he couldn't. The more he tried, the more his head kept turning, ever so slightly, as if magnetized.
"I see you've a fine memory," Siegfried said, recovering, still with that creepily sane grin on his face. "Just like your brother, hm? Seto does have a shockingly accurate memory, doesn't he? Some say that that is why he has done so well for himself. Do you think that's true, Little Kaiba?"
"...It's part of it," Mokuba managed, figuring that refusing to talk would probably get him into trouble. Anyone who could smile that openly with a pistol in his hand was most certainly not to be trusted to behave like a logical human being. As if bidden by thinking of it, Mokuba yet again caught his vision drifting.
"Yes, yes, part of it," Siegfried said distantly, nodding as if speaking to himself. "I'm sure you are quite right. That isn't all of the reason he has amassed such success, is it? No, no, I think your esteemed brother was quite born to this...urban arena, shall we call it. Don't you think? He seems quite at home at the top of the food chain, doesn't he?"
There was a glass of red wine sitting on the table by Siegfried's free left hand. He lifted it, as if toasting his "guest," and took a sip. "You will forgive me if I do not share with you, Little Kaiba," he said, chuckling. "I am not sure if Seto would much appreciate my allowing you to partake of alcohol. Quite protective of you. I should surely not like to countermand his parenting."
I don't think he'd much appreciate you kidnapping me and holding me at gunpoint, either, you freak, Mokuba thought savagely, but remained silent. He dared not say anything. It wouldn't do him any good to taunt this one. He was clearly insane.
God...what was he going to do? Mokuba had dealt with this kind of situation several times, and sure...every time it had been with a complete nut-case. But something about Siegfried's serenely pleasant face unnerved him. This wasn't normal crazy. This wasn't a crazy Mokuba was in any way comfortable with. He'd never much liked the man who had taken it upon himself to be Seto's eternal rival; even as a child, Siegfried von Schroeder had been creepy. The pink hair was nothing compared to the way he acted, the way he talked. Mokuba thought now that he finally understood what frightened him about this man.
He was a psychopath.
Any proof Mokuba needed of that was staring him in the face right now, grinning amiably as he drank wine with one hand and kept Mokuba pinned to his chair with the other, with a gun that reminded the boy none too comfortably of the one Seto kept at his right hip.
Setting his glass down, Siegfried's grin widened as he slipped his hand into his lavender jacket and removed from it a compact cellular phone. "An associate picked this up for me," he said, shrugging. "Say...I know it would be quite rude, with you sitting right here, but you wouldn't mind if I gave an old friend a call, would you? It's been so long since we've talked. I should very much like to know how he's doing."
Mokuba drew in a shuddering breath, hating himself for the weakness he heard in it. He forced himself to take in several more; deep, calming breaths, as he tried to remember how Seto would handle this. Seto wouldn't back down. Seto wouldn't show fear.
Niisama would clock this guy good, Mokuba thought. He'd have this bastard on his knees begging for mercy before he even had the gun ready.
The thought helped calm him. Not much...but it helped.
2.
"How nice of you to call."
"Ah, now, is that any sort of tone to take with an old friend?"
Seto's face twitched. "I wouldn't know," he said sharply. "I don't have any old friends."
The man on the other end of the line chuckled. "Well, now, my dear boy, that all depends on what your definition of 'old friend' happens to be. But we'll quarrel over semantics later. I should say you have a more pressing matter on your mind right now, don't you?"
Seto jabbed a finger to Roland, then pointed to his Veyron. Without speaking, Roland nodded and set to his task. "I should say so," Seto said. "You're a sharp one, aren't you? Since you're so intellectually inclined, perhaps you can tell me just who is going to pay to replace my limousine."
"Oh, I am sorry," said the irritatingly familiar voice. "I did not intend for Adachi to do something so lavishly theatrical to your vehicle."
"I'll just bet you didn't."
Darren stared at him, clearly unsure as to how he should act right now. Seto sighed deeply in irritation. Now, he understood. Now, he knew. The English was flawless, the hallmark of a genius mind, considering the rumors on just how quickly he had learned it...but there was only one man he knew with even this barest hint of a German accent. And of course...it would have to be him.
"But it was quite surprising, wasn't it? You have to admit, the man does know how to draw attention to himself. So, I'm betting you're rather nervous right now, aren't you? I'm sure you have figured out by now that it was I, and not Adachi, that is responsible for this...situation. So, you must be asking yourself, just what did I want Adachi to do? What is my aim?"
Seto drew in a deep breath. It really was disgusting. This was a voice so inherently arrogant as to make Pegasus Crawford sound as humble as a Buddhist monk. "Well, that's not a very important question, von Schroeder," he said, "because I'm quite sure you'll tell me, in painfully explicit detail, eventually."
"Ah! I knew you would remember! Well done, Seto. Well done! Well, that's one mystery solved, isn't it? So, have you figured anything else out, then? How has that wondrous mind of yours serviced you this time, my friend?"
Seto began to walk slowly back to his vehicle as Roland popped back out of it, looking stern and nervous. Darren, glancing back at the ruined limousine, sighed and shook his head as he headed back to his own car. "There are two possible motives at work, here," Seto said. "I am not sure which applies to you. Either monetary, in which case you are holding Mokuba in order to use him to bargain with me. Unlikely, as you define the concept of 'obscenely rich.' Or vengeance, in which case you are holding Mokuba in order to make me squirm. Either way, he was not present when Saruwatari decided to ruin my limousine. That's far too efficient. Your mind doesn't work that way."
"...Ah, well, I did want you to wonder for at least a little longer. Heighten the suspense, you know. But I must admit, you are right. Little Mokuba was not killed in that most charming explosion. No, he is right here, in fact. He does not seem very pleased to see me, however. Do you know why? I have heard from so many sources how friendly he is."
"It's quite a mystery..." Seto said, clenching his teeth. "Tell him I'm proud of him. He knows a raving idiot when he sees one."
"Oh, I do think he knows quite well how proud you are of him. Don't you, Little Kaiba? I daresay you live on that pride. Without it, I wonder how long it would be before you starved. Withered. Without that pride...would you die alone? Purposeless? Would you falter, like a machine without a user to man the controls?"
Seto's face tightened, along with his grip on his phone. "So…vengeance, then."
"You do think you know everything, don't you, Seto?"
"I know enough."
"Well, that is a rather subjective idea. But, allow me to give you a bit more information, just to help things along. You can find me, and your darling brother, at 1342 Yellowtail Terrace. You know where it is? Be quick, won't you? I do so want to see you again, my old friend. We have much to discuss, you and I."
"We can discuss your execution date," Seto snapped. "If you think I'm going to take it easy on you this time, you're sadly mistaken. I swear to you, if I find the barest bruise on him, if I find a splinter in his finger, I'll—"
"You will kill me. Yes. I am quite aware. And no, I do not mock you. I know full well that you harbor the capacity and the willpower to kill me. In fact, I can guarantee that you will. Because—well, let's not discuss all the surprises over the phone. So impersonal. Meet me here, and we'll resume. Shall we?"
"I'd forgotten how much I hate you, von Schroeder."
"Well, I'm pleased to know I helped you remember. Goodbye...old friend."
Without waiting for a response, Siegfried terminated the call.
3.
Seto watched with an unreadable expression on his face as Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor scrambled out of the blond's car and rushed up to him. Part of him was heartened by how worried Joey looked, but most of him was annoyed to have to deal with more people.
"Hey!" Joey called, skidding to a stop. "Kaiba! There you guys are! I thought—oh, shit..."
"Clean-up, and nothing else," Seto snarled. "He's been taken elsewhere."
Tristan came trotting up beside the blond, breathing heavily, eyes as wide as an owl's. "So this...this is...just...to throw you...off track?"
Seto noted with some degree of satisfaction that he said, "throw you off track," and not "us." He wasn't entirely certain why he was pleased, only that he was. He pushed that idea into the back of his mind and slipped back into his car. "Follow if you think you must," he snapped at them, leaning out the window, "but be quick about it."
He sped off, and the two teens watched him go as they alternated their gaze between the striking blue vehicle to their right and the blazing orange bonfire to their left. It struck Joey and Tristan both, at about the same time, that not so long ago, Seto Kaiba taking that tone with them would have resulted in a brawl.
Now, it just frightened them.
They heard the underlying tone, beneath the icy nothingness he had been trying to pull over himself. That combination of smoldering fury and white-cold fear. He knew something that they did not, and it had him shaken. Joey thought, as he climbed back into his car and took off with a nail-on-chalkboard squeal of tires—careful to keep Detective McKinley's Impala in sight as it followed Seto's Veyron—that there was something inherently, deeply wrong with the idea that Seto was scared.
Seto Kaiba didn't do scared.
The worst part about it was that it was contagious. There it was, cold and clammy, clenching his insides and shaking his confidence; he was scared. If Seto freaking Kaiba was frightened this time, then good goddamn, there was good reason to be frightened.
Joey thought distantly of sharing this revelation with Tristan, but when he glanced over to his side to look at the brunette, he saw he didn't have to; Tristan looked even more shaken than he felt. It was almost comical; they both had spent so much time despising the man, hating him and everything he stood for, with the sort of fervent, obstinate hatred of which only teenagers are capable, but even as they hated him, they had come to rely on him.
So long's Kaiba has it under control, Joey thought, everything's good.
Conversely...
If Kaiba didn't have it under control...everything was wrong.
Dead wrong.
4.
Mokuba watched carefully, taking in every possible detail, as Siegfried's manservant—whose name was Ivan—brought out his master's dinner. The man was tall, clean-shaven, and looked bored out of his mind. He cast a flicker of a glance at the boy as he set the tray down on the table, and that glance seemed to apologize.
Mokuba wasn't in much of a mood to see it.
"Danke schön," Siegfried said offhandedly, and Ivan bowed as he removed the cover from the tray, revealing two bowls of steaming soup. Mokuba crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, even going so far as to let out a slight "hmph" when the pink-haired gunman gestured with his free hand for his "guest" to eat.
"Nein, danke," the young Kaiba sneered.
Siegfried laughed. "Such a treat, Little Kaiba! I do enjoy your company. Such wit! Ah, well, if you are certain. I should think you would be hungry, though. You haven't eaten in some time, have you not? You have lunch at...noon, yes?"
Instead of lying, Mokuba shrugged. "Niisama's cooking is better."
This caused another bout of laughter. "But you don't even know! Has dearest Seto not taught you not to say you don't like something until you try it? I'm sure he has. You should try it, Little Kaiba. Ivan is quite good at his work, I assure you. You may be surprised."
"I don't like surprises."
Smirk. "Now you are lying," Siegfried said, waving his gun in an admonishing manner as he ate. "Perhaps Seto does not like surprises, but I'm sure that you do. You don't want to hurt Ivan's feelings, do you? Not you. Not Seto Kaiba's golden boy."
"Ivan can drop dead," Mokuba snapped.
Siegfried looked genuinely puzzled. "Now, why would he do that?"
"Ask Niisama. He'll tell you."
Siegfried raised a thin, almost delicate eyebrow. "You are fascinating. Little Kaiba. Do you know, this is something I have wondered for quite some time, and I do hope you will indulge me. I do not doubt that you are a fair bit familiar with your...native tongue, if I may use the term, but you do not speak it regularly. Excepting that one particular title. 'Niisama.' Tell me...does he ask you to call him that?"
"No," Mokuba answered shortly.
"And why do you, then?"
Mokuba gave a smirk of his own. "You wouldn't get it."
"Try me."
"I'd rather not."
Another of those short, irritatingly authentic laughs, but the hand gripping the gun tightened, and Mokuba was suddenly reminded of its presence. He closed his eyes, drew in a breath, and said, "Because I have to."
Siegfried's grip loosened, and he looked curious as he took another bite of his meal. "You just stated that he does not ask you to use that title. So am I to assume this is something you have decided?"
"A long time ago."
"Why is that?"
"English wasn't good enough," Mokuba offered, shrugging. "He's more than my brother. A whole lot more. And I need to tell him that. He needs to hear it. Nobody else ever bothers to thank him for it. So I do."
Siegfried's smile was genuine. "So sweet of you, Little Kaiba. Touching. You two are inseparable, aren't you?"
"We never had any parents," Mokuba said, "so he had to be mine. It's just...what he decided."
"You do not consider the former Master Kaiba your father?"
Mokuba laughed bitterly. Yeah, he thought, he's a father like you're a brother. I bet Leon just adores you, you psycho prick.
Siegfried leaned back, spoon gripped with two fingers, and eyed him studiously. "I see," he murmured, Again, his eyebrows raised, and he glanced over to the windows to his left, looking far off as if deep in thought. "Yes, well...one does hear stories," he said solemnly. "A sad state, living with that man must have been, if those stories are true. If I were to hazard a guess looking at you, Little Kaiba, I would say they are. Perhaps even worse. It would come as no surprise that you would cling to your brother, then. A...safety net, yes?"
Mokuba didn't answer.
Ivan came out again, and replaced the tray with another: an array of meats, breads and cheeses. And once again, the boy refused them. He said, "Why shouldn't I? He's done more for me than anybody else. He loves me. He protects me. I owe him everything."
Siegfried ate quietly, contemplatively. Frowning in concentration, he said after a moment, "...Everything. You owe him...everything?"
"Yes."
"Hm. Well, now, that is curious. I have to wonder if dear Seto planned it that way. How was it said? 'Men like him know which kids to bully, and which ones to protect?'"
"Quoting nighttime dramas at me, now?" Mokuba asked, suddenly irritated. "Don't pretend like you know him. You just sound stupid. Niisama doesn't protect me so I'll love him. He protects me because he loves me. It's pretty simple to understand if you're human."
"...I know Seto Kaiba better than you might think, my boy," Siegfried murmured softly, not the slightest bit riled. "In fact...I think I understand him quite a bit better than you would be comfortable with. I don't think you understand just what is happening, here, Little Kaiba, but in the end, I will show you what I know. You will see, child, before the end."
"I won't see anything except you with a bullet in your head," Mokuba dared. "You know he'll kill you for this, don't you? He doesn't have a gun so he can look at it. When he gets here...he's gonna use it."
Siegfried's smile didn't even twitch. "I know."
Mokuba's bravado faltered.
He stared.
"I know far more about how this night will end than you do, I'm afraid," Siegfried said, in a voice that was almost a purr. "And I'm also afraid to say you won't be seeing me with a bullet in my head. Although I'm certain you're right. That is more than likely how my life will end."
He continued to eat, and Mokuba continued to stare. Ivan came out again some time later, with a plate of sausages and potato salad. Again, there was that flash of apology, and again, Mokuba didn't want to see it. As he watched his captor eat, Mokuba felt his heart begin to speed up.
This was wrong.
This wasn't how...wasn't...
"You really should eat, dear boy," Siegfried said suddenly, and there was a glint in his eyes that was at odds with the pleasant expression on the rest of his face. Mokuba stiffened, clenching his hands into fists beneath the table. That tone spelled everything out in brutal, brutal clarity.
"This...is the last meal that either of us is likely to have."
5.
He'd started keeping the gun at his hip once Pegasus Crawford had taught him the insufferable folly of trusting people. It was a custom design, constructed and distributed when the Kaiba Corporation was still a supplier of military technology. It had been his...first test.
Seto had wondered at the time what sort of man would task a twelve-year-old boy with designing a firearm, but not anymore. And as he slipped the weapon—more familiar and intimate than almost any possession he owned—out of its holster and into the open air, he almost thanked Gozaburo for making him do it. Darren, rather than asking questions, followed suit and drew his own pistol from beneath his khaki jacket. Slipping past Seto, the detective moved easily, with practice and precision, and the deadly machine in his hands was as still as if it were embedded in granite.
"Hey," Tristan Taylor said, voice shaky and uncertain. "Are you...are you guys sure that those are...?"
"Shut up," Seto growled.
For a wonder, he did.
The young executive-turned-chess-piece dared a glance back at the pair behind himself and Darren, and saw that Joey's hands were twitching at his sides. Unlike Tristan, however, Joey was not shaking out of fear; he looked like he wanted to grip a weapon of his own. Tristan glanced at Seto, then at his friend, and drew in a breath. He shook his head. When he looked back at the mansion in front of them, his face was chiseled in stone. There was no use arguing; blood was going to spill tonight. Whose blood was dependent on them.
He's softer than Wheeler, Seto thought distantly as he turned his gaze back to his destination, but he's not soft. That's good. He'll need steel if he's going to survive tonight.
He did not know that Siegfried von Schroeder had a gun of his own trained on Mokuba at just this moment, as he ushered the boy from his seat in one corner to the center of the main parlor, but he assumed—correctly—that his former rival had no intention of going peacefully.
Peace was a dream for the weak.
The mansion to which Siegfried von Schroeder had directed them was just the sort of obstinate, brick-laden, 16th-century pseudo-castle that Seto might have expected from his pink-haired, sociopathic "old friend." The front doors were attached to an entryway dominated by large, curtain-less windows; the front lawn was simple but sculpted with military-grade precision, in much the same way that Seto kept his own.
It was all...perfectly welcoming.
Seto hated it.
Darren approached the entrance and backed against the wall to the left of the doors. Nodding to Seto and the others (who stepped to the side), he reached over and opened one. Seto entered, muscles tightening as he did. Then came Joey and Tristan; Darren brought up the rear.
Seto entered into a central hallway, and his attention was immediately caught by a security camera set above the first door to his right. He glanced back at Darren. "He knows we're here," he murmured mechanically. "Wheeler, Taylor, you and the detective scope out the rest of this heap. I want no surprises. I'll find our...host."
Joey and Tristan were more than willing to follow Seto's order, but Darren was shaking his head. "No," he said emphatically. He kneeled down and retrieved a compact pistol from a hidden holster at his ankle and handed it to Joey. "You two find the security system and see if you can figure out Mokuba's location. I'm staying with Seto. You know how to use that, don't you?"
Joey smirked without humor. "Always preferred my fists, all honesty." He handed the gun to Tristan, who handled it with obvious familiarity. "I'm a blunt trauma kinda guy. No worries, Magnum. We can take care of ourselves. If we end up dead, we prob'ly deserved it."
Tristan raised an eyebrow. "Speak for yourself. If I end up dead, I'm blaming your ass." He turned to Seto. "And don't think I won't haunt you, either."
Seto made no visible response. Instead, he turned to Darren. "Fine. Whatever."
And without another word, he reached for the door in front of him and opened it with a spasmodic jerk of his arm that nearly tore it off its hinges.
6.
"Well, now. Be polite, Little Kaiba. Greet your Niisama."
Seto heard the words, but only barely. He saw the room, but only barely.
He saw through the barrel of his weapon, and heard only the pounding of blood in his own ears. His peripheral vision caught the spindly chairs and round, glass-topped table; the empty plate on one end and the full plate of sausages and potatoes; the more robust couch in the center of the room, and the coffee table set just in front of it with a vase of lilacs as a centerpiece.
He saw...
A switch flipped in his mind. His vision, his ears, his mind, his very being homed in on them. Darren wasn't there. Wheeler and Taylor, exploring the hallway, they weren't there; the flowers, the furniture, the mansion wasn't there.
Nothing.
Except his brother, standing beside the glass-topped table, rigid and shaking with tears in his eyes; lower lip trembling, pitifully tiny fists clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching, as he strained mightily not to scream. And behind him...sitting in a chair behind the boy so that his body was almost entirely obscured, as cool and nonchalant as if this scene were completely normal...
"You're here just in time, my dearest Seto," said Siegfried von Schroeder, and Seto could barely keep from flinching away from the abject calmness in that smooth, articulate, arrogant voice. "And you've brought someone else with you, how nice. How considerate. You'll want to see this, both of you."
Seto couldn't speak. He could barely think.
Darren spoke for him. "See what?"
Siegfried turned his gaze to the detective, just barely visible behind Mokuba's quavering, shivering form. He grinned pleasantly, and said without a touch of anything but the utmost pleasantness,
"The end of the world."
END.
The decision to use Siegfried as the villain here was a simple one: I'd never written him before. And to this day, I still haven't seen the KC Grand Prix arc in its entirety, so I know his character just enough to use him, and not much more. To be completely honest, I'm not exactly thrilled with the way that the anime handled these Kaiba-centric filler stories, because they feel...done already. Both Siegfried and Amelda, in different ways, feel like carbon copies of Seto created explicitly to heighten the emotional turmoil. Feels kind of cheap.
The only "Seto clone" of which I'm fond is Rishid Ishtar, primarily because he's a lot more subtle about it. The Ishtar family dynamic fascinates me, and ranks in second overall in the series for me. I doubt I need to tell you which comes in first for me.
In any case, I had fun with Siegfried, and I do hope that I've made him compelling, in spite of the divergences I've made to the character in the anime. Trust me, there's a reason for it.
You'll see.
