The holiday season is weird. At one end, it's jovial, and happy, and fun. At the other, it's frustrating, hectic, confusing, and just plain weird. It's been three months since I've touched this story, partly because of final exams, partly because of Christmas, partly because of a friend from out of state visiting for two weeks, partly because of my last semester of school coming up...and a host of other distractions and/or excuses about which you probably don't want to hear.
If it's any consolation, this chapter here is longer than usual, and the conclusion to the six-part story arc that's dominated the entire work for the past year. There are two more chapters that make up the falling action, along with an epilogue. This will mark the end of the first "season" of this story.
Fasten your seat-belts, people. We're nearing, "Endgame."
1.
Abduction.
Kidnapping, child theft, bodysnatching, whatever term one wanted to use, it was among the most common fears among any parent Darren McKinley had ever met. In the back of every mother's mind, every father's mind, there was the threat of someone, somewhere, taking their baby away from them; a neighbor, a relative, the eternal boogeyman invariably called the Stranger.
Among those parents, Darren had only known a single one to have met that threat.
Not once. Not twice. Not three, and now, not even four times.
Seto had discussed Pegasus Crawford, Malik Ishtar, and Amelda at length. The fourth, Darren didn't know. Seto had called it...personal. Darren was beginning to think that Seto was trying to forget the fourth had ever happened. But Darren did know that, whether the abductor had two names or one name or none, he had never come out on top against Seto Kaiba. He was the ultimate target, and he had never failed to meet the challenge head-on, and come away with victory.
The worst had been the first. Pegasus Crawford, though not old by any stretch of the imagination, had been the oldest. The richest. The most prepared. And when he had taken Mokuba, it had been the perfect crime. He had waited for the perfect moment, executed his plan with military precision, and even when Mokuba had managed to escape, it was only for a handful of hours.
It had taken Yugi Motou, of all people, to deliver Mokuba back to his brother.
"Niisama saved me first, though," Mokuba had said once. "Yugi helped."
Now...Yugi Motou wasn't here.
And it was impossible to tell which of the two Kaiba brothers was more terrified.
Mokuba whimpered, shaking as his hands twitched spasmodically upward, desperately wanting to remove the gun from his mouth. His head pulled backward, trying to get away, but Siegfried had him pinned. Tears finally sprang from his eyes as his entire body was seized with terror.
Darren felt his heart clawing its way through him, up his throat to escape from his body and shoot this bastard itself. Fury did not begin to describe what he felt right now, as every bad memory of his long career flashed into his vision and personified themselves into this...this one...single...
Mokuba's eyes, wide and feral and streaming, flicked endlessly from his brother to the weapon in front of him. He continued to shudder, and shut his eyes painfully tight as his hands clenched into tiny, pitiful little fists. Darren could hear Mokuba's breath as it sped up, grew louder, and he knew that the poor boy was using every bit of remaining willpower he could force out of himself to calm down. To believe.
To have faith.
Seto's eyes smoldered like cobalt coals set into his skull, and when he spoke, the voice of death left his lips: "...If there was any chance in hell of you getting out of this alive...you just threw it out...the goddamned window..."
But Siegfried just kept smiling. "Why so...hesitant...Seto? Oh. Dear. Are you not feeling well?"
"S-Shut up. You son of a whore, just shut up!"
Siegfried laughed. "Oh, but doesn't it sound like the great Seto Kaiba is finally losing his composure! My, my, have I finally convinced you? Do you see now? I think...yes. I think you do. How wonderful." He glanced down at Mokuba, looking every bit like a natural predator. "I think your beloved Niisama sees the truth now...don't you?" He frowned, but Darren knew that every move, every twitch, every tweak of muscle was a precisely choreographed act by now; there wasn't an honest drop of blood in this man's veins. "Oh...poor darling. Are you frightened? Shhh...now, now, no need for that. You won't feel a thing. You can trust me, little Kaiba. It won't hurt at all, this way. You see? I'm not evil. I don't derive pleasure from this. Now, now, there's a good boy. Calm down...no more crying."
And all the while...that manic, devil's grin.
Seto drew in a breath. Slow, steady. He let it out. Slow, silent.
"This...moment...is the first time that I have ever wished...for hell to exist," he said, low and haunting. "Even if it means that I am headed there myself, it will be all the compensation I would ever need to see you there first."
"You flatter me, Seto."
"I hate you."
"I know."
2.
Joey was no stranger to the adrenaline rush that came from a good fight. He'd lived on it, like a high-class narcotic, for years. It was the essence of competition; raw power and primal instincts, using the body as both weapon and shield. The purest manifestation of survival, played out like a ballet on rough-hewn blacktop.
And he had wondered, after spending so much time outside of his once-preferred arena, if it would frighten him to return. He'd wondered if he could lower himself to that base, animalistic level again, without feeling horror grip his gut and wring him dry.
It wasn't so.
Faced with a real, honest fight for the first time in over a year, Joey Wheeler was nothing if not lusting for it. Saruwatari was standing there, right in front of them like an early Christmas present, ready to be unwrapped. He wasn't preparing for battle; his hands were in his pockets, his smirk was primal but almost lethargic, and Joey knew that he wasn't taking them seriously.
So much the better.
If there was one thing Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor knew how to take advantage of, it was underestimation. Tristan's entire body was corded steel, ready to spring at a moment's notice. It was just like the old days. People had always marveled at how well they could read each other's movements, and usually came to the conclusion that Joey and Tristan could read each other's minds, as well. And it almost felt like that, sometimes.
Without a word, without the faintest sign, Tristan started moving. He veered to the right, and Joey came sliding up behind him to the left. Before Saruwatari could even take his hands from his pockets, before the smirk ever left his face, Tristan sent a savage kick straight up into his groin. The great behemoth's breath flew from his lungs with a high-pitched, "hu-ngh!"
Joey gave him no time to recover. He latched onto the man's bear-like right arm and swung it over his shoulder. He remembered that Tristan had tried this maneuver, back at Duelist Kingdom when they had first met this giant. He remembered that it hadn't worked, that Saruwatari had decent reflexes despite his size, and knew where his friend had gone wrong.
Tristan had opted to throw him, giving him both the time and the space to recover.
Instead of letting go, Joey rolled his target over his shoulder and slammed him to the floor with a crash that shook the walls. Joey jumped backward, and Tristan—not missing the opportunity—stomped onto Saruwatari's throat.
The pistol Darren had given Tristan was in his hand, and Joey didn't remember when he had drawn it. If forced to guess, he would have said that Tristan didn't remember, either. But it didn't matter. He leveled it on Saruwatari's face, and grimaced.
"I've been using these things for years," he said, sounding solemn and furious at the same time, eyes blazing. "And people have told me, never pick up a gun unless you're ready to kill somebody with it. Take a guess on if I'm ready right now, you stupid son of a bitch."
Joey frowned. "Tristan. Wait."
Tristan's head snapped up. "What? You gonna tell me this fucktard doesn't deserve it? Kidnapping the kid twice isn't enough? Are we seriously going to give him a third strike?"
"Oh, he deserves it..." Joey hissed, "...but not from us. This is Kaiba's fight. We're just backup. If this idiot was a threat, I'd say go ahead and waste 'im. Lord knows you'd be doin' a public service."
"...Kaiba's fight."
"He's a big brother. So'm I. You're a little brother. You know well as me, this one's personal. Let Kaiba handle it."
Tristan's eyes narrowed. "...Search him, then. We aren't gonna get the jump on him twice."
Joey searched, and found a compact pistol (which would have looked ludicrously small and toy-like if Saruwatari had ever tried to use it with one of his elephantine fists) and a combat knife. He handed the gun to Tristan, and slipped the knife into his belt.
Saruwatari surged upward.
Tristan was pitched to the floor, and all at once the roles were reversed. Saruwatari's glasses had fallen off, revealing eyes that were too small for the concrete slab of his face, narrowed nearly to paper-cuts as he wrapped his clawing fingers around Tristan's throat.
Cold steel flashed into Joey's hand.
"Okay. Now he's a threat."
3.
...God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he answered.
"Take your son," He said, "your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
Seto Kaiba hated Abraham, with a disgust so passionate that it was sentient. He had told Darren, in a moment of brutal honesty (and there were many of those), that as a boy, when he had read the Bible most studiously, the sacrifice of Isaac was the first—and perhaps most fundamental—factor in Seto's decision to rely on his own strength, and his own strength only. That any higher that would call upon such sacrifice was never to be trusted.
Now, standing here, gun cocked and aimed at the cruelest mockery of God he had ever seen, Darren understood. He had always understood, on some level. But now that Siegfried had called on Seto to sacrifice his Isaac—his only son Isaac, whom he loved—and showed no indication that it was only a test of faith...he understood on a deep, primal level that set his blood afire.
There would be no angel to stay this sacrifice; only Abraham himself.
This Abraham had no need for angels.
"Do you know, Seto, the saddest part about all this?" Siegfried asked, as Mokuba cried and his chattering teeth clacked and scraped against the metal in his mouth. Seto's face did not spasm so much as it writhed, and it only seemed to excite Siegfried further.
"The fact that you're stupid enough to think it will work," Seto replied, his voice as cracked as his defenses. "The fact that you've sunk this low, that you're so pathetic that you can't even commit suicide by yourself; you have to bring me into it, you have to bring Mokuba into it, because you're a narcissistic waste of space who can't handle the idea that no one will care when you're dead."
This had no effect.
Siegfried's face didn't twitch.
"You don't know, do you?" he mused thoughtfully. "You've truly managed to delude yourself. Impressive, but sad." Siegfried shook his head. "Tell me something, Seto: if you had to describe yourself in one word, what would that word be?"
"Bored. Is there a point hiding in this monologue somewhere?"
Siegfried chuckled. "Do you know the word I would choose?"
"Enlighten me," Seto rasped. His right eye was twitching spasmodically. He was starting to sweat. Shake. He blinked several times, tightened his grip, and when his arm gave a little spasm, Darren realized that his arms were starting to ache. What were they doing? What good were these damned things doing them right now? Were they delaying the inevitable? No. The man in front of them wanted to die. He was egging them on, practically begging them to shoot.
All the same, he couldn't lower the gun in his hands, and he knew without thinking that it was the same for Seto; may as well tell him to rip out his right eye as lower his weapon.
"Gambler," Siegfried said with relish.
Darren blinked.
Seto twitched.
"You're a gambler, Seto," the pink-haired lunatic explained. "You've chosen your career, you've chosen your hobbies; every choice you make boils down to that one irrefutable truth: you exult in the rush. You live for that challenge; for that constant, looming, towering threat that makes the game worth playing. You could lose. You don't want to lose—oh, no—but the thought that you might lose excites you. Doesn't it?"
"You have me confused with Motou, which would be insulting enough on a good day."
"See? Right now, you're hedging your bets. You're hoping to anger me by being flippant. You figure that I'm out for attention; that I'm looking for a specific reaction and that if I don't get it, I'll lose control and you'll have the advantage." His eyes twinkled. "You're also betting that the reaction I want...isn't the one that you aregiving me."
"...You're enjoying this," Seto muttered. "You're having fun. This is a game to you."
"And it isn't one to you?" Siegfried asked, quirking an eyebrow. "You're going to have to be honest with me, Seto. I know you better than you think. You live for this. Tell me your blood isn't singing right now."
"Speak clearly for once in your fucking life."
"See, Mokuba? He's deflecting. You can tell, can't you?" Siegfried gave Mokuba a half-shake that elicited a panicked squeak. "You know your brother better than anyone. You can tell when he's lying, can't you? He's lying now. He heard me perfectly clearly."
"You've roped him into this charade more than enough already," Seto snapped, and Darren could hear something change in his voice. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that it couldn't be good. "Don't make it worse."
"He still hasn't answered me," Siegfried told Mokuba. "You see? I speak the truth, little Kaiba. Your esteemed brother has an addiction. He cannot help but put anything of value onto the table, just for the thrill of winning it back. And what if he loses? That, dear one, is the fun of it all."
"Shut your mouth. This smear campaign is just as useless as any other tactic you've ever tried. Are you done reveling in your own self-pity? I'd like Mokuba home before midnight if it's all the same to you."
Was it...desperation?
"Anything of value. Even his family. Even you, Mokuba. Especially you. Why else would he put you in the spotlight so much? Why else would he make it so painfully obvious that you are his weak spot? Why else would he be so lax in securing proper protection for you that you've been taken from him four times in the past three years? Hm? Think about it. Just think about how...many...times...he has let you come to danger. Why would he do that, unless it was to win you back? It serves a double purpose. Not only does it sate his addiction, but it ensures that you remain dependent upon him. The more he saves you, the more you cling to him. Do you see?"
"This is ridiculous."
But it wasn't. Darren suddenly realized that it wasn't ridiculous at all. Siegfried had finally found the right method of attack, and Seto was stumbling. His body was just as rigid as ever, his aim just as steady, but the conviction in his eyes was beginning to waver. His confidence was slipping. And Darren didn't have to look at Siegfried to realize that he knew it. Knew it and was reveling in it. To Siegfried von Schroeder...this was as close to heaven as he would ever reach.
"Well?" Siegfried prodded, and Mokuba moaned pitifully, shutting his eyes and shaking his head as if to deny the very existence of this madman. "You see it, don't you? You see the truth behind your brother's...ahem...selfless devotion to you."
"Goddamn it," Seto hissed, and his voice cracked.
Darren thought that he should say something.
He knew that he should say something.
He opened his mouth to say something.
Something never came.
4.
The juggernaut's grip faltered as Tristan drove a knee straight up into his groin, and the split-second of freedom was all he needed to roll to the side and half-slide, half-crawl out of the line of fire. Scooting further away, he slammed into the wall with a harsh grunt that came out sounding much more like a curse than anything else.
Saruwatari was on his feet, but Joey was already going for him, leaping onto his back and wrapping one arm around his cannon-barrel neck. "I'd ask you to give me one good reason not to slice you open, but I don't fucking want one!"
It looked like some species of dance. As Saruwatari spun around and all but fell against the wall, Joey lost his chance out of sheer shock and adrenaline. His breath left him in a heave as the formerly helpless bodyguard-turned-kidnapper drove an elbow into his midriff.
Tristan spied the gun Detective McKinley had given him, lying prone and harmless on the floor.
It was all he could do to focus on it.
Focus...and grin like a fucking lunatic.
Memories of a time when he and Joey had been in situations like this almost every day surfaced from the back of his mind, and there was only the briefest of moments when he thought that they shouldn't feel good. Then the moment passed, and he flexed his fingers.
No time for doubts.
It was time to go back home.
5.
"Do you know what you should do, Seto?"
Seto didn't answer. It didn't look like he could drive a single word out from behind the folded steel of his clenched jaw. He looked like he wanted to speak; oh, he wanted to speak very badly. Fury held him in an oath of silence. Fury, and fear, and God only knew what other torrent of emotions.
"...Why...don't you...tell...me...?" the words finally tore their way out, as if defying the oath as soon as Darren even thought of it, as if Seto was hell-bent on proving any and every assumption about his character, whether vocalized or not, entirely wrong. Since his usual flippant anger hadn't gotten him anywhere, he was now down to fake politeness, with more than a hint of that same anger showing through in the fact that he wasn't at all interested in making it sound sincere.
Siegfried clearly didn't care. He beamed like a benevolent, fatherly teacher. "Come down here," he said. "You're quite tall, you know, and it must be so uncomfortable for the boy to have you looking down on him like that. Why not come to his level, at least for this final meeting, so that he can have a single memory of just what you look like from an...even point of view?"
This had nothing to do with Mokuba anymore, if it had ever had anything to do with him. Siegfried had played his final hand, the final step toward his own personal nirvana. This wasn't about Seto being level with his brother. Mokuba was perhaps the only equal Seto would ever acknowledge. This was about the indomitable, the unbreakable, the untouchable...
...Forced to his knees.
Darren wasn't sure which was more infuriating. The fact that this bastard had the gall to make such an order in the first place...or the fact that Seto had no choice but to follow it if he wanted any chance of this coming out his way.
Or the fact that Seto was slowly, achingly, following it.
Without a single word to the contrary.
If Mokuba hadn't looked terrified enough, watching his brother sink to his knees for likely the first time in his entire life was enough to crush any remaining will to fight the boy may have been nursing. His entire body seemed to sink along with his sibling. He looked like he was trying to shake his head again, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't find the strength. It just wasn't in him anymore.
"Now..." Siegfried purred. "Tell him the truth, Seto. Tell him that you have no idea how you're going to get him out of this one. Tell him that your luck has run out. Do you think he can't tell? That I can't tell? Tell him what you've known for several minutes now: you don't have a way to get him out of this one. You can't think of one...because there isn't one."
Seto sank all the way down. He was almost sitting on his heels, but it seemed as though that would be the final straw, because he was shaking, straining with the Sisyphean effort of keeping himself from falling that far down. He pushed himself forward, and readjusted his grip on his weapon. He said nothing.
Siegfried didn't exhibit anger, or surprise, or even amusement at the silence. He seemed not only to have expected it, but had been counting on it. He said, "No? Well, that's fine. Change is gradual, after all. Let us try something more comfortable for you, shall we?"
The more Siegfried spoke, the more Darren was reminded of a doting, eccentric uncle imparting lessons upon a favored nephew. He couldn't understand how anyone—psychotic or not—could be so calm and collected, could be so cursedly comfortable, in a situation as grim, as cold, as blood-congealing and sadistic as this.
"Lie to him, Seto," Siegfried commanded, in that same sugary voice. "Lie to the boy, then. Tell him what he wants to hear, what you want to tell him. Lie to him and tell him that you'll get him out of this, that everything will be all right, that you just need a little while longer to...ahem...handle me. Go ahead, Seto. You know they're right there, on the tip of your silvered tongue. You know you want to say them. If you can't find the courage to let him die with the truth, that's fine. Let him die with comfort, then. Lie."
Seto's mouth opened.
Darren almost shut his eyes. He almost sighed. He almost snapped at Seto to keep his mouth shut. But he knew it wouldn't do any good. Nothing he said would get through to Seto right now; he was too entangled in his own desperation.
"M...Mokuba..." Seto whispered, looking directly into his brother's eyes. Mokuba couldn't have responded if he'd wanted to, but all the same Darren had a feeling that he didn't have the energy, didn't have the willpower, to give any kind of indication that he'd even heard.
Then the boy blinked, and Darren remembered that Mokuba had the same stubborn streak that so defined his guardian. He tolerated hasty assumptions no more than Seto did.
"Listen to me," Seto continued, his voice low and somber, shaky but still commanding absolute attention. "Listen to your big brother, Mokuba. Listen to me. Do you hear me? Are you listening?"
He seemed to be trying to bolster his conviction again; the repetition wasn't for Mokuba so much as for Seto himself. Nonetheless, Mokuba's eyes were riveted now. He still looked frightened out of his mind, and maybe it was all Darren's imagination, but he thought he saw some vestige of calm return to the boy's face. Some semblance of control.
"Don't listen to him," Seto said. "This isn't a lie. When have I ever lied to you? When have I ever looked you in the eye and lied to you?" Mokuba blinked again. "On the ride home from Gozaburo's funeral, when you asked me what happened, what did I tell you?"
Blink.
"I told you that I didn't kill him, but that I certainly drove him to do the deed himself. I didn't want to tell you that. You were barely seven years old. But I promised myself, I promised you, at our mother's funeral that I would never lie to you. That you would always hear the truth from me, and nothing less. This...is not...a lie. Do you hear me, Mokuba?"
Blink. Spasm.
"I'm getting you out of this. You will get out of this. I swear it to you. On my life. On my life and on the vow that I gave to our mother on her deathbed, I will get you home. We're going to walk out of here together, we're going to go home, and you're going to get some sleep. I'll stay with you until you do. You can sleep in my bedroom if you like. I'll put on your favorite music and you can sleep in my bedroom. How does that sound?"
Blink.
Mokuba was crying full-force again, and Darren spied a trickle of tears coming down Seto's face now, too. He seemed not to notice them. He was too focused. He couldn't afford to break what limited contact he had with his brother.
He was beginning to realize, Darren thought, that this might be the last time they spoke to each other. That unless he pulled a miracle out of that semi-automatic, there would never be another hug. Another smile. Another ruffling of black hair. That unless he performed the impossible, there would be no more after-school trips to that hole-in-the-wall ice cream parlor that only stayed in business because Mokuba happened to like it.
"...I love you, Mokuba," Seto said. His cobalt eyes were glistening. "You mean more to me than anyone or anything else on this earth. I will not let this happen to you. Do you hear me? I love you, and I have never been prouder of you than I am today. Are you listening to me?"
His voice was losing what remaining composure it had.
Mokuba blinked again. It was the only thing he could do.
The only way he could respond.
Seto clung to it like a lifeline in a hurricane. "I would never gamble with your safety. Ever. I would never put you through this willingly. I would give anything to keep you from this. I swear it." He turned his eyes back to Siegfried. "You want to see me broken. That's your angle. Do you want my company? Take it. Do you want to see it destroyed? I'll run it into the ground myself. Do you want to see me dirt-poor and clawing out a living? I'll give every cent I have to anyone who wants it. I'll live on meat scraps and dirt if that's what you're looking for. I'll be a fry cook, I'll be a shoe salesman, I'll be a paper boy if that's what you're after. I'll starve in an alley behind a grocery store. Strip away anything you want. Break me any way you feel like, but damn it to hell, leave him alone. He's been through enough."
Begging.
He was down to begging.
Goddamn it.
And Siegfried was drinking it in like it was nectar from a flower growing in Eden itself. He was intoxicated. No two ways about it, he was drunk on this. This was what he wanted. And the ultimate payoff would come when he pulled the trigger, denying his true target any chance of clawing his way up again.
He was going to do it.
He was going to fire.
And Mokuba was going to—
"I'm surprised that you didn't decorate this place a little better for such a grand event," Darren spouted out before he had any clue what he was even thinking. "Is it for the irony? Do you want to see the great Seto Kaiba finally beaten and broken in a place like this? So far from the luxury he's accustomed to? Why not a warehouse, then? Why not some repossessed meth lab? Hell, why not the dump? That would be the ultimate metaphor, wouldn't it?"
What the hell was he doing?
Why the holy fuck was he egging the bastard on?
"Why so few people? Why not make a fully public spectacle of it?" he continued. "You seem to already know how this is going to end, so clearly you're not afraid to die. Or if you are, for some fucked-out reason you've decided that this is worth the cost. So what's this about? Why not have more spectators? Why not show everyone in the whole damned city if it's so important to you?"
Siegfried was watching him now. Cold, dead eyes were locked on him.
"Why...indeed?" Siegfried said slowly, grin widening further.
Whatever that meant, Darren knew it couldn't be good. The distraction may or may not be working, but the fact that Siegfried was just as cool and confident as ever, in spite of the intrusion upon his private puppet show, was unnerving.
It didn't feel right.
Nothing about this situation felt right.
6.
Think.
Move. Act. Do.
He was frozen. He couldn't do anything. His muscles weren't listening to him, his mind wasn't listening to him, he couldn't...he just...! No. He'd already fallen into this trap before; he wasn't going to fall again.
He was on his knees. The end was nearing. The proverbial moment of truth. Seto did not engage in delusion, and he knew he had almost no time left. This was it. Siegfried's patience was ending; he could see it in the man's face. He'd gotten what he wanted out of the game, and now it was time for the punchline.
What was Seto going to do?
Inevitably a part of him began to think about what would happen if he failed. What he would do if he couldn't end this night on his terms. It wasn't more than a handful of seconds before he stopped that line of thought in its tracks, because it didn't matter what happened if he failed.
The sociopath had said it: if Seto failed, the world would end.
That was all.
Mokuba was still crying. It didn't look like he was waiting anymore. He wasn't waiting for anything; not the end, not salvation, not a damned thing. Everything had gone out of his eyes except endless, unfathomable dread.
The same dread that had seized hold of Seto's mind.
It was like looking into a mirror. He was a child again, lost and afraid, and he didn't even know what he was doing anymore. Where he was. He couldn't focus. Who was that man? What was he doin—why was he holding a...
Enough!
Damn it, enough!
"So is this what you're going to do?" the detective snapped. "Turn everything we say into some half-cocked psychotic one-liner? Apparently this is fun to you. Your own private play. How many acts are left? Hm? When's the grand finale?"
"Right now, if you'd prefer."
No. No no no. God no.
"Don't be an idiot," said the detective, sneering. "You know damn well you're not done yet. This is far too entertaining, and you haven't broken either of them yet. Isn't that what this is about? Breaking the enemy? You haven't even broken your hostage yet."
Seto didn't think that was true. He wanted to believe that it was true, he wanted to believe it so much that his mind and heart felt like they were both on fire, but he knew his brother better than the detective did, knew him better than anyone else, and looking into Mokuba's eyes right now he couldn't describe the boy as anything but broken.
And even if the detective was right...he was breaking.
Quickly.
Too quickly.
He wasn't going to be able to—
ENOUGH!
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't keep his eyes from his brother. He couldn't keep his mind on anything except the fact that he'd failed. This was his fault. He had done this, to himself, to the detective, to his baby brother. To the brave, stupid young men in the middle of the mansion fighting for their lives while he sat here on his heels, trying to hold together the withered remains of his self-control with a mind that was hell-bent on betraying him.
Not that he was surprised. He'd betrayed Mokuba. Why shouldn't he betray himself?
You're letting yourself fall into the trap he's set for you. You're letting a pathetic copycat get the better of you. Is this the man you are? Is this what you've let yourself become? After Crawford, after Ishtar, after...after Noa...after protecting him from so many threats, is this your undoing? This goddamned lunatic?
...No.
His eyes snapped wide.
Something clicked.
It felt like...like...
The answer.
The most ironic part, the sweetest part of it all, was that the answer had come from Siegfried von Schroeder himself. The idiot just didn't know it. For the love of all that was holy, the bastard didn't know it. Suddenly Seto was shaking from a sudden rush of adrenaline. Suddenly the terror was gone, the despair was gone, the hopelessness was gone, burned to cinders by a blaze of hope.
Stupid, incredible, impossible hope.
You are quite the machine. When a task must be completed, there is nothing except that task.
Seto thought of a man he'd thought long-buried in the recesses of his memories. Thought of a man who wore blood-colored suits and had eyes so perfectly frozen that they made the sun shiver. He thought of a man who would have stepped into this room without a single care, who would have seen Siegfried von Schroeder dead long before ever coming to this point because if there was one singular thing no one could do to that man, it was get the jump on him.
Seto thought of the only person who had ever defeated that man.
And as he sloughed off any semblance of emotion, as he shed hope and fear and love and hate, as he threw off the shroud of confusion and the blindfolding apprehension, as he finally remembered what it was to be a Kaiba, he thanked that man.
In that moment, and that moment only, he would have loved that man, if he'd had the time or energy to love anything.
But he didn't.
He had an objective to complete.
7.
If anyone had asked him how the hell they'd managed to climb the stairs, Joey wouldn't have been able to answer. He couldn't remember a damned thing about the time that had passed since entering the mansion, and truth be told didn't really want to remember any of it.
If he'd been in any kind of position to be contemplative about the whole thing, he would have said that he was having way too much fun to remember why he was here. If he'd remembered Mokuba—his new friend, the sole shining example of the fact that he and Seto Kaiba might not be all that different after all (not that he would have ever admitted that out loud)—he would have been put in the kind of mood that Kaiba was in, and he would have forgotten his promise to let Kaiba handle this. If he'd remembered Mokuba, Joey would have killed Adachi Saruwatari himself, with his bare goddamn hands.
But he didn't remember Mokuba anymore.
He was caught in the rush.
Literally. He was practically flying down the hallway on he second floor of the von Schroeder mansion, a knife still miraculously clutched in his left fist. He wasn't entirely sure why he still held it; he'd botched the kill, which was half the reason he was running at all. He'd never been all that comfortable with weapons to begin with. He tended to prefer to use his fists; there was no way for him to drop his fists.
Tristan came rushing up beside him. They weren't even seeing their surroundings anymore. There was no time to see, no time to gauge, no time to think, no time to plan. There was only the hunt, and the prey thought he was the one hunting.
On impulse, Joey glanced back over his shoulder. Saruwatari was barreling toward them with all the grace of a newly tranquilized rhinoceros, and the blond lurched back and launched the combat knife at him. He hadn't been aiming; a part of his mind still cursorily aware of the fact that the motherfucker was huge had simply decided that tossing the thing away in the direction of the threat was the right way to go.
The blade sliced through a sleeve of Saruwatari's jacket, but did nothing else of value aside from clutter to the floor.
Joey turned back and forgot the blade had ever existed.
"This should not be fun!" Tristan called out.
Joey rounded a corner and laughed. "Fuck yes, it should!"
Somewhat surprisingly, Saruwatari said nothing.
Instead, he made a flying grab for Joey's jacket. The blond snapped to a stop, but whirled around, sliding out the garment as easily as if he'd been planning for it. He would be surprised later that he'd actually managed to pull off such a stunt—something Hirutani had struggled to teach him back when he'd been too stupid to understand the importance of keeping out of an opponent's grip—but not then.
He lunged for the first door he could find, threw it open, and tossed himself inside.
A figure stood in the room, next to a desk. The figure stiffened, turned, and Joey thought he saw a tired, almost sad look on the figure's face before its hand lifted a pistol and aimed straight at him. It didn't look like he'd been lying in wait, but it also didn't look like he was surprised.
A gruff voice rang out with a kind of sincerity that felt...wrong.
"...I'm sorry."
8.
A lifetime of running on instinct was all that saved Joey Wheeler's life.
And a lifetime of following Joey's lead without question was all that saved Tristan Taylor's.
The blond dropped, and Tristan dropped with him.
The blast of gunfire made an earthquake in the hall, and Adachi Saruwatari provided the aftershock as he roared and fell into the opposite wall, clutching a ruined shoulder. Joey caught a fleeting glimpse of the gunman's face, and couldn't tell if he was disappointed or not.
"You were supposed to shoot them, you stupid fucking doormat!"
The man looked like he wanted to smile.
9.
Darren saw it, but he wasn't sure what it was he saw.
Seto's lips were moving, but he wasn't speaking to Siegfried. Somehow, he knew. Seto wasn't speaking to anyone, even himself. Darren frowned, suddenly fixated on his friend's face. His mind told him, screamed at him, that he had to focus on his job, that he had to watch for a chance...but he couldn't turn away once he looked.
A war was waging on Seto Kaiba's face.
He looked at once angry, frightened, sad, and...
Crazy.
Seto looked ready to break. He looked like a man on the edge of everything. His eyes were haunted, his face gaunt, and his body—usually so well under control, like an impeccably oiled machine—shook and twitched as if it were malfunctioning.
He wasn't looking at Siegfried anymore.
And even though his eyes were facing Mokuba, Darren thought that Seto didn't see him, either. Darren wondered if Seto could see anything at all. And he realized...not anymore. This was it. It was done. Seto had snapped.
But then...
It was as sudden as a lightning flash. Unable to keep the machine metaphor out of his head, Darren thought of a switch. It was an old metaphor, a tired metaphor, but he understood now—where he never had—just how apt it was in his young friend's case.
A switch had been thrown.
The fear was gone. The sorrow was gone. The anger was gone.
Seto himself was gone.
And all that was left...was a Kaiba.
The heir Kaiba Gozaburo had built readjusted its aim, and Darren saw what it planned. And he thought, No. Oh, Jesus, no. Don't, Seto. The chance is too high. His windpipe, Seto! It won't hit! You can't hope for a shot like that! Dear God, man, you can't!
Darren spun, not knowing what he would do, only knowing that he had to find a better shot, had to do it now, before Seto made the worst mistake of his life. His eyes searched desperately, futilely. He commanded, begged, prayed that he would find...
...But there was nothing. He couldn't. Not with any more accuracy than Seto could. Not without alerting Siegfried again. Crushing realization hit him, and he knew...this was the only chance they had.
Siegfried began to chuckle again. "Ah...there it is. You've decided, haven't you, Seto?"
Seto did not hear, and Kaiba did not answer.
"Well, then?" Siegfried taunted, tightening his grip on his gun and Mokuba. "Take it, old friend. Do it. Let us find out what happens together, shall we?"
There was a beat of silence, a bare quarter-note, before Darren heard the telltale crash of gunfire.
It took him a second to realize it hadn't come from either Kaiba's gun or Siegfried's. It had come from directly above their heads, like the voice of a metal god. Darren had only a moment to think, Joey, before the end.
The end of everything.
Honestly surprised for the first time, Siegfried von Schroeder's eyes widened, and he snapped his eyes to the side. Barely. Looked up at one of the four cameras in each corner of the ceiling. The movement was sudden and instinctive. Darren would have time to think later that that was what the man had been after. That those cameras, recording the entire sequence of events, had been his true motive. And that was why he looked.
That was why he made his only mistake.
Siegfried quickly realized what he had done, and spun back to face his rival. Mokuba grunted as he was shaken roughly by the movement. It was too quick to see, too quick to understand. Nothing...and everything.
Seto's eyes were as blank as death.
Kaiba's lips curled.
Siegfried's eyes were wide, feral, and for once...finally—
CRACK!
END.
The passage that opens scene 3 of this chapter comes from verses 1 through 3 of Genesis, chapter 22, quoted from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. The sacrifice of Isaac is the hallmark event that would offend Seto and drive him away from religion in general. Say what you want about the significance about that event; Seto would not tolerate such behavior from a father, whether you're talking about Abraham or God. In his mind, there is no excuse for making such an order, nor for following it.
The number of times Mokuba has been abducted is a difficult thing to figure, simply because the events of the Noa storyline would never be believed by the general public; such events are entirely outside of the realm of possibility. Also, due to the extremely personal nature of the situation, I'm generally of the opinion that that one, in particular, would be buried in the recesses of Seto's memory. Buried and (mostly) forgotten.
At least, that's the hope.
