It's been more than 2 years since I last touched this story. I'm not proud of that. Real life has been an absolute train-wreck in a lot of ways. I'm still not sure if this chapter is the one that you deserve. But I did my best, and I think it works out pretty well.

This brings the current story arc to a close. When next I visit "Good Intentions," it will be to write up the final arc. This has been an incredible journey, one of the most important I've ever taken, but I've come to realize that I'm nearing the end of it.

Now, I don't want anyone to panic. There's still plenty of this story left. My aim is to be done, and wrapped up, by Chapter 50. So we'll still have a lot to explore and a lot to do here before I'm done. I'm just mentioning this right now, so that y'all have an understanding of where I'm headed.

I'm sorry for the wait. I hope this extra-long chapter meets your expectations.

Join me here, won't you, on the lookout for "Hurricane Kaiba."


1.


Mokuba sat with his knees pulled up against his chest, trying to take up as little space as possible. His eyes were unfocused and distant. Any number of the young Kaiba's friends and acquaintances would have had rather unsettling flashbacks to the Duelist Kingdom island if they had seen that look on his face. Connor, however, was not among that elusive number, and so he simply took his friend's lack of presence as a clue that he should be quiet.

Connor would glance over at Mokuba from time to time, and open his mouth to speak. After all, shouldn't he say something? But he would invariably turn his attention back to the floor. He wanted to talk. He needed to talk. But he couldn't figure out, for the life of him, what he should say. The rush of adrenaline from the afternoon's events had long since worn off by now, leaving Connor with a kind of tiredness he'd never felt before. And the longer he sat in silence, waiting for something he wasn't sure would ever come, the more he felt like he might fall asleep right there.

He was about to ask someone if he might go back into an exam room, where at least he could lay down, but then Mokuba began to speak.

"You don't know about our past. Do you? Niisama's and mine."

Connor made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Mokuba was looking at him, finally, and his eyes were bright again. On fire. Connor licked at his lips. "Um . . . no? Not . . . not really."

Mokuba nodded. He didn't look surprised. "Growing up with that man . . . you learn things." He drew in a steadying breath. Connor leaned a little closer, not quite aware that he was doing it. "How things are supposed to work. You learn . . . what you're supposed to do, pretty quick." The faintest of smiles crossed Mokuba's face, then vanished. "I figured out that life was pretty simple if I just stayed quiet. You know that old saying? Children should be seen, not heard? He definitely believed in that. Don't speak unless spoken to. As long as I played into that part, and pretended like I didn't know anything . . . they all left me alone. That man, his servants, his friends. They all ignored me."

Connor frowned. "That sounds awful."

Mokuba looked surprised for a moment. "I mean . . . well, I guess it does." He chuckled, but it sounded forced. "I was mostly relieved. You didn't want that man to notice you. You didn't want any of the people he associated with to talk about you." The smile came back. "You don't understand." Mokuba glanced over at Enid and Leo Brinkley, seated on a small couch nearby. They were all in a private waiting room, waiting for Seto and Detective McKinley to come back. The place was dark, and isolated. Mokuba seemed to prefer things this way.

Roland stood watch outside.

Connor followed his friend's gaze. "I . . . I guess I don't."

"That's good." Mokuba nodded to himself. "It's really good. But . . . but just trust me, all right? I was the lucky one. As bad as it sounds, I'd take neglect over . . . the alternative." He breathed deeply again, trying to calm down. "Niisama had so much to worry about, back then. I was okay with fading into the background. No matter what happened, he always knew I was there. He always saw me, and made sure I was okay. That was enough."

It was clear that Connor's parents were listening, but it seemed like they were content to do only that. They glanced at each other, made worried looks, but said nothing. Perhaps they didn't want to hover, smother, too much. Perhaps they were worried that if they spoke, it would break the spell and Mokuba would stop.

Mokuba wasn't sure if they weren't right, if indeed that was what they were thinking.

The young Kaiba dropped his legs, settled his feet on the floor, and gingerly rose form his chair to walk around. Connor followed Mokuba with his eyes. He, like his mother and father, elected to stay silent.

"When we were . . . alone, Niisama always said I should speak up. Especially once that man was gone, and the house was ours. Niisama said that it was my home. My castle. Same as it was his. He said my voice should . . . sing. Just like his."

Connor dared to put on a smile of his own, and it stayed on his face with some effort.

Mokuba paced about the room. "For a while, I thought maybe the worst was behind us. Back when we were first starting to . . . you know. Be Kaibas. Niisama took over the company, tore it down and built it back up. He got emancipated, took custody of me, put me in school. We thought maybe the most complicated and dangerous person we'd ever have to deal with was finally gone. We thought maybe life would even out. What could come after a man like that? Who could possibly be worse than him?"

". . . I'm guessing," Connor almost whispered, "someone came along that was worse. Huh?"

Mokuba's eyes took on that haunted quality again. "Oh, yeah."


2.


The Brinkleys' unassuming little bungalow was not the sort of place for the business that these two men brought to it. It looked for all the world like the kind of place one would see on a postcard, or a wholesome neighborhood brochure. Daylight shifted into twilight, and evening inched ever closer like an unwanted audience. One pair of eyes, hazel and heavy with half-remembered grief, sought out the escape routes, the possible hiding spots, the obstacles, the dangers.

The other pair, bright blue and alight with something otherworldly, sought out nothing at all. They were not windows to the soul, those eyes. They were portals into a private, handheld Armageddon.

Detective Darren Wilson McKinley took pride in his work. He took pride in his reputation. He came home every night secure in the understanding that he was doing real good in the world. Darren had given himself, dedicated himself, to the betterment of his community. And no matter what his mistakes—and there were many—he still held onto his mission with a faith and dedication that kept him afloat, even on the worst of days.

But this day, which was fading entirely too quickly into this night, Darren couldn't help but think that he was breaking every oath he had ever made. He wasn't doing good here; he wasn't bettering his community. He, and his young friend, were perpetuating something evil. He would soon bear silent witness to the very ills he had donned his badge to combat. He would watch his own work sullied. Darren was not naïve enough to believe that Seto Kaiba's reputation was entirely fabricated; he knew full well what this man was capable of doing when the ghost of the past had their hooks in him, setting him straight on the path to Hell.

They both walked that path tonight.

The worst part of it all was this: Darren was perfectly at peace with that.

Nonetheless, he put up a vague pretense of resistance, because that was his role. He said, "Remember, Seto. We're here to talk to him. We're doing this the right way. We're not going to put a bullet in him. If you do what I'm . . . pretty sure you want to do, I'm going to have to stop you. Don't make me do that. Don't make me go back to your brother with that on my conscience. I don't want Mokuba's worst nightmare to be my face. God only knows he's been through enough. But I'll do it, if you make me."

Did he believe that? Did he truly believe that?

And more to the point: did he expect Seto to believe it?

Seto stopped, one foot on the front porch, the other on the concrete pathway leading up to it. He turned his head. "I will do what I have to do," he said slowly. "I'm not stupid, Detective. I have a certain tendency to overstep my limitations, I grant you. But he has always been the one to suffer when I sink low enough to do what I want."

The fact that Seto smiled, sardonic and sharp though it was, made Darren flinch.

"Remember that," Darren said. "Hold onto it. Burn it into your memory."

Seto drew in a deep breath, glanced off into the distance for a moment, and then turned his attention back to the Brinkleys' front door. He stepped up fully onto the porch, and waited in silence for Darren to pass him.

As Darren retrieved the key he'd been given, Seto spoke again. Quietly.

To himself, most likely.

". . . Everything is burned into my memory."


3.


Nobody was more surprised when Rebecca Hawkins came barreling into the room than Mokuba, though Connor was a close second. She didn't even take a split second to acknowledge Roland at the door before she took a flying leap and tackled her friends to the floor. Enid and Leo, watching from a distance, both started chuckling; they quickly quieted themselves when they realized that Rebecca was crying.

"I leave you alone for one day!" Rebecca all but shouted before grabbing both boys by the shoulder and pulling them into a hug that would have made a bear proud. "Grandpa watches the news every day! Do you know how hard it is to ignore it? It takes work! And then, I slip once, and actually pay attention, and I hear you've been involved in a shooting?!" She glared at Mokuba. "I know you look up to your brother, but do you have to emulate his reckless streak this much?!"

Mokuba's shock finally wore off enough to allow him to put on a soft little smile. "Sorry, Rebecca. I didn't mean to worry you."

Rebecca scoffed. "Men!"

She then took to cradling Connor as though he were a newborn baby. "You stick with me from now on. These Kaibas are trouble."

Connor actually managed a little laugh. "Y-Yeah. I'm getting that."

Rebecca eventually let them both go and sank onto the floor, removing her glasses so she could wipe at her eyes with her sleeves. "Honestly. You two are going to give me a heart attack. I told Grandpa it wasn't worth it to make friends my own age. I don't have life insurance!"

"You could probably afford it," Mokuba murmured. "And if you can't, come work for Niisama. I can put a word in for you. He's basically waiting for you, anyway. Full benefits."

Rebecca's eyes narrowed to slits. "We'll talk," she said eventually, which caused Mokuba to smile again.

The three children eventually sat down together, with Rebecca holding their hands in both of her own, and Mokuba continued talking.

The most striking part of everything the Brinkleys—mother, father, and beloved son—learned that night was encapsulated by just how casually Mokuba talked about the horrors of his past. The fact that Rebecca didn't react was equally telling. That, in fact, was somehow worse.

The stories he laid out that evening were, quite bluntly, the stuff of nightmares. And yet barely any emotion at all flicked in his eyes or latched onto his voice. He was stone-cold neutral. Sometimes he maintained eye contact; sometimes he didn't. He didn't seem to notice when Enid and Leo had come closer, and had taken up chairs next to their son. He didn't notice that Roland was now standing in the doorway, as opposed to just near it.

He didn't notice when, as he went into more and more detail, Rebecca's poker face slipped and showcased numb horror.

". . . Niisama put him in charge," Mokba was saying now. "He was my bodyguard. That was his job. I mean, if Niisama had to go do something, and he couldn't take me, that's what Saruwatari was there for. Right?"

Connor bit at his lower lip. He nodded, unconsciously. ". . . Magic & Wizards isn't just a game for your brother. Is it?"

Mokuba shook his head. "No. It's the only thing that was ever his. That man didn't let him have anything else. He wouldn't have let Niisama have that, except he never knew about it. I snuck his cards to him one night, in a textbook." A tiny little smile sneaked onto the young Kaiba's face. "I even drew a little Blue-Eyes for him. It was on copy paper, and it didn't really look like the Blue-Eyes, but . . . I wanted him to have one."

Connor nodded again, a bit more confidently. "The dragon is his trademark."

Rebecca smirked. "More people think of Seto Kaiba when they see the Blue-Eyes than Pegasus Crawford." Then she flinched, and eyed Mokuba tentatively.

Mokuba shrugged. "So . . . so when Yugi beat him, even though it wasn't an official match or anything, it . . . shook him. Niisama put everything into dueling. He built his career around it. He staked his entire reputation around it."

"He definitely inspired me," Rebecca said. "His matches were always so intense. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to know what it felt like."

"He . . . he practically invented the kind of dueling you see on TV now. He's a performer. That's what he does. No one's better at working a crowd. No one." Rebecca was nodding sagely. "So when some kid from his school, some random freshman, just showed up and beat him, without so much as a tournament to his name . . . everyone lost faith in my brother."

"But . . . but like you said!" Connor looked scandalized. "It wasn't official! Mister Kaiba may as well have lost a duel to you on the weekend!"

"I've lost plenty of duels to Grandpa," Rebecca put in. "He loves to rub it in my face. Tells me I must be losing my touch, losing to a washed-up old man."

Mokuba favored his friends with a doting little smile, but it vanished like every other pleasant expression he'd had tonight. "It didn't matter. Kaiba-Corp sold itself for those first few years on Niisama being the best duelist in the world. So when Yugi beat him, his reputation was tarnished. He knew it. I mean, yeah, he went out to the summer house to work on his prototype Duel Disk, but there was more to it than that. He had to do damage control. He needed to focus. He left Saruwatari in charge of me so he could put all his energy into fixing everything Yugi broke. He knew . . . if he stayed at home, he'd be too worried about what I thought."

Enid spoke up now, hesitantly. ". . . Your brother must have known you didn't think any less of him."

Mokuba shook his head. "He was fifteen. And . . . and that man messed him up pretty bad." Something about Gozaburo Kaiba put Mokuba in an especially vulnerable state. He had been holding together admirably well all evening, but now he looked ready to cry. "He probably thought I hated him. He hated himself, so why wouldn't I?"

Connor looked ready to cry. Rebecca, who was sitting next to the young Kaiba, leaned against him and squeezed his hand.

Mokuba sniffed and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. "Anyway. Saruwatari was working for Pegasus Crawford. He pushed him into my brother's company, as a spy. A double agent. He was supposed to wait for the right opportunity to strike. So when Niisama left home . . . Saruwatari saw his chance."

Mokuba chuckled, a nihilistic little smirk on his face.

"That was the first time I got kidnapped."


4.


The house was deserted; the only signs that anyone had been here recently were the standard signs of the place's regular occupants. A mug on the coffee table. Dishes in the sink. A backpack hanging on the doorknob of what could only be Connor's bedroom. Darren noted these things with clinical detachment. He kept his attention drawn to a razor's edge on Seto, who walked through the place like it was his own, taking no time at all to consider his surroundings. It was like some sixth sense was guiding him.

As though by crossing this line, Matthew Kerns had drawn some supernatural curse upon him. As though Seto were some sort of revenant, able to draw a bead on his prey through sheer willpower.

Outside, in the Brinkleys' backyard, the two men were treated to nothing of consequence. A large maple sentinel in one corner of the lawn sported the beginnings of a treehouse; a picnic table sat in the shade of its boughs. On the other side of the plot sat a box garden, bearing tomatoes, peppers, and romaine.

The Brinkleys' basement felt like little more than an afterthought. Set against the back wall of the house, sitting off to one side of the porch, it looked like it had originally been intended as a storm cellar: an old wooden door, with a concrete staircase leading down into a cavern of dirt, dust, and forgotten memories.

Darren felt like a tomb robber as he clicked on a flashlight and stepped down into the deep. Seto, of course, bore no reaction at all; his every movement was as polished and precise as always. His arms were flat, relaxed, at his sides. He hadn't spoken since they'd crossed the threshold into the living room. He was like a wraith.

No words, no twitches, no tics. Nothing.

By the time Darren had set one foot onto the dirt floor, Seto burst into movement so sudden and explosive that—if not for years upon years of training—he surely would have cried out. A sudden scuffle, a cry, a grunt, a slam, and the dragon had its prey in its jaws. Matthew Kerns was pinned to the ancient stone that made up the walls down here, in this tiny sanctuary beneath the earth.

"I don't know whether it's funny or insulting that you thought you could hide from me," Seto hissed; in the surrounding silence, his words echoed. Darren took a moment to compose himself before coming up almost casually behind his friend's right shoulder.

Wait. No. That wasn't right.

The man who would be his friend again, hopefully soon.

Right now, Seto Kaiba was nothing to anyone except his brother.

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't find you?" Matthew couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to; Seto had a hand clamped like a vice over his mouth. "Did you think you could hide?!" Darren felt an almost overwhelming urge to avert his gaze. He didn't want to see this. He didn't want to be a part of this. He would have liked nothing more than to be home right now, arguing with Katie about her homework.

But he forced himself to watch. He forced himself into this moment. He had walked into this. He had allowed a man—who was still a boy for all intents and purposes—to have control of this situation. Darren forced himself not only to notice, but to fully recognize, that Matthew, for all he'd been told, didn't look like some cocksure thug with no principles. He didn't look like a criminal.

He looked like a scared kid. He was shaking and tears were starting to spring from his too-wide eyes.

"You've made a hobby out of reminding my brother how much money I throw around this city." Seto's voice lowered the temperature of the air around them. "You seem to truly enjoy reminding him that I own this city. That I toss my head back and act like a king. And your master plan, your great revenge, your message to the establishment, was to piss me off?!"

Seto threw his arm to the side, and Matthew crumpled to the ground. As the boy attempted to scramble to his feet, he squeaked when he looked up and saw the barrel of Seto's sidearm trained on him.

Darren blinked. When had Seto drawn his pistol?

When the fuck had he . . . ?

Darren grit his teeth. "Seto. Remember yourself. Remember him."

Seto didn't seem to hear. It was possible that the elder Kaiba was ignoring Darren willfully, but it was equally possible that he simply wasn't present enough to listen in the first place. The grimace on Seto's face was two parts furious and one part agonized. As though looking at this boy were physically painful. Or, perhaps more likely, he wasn't seeing the boy in front of him at all.

He was seeing every other face he'd ever cursed.

"Do you know . . . how many times . . . I have used my own life as a bargaining chip? How many times I have stared death directly in the face? Do you know how many times I have had to draw this weapon? Because of people like you? Do you?! TALK!"

Matthew's lips trembled.

Darren kept his eyes open only with the greatest effort.

This wasn't justice. This was wrong. This was all wrong. But hadn't he known that from the beginning? Hadn't he prepared himself for this? Hadn't he already signed away his integrity for this? This was what the road to Hell looked like, didn't it? Paved with all the good intentions in the world, and yet it still smelled like smoke and broken promises.

What was left to do, except put his trust in the devil that Gozaburo Kaiba had created?

". . . N-N-No." Somehow, Matthew managed to speak.

Kaiba's grin was a bare-faced threat.

"Somehow . . . I didn't think so."


5.


William Hunter felt like a fugitive, flinching at shadows and huddled on a park bench near the hospital parking lot. He didn't know that Kaiba's big friend was at Saint Claire's, but all the same . . . where else would he have been taken? This was Kaiba's hospital. Of course he was here. Somewhere amongst those spider-webbing hallways, being treated by the best people, with the best equipment, and protected by the best security, was the man Hunter had gotten shot today.

Oh, sure. Hunter hadn't pulled the trigger. But he wasn't stupid. The part of him that still respected his parents and listened to their instructions and advice knew damn well that he wouldn't get off on a technicality here. Seto Kaiba wasn't some yakuza wannabe, but the man sure as shit wasn't a pushover, either. Just because he didn't go around wantonly murdering people he didn't like, didn't mean that he wasn't terrifying.

Hunter found himself struggling to remember what Seto Kaiba was worth. What was the number now? 56 billion? It was something like that. Whatever the exact figure was, he was the kind of rich that didn't make logical sense. Even Hunter, who'd grown up a part of one of the wealthiest families in all of Domino, couldn't figure it out.

Seto Kaiba bought and sold people like him.

Hunter's mind raced as he stared down at his own shoes. He had no business with Kaiba's brother. And he wasn't looking for Brinkley, either. He realized that he could just as easily go through the rest of his life without seeing either of them again. Playing this game with them was so much more trouble than it was worth.

Hunter reached into a pocket and pulled out a poster. It was a flashy little number he'd found on the way here, in the window of a little card shop. The poster was bedazzled by a bunch of Duel Monsters, and right there on the right-hand side, above the name JOEY WHEELER, was the man he'd almost watched die.

Hunter drew in a heavy breath as he punched a number into his phone, put it to his ear, and waited.

He didn't honestly hear the soft, polite voice on the other side of the line. It was all he could do to remember why he'd done this in the first place, why he'd forced himself to come here. This wasn't optional. He had no choice. He closed his eyes and went over the script he'd tried to put together on the way here.

"H-Hello? Um . . . I'm looking . . . um. I'm looking for a patient? He should have come in earlier today?" Pause. "H-His name's . . . um. Joey Wheeler." He thought about adding in the part where he was a cousin, visiting from out of state, but stopped himself. There was no need to overcomplicate everything. He was barely keeping himself from hanging up and running away.

The soft, polite voice started in again, and again Hunter had no idea what the words actually meant.

"Sure. I'll hold. Thank you."

What was he doing? What did he think he would accomplish? He didn't know. He didn't know what he was doing, he didn't know why he was doing it. All William Hunter knew was that he had to do it. He had to know.

He had to know.

The voice came back.

". . . Oh. He's . . . still in ICU, huh? O-Okay. No, no, I understand. No phones. That makes sense. Um . . . do you know . . . when he might be transferred to another room? Maybe?" Another pause for the soft, polite voice. "Oh. R-Right. Just got out of surgery. Sure. Th-Thank you. Yeah, you too."

Hunter dropped the hand holding his phone to the bench, and stared woodenly at the little poster.

Matthew Kerns was a reckless idiot with a death wish he didn't know he had. He couldn't be trusted to understand the gravity of anything. But Hunter knew. Hunter had known from the start. And yet he'd kept pushing. He'd thought that Brinkley was a weak spot in the Kaibas' armor.

"I'm an idiot," Hunter murmured to himself, as he stuffed the poster back into his pocket and stood up. "It's not the money that makes the Kaibas dangerous." He started walking away, unsure of his destination, unsure of anything.

It's how far they're willing to go to protect their own.

On the heels of that revelation, William Hunter prayed for the first time in his life. Prayed that Joey Wheeler would live, and make a full recovery. Because if he didn't, he wasn't sure that he, or Domino City, would survive the aftermath.


6.


Seto kept his feet between Matthew's legs, against the backs of his knees. He'd hunkered down, with his pistol trained almost lazily on his victim's face. The elder Kaiba's face was numb, untouched, almost pristine. But his eyes were thunderstorms, and—for perhaps the first time—Connor Brinkley's cousin seemed to understand just how calamitous that storm was.

And that it was honed, with all its tempestuous fury, directly on him.

"Take a guess . . ." Seto murmured, almost gently, "how many men . . . I have killed to protect my brother. I'll give you a hint: the answer isn't zero."

Matthew didn't even try to answer. Words had no real meaning for him anymore. He sent a spasmodic, pleading look over Seto's shoulder at the detective. Darren's badge was in plain view, his jacket was pulled aside to reveal his service weapon clipped to his hip. And yet he seemed to have no intention of stepping in to take control. The man looked bored. He looked like he wasn't even there.

He looked like he was waiting for his car to fill up at the gas station.

There was no interrupting this, and Darren knew that. There was no stopping it.

You didn't reason with a hurricane.

"I drove my father to suicide," Seto continued in that unsettlingly docile voice. "I stole his empire right out from under him. And I had reasons. Oh, I had reasons. We'd be here for a week if I tried to list them all. But do you know the main motive? Hm? Go ahead and guess."

Seto almost looked . . . affectionate for a moment. It was surely an illusion.

Matthew still hadn't found his voice.

"There was a man. His name was Siegfried. He also put a gun in my brother's face. I killed him. I put a bullet through his throat. I watched him crumple and fold in on himself. I watched him shower my brother in his own blood, like some fucked-up baptism."

The detective closed his eyes.

"And the thing about both of those men? You aren't worth enough to lick . . . their . . . boots. You have no right to force this weapon into my hand. Who the fuck do you think you are?! Putting me in this position again! Have I not done enough? Sacrificed enough? Is this some cosmic joke, put upon me by some trickster god I've managed to anger? Is that what you are? An avatar? An astral projection of my failings? Am I supposed to learn something from you? Is that it?! ANSWER ME!"

Matthew whimpered as the barrel of Seto's weapon pushed against his chin.

The calm, feral savagery on Seto Kaiba's face was a nightmare unlike any this boy had ever had. The storm was raging, hammering against every defense he'd ever put up. His lips trembled. His eyes strained to open themselves wider than they were physically capable. He was too horrified to blink.

His teeth chattered.

"You . . . have no idea . . . what I am. What I am capable of becoming. What I have already become, ten times over. And I'm sick and goddamned tired of your ignorance. There are eight-hundred thousand people in this fucking city, and every . . . single . . . one of them knows better than to cross me. But you . . . oh, you . . . think you're special."

Laughter, slow and apocalyptic, bubbled up in Seto Kaiba's throat.


7.


By the time Mokuba ran out of stories—or the emotional energy to tell them—his audience was surrounding him like they thought he might disappear if they took their eyes off of him. Connor was holding one hand, Rebecca the other, both actively fighting back tears. Mokuba was . . . drained. He stared at the thin carpet floor of the room that had become his private theater, and tried to force himself to take deep, calming breaths.

They were deep, but they didn't calm him.

Eventually, Mokuba managed to speak again. He said, ". . . When people see Niisama act the way he does sometimes, they think of his reputation. The stuff he's known for. And they just kind of . . . go along with it. Well, of course he throws tantrums and yells at people. He's a Kaiba, after all. That's just how he was going to end up."

Something like a sneer crossed Mokuba's face. He glanced down at the hands holding his, and his expression softened.

"Niisama overreacts sometimes. He's . . . constantly right on the edge of a breakdown. He barely sleeps. He runs himself ragged. If not for Roland, he would probably forget to eat. He'd just run off of cheap coffee and spite. When people threaten me, he's not like one of those rich parents who can't believe anyone would dare look sideways at their precious little indigo baby. He's . . . he's remembering all the things I've ever been through. The things he blames himself for. And he just . . . snaps."

"But . . . none of that is his fault!" Connor insisted.

"He may be your guardian," Rebecca added, "but that doesn't take the blame away from the people who've actually hurt you."

Mokuba nodded. "I know. I know that. But Niisama doesn't handle it too good when people try to remind him." The boy smiled, fondly but sadly. "Niisama would rather take responsibility for everything, even if it means he has to take the blame, too. If he does that, at least he gets to keep control. If he doesn't, he has to admit that some things happen no matter what he does. And that's even worse."

Enid lowered her head. "It's a good thing there's a police officer with him right now," she murmured. "I shudder to think what your brother might think to do, otherwise." She flinched. "Not that I blame him, honestly. Not after . . . all that you've said. But . . ."

"It's okay." Mokuba lowered his head, in turn. It looked like they were praying. "I know."

The young Kaiba kept the sad little smile on his face. He didn't have the heart to tell his best friend's mother that Detective Darren Wilson McKinley wasn't nearly the deterrent that she thought he was. Mokuba didn't know the man very well, but he did know that Darren had lost his youngest child to a teenager with a gun. The likelihood that he would be able to stop Seto from . . . extracting justice, was slim bordering on impossible. With the way that Rebecca was looking very pointedly at the floor and straining to keep a scowl off her face, it seemed like she knew this, too.

If there was any hope at all for Matthew Kerns, it rested solely on the shoulders of the one man in all of Domino City who was least likely to give it.


8.


"Let me explain something to you, Matthew." Seto's tone was light, conversational; but his eyes still held barely-caged death in them. "If I were to kill you right now . . . chances are, my brother's friendship with your cousin would end." He took a moment to contemplate the weapon in his hand. "And that, of course, presents a problem. But I hope you understand, that is the only thing keeping you alive right now. I'm still . . . debating whether that's an important enough deterrent."

Seto rose to his full height, towering over his victim's quivering form. He glanced over his shoulder at his grim, silent companion. "The law has never done me any favors. Everything I have ever had to do, has been by my own effort. My blood, my sweat, my tears." He turned back to Matthew. "You shot one of my brother's closest friends. He may very well die. Do you know that? You might be a murderer within the next handful of hours. Has that . . . sunk in for you? For all I know, you might be a murderer now."

Seto didn't notice, and neither did Matthew, but Darren did. The timbre of his voice had changed. His anger had turned raw. They had reached the heart of the matter. It wasn't the danger to Mokuba's life that had Seto contemplating murder. That wasn't what had the gun in his hand right now.

It was Joey Wheeler.

"I was taught to take an Old Testament approach to things like this," Seto continued, almost purring now. "Joseph Wheeler might live. But you can't know whether he will, any more than I can. So, for all intents and purposes, you've killed a friend of—"

mine

"—my brother's. For the purposes of this discussion, you've murdered him. You took out a gun that does not belong to you, that you have no training with. You postured and peacocked and made an idiot out of yourself. Not two feet from my brother. You pointed that gun at your cousin."

There. That rawness again.

Here, Darren thought stoically, was another sticking point. This boy had pointed a deadly weapon at a member of his own family. At an eleven-year-old boy who had never done any harm to him. Who probably still looked up to him, despite all that had happened recently. Who loved him. Who was, unlike Mokuba with his years of practical experience and his access to military-grade training and protection, almost entirely defenseless.

Anyone Mokuba liked, any friend or acquaintance, any fast food worker he happened to appreciate, any stranger on the street who smiled at him, was under Seto's protection in some way or another. And Connor Liam Brinkley was fast becoming an integral member of the young Kaiba's innermost circle. Someone he trusted. Someone he loved.

Mokuba had faced threats like this before. He wasn't fine, but he was in a much better state than Connor was. Connor was shaken. Connor was scared. Connor's life had just changed forever.

For perhaps the first time, it wasn't Mokuba who had smoke curling out from behind Seto Kaiba's fangs right now.

"I am not a kind man," Seto said acidly. "I am not a generous man, and I am not a hero. What I have to decide right now, is whether or not I dare take the risk of letting you leave this property. Will I steal my brother's best friend from him? Will I steal Connor Brinkley's best friend from him? Will I take a family that has done nothing to me, and rip it in half? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. If I have to."

Seto leaned down again.

"So tell me. Matthew. Do I have to?"


9.


The three friends stood there at the end of the night, in that private waiting room, watching each other and trying to figure out what to say. When Professor Hawkins arrived, Rebecca settled on giving both Connor and Mokuba a kiss on the cheek, and a rather forced-sounding, chipper goodbye. But even so, she didn't leave just yet. She stepped over to her grandfather and watched.

She, like Enid and Leo, seemed to sense finality here. Connor might not have understood that finality, but Mokuba did, and that was enough.

Eventually, Connor gave up on trying to speak, and hugged him.

"You're my best friend," Connor whispered, choking back tears. "You know that, right?"

Mokuba, blinking too fast and too furiously, returned Connor's embrace and rested his head against the other boy's shoulder. "I . . . I know. You're my best friend, too."

". . . I love you."

The tears came then, more bitterly than Mokuba had ever felt. What kind of sick joke was this? Why couldn't he just cut ties now, before Seto's draconian fury broke everything?

He knew that he would never face this boy again. How could he? How could he look Connor Liam Brinkley in the eye again? When he was ultimately responsible for the funeral Connor was about to attend?

If Mokuba had been any kind of Kaiba, if he had learned any of the hard lessons Seto had been forced to learn all those years ago, Mokuba would just walk away. Cut it off now, and let it be done. A clean break. It would hurt. God, it would hurt. But better that than . . . than . . .

"I love you, too."


10.


It was difficult to watch Matthew try to respond to the things Seto Kaiba had said, and done, to him. Anger, terror, embarrassment, and every sliver of emotion in between bled through. One moment he was clamoring to apologize, then the next he was blaming Seto and Mokuba, then he would notice the firearm still dangling entirely too close to his face and backpedal.

Darren found himself paying more attention to Seto's reactions than Matthew's words.

There were too many tells to make note of them all, but they told a story all the same. He was angry; of course he was. Seto Kaiba was always angry at something. He was disgusted. To see his latest antagonist in such a state of disrepair obviously wasn't the spectacle he'd hoped for. If Darren had to guess, watching the boy crumble so quickly, so easily, did nothing but further inflame his anger, and did absolutely nothing to satisfy it.

And then there was the simple fact that there was nothing like this kind of dirty, unraveling vulnerability to make a child look younger than he was; all of Matthew's swagger had vanished. Every shield, every defense, he'd been presenting to the world for years was gone. If the good detective had to guess, seeing the consequences of that pistol he'd fired off in that alley had been the tipping point.

It had started shattering his defenses. It had made everything real.

And now, seeing another one, directed straight at his own face . . . whatever he had left was little more than dust in the wind.

Of all the things to see on his friend's face, however, it was the pity that completely disarmed Darren. Seto had tunnel vision to such a degree that he was monstrous when it came to protecting his brother. Anyone who posed any kind of threat to Mokuba, no matter how small, was an enemy. That was it. That was the end of his categorization process.

But this was different.

Darren didn't know what it was that Seto could read in Matthew's rambling manifesto, but whatever it was . . . it was doing a better job of diffusing the danger of this whole situation than anything Darren had ever been trained to do.

Eventually, Seto growled like a wild animal—like a dragon—and slammed his weapon into its holster. He reached down, hauled Matthew to his feet, and pulled him up so that they were staring directly at each other.

". . . Are you listening to me, boy?" Seto whispered. "Is my every word burning itself into your memory?"

His frenzied nodding was answer enough.

"You are going to learn, firsthand, exactly what I can do to you without lifting a finger. I am going to use every . . . single . . . resource I have, to instill in you just how much of a mistake it was to cross me. And if you learn anything from the experience, then offer thanks to whatever force you please. Because if you keep holding to this narrative you have going on in your head, that you're blameless and everything is everyone else's fault, you are going to break."

Matthew's boots scratched at the floor, scrambling for purchase, but Seto's grip on him was ironclad.

"Do you understand me?" Seto asked. It was a rhetorical question. "What I have, you cannot fathom. From this day forward, know that I will have eyes on you. Every. Single. Day. Wherever you go, whatever you think to do, I will be watching." He paused. "Pick a god, Matthew Kerns. Pray to that god with everything you have left that Joseph Wheeler survives your stupidity. Because if he doesn't . . ."

Matthew squeaked.

"You just spent your last hours of natural light huddled in the dirt."

Seto practically threw the boy at Darren; he sailed without resistance.

Darren watched as Seto whirled on a heel and headed for the stairs.

"Do what you please," he snarled over his shoulder. "I'm done here."


11.


Later, far past midnight, as Mokuba sat huddled on his bed with a little Sword Stalker clutched in his arms, Seto came home. His silhouette had never seemed quite so ominous.

Mokuba sat there in the dark, unable to speak. The tears had stopped a while ago. All that was left were the streaks down his face. But his eyes were dry now, and he stared at his brother with a Kaiba's resolve.

Ready to hear what he'd been dreading for hours now.

Seto held a hand beside Mokuba's light switch, a silent request which Mokuba accepted with an almost imperceptible nod. Light washed through the room, and the young Kaiba watched his elder almost stumble over to the only chair in the room, and all but collapse into it.

Seto stared at nothing. He flexed his fingers, closed his eyes, and Mokuba felt a surge of resentment that was followed up immediately by a hot wave of shame.

Eventually, Seto spoke:

". . . He's out of surgery. He's not completely out of danger, but prospects are good."

Mokuba blinked. It took him a long while to figure out what his brother was talking about. Then realization hit.

Joey.

"O-Oh. That's good. That's . . . that's good."

Seto sighed, adjusted his weight, and cradled his head in his hands. "I think . . . I fucked up, kid."

Mokuba forced himself to ask: "What do you mean?"

Seto grimaced. "I swore to myself. A long time ago. That anyone who hurt you, anyone who tried to hurt you, would . . . pay the price. It was the easiest vow I'd ever made. It was so easy to figure out."

Mokuba shuffled over to the edge of his bed. "Niisama . . . ?"

Seto seemed to actively force himself to regain composure. "I could have lost you today. You could have lost your friend. The Brinkleys could have lost their son. So many parents could have lost their children today. How much cleaner could this case have been? How much clearer could my course of action be?"

Mokuba frowned, but more out of confusion than anything else.

This was not the way he had anticipated this meeting. Seto didn't look at all like himself. He looked tired, and that was normal. He looked angry, and that was normal. But he did not look confident, and that was . . . disconcerting, to say the least.

Seto leaned back in Mokuba's chair and stared up at the ceiling. "I promised you, when you were little, that I would destroy anything, and anyone, that tried to hurt you. It's one of the most important promises I've ever made."

Mokuba's mouth suddenly ran dry. "Niisama . . . what happened?"

Seto closed his eyes. "Nothing," he said. "Not a goddamned thing. We found him. Of course we did. He probably heard us coming through the front door and ran for the basement."

". . . Matt."

"Yes. There he was. Lying in the dirt, shuddering, looking like a wounded animal. I can barely remember what I said. It's nothing I would want to repeat to the public. But it worked. It put the fear of God into him. Oh, yes. He feared me. By the time I was done, I think he would have given his left arm to get away from me."

Mokuba reached out and put a hand on Seto's shoulder. Just like so many people had done for him, earlier that night. "Niisama. You . . . you didn't . . ."

"I didn't keep my promise. I didn't destroy him. Darren told me I did the right thing. Roland told me I did the right thing. He's in police custody. He's exactly where he should be."

The level of relief Mokuba felt, the sheer weight that lifted from his shoulders, his chest, his soul, was indescribable. He visibly deflated, and was hit by a wave of fatigue. New tears sprang to his eyes, and he smiled. It was shaky, that smile, but it held.

"N-Niisama . . ."

Seto reached up with one hand and covered his face. "The right thing. I did the right thing. Didn't I? Isn't this what I should have done? Isn't this the proper way to . . . to . . ." He drew in a breath that shuddered, and let it out with something suspiciously close to a wail. "Didn't I make the right decision?"

"You . . . y-you . . ."

"That's what they said. It's what I know. Isn't it? Didn't I fight for the greater good? Didn't I think of your happiness as well as your safety? Isn't that important? Isn't that right?"

Mokuba opened his mouth, but closed it in the same moment. He realized, right then, that he didn't know what to say to help his brother right now. Maybe there wasn'tanything to say. He had never felt younger, or less sure of himself.

". . . Why does it feel like I've made the worst mistake of my life?"

Silence fell then, with Mokuba standing vigil over Seto's private torment. They stayed that way for several agonizing, plodding minutes. More than once, Mokuba wondered—hoped—that Seto had fallen asleep. But then the hand covering his face fell against his knee, and his gaze—dazed and hazy but undoubtedly aware—locked on nothing.

Mokuba eventually turned away for a moment, contemplating, before he clambered into his brother's lap and sat there, almost defiantly, clutching Seto's shirt and leaning against his heart. Seto didn't respond, didn't react, immediately. But the elder's arms eventually enveloped the younger and, while tears didn't fall from the dragon's eyes, there was a mist over the ocean.

"That man thought he understood everything," Mokuba murmured.

Seto didn't ask who he meant.

"He thought he had everything figured out. He taught you to think so, too. That man would have done it. That man would have killed him."

Seto's vision turned a little more outward. Became a little more present.

"He would have," Seto agreed, his voice like a rumble of thunder and surety.

"That's why it feels like a mistake. Because that man would have told you so. But what does he know? How much good has his stupid life lessons ever done for us?"

A smile, faint and flighty, cracked across Seto's face.

"Not fucking much."