A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed last chapter; it means a lot to me considering the surprisingly large amount of hits I received. Enjoy this one, and hopefully we'll be getting into the thick of the plot soon. Bwahaha.

And to my lovely anonymous flamer, I thank you for the complement on my story and chuckle at your immaturity over a review I left on a story that was rather harmless compared to others. You made my day.

(Here's hoping that the page divider will work this time as well…)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yami no Matsuei or Yu-Gi-Oh!

"It's the same… Those who die and those that get left behind… they all feel alone!"-Kurosaki Ichigo, Bleach, Volume 1. (Tite Kubo)

Life After Death
Chapter Four: And Life Goes On
-bohr-d

Konoe-kachou looked over from the projector to the door that had just been slammed into the wall as it was opened. A panicked looking Watari practically flew into the room, hurriedly claiming the empty seat next to Tatsumi. Before anyone could say anything, a certain blue-eyed brunette stormed into the room as well, though with more of a dignified and threatening air about him as his eyes settled on the blond currently trying to ignore everything going on around him.

Tatsumi looked from Seto to Watari before abruptly getting up and moving to another seat. He wanted no part in whatever was going on between the two Kinki operatives at the moment.

"Watari! Kyouji! Where on Earth have you two been? I called this staff meeting over forty minutes ago!" Konoe frowned, glaring at the two, "And I want a good reason. None of those lab excuses this time."

Seto took a deep breath to calm down to a mild anger. He would eventually deal with his partner's lack of understanding that trying to take apart and melt down a computer for a project, then realizing it wasn't his to begin with nor was it made of the right type of metal anyways was not a good trait to have. Especially since now the Gushoshin gods refused to issue him a new one on top of that.

Blue eyes alight with cold, icy anger; Seto kept his stare on the top of Watari's head as he took the seat next to Tatsumi. There would be time to verbally assault his partner later. Right now there was work to be done.

"Well? I'm looking for an answer."

Watari shrugged, fixing a crooked grin on his face as he tried to explain his and Seto's lateness, "We were caught in the middle of something…? We simply just lost track of the time, and plus we didn't even get the memo until about ten minutes ago."

Seto glanced at Konoe. "He destroyed something personal of mine. He ran, and I followed. We weren't in the laboratory when the memo was delivered."

Knowing from a month of experience that that was all he was going to get out of Seto, and after a few decades of learning that Watari would cheerfully try to avoid the subject, the head of the Shokan Division let it pass with a grumble and a heavy sigh. "Fine. As I was saying…"

An hour later found Watari and Seto heading back to their laboratory. The blond scientist seemed oblivious to the glare trying to burn a hole into his head, courtesy of his irate younger partner, as he hummed a nameless tune underneath his breath.

'I imagine this is what Tsuzuki gets after he dumps his paperwork on Bon one too many times…' Watari thought as he entered the lab, throwing a file full of budget-cutting methods given to the whole staff on a pile full of other folders. Seto sneered in disgust at his partner's organization methods for not the first time, and settled himself in his seat.

He wasn't as angry as he had been a few hours ago, but then again, sitting through a long and tedious board meeting would abate one's temper a bit. He vaguely remembered sitting through them during his mortal life, but details were hazy at best.

'But one thing I'm completely positive about… they were as bad then as they are now.' Seto mused, sighing inwardly as he realized that he would be quite far behind on his self-appointed organizing task now that his means of performing it were now melted and quite beyond repair.

Watari ignored the first ten minutes or so of grumbling, muttered cursing, and foul glares in his direction as he worked on some research for a case of Terazuma and Wakaba's. After fifteen it was just getting ridiculous. It was just a laptop; after all… it wasn't as if Watari had really done some serious damage.

'Then again, with that boy when it comes to any sort of technology…'

Pulling out a clean sheet of paper from a drawer and a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat, the scientist quickly sketched out a crude rectangular object. This sudden pause in furious typing and shifting through papers made the younger of the two operatives look up from his pile of paperwork and give a not-so-veiled look of curiosity towards his partner.

Suddenly, golden-brown eyes met Seto's own ice-blue ones. "If you could have the perfect computer, Kyouji… what would it be like?"

The brunette glared deeply at his partner, but as usual, had little effect on the man. Was Watari asking to be strangled for asking such a question so shortly after the demise of Seto's own laptop?

When Seto didn't respond, Watari sighed exasperatedly, "Just humor me, will you?"

Not knowing where this was leading, Seto began rattling off a list of details that he wanted in a computer; everything from color scheme to weight to memory capacity and programs he wanted it to compatible with. And just to frustrate the man, Seto threw in some things he knew probably didn't exist. Hell, Watari probably didn't know what half the things were that he had growled under his breath. But the scientist brushed off the cold tone of voice and seemed to be scribbling even faster now, this time what looked like words from Seto's view.

After a moment or two of pen scratching on paper, Seto's curiosity grew to impatience. He was about to ask Watari just what he was doing when the blond… stuck his hand straight through the sheet.

And it disappeared into it.

'What the hell?' thought the brunette, having never seen his partner's special ability at work before.

Seconds later, Watari smirked in triumph, getting up from his seat and marching over to Seto's desk. A thin eyebrow quirked fractionally as Seto frowned, "And just what the hell are you doing?"

Watari didn't respond; instead he whipped his hand out of the paper, and with it came a laptop, silver with a slight blue sheen. Throwing it casually towards Seto, who caught it deftly with a look that could only mean "are you insane?" The blond smirked. "Built to your specifications. I already apologized and whatever. So hopefully now you'll stop acting like a sulking child and cease with the glaring and muttering now that you have your precious laptop back. Seriously… you're a shinigami, not a five-year old."

Seto didn't know what to say. He was torn between berating Watari and, to his horror, thanking the man. Just what was this place doing to him? No one as far as he could recall had ever talked to him in such a manner before. Tsuzuki was the one that had the attitude of a five-year old at times, not him!

"…I was not sulking."

Golden eyes crinkled in mirth as their owner shrugged and turned back to his desk, "Of course you weren't. And I don't spike the coffee with my experiments."

There was no retort after that, to Watari's slight shock. And when his gaze flickered over to the sullen boy in the corner of the laboratory a few minutes later, he noted with amusement that the laptop was being put to good use. Long nimble fingers flying over the keys, Seto's attention was fully focused on the machine in front of him, muttering and glares ceased.

"How did you do it?"

The sudden question almost made Watari drop the vial of acid he held in his hands at that moment. He turned around and looked at Seto inquisitively, "How did I do what?" he asked, thoroughly confused.

"The paper. The laptop, Watari."

A smile began to form on the blond's face as he remembered the event about two weeks prior; "Ohhh… is someone curious? And here I was thinking you wanted as little as possible to do with me even though we've been working together for the past few months."

Seto glared, "Just answer the question," he said, though the brunette didn't deny his curiosity over the matter.

"It's my special ability. I can give life to inanimate objects and machines for a short amount of time, as well as anything I draw." Watari explained, returning to his experiment and missing the frown that crossed Seto's face.

Muttering came from Seto, "I see. …Interesting. Well, that explains why the blasted thing decided to shut down all of a sudden and blast out music when I didn't even have a sound program running…"

The scientist tried hard not to let the grin creeping up his face be seen. He just hoped that the laptop didn't grow hostile like the water cooler Tatsumi had had to destroy a few years before then. His partner finally seemed to be getting a small respect for him. Best not to let all that work go to waste.

The next afternoon found the two Kinki operatives working in the lab, as per usual. But, oddly enough, Watari wasn't concocting one of his potions, and Seto wasn't off at his desk in the far corner of the laboratory, trying to ignore the ramblings of his bordering-on-insane partner.

Instead, the brunette had finally gotten fed up with the haphazard filing systems that seemed to work for Watari, but were driving Seto insane, and had taken away and hidden Watari's chemicals. Watari wouldn't get them back until he helped Seto finish re-filing everything.

And well, let's just say that the blond didn't take too well to having his work taken away from him…

"Watari-san…"

The man smirked as he shuffled a stack of papers before setting them off to the side, "Hmm? What's that? You're going to give me back my potions now?"

Seto's eye twitched as he had to swat away another offending creature. "Either call these… things… off, or you will never, ever, see your so-called, Enma-be-damned potions again." The brunette growled menacingly, grabbing one of Watari's stick figures brought to life and squeezing it between his index finger and thumb in hopes to alleviate a fraction of the stress he was feeling at the moment.

"Now, now, no need to be so mean to the little things. They're rather cute and helpful, after all."

Resisting the urge to throttle his partner as he was doing to the stick figure in his grasp, Seto sighed and continued to use the squirming, yelling thing as a stress-ball. "You're their creator. Of course you would think of them as such… but to the rest of us sane people, they're a menace," a sharp prick on his finger caused him to drop the figure in his hand, "…It bit me. It bit me! Watari-san, your things are rabid. This cannot be a good sign."

Amber eyes rolled in amusement as Watari turned around, "Oh don't be…" The drawings had attached themselves quite literally to Seto, by means of teeth that Watari hadn't drawn on them in the first place, "On second thought, maybe it's a good idea if we get rid of them now."

So, the filing was put on hold for the moment as the two shinigami worked together, for once, to get rid of the feral drawings. Such was the scene that Hisoka was greeted with as he knocked on the glass door of the lab. Watari waved cheerily at the green-eyed teen, while Seto tried to compose himself into a state of dignity, which was hard seeing as he had several small stick-figure people clamped to his arms as well as looking quite disheveled.

Hisoka didn't want to know what was going on. He had learned that it was better not to ask, but just to let it be quite early on in the job. Especially when it came to Watari. "Kachou wants to know why you two haven't reported to his office with the results of your scouting yet."

It was as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over them. Watari and Seto looked at each other, the thought "Oh shit," running though their heads. Hisoka picked up on the waves of panic and irritation coming from the two shinigami and promptly excused himself after dropping a folder on the table.

"You didn't tell me we had to do a sector check this afternoon, Watari-san." Seto said, grabbing the last of the little demons and chucking them into a box with the rest of them.

The scientist shrugged, "I was so occupied that it totally skipped my mind. Let's see…" Watari picked up a paper from underneath a book on Medieval alchemy, "We're supposed to scout out the lower half of our sector today… mainly Domino City and the surrounding areas. Shouldn't take more than a few hours."

'A few hours that could have been spent doing something constructive…' the brunet inwardly groaned, before nodding and grabbing his blazer. Hopefully, they'd be back before Konoe could notice that they screwed up.

"Yuugi! Jii-san! I'm home!" Mokuba called as he entered the mansion, his voice ringing off of the walls.

After his brother had died, specific instructions left in his will said that Mouto Sugoroku, if he wanted to, would be who Seto wanted to adopt his brother. In no way, shape or form would the raven-haired boy be sent back to an orphanage. Yuugi's grandfather had agreed to the adoption, and at Mokuba's pleading request, the two had moved into the Kaiba Estate with him.

Mokuba couldn't just leave all the people that worked there without a job, now could he?

Walking into the kitchen, the grey-eyed boy spotted Yuugi cooking something at the stovetop. "Hey, Yuugi!" Yuugi turned around, but the appearance of crimson eyes instead of violet made Mokuba change his greeting, "Oops. Sorry, Atem. I didn't realize it was you."

The once-pharaoh chuckled, "It's quite all right, Mokuba. Yuugi and I are nearly impossible to tell apart from behind."

Mokuba grabbed a soda from the fridge and sat down at on a stool next to the counter, "But you would think that after a few weeks I'd have gotten used to it by now."

Atem shrugged, "You seem to be taking it well, I have to say. You all did, actually. Back in Egypt, housing another, human, soul inside one's body would have been looked upon as some sort of dark magic."

"'Back in Egypt?' You're starting to sound like an old person, Atem." Chuckled Mokuba, before he spotted the clock on the wall and groaned. "I have to leave now…? I swear, I don't know how he did it, managing school and work and Duel Monsters all at the same time."

A small flash of light came from the Sennen Puzzle hanging around Atem's neck, and suddenly Yuugi was standing in his place, muttering about his darker half's horrendous- although slowly improving- cooking skills. Yuugi had noticed with a small smile that Mokuba was beginning to talk more about his brother again. After the car accident, the young Kaiba had been so quiet and withdrawn; he wouldn't speak a word about Seto nor the day that he died and rarely about anything at all, really.

"Honestly, I couldn't tell you how Kaiba-kun did either." Yuugi said, dumping the remains of whatever Atem had attempted to cook down the disposal in the sink, "But he always did. And I'm sure you'll do fine. He must have had real faith in you to leave you in charge of Kaiba Corp."

A frown marred Mokuba's usually cheerful disposition. "He wasn't planning on leaving it to me for a long, long time, Yuugi. …I'm gonna be late. Isono's probably waiting for me in the car. I'll see you later tonight."

After a few hours of working, Mokuba groaned at the amount he still had left, and the fact that he also had homework on top of that.

'This is killing me… at this rate, I'm going to end up either failing school or making Kaiba Corp. go broke… I need to get out of here…'

Quickly saving his files, he grabbed his jacket from the chair next to the door of his office and exited the small room. His secretary looked at the teen quizzically, but didn't say anything as Mokuba punched the elevator button and waited for the elevator to make its way up. This certain secretary had been the last one that Seto had hired, and she vaguely remembered the elder Kaiba brother going out for walks when he needed to clear his head or when the work had finally gotten to him. She assumed that this was what Mokuba was doing at the moment, and a vague smile crossed her face. It wasn't healthy for Mokuba, who in reality was still a child, to be cooped up in an office building all day.

The elevator dinged, and the raven-haired teen stepped inside, catching his secretary's glance momentarily before the doors shut. "Have a nice walk, Kaiba-sama."

"…Kyouji, will you please come out of spirit form already, people are staring at me like I'm insane."

"Really? And here I was, thinking you already were insane. Genius is just on this side of—"

"Then that would make you less than sane as well, wouldn't it now, Mister Prodigy?"

"…Touché, Watari-san."

The two shinigami had finished their scouting of the suburban areas of Domino City, and were currently investigating the city itself. So far, there had been no incidents, nor anything remotely interesting. Then again, it was the Kinki sector, after all. Nothing really went on around there often.

And as per usual, Seto had opted to stay in spiritual form for the entire time, as he always did when Konoe had them go into Domino. It was too soon after his death, Seto always argued, and he didn't want to be running into anyone that he could have known when he was alive.

And it really irked Seto even more that he wouldn't even be able to tell those who he had known from other people. He couldn't really even remember what he had been like before he died.

Watari had gradually, persistently attempted to draw the moody shinigami out of his shell, and through odd and underhanded methods, the blond had gotten Seto to tell him of the missing gaps in his memory. Watari could relate, as he really couldn't remember anything of his past as well.

"Oh, come on, will you? We're almost done, and I'm hungry. I'll buy you dinner, even."

Seto frowned, although only Watari was able to see it. "Why are you persistent about this?"

Watari shrugged in response, and turned down a side alley. He was sick of getting odd looks from people who thought he was arguing with thin air. Seto followed, "You do know if I get seen by someone—"

The scientist waved Seto's argument off, "yes, yes… whatever. If you're so worried about it, then disguise yourself or something."

This had to be the dumbest idea Seto had heard in a while. "Disguise myself. How- may I ask- would I be able to do that? It's not like we have anything I could use, you moron."

Sighing, Watari wondered why he had ever tried to make his partner more sociable if all it meant was loosing a sarcastic, ill-tempered person with a thousand or so comebacks and insults for everything and everyone upon the Meifu.

'I'd hate to know how many enemies he made during his lifetime with that attitude of his…' thought the scientist.

"Well, you could probably muss your hair up a bit, and slouch when you walk," Watari offered, watching Seto's scowl grow deeper at the prospect, "Or, and here's an idea, you actually be nice and friendly to people! No one would ever know it was you, then."

Seto refrained from having his eye twitch at the blatant insult and sarcastic tone Watari used."…Do you want me to hurt you?"

"No. But come on, stop being a coward, Kyouji."

Oh, that was it. No one called Seto a coward… no one. "You're on."

There didn't seem to be much of a change to the blond shinigami, just a faint ripple of energy around the younger of the two's form. But to anyone else in the alley, it would have seemed as if Seto had stepped out of thin air.

A smirk graced the blue-eyed teen's face. "You said something about dinner, I believe?"

It was beginning to get dark out, Mokuba noticed, and although he could barely make out the lights of the Kaiba Corp. headquarters building in the distance behind him, the boy felt that he still needed to walk. A grumble sounded from his stomach, and Mokuba realized that he hadn't eaten since lunch at school that day. Come to think of it, he was rather thirsty as well.

Recognizing a small restaurant across the street that he and Seto had frequented, Mokuba quickly checked for traffic once, twice, and a third time- which had become a habit as of late, ever since…

'Focus on something else… now's not the time to be thinking of that.' Mokuba thought to himself, dashing across the street as fast as he could.

Breathing slightly erratically from the quick dash, Mokuba stood for a moment outside the restaurant, glancing inside through the large glass windowpane. It seemed to be pretty packed that evening. Even though he could probably get a table before anyone, being who he was, Mokuba didn't want to cheat other people out of a spot they had been waiting for. He wasn't like his brother in that sense.

Deciding to catch something from a local ramen shop or something on the way back to Kaiba Corp., Mokuba looked around the restaurant one last time before turning away and heading back. At least, that was what he was planning to do, until a duo at one of the tables next to the window, right on the edge, caught his eye.

His breath caught in his throat and for a moment Mokuba wondered if what he was seeing was real.

For there, sitting across from a animated, smiling blond man who seemed to be teasing his companion, was a figure very familiar to Mokuba. The hair may have been unkempt, and the outfit far too casual, but there was no mistaking that scowl nor the posture that screamed irritation. And Mokuba would have bet everything that he owned that the eyes that he couldn't see were a bright, icy blue.

It was his brother.