A/N: Didn't think I'd get here, did you? Neither did I for a while. But I am happy to announce the conclusion of Let Us Dance. I have revised the previous chapters, seeing as how many of them were poorly written. So in that respect I believe I have maintained the correct tone. I hope this is a satisfactory ending to this tale. I will be writing much more frequently from now on. I thank all of those who have read my writings for coming back. For those who are new to my works, welcome!

I know have an account on user name Oceanspray. Please feel free to see some of my original works.

- Ocean

Chapter Five - Exhortation

The club didn't bother him much anymore. The people were still an obstacle, sure, but he'd become pretty efficient at ignoring what he didn't want to acknowledge.

He was tired of arguing with himself over propriety. To be concerned with the cares and stares of others wasn't worth his effort or his time. His company took care of such appearances anyway. Hadn't you heard? It was in the news. His corporation was fine. His brother was fine. He was fine.

That had become his new word as of late. Fine. It was the first word he'd said to his brother on that night he'd fallen. It had been the last word he'd said to his company not an hour before arriving at the club. It was a façade that worked pretty well. Not a word strong enough to insult, but a word that carried enough weight that others would not question him further.

He was the great Seto Kaiba. The strong, invincible, successful, and triumphant Seto Kaiba. And he was fine.

Seto took a long drink of his Tangoray Collins, enjoying the smooth bite of the vodka as it dulled his senses and his presence further into the corner of the club. His coat he'd flung carelessly over the empty chair at his table; his shirt collar was unbuttoned three holes down. He'd long since lost track of the number of drinks that had burned his throat and warmed his belly. Some amount close to ten, somewhere.

He chuckled to himself. Seto not knowing the exact number of something was funny.

Tapping his finger against the table, Seto closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to dance along with the harsh pulse of the music. It was exotic and smooth, heavy and sweet-tasting like the pungent aroma of sex, drugs and rock n' roll. The hypnotic lights flowed behind his eyelids and soothed him, lulling him happily into humming a tune that two months prior he hadn't even known existed.

Having a nervous breakdown hadn't been such a disastrous affair as Seto thought it would be. It was actually quite liberating. He didn't have to work at his façade anymore. It took place naturally now that there was little to distract it into breaking. Being Seto Kaiba, president of Kaiba Corporations, was a piece of cake. Cake. Hmm.

Seto opened his eyes and called a waitress over. He really had a sweet tooth when he drank.

Mokuba didn't call him anymore. He'd tried, for a while, but eventually Seto's aloof and indifferent attention was too much for Mokuba's heart to handle. He still lived at the house, but he and his brother lived entirely separate lives. Business was all that brought them together, five, ten minutes a day. That was all. That was enough.

What was going on with his little brother Seto didn't know, and this didn't bother him as much as he thought it should. How far did the tie of loyalty stretch? How far down into the rabbit hole was Alice supposed to fall? And once down at the bottom, she'd found that the rabbit had deceived her – how much should she be willing to forgive?

It was an interesting question. Seto wasn't interested in the answer.

A man walked by his table, the aroma of tobacco following in his wake and lingering around Seto. The smell made him nostalgic, reminding him of the carefree days of his childhood before his parents' death. Days where he indulged his fancies and chased after his impulses. It sounded like a nice place to be. He was done with his dessert anyway, and had to get up to take a piss.

Ha! A piss. A phrase he'd never dared use before. Seto said it out loud, once, just to feel the taste of it on his tongue. He chuckled at the tingle it left behind and got up to take care of business.

It was an uneventful trip, but he got the job done and managed to bum a cigarette and light off some guy before making his way out to the back alley. He wanted some fresh air to absorb himself in.

8 8 8 8 8

Seto leaned against the opposite wall facing the club. The side door bounced against its frame in protest against his stumbling passage. Music reverberated down the narrow alley in strange, reversed echoes that grated on his nerves. He missed his pocket once before shoving his hand into it and pushed away from the wall.

The push as too much for his inebriated senses to handle, causing him to bend forward at his waist and windmill his arms for balance. Once achieving poise he stopped with feet shoulder-width apart, took a deep breath, pushed his palms downward, and shivered. That whole experience had almost been fun.

Seto sniffed when he smelled smoke. He looked down at his hand, a curious expression on his face as he was reminded of his cigarette. He brought it to his lips and took a long drag. That thick, disgustingly bitter taste was wonderful for the nerves.

A shiver ran up his spine, jerking Seto's limbs and torso foolishly. Balancing his cigarette between his lips he turned around with the intention to pace. He saw a dark spot on the ground, a shadow cast by the lone light that hung above the back entrance to the club. He followed the darkness with bloodshot eyes to brown tennis shoes, continuing the trek up over jeans and to the face of the owner of the shadow.

Yuugi was rigid, tension bleeding from his eyes and throughout his body. His eyes were narrowed in barely restrained contempt, and their color was blackened in the darkness of the alley. His lips were taught and firm; a thin line that crossed his face.

Yuugi was too much for Seto to comprehend. In a momentary absence of control his jaw disengaged. "I'm drunk," he blurted out around his cigarette.

Yuugi didn't react to the comment, though Seto was confused by it. He repeated the phrase silently, mouthing the words to himself. Stringing them together he got their meaning and grimaced.

"You-!" Yuugi started, taking a step forward. "Yo-!" He shook his head quickly, clenching his eyes against the malice he wanted to unleash on Seto. Yuugi pushed his palm to his forehead and forced himself to calm down, hissing air between his teeth.

Seto stared at him unblinking and removed the cigarette from between his lips. The shock of Yuugi's unexpected presence and his own admission of being drunk had afford him an surprising moment of sobriety.

"Keep that bottled up too long and you'll burst," Seto mumbled. He flicked his cigarette ashes casually to the side, belying the nervousness that jittered inside.

Yuugi grunted out a humorless laugh. "You'd know, wouldn't you?" Seemingly back in control, Yuugi carefully placed his hands into his jeans' pockets and stood at a three-quarter angle to Seto.

"Quite," Seto laughed quietly, mussing his hair. He wasn't as intimidated as he thought he might be in front of Yuugi. He would have understood being embarrassed, resentful, or even something so far as righteous. But amused? That was certainly a new comer on the block. Seto decided that instead of fighting the moment it would be more fun to enjoy it.

"Cigarette?" Seto offered.

Seto watched Yuugi for a moment before Yuugi walked up to him and took the proffered cigarette from his hand. He was able to maintain eye contact with Yuugi when the cigarette was put to the smaller man's mouth. Yuugi inhaled evenly and released the cigarette back into Seto's possession.

Seto found himself hypnotized by the ease of Yuugi's inhalation and the cold sideways glare he was being given. Yuugi pulled his lips to the side to direct the smoke he exhaled away from Seto's face, which caused Seto to raise an eyebrow in question to the considerate action as Yuugi backed up to his original spot.

"I'd never considered you the type to smoke," Seto commented.

"Nor you the type to fall," Yuugi returned. "Yet here you are."

Seto shrugged. "It was a change of pace."

"A change of-?!"

Seto flinched. Perhaps that had not been the best thing for him to say to a defensive Yuugi.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" Yuugi raised his voice to a near shout that reverberated down the alley, releasing the torrent of his pain and anger. "You violated everything we had. All those years of fighting together and for what? Was it all a lie? Just some damn game you were playing to satisfy your ego?!"

"I-"

"No!" Yuugi interrupted immediately, shaking his finger with rage. "You don't get to talk. You don't get to say anything. Because I don't think you have a clue what you've done!"

What remained of Seto's pride rebelled against being told he wasn't allowed to do something. Breakdown or no, he was still Seto Kaiba. No on told him what he could and could not do.

"Who do you think you are?" Seto seethed, tightening his eyes to glare at Yuugi. "You haven't any idea what you're talking about! No idea what it's like! Have you forgotten that I am the one suffering here?!" His outburst rushed the blood to his head, forcing a headache behind his eyes and ears that swam with the alcohol in his system in dizzying arrays of pain and sickness.

Yuugi stared disbelievingly at Seto, his jaw working silently to express his shock. When Seto took an agitated drag of his cigarette, visibly relaxing as the nicotine did its work, Yuugi marched forward to grab the offending object and threw it to the ground.

"What in hell makes you think this is about you?" Yuugi asked, his voice suddenly dark and calm.

Seto blinked, confused. He turned his head to the side and watched Yuugi from the corner of his eye. "Are we… talking about the same thing here?"

"You're even dumber than I thought you were. No wonder you let this happen." Exasperated, Yuugi began pacing with his hands running stiffly over his face and through his hair.

"Let?" Seto repeated. He didn't like the taste of the word on his tongue and made a face at its sourness.

"You know you did," Yuugi said quickly. "Don't try to play the victim here. You knew something was wrong and chose not to do anything about it. Nothing legal anyway. Coward." Yuugi muttered this last word under his breath, putting a stop to his pacing when he reached the far wall from the club. "Selfish coward."

"Coward?" Seto growled. "Coward?" His hand clenched into a fist around his cigarette, crushing the thin paper and tobacco grinds. He grimaced when the lit end bit into the flesh of his palm and jerked his arm away from the burn. He glared down at the cigarette that now laid next to his foot. What was Yuugi getting on about? Acting like some judgmental jackass standing on a high hill. Yuugi spoke with the confidence of a man on a righteous charge, free of blame and guilt and by all means free to accuse.

Seto had never been called a coward. He'd had many titles, but never one so damning and forthright. Maybe he was a coward, or had been at some time in the past. The point was, the point was, where once he would have been offended-

A lopsided smile pulled at his mouth until his face resembled the twisted grin of a comic book's mad scientist. This was all just too much. Maybe it was the alcohol or the nicotine, but Seto had the insane urge to laugh until he was hysterical with fatigue. Instead, he shoved both hands into his pockets – missing twice – and toed out the embers of his dying cigarette.

"It's all like some child's attempt at a plot," Seto chuckled. "There's no continuity to it. None at all." He turned his head to look Yuugi in the eye. "This has nothing to do with you Yuugi. You don't want any part of the crap in my head." Seto started to turn back towards the club and his next drink waiting inside, but paused when he heard Yuugi's quiet voice.

"He won't let me touch him," Yuugi said. "Not even on the arm. I'm not allowed to touch him anymore."

Seto turned back towards Yuugi and raised his eyebrow inquisitively. "Not allowed? You mean you need his permission?" When Yuugi didn't respond he continued. "But… but you told me that he didn't need your permission for anything. Why would it be different for you?"

"Don't you know?" Yuugi asked softly. The anger had dissipated from his voice and his shoulders slumped from the released tension. "Don't you know anything outside yourself?"

Seto was hesitant to respond. Yuugi's sudden shifts in mood were difficult for him to follow, and it wasn't because of his inebriation. There was something personal in these shifts that Seto couldn't place. An invitation that his self defense didn't want to receive. He hated it when Yuugi did this to him, offered this friendship-like thing that allowed Yuugi to reveal insecurities and demanded Seto to do the same. He never had figured out how to defend against it.

And what a question for Yuugi to ask. He couldn't keep a multi-billion dollar gaming company afloat – let alone prosperous – if he didn't know what the public wanted. Of course, his advertising department helped people know what it was they wanted, but they wouldn't be successful if he didn't hit some chord within his customers. As for anyone else… he was broken and Mokuba was absent. Yuugi was pissed and Yami went on with life. There wasn't anything else he needed to know. But as he rolled the question around his brain and thought of Yuugi's previous statement about Yami, he found his ill-fated curiosity stirring in his stomach.

Seto furrowed his brow as he thought. "The double standard here, it, it doesn't apply to him not touching you," he reasoned out. If it did, Yuugi would have risen to the bait. So it must be something else. Seto cringed, then frowned in annoyance at his next thought. "Don't tell me he feels dirty or some cliché shit like that?" he demanded.

Yuugi shook his head once, eyes hard but face neutral in expression. "No. He doesn't feel dirty about something he didn't do." He looked towards the club's door for a moment, then back at Seto. "He knows it wasn't his fault."

Seto huffed. "Blames me, huh? Figures," he muttered, covering his face with his hand. "I'm handy that way. A damned perpetual scapegoat. It's his fault too, you know," Seto said as he peeked through his fingers at Yuugi. "You realize this."

"I do not," Yuugi said evenly.

"Oh come on," Seto scoffed. "He didn't exactly fight me. He didn't prevent it either. I may have helped him along, but he came with me willingly."

Seto blinked hard after his mouth stopped moving and looked at Yuugi, whose mouth was pulled down in a frown, one eyebrow raised in accusation to what had been said. Swaying on his feet and having to consciously regain his balance, Seto dropped his hand from his face and stared at Yuugi. Even he couldn't believe the ease with which his mind had worked to spin the facts of the event to waylay responsibility away from himself and make it seem as though Yami had been a coconspirator. Amazed by his own audacity, Seto raised both his hands in front of his face with fingers spread and slapped his cheeks.

"Sobering up?" Yuugi asked.

"Sobering down, maybe," Seto answered quietly. He shook his head to collect the final pieces of his sobriety and turned bloodshot eyes down the alley. "You'd better hurry this up Yuugi or else you're going to be talking to a passed-out C.E.O."

"Fair enough," Yuugi agreed. He removed his hands from his pockets and took a deep, relaxing breath while he pulled on his jacket and straightened his collar. These visual cues of power and control made Seto's nerves fidget instinctively and his stomach churn. "He blames me, you know. For all of this. The worst part is that I think he's right."

That was it. That was the last curve in this conversation that Seto was able to follow. Folding his legs beneath him, Seto sat down and balanced his chin in his hands. It didn't matter that he was sitting low, or that Yuugi would literally be looking down on him. But if he was going to be able to interact on any level of intelligence he couldn't be bothered with the act of standing. "As I've said before. He's an idiot."

"That's what you call me. You call him intolerable," Yuugi said.

Seto shrugged. "Same thing to me."

"He sees me as weaker than you now," Yuugi continued. He interrupted Seto's response to that statement. "He'd never say it, but I get it. I let this happen to him. I didn't see the warning signs and I didn't take action to prevent it."

"But that's just stupid," Seto said quickly to prevent Yuugi from interrupting him again. "You don't control me. How could you control my actions? How could you be responsible for them? Shouldn't I be the one he blames? I should be the one he blames. I did it." Seto bit his lower lip. Arguing for the purpose of acquiring blame wasn't something he was used to doing. It appeared that no matter the situation, his ego simply couldn't let a lousy argument go unchallenged.

"If you say so. Of course," Yuugi sighed, "what you think doesn't matter to me. So I have to correct this before he gets any further from me." Yuugi took the few needed steps forward to place him directly in front of Seto and kneeled in front of him to eye level, one knee higher than the other. On this higher knee Yuugi rested his right hand, letting his fingers tap purposefully against the denim of his jeans. "I have challenged you to a duel, Seto. It will be held in two days at noon in front of your corporation. And it will be televised."

Stunned, Seto could only nod his head once before the depth of the situation took hold. "What do you mean, you have challenged me?"

"I've told the press that this is just another duel for the title of Game King. You know better, I hope."

"What do you want?" Seto asked with a dry mouth.

"Your company."

"My comp-…?" Seto gritted his teeth as he gathered himself to stand. He fisted his hands, his arms shaking with the rage that burned at the attack on his pride. "My company? How dare you," he seethed.

Yuugi watched Seto from his seated position, gauging his reaction before standing. "You'll stay in charge, naturally. You'll run the company and be its face and make the decisions. I don't want to be involved in any of it. But, you will know that it is me who owns it all."

"You mean he will know," Seto spat. He felt like punching Yuugi when he nodded calmly. "All this is contingent on me agreeing to the duel, and I have done no such thing. Why would I?"

Yuugi exhaled a soulful sound as he turned and walked to the club, pausing with his hand on the outer edge of the door and his eyes on the ground. "I was hoping you'd understand by now, Seto. I really was hoping." He raised his eyes. "We will duel in two days, and I will win. And I will get him back."

"You think so? You think he'll accept you then? You actually think you'll win with my company at risk?" Seto crossed his arms over his chest and stood tall, daring Yuugi to consider the possibility of winning a duel against him. Of all the things he had lost confidence in, his faith in his dueling ability was not one of them.

The remaining threads of sympathy Yuugi held slithered away into the darkness of the alley. His voice dropped a note, leaving no room for doubt in his resolve. "You've already lost Seto Kaiba." With that being said, Yuugi slammed the door away from him and entered the club.

The words stung Seto, over and over as they repeated themselves in his mind. Yuugi was right. His loss was already absolute. They both knew was in no condition to duel, and yet dueling was the only arena Yuugi could use to win back Yami's respect. It sounded so cheesy in his ears, this so called romantic gesture Yuugi was taking at his expense. It was damned unnecessary. No one person could possibly be worth so much effort. There was a niggle in the back of his mind concerning Mokuba but it wasn't heard over the torrent of emotions in Seto's heart.

Now what was he supposed to do? Cry? Rage at the unfairness of it all? Going inside the club and drinking himself stupid sounded vaguely appealing. Highly appealing. In fact, that was exactly what he was going to do. It was better than standing in the alley like the looser that he was.

Seto was blocked from entering the club by a short brunette and a microphone. The light from the camera held behind her hurt his eyes and he raised his hand to block the light. He squinted to try and see what was going on, taking note of the reporter in front of him and just barely able to make out Yuugi's silhouette disappearing further into the club.

"Excuse me sir! We have just interviewed Yuugi Motou and were wondering if you have any comments about the upcoming match?"

Seto lowered his hand and looked past the reporter, ignoring her. After pursing his lips, a small smile flickered over his features. "Well played," he murmured.

"Sir?"

Seto took one look at the reporter before pushing past her and to his table. "I have nothing more to say."

- End