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Chapter Six

Father and son returned to inside the mansion and the scene faded again as it was replaced with a picturesque forest and lake, behind Seto there was now a log cabin. The door of the cabin opened, Noah and Gozaburo emerged carrying fishing rods as the two of them headed across towards the lake, both of them enjoying themselves laughing and joking as they boarded a sailing yacht that was tied up on the wharf at the water's edge. Unable to escape from the dream around him Seto found that he too was also forced onboard. The Noah in this memory appeared to be a couple of years older than he had been in the others and it looked like the relationship between the two Kaibas had re-grown into a loving father-son bond during that time.

Seto remained as far away as possible from the two of them as he felt like he was intruding on the occasion. He had never once seen his stepfather in the same manner as he was now and was slightly envious of the father and son bond that he had failed to experience. But the envious feeling quickly dissolved as his own memories of Gozaburo tried to resurface in his mind and Seto swiftly pushed them back to the depths from which they had come. He hadn't been the old man's 'true' son, but that still didn't make right the wrongs which he had had to endure from his stepfather.

Noah's laughter rang through the air and was then shortly joined by his father's. The two of them wrestled with the fish they had just caught as it flailed about in their grasp. "I'm so glad that we're spending more time together." The boy beamed.

Something seemed out of place to Seto. He had just witnessed two distressing memories for Noah so why was this third one happy? Was it the boy's way of overlooking the bad times with the good? Or could it be possible that this was in fact just merely a dream of the way his stepbrother had hoped for things to be? Thinking back to the footage he had watched on the old fashioned film reel in the virtual world where they had been trapped, Seto could recall seeing brief shots of the father and son on a sailing yacht so was it possible that this was from that time?

The surroundings changed again as Seto now found himself dragged to below deck where the father and son were cleaning up after their fresh fish supper. "Thank you for this wonderful vacation father." Noah smiled causing Seto to roll his eyes and turn his back on the two of them, any moment now he was going to be sick from all the father and son affection being shown.

"Everything comes at a price though my son." Gozaburo's words sent a chill down Seto's spine as he had heard those exact same words spoken to him by his stepfather in exactly the same evil amused tone which had just been used.

"What kind of price?" Noah asked innocently.

"How much do you love your father Noah?" Gozaburo's hand rested on his son's shoulder.

"Lots." Was the reply that the boy gave to what he thought was a stupid question.

Wrong answer. Seto slowly turned around and feared what he would witness next as he saw the young Noah forced down to the floor. He had been in the same situation as his stepbrother on a number of occasions.

"Father?" Confusion replaced the once happy tone of the Noah's voice. "What are you doing?"

In the corner of the room the sleeping Noah whimpered, as the memory one was struck and told to stay quite. This caught Seto's attention, as he watched the memory Noah try to escape from his father's unbreakable grasp. The sleeping boy had shown signs of discomfort and distress from the previous memories and he couldn't, - wouldn't, let this one continue.

"Father! Stop it! You're hurting me! Please, father! Stop!"

Seto promptly made his way over to his sleeping stepbrother and shook him. "Wake up." He kept his eyes focused on the boy in front of him and tried to block out the cries from behind as Gozaburo overpowered his son. "Damn it Noah, wake up!"

Noah's eyes flew open, the scene around them vanished and the circuitry board returned, a cold sweat dripped from his horrified face as he stared up at his pale stepbrother. "What did you see?" he demanded with mournful eyes.

"Everything." Seto confirmed quietly.

"You watched my memories?!" Noah's voice was now raised and angry.

"Like I had a choice?!" Seto retorted as he now glared down into the emotionally confused blue eyes which were trying to stand firm against his own. "Your subconscious mind was the one that displayed them."

Noah remained silent as he thought about what Seto had just witnessed. The first time that his father had ever hit him, the last memory he had of his mother, and the worst day of his life when his father trapped and sexually abused him, only to later convince him that it had been an act of love. The boy's eyes scrunched up and fists clenched as he tried to keep hold of the pain that was trying to escape from within him. "Why did you wake me?" his voice wavered.

"Why do you think?" Bitter sarcasm filled Seto's reply as he stared down at his scared stepbrother. No matter how much Noah attempted to appear strong he didn't do a very convincing job of it, he would always be a frightened little boy who tried to act tougher than he really was. But why should a child be forced to suppress their true feelings? "I couldn't let you re-live that experience." Seto's voice was now calm and sympathetic.

"But I deserved to be punished for disappointing him." Noah clenched his fists tighter turning them white and opened his teary eyes to look up at his stepbrother. "Didn't I?"

Gozaburo had clearly messed with his son's head so much that Noah believed he was the problem that needed to be fixed. Seto stared into the eyes that were pleading for an answer from him. "No, you didn't."

The younger boy's whole face trembled as Noah fought to stop himself from breaking down in front of the older boy. Despite all of what his father had done to him, he still cared for the old man. But why? His father didn't care about him. Sure Gozaburo had gone to great lengths to preserve his lifeless body, but was that because he wanted to keep hold of his son or because he needed a guinea pig to test out his technology before his own death so that he'd be able to preserve his own body? A tear rolled down Noah's cheek as he realised that he'd just been fooling himself all this time into thinking that someone might have actually cared for him. Even the thought of his other stepbrother's parting words wasn't enough to make him change his mind.

"What your father did was pure cruelty." Seto continued his reply to Noah's plea as he watched the tear fall on the boy's face. "He had no right to hurt you in those ways, regardless of what you did or didn't do. No man should be able to escape punishment after disgracing his sons in such a way."

Noah couldn't help but focus on the fact that Seto had said 'sons'. Did that mean that he had suffered the same treatment? "You too?" he daringly asked.

Seto cursed himself for revealing the fact he had kept hidden, even from Mokuba, then nodded sadly before vanquishing all emotion and made it clear to Noah that he wasn't going to dwell on what had happened to himself. "I don't burden others with my problems; I hit that wall years ago and scaled it." He watched as Noah broke eye contact with him, recoiling back into his thoughts veiled with tears. "But you're obviously struggling to scale yours."

"So what am I supposed to do next?" Noah mumbled as he made sense of Seto's emotional metaphor.

Just a couple of hours ago Seto had hated the stepbrother with a vengeance, and now he was beginning to feel sorry for Noah after what he had learnt through the boy's memories. He'd also seen several resemblances between his stepbrother and himself, both of them had lost their mothers, had their dreams shattered, been forced to grow up quicker and abused by Gozaburo. "Rest and try again." Noah looked up at him sadly which reminded him vaguely of Mokuba. "Let it all out and I'll help you get over that wall."

There was a slight hesitation before Noah approached his stepbrother and exploded into cascades of tears as he placed his head on Seto's chest. His arms rose and gripped tightly at the flowing white coat as he sobbed heavily finally letting go of all the pain he had stored in his complete loneliness.

Seto stood rigidly and made no attempt to remove his stepbrother from him as he let the boy cry for as long as he needed to. After a while he found himself softly caressing Noah's green hair like he would have done if it had been Mokuba clinging to him. "I was wrong." He heard his stepbrother whisper through his tears. "You're nothing like him."