Hey guys, so this chapter is one of the few that I talk about the characters' relationships, or lack of, over the past 17 years. Some more looking at the characters but also some more plot. (Don't worry, the plot is slowly working its way in haha. In a few chapters the plot will really pick up and all the stuff in 5ds will be explained, I promise! So please keep reading!) :)

Anyway, hope you enjoy :)

Chapter 5

Kaiba and Duke walked to the top of the cement slab and looked around. There wasn't a soul to be seen, and no wonder. It didn't look like any patch of the city had gone uncrushed.

"What part of the city do you think this is?" Kaiba looked out, trying to work out that same question in his mind. Was this really Domino City? It looked more like a war zone. Kaiba hopped over the crack between the split halves of the slab. He eased his way down the steep slope keeping his footing. He reached the bottom to where the slab became covered in sheets of steel and wood and glass, like a slope into a sea. A stop light caught his eye. And he stood near it examining the area. Then he saw what he was looking for.

He made his way along the shore of the slab and knelt down. He grabbed a green rectangle sticking out of the rubble. He had some difficulty pulling it out but managed it. He was stooped down on the balls of his feet with his knees fully bent, holding the bent sign in his hands with one on each end. Duke walked up behind him, still standing and examined his finding. Kaiba then held the sign up, signaling Duke to take it which he did, and Kaiba carefully went wading into the rubble. He used all fours so that if anything gave he wouldn't fall. He moved a few pieces of lighter material to the side until he had almost cleared off the top layer of debris in an almost complete circle within a 15 foot radius of the location that he had found the green sign. He saw another green sign about two feet below. He had to twist his arm at strange angles but he got a grip on the sign. He positioned his other hand to catch anything that removing the sign might cause to fall. He pulled the sign out and read it carefully.

It was a miracle that it was this easy to find both signs. Kaiba had expected it to take hours just to figure out where they were. But here they were only about one hour in. The progress was fantastic. He slowly made his way back to the slab, where Duke offered a hand to help him up, which he denied because he didn't need it. He looked at the second sign himself for another moment. He then turned it around so Duke could read it. Duke looked at the new sign and then held the one is his hand back up. Duke gave a sad smile. He was thrilled to already know their location, but it was bittersweet. Duke looked to his left, east.

To think that this spot was once Domino High School. It was gone. Kaiba caught his attention.

"We're close to Kame Game. We should head there first." The two men stood up and started walking north, down what had been the road leading from the high school to Kame Game. It normally took about a half hour walking between the two, but with the rubble and being sure not to miss the shop it would take hours. Neither of the two expected to find anything if they found the shop. But what else were they to do? It was unlikely anyone at the game shop at the time of the quake 5 days ago would still be there. But it was a start. And it was all they could do. Perhaps someone from the group of friends had gone to the shop after the disaster in hopes of meeting up with the others. But they could think about that once they got there. Right now they had hours between them and the desired location.

"So Kaiba, I've talked to you about business stuff on occasion, but I've never gotten to ask you how your life's been going." Kaiba knew he meant it as a question.

"Nothing's changed." He said matter-of-factly. A little bit had changed, or rather, he was considering change but nothing had actually happened yet, so he was technically telling the truth. But for the major part, his life had remained the same. The only major actual difference was that Mokuba was no longer a little kid but a 32 year old who had his own house instead of living with his brother. Mokuba still adored his older brother the same way he had as a child though. Kaiba decided that that was the reason why he agreed to look for the gang with Duke instead of focusing his energies on Mokuba. Mokuba was an adult, and he could take care of himself. But that didn't mean his protective older brother couldn't try to help him out of a bad situation.

"Ah, come on Kaiba, it's been 17 years, something must have changed."

"Well Mokuba doesn't live with me anymore, but that's about it."

"Well obviously, you never got a wife or anything?"

"Nope."

"Husband?" with a little smirk.

"No Duke, I'm straight."

"Any serious girlfriend?" Kaiba shook his head

"Any girlfriend at all?"

"Nah."

"Well why not? It's not like you couldn't have any girl in the world." Kaiba moved a sheet of bent construction steal out of his way and ducked under it, holding it up for Duke.

"Guess I just prefer being on my own."

"Why would you want to be alone?" Kaiba kept wading through the debris, climbing over fallen statues and doors. After no response from the CEO, Duke pursued an answer

"Well?" Kaiba kept moving junk out of his way. He actually thought to himself. He didn't really know the answer. He was positive he could figure it out if he thought about it but he didn't want to think about it. And he didn't want to be completely on his own. He had actually been thinking about adopting a kid; giving some kid in an orphanage a good home. But as far as his romantic life was concerned, he just let it stay as it was. He liked being on his own. And that was that. No reason was necessary.

"I don't have an answer for you Duke. It's just who I am." Duke didn't seem satisfied but didn't pursue the matter any further. Clearly Kaiba didn't want to talk about it.

"Well, you probably have the right attitude about being alone. You can't get hurt." He paused for a moment to see if the man in front of him had any comment. When he didn't he continued.

"I had gotten married, when I was 25. But two years later when we were taken over by Shroeder Corp she left me, ran off with some big shot from Industrial Illusions. Shows how much she cared." Kaiba didn't respond, which Duke expected. He knew Kaiba would have nothing to say on the matter. He couldn't relate to any aspect of the story. Well except the part of being better left on your own. But then again, Kaiba had always had Mokuba by his side. Duke had more friends than Kaiba did, but he didn't have anyone as close to him as those brothers were to each other. He doubted anyone could. But then again, didn't he just fly into a disaster zone searching for people he hadn't seen in years? He really must be lonely if these are the people he was risking everything for. It made sense for Kaiba to be there. He was searching for his younger brother, the one he had sworn to protect, the one that had been by his side and his only family since he was 8, the one he saw on a near daily basis. But why was Duke searching for these people? He hadn't communicated with a single one of them in at least 5 years. The last time he talked to one of them was accidently running into Tristan on the street while he was in Domino on business. And they only talked for a few minutes. Yet here he was. Had he really grown so lonely?

"So when was the last time you saw these guys?" Duke looked back up at his boss.

"5 years I think. I ran into Tristan on business."

"So why are you looking for them?"

"I was just thinking that myself. And I don't know. Maybe it's because I'd hope they'd do the same for me." No response from Kaiba.

"What about you, have you seen them recently?" Kaiba chuckled, which Duke thought was incredibly out of place. But then again, Kaiba wasn't exactly the chuckling type, so making your way through trash looking for missing, and likely dead, old friends was as fitting a place for his amusement as any.

"Yeah I have seen some of them recently. About 3 months ago Wheeler came to ask me for money to pay the rent." He kept chuckling. And Duke had to crack a smile. This whole situation was absurd.

"Did you?"

"Yeah I gave him the money. He only needed a month's rent."

"How about the others?" Kaiba began laughing; not just chuckling but laughing!

"Yeah, I saw Tristan when Wheeler came asking me for money. I think he was there for backup in case I tried to hurt Wheeler." Duke started laughing too. Not so much at the anecdote but at the fact that this was the first time he really heard Kaiba's laugh. The fact that they were in a practical graveyard made it crazy. It was like some sort of awful anti-joke. Why was Kaiba laughing now? Of all times. And Duke started hacking harder as he realized that he too was laughing here in this place, in this situation. There was further discussion on the changes over the last 17 years. And as they went away from the center of the city where most of the skyscrapers were, they could see the rubble diminishing. They eventually came to a virtual clearing, with a building here and there leaking into the street. Kaiba looked ahead.

"We're here." And Duke looked up to see the Kame Game sign on the ground in front of the familiar yellow building.

Kaiba and Duke stood at the top of a hill of junk. They made their way down the unstable slope to the street below. They both looked at the Kame Game building. A section of the back of the building had slid to the ground and was now in a few large pieces on the street. But a good portion of the building was still there intact. Kaiba took off toward the building at a brisk pace. Duke shook himself out of his trance and followed on Kaiba's heels; having to almost run to keep up.

He approached the door to Kame Game and looked in through the window, no one. He stepped over the fallen sign and tried the door, locked. He looked through the window for traces of recent activity. But before he could figure it out, he saw movement in the reflection over his shoulder. He turned around and looked past Duke. He held a stare and Duke turned. On a gaping second floor of a destroyed building stood a very familiar hair due. Kaiba kept staring

"Long time, no see, Yugi."

Seto Kaiba was driving to the satellite, but he realized he had to stop in at Kame Game anyway, and he figured better to try now and if he's not there to try again coming back from the Satellite. So Kaiba told his guard that they were stopping there first. He took the helmet off his head and held it in his hand. He looked at the game shop. The back of the building was reconstructed into a better state than it had been even before the disaster. And a new sign proudly stood above the front doors. Kaiba set the helmet down on the motor cycle and walked along the clean white sidewalk towards the front entrance of the shop. As he entered the bell chimed and he was greeted by a young girl in her early twenties.

"Mr. Kaiba! It's a pleasure to see you again!"

"Hello Blair, yes it's been a while since I was here. Is Yugi around?"

"Yes, I'll go tell him you're here." Blair cast a big smile at Kaiba and turned to the stairway at the back of the shop.

Kaiba turned and looked around at the shop. Comparatively to how often he saw Yugi, it actually wasn't that long ago that he'd been here. A few months back. But to a youngster like Blair, of course it had seemed like a while. It wasn't until you started getting older and people started leaving your life that you realized just how fast everything went. Kaiba's eyes scanned the shop over. Gone were the jigsaw puzzles and capsule monsters that Mokuba had liked so much as a kid. Gone was the poster of Black Luster Soldier. Now there were new and strange seeming cards. There were strange looking duel disks too. Kaiba knew Yugi hated it, but no one bought the classics anymore. Yugi had to change the shop to feed himself. Kaiba resented it. The last time he saw Yugi here he had offered to support him. Heaven knew he had enough money. But Yugi refused to have any sort of debt to Kaiba. He knew Kaiba wouldn't hold it over him, but even after Kaiba had moved past his rivalry with Yugi, Yugi still felt a little for his former competitor.

'Funny' Kaiba thought. People had always told him that he was the over competitive, obsessive one. That he was the one who couldn't let go. But he was able to get perspective on everything. And now Yugi was the one that couldn't seem to move on.

Or he could be wrong, maybe offering Yugi money wasn't about being kind at all. Perhaps it was just a way to feel superior to the 'King of Games.' He smiled. It was probably the second one. Nothing else had changed about him, why should that?

Blair came back down the stairs and through the little red door.

"Mr. Kaiba, Yugi will be down in a minute." Kaiba turned towards her and simply nodded as he continued examining the shop.