WhiteAsukalover: Aw, thank you! That kind review made up for the chapters you didn't review; that was so nice of you to say! Thanks for the review, and I hope you like the chapter.

AmePiper: Hell yeah I made Mokuba win! I don't know about you, but all through-out the Noah arc, watching the duels and the events being played out, my one burning desire had been to have Mokuba duel. I mean, friggin Serenity duels in the virtual world! Mokuba doesn't?! Screw that! Hahaha, so yeah, I had to have that duel, and I most certainly had to have Mokuba win it all in the end! Thanks for all your sexiness and awesomeness (oh, and your review too!) Read and enjoy!

MythCreatorWriter: Thank you! I wish the creator would've been less of a fail and let Mokuba duel in the series! I was pretty pissed he didn't, which was why I had to have Mokuba duel at some point and win it. I didn't use to hate Serenity, and then I was referencing the duel with Nesbitt and it made me realize how much I hate her. Oh yeah, I remember that one blue-eyes line… but suddenly I forget it. Woah, anyhow, it doesn't matter, because I'm sure you want to read the chapter! And that rhymed, cool! Thanks for the review!

Kukki Boo: It's okay, that's the same with me. No one ever gets what I'm talking about, hahaha. It kind of makes me happy to think that people would be made at me if I stopped writing, just cause… well, it makes me feel important. I've written an original before; I'm in Lit Mag where all we do is write original stories. I suck at writing original stories off the top of my head, but if I have a prompt, I can come up with an awesome story. Hahaha, thanks for the good job thing for being older. I kinda found that funny. But anyhow, thanks for the review!

Rena Redhead: You know, it took everything in me not to go off on a rant about how Joey sucked. Like, for real, I really had to try. That's probably where one of the hours went into, fighting the urge to not write the rant. But anyhow, thanks for all the awesome things you say! You know I only feel like a good writer because you say such awesome descriptive/intelligent things about my writing, right? Seriously, and you're such a good writer for being able to write those awesome reviews. So give yourself a pat on the back, dude! Hahaha, I love you dude, and I hope you like the chapter!

Chapter 9: Another Goal in Mind

-M-

I don't have many memories of my father to recall, considering I was so young when he died. I have very few and hazy memories, really, to remember him by. But the one distinct memory I have of him is from spring afternoon stroll through the park. I had just woken up from a short nap and he was carrying me in his arms. He looked down on me and smiled.

It's a short memory, and that was all I have of it. But the memory came to mind when I awoke for the first time after the duel with Nesbitt. My eyes fluttered open, and it had taken me a while to realize I was in my brother's arm and had my head rested against his shoulder. When he had become aware that I was awake, he looked down on me and smiled.

It was the same smile my father had from my only concrete memory of him, which was why I stared at him back with a puzzled look. I never noticed how much Seto resembled our father until now.

"It's good to see you're awake," Seto said as he stopped walking.

"It's good to be awake?" I replied awkwardly. I wasn't sure how to properly respond to it, I was still a little out of it.

"Think you can walk or would you like me to carry you more?" I frowned at him, but in a happy way. I hopped out of his arms myself. I didn't like being looked down on as a child, even though we both knew Seto would always see me that way.

"Come on Nii-sama, I'm not a baby anymore," I said playfully, pushing his arms away when he tried to scoop me back up into his arms. Seto was smiling, and ruffling my hair like he always did when he was being affectionate.

"Oh Mokuba, you'll always be my baby brother," Seto said, squeezing my cheeks. I stuck my tongue out at him, and we both laughed. Then we started our walk again down the dirt path in the middle of the forest. We began talking.

"So where did you learn how to duel like that?" Seto asked, turning towards me. My face was beaming with pride, I could tell from the grin on my face.

"Who else? I've learned from the best, you know." Seto chuckled and nodded.

"That's true… but still. How did you manage to do that? I mean, was Chaos Emperor Dragon in your hand the entire time? Was everything that happened all according to plan?" I stopped for a moment, unsure what to say. The truth was; I didn't have a plan, but I did have Chaos Emperor Dragon in my hand the whole time. The only thing was… it wasn't until I read it during one of Seto's turns that I could use it.

Basically, I had won on dumb luck. But I couldn't tell my brother that.

"Yep, every single last bit." A little white lie never hurt anyone, right? Seto put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in for a side hug.

"That's my boy; I knew you had it in you." Seto and I continued talking about the duel for the next half hour or so. It was amazing how one card game could take a person's mind off of everything else that was going on. Not to mention it could help to distract anyone from the current problems they had with their sibling. It was like the Duelist Kingdom ordeal didn't even matter because we were so involved with our conversation involving our last duel.

In a way, it kind of made me realize why Seto must've loved the game so much. While a person is dueling, all they have time to think about is the duel itself, the next card they have to play. All a person can care about is winning the duel. And for a moment's time, one's mind is distracted from all their problems and duties. For one moment, they're having fun and playing a simple card game, that's it.

Maybe that was what Seto loved; being distracted, forgetting his problems. For Seto, dueling was the closest thing he had to really living in the moment and forgetting his past. I had never really seen it that way, but after dueling Nesbitt, I had finally come to that conclusion. That was how I knew that, even if Seto did some day defeat Yugi in a duel; that would never stop him from dueling or holding tournaments. There was so much more to my brother than meets the eye, and I was surprised to find that there were things about my brother I was just beginning to realize for myself.

Then we came to another door. We said nothing to one another, simply stared at it. We had opened so many doors; the idea of a random door in the middle of a forest was no longer shocking but normal in our eyes. I looked over at my brother to see his reaction and it was just as I expected; stone cold.

The topic of card games had become a thing of the past, and reality settled itself back into our situation.

Seto looked down at me. "Ready?" He asked. I nodded. I didn't actually know if I was ready, but decided to nod anyway. I wanted to go back to the conversation we were having before. I wanted to return to the topic we both loved and enjoyed. But there was no turning back now; Seto was approaching the door ahead. I quickly jogged ahead and caught up with him just as he began to twist the knob of the door.

We walked through the doorway and we were surprised to see that we were in an office. Seto looked the most caught off guard; we both hadn't been expecting to go somewhere familiar after the last location we had gone to.

"We're back at home, at Kaiba Corp." I stated aloud. Our eyes glanced around the room.

"This is my office," Seto said when he finally made the connection.

"This MY office," We heard an all too familiar voice say from behind Seto's big chair. We gasped and looked up ahead. We couldn't believe our eyes when the chair twisted around, revealing Gozaburo. Seto's eyes widened. "No one disturbs me here!" Gozaburo stated.

My initial feeling upon seeing this was to run. Ever since I was a kid, I had been trained to know that Gozaburo meant nothing good would come to me. So the sound of his voice, especially his authoritative voice, instinctively created that feeling of fear.

"I know that, but I'm sick of waiting to talk to you and I have something important to say." My eyes fell on the small boy standing a few feet away in front of us. I had been so shocked to hear Gozaburo, that I hadn't even anticipated seeing the virtual image of my brother.

"This must been another virtual scene from our past," I said, looking over at my brother. Seto seemed to remember it very well as he gave a low growl and was staring at his younger self intensely.

"I remember this. It was the day I finally gathered the courage to speak with Gozaburo face to face about my latest idea." Seto said grimly.

"Let me guess, this is about that stupid invention of yours, right? I already told you, kid; this company produces weapons, not toys!" Gozaburo yelled with annoyance. The younger Seto stepped forward and held his fist in the air as he looked Gozaburo directly in the eye.

I was surprised to see how brave my brother was acting as he was staring the monster of his nightmares face to face. Never in my life would I dare to defy Gozaburo's wishes, in fact, I would avoid all occasions where my opinion might be different from my step father's. He scared me too much, and it was exactly how Gozaburo wanted to be seen. But Seto…Seto was different.

Seto had a dream, a purpose; that he was willing to fight for. Even if it meant first advertising it to the man he hated and feared all his life.

-S-

"Do you know how long it took me to design those? You can't just dismiss them like that! You just don't want to admit that I invented something you never could!" The virtual image of my younger self yelled.

"That's enough!" Gozaburo's voice echoed in the room, he took up the papers in his hands and threw it in the boy's face. I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the feeling of so much anger and frustrating when my step father threw those papers in my face like they were nothing more than trash. I had worked for many hours during many weeks to come up with those designs, and to perfect them enough to be shown to Gozaburo himself. He had barely even taken the time to glance at them.

"Kaiba Corp. doesn't make toys, it makes combat vehicles! Seto, if you're going to take over this company some day, you'll have to forget about games. I adopted you for a reason—to lean the family business. And this business is about crushing your enemies and rising to ultimate power!" Gozaburo yelled. The younger Seto couldn't believe what he was hearing, but I could.

"You're insane!" I heard my younger self cry out loud.

"Guards!" Gozaburo called. Two goons entered the room and grabbed the boy by his arms. "Take him away," Gozaburo commanded. The two men took the younger me away and out of the room. I twitched at the sight of watching myself go.

I would never forget that day. My step father had shot down my virtual gaming program, but what was even worse was that later on he had stolen my invention and passed it off as his own. I had never seen a snake sink lower in my life. I couldn't believe my step father would do that. Now I do, but back then, I had to learn the hard way.

The scene dissolved away, and once again, we were back on the dirt path. Upon seeing that memory, something had come to mind, and I suddenly became enraged.

"This forest… this whole world, this is from the same virtual technology that I invented. Some parts may be more advanced, the basic program is mine," I brought up my hand to my face and stared at it, "I just have to remember in the mean time that everything I see here is an illusion, because these memories are beginning to mess with my head." I closed my hand into a fist and brought it down to my side, staring up at the sky above.

"Noah. I don't know who you are, but I plan to find out! I know you can hear every single thing I say, so listen up. Because no matter whose helping you or what you do, I will find you and destroy you. You'll never succeed!" I yelled, "So if you resemble any kind of man, come out of hiding and face me!" I gritted my teeth and continued to look at the sky, waiting for some sort of response.

Mokuba had gone a few steps away from me. Sometimes I could frighten him when I was being threatening, and it was a good thing to. I had wanted Noah to know I was being serious, that I WAS going to crush him no matter what. After it became apparent Noah was going to continue being a coward, I stormed off down the path. Mokuba rushed after me and ran to catch up to me.

"Nii-sama! Wait up!" Mokuba called, running to my side. I didn't look his way. "Nii-sama, are you okay?" He asked, staring at me with concern.

"I'm fine Mokuba, I'm just angry. I better find this kid soon, or I may have to do something drastic." I wasn't even sure what measure I would take, but right then and there, I was about to blow up. I couldn't stand being trapped here; and worst yet, I couldn't stand not knowing my captor. I wanted to find Noah and bring him down in the worst way possible.

We continued on our way in silence for the next couple hours. I finally cooled off after a while, but it didn't make that burning desire to bring Noah down any less powerful. I had to focus on the goal from now on; I couldn't let anything else distract me. I needed to punish that kid for all that he had done.

Later on, we had come upon another door. I wasn't pleased or displeased to see it, but Mokuba seemed a little more hopeful than usual.

"I wonder if this will be the door that will get us out of this place." I walked ahead of him, and made sure to open the door myself. I still had to be on the look out and alert for whatever location Noah would put us if it wasn't the exit. We opened the door to a sandy beach in the middle of nowhere. We walked out together and looked around. There was an ocean nearby, and a sunset that colored the sky all sorts of shades of red, orange and yellow.

"I guess not," Mokuba replied, grimly.

"At least it's a change of scenery," I replied after giving a sigh, happy to be out of that damned forest at last. Mokuba ran up to the ocean and started waving his arms and legs about. I started walking along the shore of the beach.

"Are you serious? I don't want to be on some virtual beach! Or a virtual forest! Or virtual anything! I just want to get the heck out of here already!" Mokuba stopped moving about and sighed. He turned his head towards me and looked down in shame. "Sorry Nii-sama, I just had to let that out. This place… it's just starting to get to me."

"Don't let it," I said sternly, "You need to calm down, if you start to give in, then Noah will win." I looked back up at the sky in anger. "We're done playing you're little games, Noah. We're onto you. You think you can show us these images to tamper with our emotions, but I've got news for you, it'll take a lot more than that to bring us down! You don't know who you're dealing with!" I yelled.

Mokuba was beginning to lose faith that we'd be able to get out of here, and some part of me was feeling that too. But I was no longer looking to get out of here. At this point, all I wanted to do was have a face off with Noah and show him what happens when you mess with Seto Kaiba. After all that he's put us through, I would make him pay for every single last bit of this horrible experience.

I would make him pay dearly.

A/N: Hello again! I know, it's been a while since I've updated that third story of mine, but I'll get to it eventually. But aren't you all excited?! We're finally moving forward in the story! Well, we were always moving forward, but this chapter was more along the lines of the show, so now you have more of a feel of where we're at. I can't wait for, well, you know! The exciting parts of this arc line! You all know them, you all love them, and HiKari here is going to re-write them like you would never believe possible! Thanks again for all your reviews!