13: Jounouchi's Betrayal
A invasive gaze bore into Kaiba's back, digging its way through layers of flesh and muscle, before spearing him through the heart. From the helm of the battle system, he turned and looked out into the crowd. Front row and dead center behind Kaiba's side of the battlefield, Noa lingered like an unwelcome haunting.
Kaiba clenched his hands and glared out into the stands. Noa's continued presence at the finals was a forgone conclusion. Someone needed to keep an eye on Gozaburo's investment, and Noa was always eager to please their father.
Someone reached for his sleeve. He jerked and threw the hand off. It was Jounouchi.
"Sorry," Jounouchi furrowed his eyebrows in concern. "I didn't mean to surprise you."
"It's fine."
Noa's gaze continued to weigh oppressively on his shoulders.
A chime filled the stadium and a professional sounding female announcer spoke, "Match 2 of the first round of the 10th World Gunpla Battle Championship is about to begin with PPSE's special entry, Meijin Kawaguchi, versus Justin Fox of Canada."
His and Jounouchi's fingers lingered when the Legilis was passed from builder to fighter.
The battle system gave an audible hum as it booted up. "Beginning Plavsky particle dispersal. Field 4: Mountain. Please set your GP Base."
The holographic cockpit did little to shield him from Noa's prying eyes. Just because he couldn't see Noa didn't mean that his brother wasn't still able to watch him. The cockpit walls were only opaque on the inside, and Kaiba derived little comfort from the fact.
"Please set your Gunpla."
The Legilis' eyes flashed green and Kaiba gripped the control orbs tight. "Meijin Kawaguchi, Imperial Legilis, prepare yourself!"
Kaiba touched down on the north side of the mountain, turning his scanner toward the west— the direction Justin Fox would most likely approach from. Fox piloted a souped-up version of the Virgo III with additional armaments and a backpack. Output-wise though, Kaiba's Legilis could easily outgun it. Several moments later, Fox charged in from the sky, firing his mega beam cannon.
Kaiba dodged and returned fire. Their Gunplas traded weapon fire for a few more rounds, but neither of them were able to land a hit on the other. Fox made good use of his planet defensors and the terrain to block Kaiba's attacks.
Kaiba quickly lost his patience with the prolonged shootout. He needed to defeat Fox as quickly as possible. Then he could hunt down his real target, Noa, and send his scrambling back to Gozaburo with a black eye. Kaiba refused to let his father and brother openly intimidate him through the rest of their tournament. Neither was he going to allow Fox to continue to plink away from his defensible position.
Fox retreated around a bend and under a rocky overhang. There was no easy way around it. The fastest route was to follow the Virgo in.
Jounouchi boggled at him over the video comms. "What the hell are you doing? Are you seriously charging in blind?"
He ignored the builder and charged at the Virgo, using his bits to form a shield against the shots fired his way. He thrusted his right beam saber and impaled the Virgo through its lower torso. The Virgo tried for a point-blank shot, but Kaiba's bits jammed up the cannon barrel and the backfire blew the entire arm off.
"Watch out for the planet defensors!" Jounouchi warned.
In his haste, Kaiba had forgotten that Fox's defensors weren't for protection alone. The defensors aligned into pairs around Kaiba, energy coursing between the two plates as a concentrated beam powerful enough to cut through metal. Kaiba cursed and jerked his controls frantically. He managed to avoid a death blow, but two of the defensors' attack caught him in the Legilis' left leg and hacked the limb clean off. Without giving Fox another chance to strike back, Kaiba used the momentum of the falling Legilis to strike with his second beam saber and a blast from the tail cannon.
The Virgo went up in flames.
"Winner: Meijin Kawaguchi the 4th," declared the battle computer's readout.
When he turned around, Noa was nowhere in sight.
-x-x-x-
After stowing away the damaged Legilis in its case, Jounouchi grabbed him by the wrist and pushed him into one of the green rooms for the fighters. Kaiba could have broken his grip, but not without hurting Jounouchi in the process. And he didn't want to hurt Jounouchi...
Jounouchi punched a series of commands into the door console. Planting himself between Kaiba and the locked door, he stood firm and said, "Tell me what's wrong."
"Get out of my way, Jounouchi," Kaiba's voice almost cracked under the strain of the day.
"Make me then," Jounouchi lifted his chin and challenged too gently.
He folded his arms across his chest and spoke as blandly as he could manage, "If is about the battle just now, I miscalculated. I regret damaging the Legilis to that extent, but I have faith you can repair it before the next match."
Frustration crept in along the edge of Jounouchi's expression, but he couldn't keep it out of his voice or words. "Cut the crap, Kaiba. What happened out there was a mistake— an amateur one you shouldn't have made in a million years. You forgot about the defensors' fucking attack capabilities. I've been really patient, but you've been weird since yesterday."
They didn't talk about what happened yesterday. After round two, where they lazily explored each other's bodies, they slept and woke in the same bed with only a half-an-hour before the competition bracket was to be announced. They had gotten cleaned and dressed in their separate rooms before going over to the stadium together. Jounouchi watched him in a less than surreptitiously manner as they waited with the other finalists. Kaiba, being the coward he now constantly felt like, couldn't bring himself to do more than briefly hold Jounouchi's hand in that moment where everyone was distracted by the bracket initially posting. Though it was a small gesture, it had sufficiently soothed Jounouchi's nerves.
Until now. Now Jounouchi was pushing and prodding in that insistent, but not subtle enough, way. But Kaiba's patience was long shot to hell. He was mad at himself. He was mad at the entire damn world. Noa's presence at the match was like rubbing salt in an open wound. Stripped of his defenses, Kaiba stung everywhere.
He pushed Jounouchi against the door, digging fingers into his broad shoulders and keeping him pinned in place. He waited for Jounouchi to tense or push him away; neither of which happened. "Just because we— yesterday happened doesn't you're privy to know everything, Jounouchi," Kaiba whispered harshly.
Hurt flashed through Jounouchi's eyes and it was like a stab in Kaiba's chest. "Maybe not, but I care about you. I— I like you a lot and I hate seeing you in pain."
"I'm fine," he insisted. For one, he had no intention of dragging Jounouchi into his world.
"Liar. This has something to do with your older brother, doesn't it?"
Kaiba froze. Jounouchi couldn't possibly know. As far as Jounouchi should know, Mokuba was Kaiba's only brother. "What are you talking about?"
For a second, something like guilt flashed across the other man's face. "I saw him in the stands today, Kaiba Noa. He's your big brother, right?"
He tightened his grip on Jounouchi's shoulders. "You knew I was that Kaiba Seto."
He should have never told Jounouchi his real name. As the second son of the family, he'd managed to stay out of the limelight and remained dissociated from his family's company in all but name. It was what afforded him the anonymity to enter the world of Gunpla Battles.
"It wasn't that hard to figure out. The Kaiba Corporation's only the other most famous company in Japan. Talk to me," Jounouchi pleaded. "I can help with whatever's going on."
Jounouchi knew; Jounouchi knew exactly who he was. There was no reason to hide it anymore. It was almost a relief, because Kaiba had always wondered what would happen (to them) if the truth came to light. Two hands came to rest on Kaiba's back, light as a butterfly's touch. He shivered at the feel of Jounouchi's breath playing across his cheek and neck. They stayed like that for several moments, locked in a pseudo-embrace.
Kaiba wrestled with himself. Asking for help was shameful, and wanting it was nothing short of weakness.
"Seto."
His defenses had fallen. They were obliterated long before Noa even showed up. "It's my father, he wants me to do something."
He closed his eyes and began recounting his meeting from yesterday. Jounouchi's palpable concern quickly morphed into anger when Kaiba mentioned how Noa and Gozaburo used Mokuba as bait for their trap. But nothing compared to the torrential waves of fury rolling off him after Kaiba finally told him what Gozaburo wanted.
"He wants the Plavsky particles to make real weapons," Jounouchi spat. "And he's trying to blackmail you into doing his dirty work for him."
Jounouchi really was smarter than most people gave credit him for. He grasp the implications of the request and saw through Gozaburo's endgame without it explained first. By the end, he vibrated with poorly-concealed outage, "You're his son and he's holding your little brother hostage. How can he do that to his own kids?"
"It's all in a day's work for Kaiba Gozaburo," Kaiba intoned bitterly. "My father will do anything to turn a profit. If he's to be believed, he's been planning this for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if he had something to do with my predecessor's death."
He gave a hollow and brittle laugh. Try as might to deny it, he was at least partly responsible for another man's death. In the end, the previous Meijin was nothing more than collateral damage in the quest to further the Kaiba family's glory.
Jounouchi pushed him back at arm's length and insisted with great urgency, "This isn't your fault. You didn't kill him."
"Of course not," Kaiba snapped. "Even I'm not vain enough to think that the former Meijin might still live if not for my interest in Gunpla. In that same vein, Gozaburo will find a way to advance his plans with or without my cooperation. He has never lacked for agents to do his dirty work."
Unless Kaiba stopped him somehow.
Jounouchi tightened his grip on his elbows momentarily before he abruptly released Kaiba and went to unlock the door. "I need to make a call. Go change into some less, y'know, Meijin, there's someone I want you to meet."
-x-x-x-
After Jounouchi left, it occurred to Kaiba that Jounouchi might report everything to Chairman Mashita. Such a scenario would likely signal the end of his reign as Meijin. It was impossible to predict how Gozaburo might react of Kaiba was stripped of his title. His concerns were proven unfounded when a somber Jounouchi turned up alone some time later to pick him up.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
Jounouchi wouldn't look him in the eye when he replied, "Somewhere close by."
Kaiba should have recognized the writing on the wall in that moment, but he was blinded by his trust.
They arrived at one of the other hotels within the stadium's immediate vicinity. It wasn't far from the players' village, but its guests tended to be exclusively spectators. Which is why alarm bells started sounding inside Kaiba's head when Allan Adams, dressed in casual clothes, popped open the door that Jounouchi had knocked on.
"Chief," Jounouchi greeted solemnly.
Adams nodded and undid the door chain. He ushered them in with Kaiba entering first and Jounouchi bringing up the rear. Adams then cast several suspicious glances down the hall, as if checking to make sure they weren't followed, before immediately redoing every lock on the door.
The window curtains were thrown open, offering a view of the PPSE stadium as the sun started setting behind its domed roof. The day's slanted and ebbing light illuminated the dim room in an eerie orange glow. Kaiba took note of the two full-sized beds, the television on the bureau, the work table, and two wingback chairs— all standard hotel furnishing. Adams moved past them and took up guard by the window with a stern expression and arms folded over his chest. Another man, several years older than Jounouchi and Kaiba, rose from his seat. His delicate heart-shaped face, almost feminine at first glance, was framed by wispy brown hair, but his green eyes were alert and calculating.
"Kaiba-kun, it's good to finally meet you." The even tone and polite manner of speech was designed to mask the tempered steel underneath. "I've heard so much about you."
The alarm bells in his head grew louder, reaching dire volumes that threatened to drown out the rest of his thoughts. Kaiba shifted his gaze from Adams standing like a sentry to his own builder, now silent and unwilling to meet his eyes, guarding the only exit. A sense of deja vu crept over Kaiba. It felt a trap— not unlike the situation where Noa previously cornered him. His hackles rose.
"Please allow me to introduce myself," the man continued. "My name is Yuuki Tatsuya."
Kaiba didn't recognize the name, but he had met this man once before. His lips curled in a hard sneer. "It's you, Meijin Kawaguchi the third."