Epilogue: Open the Future
Seven months earlier
On the eve of the final match of the 7th Gunpla Battle World Championship Tournament
Mokuba counted imaginary sheep and stripes of light moving across the bedroom ceiling, but slumber did not find him any sooner. It had been almost a month since he arrived in England. He could still remember stepping off the train from Kyoto like it was yesterday. Never in a million years had he expected to find Noa and several bodyguards waiting for him. Before Mokuba knew it, he was packed up and shipped to London that same day.
He kicked up a fuss in the limo, but Noa had not been moved.
The Kaibas' London property, situated on the border of Kensington and Chelsea, was a two-story Georgian house surrounded by a spacious yard and a high brick wall with an iron-wrought gate, which could only be unlocked from the control room inside. It wasn't the largest of the family properties, but Mokuba had no doubt that it cost his father a pretty penny. At first, Mokuba had been allowed free reign of the house, including the library and entertainment room. But he quickly lost that privilege after his various escape attempts, all of which only got him as far as the gate. Since then, Daimon had confined him to his room and its adjoined bathroom. Other than being escorted to the dining room for three meals a day, Mokuba saw nothing save the four walls of his prison.
His internet access was severely limited and tightly monitored. Without news from the outside world— he wasn't even allowed a newspaper, he was cut off and cast adrift from everything. Mokuba was slowly but surely going mad. Given his circumstances, there was no way he wouldn't.
He flopped over onto his side and glared at the dark wall. What about Seto? How was his older brother doing? If Gozaburo suddenly decided to be this strict with Mokuba, he feared for what that meant for Seto. This was supposed to be a good summer. Seto was participating in the Gunpla Battle World Championship Tournament. Mokuba wanted nothing more than to be there to cheer him on.
Not for the first time, a chilling thought sprang to mind. What if Mokuba was stuck here for what remained of the summer, then the school year, and then the rest of his life? Kind of like Rapunzel in her tower. Surely his father wouldn't do that to him... He beat the thought back and swore he'd find a way out. Seto wouldn't have given up, and neither would Mokuba.
Something shattered, and Mokuba bolted out of bed. He turned toward the window and froze when he saw the sheepish expression on the teenage girl floating outside his window— or what remained of his second-story bedroom window.
"Oops," she giggled awkwardly in English and lowered her hand. "Guess I used too much force." She swept the metal pole over the window frame, knocking off the remaining glass fragments still clinging to the edge.
"Who are you?" Mokuba asked in awe. Then he realized he had spoken in Japanese.
"I'm a friend of your brother's, Kaiba Seto," she replied fluently in Japanese and gave a toothy smile. "I'm here to rescue you on his behalf."
He gaped at her for several more moments. Seto didn't have friends though. He refused to even call Yuugi a friend.
Her smile quickly morphed into a frown. "Come on. We don't have that much time. Get your things and move your cute butt!" she ordered, finally shaking him out of his shock. "You don't want to be stuck here, do you?"
Mokuba raced around the room and gathered his most important belongings, including the locket with Seto's photo. He stuffed several random articles of clothing into a book bag, then slipped into his sneakers. No time to change out of his pajamas. He looked back and she was already gone. Part of him almost wondered if he had hallucinated the girl, but his window remained decidedly broken.
Treading carefully around broken glass, he approached the window. A thick towel was laid across the sill, while a ladder leaned up against the wall of the house. Okay, that made a lot more sense than her floating by magic or jet pack. On the ground, she beckoned him with one hand before grasping the ladder again to stabilize it.
Mokuba hurried down the ladder. It was a miracle that Daimon or anyone else hadn't come to investigate the noise. At the very least, the breaking window should have triggered the house alarm. But every window remained dark and silent when he looked back.
"Uh, what about the ladder?" he asked when she started to move away.
"Just leave it. I can't carry that on my own and Julian is back with the car," she hissed.
"Don't tell me your entire escape plan was to scale the walls and break my window with brute force."
She shrugged and shouldered her backpack. "Well, it was locked, so I needed to open it somehow. It may not be elegant, but it worked."
Mokuba almost laughed out loud, but he smothered the sound. This was the most amateur escape plan ever conceived. But she was right, it'd worked. Together, they broke into a run and Mokuba fell into pace two steps behind her.
As they came up on the front gate, which was open for some reason, he asked, "How did you get inside?"
"That was the easy part. I hacked it."
She could barely manage a ladder on her own, but she could hack security on a Kaiba family property. Color Mokuba impressed.
Mokuba's heart swelled when they cleared the massive iron-wrought gates. She never slowed down, leading him down the street to the next corner. His lungs began to burn, and he grimaced. This is what he got for being cooped up inside all summer. Following her example, Mokuba took a running dive into the car waiting curbside. His landing against the seat momentarily knocked the breath from his lungs. He blushed when she crawled over him to shut the door.
"Go go go!" she screamed at the driver.
Tires screeching, they took off and merged into London traffic. She peeled herself off of him and settled back in the other seat. Mokuba peered out the back window, half-expecting to find Daimon chasing them. He wouldn't put it past the man to try and track them on foot. But before long, the high walls around the property and the Georgian house vanished from sight, allowing him to breathe easy again.
The girl extended one hand to him, and Mokuba took it without thinking. She wore bright pink nail polish, and her hand was soft and warm. He reluctantly let go after two shakes.
"Hi, I'm Rebecca! Rebecca Hopkins," she chirped and then pointed at the blond man in the driver's seat. "That's my cousin, Julian Mackenzie."
In the rear view mirror, Julian tossed him a smile and a mock salute. Mokuba grinned and waved back.
"How did you guys find me though?" he asked in awe.
"That's a bit of a long story."
"I have nowhere else to be in the meanwhile."
Rebecca laughed like the peals of church-bells ringing in celebration.
-x-x-x-
Seven months later after the Battle of A Baoa Qu
Mokuba launched himself out of the car like a speeding rocket. For whatever reason, late afternoon traffic around the Domino's downtown area had slowed to a crawl. They were only two blocks away from the Kaiba Corporation building, but he couldn't wait any longer— not today of all days. The fact that he had been forced to go to school was pure torture. On most days he was glad to be done with that boarding school in Kyoto and thanked his lucky stars that Seto wanted to keep him close. Today was not that day though.
"Mokuba-sama! Please wait!"
Walking backwards, he waved to the stricken Isono trapped behind the driver's wheel. "Don't worry. Please call the office and tell Nii-sama that I'm on my way. He better not start without me! I mean it."
As Mokuba weaved through the crowd, he reflected on the changes of the past seven months. Not only had the court of public opinion condemned Gozaburo and Noa, the law threw the book at them. Convicted on charges of corporate espionage and conspiracy to commit murder, both his father and brother were sentenced to 20 years in jail. Seto tried to keep him clear of the scandal, but Mokuba refused. He returned to Japan to stand with his brother and their distraught mother as the media had its field day with the Kaiba family. Seto might not have come out the experience smelling entirely of roses, but his brief stint as Meijin Kawaguchi the Fourth helped to endear him to the Gunpla-adoring public. The fact that the third Meijin publicly praised Seto didn't hurt either.
As for the Kaiba Corporation, the recent months brought many turbulent changes. The board made a unanimous decision to oust Gozaburo and Noa after their conviction, which left them scrambling for new leadership. Unlike PPSE's overnight implosion, Mokuba expected to watch the family company spiral into a painful and prolonged death. He didn't care either way. Like Seto, he had never been comfortable with the family business. After everything that happened recently, living like a normal person might be a godsend.
But Seto surprised him and everyone else in the world— except for maybe Jounouchi, he probably knew— when he approached the major shareholders, offering to fix their problem and somehow return the company to good standing. Of course, Seto had conditions— major transformative ones. But by then, PPSE had imploded spectacularly in the absence of its CEO and the loss of its primary revenue earner. The collapse sent shockwaves through the Japanese stock market that had many brokers contemplating suicide. Too scared of going the same way as PPSE, the board reluctantly agreed to try Seto's way for a while. They gave Seto a year to prove his worth.
Their father and Noa should have never underestimated Seto. He was every ounce as capable as they were combined. Slowly but surely, Seto was transitioning the family business from the arms trade to consumer electronics. And if today's test went well, they were about to corner an entire market of the gaming industry.
Mokuba broke into a grin as he came up on the KaibaCorp building, sliding into the building after the automatic doors barely parted in time to avoid a face-plant in the glass. The receptionist at the front desk looked up, then shook her head with a sigh. Mokuba bit down on the urge to stick his tongue out. Instead, he dutifully swiped his ID card into the security terminal and waited to be let through.
"Seto-sama is waiting in his office," the receptionist reported.
Good, that meant that they hadn't started without him! Mokuba raced to the elevator and jabbed the bottom for the top floor, trying to close the doors faster. As it ascended, he danced back and forth across his feet, wringing his hands with excitement. When he finally arrived at the 30th floor, he nearly barreled into someone on his way out of the elevator. He sidestepped at the last moment and avoided colliding with the suited man.
"Careful, Mokuba-kun," Yuugi scolded him gently before he picked up his dropped planner.
Yuugi had been the first of PPSE's former employees that Seto hired after the company's dissolution. Seto also managed to retain virtually all of the ones from the Technical Sciences division and established them as a separate lab under R&D.
"Sorry, Yuugi! Today is the day! Are you coming to the test?"
Yuugi nodded and stepped onto the elevator. "I'll see all of you downstairs soon. There are a few remaining safety measures I need to make sure are in place first."
Mokuba bolted down the hallway, gave a speedy greeting to Seto's secretary, and flung himself through the door of the CEO's office. The conversation between the four men inside immediately came to a halt. Seto looked up with a mixture of fondness and disapproval, while Jounouchi simply snickered at him. The other two men appeared more amused than mad at the intrusion. Feeling abashed for the first time, Mokuba dropped into a bow and formally greeted their visitors. "Good afternoon, Kawaguchi-san, Allan-san."
"It's good to see you again, Mokuba-kun," the third Meijin stood and returned the greeting, but he was always unfailingly formal every time he came to visit.
Allan waved like the clueless foreigner he pretended to be. Mokuba took no offense though.
Mokuba peered around the rest of the office with an expectant expression. The office was completely different from his father's days. Mokuba and Jounouchi had helped Seto pick out most of the new furniture. The one item that Seto kept of their father's was the desk and chair, and they both knew that pissed Gozaburo off to no end. But the most eye-catching piece was the glass case that came into line of sight upon entering the room. Inside was several Gunplas put on display, including the Imperial Legilis that Seto bought from PPSE, and a second-place trophy for the 7th Gunpla Battle World Championships. Mokuba was determined to fill it with even more models and trophies.
Several key people were missing though. "Where's Nils-san and Caroline-san?" he asked.
Seto sighed and folded his hands over his desk. A weary expression settled over his brother's face. "Mokuba, there have been some unexpected setbacks."
His face started to fall, heart plummeting toward the sole of his shoes. Then Jounouchi, perched on the edge of the desk by Seto's elbow, reached over and punched Seto in the arm.
"Shit, don't mess with your little brother like that," Jounouchi rolled his eyes. "He might develop self-esteem issues."
Seto shot a withering look at the other man. "He's a Kaiba. He's fine."
"Nii-sama!" Mokuba whined.
"My apologies, Mokuba."
Whatever tiny amount of ire he felt immediately vanished. Mokuba hadn't really been angry. Truth was he was pleased that Seto could joke with him like that. For most of his life, Seto did nothing but scowl, with nary a tender expression to spare anyone but Mokuba on the rare occasion. Jounouchi had been good for his brother in more ways than one. Mokuba had said it before and he'd say it again, Jounouchi was his favorite acquisition from PPSE's dissolution. No matter how much Jounouchi protested that "he wasn't a thing or their employee," he would eventually understand that he belonged to the Kaiba brothers all the same.
Seto straightened his tie and stood. "Now that his royal highness has decided to grace us with his presence, we can proceed."
This time, Mokuba did stick his tongue out at his brother.
One by one, they filed out of the office. Mokuba lingered at the back of the group, watching as his brother held the door open for Jounouchi. How had the rest of the world not caught onto their relationship yet? Mokuba sussed it out during their first in-person meeting upon his return to Japan. Seto never let anyone invade his personal space to the extent that he allowed Jounouchi, not even Mokuba. Then again, neither Seto nor Jounouchi had technically come clean about their relationship with Mokuba. Jounouchi kept his own place on the other side of town, near Yuugi's old neighborhood, even though he seemed to spend more nights than not at the Kaiba penthouse. Mokuba wondered when Jounouchi would finally give up the pretense and move in like Seto obviously wanted. If Seto continued to be stubborn, Mokuba resolved to confront them both. He was fifteen now; he knew about relationships between men and women, men and men, and women and women. Then he'd put Seto out of his misery and ask Jounouchi to move in with them in his stead.
Maybe then they'd stop acting like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar whenever Mokuba walked into the room.
The five of them piled into the express elevator. His stomach soared and fluttered during the journey to the sub-basement level. The adults around him were discussing tedious subjects like production schedules and advertisement campaigns. Couldn't they show a little more excitement for the upcoming test? It was hard to believe these were four of the world's best Gunpla fighters and builders.
The elevator doors opened straight into the lab, where a dozen employees in lab coats fluttered around the computer consoles like a swarm of bees. In the center of the room was a familiar, hexagonal machine with a polished black surface. Nils and Caroline stood to one side, deep in conversation with Yuugi. Mokuba made a beeline toward the other two teenagers, an oasis in this desert of stuffy adults.
"Nils-san, Caroline-san, so glad you can make it," he chirped.
Caroline tossed her hair back— she was wearing it straight this month— and declared haughtily, "Of course, this is an important collaboration between Yajima Trading and the Kaiba Corporation. My father sends his best regards."
Turning to Nils, he asked, "How's it looking so far?"
It was aboard the International Space Station that Nils finally synthesized the Plavsky particle without a crystal. Yajima Trading had been the major financial muscle backing the Plavsky project. Mokuba knew Seto wanted to give more financial support at the time, but KaibaCorp was still in transition and capital was tight. But Nils streamlined the process with KaibaCorp's technological expertise, and it was with that same expertise that KaibaCorp rebuilt a Gunpla battle simulator. The agreement between the two companies was that Yajima maintained exclusivity over the particles themselves, while KaibaCorp had the sole license for the battle simulation program and machinery.
Seto once privately admitted that he was more comfortable with the particles out of KaibaCorp's reach. It might otherwise prove too tempting to the old guard who resented the corporation's change in direction.
"The particle generator has been running all day, and the emission rate is as steady as we hoped. The prototype will work," Nils boasted.
"That's my brilliant fiancé!" Caroline squealed and threw her arms around his neck.
"Caroline, not in front of everyone!"
"Enough, let's get started," Seto barked as he stepped up to the console.
Caroline disentangled herself with a sigh and took three steps back. Jounouchi and the Meijin were both beginning to show signs of barely suppressed excitement.
Nils shook his head and hefted his tablet up, fingers dancing across the surface. "Beginning Plavsky particle dispersal," he announced.
The surface of the battle machine lit up before a barely visible containment field was erected along the perimeter. With fingers crossed, Mokuba held his breath as the rest of the console came to life, and a soft whirling sound emitted from inside. Electric blue Plavsky particles floated up from the tabletop, rising like a cloud of tiny, pulsating stars.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Jounouchi grab his brother's arm and shake him with glee. Everyone else politely ignored the gesture.
"Okay," Nils sighed in relief. "Booting up the space battlefield and setting model damage level to C."
"Go ahead, Mokuba," Seto encouraged him with a tiny smile.
He knew the adults and even Nils were humoring him, but he wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to test-drive the new battle system. Afterwards, he would call Rebecca and report how well the code they scripted had worked.
Digging through his book bag, he first brought out the GP Base Seto gave him earlier in the week. He slotted the device into the console, waiting for it to power up with a beep. The first image displayed was the interlocked KC of the new Kaiba Corporation, then followed by Yajima Trading's logo. Next, he retrieved the case holding his SD God Gundam, which Jounouchi had coached him through the process of building. Mokuba set the Gunpla on the launchpad, growing giddier when the cockpit hologram materialized. The SD God Gundam's eyes lit up and lifted its head like it just woke up. Mokuba grasped both control orbs and whooped, "Kaiba Mokuba, SD God Gundam, ready for battle!"
That's it! Can't believe it over and archived...
I wrote the first draft of this story as my last hurrah before entering grad school, so that I would have something to post as I did my degree. I didn't keep to a regular posting schedule as intended, and ended up leaving the program early due to personal reason. Needless to say, this fic sits at an interesting cross-section of events that took place in my offline life.
The important thing is that both Kaiba and Jounouchi are happy and secure in their new occupations. I felt this was the best ending to bring together all the character threads of both the GBF and YGO canons.
Thanks to M for betaing the non-naughty bits. Thanks to you guys for reading and commenting all along!