Yu-Gi-Oh is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No infringement or disrespect is intended by this fanfiction.
Author's Note and Warning: This story is a sequel to KP Duty and Coming Clean. It may be useful to read one or both of those before you read this. For the most part, all three stories strive to follow canon Yu-Gi-Oh characterizations and events as presented in the unedited anime and the manga: however, because two key characters (Pegasus and Gozaburo) have been purposefully distorted, these stories are by definition AU.
As previously. grateful thanks to my beta Dark Rabbit.
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Beholden, Chapter 4: Restorations
by Animom
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. 1 .
Pegasus stands in front of a huge mirror at one end of the dining hall, watching his reflection as he turns his head from side to side. (Of course there is a mirror in the dining hall: according to Kurosuke, there had been—was?—one in every room of the mansion. There had even been an official "catoptricist" on staff whose job was simply to clean every mirror. Every day.)
"I don't usually confide in strangers," he says, smoothing his long hair, "but somehow I feel I can trust you." He pauses in his preening to look back over his shoulder, a gesture clearly meant to show that he is condescending to focus his attention on something other than the mirror for a moment. "I can trust you, can't I?"
The question has been addressed to a young man standing at the far end of the huge dining table. His high-collared black jacket is vaguely military, although his bright red hair and dark blue-grey skin mark him as otherworldly. He doesn't answer right away: he grips the back of the dining room chair and stares down at the polished wood of the tabletop, at a blurry reflection that looks like a corpse trapped beneath muddy ice. "Yes," he tells Pegasus at last. "You can tell me anything."
"I just feel so, so empty." Pegasus has turned back to the mirror, touching the patch over his left eye. "As if there's something missing. It's very distressing."
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. 2 .
"Something on your mind?"
Predictably, Mokuba had appeared at the desert house within hours of Seto's revelation in the VR. Seto had steeled himself to endure a round of hugging and empathy, but rather than smothering Mokuba had simply handed him a battered leather briefcase and then walked past him to make coffee.
Curious (and relieved) Seto opened the briefcase. A thick stack of faded manilla folders, a bundle of backup discs, and a compact external drive. Gozaburo's notes on the transfer process, with Mokuba's analysis of the directory structure and API he used. "This looks like something you did years ago," Seto said.
Mokuba didn't look up from the coffeemaker. "Yeah, I kept hoping—"
Seto understood: Mokuba had never accepted that their virtual "brother" Noa had been lost when the supercomputer containing his scan was destroyed.
"Gozaburo must have had backups," Mokuba said as he took coffee mugs from the cabinet. "But I've never been able to find them. "
Seto wanted to ask why he continued to hope, why he continued to mourn someone so defective, but then the parallel hit him: Mokuba was accustomed to damaged siblings.
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. 3 .
"It's very kind of you to meet me here," Pegasus says, smoothing his hair a final time before he turns from the mirror. "Wherever here is."
"So nothing about this room is at all familiar to you?" the young man asks.
"Should it be?"
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. 4 .
He had been grateful for something to concentrate on, and not have to meet Mokuba's eyes or discuss the revelations in any more detail. Based on Gozaburo's notes, they decided that a six-exabyte RAID drive for recording Pegasus would be sufficient. As they reviewed electroencephalograph equipment for making the recording, Mokuba asked quietly, "Do you want to talk to Kurosuke, or do you want me to?"
"Why?"
"Pegasus is his patient."
"Will he interfere?"
"Probably not, but he might have a perspective on the process that we don't."
And so he had allowed Mokuba to call Kurosuke over from the guest house. The old man had listened attentively, nodding his head almost imperceptibly as he stared at the charts and lists and diagrams.
"You probably think this is wrong. Inhuman, even," Seto said bitterly.
"This procedure," Kurosuke asked, "this scan ... if I understand, it will copy his brain completely? So much so that his essence will continue to exist inside the computer even after his body has died?"
"Yes," Seto said. "It's been done several times in the past." He stopped himself from adding With varying results.
"Will you be able to use the recording to make him account for his crimes?"
Mokuba asked, "Does that bother you?"
"Mr. Crawford has wronged many many people over the years," Kurosuke said, "and yet his skill in choosing his puppets and entangling them in his web, letting them know that if he fell, they would too, has allowed him to evade accountability for his actions." He bowed his head. "I admit with shame I was one such a coward."
Seto didn't wish to have this discussion, but he knew he was the only one who could end it. "No need to beat yourself up," he said. "You did what you could." Careful not to look at Mokuba, he added, "At the very least you saved me."
Kurosuke glanced up at him, and his gratitude was distressingly apparent. "Thank you."
"So, no objections?" Mokuba asked. "Because our lawyers will probably want you to sign something."
"I will sign," Kurosuke said.
"Good. You can go back to your patient." Seto was aware that it was unfair—and possibly unkind—but he still couldn't bear to be in a room with Kurosuke for very long.
As he stood to go Kurosuke said, "If the memory loss is due to physical causes, the process of recording might even," Kurosuke waved his hands, "how to put it? it might bridge over the lacunae."
Seto had heard an unstated condition in Kurosuke's tone. "Amnesia isn't always physical?"
"No, sometimes it is psychogenic. The subconscious chooses to forget. But with this man, there is also the possibility ..." Kurosuke looked thoughtful.
"The possibility of what?"
"That he is simply pretending to have forgotten."
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. 5 .
"I had a horrible dream," Pegasus says. "I dreamed I was an ugly old man with no hair, who did nothing but sit in a drab room and stare at a dirty window all day."
"What if this room is the dream of an old man?"
"That's a strange, cruel thing to say." Pegasus hugs himself, consoling his reflection. "Why do people always hate the beautiful?"
"They also hate the rich and the talented."
Pegasus turns at last, looking surprised. "Am either of those?"
"Both. This is your mansion."
"Really? And I'm talented as well? At what?"
"Follow me, and I'll show you."
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. 6 .
"What do you mean?"
"I observed him for many years," Kurosuke said. "At the request of his father I accompanied him on his travels after Cynthia's death—South America, Eastern Europe, Tibet, Egypt—and managed the mundane details of his everyday life."
"Get to the point."
"Even as a child," Kurosuke said slowly, "he was very sensitive to anything harsh or unexpected, always closing his eyes and putting his fingers in his ears or running away when there was shouting in the house. As we traveled he was horrified at how much wealth had insulated him from the realities and random cruelties of life. However, once he received the Eye, the power to control others, to almost sidestep fate itself, obsessed him."
Mokuba shook his head. "But he hasn't had the Eye for years."
"He does, however, have the memories of the things he chose to do when he had it."
"Oh!" Mokuba clearly had had a revelation. "So you think he's pretending to have amnesia to avoid facing the consequences of his actions?"
"Perhaps."
"I don't think he's faking," Mokuba said. "You do know that when we first identified him at the hospital he begged Seto to save him from a mysterious something? He wouldn't have done that if he remembered their past history."
"Or," Kurosuke said carefully, "perhaps he was begging the doctors to save him from your brother's wrath?"
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. 7 .
They walk from the dining hall down a carpeted hallway, then take an elevator to the top floor of the mansion. The elevator door opens into a large room whose entire ceiling is a slanted bank of glass.
"What a wonderful room!" Pegasus says. "And look at that sky! so very blue!"
"Northern exposure." The young man waves his hand. "Fully stocked with the finest supplies."
All around them are shelves loaded with stacks of thick, pebbly paper and drawing pads; orderly racks of bare canvases and sheets of masonite; neatly-stacked tubes of paint, trays of chalk, colored pencils, drawing pens, markers, and sticks of charcoal; and brushes of every thickness, from eyelash to hand's-breadth.
"Oh." Pegasus walks toward an easel that holds large sheets of paper. "So many things! It's overwhelming. How do people ever learn to use all this?"
"You did."
"I did?" Pegasus says. He picks up a stick of charcoal from a small table next to the easel. "I suppose I must take your word for it, then."
"Try drawing something."
Pegasus turns to look at him. "Only if you pose for me."
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. 8 .
"What if he never stops pretending?" Mokuba asked.
"He wins," Seto said, furious. "I lose."
"I am not saying for certain whether his memory is lost or not," Kurosuke said. "But if I may suggest something which may prove useful in either case?"
"What?"
"Put him in familiar surroundings," Kurosuke said. "that remind him of happier, less stressful times in his life. Be patient, attentive, and non-threatening. Once he trusts you, he will either regain his memory or drop his guard. One way or another, you will uncover the true Pegasus."
Seto knew, at some level, that Kurosuke was only trying to help, but the suggestion that they be nice to Pegasus was ... no, there was no way. "He won't buy it."
"Not from you, no," Mokuba said, "but what if you're disguised? He's a spoiled egoist. He won't question being the center of attention. He thinks it's his due."
Kurosuke added, "If he's facing not Seto Kaiba—the man he should flee from—but instead a potential new ally that knows nothing about him, he'll see a harmless pawn to charm and manipulate."
Every atom in Seto's body was saying No, but he had to accept the plausibility of what the other two were suggesting. "I'll do it."
"Anyhow," Mokuba said reassuringly. "You won't be alone. I'll be disguised right along with you."
"Don't patronize me!" Seto now knew how animals in steel traps felt, and why they chewed through their own limbs to escape. "I don't need anyone to hold my hand."
"I didn't say you did."
"I forbid you to come."
"Since when are you the boss of me?" Mokuba said. "C'mon, Seto, I have a stake in this too. Pegasus kidnapped me, put my soul in a card, and locked me in a dungeon for days." Before Seto could respond Mokuba added, "But more important, he hurt you. No way I'm going to sit out here while you take him on by yourself."
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. 9 .
As Seto reluctantly sits in a chair Pegasus fusses with the easel, appearing to be surprised that it has a height adjustment.
Very convincing.
When he finally does begin to draw he goes slowly, looking back and forth every few seconds—sometimes scribbling over what he has done, once even ripping the sheet from the easel—but gradually he does this less and less, apparently filling each page with dozens of sketches before turning to a fresh sheet and making more. "You're a wonderful model," he says with a sigh. "It's as if you being here is gifting me with creative abilities. It's exhilarating. You're like a Muse descended from Olympus."
"I have no response to that," Seto says.
The studio returns to silence after that, holding only the scritch of the charcoal and the rustle of paper for several minutes. Then a phone rings.
Mokuba, checking up on him.
"Go ahead and answer that," Pegasus says, setting down the charcoal stick and wiping his fingers on a cloth. "I'm going to try some pastels next, I think."
"Hello," Seto says once Pegasus has walked to the other end of the room.
"Where are you?" Mokuba asks.
"Art studio."
"He's drawing?"
"Yes."
"Not using blood, is he?"
"Not so far."
"You okay?"
"Of course." He hangs up.
"I hope you don't charge by the hour," Pegasus says, coming back with several flat, brightly-colored metal cases. "I'm not sure I could afford you."
"I'm sure you could."
"Oh?" He chuckles. "Oh, that's right. You said I'm rich. Do people hate me because I'm rich?"
Not when there are so many other reasons. "I have no idea."
Pegasus has opened one of the tins. He is drawing something larger now. His motions have become confident, his expression thoughtful. It also seems as though he is selecting each drawing chalk—pastel, whatever they're called—without hesitation. Has he finally decided to drop the pretense?
As Seto watches him work he decides that it had been a mistake not making the artist's VR avatar look as he had during Duelist Kingdom. As he was now, dressed in street clothes, black patch hiding the Millennium Eye (or was it missing?), he was too reminiscent of the Pegasus of Seto's childhood, the fascinating friend who had secretly thrilled him by maintaining their correspondence under Gozaburo's nose. Rationally, of course, this effect is due to the setting and the situation, which were recalling his memories of the day he'd first met Pegasus.
No, he reminds himself, he's not my friend. He's the person who destroyed my life.
At last Pegasus says, "Done. Want to see?"
"All right." Seto pushes himself out of the chair and walks over to look.
He has to admit that, whether he is faking or not, the bastard still has command of his talent. The portrait is stylized, and yet seems on the verge of movement and life. "It's good," Seto says, impressed despite himself. "it's very good."
"It is, isn't it?" Pegasus says wonderingly, without a trace of either humbleness or irony. "You've really inspired me. Perhaps it's because ... "
"Because what?" Seto asks.
"Well, I hope you won't be offended," Pegasus says quietly, stepping close to him, "if I say that I find myself unexpectedly drawn to you." He puts a hand on Seto's shoulder, then lets the hand slide down Seto's back to his waist. "You remind me very much of someone I once held dear."
Seto grits his teeth. It had been careless to leave the tactile module in the VR program, but he isn't about to let the lurching, queasy sensations flooding him make him panic and end the program before he has dug out the truth. "Could be because you're drawing me," he says as calmly as he can.
"That's probably it." Pegasus' voice is even softer now, almost a whisper. "Should I continue?"
Seto wonders if Kurosuke and Mokuba are been wrong. Has Pegasus seen through the deception from the beginning? Has he simply been playing the innocent to see how far Seto will go with the charade? There is one way to find out: call the bluff. "Sure."
"Are we still talking about art, Kaiba-boy?" Pegasus asks. "I'd hate to jump to the wrong conclusion and do something uncalled-for."
Seto is stunned. "Pause," he says as he presses a relay hidden in the hem of his jacket. He ducks away from Pegasus and hurries to crouch behind a cabinet as if taking cover from gunfire.
Across the room, the frozen artist, posed as if offering a handshake, has a malicious half-smile.
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. 10 .
"Fair enough," Seto said grudgingly. "But don't enter the VR until I call for you."
"You shouldn't—"
"Please, Mokuba."
His brother looked shocked, Seto thought, as if he'd never heard Seto say "please" before.
"Okay," Mokuba said, "I promise."
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. 11 .
The blue rectangles of sky have shaded toward dusk and still he cannot move. It is as if the program has frozen him as well, a swirling cryonic of disgust and hatred ... and yes, exhilaration.
The phone rings.
"Yes?" Even though he knows Pegasus can't hear him, he can't help talking in a near whisper.
"Your readings have been really weird. What's going on?"
"Kurosuke was right. Pegasus didn't lose his memories. He's been faking."
Mokuba growls. "Time for me to come in and—"
"Not yet."
"Why not? Damnit, Seto, why?"
He can't explain why. "I'll call you when I'm ready." He hangs up, and then because it feels good, calming somehow, he wedges himself even further into the space behind the cabinet, far enough that Pegasus is no longer in his line of sight.
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. 12 .
He had found it unexpectedly difficult to pick his disguise. Mokuba kept making suggestions, even locating what he called a "feature deconstruction and randomization program" from a witness protection program, but Seto kept dismissing them for no reason he could quite articulate.
"Your problem is that you think you're perfect as is," Mokuba joked. "So no avatar that isn't you is going to meet your approval."
"Hardly."
Still ...
Late that night, after Mokuba had gone over to the guest house to supervise the setup for the recording, Seto sat down at Mokuba's computer to look through the randomization program. In the directory of previous outputs was a folder labeled Source. Curious, Seto clicked to find scans of old photographs. There were dozens from their days at the orphanage, including the smiling one that had gone into their lockets, but there were also a few from their years with Gozaburo. In one, Seto—wearing the white high-collared suit that he had so hated—stood on a stage, holding a trophy he had received for something or other. Unsmiling, clearly contemptuous of the lesser beings around him, impatient to be elsewhere, he stood in a spotlight.
And just beyond the edge of the light, a flash of magenta, clapping and smiling and beaming as if Seto were his own son.
He inverted the colors, applied them to the first randomized face Mokuba's program generated, and then uploaded the results to his pod.
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. 13 .
"You call for maintenance?" asks a man who has appeared in the studio's doorway. Dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and work boots, he has a tool belt slung over one shoulder. "Hey, what you doing back there?"
"Mokuba!" Seto fumes as he storms over. "You promised not to—"
"He didn't break his promise," the stranger says, holding up his hands as if surrendering. "I'm not Mokuba."
"Then who the hell—" Seto starts to demand, a part of him noting that there is something familiar about the way the stranger's shaggy reddish-brown hair is tied back.
"The carpenter thing isn't enough of a clue? Damn." The stranger digs into the neck of his t-shirt, and grinning, pulls out a pendant: an antique ivory netsuke of a dragon, strung on a thin leather lace. "Recognize this?"
Seto grimly takes out the phone and dials his brother.
"Don't be mad," Mokuba says the instant he answers. "I know I said I wouldn't monitor you, but—"
"Why did you involve him in—a family matter?" Seto demands.
"He called and offered."
Seto harrumphs as he watches Jounouchi tiptoeing with the exaggerated caution of a cartoon character toward the motionless Pegasus.
Mokuba sighs heavily. "Believe it or not, he'd seen something about Pegasus being found and put under our care, and he's been calling me and asking if there was anything he could do to help."
"Bullshit."
"That part is true." Mokuba is irritated, which meant a welcome directness would follow. "I know you're not gonna want to hear this, but I'm going to say it anyhow. Do you know what Jou told me before he went to Australia? He told me, 'Your brother wants to be really really really close to someone who will leave him completely alone.' It made me laugh, but it's absolutely true, and it convinced me that Jou understands you as well as I do. Not that that's much."
Seto is too annoyed to respond.
"Anyhow," Mokuba continues, "I know what's past is past, but after you told me what happened to you at Duelist Kingdom I called him up, and by dancing around the topic for almost an hour each of us finally caught on that the other knew about it."
"Behind my back."
Mokuba keeps going. "In the end, I told him what we were planning to do and he offered to go to Domino and be on-call in case we needed backup."
"I see."
"Look, whether you believe it or not there are a lot of people who would drop everything to help you," Mokuba adds. "On-line, in-person."
"Vultures."
"Friends, you ass. Deny it all you want, you have them."
"Weird." Jounouchi is muttering. "He looks so weird. Does he still have the Eye?" He hurries back over to Seto. "Can he read my mind?"
Seto shakes his head. "Will it stop your interference," he asks Mokuba, "if I allow him to stay?"
"Probably."
"Hn." Seto makes sure to use his We're ending this conversation now tone. "Anything else?"
"Can't think of anything at the moment," Mokuba says.
Seto hangs up and motions Jounouchi toward the doorway. "Stay in the hallway for now."
"Okay."
Once Jounouchi is out of sight Seto takes up his position against Pegasus' hand, presses the relay, and says, "Resume program."
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~ To be continued ~
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A request: If you review
(and I do appreciate those that take the time to comment):
I'd prefer if you please avoid mentioning details of spoilers
(spoilers generally being anything in the chapter that took you by surprise).
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(05) 25 August 2013 ~ Eye