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.
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Beholden: Epilogue
by Animom
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It seemed appropriate to take Cynthia's card to the studio.
As the elevator took him to the top floor he called Mokuba. "He's dead."
"Yes, did Kurosuke—"
"No," Seto said, "I was talking to him and he disappeared."
Mokuba didn't say anything for a moment: Seto could almost hear the thoughts he was having, the comments he wasn't expressing. "Huh. Guess he was connected to the recording after all." There was another pause. "So what are you doing now?"
"Looking at something in the studio," Seto said. "I'll be out shortly."
The four canvases were covered with tarps, with a slip of folded paper pinned to each. He propped the card with Cynthia's portrait on the small table that held Pegasus's palette and brushes, and then read the first: Monster #1.
He threw back the tarp.
It was a painting he had seen before, the painting Pegasus had done the day he'd also painted the portrait of Seto that Gozaburo had hated. A dark room, lit only by a small trapezoid of yellow light coming from an open door in the upper left. A dark gray and brown blob filled the right half of the canvas, while in the foreground, a sorrowful child stared out at the viewer. If the child was meant to represent him, it certainly wasn't an accurate likeness. Artistic license, he supposed.
The second painting, Prison, seemed to be unfinished. Against a background of stars, an angelic figure—complete with wings and a nimbus—reached up toward a glowing square. Above the square, circling it, were vague forms, clutching at their heads or throats or chests as the square siphoned a mist from them. Below the angel's feet was an area with no white star-dots, as if the angel were standing on a shadowed something that blocked the view of the sky.
He was studying the picture when he heard a noise in the hallway outside the studio. A moment later Mokuba appeared in the doorway.
Seto reached out and unfolded the paper on the third painting. "Monster Redux." He lifted the tarp.
It was an abstract. On a black background, a tangled mass of jagged red lines took up the right half and the bottom of the canvas, almost obscuring small shards of blue in the lower left. In the dead center of the upper left quadrant was a very small square of yellow.
He shook his head. "It takes no talent to paint such boring nonsense."
"Probably not," Mokuba said, "but maybe it's supposed to be a variation on the first painting. Both have the little door," Mokuba said as he pointed to the yellow square, "but in this one the blue stuff is being attacked by the red scribbles instead of a big brown blob." Mokuba paused. "If the blue is you, and the red is Pegasus, it's like an admission of guilt, isn't it? Did the first one have a title?"
"Monster."
"Well, there you go," Mokuba said. As he reached for the paper on the last painting he asked, "So you talked to him again? How did it go?"
"It ... he admitted everything."
"Wow, really? That's—that's great!"
Mokuba looked so joyful that Seto bit back repeating what he'd said after Pegasus's first "apology": a few sentences weren't going to undo everything that had hung over him for half his life.
Mokuba read, "Friendship's Embrace—hey, isn't that the name of the card design he drew on the Funny Rabbit page?" He started to lift the tarp.
"Wait!"
But it was not the picture that Pegasus had drawn on wine on his comic book: there were no torches, no stone altars, no thinly-disguised Pegasus fondling a Seto-lookalike. Instead, the painting showed a hill, and behind it a sky gray with clouds. Against the sky, cresting the hill, was a warrior in ornate golden armor. Badly wounded, his face twisted in pain, he was standing only because several comrades supported him.
There was an index card on the easel, and Mokuba picked it up. " 'Tribute summon. Play on any card currently in defense mode. Switch both cards to attack mode, combining their attack and defense values. Friendship's Embrace can be used once per duel, and must be removed from play at the end of your turn.' That's—that's kind of awesome."
Seto looked at the painting.
your peers and friends will come to join and support you.
"Let's get out of here," he said to Mokuba. "I'm ready to go home."
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To Seto's relief, Mokuba took over the arrangements, tracking down where Cynthia was buried—Pegasus had built an elaborate mausoleum for two on his island—and flying those who wanted to attend the funeral to California.
The mausoleum, atop a sheltered overlook, was reached by a steep flight of stone stairs. The surprisingly religious graveside service was brief: just as it concluded, the sky clouded over and a warm misty rain began to fall, creating a ground fog that made descending the slippery stairs doubly treacherous.
"Overly dramatic and difficult to the last," Seto murmured.
By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs the shower had become a downpour. No one was enthusiastic about taking the open powerboats back to the mainland, so they congregated under the stone overhangs of the decrepit castle while Mokuba and Rebecca made calls to see what could be done.
Jounouchi, who had come to the funeral with Mai and a tall blond man who seemed familiar—Rafael, was it? from the Paradius organization—caught Seto's eye and then walked over to him, chuckling. "I was just telling Mai that the last time I got soaked at a funeral I wound up drying my socks at your place."
An opening, it seemed. He was about to ask, Are they wet now? but as he glanced at Mai—she was standing close to Rafael, holding his hand, looking up at him in what seemed an intimate way—Rafael said something, and nodded in their direction. Mai turned to look at Jounouchi, and once again Seto felt comprehension dawning. "Are those two," he asked Jounouchi instead, "your 'people' ?"
"Well," Jounouchi said, rubbing the back of his neck, a gesture Seto remembered with nostalgia. "It's ... we kinda bonded at Varon's funeral. We've spent a lot of time together since."
Seto assumed that getting such an evasive equivocation instead of a straightforward "Yes" to his question likely meant that the situation was "complicated," but then that wasn't surprising. Everything to do with human beings—and Jounouchi in particular—was complicated. Convoluted and random and only slightly comprehensible. Qualitative analysis only took one so far.
As the rain was starting to subside, it seemed they would all take the powerboats after all. Seto, not wanting to be packed in like a sardine, hung back; Mokuba did as well, as did Jounouchi.
There was something about the sight of the boat, churning away from the dock with its black-clothed payload, or about the realization that he'd never need come to this island again, or perhaps it was just the rays of sun beginning to poke through the dark gray clouds—whatever it was, he felt a an almost buoyant sense of release, expanding and rising and making him so lightheaded that he started to laugh. He supposed it was simply a natural reaction, a biochemical response to a release of tension, but it felt ... it felt good, better than anything he could remember feeling in years.
"You? Laughing?" Jounouchi said. "Now I'm scared."
The rain started again, a tentative drizzle.
"No point in going back up to the castle," Mokuba said.
"Nope." Jounouchi sat on a large flat stone near the dock, wincing. "Ya know, Kaiba, that's one advantage of your virtual worlds. You can make it so that the virtual rain doesn't soak the virtual pants, thus keeping the virtual ass from getting waterlogged."
"I have never decided," Seto said, noting Mokuba's grin, "if the criteria for a virtual reality's success should be how closely it corresponds to the real world, or how imaginatively it transcends it."
"Maybe it depends on the reality," Mokuba said.
Seto lifted his hand. He found the sight of the raindrops oddly entertaining: the way they gathered into beads and then raced down his fingers, hesitating before they dripped off.
"Now don't get me wrong," Jounouchi said. "Those places you create—they're amazing. But the real world's more interesting, because it's always changing."
"Unpredictability can be programmed," Seto said. "Random number generators to determine intervals and outcomes, and Mandelbrot—"
"You're missing the point," Jounouchi said. "If you program it, you'd still know when something random is coming. Not only that, but you'd know all the things it could be."
"So being unprepared and being taken completely off guard are good?"
"Well, no, not when you put it that way," Jounouchi said. "But if you always know all the ways something could turn out, it takes some of the fun out of taking chances. There's no bam! when something surprising happens." And then his face fell, and he said, "Sorry. I guess being taken by surprise isn't always … it's not always good."
Seto wondered how long it would be before everyone stopped talking about it. Soon, preferably.
The rain stopped again, but the sun sulked behind thin clouds.
"What will you do with the recording?" Mokuba asked.
"I might try to edit it," Seto said.
"Edit?"
"Erasing the most recent changes to the file is trivial," Seto said. "But to delete or adjust key events in his timeline—that might be interesting."
"Key events? Like the death of his wife?" Mokuba asked.
"That's one," Seto replied. "If she had lived, he might not have gone to Egypt. Remove Egypt, and he doesn't receive the Eye, never invents the game, doesn't found Industrial Illusions." Never would have kidnapped you, never would have held Duelist Kingdom.
"Maybe," Jounouchi said, sounding skeptical. "But maybe all that stuff would've happened anyhow. Like, maybe they would've gone to Egypt for their honeymoon? If she hadn't died he probably would've been a different person, but different doesn't mean he'd be better. Maybe he'd have turned out worse. Messing with the timeline is always a bad idea."
"You watch too much science fiction," Mokuba said affectionately.
Seto shrugged. "Isn't being with someone you love supposed to make a difference? Inspiring you to be a better person, for their sake if not your own?"
"That's downright romantic," Jounouchi said, grinning. "You're getting scary again, Kaiba."
Seto shook the raindrops from his hand, smirking when the splatters hit Jounouchi.
"This is all moot," Mokuba said. "It's going to be impossible to edit digital Pegasus's memories. Way too complicated, way too many interconnections and loose ends, right?"
"Most likely." But he already had the beginning of how to structure a schema for mapping memory sectors in four dimensions, and how to implement feedback loops so that the program would pause and alert him if missing sectors were referenced. Then too, it would be simple to create a baseline Cynthia from modified recordings of Ishizu and Mai ...
"So, um," Mokuba said, "since so many people were here in California already, I invited them to hang out at the house for a few days and help me test a project. I, ah, hope you don't mind?"
Seto sighed. "I suppose you'll require me to be present?"
"C'mon, it'll be fun," Jounouchi said. "Kick back, use the pool, give the grills a workout, do some hiking, play some cards ..."
"Yeah, I'd appreciate your feedback," Mokuba said.
"What is this project?"
"A virtual module I put it together a while ago," Mokuba said. "Been waiting for the right time to test it, but you have a genius for avoiding every opportunity I've had to run it with a large enough group."
"Oh!" Jounouchi said. "Is this the—?" He made strange motions with his arms.
Mokuba ignored him. "We can use KaibaLand. Everyone can enjoy the park, and after closing we can take over the pods."
"I've never seen anything in your files." He folded his arms, slightly annoyed that Mokuba was being so mysterious.
"Of course not," Mokuba chuckled. "It's not in my regular files. I know how good a snoop you are. And how good you are at covering your tracks." He lifted his head. "Sounds like the boat's coming back."
"I don't see why you feel the need to hide things from me," Seto asked as they started to move toward the dock.
"Everyone needs a few secrets," Mokuba said, "that stay secret."
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Seto was surprised at the number of people who gathered at the entrance of Blue Eyes Ultimate World.
"Most of these didn't come to the funeral," he said to Mokuba.
"Nope, I flew them in," Mokuba said.
He watched, bemused, as Mokuba—very efficiently—dispatched groups to every building in KaibaLand. When only the two of them were left he asked, "And now?"
"We'll use our personal pods in the castle. I know how you hate to mingle with the commoners."
"Very funny."
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They zoned into the center of a clearing in a sunlight forest.
"This is it?" Seto said.
"Don't be so impatient," Mokuba said.
After a several seconds a half circle of chairs materialized along the perimeter of the clearing, and then several seconds later another row of chairs inside that, and then another. Seto, puzzled, saw shadows moving in the woods, coming toward them through the trees and out into the sunlight.
One by one, they filed into the clearing and down the rows of chairs, taking what seemed to be assigned seats. Yugi, Anzu, Rebecca, Ishizu, Rishid, Jounouchi, Mai, Otogi, Ryou, Honda, Shizuka, Amelda, Noroshi, Kurosuke ... Jounouchi, Seto noted, took a seat in the back row, between Mai and Rafael, but waved when he saw him.
"This is even more than were at the park," Seto said to Mokuba.
"Some made special arrangements," Mokuba replied cryptically, materializing a chair. "Now, sit here and pay attention."
Seto did as he was told.
Mokuba signaled the audience for silence. "Before we start, there's a few things I want to say," he began. "It's sad—but also very fitting—that Pegasus's death provided us opportunity to finish this project. Grief—any suffering really—can make you feel completely alone, cut off from the rest of humanity. It can make you feel broken, drive you to extremes.
"Whether you or not you come back depends on whether there's someone there for you. A friend, a family member, a caring person from your community, even a random kind stranger. Someone to keep real life at bay for a while, to offer a shoulder if you need something solid to lean on. Someone to pull you back from the edge if you start to fall into the abyss, and guide you without making you feel dragged along. Someone who accepts that it'll take a while before you want to laugh or love or even be civil again."
Seto thought about how, every year, Yugi and his friends had come to Mokuba's memorial service, unacknowledged; how many times they'd left messages which he'd furiously deleted, unheard.
"Even before I came back from the dead," Mokuba continued, "I've wanted to do a project that celebrates life and how we learn to live it." He paused to scratch his ear. "Wow, when I say that out loud it sounds a lot cornier and more grandiose than it looked on paper." He waited until everyone had stopped laughing before he went on. "Let's say instead that I wanted to celebrate the part that our friends play in our survival."
"Now, before I started this project I'd heard the term 'concerto' but didn't actually know what it meant. When I looked it up I found out that—and okay, I admit I memorized this next part—'in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra alternate themes of opposition, cooperation, and independence.' I thought that was a very cool concept. It seemed a perfect format for the project, but I did see one problem. I didn't know many professional musicians."
There was another ripple of light laughter.
"However, thanks to virtual reality, anyone can be a musical prodigy if their heart's in the right place. And if I didn't botch the programming too badly." He flicked his wrist, and in an instant everyone in the audience was holding an instrument: woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings.
Mokuba then turned slightly to face Seto. "So, big brother," he said quietly, using a nickname he hadn't used since they were kids, "I call this Concerto for Violin and an Orchestra of Friends."
Seto stared down at the violin in his hands. Violin? He was the soloist?
"I know I've put you on the spot," Mokuba said, "but trust me—the first note is always the scariest."
Opposition, cooperation, independence.
He glanced up. Yugi, Jounouchi, Ishizu, Kurosuke ...
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"Be careful, Kaiba-kun! Watch out for his Dragon-Sealing Jar!"
"So you're safe? We were worried!"
"Kaiba! Wait for me!"
"Thank you, Seto."
"Have courage. You will persevere."
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"I'm ready," he said, tucking the violin between his shoulder and chin. As he lifted the bow he realized to his astonishment that he actually did want to play.
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"... the time of darkness is past.
After the time of decay comes the turning point.
The powerful light that has been banished returns."
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The sound of the concerto floated up into the sunlit air, radiant and graceful and welcoming and pure.
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~ The end ~
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So ends the saga that started with 2002's KP Duty.
First, I want to again express my deeply-felt gratitude to Musouka, Rroselavy, and Dark Rabbit, the three godmothers who, at various times over the past eleven years, have shepherded me though the at times difficult gestation and birth of this series. I would never have been able to see it through without them. ~ I would like to thank my family, who have tolerated me locking myself in my office to write on weekends more times than I want to count; and finally, I thank those who took the time to review these long, sometimes overwritten stories over the years: your comments have always managed to throw a log onto the fire every time I was down to embers.
I do have Author's Notes for this story, but they're going to take some time to edit. They'll show up eventually.
(I can say that the first four quotes at the end are from episodes 26, 45, 67, and 94; the last is from KP Duty.)
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(07) 22 April 2014 ~ Fixed awkward sentence