Epilogue: The Princess and the Dragon

Mai walked in to her parents' home and was greeted by a strange sight. Her parents were sitting together talking and laughing at the dining table having a cup of tea.

"Sweetheart!" her father jumped out of his chair and picked her up. He hugged her tight and kissed her then pulled her to the table. He served her a cup of tea and her mother offered her a scone. Mai took the tea and the scone. She was not really hungry but she was burning with curiosity on what caused this much non-business related communication between her parents.

"Your father was telling me some stories from college. They are very interesting. Come listen for a while," her mother invited. Mai sat down and listened. Her mother had never called anything her dad did "interesting". She needed to find out more…

-0-

Oume massaged her temples. She had just shut down the computer in her Shadow Broker office for the third time that day. It had been a long day! She had not expected Kamo to drop quite the bomb he did drop. She had expected years of sex, drugs and rock and roll to have fuzzed his memory and made him forget his charming friend Jamie.

'But no…he remembers not only all of their adventures but that Jamie married an Egyptian woman named Adeena and had two sons!' she thought a bit frustrated. He had even remembered that Jamie had spent a few months in a Baharavian jail. He was accused of being a spy though he was actually just a tourist taking nature photos. He became a spy as a result of the brutal trauma he suffered in the jail and the horrors he witnessed.

'Prison changed him…at least Jamie had the presence of mind not tell my moronic husband he was involved with the Lady Grief network,' thought Oume annoyed. She had spent the last two hours now retracing some of Jamie's old Lady Grief network contacts to make sure none of it would lead back to her or her Shadow Broker work.

'But worse of all he confessed why he had really been so gung-ho about protecting Gozaburo Kaiba's children,' she sighed tiredly. Kamo had come home early today and confessed to her during dinner that he had recognized Jamie's son Seto the instant he laid eyes on the boy four years ago during a party at Gozaburo's house.

'He would have of course…Seto is identical to his father. He even remembered Jamie's children's names and the years they were born!' she remembered annoyed with herself for not thinking to check on her husband's connections more carefully. Kamo's roster of "friends" was just a colorful assortment of hangers-on. She had been so certain he had no actual friends, just people he was expected to socialize with and whoever was the flavor of the month.

'Obviously Jamie was more important to him than I realized,' she thought, annoyed that she had left that detail to chance. He had been afraid to say anything to anyone because of the reputation he and Jamie had as young men. He was also nervous about meeting Seto, he felt responsible for not checking up on him and his brother and saving them from being dumped in an orphanage and ending up with Gozaburo. He was worried about Seto being mad at him, he desperately did not want his best friend's children to hate him!

'I can't blame him for not saying anything,' thought Oume feeling a slight pang of sympathy. Jamie's stepmother had greeted Kamo at the door of the funeral parlor when he arrived to pay his respects. She blocked his way and told him rudely to turn around and take his sordid and disgusting lifestyle with him. And so Kamo – who had taken great pains to arrive without the trail of bodyguards and reporters that usually followed him everywhere - had left without even being allowed to light incense or leave flowers for his old friend.

'Thankfully Mai was able to soothe those fears and encouraged her father to talk to Seto,' Oume reflected. She was proud of Mai. She had become more thoughtful and wise in the last year. Something had happened in those duel monsters tournaments. They had changed her! She wondered if her girl was asleep yet. She had gone to bed right after soothing her father.

Oume had stayed up to listen to her husband a little longer. She needed to know what else he knew. So she tolerated his inane stories of all the stupid things he and Jamie did. She had been careless before. She would not do so again! It had been time well spent. There were a number of people she would need to hunt down and shake to make sure they could not compromise Jamie's espionage achievements.

"That can wait until tomorrow," she said to the empty room. For a moment she contemplated going to Mai and talking to her some more about her afternoon. She decided that she would wait until tomorrow for that too. Kamo was gone now making the rounds on his usual nightclub haunts spreading the word far and wide that the feud was over.

'No doubt he will embellish his role in it,' she thought mildly amused as she headed now towards her room. As she approached the door to her room she came to a dead stop. A life time of dodging assassins had given Oume an uncanny sense for detecting intruders. However, someone was in her bedroom and that person had somehow slipped past her net!

Mai was sleeping most likely and she never came to this wing of the house. It was too close to her sister's room and Mai – like her father – had avoided her sister's room since she passed. Yusuke and his people were very observant, no one got past Yusuke and his guys ever! He was the best of all the guards she had ever hired. She prepared herself… whoever had gotten past her layered defenses was a master!

"It's just me mom!" Mai called out laughing. Oume relaxed and shook her head half relieved and half amused as she moved to the door. She froze as she opened the door and saw her daughter lying in her bed…in Mai's hands was Adeena's diary!

"Did you know that this language is called Goa'uld?" she pointed out with an amused smirk on her face. Oume quickly closed her door glancing to make sure the window shades were down. She turned to look at her daughter, a mixture of astonishment and pride. Mai got into her sister's room and opened the safe without activating any of the alarm systems or traps Oume had placed in there to alert her if anyone had gone in there.

"Night is a bad influence! No wonder Tokio's such a sneaky chick!" Mai mused as she turned another page. Oume chuckled and asked the obvious question. She entered her walk in closet and changed into her comfortable night clothes as Mai talked. She sensed right away that her daughter had much to say. She decided that she would let Mai control the conversation.

"Night teaches his girls how to "get an advantage" that's what he calls dirty fighting anyhow…really dirty fighting!" Mai laughed. Aside from that he also teaches his apprentices to be escape artists. It was something he added to the curriculum because of Tokio's preference for avoiding bad situations rather than having to fight her way out of one. So incidentally Mai could be a thief of unmatched talent if she wanted to…so could Tokio.

"How long have you known?" Oume finally asked as she came to sit on the bed next to her daughter. Mai closed the book and put it on her lap. She smiled at her mother.

"Since the first time I dueled him…I just knew," she said with a sad smile.

"I felt it as soon as I looked in his eyes. I saw a little of me in his eyes. I don't know how to explain it but I just knew! I could've won that duel but I didn't dare…I was just overwhelmed with the need to help him!" she began struggling suddenly to explain the feelings she had been hiding for so long. Oume placed her hand over her daughter's hand silently encouraging her daughter to continue. She explained she had obviously heard a lot about Seto in the gaming circuit but sitting in front of him, their faces just a couple of feet away from each other was when she truly learned who he was.

"This was before the holographic duel platforms so we still dueled at small ordinary card tables. Being that close and hearing his voice…I just knew," Mai continued. Oume smiled sadly at Mai and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"At first I thought he was another little boy my dad had made and then abandoned. I couldn't really be obvious about searching because he is a Kaiba and who knew what Gozaburo might have done to him if he found out he was in any way related to a Shinomori. I had no way of knowing if Kaiba senior was aware of his relation to us or not. I just couldn't risk it!" Mai continued letting the anger and frustration pour out of her.

"Dad though gave me my first clue a few months after that duel. He got drunk so I scared away all his minions so he could sober up in some peace and quiet. But he was in a weird mood. He's usually cheerful when he's drunk but not that time," she added. He pulled out a box of old photos. Mai had indulged his trip down memory lane hoping to find out what other woman he abandoned after he impregnated her.

"But then he takes out a picture and there he is in this picture arm in arm with Seto!" she said her face and tone reliving the astonishment she felt in that moment. She opened Adeena's diary once more.

"Except it wasn't Seto Kaiba…It was his best friend Jamie!" Mai said pulling the picture out and showing it to her mother. The young man with Kamo was identical to Seto. Every detail on his face was exact…except for his eyes. Jamie's eyes were dark brown. Seto had the same color eyes as his sister and his mother. Oume's eyes went wide she voiced the obvious concern.

"Don't worry! He fully believes that you hated Jamie's guts and that you hardly remember him. Your secret's safe as far as he's concerned," Mai reassured but to be safe she had made all of those college photos disappear. She had kept her father's box hidden until tonight. When she took out the diary she placed the box with the pictures inside the safe.

"Good! Thank you! I need to track down all of your father's old acquaintances," Oume commented absently planning a full day of tracking old acquaintances of Kamo's. With the pretense of helping Jamie's children it should be simple to extract information from whoever was still around. She would use the legal team she had engaged to protect Seto and Mokuba's legacy. That had been very carefully set up and it would never lead back to her.

"Yea…which leads me to the obvious question…why him? I mean, from everything dad said about him…the guy was an idiot! Worse! He was a jerk and an idiot and dad's best friend! He was awful! I mean of all the guys in the world to have an affair with mom why that guy?!" Mai demanded giving her mother a very perplexed look.

"A fair question…" Oume began with a chuckle. "Jamie spent a few weeks in one of Joffrey Baratheon's dungeons. Everything you've ever heard about those places is absolutely true," she added ominously pausing to let the full meaning of her words sink into Mai.

"Whoever Jamie was when he went in to that prison died in that prison. He was able to fool your father for a little while but that's why they stopped seeing each other. Your father thinks it was because his friend got married and had decided to settle down but Jamie was a very different person when he was released from prison," Oume added. She explained that as a result of the suffering he witnessed in that prison Jamie had become involved with the Baharavian freedom fighters when King Johan was trying to get back his throne. She needed to make sure his legacy remained intact.

"He was an agent of the Lady Grief network," Oume concluded solemnly.

"Oh! I get it! So he comes back to Japan to contact the Japanese Lady Grief agents. He was a perfect agent! He was a photo journalist working for a respectable magazine and he had both American and Japanese citizenship. He was the perfect courier! That must've been why they threw him in jail huh?" Mai deduced. Oume smiled proudly.

"Yes, actually. His assignment had been very legitimate. But it took 9 weeks for Baratheon's government to be convinced that wasn't a spy. If they had left him alone he would have left the country and never bothered with the political landscape. He would have continued to be an unlikeable jerk to this day. In a way they insured the creation of one of their greatest enemies," Oume added with a faraway look.

She explained that Jamie was responsible for smuggling rolls of photo evidence and reels of film proving the brutality of the regime. He was able to extract evidence of the criminals that supported the regime which turned the tide for the freedom fighters. His claim to fame was a battlefield photo he took of a young woman. Her face could not be seen as she charged forward with her shield in front of her. Behind her charged a group of soldiers, the uniforms on all the soldiers threadbare and mud splattered but the conviction in their faces had made a powerful statement.

"I have since deduced that the woman in the picture is Victoria though she prefers to not take credit for that particular photo. She doesn't like people to know what she's capable of. I suppose and I can see where that comes in handy," Oume deduced and Mai agreed.

"Ok, I see what happened. He made contact with you as an agent using daddy's yucky little bet he used to do with his friends as a cover. But still how did he do it? How did he get to you?" Mai asked curious. Her mother's greatest claim to fame was her iron will and cold, calculating demeanor. Her distrustful nature was legendary. Oume shrugged

"I've asked myself the same question for years…" she paused thinking about him for a moment. A sad smile crept across her face before she continued.

"He talked to me…treated me like person. He came to me needing my help for something important but he didn't patronize me like the men of his generation would have in his position. I know this sounds cliché but he was different and I thought: what the hell? Just this once…" she mused aloud.

"Yea…I guess I can understand that," Mai replied thoughtfully. She had learned years ago the awful life that had forged her mother into the hard-ass she was today. She could understand how a guy who was not acting like a misogynistic douche-bag would have caught her mother's eye. She had never experienced such a thing after all.

The wisdom behind her comment surprised Oume… and now she was certain Mai was ready to tell her the real reason she was in her mother's room. Mai had changed drastically in the last two years. She had a feeling it had started in Duelist Kingdom. Spending time today with the little brother she'd been forced to watch from a distance had finally made Mai want to spill what she had been hiding deep inside for so long and the only person she was certain could understand was her mother.

"What really happened in Duelist Kingdom?" Oume asked her finally. Mai looked at her mother she opened her mouth but paused. Her mother knew everything that had occurred at Duelist Kingdom. She wanted Mai to explain what had changed her and why she was here rather than trying to find some way to scam money out of her cousin Aoshi. He was certain to be in a giving mood this weekend!

"I helped Yugi get in to Pegasus' castle after my little brother kicked his butt in a duel. I owed him and you know how I hate owing!" Mai began.
Oume nodded and remained silent waiting for Mai to continue.

"I watched that duel between Pegasus and Seto. I watched him belittle and humiliate him. Then he defeated Seto so easily and laughed at him," Mai began but paused as rage suddenly distorted her face. Oume took her daughter's hands in both hers and nodded. She understood Mai's rage.

"I didn't know why he was there until Yugi explained Mokuba had been taken by Pegasus who was attempting to do exactly what Aoshi had tried to do but he was being far more cruel and ruthless than Aoshi was!" Mai clenched her fist in rage.

"I had just helped poison half my family to protect him and I…I was just a few feet from him and I couldn't do anything! I had never wanted to kill someone more than I wanted to kill Pegasus at that moment. It was hard to keep a neutral expression. I was distracted during my duel against Yugi and I made a choice. I think that's the moment that I walked away from duel monsters…I knew I would have to if I was going to become strong enough to protect my little brother," Mai continued sadly.

"But Mai!" Oume protested

"Mom when Hanna died I felt so helpless! I never want to feel that way again!" Mai turned to her mother with fire in her eyes. Oume opened her mouth to further protest but Mai continued in earnest.

"When the Big Five asked me to test their gadget they tried to play it off as an innocent little good paying job but I knew they were up to something. I also knew you were lurking somewhere in the shadows ready to strike! Can you understand how incredibly satisfying it was to be able to jump in and shield someone I cared about? I sacrificed my dragon and put myself in danger to protect him but it was the happiest moment of my life!" Mai added eyes shining with the intensity of her emotions.

"I know that feeling," Oume added nostalgically. Mai smiled at her mom both women thinking of her mother driving out from Kyoto to Domino with an illegal high powered sniper rifle to rescue Seto. Both of them laughed.

"I joined Battle City not because he invited me but because I had already heard about the Rare Hunters and their plans to take out Seto and my friends. I had to be there! I had to try and do something! Beating the snot out of Marik on Hanna's anniversary felt oh so good!" Mai added laughing.

"If only little brother had just booted him off his blimp! I would have been happy to be disqualified! We could have finished off Marik the old fashioned way!" Mai added with ruthless, evil smirk. Mai continued explaining that while Yugi and his friends dealt with a small amount of Marik's top goons, she had chased down every other lackey in the tournament and taken him or her out!

Marik had flooded Seto's tournament with a bunch of sneaks and jerks taking advantage of young people just trying to have a good time. With extreme satisfaction Mai had hunted all of them down and utterly destroyed them. Oume sighed sadly – she could see now where Mai was going with this conversation tonight. Her sudden confession of her mother's secret and covering the only trail left that led to it.

Mai breaking into her secret Shadow Broker lair wasn't about showing off her skills to her mom, it was an audition to become an agent for the Shadow Broker. This path was not the path she wanted Mai to take. She had taken the path of the assassin in the shadows because she had no choice. The last thing she wanted for her only remaining daughter was for her to follow in her mother's footsteps.

"What's with the face mom?" Mai asked in a slightly amused tone. Oume frowned.

"Mai, I have done the things I've done out of necessity. Given the choice I…" she paused. There were so many things she wished she could have not had to do. So many years of knowing nothing but anger and hate had burned away any hopes and dreams she might have once had. The need for survival and revenge had dominated her every waking moment. This life had made her into a shadow of a woman…nothing more.

It was the last thing she wanted Mai to ever have to live through!

"What would you have done? And don't say something corny like you would still want to have me and my sister and my brother! Just tell me, what would you have done if you had a choice?" Mai asked surprising Oume. She opened her mouth but found that she didn't know how to answer that question any more. She started and stopped several times, she just couldn't find the answer.

"I…I don't know…really! I just don't know…" Oume insisted at the skeptic look on Mai's face. She searched her mind for some remnant of the girl she was so long ago. The one who had once had dreams but all she found was the fragile heart that broke when her father sold her beloved sister and memories of the pieces of that heart that she almost reassembled in Jamie's arms…the pieces finally forever lost when she let go of Seto.

"Well I do! You would've loved Tokio's life! You would've loved to travel; to learn knew things and meet different people, to have a career where people respect you for your abilities and not because you're a scary old witch!" Mai began amused "You would have wanted to have a sweet love affair with a guy who listened when you talked to him and was willing to do any silly thing you asked him to do! Then marry him, have a bunch of babies and live happily ever after! How close am I?" she added with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. Oume looked at her daughter surprised. Mai must've given this a lot of thought the last few years.

"I bet that's the kind of life you want me to have right? That's why you've kept your hands off of Pegasus, right? Because I'm on his will? Yugi and Jou don't know about Pegasus' will by the way," Mai guessed with a teasing smirk. Oume sighed sadly. Mai had hit every nail on the head. That was the life she had envisioned for both of her daughters. Mai chuckled teasingly.

"Mom…eww! I am not a settle down kind of girl! That'll be a hard pass for me!" she laughed. Oume sighed in disappointment and Mai became solemn once more.

"Mom…I get it really. You want me to do something nice and safe and be happy but that kind of life is just not me. The happiest I've been is when I was doing something crazy and/or dangerous to protect someone I care about," Mai explained.

"Or kicking someone's butt who thought you were an easy mark?" Oume guessed starting to see the appeal for Mai. Mai laughed and told her about a boy named Rex. She had met him on the boat ride to Pegasus' Island on the way to the Duelist Kingdom Tournament. He had invited her to his cabin to show off that he was a top duelist and had been offered one of the few cabins on Pegasus' ship. Mai used her natural charms and tricked him into a duel for his cabin.

"He was so sure I was gonna be sleeping with him!" Mai laughed "I beat him in two turns! Then I literally kicked him out of his cabin!" she laughed loudly obviously enjoying getting the better of that jerk!

"I want in Mom! I know you need an agent in the gaming world. I am your best choice! Your only choice! I want to protect Seto and Mokuba. I want to live my life doing my own thing not what everyone expects me to do," Mai said finally arriving to the real reason she was in her mother's room.

"In the end isn't that what you want…for me to live my life making my own choices?" Mai added. Oume's mothering instincts made her want to argue against this but as a woman she knew she should not. Mai was right; she had to live her life her own way. In the end Oume had no choice but to conclude that Mai was right: she is the best choice.

"Marik and some of the hunters are still at large and that jerk Gozaburo left a large amount of enemies behind willing to take their revenge out on his adopted children you are the best choice Mai, but my instinct to protect my last remaining daughter just won't let me do this," Oume countered betraying a touch of fear in her voice. Mai nodded not really surprised by her mother's resistance. She picked up Adeena's diary.

"Ok, how about a deal…Hajime has been looking for a traitor by the name of Maybourne. I happen to know a hunter named Dartz is helping him. I can help flush him out! All I have to do is play a little duel monsters in just the right places and with just the right people. Minimal risk! I succeed, you let me in!" Mai began with a calculating smirk on her lips. Oume opened her mouth to protest.

"And then I can tell you how I know what language this is! And what Hajime and Tokio really do," Mai added with a mischievous smirk on her lips as she paged through Adeena's diary. Oume's teeth clenched tight. She was so tempted! She had longed for years to find out what was going on in Colorado Springs but try as she might she couldn't get reliable information.

"That's Sano's mission here you know…to flush out Maybourne and to look after an exchange student who is…shall we say: unique," Mai continued.

"Sano has no connections in the gaming circuits. He will stick out like a sore thumb!" Oume admitted grudgingly, but her mothering instincts continued to resist.

"So they will be looking at him and not me! It's a win-win mom!" Mai added. Sano's only connection would be his sister's association with Yugi and his friends. It made him too obvious a spy.

"I can get in…you know it," Mai insisted. Oume gave her daughter a desperate look. She knew Mai was right but this life of shadows was a terrible place, she didn't want this for her! Mai put the book down and wrapped her arms around her mom.

"Mom, you can't do this alone anymore…please let me in…let's protect Seto and Tokio together. You need me! This is where I belong!" Mai pleaded. With a chocked sob Oume finally relented. A few hours later they called Hajime…he objected at first but his protest was short lived. Tokio fully supported Mai and her belief in her little sister in law broke down Hajime's resistance.

Mai had gathered that someone from inside Kaiba Corp. was selling information to Seto's enemies. Mai had a great plan to flush out Dartz and find out where they were hiding Maybourne. Hajime had no choice but to accept. Mai chuckled as they finally decided to get some sleep. Her mother asked her what she was thinking laying next to her daughter.

"Its a funny, mixed up world!" she said amused.

"What do you mean?" Oume asked confused.

"The princess and the evil queen are going to protect the dragon and the knight! It's funny when you think about it!" Mai added chuckling amused as she closed her eyes. Oume chuckled a little.

"You're right…it is funny!" she agreed. Holding her daughter's hand and with a smile on her face they fell asleep…

Well that's the end of this one! I will be starting one in real time for Seto and Aoshi. It will have merging points with TPWWB and I will be finishing the Misao one soon too I hope.

As always, I hope you enjoyed and thanks so much for reading and reviewing!