Had events unfolded differently, Jounouchi seriously doubted that he ever would have become a world traveler. He had grown up in a world of clipping coupons, muffled ears, and tip toeing around broken glass and bruised feelings where the world often looked like a narrow window and felt like a resolutely locked door .

Until he had taken up with Yuugi, his orbit had been decidedly small and constrained to but a few of Domino's distinctive neighborhoods. The financial district, continually grasping for the heavens with the ferocity of piercing iron claws, dominated the skyline with all the bulk and majesty of Jupiter. It contained, Jounouchi suspected, a similar vacuousness. Nonetheless, it was the one corner of the city that was almost guaranteed to be visible at night , raging quietly against the darkness like the last embers on the end of a stamped cigarette butt . For that he gave it credit.

The arty and upscale enclaves, hidden like small oases of roasting coffee, hip music, and fresh-cut flowers among a barren and lonesome desert of chain convenience stores and dreary apartment blocks reminded him of the tiny planets bobbing around the sun, all struggling for recognition and permanence while defiantly staring into the face of the force that both gave them life and was all too eager to destroy them.

The ragged and waterlogged streets of Domino's port-side neighborhoods were his asteroid belt, always on the verge of disappearing into the ocean with little more than a whisper. The sleepy white-washed facades of the salty fish markets and ramshackle residential buildings just barely concealed the low rumble of chaos that flourished behind tattered curtains and rusted security doors.

The factories and storehouses, having largely fallen out of use after the end of the war , were now as cold, rocky, and remote as the planets that lurked in Saturn's shadow. There had been plans for Kaiba Corp to revitalize this area—plans, Jounouchi suddenly recalled— whose cancellation had coincided closely with Gozaburo's death and the transfer of power into Seto's hands . They had now acquired a second skin of mold and weeds and bore the scars of vandalism as they were left to cling to the coastline.

And somewhere in that cacophony of light and noise, nestled in the dense salty fog, was his home—the earth in its entirety. He had been born into a caste whose life trajectory had been set from the start: a few circles around the bottom of the sink before disappearing down the drain pipe. If there was a building that better encapsulated that sense of bitter resignation he had yet to see it. And yet, for the vast majority of his life this building had been his entire world.

Until Yuugi. Jounouchi smiled inwardly at how many things in his life in his life had been until Yuugi. That boy had certainly done a number of him. Without Yuugi there would have been no crisp beaches of California , no thin air of the upper atmosphere , no encompassing Egyptian heat . There would have been no opportunity to hold his life in his hands, knowing that if it should fade and blink out of focus, it wouldn't have been for nothing . And without the influence of Yuugi on his life, Jounouchi certainly wouldn't be on his current quest directly into the heart of the sun.

He snorted at the comparison. Though, the more he considered it, the more apt it seemed. The people of the city certainly treated Kaiba Corp that way, both basking in the warm glow that the success of the radically revolutionized company emitted and cursing the shadows that it cast.

It was almost enough to make Jounouchi feel bad for the plight of the young entrepreneur at its helm— until he caught sight of his house . Dazzling ribbons of blossoms swam in a rich emerald sea that arched in an elegant wave to the main house, which had adopted a pearlescent shimmer in the early morning light. Jounouchi gagged as he made his way towards the entrance. He had rolled his eyes at the theatrics of Battle City, but the thought of living entrenched in such opulence was enough to make a heavy fist form at the base of his stomach .

"Halt, intruder!" A nasal voice called out.

Jounouchi spun frantically, trying to pinpoint the location of the voice before noticing an elaborate series of speakers and security cameras situated at regular intervals around the industrial-grade security gate.

"I'm not an intruder!" Jounouchi growled. "I was invited here."

The speaker scoffed. "Invited by whom?"

"By Kaiba. Would else would be doing the inviting around here?"

The speaker paused, and Jounouchi could have sworn that the felt the camera narrow in on his worn jeans and wind-swept hair . He set his jaw and stared into the center of the lens, making sure to flex his biceps a few times for good measure.

"Name, please?"

"Jounouchi Katsuya."

Another measured pause from the speakers.

"And what is your business with Mr. Kaiba, Mr. Jounouchi?" Dripping with disdain this time.

Jounouchi paused, biting his lip and running his fingers through his hair. Announcing that he was here to rifle through Kaiba's discards likely wasn't going to win him many favors with the security guards. Then again, the truth probably wouldn't either .

"Um…I'm here for a social call!" He announced, grinning boldly at the camera. "Yeah, Kaiba and I are great buddies, we go way back."

This proclamation earned him a stunned silence from the speaker .

"I will page Mr. Kaiba." It finally replied, not completely able to mask the incredulous tone in its voice. A few tense moments passed and the gate slowly slid open.

Jounouchi made sure to shoot the camera another glare as he passed through. He shuddered as the gate snapped shut behind him, making him feel uncomfortably similar to a mouse that had just stepped into a trap.

"What are you doing here?" Kaiba asked as he opened the door, Jounouchi's hand still hovering above the knocker.

"You said I could come over, remember? Your big moving sale?"

Kaiba narrowed his eyes and seemed to chew his tongue. "I wasn't expecting you to respond so…enthusiastically."

"Well you have a long history of underestimating me, don't you?"

"Apparently." He replied stiffly, retreating from the doorway.

"Ah, you don't have to worry about me, Kaiba. I'll be so care —" his unfinished thought was consumed by the vacant enormity of the interior of the Kaiba mansion . His bike was left half-forgotten sprawled across the entryway as he slipped inside, suddenly aware of the way his footsteps seemed to resonate along the marble floor. "Wow, this place is huge!" he exclaimed. "But why don't you have any furniture or anything?"

He began prowling around the perimeter of the foyer, peering down the empty halls and gawking upwards at the smoothly arched ceilings. His voice bounced around the bare walls, eventually finding Kaiba, who was standing rigidly in the dining room encased in a cage of packing boxes .

"I mean, t his is such a waste of space ! You could fit so much in here."

"Like what, exactly?"

"I don't know…" Jounouchi gently caressed the polished surface of the deep mahogany dining table, trying to determine whether he could see his reflection. "If I owned a place like this, I would turn this room into an arcade…or a… homeless shelter ."

"A homeless shelter? Really." He scrutinized Jounouchi quizzically over crossed arms. "That would hardly be fitting."

"It would at least be useful." Jounouchi replied. "I mean, what do you do with all this emptiness?"

Seto sighed. " Largely nothing . I haven't lived here in years."

"What?!" Jounouchi gawked. "That makes it even more of a waste. I can't imagine anyone wanting to leave this place ." He added wistfully.

"Polite society requires that I retain and maintain the Kaiba mansion for largely symbolic purposes. So using it as a homeless shelter—or any other chartable entity for that matter—would be entirely inappropriate. However, concerns for the safety of Mokuba and I dictate that we locate our permanent residence elsewhere." He sighed. "I agree though, it is a waste ."

"Huh, so this place is really unsafe, then?"

"It's too conspicuous. Gozaburo had many enemies." He paused, then added, " As I do, I suppose ."

"Hm." Jounouchi began to pace the maze of packing boxes. "You know, making enemies I can understand. But I never pegged you as someone who cared all too much about polite society."

Jounouchi thought he caught a smile flicker across Kaiba's lips. "As a rule, I don't. However, occasionally even our most steadfast principles must be relaxed."

"What for?"

" Credibilty."

"Oh. Yeah I guess that might be important to you." He continued pacing through the towers of boxes, taking care to avoid those that were more precariously stacked. As he turned a corner he caught sight of the structure from a new angle, and the seemingly random arrangement of boxes suddenly melted away. What was once chaos suddenly struck him as a complex and multidimensional pattern, crafted with as much care and precision as the pins in a lock—merely waiting for the key to turn them.

"Hey…you were building forts in here!" Jounouchi announced.

"That was Mokuba's idea."

"Yeah right." Jounouchi snorted. " We have to do this!"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not? What could possibly go wrong?"

" You could break everything."

"I would not!"

Seto snorted. "Just listen to yourself—you sound like a petulant child. I'm doing you a favor already, so the least you can do is try to behave rationally."

Jounouchi rolled his eyes and staggered back towards Seto at the head of the table. "Fine, fine, you're the boss here. I guess the idea of seeing the great Seto Kaiba step down from his throne and have a little fun was just too much for me to resist."

Seto pointedly ignored this comment, instead gesturing to the boxes that were stacked—in the formation of a barricade, Jounouchi now saw—directly in front of them.

"Anything of interest to you will be in these. Try not to damage anything."

"Thanks!" Jounouchi chimed, taking a seat by the nearest of the boxes, enthusiasm and anticipation simmering in his eyes.

However, once the box was in his hands, he paused.

"So, I get the house thing, I guess—don't want to associate yourself too closely with your dad, I can see that. I don't understand all of this, though. Why hold on to all of this for so long, and just get rid of it now? I mean, I can't imagine you were using these—" he titled his head slightly to read the box's label—"ancient statues all that much before, so why wait so long?"

Seto seemed to momentarily enter a state at the crossroads of wakefulness and dreaming. Eyes slightly clouded, brows crushed in concentration, tongue chewing on unvoiced thoughts—it struck Jounouchi as not at all unlike the trance Yuugi entered when consulting with the spirit of the puzzle.

"Just open the box."

Jounouchi, suddenly acutely aware of the uncomfortable thickness of his fingers, carefully unfolded the cardboard flaps and delicately unpeeled several layers of bubble wrap, gradually revealing a three-foot statue of a man with the head of a falcon, decked in a crown of plumes, and swathed in scimitars and arrows. The surface was as smooth as air and painted with the dazzling luminance of the sun, the refreshing cerulean clarity of the early morning sky, and the magnetic warmth of dancing flames. Clutching the statue in his hands, he was overcome with the scent of freshly picked herbs, dusty skin, and worn linens. He could almost feel the sand caked between his toes and the sweat dripping down his back.

"Is this an Egyptian thing?" He whispered.

"Montu: originally the manifestation of the destructive nature of the sun, he later came to be attributed with the ferocious and devastating nature of war itself." Seto echoed Jounouchi's solemn tone. "It's in remarkable condition, considering its age."

"It's so light," Jounouchi murmured, lifting the statue closer to his face.

"It's hollow ."

"You think Yuugi would be interested in this?"

Seto shrugged. "I figured he's had enough encounters with ancient Egyptian memorabilia to last a lifetime, but you're welcome to give it to him if you want.

"Gozaburo had…a fetish for collecting these types of artifacts. It wasn't out of scholarly interest, either. His interest in other cultures extended exactly as far as it was directly useful to him. The only knowledge that was interesting to him was what he could use to manipulate and blackmail." He began to pace the room. "He brought back these mementoes from each land that he claimed to have conquered—some symbol of that nation's history and strength—and used it as a decoration for his boardroom. That was how he knew he had won— being able to physically remove something from where it belonged and bring it under his dominion. " Seto sighed—a long, dark, heavy sigh that seemed to penetrate every cell in his body.

"From the first day I lived here I remember hating them. It didn't matter where I was or what I was doing, every time I saw one of these acquisitions , I was flooded with…anger. And fear . Like I was being suffocated, or trampled. Especially this one." He stared over his shoulder at Montu. "It felt like Gozaburo had poured something of himself into that statue, and every time I saw it I wanted to…see it destroyed. But after Gozaburo's death I couldn't bring myself to do it. I tried to, but it seemed that the harder I pushed into it, the harder it pushed back into me ." His eyes darkened. " But that's not the case anymore. I can look at it now, touch it even, I could blow it up and feel…nothing ."

He hadn't noticed how closely he had drifted towards Jounouchi as he spoke, but once he became aware of his position he quickly withdrew. " So there's really no point in keeping it around ," he concluded. "Do you want it?"

Jounouchi shook his head, not taking his eyes from Montu's. "Nah, this type of thing belongs in a museum. He gently placed the statue back in its wrappings. "This thing is probably worth, what, like a million bucks ?" He laughed nervously. "Why would you even consider just giving this away?"

" I'm worth tens of billions of dollars."

"So? What does that have to do with it?" Jounouchi replied, somewhat more harshly than he had intended.

"It means that monetary gain is not a motivating factor. Compared to me, all of these items are essentially worthless."

"Huh." Jounouchi made his way to another of the closer boxes. "Say, is that why you're getting rid of your cards? They don't make you…feel anything anymore?"

Seto was suddenly transplanted back to cold nights stretched on the bedroom floor, swimming in stars and drinking in galaxies, bathing in the warm smile of time and feeling that no obstruction would ever be enough to mar his path. All of creation had swarmed inside him on those nights.

He was still struggling to form an adequate response when Mokuba swept into the room, pushing a cart filled to the brim with dusty textbooks.

"I am not going up there again!" He announced as he entered. "That room has got to be the creepiest place in the world. Oh, hey Jounouchi," he added. "What are you doing here?"

"Your brother said I could come over and pinch some of your stuff before you guys take off."

"Oh really…" Mokuba pulled an expression that Jounouchi placed somewhere between surprise and disgust, though the disgust, he would later learn, was not directed at him.

"I told you, it's just the pipes, Mokuba," Seto muttered, the exasperation in his tone giving Jounouchi the impression that they had had this conversation several times before.

"Pipes or not, it's still creepy. If you want the rest of the books, you'll have to get them yourself."

"What's so creepy about the pipes?"

"The library has thin walls," Seto explained, "and is also located directly below the hot water heater, which emits low frequency sound waves, believed to be responsible for inducing supernatural experiences."

"You mean the library is haunted?"

"I mean it's the pipes," Seto grumbled as he began emptying the cart. "You watch Jounouchi," he instructed Mokuba. "Make sure he doesn't get into trouble." He turned and began to wheel the empty cart back towards the library.

Mokuba sat next to Jounouchi on the floor. "Why would you want any of our step-father's old things? Everything here is so creepy."

Jounouchi shrugged. "I think it's kind of cool." He paused. "Why are you guys moving, really? Kaiba said something about expanding your overseas market, but would you really have to pack everything up and take off for that?"

"Nii-sama is pretty hands-on when it comes to business," he laughed. "As you can probably tell. He didn't even trust any moving companies to help with the packing. I'm sure he thinks the team in America will let everything fall apart if he isn't there to supervise them." He bit his lip and his eyes turned slightly ashen. "Honestly, though, you probably know about as much about it as I do. Seto hasn't told me much about his decisions since… well, since Gozaburo ."

"And that's okay with you?"

Mokuba shrugged, not taking his eyes from the floor. " I don't mind moving—Seto and I have never stayed in one place for too long ."

Jounouchi's response was stifled by a gasp as he laid eyes on the contents of the box he had opened, which was haphazardly packed with almost every type of antique weapon he could imagine : a rustic and earthy set of arrows, a delicate and springy fencing foil, a gaudy ivory and gold clad pistol, a rusty revolver, and one of the most astounding things Jounouchi had ever seen.

"Wow," he murmured as he extracted it from the box, careful to avoid scraped knuckles and sliced fingers. "This is amazing."

Holding it up to the light revealed even more excruciating detail—encased in a web of closely entwined gleaming silver and blue dragons was a samurai sword beyond any that Jounouchi had even witnessed, let along held. The blade shimmered like cold moonlight and was so sharp and electric that it seemed to hum in his hands. The handle was swathed in thick, supple black letter that was elegantly embossed, though in a language that he couldn't read . Jounouchi took a few practice swings, laughing as his entire arm seemed to burn and glow under its weight and energy.

" You think Kaiba would let me keep this?" he asked, demonstrating his most dramatic and jaunty poses.

"I don't know," Mokuba looked up at him in puzzlement, then down at the shadowy box of weaponry. " I've never seen these before."

"Well, let's go ask, then!" Jounouchi exclaimed. "Where is he?"

Mokuba led Jounouchi out of the dining room and deeper into the heart of the mansion. As they inched closer to its core, the warmth and blitheness of the exterior rooms was consumed by a cold, hungry darkness that gnawed at their skin and hissed into their ears. The marble and mahogany surfaces that may have once sparkled in the sunlight were now colonized by cobwebs and thick layers of dust. The unoiled floors groaned under the weight of their feet, as if sensing the presence of an unwelcome intruder.

"This place gives me the creeps." Jounouchi muttered, unconsciously clenching the sword tighter in his fist.

"This place has always given me the creeps," Mokuba commiserated.

Ascending one last staircase, as twisted and tight as a jagged set of teeth, they found themselves in a gloomy hallway lined with resentful faces.

"What…what is this?" Jounouchi stammered as he tried to dodge the angry glares. "Just when I thought this place couldn't get any worse…"

"Each generation of the Kaiba family gets its portrait done," Mokuba explained. "These are the oldest ones over here," he gestured to the series of paintings nearest to where Jounouchi stood.

Jounouchi peered into each set of flat, stony eyes in turn, wondering whether it was the gloom, the painter, or the subjects themselves who were responsible for the skull-like quality of the faces. The further down the hall he slunk, the more he became convinced that this was, after all, a family trait. Each face bore a nearly identical stiff and icy expression. Each pair of eyes seemed to be glazed and far removed, as if their owner had long ago lost sight of all that could not be bought, sold, or destroyed . As if they were simply waiting for death to overtake them and drag them back down to hell, and weren't at all opposed to the idea of forcing Jounouchi down with them.

"Looks like a pleasant bunch," he muttered.

Mokuba laughed, a caustic fiery sound in the unrelenting cold of the hall. "Tell me about it. Seto used to say that if we ever needed to interrogate someone we could just lock them up in here and they would break in seconds."

"Sounds abou t—" Jounouchi halted suddenly. Staring down at him was Kaiba, a younger, smaller Kaiba, but the effect was still disarming.

He stood posed rigidly, with Gozaburo's thick fingers curled tightly around his shoulder. Jounouchi could almost feel the strain that Gozaburo's grasp imposed on the fabric of Seto's blazer, the ache that would linger in his bones for days afterward—or would have, if he hadn't already grown accustomed to his step-father's suffocating grip.

This painting, Jounouchi noted, was markedly different from the others. It contained only two figures, as opposed to the four or five featured in the prior generations of the Kaiba family. The painting itself also seemed to demonstrate a stylistic departure from its predecessors. Whereas the other painters had maintained a photorealistic quality to their work, the painter of Seto and Gozaburo's portrait seemed to have a relationship with reality that was tenuous at best. Using clever distortions and mischievous exaggerations, the painter had grasped at something more visceral and immediate than reality itself. Seto's withering stare showcased this effect most dramatically. What at first glance appeared to be a recreation of the expression Gozaburo wore revealed something far darker and more intricate on closer inspection. In Kaiba's eyes, Jounouchi saw a bubbling mélange of anger, hurt, and fear. Those were the eyes of a boy who had spent countless nights both battling off and finding solace in his insomnia, thrashing about in bed like a convict in chains, listening to his nightmares and becoming increasingly convinced that one day they would all come true. Those were eyes that were all too familiar to Jounouchi. Those were eyes that he had worn himself far too often than he cared to admit.

In Kaiba's posture he saw a redwood about to be leveled, a canon moments from being melted down. He was the mind of a man with the heart and body of a little boy who had committed every fiber of his being to resisting the torture imposed on him by his oppressors but that knew, in some dark and quiet place buried deep with himself, that the battle was already lost—the most sacred corners of his heart had already conceded to what he could not escape.

"This is incredible," Jounouchi said, resisting the urge to reach into the painting and rescue the little boy trapped inside.

"It's one of Pegasus'—before he got famous doing Duel Monsters."

"Why aren't you in it, Mokuba?" Jounouchi asked.

"What are you doing here?" Kaiba growled as he emerged from the library, pushing the newly replenished cart.

"Oh, I was, uh, wondering if I could keep this?" Jounouchi asked, sheepishly holding out the sword for Kaiba's inspection.

Kaiba glared at him, then began to scrutinize the object in question. The moment he recognized it, his eyes grew wide and a tremor passed over his face.

"Where did you find this?" he demanded, voice pale.

"Uh, downstairs in your…box of weapons. Are you feeling okay? You don't look so good…"

"Absolutely not!" Kaiba barked, snatching the sword roughly out of Jounouchi's hands. "Get out. Now."

-break-

The title for this chapter comes from the song Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous by Good Charlotte

For the first mention of the Montu statue, see OK Computer chapter 2. For a more in-depth explanation of "Seto seemed to momentarily enter a state at the crossroads of wakefulness and dreaming…" see OK Computer chapter 3.