The next morning, both Seto and Jounouchi were thrust into a brutal wakefulness by one of the most unwelcome phone calls that they could imagine.

Seto's began with an explosion. Just as the sun was beginning to bleach the morning sky, a pipe cracked, a valve burst, and the Domino City News landed on their headline story for—what they hoped—would be the next several weeks.

"You've got to be kidding," Seto seethed into his phone and prowled around the kitchen, careful not to wake Mokuba in the next room.

"I'm afraid not, sir," Isono replied mournfully. "I think it's best you come down right away. The news crews are already converging—waiting for your appearance."

"Alright. Fine," he sighed, leaning against the counter and rubbing his eyes. "I'll figure this out."

He raced dawn to the outskirts of town, to where the foggy slumber of Gozaburo's old factories had been rudely ruptured. The buildings were all awake and restless now—the aggressive, thundering throb of the waves hurtling against the shore setting the anxious, unsettled beat of their heart. A crew of journalists jostled around the perimeter of the compound, cameras pressed tight against the bright orange safety barrier that had been erected.

Seto shouldered through the crowd, dodging the flashing bulbs and microphones that were shoved into his face, eager to catch one misplaced word or miscalculated expression. Seto was careful to remain stony and silent until reaching Isono, who was standing past the safety barricade.

"What happened?" he barked, voice gruff but not daring to rise above a whisper.

"It appears, sir, that a crack formed in one of the gas pipes leading to the former employee dormitories last night. There was a small explosion."

"So? What's the big deal?"

"Those pipes should not have been active. The dormitories have not been occupied since you closed this facility three years ago." He sighed. "Furthermore, the incident has drawn attention to the fact that the environmental remediation efforts at this site were never, um," a pang of nervousness stole through this voice, "completed. Or initiated. The soil is very heavily contaminated with radioactive material."

Seto pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I suppose the city isn't willing to just add that to my tab, are they?" He laughed—a sound as cold and jarring as the salty, rotten-smelling wind that whipped across their faces.

"I'm afraid not." Isono replied. "Certainly not after last summer."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I've called the hazmat agency and site inspectors. They should be arriving shortly. In the meantime-I believe they are waiting for you to make a statement, sir."

"I know, I know." Seto sighed and glared over his shoulder at the undulating mob. "There wasn't any way this could have taken care of this a bit more…quietly?"

Isono gave him a knowing look. "With all due respect, sir, I did not believe that was in your nature."

Seto scowled. "That is what the evidence would suggest."

-xxx-

"I don't understand how he even got your number, or how he knew I was here…" Jounouchi groaned as he hunched over Yuugi's kitchen table, still trying to rub the fog of sleep from his eyes.

"Well, our number is in the phone book."

"But how did he know I was here! It's just so—ugh!" He let his head drop to the table and spoke to the floor. "What do I do?"

"Do you think there's a chance he's just making empty threats? I mean, that's a difficult claim to prove. He doesn't really have any evidence, does he?"

"He doesn't need to have any! Just make a couple phone calls and they'll start an investigation. And I don't have any evidence to prove that he's wrong—well, he's not wrong. That's the whole problem."

Yuugi bit his lip and placed a hand on Jounouchi's trembling shoulder. "I wish there was something I could do. I bet if we and Anzu pooled our money—"

"Thanks, Yuugi." Jounouchi interjected. "But I can't do that to you. And it's more than the money that's the problem. This is something that's going to keep coming to get me again and again." He sighed and laughed bitterly. "I mean, how did I imagine I'd ever get a real job, or—what if I had ever been arrested! It would have been all over for me. And Shizuka." An angry edge rose in his voice. "And it could still be."

"There must be something you can do! Get a lawyer or something—you're being blackmailed!"

Jounouchi shook his head. "Yeah, I'd like to see how that would play out—I doubt they treat the kids of illegal immigrants with too much sympathy, blackmailed or not. There's nothing else to do—I have to go meet with him. I guess I should have seen it coming—jerk probably thinks I have a lot of money left over from duelist kingdom or something. Well, someone's going to be pretty disappointed."

Yuugi frowned. "I don't think that's a very good idea. He sounds dangerous."

"Of course it's a not a very good idea!" Jounouchi shouted, standing suddenly and sending the barstool hurtling to the ground. His voice grew dark and rough, his face brutal. "But every choice is dangerous here. I can't afford to believe that he's just making empty threats."

Yuugi's lips drew into a thin, pale line. He closed his eyes and nodded several times, and when he reopened them he started slightly—as if surprised to still be standing there.

"At least let me come with you."

"No way! It's too dangerous! I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you because of me."

Yuugi smiled, his eyes teasing. "You really think that excuse is going to work on me? We're in this together—forever."

-xxx-

"Funny, I snuck out of here just like this so many times before, never really thought I'd ever have to sneak back in." Jounouchi spoke with effort, struggling to keep his flashlight clenched between his teeth. The two were squinting in the first tepid glimmers of dawn, pressed tightly between the briny claws of the rolling ocean and the crumbling concrete wall that formed the perimeter of what had once been the largest privately-owned nuclear warheads manufacturer in the world.

"That must have been terrifying," Yuugi stammered, fervently repeating to himself that—no matter what might happen—he shouldn't look down.

"Eh, once you get used to it it's not that bad. Though—" the small rock ledge that had been serving as his handhold suddenly deteriorated in his grip and went tumbling—in pieces—into the sea. "It has been a while since I did this."

The two were so focused on their mission—so inundated with the roll and thrust of the waves that broke over their shoulders—that they did not feel the rumble of the explosion that shook the ground, did not hear the shriek of the sirens, did not see the mob of reporters and emergency workers that bruised the periphery of the compound. They slipped through a gap in the barbed wire fence and melted into the shadows.

-xxx-

"And, what exactly, Mr. Kaiba, have your company's priorities shifted to since your, hm, ascendance?"

"Why don't you ask anyone on the face of the planet? Even the biggest, most technologically obtuse idiot could tell you that Kaiba Corp sets the standards in the gaming industry."

An incredulous chuckle. "And what a set of standards they are. A tournament that hospitalized several of its participants; that turned the city of Domino into a bastion of international crime lords and delinquent punks for months, resulting in tens of millions of yen in property damage, a 70% increase in violent crime (which—a year later—has yet to return to pre-Battle City levels), and a severe overtaxing of all of Domino's municipal services that has put the city an additional eight million yen in debt. Massive unemployment following the abrupt closure of this very factory, which resulted in a shocking 45% increase in poverty levels among Domino residents. Appalling levels of negligence with respect to proper environmental remediation techniques and building practices; it's true—is it not, Mr. Kaiba—that you personally demolished the former Kaiba Tower without conducting any environmental impact reports, obtaining government clearance, or even notifying your employees who were working in the building a mere ten minutes before the explosion took place?

"You have created a Kaiba Corp that takes pride in its willful obliviousness, reckless abandon, and total disregard for its influence in the broader community—a Kaiba Corp obtained from your father under conditions which can be termed dubious at best, that exists for the sole purpose of pursuing a personal vendetta against an upstart collectible card game player (a vendetta which, it should be noted, has yet to bear fruit), whose inaugural project was a what can only be called psychopathic theme park that sent several to the hospital within the first day of its opening (it did, after all, only remain open for one day).

"The only standards you have set are those of negligent capriciousness, the only precedent you have established is that of uninhibited egoism, depravity, and annihilation. You may have wiped the world of Kaiba Corp's weapons manufacturing plants, but your company is as much in the war business as it ever was—and you can hardly call that progress."

"I'm sorry—can you repeat the question? Or did you just come here to tell me what I already know?"

-xxx-

The voices still rung and rattled in Kaiba's ears. They swirled and became foggy and thick in his mind, until he was no longer sure which words the reporters had leveled against him and which had been his own.

He wiped his forehead and tried to prevent his vision from swimming out of focus, tried to listen to the team of remediation experts and engineers who were guiding him around the facility. They bobbed and floated in the air before him, occasionally gesturing towards one of their bulky, buzzing instruments or pointing out a particularly heinous example of infrastructure collapse. They didn't have faces, Seto noted with detached curiosity.

"—background levels of radiation at this site are eight times higher than industry standard—"

"—dangerously high concentrations of acetaldehyde, PCB, hexachlorophene—"

"—walls and ceilings in the employee dormitories lined with asbestos—"

"—your company is as much in the war business as it ever was—"

"—it is only after you have learned to relinquish the darkness inside your heart that you will be able to achieve a true victory—"

"—Have you ever wondered how much easier and more pleasant life could be if we learned to simply stop caring—"

"—this is your destiny, Seto. Don't turn your back on your greatest achievements—"

"—I'm afraid I may have to bequeath to you a large and profound responsibility—"

"—and you can hardly call that progress—"

"Shut up!"

"Sir?"

Everyone had faces now, and they were gawking at him with unabashed curiosity.

"I'm fine." Seto waved away Isono's concerned expression. "It's just…stuffy in here. I'm going outside."

The morning was still young, but the air had already settled into a thick and sticky blanket that clung, unrelenting, to every surface. The mist from the sea stuck to his hair and formed a salty film on his skin, making his damp layers of clothing feel coarse and oppressive. He grimaced and clawed at the collar of his trench coat, but didn't think to take it off.

He drifted away from the choppy chatter of the builders, from Isono's stern and ceremonial sympathy, from the insatiable flocks of the news crews—still wafting around the perimeter of the facility. With every footstep the he sank deeper into the soggy ground, the walls dug deeper into his skin, the angry echoes reverberating off every cold, crumbling surface became louder, colder, completely unremitting. The deeper he ventured into the compound, the more each surface seemed to resonate with a tense, dark anger that squeezed out his breath and made his blood run black.

He scraped his fingernails down the grimy walls, feeling a glimmer of childish pride at the small patch he was able to clear of moss and slime, the small stabs of pain that shot through the tips of his fingers, the small patch of life that he was able to destroy.

"What a shithole," he muttered under his breath, erupting in shrill laughter as he flicked the filth under his fingernails into the ocean. "I should have done this a long time ago." He turned to the piles of rumble that surrounded him—crumbled concrete, moldy cardboard and soiled Styrofoam—with a dark and seething intensity. His lips curled into a cruel smirk. "But I suppose, if the proper remedial actions are taken immediately, some small part of my investment may still be salvageable."

-xxx-

Jounouchi grimaced at Yuugi's concerned glances, and continued pacing.

"Stop looking at me like that—you're making me nervous!"

Yuugi sighed. "I'm sorry, Jou-kun. I suppose I am nervous. I wish there was more I could do to help you." His eyes brightened. "Maybe we could duel him!"

Jounouchi laughed but shook his head. "I know that's your strategy with most people, but he's not that type. Doesn't play Duel Monsters. Cares more about money than honor."

Yuugi bit his lip. "Are you sure? I mean, that usually works."

"You can't duel the whole country. Some things are just too big to solve with Duel Monsters."

Yuugi launched himself from his chair. "But it's not fair! It's not your fault that the law's so stupid! You don't deserve to spend your whole life hiding! There must be something we can do—someone who can understand and, and help us!"

They heard a crash directly outside the door, followed by the sound of charred, disparaging laughter.

"Is that him?" Yuugi whispered, instinctively stepping towards the doorway.

"It has to be." Jounouchi placed a hand around Yuugi's shoulder. "Let me."

"We do this together," Yuugi replied, his face betraying the remnants of Atem's stubborn fearlessness.

Jounouchi nodded and fixed his face into the sternest expression he could muster. They opened the door together, resisting the temptation to shield their eyes from the sudden onslaught of light.

"Kaiba-kun? He's the friend of your father that's blackmailing you?"

"Huh? No!"

"Kaiba-kun…?" Yuugi began again and approached him cautiously. "What are you doing?"

"Expunging the filth from the earth!" Kaiba announced triumphantly as he hurled another armful of rubble into the ocean.

"Oh…okay…" Yuugi continued creeping closer, a painfully concerned expression etched into his face. "You know, it's still on earth if it's in the ocean. It's just underwater but it's still there…"

"I don't recall asking for your opinion," Kaiba shot back.

"It looks like you're playing with garbage."

"I definitely did not ask for yours!" He snarled, then started abruptly. The diabolical gleam disappeared from his eyes, and he seemed to notice them for the first time. "What are you two doing? No one's supposed to be here."

"Um…"

"Just hanging out." Jounouchi leaned against the nearest wall in an attempt to project an air of nonchalance.

"Bullshit. No one's allowed on these grounds. This whole area is quarantined." His eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me this involves some half-baked scheme to save the world again. I've had quite enough of that."

"No, well, you see—"

"I can be here whenever I want." Jounouchi's voice rippled with indignation. "I live here."

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "You live at an abandoned toxic waste site? Why am I not surprised." He paused. "I suppose, then, that you're the one who has been using the gas?" His voice dripped with weary exasperation.

"Lived," Yuugi corrected him.

"You realize that's incredibly dangerous, right? And illegal."

"That's none of your business," Jounouchi growled, pawing the ground.

"Oh really. As the owner of this property I believe it is—by definition—my business. Now get out."

"We can't."

Kaiba stared at Yuugi incredulously. "And why is that?"

"Well…"

"We're meeting someone here." Jounouchi struggled to keep his voice from shaking.

"Well, I hate to break it you—but no one's going to be meeting you here today. This whole compound has been sealed off. Get out."

"But, we just can't." Jounouchi could feel his throat tightening. He couldn't risk believing that Kaiba was right, couldn't risk facing the danger that awaited him if he turned away.

"You can't." Kaiba laughed. "If you and your little friends want to get yourselves killed in your spare time I couldn't care less, but try not to do it on my property."

The two stammered and sputtered, but refused to leave.

"This is too important," Yuugi declared. "Jou-kun's whole future is in danger—we can't just give up now and let things get any more out of control!"

Jounouchi grimaced. "Geez-it wouldn't kill you to be a little discrete, would it?"

"Hm. Coming from anyone else I might consider taking that seriously, but Yuugi, you thought the fate of the world was at stake three weeks ago when you lost your bus pass."

"It was stolen!"

"Whatever. The point is, it's going to take a lot more than your cryptic hyperboles to move me. So either you two are going to come up with a legitimate reason for being here or—"

"It's because I'm not Japanese."

Yuugi and Seto turned to Jounouchi in shock. His foot pawed at some loose rubble, but his eyes and voice remained dark and steadfast.

"My dad snuck over here for work a couple years before I was born. My mom didn't know when they met, and when she found out she left him—and took Shizuka with her." He sighed, and it sounded like his soul was trying to escape out from between his teeth. "We've been lucky—to a point. One of my dad's gambling buddies works at the hospital so he helped take care of everything whenever one of us—got sick—or something. But it turns out that my dad's bad at gambling and even worse at choosing friends. Ever since I got back and found him in the hospital—" it was here that his voice began to waver—"Apparently my dad owes him money or something. A lot. And…and he's threating to turn us in if he doesn't get it back." He began to shudder as he spoke. "And I promised Shizuka that I wouldn't do anything irresponsible…but we could lose everything that we've worked so hard to get…just like that. I—I can't just let that happen."

He hadn't noticed Kaiba's approaching him as he spoke, and it wasn't until he was close enough to see the dirt in Jounouchi's pores that he noticed either.

"Let me help you."

"Huh? Wha—"

"Don't make me repeat myself. Do you want my help or not?"

"Well, I mean, um, how could you help me—and why?"

Kaiba shrugged. "Hacking into the department of immigration databases, forging naturalization documents—it's trivial. But if you would rather see you and your little sister get kicked out of the country—"

"I didn't say that! I just…didn't think you would want to help me."

"You have a problem; I have the resources to resolve it. I'm not giving you charity—I'm minimizing the potential energy of the system."

"What makes you think it will be so easy?"

Kaiba hesitated a moment before replying. "I've done it before."

-xxx-

Shizuka was still asleep when they stumbled back up the stairs at the back of the game shop.

"Why do I feel like I'm considering making a deal with the devil?"

Yuugi frowned. "Is that really how you feel? I don't think it's that bad of an idea…"

"It's not a bad idea. I just—I just didn't want things to turn out this way."

"What do you mean?"

Jounouchi leaned against the wall of the upstairs landing. "Isn't it just making new lies to cover the old ones? It's like—two wrongs don't make a right, you know?"

"I don't know, Jou-kun…" Yuugi stole a glance over his shoulder, to where Shizuka's serene, sleeping face was just discernable amidst a cloud of blankets. "I wish I could give a clear answer, but—" he shrugged, suddenly looking as if he hadn't slept in years, "maybe sometimes there are no clear answers. I think you should do whatever your heart tells you is right."

"Huh. Yeah, listen to the heart of the cards, right?"

Yuugi nodded, and his expression brightened. "Sure. Let's ask your deck what to do."

Yuugi went to his room to retrieve Jounouchi's deck, but when he held it out to him, he didn't accept it.

"It's okay, Yuugi," Jounouchi said, eyes fixed firmly on Shizuka. "I know what I have to do."

-xxx-

Notes:

A note about the timeline: my personal yugioh-verse differs a little bit from cannon. I'm assuming that Yuugi and Yami's early adventures (like the first few episodes of season 0) take place in 1996, during his freshman year of high school—making everyone about 15ish. Death-T and Duelist Kingdom take place the summer after freshman year. Battle City takes place the summer of 1997, and both the Memory World arc and this story take place during the summer of 1998. All the major events in the series taking place during the summer is really just something I assume for my own peace of mind so that I don't have to feel bad about all of them missing tons of school to go on these whirlwind adventures. Another small change—I'm assuming that there's only a two year age difference between Isis and Yuugi and friends (I believe it's actually something like 4-5 years? I feel like the ages of our primary protagonists are left kind of vague) because it makes events that are to be recounted later less creepy.

A note about the voices that Seto hears: the exact origin of these quotes will be made apparent later. For now, know that the one that begins "it is only after you have learned…" is from Yami. The exact situation in which it was spoken doesn't matter—I imagine they had this same conversation several times. The next three are from Pegasus, Gozaburo, and Priest Seto, respectively.

The title for this chapter comes from the song Everyone's Fightin' the Same Damn Fight by The Lovemakers.

Thanks for reading!