A/N: We're nearing the end of this fic. Yay-boo! I'm sorry, but I'mho estly too tired to edit this right now. I'll do it tomorrow when it's NOT 1 in the morning.

Chapter 59 summary: In which Oliver senses a a change and becomes a temporary councelor for a man who's actually a boy.

Don't Jump to Conclusions

Oliver had been in the middle of help his bartender, Celeste, with serving drinks for the crowd when he suddenly felt something inside him quail with fear. For several moments, he stared into space trying to figure out where the pain and lost feel emanated from and realized he could not find the Regent. He set the overflowing cup aside and pressed a hand to his head.

"Hey." He looked up and saw Celeste looking at him worriedly. "You alright?"

Oliver shook his head. "I got a little light headed."

She nodded. "I got it covered," she said nodding to the bar. "Most people are out dancing anyway."

"You sure?" he asked half serious.

"Go on," she said. "Get out. Let me do my job."

Reluctantly, Oliver left, making his way up through the crowd to the area backstage where there were fewer people and leaned against the wall cradling his head in his hands. He felt confused, disoriented, and unnerved. His Shadow senses writhed forcing him to knock them aside and focus on the reality of here and now. Thankfully, Diggle found him before he slipped down the wall like a drunkard.

"Oliver!" The man slipped an arm under his charge's and helped him up. "What's wrong? Celeste told me you didn't look to good," he said tilting Oliver's head up to get a good look at his face. "I see she was being polite. You look awful."

Oliver groaned. "I'm fine," he said. "Physically I'm fine," he corrected when Diggle gave him a disbelieving look. "It's my Shadows. They're..." He searched for the right word, "lost."

Diggle looked around. "Want to discuss this somewhere else?" he asked carefully.

Oliver took a deep breath and felt the disorientation fade leaving a strange sense of loss behind. The vigilante blinked for several seconds before nodding. "I'm alright now," he said firmly. "It just caught me off guard is all."

"What happened?" Diggle asked.

Oliver stood on his own and jerked his head towards the back of the building. When they were further away from people, he said, "I can't feel the Regent." He paused. "I take that back, I can feel him. It's just fuzzy, like through a wall or something."

Diggle crossed his arms in concern. "Should I be worried?" he asked sardonically.

Oliver tilted his head thoughtfully and tentatively reached for his Shadows. They had calmed their frantic flailing and rose at his bidding. Oliver reached out into Starling City noticing how the Shadows there which were not his still eagerly moved to help him. These must be the city's Shadows the Shadow Court mentioned. They helped him locate the faint fuzz that was the Regent.

"He's coming here," Oliver said. "Watch the back door, I'll watch the front."

Diggle nodded but placed a hand on his friend's shoulder one last time before leaving. "You sure you're alright?"

Oliver slapped a hand on Diggle's arm, squeezing it reassuringly before walking off. The bodyguard shook his head. "That boy," he muttered.

He stood by the back door for several minutes before hearing a series of thuds just outside. Curious, he rested a hand on his sidearm and cautiously pushed open the door. He was immediately greeted by the sight of Seto Kaiba collapsed on the ground with a man Diggle recognized as one of Kaiba's bodyguards struggling to wake him.

"Hang on, I got it," Diggle said. He quickly knelt by Kaiba's side and checked for a pulse. Kaiba looked terrible, worse than how Oliver looked earlier. He tapped his ear and contacted his friend and charge. "Oliver," he said, "I got Kaiba. He doesn't look too good."

There was a brief buzz of static before Oliver replied, "On my way."

No more than a minute later, Oliver appeared by the door. He also immediately knelt by Kaiba but instead of checking for a pulse, he pressed a hand to Kaiba's chest then forehead before sighing in relief. "How long has he been like this?" he asked Kaiba's bodyguard, Fuguta he realized, brusquely.

Fuguta answered promptly. "Since he left Court. He was delirious and could barely stand."

"Then why did you take him here?" Diggle asked, genuinely confused.

"He ordered me to," Fuguta answered wincing. "I've severed him since Gozaboro first adopted him. He never does anything without reason. He wanted me to bring him here which means he needed to be here." He cocked his head in slight embarrassment. "He also said he needed a drink."

"Like hell he's getting it," Diggle muttered.

"I'll take him back to my place," Oliver said. "He needs a bed and medical attention. I can give some here, but it won't be comfortable."

"What about Walter?" Diggle asked.

Oliver shook his head. "We'll deal with that later. I doubt he'll mind though."

He moved to pick up Kaiba's limp body when Fuguta stopped him. "Please, let me," the older man said. "Kaiba-sama trusts so and so do I, but he is first and foremost my charge."

Oliver nodded impressed. He stood and gestured to the parking lot. "I'll get my car. Diggle, can you cover for me tonight?"

Diggle snorted a laugh. "Whatever. Just keep me in the loop."

Oliver nodded and rushed off to get his car. He started to engine of the sleek sportscar and drove slowly over to where Fuguta stood in the alley with Kaiba's body draped in his arms. From this perspective, Oliver fought back the mixed emotions he had about Kaiba being forced into such a dangerous position. He would follow Kaiba as a leader but the knowledge that Kaiba was essentially a child warrior rubbed his morals the wrong way.

Swallowing his doubts, Oliver pulled up beside the alley and hopped out of the car to open the back door so Fuguta could load his precious cargo and climb in himself. Casting wary glances around the parking lot, Oliver hurried back around the car to the driver's seat and drove off. He was careful to mind all the traffic laws as best he could. The last thing they needed was the media to catch wind of Oliver breaking the law with Kaiba possibly drunk into a stupor. They would destroy the two of them; well, they would destroy Kaiba anyway.

He heard a faint groan and looked up into his rear view mirror and saw Kaiba slowly waking up and looking around in confusion. He took pity on the befuddled Regent and said, "It's alright, Kaiba. You're in my car."

Kaiba met Oliver's gaze blearily in the mirror before nodding and rubbing his temples. "Where're we going?"

"My place," Oliver said. "You alright back there?"

Kaiba leaned back against the car seat with a groan. "I did something stupid," he mumbled. "I'll get over it eventually."

"You gave me a scare, you know," Oliver said, turning into his driveway.

Kaiba sighed heavily. "Sorry," he said. "I'll try to stay conscious longer next time," he said ironically.

Oliver clenched his jaw but did not rise to the bait. "I meant before you got here," he said.

"How so?"

Oliver maneuvered the car into the garage and said, "Whatever you did affected my Shadows."

Kaiba lifted his head and stared at the vigilante incredulously. "It what?"

Instead of answering, Oliver turned off the engine and climbed out of the car. He walked around to the back seat and slid in next to Kaiba, boxing him in between Fuguta and himself. Kaiba obviously was not fond of the positioning, especially when he realized he could not conceivably escape it. He narrowed his eyes at Oliver in annoyance but the vigilante ignored it.

"Care to elaborate on what happened?" he asked.

"No particularly," Kaiba answered firmly.

"I'm not giving you a choice," Oliver said, matching Kaiba's glare with one of his own, not backing down from the challenge.

Kaiba met Oliver's glare for several tense seconds before his lips twitched up and he turned away, sinking into the car seat with a gusty sigh. "You're definitely one of mine," he said. He rubbed his temples again wincing before continuing. "I lost my temper," he said.

"Over what?" Oliver pressed.

Kaiba did not answer right away. His hand slipped down to brush his Deck holster, tensing and glancing down at it in shock before relaxing again, but the vigilante still saw the tension rippling through his body.

"Do you know what immortality is, kohai?" he asked.

The vigilante chose to answer instead of question the non sequitur. "It's where something or someone lives forever."

"For the most part, yes," Kaiba replied. "Actually, it's someone or something who stops aging and can only die from an illness or if they're killed. In other words, they can only die painfully."

Oliver Queen nodded slowly glancing at Fuguta for a clue, but the man only watched Kaiba with a gaze Oliver attributed more to a father than a bodyguard. Not going to leave things hanging, Oliver pressed further. "Alright. What does that to do with this?"

Kaiba sighed and stared straight ahead, obviously choosing his words carefully. "I just learned from Helios that apparently myself and the rest of the Shadow Court are immortal," he said without preamble.

Oliver's mouth opened in shock. He sat back and glanced at Fuguta looking for any sign Kaiba was pulling the wool over his eyes. But the bodyguard's stern face and depressed air was evidence enough for the opposite. The vigilante laughed hesitantly.

"That's funny," he said. He watched Kaiba's eyes crinkle with an emotion Oliver was not sure he liked, sadness. "You're serious.,

"Believe me, I wish I wasn't," Kaiba said. "That's why I lost my temper. The gods knew and they didn't bother telling us." His eyes darkened with fury. "Obelisk betrayed me."

Oliver sat back against the car door and tried to wrap his head around the news. He hesitantly reached out to Kaiba with his Shadows and found the slightest trace of the horizon of power he had become familiar with over the past few days. "Did you cut yourself off?" he asked.

Kaiba groaned. "Yes," he ran a hand over his face. "It was a stupid decision, but when I blacked out my Shadows came back. They won't let me die that easily."

Forest green eyes glanced sharply at the Regent who sighed and rolled his own. "I wasn't trying to die, kohai. I'm not suicidal. I just wanted to get my point across and thought that was the best way to do it."

"And it almost killed you," Oliver said.

Kaiba nodded grimly. "My soul's too broken to live without the Shadows at the point. If the failsafes I incorporate into my powers had not kicked in like they did before, I would've died."

"Before?" Oliver asked. Then he noticed movement and waved Kaiba silent. Recognizing the newcomer, Oliver sighed and started climbing out of the car. "We'll talk about this later," he said quietly. "Come on, let me help you," he said louder.

Blue eyes flickered surreptitiously out the back window and saw Moira coming over to them. Obediently, he caught Oliver's hand and allowed himself to be pulled out of the vehicle.

"Just play along," Oliver whispered quickly in his ear.

Kaiba did not acknowledge the statement openly but he did allow his arm to be slung over the vigilante's shoulders while Fuguta did the same with his other arm. He was still a bit dizzy and despite how degrading this was, it did help him.

"What's going on here?" Moira asked in surprise, staring at Kaiba's slumped form suspiciously.

Oliver smiled. "It's fine," he said. "Just a few too many drinks. I wouldn't let him drive so I took him back here."

"Why didn't you take him back to wherever he's staying?" she demanded.

"Because the media was in area," Fuguta answered before Oliver could formulate a reply. "The last thing we need is the young master getting caught drunk under your country's drinking age."

Moira glanced at Oliver for confirmation, pressing her lips together when she received it. Unable to turn them away, she sighed and waved the group to the house. "Follow me. He can stay in the guest room."

"My room's fine," Oliver said. "I want to keep an eye on him," he added when Moira looked at him with open suspicion. "He's not in the best of moods and I'm not sure leaving him alone would be wise."

"What, is he violent?" she asked, taking a subtle step away from Kaiba.

The Japanese businessman grit his teeth. No wonder Oliver did not like his mother. She was incredibly judgmental. Luckily, Oliver countered firmly, "No. He's depressed. I'm afraid he'll do something he'll regret."

Kaiba glanced at Oliver and was met by stern green daring him to deny it. Sulking, the Regent gave in. Technically his kohai was right, Kaiba was depressed; depressed and stressed. It was like the orphanage all over again. All that was left was for another Gozaboro to appear and take advantage of his weakness.

With Fuguta and Oliver's help, Kaiba made into the Queen manor and up the steps to Oliver's room, but not before bumping into another unexpected roadblock.

"Oliver?" Thea asked, coming around the corner. Her brows lifted when she noticed Kaiba with him. "You're Seto Kaiba. Are you alright?"

"Drunk," Oliver said.

Thea crossed her arms and leaned on her right hip defiantly. "Bullshit," she said. "I'd smell it."

"We think he may have overdosed," Fuguta said catching the young woman off guard.

Her entire demeanor changed to one of concern. "On what?"

"Klonopin," Oliver said, grateful for Fuguta's suggestion. He would probably regret this when Kaiba talked to him again, but it was necessary.

"Shit," Thea muttered. "What do you need?"

Kaiba glanced at Oliver in a subtle acknowledgement of his trust in his sister. Oliver met it briefly before answering Thea. "Keep Moira off our backs," he said. "She thinks he's drunk," he said.

Thea nodded seriously. "And Walter?"

Oliver shook his head. "Walter's alright. He can keep his mouth shut."

Thea snorted. "I'll get you some water."

"Thanks Thea," Oliver said with a grateful smile. He helped Kaiba into his bedroom and eased him onto the bed. Kaiba refused to lay down despite Fuguta's insistent pushing and met Oliver's eyes. He did not speak even when Thea returned placing a cup of water on the bedside table.

"Let me know if you need anything," she said, casting a quick look at her brother's guest. Her eyes softened in sympathy before she walked away closing the door behind her.

"I'm guessing she's had an overdose before," Kaiba said after a minute of silence.

Oliver's eyes dropped briefly before lifting again. "Recreational. Almost killed her."

Kaiba nodded slowly and brushed a hand over his throat still covered by his high collared shirt. Fuguta placed a hand on his shoulder and Kaiba finally gave in, leaning back onto the covers with a heavy sigh. He said nothing, waiting for Oliver to start.

"You said you were immortal," the American said.

Kaiba's eyes met Fuguta's and before dropping. "I did."

"Is the entire Shadow Court immortal?"

The Regent nodded. "As far as I know, yes."

Oliver sat on the bed with his back to his dejected Regent. "I'm assuming Roland and Fuguta aren't." He did not have to look to feel Kaiba's depression ripple against his Shadow senses. "You said 'before.'"

"Before what?"

"You said something about failsafes in your powers," Oliver clarified turning slightly to look at Kaiba.

The Regent closed his eyes and placed a hand over his eyes to fight off a headache. "Remember when I first took you and Diggle through the Shadows after Walter first met Yami?"

Oliver nodded. "Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "You collapsed and looked," he paused, "well, frankly, you looked liked you were having sex."

Kaiba's eyes opened and stared at Oliver like he was crazy before snorting in amusement. "It did feel like that, I suppose," he admitted. "But then again, I wouldn't know. The only sex I've ever had was in my past life with Kisara."

A wry grin stretched Oliver's lips. "So you're a virgin?"

The Regent blushed and glowered at the vigilante sulkily. "So?"

Oliver just shook his head in amusement. "Nothing. It's just endearing. There aren't many people your age who can claim that."

Kaiba shrugged. "I'm not particularly interested in sex or love in that way."

"Except with Kisara," Oliver said. The color that blossomed in his Regent's cheeks was bright red making him seem so incredibly young it hurt. "I'm sorry about what happened to her," he said softly.

The sadness returned to Kaiba's blue eyes and Oliver felt horrible for bringing it back. Nevertheless, the young man answered. "It wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't yours either," Oliver said.

Kaiba glowered at him and turned his head away. Oliver decided to return to the subject at hand. "So, you were saying, about when you took me and Diggle to Yami?"

"Yes," Kaiba said, "I almost dropped you into a wall."

The vigilante blinked. "You what?"

Kaiba stared at him steadily. "I almost dropped you into a wall."

"No, I heard that part, I'm trying to figure out how that's possible," Oliver said.

The Regent shrugged. "Yami knew I was still... When I cut myself off from the Shadows, it's physically painful to me."

"Because your soul's falling apart," Oliver guessed.

Kaiba nodded. "That and it's lonely. I feel abandoned and vulnerable, more than I'd like to admit," he said. "We all do. It's one of the reasons casting a Penalty Game like Marik's is so severe."

Oliver nodded. "But what does that have to do with dropping us into a wall?"

"Almost," Kaiba sais, holding up a finger. "I almost dropped you into a wall. When the Shadows were finally allowed access back to me, they had to fill the gaps in my soul again and mend them back together. It shouldn't have used my powers until that process was allowed to complete itself which should have taken several minutes."

He sighed. "When Yami left, revealing his powers to Walter and leaving me behind with no way to explain what happened, barely able to defend myself, and no other Shadow user proficient enough to defend me, I was forced to follow after him using my own unstable abilities. Driving would have taken too long so Shadow Travel was the most efficient. I gambled hoping I was strong enough to get us the entire way safely, but I lost and fell short."

"I did wonder why you dropped us in that alleyway," Oliver said.

Fuguta glared at Kaiba. "You never told me this," he grumbled.

Kaiba looked away uncomfortably much like a guilty child caught in a lie. "As I was saying," the Regent said, "I put failsafes in my casting in case something goes wrong. One of those is compensating for lack of power to Travel. It basically assesses my ability, proficiency, strain, and stability of power and calculates how far I can go safely before something catastrophic happens. It then allows me to Travel as far I'm able to safely before cutting me off and dropping me in the nearest open area."

"So you've basically built a computer program into Shadow magic," Oliver said fascinated.

Kaiba shrugged. "I work with computers for a living. It came naturally. Besides, anything that's potentially dangerous to the user should have a failsafe of some kind."

"Such as a power capable of stealing souls?" the vigilante teased.

Kaiba snorted and said something in Japanese which Oliver knew basically mean, "No duh."

Oliver smirked before becoming serious again. "You said Obelisk betrayed you. How did he do that?"

Again, the Regent's mood darkened. He sat up, leaning against the headrest and shook his head, flipping his dark bangs back from his eyes. "I need a drink."

"If I get you a drink, will you tell me?" Oliver asked.

Kaiba crossed his arms. "I have to," he said. "It involves you one way or another."

"Tequila right?" Oliver asked standing. "We have a bottle downstairs. Give me a second."

When he returned, Kaiba was checking his cellphone with a cheeky grin. "It seems the Court sent my brother and Sorceress after me," he said.

"Really?"

It was Fuguta who replied. He nodded and said with an audible sigh, "Mai is...not happy with him."

"She's cursing me out," Kaiba said with a grin. "It's amusing."

Oliver shook his head. "You know," he said, pouring himself and Kaiba a shot of tequila and handing one cup to the young man. "I don't know many people who can say they enjoy being cursed."

Kaiba smirked. "She's exceptional with words. That's why she's my Sorceress."

"Did you choose your titles or...?" Oliver waved his hand vaguely.

"The Pharaoh and King were given theirs by their former and current stations," Kaiba explained. "I chose mine, so did Shaadi, Marik, and Ryou. Ishizu and Bakura kept their titles from in Ancient Egypt, I gave Mai, Honda, and the mutt their titles and Yuugi gave Anzu her title."

"And Mokuba?"

Kaiba smiled softly. "He chose his too."

Oliver nodded thoughtfully. "Now, how did Obelisk betray you?"

"You really enjoy toying with my moods don't you," Kaiba grumbled. Fuguta wisely kept his mouth shut on the matter, although his lips still quirked. "He betrayed me by lying to me." Blue eyes hooded and stared fixedly at the shot of alcohol before Kaiba drained the entire thing. "When I accepted the post of Regent under Obelisk, he swore he would never betray me, never hurt me, never abandon me, and never lie to me. We can't afford to have rifts between us." He fiddled with the empty shot in frustration. "By keeping the knowledge of my... our immortality secret from us, he lied to me, betrayed my trust..."

Oliver poured more tequila into Kaiba's shot glass ignoring the disgruntled look Fuguta cast him. "Are you sure he knew?" he asked.

Kaiba promptly downed the second shot. "Unless he's ready to admit the Greek knows more than he does, yes."

Oliver sat back down on the bed and stared into his first shot. "Maybe he didn't."

"Didn't what?"

"Maybe he didn't know you were gods," Oliver said. He shook his head. "I cannot believe I just said that." Fuguta smirked before regaining control of himself.

Kaiba was staring at Oliver strangely. "Neither can I."

"No." Oliver took a sip of his tequila, needing a boost of confidence for this. "I mean... Nevermind. Look, you're assuming that because Obelisk is a god, he should have known you were gods."

"Yes," Kaiba said in a voice that plainly showed how stupid this whole discussion was.

"But, and correct me if I'm wrong here, you're the first human he's ever had contact with before, right?"

Kaiba shook his head. "No. He was originally summoned by the Pharaoh 5,000 years ago."

"But other than that, no one," Oliver confirmed. Kaiba nodded slowly, eyebrows drawn down in confusion. "I'm guessing he's had more interaction with you than he ever did with the Pharaoh so, going by that argument, he knows you better. That also implies he's only really had any direct contact with the Court and more specifically you, no one else. That's a pretty limited sample of humans."

He took another sip of his tequila. Damn this was complicated. "Look, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that Obelisk is from the Shadow Realm you rule and can only come here to Earth if you summon him and that you," he waved his hand to indicate the Shadow Court, "all are the only humans he's ever really had contact with. So how is he to know what a human feels like?"

Kaiba stared at him in confusion. "What?"

"Oh, what the hell?" Oliver muttered and drained his shot. "What if he really didn't know you were gods because he doesn't know what another god looks like."

"Looks like?"

"I say that," Oliver said, "cuz that's how I contact the Shadows. Obelisk hasn't met any other gods directly, has he?"

Kaiba's eyes slowly began to grow wide. "No," he said quietly. "He hasn't."

"Then how would he know you're a god?"

Kaiba hesitated. "He is a god."

"He's also, frankly, a different species," Oliver said. "He's not human and only has you and the Court to go by as far as human experience is concerned. That's pretty limited like I said. It's also biased. He only knows people who are connected to the Shadows like he is." He waved a hands helplessly, struggling to find a way to figure out how to explain what he was thinking. This really was not his area of expertise. "What if he didn't know?"

"And the Greek did?" Kaiba asked incredulously.

"Think about it," Oliver said, shifting to a more comfortable position facing his Regent. "I know Diana and she's worships the Greek gods. She talks about them all the time. According to her mythologies, humans becoming gods in some way isn't all that unusual. So it would make sense if Helios was the one to see you for what you are, or what you've become."

"But..." Kaiba paled and his eyes suddenly grew round and vulnerable. He leaned back, visibly withdrawing in shock. "But then..."

His hand flew down to his Deck, pulling it out of its holster and frantically shuffling through it. He tossed the cards he passed by onto the bed startling Oliver with its many assortments of Monsters, Spells, and Traps he had never seen Kaiba use. When Kaiba had gone through his entire Deck, he pushed aside all the cards, moving them around as if looking for something.

Curious, Oliver leaned over and helped push cards aside so none overlapped like Kaiba had started doing. He paused when he remembered Kaiba's warning about not touching another Shadow user's Deck without their permissionz but continued when he received no negative response for his Regent. He did notice that sometime during the search, Kaiba had clasped a hand over his chest, clutching the thick Duel Monsters card dangling from his chest. His eyes flickered from card to card, dismissing each one as irrelevant to what he was obviously looking for. There a brief moment where Oliver saw panic flash across the Regent's face for a fraction of a second before disappearing as Kaiba flipped open his holster and examined it by sight and feel. It was empty.

"No," Kaiba murmured. What followed was a rush of Japanese and what sounded like hieratic that may or may not have made sense even if Oliver had spoken the languages fluently.

Confused, Oliver scanned the cards laid out on the bed more closely and then noticed something he probably should have earlier. Obelisk's card was gone. That was what Kaiba was freaking out about. Apparently, Fuguta had come to a similar conclusion because he grabbed Kaiba's shoulder and shook him roughly to snap him out of his panic attack and gain his undivided attention. He said something in Japanese -Oliver made a mental note to learn the language- to which Kaiba nodded blankly before stepping away and pulling out his phone. He was probably going to call someone to bring the card over to hold it until Kaiba could get to it.

Kaiba fumbled for his own phone and dialed the first number he came upon. When the recipient answered, Kaiba cut off the ranting voice which Oliver distinctly recognized at Mai's. "Where are you?" he demanded. The reply was quieter and somewhat muffled. "Nevermind that. Do you have Obelisk's card?" Her answer must have been an affirmative because Kaiba slumped and buried his face in his bandaged hand. He looked up to Oliver abruptly. "Can Mai come here?" he asked.

Oliver shook his head and shrugged. "I don't see why not. She could be your friend coming to pick you up or something."

Kaiba blushed. "She has my brother and Roland." His eyes flicked to Fuguta who hung up his phone and nodded in confirmation. "That would mean you'd have five unexpected and unexplained guests here."

"Not really," Oliver countered. "Mokuba's your brother so it would make sense if Roland's with him. You have Fuguta and Mai, like I said, could be your friend from the states coming to pick you up."

Kaiba lifted an eyebrow. "They're on her motorcycle."

Again, Oliver shrugged. "We have a garage."

Kaiba smirked but Oliver saw the relief behind his eyes before the Regent turned back to speaking with Mai and counted that as a victory. He almost reached for the tequila to refill his glass but decided against it. He would need to be sober for this. Speaking of which, he reached out with his Shadows and was relieved to see the horizon of power still surrounding Kaiba, even if it was still weak and dim.

Maybe it was as bright as it was because Kaiba had the Obelisk card lending him the strength and authority as the Regent. If that was the case, then it would make sense why Kaiba was so desperate to get it back. But that did not explain the frantic way the normally strictly controlled Regent went about the task. Was there something more to this that he was missing?

Oliver sat back and watched Kaiba finish his conversation with Mai and hang up the phone before gathering up his cards and carefully replacing them in his holster. Was there something more to Kaiba's connection to Obelisk? Did the same go for the other monarchs and their respective gods? They said they were the human heads of their Triads and the human representatives of their gods. By representatives, did they mean they were more closely related to their gods then what Oliver had originally thought?

If Kaiba's horizon of power was this dim without Obelisk's card, assuming the reason for the lack of brilliance was indeed because of the card was gone, then could that also mean Kaiba's dizziness and disorientation be due to the same thing? Maybe not completely, but partially? Were the Egyptian gods symbiotically connected to their human counterparts?

Oliver ran a hand over his face. "Damn it," he muttered. Just thinking about it was giving him a headache. But he was sure the headache he felt growing was nowhere near as powerful as the one he'd probably experience when he told the Justice League about his theories. "Oh my god." Literally.