How could have gone unnoticed in the eyes of a person like him? Who did not forgive the slightest hint of imperfection in everything he did? Maybe, in his desperate search for perfection, he had become imperfect. Maybe, that overconfidence that always polished him had blinded him to the point of underestimating his own weaknesses. Maybe, ruling a life that many had longed for, that many thought perfect and satisfying to him, had lulled him into a vision of a perfect world where nothing could escape his control unless he so desired.

And for that reason, there was no other guilty person but him.

But everything had lost its reason for being: Mokuba had died, reducing his life to the same uncertainty of those series of "maybes" that with him absent would never become answers. There was nothing Seto longed for more than an answer. Because, if he didn't have one, guilt would transform his life into torture, into a continuous succession of opportunities to survive and not to live it; to turn memories into a path of thorns and the small moments of happiness into the poison of remorse.

The first whiplash was a question.

Why?

Why had Mokuba died? Why couldn't he do anything to stop it? How many hours that he could have devoted to him alone were wasted between the four walls of his office, papers, projects, and board meetings? How many hugs had he deprived him of in his foolishness to give him a dream life that, might add other "maybe", he never really made him happy? How many times could he have told him how much he loved him, instead of assuming that he already knew and had no need to repeat it to him?

Each fact previously recognized as a demonstration of love was deformed into a chain of errors that he could not amend, that now turned his heartbeat into a mere hollow pounding in his chest box and his breathing into a vague exercise of habit. Guilt only doubled the weight of those mistakes, pressing them into his throat until they made breathing as difficult as Gozaburo's dog collar did.

Seto Kaiba did not accept that mistakes were made, Seto Kaiba did not tolerate the slightest hint of imperfection in his endeavors, Seto Kaiba had smoothed himself on the road to success drop by drop of sweat and, therefore, had every reason to be so proud and upright. Seto Kaiba had beaten the most dangerous game of chance by taking Gozaburo's company from him.

So why couldn't he save Mokuba? What did he do wrong? At what point did he make a false step? Mokuba was no longer there to tell him, so that his voice - never in a reproachful tone except for the times when wanted him away from the computer - which remained there to comfort him, which was always the reason's voice, would calm his inner self with an answer. He didn't even know what his last words had been, he didn't even know if he had really made him happy before he died.

All he knew was that his little brother was gone, that he had lost him.

And though his heart was still twisting in his gut, Seto still struggled with guilt. It pained him to the marrow to acknowledge that he could not do more for Mokuba when he deserved it all. "Chance" and the "fate" he had so long refused to believe in, were taking advantage of that gap to intrude. Death then seemed a matter of chance and a fate that was not measurable according to the events that preceded it.

He then discovered death as the most dangerous game of chance, and if the triumph was his when he played it with Gozaburo, it would not have to be any different unless he so decided.

"Prepare the body, but not for burial".

He would play and win again.