"So."

"So?"

"Nothing. Just, so." Duke glanced at Seto with a look of mischief.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Hm."

"We haven't caught up in a while."

"That's true," Seto acknowledged. "I've been busy."

"The good kind of busy?"

He thought for a moment.

"For work, yeah. I mean, you have one of the final duel disks, and that's what I've been working on. We made a lot of changes from the last prototype." Seto paused to check the altitude readings. "Mokuba got bronchitis again, and it's mostly gone, but he's still got a cough."

"Again?"

"He had it last year too. He hates going to the doctor, though, so him getting sick is always a struggle."

Other factors made it a struggle, but he didn't have to share those details with Duke. He'd always been good about accepting the way Seto's life was without asking for explanations, and it was one reason that they'd become such fast friends.

"How are things with your parents?"

Duke didn't know the details of Seto's family situation, but he'd figured out soon after meeting him that Seto dreaded going home.

"Better since I moved out," was his opaque answer.

"I'm glad things are better."

Seto glanced at Duke briefly and was relieved that he didn't look the slightest bit curious.

"How are things going with your game?"

"It's at a bit of a stand-still right now. Has been ever since Pegasus died. I've been trying to negotiate with Industrial Illusions, but they don't seem willing to commit now that they don't have Pegasus's personal approval on it."

"I can imagine it's a struggle when a company that big suddenly loses their CEO," Seto mused. "Especially one that's so involved. They were probably left scrambling to fill his spot."

"Yeah, and the new guy seems to be doing his best to uphold whatever Pegasus already had planned, but he doesn't want to move forward with something so different, even though Pegasus was involved with the project."

"I'm sure that decision is informed by how that would look to the public. He needs to look like he's respecting his predecessor or else people might get upset."

"I suppose so." Duke frowned.

"Where have you been working since you left KaibaCorp?"

"Nowhere special," Duke answered vaguely, then flashed him a smile. "It's nothing nearly as interesting as working with you."

"You certainly haven't changed," Seto muttered.

"Not that you expected me to?"

"Not at all."

Conversation with Duke was still so easy, even while dodging personal questions. It was almost soothing, in a way, to talk together with the sea and the sky stretched out endless before them.

The click of the cockpit door opening broke the peace.

"Hey guys," Joey greeted casually. "How's the flight going?"

"You're the passenger, you tell us," Seto retorted without looking back; he was currently in control and didn't want to take his eyes off their course.

"It'll be a lot more exciting once I take over. I'm gonna go for a double-loop."

"That's not funny," Seto scolded, but Joey's laughter behind him was an open contradiction.

"After the island blew up, everything's been smooth for us in the back." Joey placed a hand on the back of Seto's chair. "I hope that wasn't too much for you guys?"

"Oh, it's fine," Duke answered breezily, waving the concern away with his hand. "We fly out of explosions worse than that every day, don't we, Seto?"

"Yeah, sure." His focus was on flying, but he was still giving half an ear to the conversation. "Has Mokuba been good?"

"Yeah, he's no trouble at all. Ryou and I have been keeping an eye on him. He's excited to go home." Joey's eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of land. "How many times do you think Ryou has babysat Mokuba for you by now?"

Seto thought for a moment as he checked the altimeters again. He got Ryou to start babysitting for him shortly after he started working, and he'd started working the day he turned fifteen. That was almost a month shy of two years ago now, and Ryou had babysat for him almost every day since.

He almost shuddered thinking about the total cost of all those hours.

"Few hundred times at least," he said, instead of a more accurate, and much higher, number.

Duke blinked. That didn't sound right.

"Don't call it babysitting in front of Mokuba, though, or he'll throw a fit."

Duke was puzzling through this information. Mokuba was old enough and mature enough to stay home alone. Maybe "alone" wasn't an option, and maybe that was the problem. Maybe it was something else.

"You don't need Ryou to babysit for you anymore, though."

Joey's voice was quiet, but Seto stiffened. So that was his reason for the question. But Duke was right there. How could he think now was the time to bring this up?

"We already settled this, Joey."

"Yeah, but I've been thinking–"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm just saying that–"

"Oh no," Seto dead-panned. "I'm losing control of the giant metal flying machine."

"Message received, I'll drop it." Joey rolled his eyes. "You can be such a drama queen sometimes."

"Call me that again, and I'll punch you. I'll actually punch you."

"No you won't."

"I've punched you before."

"That was a long time ago. You like me too much to punch me now."

Seto was readying a retort when something started beeping and his attention was directed elsewhere. His eyes started scanning the panels for a light that synced with the beeping, but Duke found it first.

"Looks like we lost the anti-icing on the tail propeller." He looked to Seto. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that I wish I was actually a pilot so I knew how important that was." Seto sighed and thought for a moment. "As long as we don't fly through any clouds, I think we should be fine, and it looks like clear skies to Domino. KaibaCorp can fix their blimp when they get it back."

"Cool, I'll go tell everyone that Captain Drama Queen broke the blimp." Joey turned to the door.

"Duke, shoe."

Faster than Seto expected, Duke removed one boot and chucked it at Joey's back as he left.

"Missed me!"

"No I didn't! Now give my shoe back!"

"Thanks for the shoe!" Joey shouted from the hallway. The sound of his voice clarified just how far he was from them now.

The cockpit was quiet for a few minutes.

"Do you want to take over for a little while?"

"Sure thing"—Duke grinned, unable to help himself—"Captain Drama Queen."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black."

"I think you could be very dramatic if you let yourself," Duke teased. "Personally, I don't see any problem with a little drama."

"Balance the fuel, co-pilot , then I'll give you control."

Duke complied, turning serious again.

"The good news is, it seems like we have enough fuel to make it back to Domino, if we continue at this pace. I'm sure that's because that was the original plan."

"That is good news," Seto agreed. "What's the bad news?"

"The bad news is that we had to hijack an aircraft again, and we might get charged for it this time because the people at KaibaCorp are jackasses."

"Maybe the next time we participate in a Duel Monsters tournament, we make sure there's no travel involved," Seto suggested, as if they'd had any choice in the matter this time.

"Maybe," Duke agreed. "Or maybe we just stop joining tournaments run by madmen?"

"Maybe," Seto agreed. "Or maybe the next tournament we compete in has prize money as the highest stakes instead of souls."

"Oh, that sounds nice, we should definitely try that sometime." Duke smirked at his friend, who rolled his eyes but still smiled back.

Even with needing to pilot a strange aircraft again , and not knowing the consequences when they returned to Domino, Seto felt a tiny bit happy right now. Piloting the blimp and talking to his friends left no space for pouting over the final duel.

The door to the cockpit opened.

"Hey," Joey greeted. "I remembered why I came up here in the first place."

"Give me my shoe back, and we'll let you speak." Duke tossed his ponytail over his shoulder. "I have control. I am the captain now."

"Having control doesn't make you the captain," Seto scoffed. "I'm still the captain. What do you need, Joey?"

"I thought maybe the three of us could go out for dinner when we get back. You know, like we did after Duelist Kingdom."

"Only if you return my boot."

"Deal."

"Ask Mokuba if he wants to join us," Seto said, his own agreement implied. Mokuba had enjoyed himself last time and they seldom got to eat out, so he would probably say yes, but Seto wanted to let Mokuba make the decision. He was getting to the age where he needed to be given a bit of control over his life or else he might turn rebellious. Seto didn't think he could handle it if Mokuba decided to rebel against him.

"If he doesn't want to join us, what will he be doing?" Duke asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"He'd probably be with Ryou," Seto answered, casting Duke a suspicious look out of the corner of his eye. What made him start asking questions now? "That's where he usually is when he's not with me or at school. Besides, he's pretty attached to Ryou's sister."

"If Mokuba's already got a girlfriend at twelve–" Duke mused, but was cut off.

"He does not have a girlfriend," Seto interrupted, quite agitated. He hated having to make this correction. "Because he is twelve, and I've already told him he's not allowed to call her his girlfriend."

Duke found Seto's minor outburst to be more revealing than he'd probably intended. He watched as Seto pressed his fingers to his temples against a headache.

"Duke, we're losing altitude. If you can't focus on flying, I'll–"

"I can focus," Duke asserted, looking forward again.

The tension in the cockpit was thick as Joey tried to think of something that would smooth things over.

"Are you guys in range of the air-traffic people in Domino?"

"Yeah, they know we're coming, but they're confused about the change in pilots," Seto answered, relieved by the change of subject. "We're not talking to the same ones as last time, so they don't recognize us, but they have chosen to assume that we are qualified pilots, which makes things easier. Hopefully they don't send anyone to the landing field to check our licenses." He sighed. "They probably will, though, with our luck."

"Speak for yourself." Joey grinned. "My luck is fantastic."

"It's a pity you didn't duel Ryou during the tournament. I would have liked to see how your luck holds up against his zombie deck."

Joey shuddered.

"All those ghouls in his deck give me the creeps. I don't know how he can stand them."

"It's called fortitude," was Seto's simple answer.

"It's called not being a scaredy-cat," Duke teased. "I bet even Mokuba wouldn't be scared of a few ghosts."

"Hm." Seto wasn't actually sure; his brother had seemed to hold up well during the tournament with the presence of dark magic and real monsters putting everyone on edge. Right, he still had to explain Seth to Mokuba… That could wait. Maybe Mokuba would forget to ask.

I think Mokuba will have no difficulty accepting me.

That's a bit optimistic. I think he'll be a bit hesitant. The only older men he's had a good experience with have been Ryou's dad and Yugi's grandpa. I'm sure that's our father's fault, though. He's never liked any of his male teachers either.

I'm sorry, but you skipped over the part where I'm an "older man?"

How many thousands of years old are you?

I have chosen to retract my protest. Continue.

It's one thing for him to accept that our friends have spirits… attached to them, or even that the god-monsters are real. It's another thing entirely for him to learn that I have one of those spirits that's just as capable of possessing me.

I would recommend leaving that part out, then. Besides, I don't possess you against your will.

There was that one time–

It was once, I apologized, and you said that you forgave me.

I have, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forget that it happened.

"Hey, earth to Seto!"

The words entered his mind, but didn't quite penetrate, so he didn't respond. A moment later, a pair of fingers snapped right next to his ear, and he jolted, suddenly forced back to the present.

"Joey, what the hell?" he snapped, louder than he meant, looking over to see both friends staring at him in concern.

"Dude, you were completely zoned out. We were trying to talk to you." Concerned green eyes only watched him for a second more before turning back to their course.

"You okay?" Joey had leaned back, perhaps startled by Seto's outburst.

"Yeah, I was just talking to Seth." Seto reached up to brush his hair back, trying to straighten it out. "I had realized, the police are probably going to be waiting for us when we get back to Domino."

"But they just think we're real pilots," Duke protested.

"Not because of that. Don't you remember what happened yesterday?"

"Which thing?" Joey asked. A lot had happened in the last two days.

"Your house got broken into, Mokuba and Amane were both abducted, and Marik got stabbed. You don't think the police are suspicious that we were involved in and reported several crimes, then all got onto a blimp and just left town immediately?"

Silence for a moment.

"Well, when you put it that way," Duke said slowly. "Yeah, that sounds really sketchy."

"Yeah…"

"Joey, did you tell your parents about the break-in before we left?" Seto raised an eyebrow at him.

"Uh, well, that's um, no, no I didn't."

Seto closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I need to step out for a minute." He unbuckled from the captain's seat. "I'll be right back."

"Hey, you can't leave me to fly this thing alone," Duke protested in shock. "I'm pretty sure that breaks protocol of some kind."

"We're already illegal pilots. I'm not sure it gets much worse than that." Seto squeezed past Joey to the door. "Three minutes max. I'll be back."

Then Seto closed the door, leaving Duke and Joey alone together.

The tall teen walked briskly past the rooms where he thought his friends were. He had a specific goal in mind.

The shaft of the Millennium Rod bumped against his leg as his feet carried him to Ishizu's room.

He knocked.

"Hey, can I talk to you?" After the words came out, he cleared his throat. He hadn't meant to sound like that, uncertain and… needy.

"I'm sorry, Seto, but I cannot." She spoke from the other side of the door, her voice clear and calm.

He clenched a fist at his side.

"I just need to ask you–"

"I'm sorry, but now is not the time." She sounded genuinely regretful, but that didn't ease Seto's frustration.

"Fine," he managed to say through gritted teeth before stalking back to the cockpit.

He passed no one on his way back, but when he arrived, Duke was alone again.

"Hey, everything alright?"

"As fine as it can be," Seto answered and situated himself once more in the pilot's seat.

They landed the blimp in the same unfinished KaibaCorp stadium that it had departed from. By the time it touched down, its pilots were both ready to be done with this entire experience. Surprisingly, no KaibaCorp employees seemed present to tend to the blimp, but they figured that someone would be along soon and they were better off leaving before their illegal pilots were caught.

Once they were all off the blimp, Mai was the first to leave with a promise to stay in touch this time, because "you kids are far too interesting."

Yugi's grandfather arrived shortly with his minivan, prepared to take most of his son's friends home. While that group made their plans for who was being taken where, Joey, Duke, and Seto set off to find where Joey had parked his own car on the other side of the structure.

"Do either of you want anything specific for dinner?" Joey asked as he merged with the late evening traffic.

"You know I'm not picky," Seto answered, settling comfortably in the passenger seat as Duke reached forward from the back seat to fiddle with the radio between them. "I'll eat anything."

"We could go downtown and just stop at anywhere that looks good," Duke suggested. "Lots of the restaurants in that area are winners, there's no bad choices."

"That works for me if you're up for it." Joey glanced at Seto, who nodded slightly. He was truly indifferent to the choice of restaurant; what he wanted most now was to relax and forget the stress of the tournament.

"Wherever we go for dinner, I know the perfect place to go for dessert," Duke enthused. "They have almost anything you could ask for, it's all made in-house, and they stay open until two in the morning."

"Two in the morning? How late are you planning on keeping us out?" Seto's brow furrowed.

"I'm just saying that it's an option," Duke replied smoothly. "I'm not opposed to staying out really late, and if we need to, we can all crash at my place. My bed's big enough for three." He shot Seto a wink that might have flustered him if he truly thought Duke was serious.

If you were to have to share a bed with any two of your friends, Seth contemplated with amusement. These two are probably among your top choices, I imagine. You're already comfortable with both of them. The only potential issue is Duke's inability to stop flirting.

No thanks, I'll sleep on the couch.

"Ryou's watched Mokuba late before, hasn't he?" Joey spared Seto a glance.

"Yeah, but it's been a long day for all of us, and I have to give him some kind of warning if it's going to be after nine." Seto pulled up Ryou's contact on his phone and dialed his number. "Let me call him first and ask if it's alright."

While the phone rang, Duke tried to give Joey directions on where to go based on the restaurants he thought they might like. None of the names meant anything to Seto, and he figured he didn't care where they went anyways as long as it wasn't too expensive.

Finally, he heard a click and a voice through the phone.

"Hey Seto, what's up?"

"Ryou, I might not be picking Mokuba up until late, would that be alright?"

"Um… Mokuba's not with me."

His blood turned cold.

"If he's not with you then where is he?" Seto demanded. This couldn't be happening.

The continuing discussion of dinner plans immediately stopped at the sound of his words, Duke turning off the radio a moment later.

"I-I don't know. He was with us at first, then he said that he wanted to talk to you about something and went to catch up to you guys." Ryou's voice was shaking. After reliably caring for Mokuba so many times, he'd finally screwed up. "You didn't see him?"

"No, not at all."

"I'm so sorry, Seto–" Ryou was starting to cry. He knew better than almost anyone how precious Mokuba was to him. He also feared that he'd lost his friend's trust forever.

"We're going back now to look for him, I'll let you know when we find him."

Seto hung up then, not trusting himself to say anything more.

"Already on it." Joey didn't need to be asked to change direction.

"What happened?" Duke asked, understanding the problem but not its cause. "Did Mokuba not stay with the others?"

"Ryou said he changed his mind and left them. He wanted to talk to me about something, so he got out of the car and came to find us."

"Don't blame yourself," Duke said firmly as blue eyes turned to gaze out the window.

"I don't. I blame Yugi's grandpa. He should have made sure that Mokuba returned to us before he left." As the adult in charge of the vehicle, it was absolutely his responsibility.

In the back of his mind, though, Seto wondered if this had anything to do with Ishizu's behavior since the championship duel. Had she known that this was about to happen? If so, why hadn't she stopped it?

When his phone buzzed, Seto checked it, expecting another apology from Ryou.

"Joey."

"Yeah?"

"We need to go to KaibaCorp."

"What?" A moment later, "Please tell me you're guessing."

"I'm not guessing."

Seto handed his phone back to Duke, who read the text message aloud.

"'Come to my office. I have your brother.'"