It's always felt like a pivotal milestone to me, for any story to reach 100 chapters. There's something grand about it. Something meaningful. Of course, this could just be me coming up with excuses for never learning how to shut the hell up, but hey. We all come up with self-serving devices sometimes, don't we?

All the same, having Seto and Kisara have their first meaningful interaction on this particular scene is … special to me.

.

"Before we speak of anything else," Kisara said, sitting with one leg crossed over the other and arms crossed over her chest, "I have a question for you. You may not understand, and you may not know the answer. But I wish for you to try. Can you do that?"

"I can," Seto said. "Ask."

"While I still slumbered high on my mountain, I was visited by an aspect of the god you would know as Thoth." She spoke the name in a strange accent, one that did not match her normal voice, nor any other voice Seto had ever heard, but he nodded. "He offered me insight into the threat that reaches its tendrils toward you. I have found myself confused, and I should like to see if you can unravel the mystery for me."

Seto gestured with his good arm.

"I insisted upon being given a name that I might attach to the threat on your life. The name which Thoth offered to me was Mokuba Kaiba."

Seto's eyes flashed, first in surprise, then in anger, then in annoyance. "I see," he growled.

"You understand this?" Kisara asked.

Seto glanced at his brother. "Fetch Masahiko, would you?"

Mokuba nodded. "Yes, Niisama."

He left the parlor, and before long he returned with another boy in tow; smaller, younger, but no less familiar. Although his eyes were a pale green instead of violet, and although this demeanor was nervous and wilted, it was clear to all present that this second boy was Mokuba Kaiba.

A second Mokuba Kaiba

"I believe," Seto said, "that this is what your . . . correspondent meant, in offering that name to you." It was clear without asking what Seto thought of this. He seemed to actively chew glass; they all could almost hear the crunching. "He was sent here, to this city, by my enemy. He was meant to kill me in my hospital bed, in exchange for help which my enemy never intended to give. Whatever threat this boy represented to me, now or previously, is no longer a concern of mine."

"What do you mean," Kisara asked, suspiciously, "when you say that your enemy never intended to give help to this boy?"

"I mean that he made promises I have every belief to have been false." Seto drew in a calming breath. "This boy's brother, my counterpart in his home world, is currently in a coma. Held in stasis by magic. My enemy offered to wake him. But only if Masahiko, here, succeeded in killing me." He glanced at the boy, then at his brother, then back at Kisara "I don't think he ever intended to do anything. I don't think he can do anything."

Kisara's brow furrowed in thought. She frowned. "Come forward, child, if you would."

Masahiko took a moment before shuffling in the queen's direction. He glanced back at Seto and Mokuba before forcing himself to look Kisara in the eye. "Y-Yes?" he asked, straining to act like he wasn't afraid.

Kisara's face softened. "Do you know what has befallen your brother?"

Masahiko nodded shakily. "A penalty game," he said.

Yugi, who was standing off in a corner of the parlor, flinched violently.

"Explain this penalty game to me," Kisara prompted. "Please."

"Yugi said . . . my Yugi said . . . he had to put his heart back together. He said he banished the worst parts of Niisama's . . . soul, I guess. And now he can rebuild himself. Into a better person."

Kisara hummed low in her throat; the sound rumbled like a storm-cloud. "How long has your brother been lost to this penalty game? Be as specific as you can."

"I . . . I don't know." Masahiko fidgeted. "I can't remember. Days ran together. I stopped keeping track after two months. It's been three. Maybe four. I-I think."

Kisara closed her eyes. "I see," she said. She opened them again. "And then Gozaburo Kaiba came to you, and offered to break this curse so that your brother could return to you. So that he would no longer be trapped by Millennium Magic. But he never does anything for free. You were to become a contract killer in exchange for his beneficence. Correct?"

Masahiko nodded again. More firmly. "Yeah. Yeah, exactly."

"Why do you think he picked you for this job?"

Masahiko mulled this over. Something sparked in his eyes. "At first," he said, after a long silence, "I thought it was 'cuz I'd have an easier time getting close than anybody else." He gestured to himself, then back toward Mokuba. "I'm a Kaiba. I look like a Kaiba. But now, I think . . . I think it was 'cuz I'm disposable. I think I was s'posed to fail. To be a distraction for Seto-sama's guards. Daimon was the one who was s'posed to actually kill him."

"Daimon," Kisara repeated. She turned to Seto. "I know this name. Who is Daimon?"

"My predecessor's right hand, steward to his estate," Seto said. "He is no longer a factor."

Something about the way he said it was enough for everyone to understand what he meant. Kisara quite clearly approved, if the sudden return of her toothy grin was any indication. She slid her gaze back over to Masahiko.

"Gozaburo Kaiba does not think very much of you. Does he, child?"

"No." Masahiko shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Why do you think that is?"

Masahiko shrugged. "I'm young. I'm not as clever as my brother. I'm weak."

"Is that what he thinks of you, or is it what you think of you?"

"I don't know."

Yuki and Kohaku, and Mokuba, all grimaced at this answer. Kisara, for her part, simply nodded; she didn't look surprised in the slightest. She reached out and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Listen to me, Mokuba Kaiba. I have seen the measure of you." Masahiko flinched. "Let not the whispers of ghosts influence you. You are strong. You are brave. You are indelible."

Masahiko searched the queen's face. "Who are you?"

Kisara's grin widened, revealing just how sharp her shining white teeth were. "Gozaburo Kaiba likes to give people nightmares," she said. "I . . . will become his." Something about the way she looked now, with all the cocksure confidence of a being too powerful to be denied, made Masahiko avert his gaze as though it pained him to look at her. Like she was too bright. Like he was trying to stare directly at the sun.

Recognition, however, flooded into him a moment later.

"You . . . you're . . ."

"Correct, child," she said. "I am your brother's dragon."