My apologies for the short update last time. Seto's reaction to this whole thing will take a number of updates to fully encapsulate, and here before you sits the first one. It was far more fun to write than it should have been, which tells me something about myself that I don't usually think about. The professor who led my writing class last semester said that writers must be sadists to be effective.

I think it is my duty to agree.


When they heard tires screeching outside of the shop, they should have anticipated Armageddon. Joey Wheeler wasn't the sort of guy to be caught off guard by much. He'd trained himself to roll with the proverbial punches.

He was still too wrapped up in the idea that he was staring at a seven-year-old Seto goddamn Kaiba to even register the fact that the twenty-year-old Seto goddamn Kaiba might be a problem.

This one's name was Seto Yagami, of course. He wouldn't become a Kaiba until after he turned eleven. Joey remembered something Kaiba had told him once: that he'd raised Mokuba by himself since the kid had been born, and that the Kaiba brothers were about eight or nine years apart. As far as this Seto was concerned, Mokuba didn't exist yet.

There was something inhumanly wrong about that.

Not to mention the fact that Seto Yagami was polite, gracious, downright charming. Though he was just as confused as his parents, just as nervous, he wore it well. He wore it like…well, like Joey might have expected Mokuba to wear it. The boy smiled when Téa called him a little cutie, even blushed a little.

It was…fucking surreal.

So of course, Joey's brain was entirely too occupied to register the fact that the car outside might be a metal-blue Bughatti Veyron, and that the driver of said car might be homicidally pissed. He didn't even spare a thought about Kaiba, because he was too busy trying to reconcile the fact that Kaiba was standing right in front of him.

All four fucking feet of him.

Yuki still held the magazine with Kaiba on the cover in a death-grip, and looked positively mortified at the idea that her baby had been adopted into the family that was apparently posing such a huge threat to her that Yami had stepped in. For his part, the spirit was doing his level best to keep from laughing, and doing a pretty bad job of it.

When Kaiba all but shattered the front door, Joey had just enough presence of mind to register that he'd never seen Seto Kaiba looking like he did right now. Even at his most furious, the man exuded iron-fisted control and icy determination.

There was no control in him now.

There was only death.

Before anyone else had a chance to react, Kaiba had his rival by the throat.

"Talk!" Kaiba thundered. Seto Yagami had had an inkling of this tone when he'd defended his mother. That specifically volatile tone of voice that comes from protecting a loved one; but where the Yagami boy's warning had had a child's unconditional affection for its protector behind it, Kaiba's had the feral rage of a wild animal protecting its young.

"Good afternoon, Kaiba," Yami offered pleasantly, grinning at the madman in front of him with all the confidence in the world. "You're looking well. How is your brother? He seemed in a bit of a hurry."

Kaiba launched the spirit—and Yugi's body with it—backward, and the avalanche of toys, games, and DVDs sounded like a blast of lightning; he leveled a very familiar pistol between Yami's eyes. Joey didn't know what Kaiba looked like from the king's vantage point, lying on his back as he was, but had no idea how the hell he could still be grinning.

Or laughing.

"Kaiba!" Tristan managed, but it did no good. "Kaiba, damn it, Yugi's still in there! That's still Yugi's body, you stupid son of a bitch!"

Nothing.

As far as Kaiba was concerned, Yami was the only man other than himself in the entire world. And that was one too many. Tristan continued to yell, but Joey knew it didn't matter. It might have worked if someone were here to remind Kaiba that he was human, but right now…

Joey understood better than anyone else here that Kaiba was a shield for his brother. When Mokuba was hurt, or scared, or in trouble, there was only Niisama. The kid had other friends now, and he could handle himself pretty well now, but those times when he needed help, he only went to one person.

When Mokuba needed help, there was only one solution, and when Kaiba took on that mantle, he was no longer a man but a force; Tristan may as well have been trying to reason with a hurricane.

Téa was scared stiff; Yami was still laughing. Tristan fell silent after a while.

Joey'd forgotten about the other three people in the room…until Yuki spoke.

"…Seto?"

Kaiba's reaction was physically painful to watch. He whirled, entire body poised to kill, and his weapon came with him. For the first time, Joey truly believed that Yuki Yagami was this man's mother. She stared stone-cold at the man who was (apparently) her son, and the gun he was pointing at her might as well have been a bouquet of paper flowers. She just looked…curious.

Lightning shot through Kaiba's entire body, and he froze.

Joey realized that the semi-automatic in the man's hand had just been rendered useless. He could no more pull the trigger than he could form a coherent thought. His muscles were locked, and moving was no longer an option. The only part of him that had any life left was his eyes, and that life was terrible to behold.

Mokuba had been frightened of this woman.

Kaiba was nothing short of horrified.