This was originally two chapters, but I realized rather late that this wouldn't be fair to you. I already did something of a disservice by stopping the action last time to show you another side of the conflict (which isn't all that it might seem; I have some tricks up my sleeve, just you wait), so I decided I'd merge the next two chapters into one, shifting around some perspectives to make it work.
The result, I think, is stronger.
Take a gander, as it were, and see if you like where we're headed.
His face was a road map. His mouth was set far too easily into a frown. He was almost gaunt, thin and severe and…somehow painful to watch. His eyes, a blazing, too vibrant blue, were half-terrified and half-disgusted.
He was dressed in a suit that probably cost more than her car; he held a gun with obvious training and, worse, comfort. His stance was rigid, like a soldier at attention; when he'd first entered the room, he'd moved like a natural predator.
He was a walking contradiction.
A burning paradox.
And the part of it all that made Yuki's heart ache was that through all of it…there wasn't a single hint of anything that told her this wasn't her son.
When she'd first been approached by Solomon Mutou, Yuki hadn't been sure what to make of the offer. He'd said that he knew about the problem she and her family had been having, about the threat looming over their heads, and that he could help.
"When you meet me on the other side," he'd said, "I will not look like this. I trust that you will know me well enough. I hear tell that I am rather distinct. Don't worry about that." And so she hadn't. She wondered how it is that Solomon had managed to change from a sixty-year-old man to an eighteen-year-old boy, but then, Yuki didn't know much about magic.
Then he'd said this:
"I warn you now. You're going to meet someone very familiar, Yuki-sama. And it's going to hurt. But we are going to need him…and unless I miss my guess, he is going to need you. Be patient with him. I trust you won't find that difficult."
She hadn't had the faintest clue what this had meant at the time; she'd simply agreed. Seto had come home from school that day quiet, withdrawn, and shaken; quiet and withdrawn was almost normal, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her boy looking scared.
Anything that could conceivably help, she would have agreed to do.
Cryptic warnings didn't mean much.
So she had agreed to the ritual, she had sat with Solomon and allowed him to draw her blood. She had listened to him chant spells from Egypt that meant next to nothing to her, and she had endured the ripping, tearing agony of the journey to…wherever this was.
It had all seemed to make some odd amount of sense.
Solomon Mutou made it sound so simple.
Yuki was just beginning to realize that nothing involving magic was ever simple.
"Seto," she heard Kohaku say, in a voice too far away to hear properly. "What is the matter with you? Seto! Are you even—"
Kohaku clamped a hand on the man's right shoulder.
The blond one, whose name was Joey, belted out, "What the hell are you doing, you stupid fuck?!" and Yuki jumped; but the words didn't reach Kohaku in time, nor did they reach the man she'd seen on the magazine that lay forgotten near her feet on the floor. That man, for indeed he was a man—this Seto Kaiba—didn't even look over his shoulder; he holstered his weapon, whirled, caught hold of Kohaku's wrist, then his arm, and sent him sailing backward through the air and into the store's front counter, all in one motion.
Kohaku was solidly built, stocky, muscled from years of hard physical labor, yet in two seconds he'd been reduced to a grunting, groaning, crumpled heap on the floor.
It hadn't even been a conscious effort on Kaiba's part; he was clearly preoccupied. His eyes turned back, slowly, hauntingly, to Yugi Mutou—Solomon's grandson, Yuki realized; the little boy a few years younger than her own son, who'd offered to make her tea when she'd come to start the ritual. She'd thought he was sweet, a regular gentleman; yet Kaiba looked at him with venomous hatred.
"…You'd already signed your own death warrant when you laid hands on my brother," Kaiba said, slowly, and Yuki heard her Seto in his voice; more than that, she heard something deeper, something that reminded her of...herself. Kaiba gripped Yugi by the collar he wore around his neck—an odd fashion statement—and lifted him up like an over-sized doll, with one arm. Yugi worked his feet beneath him, stood up, only to be thrown off of them as his antagonist slammed him into a shelving unit. "But this…this…!" Kaiba gestured spasmodically with his free hand, in Yuki's general direction.
"This has a name, Kaiba," Yugi said, idly.
"Who the holy fuck do you think you are?!" Kaiba screamed; his voice, like a gun-blast, making Yuki's heart leap into her throat. Yugi didn't flinch. "What…is this…?" He was back to whispering again, a switch so jarring that it made Yuki's head go blank for a moment. "By what right…by what blasphemous authority…do you find it acceptable to—to…?"
There was more to this than the little boy with the black hair and the grey-violet eyes.
"Naming my authority will do no amount of good," Yugi replied smoothly, acting entirely oblivious to his current situation. "However, I might ask, Kaiba, is it not the prerogative of a king, indeed any leader, to protect his on subje—"
"No!"
That single word was a whip-crack; Yuki gasped.
"You narcissistic little shit, don't you dare claim them as yours!" Kaiba's face was red, his hair disheveled; the fire in his eyes—trapped beneath a sheet of ice only moments ago—blazed through the barrier in a sudden inferno; the ice melted and ran down his face as tears of deepest fury. "These are my memories! This is my family! Do you hear me?! MINE!"
"Kaiba—"
"SAY ONE MORE GODDAMNED WORD AND I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!"
