This is a long chapter. Certainly the longest in this project so far, and quite possibly the longest single chapter I've ever written. If not, then it's close. But before we get to it, a quick note: my YouTube channel, "Story Time with Iced Blood," just bade welcome to its 24th episode of "Let's Play Resident Evil 4." The project is nearing its end, and I hope you'll take a look.

There are certain things I feel like I should probably say about this one, but I think I'll save them for later. I'm going to let the work speak for itself.

Enjoy.


Two days later, Roland made another appearance at the mansion.

"I'd ask what Young Master Mokuba seems upset about," he said, standing in the front doorway, "except for the simple fact that nothing happens in this house without one of them knowing about it. I'm assuming that this time, it was him." He raised an eyebrow at the Yagamis. "Our little—ahem—discussion about Gozaburo."

"Y-Yes."

"Well, in that case, I don't suppose I can argue the point. He's naturally protective. Master Kaiba is protective in a stand-tall-in-armor sort of fashion. His brother is more nurturing. But it amounts to the same thing, and depending on the circumstances they can switch roles."

"It's hard to argue with his logic," Kohaku admitted, and it sounded painful. "I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, honestly. Maybe I thought, you know, since it involved him, sort of, then Se—Sotaro needed to know about it. But he really doesn't."

"I might have known better myself," Roland said slowly, "save for my following the same logic." He chuckled. "That's why we trust the vice-president's judgment, I suppose. He reminds us how to be human sometimes."

"Vice-president . . . ?"

"Young Master Mokuba is the vice-president of the Kaiba Corporation, yes." Roland offered a smile. "I don't mean to imply that we make him perform in that capacity. Yet. Better at this point to think of him as an intern. Still, strictly by title . . ."

Yuki stared openly for a moment, before letting out an involuntary chuckle. "Of course. Obviously. Why should I be surprised?"

Roland shrugged. "Genius runs in their blood," he offered, with a slight bow. Yuki stole a glance at her husband, going slightly red. "Speaking of which," Roland continued, "Young Master Mokuba seems to want to show you the product of that genius. Now that he's feeling better, he's planned a trip for the three of you. Call it 'Bring Your Family to Work Day.'"

Seto appeared a moment later, adjusting his jacket. "We host regular tours of our headquarters, but Mokuba is adamant that he lead this one personally." He looked up at Roland. "Update," Seto said, and Roland bowed his head slightly.

"We've spotted him walking down random streets every so often," Roland said as he and Seto stepped out of the mansion and out onto the grounds, "but aside from that, nothing. We've reached out to the police, but, again, nothing. Perhaps you should contact . . ."

"A tour of his offices?" Kohaku asked incredulously.

Yuki smiled. "Stop thinking of it as indulging your host," she admonished. "Mokuba-kun wants to show us what Seto-chan's been up to in the past decade. When are we ever going to get another chance like this?"

Kohaku quirked an eyebrow. "I suppose you've got a point, there. Se—Sotaro's certainly been taking advantage of it. He and Mokuba have been playing a lot of games. I'm kind of surprised they haven't played Magic & Wizards, though. Didn't somebody say that Mokuba plays that, too? I'd have figured Sotaro would have challenged him by now."

Yuki shrugged. "I'm not sure."

Mokuba came bouncing into the front room, backpack slung over his shoulder. Despite what Roland had said, he didn't look upset in any way, shape, or proverbial form. He seemed to have returned to his usual exuberance, and both Yuki and Kohaku were surprised at how relieved they were to see this. It was odd, thinking that they could be cowed into obedience by an eleven-year-old boy, but there was no denying that this particular eleven-year-old boy had a way about him, an infectious charisma, which drew attention to everything he said. When he was happy, he seemed like any other little boy. When he was angry, he seemed like a force of nature.

Not unlike his guardian.

When Mokuba caught sight of his guests in the room, his expression sobered. He said, "I'm sorry about how I acted," he said, "but not about what I said. I shouldn't have yelled at you. But, well . . ." He frowned, looked down at the floor for a moment, then he sighed. He looked back up at Yuki and Kohaku, eyeing them each in turn. "I'm not like Niisama," he said. "I believe you are who Yami says you are. I believe you're my parents. But . . . I don't remember you. I'm sorry. I just don't. All I remember is my brother. I know you take good care of him. But . . . I take care of him, too."

Yuki smiled. "It's okay, Mokuba-kun. I understand. And really, you've been with our boy longer than we have." Her expression slackened slightly as this implication hit her. Then she regained her composure. "We appreciate the help."

Kohaku nodded. He said, suddenly, "It's been a long time since he's had a chance to play with someone around his own age. And he's never really met anyone who could keep up with him."

Mokuba's grin came back.

"So," Yuki said, trying to hide her relief; the Kaiba Estate was an intense place, "Mister Ackerman tells us you're planning on taking us on a trip after school today."

Mokuba nodded quickly. "Yup! You've seen a lot of stuff around the house, I bet, but Kaiba-Corp is something else. It's Niisama's temple. I think he'd really want you guys to see it, but he doesn't want to say it out loud."

"So you're doing it for him," Kohaku said.

"Mm-hm."

"You do that a lot, don't you?" Yuki mused, a sly look coming onto her face. "Say the things your brother wants to say, but doesn't . . . or can't."

Mokuba nodded. "Mm-hm," he repeated, more somberly this time, with conviction instead of enthusiasm.

Another man came into the house after a moment of silence, who was obviously familiar to Mokuba; the young Kaiba's smile returned, and he offered a jovial nod of the head in greeting. This man was Travis Copeland, the Kaibas' personal driver. Bald, dark-skinned and hulking, Travis nonetheless had a similar disposition to Mokuba, because his smile was broad and open.

"Ready, Cap'n?" Travis asked. Mokuba nodded, tucked his other arm into his pack and settled it into position behind him, and off he went for school. He turned suddenly, in the doorway, and watched as Sotaro shuffled into the room. Still dressed in pajamas, his soft brown hair disheveled and unruly, the Yagamis' only child looked nothing like the genius he was destined to become.

Yuki did not miss the softness that visited Mokuba's face when he looked at his new friend. He said, "Hey. We're gonna take you and your Mom and Dad out to Kaiba-Corp after I get back from school today. You'll get to see the games that we make."

Sotaro's eyes, sluggish and only half-focused, suddenly brightened. Keen interest incinerated his remaining fatigue. "Really? I'd like that!"

Mokuba winked. "Thought you would. See you later, Sotaro. And read that comic I showed you. I wanna know what you think of it. 'Kay?"

Sotaro nodded. "I will. Bye, Mokuba-kun. See you later."

With a wave, the younger Kaiba brother left. Travis tipped an invisible hat to the Yagami family before following suit.

While Yuki set about finding breakfast for their son, Kohaku stepped into the doorway and looked out onto the front yard of the estate. He drew in a deep breath, and a smile found its sly, worming way onto his weathered face.

He said, "When are we ever going to get another chance like this . . . ?"

The day passed in relative silence, with Yuki helping Akiko around the house, Kohaku brushing up on his training, and Sotaro reading in the library. By the time three o'clock came around, and time came for Mokuba to get home, Sotaro migrated into the front parlor, and was obviously too excited to sit still anymore.

Travis took them to Kaiba-Corp's corporate headquarters as soon as Mokuba arrived. It was a huge, modern castle wrought of steel and glass, and once inside, the Yagamis got their first full glimpse of what Seto Kaiba had built.

Sotaro managed to get lost exactly once, in an initial rush of foot traffic on the second floor, somewhere near the southern elevator. Kohaku started to panic, Yuki right alongside him, and they seemed fully prepared to tear the entire building down right around everyone's heads, but Mokuba—as unfazed as a Buddhist monk—quickly took the situation in hand.

He flagged down a security officer at the information desk, gave a description of the boy acting as his cousin, along with specific orders to "find him before he knows he's lost." If Mokuba's unwavering calm was surprising, however, the speed at which the young Yagami was found surpassed it in spades. A bald man dressed all in black led Sotaro back to his parents not three minutes later.

After this initial scare, Roland Ackerman joined the exclusive little tour group personally, and Mokuba made a point to hold onto the younger boy's hand as they continued. After Yuki calmed down enough that her heart extricated itself from her throat, she managed to smile.

"You'd be surprised at just how good we've gotten at seeking out lost children," Roland offered, when Kohaku mentioned his surprise at the efficiency of the whole enterprise. Absolutely nothing was out of place, and you never would have been able to tell that two parents had been on the verge of hysteria not minutes ago. Every well-pressed suit and carefully-picked blouse was completely unruffled.

"Oh, that's right," Yuki put in, while Mokuba pointed into someone's office and Sotaro waved at whomever was inside. "Seto said something about you giving regular tours here. You must get a lot of kids."

Roland hesitated just long enough to be noticed, as his eyes flickered toward Mokuba, before saying, "Exactly."

As they passed through hallways, and visited the various offices, it became quickly apparent that Kaiba-Corp was nothing like what any of the Yagamis would have dreamed. They had envisioned the personal empire of the Kaiba family to look like nothing so much as a military fortress, and if there were any outside influences, it would have been from a prison. But this building was bright, vibrant, and filled with people who had nothing but smiles and bright greetings for their latest guests. There were promotional posters for various games framed on the walls, and special collages of them for several games outside every office, even as they explored entire floors which seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual creation of them.

It wasn't until they reached the fourth floor, which was dedicated entirely to advertising, that the Yagamis started to understand the rhyme and/or reason behind it. What, they wondered, did accountants—second floor—and legal consultants—third floor—have to do with specific games? Mokuba explained that Kaiba-Corp as a collective prided itself on its quality, and encouraged every single one of its employees to, in turn, take pride in their work as individuals; every time a new game was released, each member of its development team—even those with only limited involvement—received a poster. He mentioned that it had been his idea, and that so far, everyone seemed to appreciate it.

Each person they saw seemed to stop, and share a moment with their vice-president when they saw him. They were all smiles for young Mokuba, and Roland maintained that this had nothing to do with people being frightened of what Seto might do if they weren't. "A lot of us have taken to considering Young Master Mokuba the . . . mascot of the company," Roland explained. He hung back, with Yuki and Kohaku, while Mokuba and Sotaro led the charge. "A good luck charm, almost. He's been a direct presence—you know, with a real position—for a couple of years now."

"How old is he, again?" Kohaku asked.

Roland chuckled. "Many of us have had cause to wonder."

"How can an eleven-year-old be the vice-president of anything?" Yuki wondered. "You know, except maybe the Power Rangers fan club?"

Roland laughed. "Fair question," he admitted. "It's not legally binding. It's more symbolic than anything, I suppose. You see, it's something of a Kaiba family tradition." The Yagamis flinched, but Roland continued, unabashed: "Every member of the Kaiba family is guaranteed a position at the company. And when Master Kaiba took over, and rebranded the Kaiba Corporation as a game publisher, he made Young Master Mokuba his vice-president. For the first year or so, our products were produced entirely by the two of them."

"Mokuba-kun has made videogames?" Yuki asked.

"Well, not at first. He was more a . . . creative consultant. He came up with the games, Master Kaiba made them."

". . . called an MMORPG," Mokuba was saying to Sotaro. "What that means is—okay, remember how I told you about the internet? And how it's a huge computer network, and people can talk to each other, and send things, all around the world? Well, an MMORPG is what happens when you make a game out of that. And thousands of players . . ."

"You said 'at first,'" Kohaku said. "What about now?"

"Young Master Mokuba was the creative director for one of our most recent projects," Roland said. "He called it Gambit, and all executive decisions of design were left to him. The way I hear it, Master Kaiba made a bet with him. Something about getting his grade up in one of his classes." Roland sighed. "Public reception was . . . less than stellar. Certain people will tell you that Gambit is a masterpiece. Certain others will call it a disgrace. And by 'certain others,' of course I mean most people. It was something of a media frenzy."

"People didn't like a videogame made by a little kid?" Kohaku asked, looking incredulous. "Aren't these games . . . you know, made for kids? Why wouldn't . . . ?"

"That is a somewhat prevalent opinion, even now," Roland said, "but for the most part . . . no. Kaiba-Corp's games are aimed at all age groups. Some of Master Kaiba's most successful projects were built from the ground up for adults, actually. But . . . yes. That seemed to be the problem. Since Master Kaiba wasn't involved in any way with Gambit, most fans seemed convinced that it was terrible, even before playing it." Roland stopped for a moment. "At least, that's the common theory."

"Forgive my saying, but Master Kaiba doesn't seem the type to design games for a living," Kohaku put in.

"There are any number of things he does that would seem . . . improbable at first glance." Roland chuckled. "I'll have to show you some footage of some of his more famous Magic & Wizards matches. Have either of you ever watched professional wrestling?"

Kohaku blinked. ". . . Yes?"

"Let's just say that Master Kaiba could teach them a lesson in working a crowd."

Yuki put on an incredulous look. "You're serious," she said; it was not a question.

Roland nodded fervently. "I notice that your boy is . . . shy. Suffice it to say that Master Kaiba triumphed over that particular character flaw."

Mokuba glanced over his shoulder, even though he was far enough ahead of them that he couldn't hear the adults' conversation; it was as if he sensed they were talking about his brother. He eyed Roland suspiciously for a moment before turning back to Sotaro and pointing to something down a side hallway. Sotaro's eyes went wide, and he smiled.

"Why do you call him 'Master Kaiba?'" Kohaku asked suddenly, as though this particular question had been haunting him for some time, and he'd only just remembered that he wanted to ask it. "And for that matter, why does Mokuba call him 'Niisama?' Doesn't anyone call him by his name around here?"

Yuki blinked; clearly, this hadn't occurred to her, but now that the question had been asked, she found herself curious. She waited for Roland to respond.

Eventually, Roland said, "As for me, call it habit. I never could quite get used to 'Kaiba-sama,' which is what Gozaburo preferred to be called. And 'Mister Kaiba' just doesn't seem to cut it, I suppose. Now, the 'Niisama' thing . . . that's a fair bit more complicated. I don't think I could do it justice, to be honest with you. The short version is this: there's a very deep reason for that, and only Young Master Mokuba could really tell you. Well, Master Kaiba likely could, too, but he wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend asking him."

He waited a moment.

". . . One person, now I think on it, calls him by name. Detective McKinley." Something came to him, and he amended: "No, wait. Two. A, uh, woman by the name of Hitcher. Valery Hitcher."

Yuki's mouth gaped. "Valery? V-Valery?! She . . . she's here? She's still . . . ?"

Roland cocked his head, then nodded. "Yes. She met with them both recently, as I recall. Gambit had just launched, actually. I assume you know her. I heard from Miss Yoshimi that she was a family friend. Master Kaiba's babysitter, I believe." Roland stopped, then chuckled. "Words I never thought I'd say. Never thought I'd hear anyone say. 'Master Kaiba's babysitter.' Anyway, yes. She and Detective Darren McKinley call Master Kaiba by name. They are . . . anomalies."

"Don't suppose I have to ask why," Kohaku said.

Roland shrugged. "I don't suppose you do. There's no easy way to admit this, but your sons have had a hard life. A good life, by all accounts, but a hard one." He shuddered, and his eyes went distant. Then he came back, and added, "Plenty of people wonder how it was that Master Kaiba was able to raise a boy as happy and healthy as Young Master Mokuba." He gestured, and they watched as Mokuba whispered something to Sotaro, and they both doubled over in a fit of giggling.

Yuki smiled, then looked at Roland somewhat sharply. "Raised?"

"Excuse me?"

"Raised. You said 'raised.' You said Seto raised Mokuba. What . . . what about Gozaburo?"

Roland let out an involuntary bark of a laugh, which caught Mokuba's attention. Roland gave a jaunty sort of salute, and the young Kaiba frowned for a moment before turning back to his discussion with the young Yagami. Roland said, "Gozaburo Kaiba no more raised Mokuba than—well. Look. There's no use sugarcoating for him. Gozaburo Kaiba would have forgotten he adopted Mokuba at all if not for Master Kaiba constantly reminding him. He didn't care about Mokuba, he didn't look at Mokuba unless he had no choice." Roland sighed heavily before barreling ahead: "He once thought to threaten Mokuba to keep Master Kaiba in line. You know the sort. 'If you don't keep that boy well in hand, I'll have to use old-fashioned methods to do it for you.' That . . . didn't work."

"Why?" Kohaku dared to ask.

Roland smirked. "Master Kaiba put a stop to it. Laid down the law for the sake of the whole estate. Said that anyone attempting to strike, touch, reprimand, or otherwise discipline Mokuba at all, without his direct permission, would be immediately fired. No exceptions, no warning."

"Gozaburo let him do that?" Yuki wondered.

"By the time Master Kaiba was fourteen, Gozaburo let him do just about anything he wanted, within reason. When it came to certain things, he was almost gracious. Like he really was grateful to have them. You know, I'll admit: my memories of that man don't . . . connect with what's been happening to you. I can't picture him doing something like this, threatening your lives. I must not have known his limits as well as I thought I did."

Mokuba called out without looking back: "You'd better not be talking about stupid stuff today!"

"Of course not," Roland replied. He winked at the Yagamis. "He has a sixth sense. Whenever I'm quiet, it means I'm being grim about something." He gestured. "Or . . . stupid, as the case may be."

Yuki put a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Kohaku said, "She does the same thing with me," gesturing to his wife. "If I have a day off, astronomical as those chances are, and I spend it bitching about pretty much anything, she knows. I could be halfway across town, and as soon as I get home she'll put this look on her face and she'll say, 'You were being pessimistic again, weren't you?'"

Kohaku's mimicry of what must have been Yuki's stern voice set the young woman off to the races, and she didn't bother holding back her laughter again. Though she had been positively ladylike whenever Roland had seen her so far, her laugh did not match his expectations. It wasn't some lilting, musical chime of a laugh like one might expect a queen to have; it was a messy laugh, boisterous and loud, and she snorted air through her nose more than once before she finally managed to catch hold of herself.

It was, Roland reflected, a lovely sound. He wondered if Yuki Yagami's laugh actually reminded him of Mokuba's, or if it was just the fact that they looked, and seemed to act, so similarly that he was filling in gaps in his own imagination. On the heels of this, Roland thought: Mokuba certainly is his mother's son.

The two boys had stopped, and were watching them. Sotaro was grinning, and Mokuba had a surprised—though no less delighted—look on his face. They came back to the rest of the group. "What's so funny?" Mokuba asked.

Kohaku gesticulated randomly, and Yuki couldn't find an answer.

Roland said, "Missus Yagami seems to have your particular talent for sniffing out bad moods, as it were. And it seems that Mister Yagami might just have your brother's talent for cultivating them."

Mokuba's smile came back. He looked at the Yagamis as if to say, Well, yeah. That makes sense.

It probably did.

"I'm hungry," Sotaro said suddenly, then looked embarrassed. Perhaps he hadn't meant to say this out loud.

There were no tricks of memory this time; Roland knew he had seen the look that visited Mokuba's face. Seto had worn it too many times to count, and whenever he did, all other priorities shifted in his mind. It was what Helen Aarden called his "mother hawk" look. In Seto, it meant he was of a mind to protect someone, while in Mokuba it meant he was of a mind to take care of someone; similar ideals, to be sure, but distinct enough. This idea seemed to make up the crux of the Kaiba family dynamic: Seto and Mokuba were cut from the same cloth, but they were not—in any fashion—the same shape.

Not anymore.

Mokuba fished out his phone and checked the time. "Why don't we stop and get something to eat, then?" he suggested, looking around at the others. "We can head up to the cafeteria."

Yuki and Kohaku agreed to this, and the small party made their way to an elevator. In essence, the fifth floor was no different from the fourth, or any of the others beneath it, but instead of posters for Kaiba-Corp's projects, there were framed pictures of various foods; some showed people seated at meals. It took a moment for the Yagamis to realize that the people were characters from the posters and games.

When Yuki pointed this out, Mokuba grinned cheekily. "Wondered how long it would take you guys to catch that. We don't do ordinary here at Kaiba-Corp. We take tradition, and we spin it around on its head for the fun of it."

"Another of your ideas, Mokuba?" Kohaku asked.

"Nope!" Mokuba said brightly. He gestured to a long piece that seemed to be mimicking the Last Supper. In the center, standing in for Christ, was a man with bright pink hair and full plate mail, barreling over his fellows in pursuit of a turkey. "This was all Niisama."

Kohaku blinked, then eyed Roland. ". . . Improbable at first glance, hm?"

Roland shrugged, then chuckled. "I told you."

"Niisama never wants the people here to forget their mission, or forget to be proud of it." Mokuba looked rather self-satisfied as he said this, like he attributed this notion to his own influence, as opposed to his brother's general character.

The young Kaiba led them into a broad, expansive room that always reminded Roland of Grayson Hall, the cafeteria at Molsburgh University, where he'd studied for six years. The thought crossed his mind that he'd first met Gozaburo Kaiba during his time there, in the far-gone days before Kaiba-Corp.

The primary dining hall, situated perfectly in the center of the building—you never had to go more than four floors up or down to land yourself here—was brightly lit by alternating panels of light fixtures and skylights on the ceiling, and the persistent but not-entirely-unpleasant din of a hundred conversations bounced off the walls. Mokuba found a table near an outside patio—one of the only empty tables in the place—and bade them set their things down. Roland stationed himself there while the others all went over to the opposite side to pick up a quick meal.

As they made the arduous journey through a sea of employees and visitors, and later while they ate, Mokuba kept up the conversation he'd been having with Sotaro, very nearly ignoring the adults. He played the part of a gracious host as best he could, but it was obvious to Roland that he was barely even interested in speaking to Yuki or Kohaku.

Roland couldn't help but find this at once endearing and a little sad; here Mokuba was being given a chance to meet, and talk with, the parents he'd never known growing up, and he only had eyes and ears for his brother. It was endearing, because it showed just how dedicated he was to his Niisama, but it was sad because it also showed just how isolated he was. He didn't attribute much importance to the idea of parents because, to Mokuba, his only parent was sitting right here, barely seven years old and staring at him with wide, wondering eyes and a grin on his face.

To Mokuba, "Niisama" meant far more than "Mother" or "Father" ever would.

Yuki and Kohaku both understood this, to varying degrees (Yuki more than her husband, Roland was sure), and had no real problem with it; and why should they? Mokuba was a son they'd never met. Were they supposed to love him, and want to be around him, simply because someone else told them he was theirs? It didn't work that way.

Roland ate sparingly, mulling these thoughts over in his head with that slow, methodical way he had; he tended to sacrifice thinking quickly for thinking well. For Seto, who did both with suspicious ease, this made Roland seem almost insufferably slow sometimes; but no matter how long it took him to work out the mysteries of a given topic, he always came to a conclusion that the prodigious patriarch of the Kaiba family appreciated, even if he didn't admit it.

After everyone was finished eating, Mokuba announced that their next stop would be the heart of Kaiba-Corp: Research and Development, which took up the next two floors. "I don't know how interested you guys are in, you know, the actual games," Mokuba admitted to Yuki and Kohaku. "I'm gonna guess you don't play."

"Not really," Yuki admitted. "I mean, what I've seen you and Sotaro playing back at home"—she caught this mistake, and Roland figured Mokuba did, too, but neither of them bothered to comment on it; Roland was sure Seto would have looked insulted—"are amazing, but it's not really our thing, you know?"

Mokuba nodded. "Yeah. Figured."

Sotaro's eyes were gleaming, though, and he was starting to fidget. Mokuba favored the boy with the sort of smile Seto often gave him when he was being excitable to the point of bursting, and Roland very nearly laughed.

"Fret not, Young Master," Roland said. "I have something I'd like to show them. I trust you'll be able to look after Sotaro for a while?"

Mokuba put on that patented Kaiba Smirk™, and this time Roland did laugh.

He gestured. "Shall we, then?"

The first handful of people they met when they reached the sixth floor were members of the original Gambit team, and they bowed when they saw Mokuba; even though he'd relinquished his position as director, most everyone from the team still considered Mokuba their leader. They were proud of him, and proud of what he'd done, what he'd accomplished, and for the most part, they were hell-bent on never letting Mokuba forget that he'd been the captain of their most recent, most ambitious, ship.

"Oh! Hey! Boss!" A young man, Roland thought his name was Theo, came rushing up to them. Mokuba nodded to him. "Been meaning to talk to you. You remember Zero Talent? The guy Manic Press got as a lore consultant for the strategy guide?" He didn't bother to mention that he was talking about Gambit, because Mokuba had talked about nothing else in this building for the past six months. Mokuba nodded, curious. "Have you been following his channel? You do the YouTube thing, just like he does, right?"

"I have him bookmarked, but I haven't checked in a while. Why?"

"He's been putting up a series about the lore, you know, going into detail on the stuff he wrote for the guide. Item descriptions with hints to the timeline, you know. Stuff like that. I swear, he figured out more about our story than we did. You really need to check it out. Anyway. He left a message with Chris, said he's going to be here in Domino for a convention in a few weeks and asked if he could visit the Motherland." Theo spread his hands out to indicate the building. "Chris wanted me to check and see if you wanted to meet him. I know ZT would wanna meet you."

Mokuba thought about this. He received any number of requests to meet with fans, usually at least three a day, more when a major release was in development. Usually, following his brother's advice, Mokuba declined these requests and invitations.

But as he mused on this particular topic, Roland was sure he was conjuring up images in his mind of just how bad the press had been about his pet project; about how many curses and slings and arrows that had been lobbed his way. Perhaps he thought it was high time to feel good about his first game, because he said, "You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Set it up for me, huh? We'll give him the VIP treatment."

Theo grinned. "You got it, boss."

After this exchange, Mokuba and Sotaro broke off from the others, with Mokuba describing their current games with the gusto of a born marketing guru, Sotaro hanging on his every word. Kohaku noted, "He's a charismatic little guy, isn't he?"

Roland laughed again. "He learned everything he knows from his brother's example. Come with me."

As Mokuba led Sotaro into a huge room with wide windows surrounding the walls—they glanced inside, and couldn't help but think it looked like a combination of an ancient battle arena and the command center of a space station—Roland led Yuki and Kohaku into another, off to the side almost like it had been an afterthought. They passed a service elevator, restrooms and drinking fountains, and a few private offices before they reached a lobby, set up with almost thirty television screens.

Roland said, "We set up this room so that when parents bring their children here for tours, they aren't . . . well, bored to tears." He gestured at the occupants of the room: unlike other areas of the company, there were no children to be found here. There was the odd teenager here or there, but for the most part, the lobby was filled to the brim with the parents of today's private tour groups; almost all of the children were in the arena with Mokuba and Sotaro.

They approached a screen that wasn't taken, and Roland turned it on. Picking up a remote, and clicking a handful of buttons, he gestured for the Yagamis to sit. He said, "You know about duelists, correct? The term we tend to use for tournament players of Magic & Wizards?"

Yuki nodded.

Kohaku said, "Your, ah, Master Kaiba is one of them. Was. Right?"

Roland nodded. "Right."

"We saw a professional match on television," Yuki said. "Using, um, Solid Vision."

Roland nodded again. "Good. Then you have an idea. In this city, Magic & Wizards is kind of like our own personal blood sport. Most towns follow football or baseball. We follow this. For the most part, Master Kaiba is responsible for that, thanks to Solid Vision. It turned each match into a spectacle. And no one bought into that idea more than Master Kaiba himself. Keep in mind that he took over Kaiba-Corp, and turned it into what it is, when he was just barely fifteen years old, that magical age when no idea is a bad idea and every idea is the best idea. Master Kaiba had been playing that old game for some years before he came up with the idea for the holograms, and when he did, well . . . you could say that the entire game transformed."

Roland picked up a remote and pointed it at the screen. A couple of people—a middle-aged man and woman who were probably husband and wife—had caught some of Roland's impromptu speech and were paying much more attention than they probably thought they were.

An image appeared on the screen, as striking as it was bizarre. Standing in a back alley like gladiators drawing their arena in the trash-choked concrete, were a pair of young men with blue-and-white apparatuses on their left arms. One was dressed casually, in jeans and sneakers, and a blue Doctor Who t-shirt. The other was Seto Kaiba, and it was on the prodigious young billionaire that the camera was focused. He was dressed in pristinely polished black boots, adorned with blue belts and glinting silver buckles. His black pants and long-sleeved shirt were woven from liquid midnight, making the blinding white of his sleeveless, studded trench coat all the more striking. He wore silver bracers on each wrist, studded like the coat, and his upper arms bore an identical belt-and-buckle sequence to his shins. A final, wider, black belt cinched his waist, and it was outfitted with a metal "KC" logo buckle.

A locket, shaped as a Magic & Wizards card, hung low on his chest by a thin cord around his neck.

It should have looked patently ridiculous—and according to any number of forum critics it had, did, and always would—but Roland had never thought his employer looked more like a king than when he'd donned that damn coat. "This is a match from Battle City," Roland said, "the most ambitious Magic & Wizards tournament that Domino has ever hosted." He glanced at the Yagamis and smirked. "Sponsored by . . . wait for it . . ."

Yuki smiled. "Seto Kaiba," she said. For the first time Roland heard a sense of real pride in the woman's voice when she spoke about the man. She watched the match. It was criminally one-sided; Roland remembered that Seto had spent the first day of his tournament seeking out easy pickings, so as to ensure his place in the semi-finals. Roland wondered if this somewhat underhanded tactic had even been a conscious decision on Seto's part. Somehow, he doubted it. Nonetheless, to those without this inside knowledge, it was an impressive fight. The unnamed teenager in the Doctor Who shirt tried to put up a fight, and got in a couple "good licks," so to speak, but Roland remembered the sheer, overwhelming dominance of the God-Soldier that took over Seto's deck—and his personality—during that tournament.

"Do all duelists play this way?" Kohaku asked after a while. "I mean, there's nobody watching this match, is there? They're in an alley. Why are they yelling at each other?"

Roland had to bite his tongue; it wouldn't do to laugh at the man whose case he was still trying to make for these people. He said, "They knew that people would be watching this match from home. But . . . no. Technically. Some are more low-key than this. But for the most part, after Master Kaiba joined the tournament scene, the gold standard is to treat each game like a gladiatorial grudge match."

"And people watched these at home?" Kohaku pressed. He sounded incredulous. "Like Monday Night Football."

Roland nodded. "They did. At home, or in person. The first leg of this tournament, which involved whittling down the participants for the semifinal matches, took place through about . . . half of Domino City. From Mathison Bridge all the way down to Highway I-45, I think, was marked off as the tournament grounds. See here?" He pointed to the screen. "The device on their arms. It's called a Duel Disk. When it activates, tiny little . . . broadcasting nodes, I guess—Master Kaiba called them 'casting points'—shoot out and land on the ground, and they display the holograms. They're projectors. Tiny ones."

"Half the city?" Yuki asked. "For how long?"

"A few days," Roland said. "Local government was . . . less than pleased. This tournament was Master Kaiba's most expensive project at the time, and still holds the record. Compensating the people who lost work thanks to Battle City was a special kind of hell all its own. But that's what happens when a seventeen-year-old boy plans an event."

"Wow . . ." Yuki stole a glance at her husband, who was studying Seto's movements. Every sweep of his arm, every command he belted out, reinforced the image of Seto Sasaki-Yagami Kaiba as a corporate emperor.

"Now," Roland went on, clicking a button and switching to a different feed, "take a look at this. That first match was private, so to speak. It was on television, yes, but at the time . . .well, anyway. See how he works when he has an active, vocal, audience."

A different match this time: one of Seto's numerous matches against regional champions. This time, he was using one of the dueling stations patented by Industrial Illusions, in a local auditorium with about five hundred people in the stands. He was dressed in his short-lived royal purple coat. Roland thought that his opponent, a young teenager with short-cropped red hair and so many freckles that he seemed sunburned, was a local card shop champ named Joel McMillan.

Roland thought of the purple coat as a sign of Seto's transitional phase. It was after his "rock star" period, which peaked with Battle City, but before the switch into what most people tended to agree was his true adulthood, which began after Yugi Mutou (Yami, Roland thought with a sudden shudder) retired from tournament dueling.

Seto's performance in the dueling arena was always the most intense, and the most infectious, when he had a crowd cheering him on. With each move, each rousing rumble of applause, the bright blue fire in his shark-like eyes flared up. He laughed, he taunted, he worked them with the grace of a born performer. The current Master Kaiba's innate charisma was something like Bigfoot, Roland thought absurdly, or an alien abduction. Most people tended to forget that it even existed, especially now, and they often cast aside the accounts of people who insisted that it was real. But watching him in a duel like this, it was impossible to ignore it, to not be caught up in it.

The man was a master.

The Yagamis—and their impromptu guests—had leaned forward in their seats, and were watching the game with keen interest. Although they had no idea how the game really worked, and the commands and names that the duelists shouted at each other were complete gibberish, they couldn't help it. Even Roland, who had seen too many of his employer's professional matches to count, and liked to think that he'd put the strangeness of Magic & Wizards behind him, found himself watching more than narrating.

"Does he still play?" Yuki asked, once the match was over.

Roland shook his head. "Not officially," he said. "Oh, he sometimes has exhibition matches for local charities, and I think he lets himself be pestered into a game or two with his brother on weekends sometimes, but largely speaking . . . no. Seto Kaiba, top-tier tournament duelist and warden of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, is retired."

Yuki's face clearly showed her disappointment.

". . . Seto is Mokuba's legal guardian, isn't he?" Kohaku asked suddenly. Roland blinked, and Yuki looked at him, strangely. He wasn't looking at either of them; he was studying his hands.

"He is," Roland said.

"You said that Gozaburo didn't bother with him. What about . . . what about Ken and Melody? Their, ah . . . their godparents?"

Roland cleared his throat. "Ah . . . forgive me, Mister Yagami, but I don't really know. What I do know is that their godmother passed away a few years ago, and that, um . . . only Mokuba attended the funeral. Master Kaiba refused. And speaking from personal experience, I doubt that's a good sign. Master Kaiba takes matters of family very seriously. To make a gesture like that . . ."

Kohaku's face darkened, but he didn't look surprised. He said, so slowly that it seemed like the words were pushing their way out of his mouth against his will: "As far as Mokuba's concerned, Seto has always been his guardian. His only . . . parent. Isn't that right? Isn't that why Mokuba calls him 'Niisama?'"

Roland gauged the moment. Then he said, "Yes."

"That's why he's so drawn to Se—Sotaro-chan," Yuki murmured.

"I'm sure," Roland ceded. "It's like getting to meet your father when he was a boy, in an old picture album. It's rare to see the young master's protective side so pronounced. But . . . it isn't surprising in the slightest, really."

"You weren't kidding when you said they'd had a hard time of life, were you?" Kohaku finally looked up at Roland's face.

"No. I wasn't. Master Kaiba and Young Master Mokuba only trust one person implicitly: each other. I doubt that will ever change. People like to call me Master Kaiba's right hand. I'm not."

Slow, contemplative silence reigned for a long, long moment.

Roland showed Seto's parents more recordings of their firstborn's exploits, from every year of his whirlwind of a career on the professional dueling circuit, until about two hours had gone by. At that point, Mokuba and Sotaro tracked them down, both bursting with excitement; Sotaro immediately bombarded his parents with the tale of his digital wanderings. Mokuba glanced at the television screen, saw his brother dueling Esper Roba, and smiled.

Yuki saw that smile, and Roland thought he could have pinpointed, with clinical accuracy, the precise moment that her heart melted.

"Ready to forge ahead, sir?" Roland asked Mokuba.

The young Kaiba nodded. "Yup."

Their last stop on the tour was Seto's personal office, on the tenth floor of the building.

They spied him stalking down a hallway with a throng of people behind him, surrounding him, attempting to smother him. Impeccably unconcerned, Seto's eyes blazed straight ahead. After watching him in his flashy trench coats and his imperial gesticulations for so long, Roland had a hard time adjusting to this image.

". . . need to check on this, sir . . ."

"How long do you think it will take?"

"Will you be staying much lo—"

"What about yesterday's—"

"Are you sure this can wait, Mister Kaiba?"

Seto didn't snap at any of them to be quiet, even though it looked like he should have. Rather, he answered each question in turn, turning his head slightly to the corresponding side as he did so. His voice bespoke quiet, focused efficiency. He only said what needed to be said, and no more. He did this so effortlessly, so seamlessly, that no one felt as though they had to claw over each other just to be heard; although some of them did, anyway.

Far from receiving the general idea that this man had no idea how not to be in a terrible mood, which any number of people more informed than the Yagamis may have expected, this all made it unquestioningly clear that Seto Kaiba had wrestled his entire being into submission, and had found himself in his element. Sotaro, in particular, seemed to find this fascinating.

Only Mokuba smiled when he saw his brother (though Yuki's eyes sparkled); Seto made eye contact with the boy for a moment, a quiet acknowledgement of his only equal in this building, and then he turned his attention back to the innumerable tasks vying for his concern.

"Oh! Vice-president, sir!" one of Seto's followers called out, spying Mokuba. "I'm supposed to send along a message: Miss Aarden needs to speak with you about an interview with FanaTech Magazine. Can you meet with her before you head home for the day?"

"Not today," Mokuba said, doing a remarkable job of sounding apologetic. "I'm busy today. I'll leave her a voicemail. Thanks, Nate."

Nate didn't seem particularly pleased at this answer—clearly he had been expected to ensure Mokuba's cooperation—but he knew better than to argue with a Kaiba. He bowed his head, glanced quickly at Seto (like he wanted to know whether he was supposed to press this issue), and quickly vanished.

Roland took his phone from a pocket and pressed a button.

Holding it to his ear, he heard one ring, and then: "Aarden."

"Helen," Roland said. "You sent one of your interns to deliver a message a minute ago, correct?"

"I did."

"I just wanted to give a warning ahead of time: they're in a meeting right now. Young Master Mokuba will talk with you later. Don't lay into the poor man too harshly."

Helen chuckled. "Noted. You really are a soft touch, aren't you?"

"I have my moments."

"Fine, fine. I'll keep my claws in. That all?"

"Yes. Until next we meet, Mistress."

The chuckle evolved into a full laugh. "I expect recompense for my cooperation, minion. Take it easy."

Roland replaced his phone. He, and the Yagamis, had integrated themselves into the crowd. Mokuba had fallen into step beside his brother, still keeping Sotaro at his opposite side. Roland kept near Yuki and Kohaku, who were both watching Seto with keen interest.

They all noticed that Seto unconsciously slowed his stride, and Mokuba quickened his, so that they could stay in line with each other. They didn't hold hands, not like Mokuba and Sotaro had been doing for most of the afternoon, but all the same it felt like they did.

"I'm not sure how long it'll take Niisama to work all this out with your . . . problem," Mokuba said to Sotaro as they walked, "but I'll set you up with an account so you can play for a while. Just remember, you won't be able to play it when you go back home. You'll have to wait for about ten years and make the game yourself." He winked.

Sotaro grinned. "Maybe I should take notes, then," he said.

Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to what the two boys were saying, which was good. Then again, most workers at Kaiba-Corp were used to their vice-president's wild theories, and never bothered to correct him anymore, or ask what he was going on about this time.

Seto continued to answer questions and delegate tasks as they walked; by the time they made it to his office, he had spoken to no less than thirty people. None of these conversations could have constituted "water cooler talk," either, but were all critical to some degree or another; although, there was no indication of this in Seto's face. He looked as stone-cold neutral as he ever did.

It was only when he closed the door of his office—after Yuki, Kohaku, Roland, Sotaro and Mokuba had all filed in—that he showed any sign of fatigue.

At Mokuba's questioning, concerned look, Seto said, "I've been on my feet since six this morning." He took his position behind his desk like an emperor at a war council, but let out no sigh of relief. Rather, he clicked a button on his computer and went straight back to the races.

"I had this vague notion that being the president of a game company would involve . . . games," Kohaku admitted.

"Most people do," Seto said distantly. "My job has nothing to do with games anymore. My job is to ensure that other people can focus on them, instead. Whatever that happens to entail. If you use the age-old metaphor and say that a company is a machine, then I'm not a cog, nor am I an operator." He looked up at Kohaku, almost accusatorily. "I'm a mechanic."

There was an electric tea kettle sitting on a side table in one corner of the office. Mokuba walked over to it, and started through the machinations of using it. He opened the cabinet beneath the kettle, fished out a mug, a tea bag, a single packet of sugar, and set them beside the kettle along with a spoon.

Seto made no indication that he even noticed.

The Yagamis engaged in small talk while Mokuba set about making his brother a mug of tea. Sotaro sat down in a second chair off to one side and studied the two brothers like he was searching for lost wisdom.

All the while, Seto's hands flew across his keyboard, making sounds like bullet casings. Roland might have expected his young employer to pay close attention to these two people who bore such striking resemblances to two of the most important people in his life—surely Seto did not truly believe they were his parents, not really, not yet—but he seemed to be bending his concentration toward the fine art of forgetting they existed, even though they were barely two-and-a-half feet from where he sat.

When Mokuba set the drink he'd made onto his brother's desk, Seto made the first gesture of affection of the day: he pulled the boy into a one-armed hug and ruffled his hair. Mokuba smiled, Seto drank, and the three Yagamis watched.

Mokuba whispered something in Seto's ear some time afterward, and Seto nodded. Mokuba said, "Before we go home, I thought we could all have dinner. There's an executive dining room on the roof." He gestured to a door on the wall behind him. Everyone agreed to this, and a minute or so later Seto clicked a few buttons on his computer, stood from his chair, and strode over to the door. He had to unlock it with a key card, and as it slid open, he gestured for the others to enter. This he did with perfect decorum, without any particular gusto but also without his usual blend of anger and apathy.

The table had already been set up for them by the time they stepped out onto the roof. As they sat, a lavish spread had been prepared and set out for them: hot-and-sour soup, fried fish filets (Mokuba snatched these up immediately), and other, more traditionally Japanese dishes. Yuki and Roland both noticed that Seto and Sotaro chose, and avoided, the same dishes. They partook of the cucumber rolls, the futo maki, the curry; they disdained the oden, the California rolls, and largely everything that Mokuba seemed to like.

Roland wondered, not for the first time, whether Seto (and Sotaro, for that matter) seemed to ignore Mokuba's favorites on principle, because he (they) honestly didn't like them, or to leave them all for Mokuba.

Seto was mostly silent, but generally amiable (for him, at least), throughout the meal. He very specifically didn't talk about his work, and nipped any question or comment that headed that way in the proverbial bud; Mokuba seemed to appreciate this. Yuki and Kohaku were conspicuously silent on what they'd seen that day, which both surprised and didn't surprise Roland. They seemed to have caught onto the fact that Seto didn't like talking about the past.

Sotaro did most of the talking, belying his usual shyness. He asked Seto a myriad of questions about the games he'd played, and Seto answered them, not curtly but almost kindly. Seto abhorred dealing with adults, in general, but he always seemed to spare a moment (and an autograph, more often than not) for kids. Apparently, he'd decided in the odd machinations of his mind that Sotaro counted as a kid, after all, and thus it wasn't just fairness that he laid on the boy, but something suspiciously close to fondness.

All too soon, the food was gone, and the time came for them to leave very shortly after that.

They all followed Seto's lead when he returned to the building, headed down the hall outside his office toward the central elevator, and rode down to the ground floor; all this Seto did with a grim sort of silence, and Mokuba was silent with him. He evidently thought that his time with the Yagamis had been spent for the time being, and now came the point in the day when he did as his brother wanted. When they exited the elevator and started for the front exit, where Seto had had Travis Copeland park the limousine, Mokuba took hold of his brother's hand.

There was no indication that anything was amiss outside, no sign that the world was about to change. Roland walked almost lazily behind the others, his eyes roving slowly over his surroundings because he'd been trained to do it, not because he felt any honest need to do it. Even though his senses should have been sharper than jagged glass, Roland Ackerman had allowed himself to fall into complacency.

He didn't think of what had happened the last time complacency had reared its head around the Kaiba family. He didn't think of Adachi Saruwatari, or Siegfried von Schroeder.

Travis was leaning across the roof of the car as the boys filed in, and Kohaku held open the door for his wife, and still nothing happened. The air was quiet, calm, and the sun was drifting off to sleep.

Seto had just set one hand atop the car, and the other on the open door, when the first shot sounded, and the first bullet caught him in the right shoulder. He stumbled, caught himself, and struggled to pull himself back to his feet, when the second bullet tore into his back.

The screaming started before the first drop of Seto Kaiba's blood hit the pavement.