So I left things on a cliffhanger last time, didn't I? I won't keep you for long. Just know this: the repercussions of this event will last a while. I'm not going to rush it. I haven't rushed anything in this story so far, and I don't think it would be fair to start here, much as I'd like to push past the unfortunate, uncomfortable parts.

Now, then.


Kohaku Yagami was watching his wife settle herself next to their son, saying something to Mokuba that Kohaku didn't quite hear. A thousand-thousand thoughts swirled like angry storm clouds in his head; when the first shot rang out, he absurdly thought it was a peal of thunder.

Then a scream, shrill and bell-like, sent a shock through his every muscle, and Kohaku turned to look over his shoulder, still half-crouching, preparing to sit down, and saw a blossom of red spread out on the ruins of the right shoulder of Seto Kaiba's jacket. Kohaku could just spy the look on the young executive's face: sharp, exquisite disbelief, and an almost religious pain.

Seto struggled to keep his grip on the limousine's door as his legs gave out. His other arm snatched out and caught a death-grip on the hood, as he slumped downward, inward, and his face came fully into view. He was leaning his forehead against the edge of the roof, and for the first time Kohaku saw his face without its constant shade of windswept hair. He could see the man's forehead, and somehow that made all the difference. For the first time, Kohaku could see the youth in this man. For the first time, Kohaku could see his son in this man.

This all happened in seconds, and it felt like it happened in seconds, but when Kohaku would look back to reflect on this moment, it would crawl back through his memories and take seven separate years to fully play out. His mouth opened in quiet, sudden dismay, as Seto's face contorted into a grimace. It wasn't pain Kohaku saw in that face. It wasn't fear Kohaku saw in that face; it wasn't even anger.

It was grim, fatal determination.

All at once, Kohaku realized what this man who called himself a Kaiba was doing. He hadn't braced himself against the car to keep from falling to the ground. The way he was, Seto was blocking the way in, to the rest of them. For one flash of an instant, their eyes met. Seto kept himself upright, a human shield, and his eyes sent a message to his father, as clear as if he'd said it.

As the second shot pealed out and exploded into Seto's back, Kohaku whirled and threw himself on the others. Mokuba and Sotaro fell to the floor, Yuki scrambled to pull herself over them, and Kohaku shielded her. He closed his eyes tightly shut against the sudden, deafening crash as both sides of the limousine rang out with return gunfire.

One shot. Two. Three, four, five.

Then the hulking form of Travis Copeland was there, wrenching open the door from the street side and pulling at Kohaku's shoulder. "Out!" he commanded. "Get out! Quick! Back in the building! Now!"

And they were out, rushing along the pavement. Kohaku just caught a glimpse of Roland, gun in both hands, face taut with some unreadable expression, and then—

Seto had collapsed, and was lying flat on his back on the pavement beside his limousine, as a pool of blood spread out beneath him like the shawl of a ritual sacrifice. He stared, unseeing, up at the sky. Roland was already screaming out orders, calling for medical attention right fucking now while Travis rushed the Yagamis—and Mokuba—back into the building.

Kohaku's brain stuttered to a screeching halt.

Mokuba.

Moku—oh, God.

Instinct flared into action, and Kohaku found himself trying to somehow shove himself into the young Kaiba's field of vision, to block this ghastly sight. No. No, no, no, that wasn't right, he didn't even know why but he knew it was true and he knew he had to do something that's what Seto had been trying to tell him—

"NIISAMA!"

Suddenly, there he was, tearing out of Yuki's grip, his face ash-white. Mokuba stumbled as Kohaku tried to block him. Travis's arm shot out and gripped the young Kaiba by the elbow, pulling him back. The black-haired boy fought with a ferocity that stopped Kohaku dead.

"Niisama! N-Niisama! Let me go! Stop it! Let go of me—NIISAMA!"

"Oh, God . . ." Kohaku whispered, looking around him as though he might find some answer hiding in his peripheral vision. He watched as Travis finally gave up trying to coax his young charge, and physically lifted him off of the ground. He broke into a full run with his thrashing, screaming burden, and somehow this broke through the haze of disbelief.

Kohaku shot one glance back at Seto, saw Roland kneeling there with someone who might have been a paramedic—she seemed to have simply appeared in the intervening moments since he'd last looked—and made eye contact with the man.

Roland was wearing sunglasses, but still Kohaku was able to read his expression in them.

Complete, hopeless despair.

Kohaku whirled on a heel, and rushed back into Kaiba-Corp's corporate headquarters, as a throng of security personnel from the front lobby came rushing out. Behind him, Kohaku could hear people calling 911, shouting and screaming at each other. Kohaku was numb to it all. Numb to his son's—corpse—suffering, just feet behind him.

The shock came back, as Mokuba continued to fight against the arms holding him back—this time, they were Yuki's—and scream for his brother. He wailed, cried, screeched for his brother, tears falling in torrents from his violet eyes. Yuki, looking heartbroken, kept pulling the boy back.

Kohaku saw Sotaro standing there, near Travis, with a kind of numb, stupefied wonder on his little face. He strode over, fell to one knee, and pulled his son into a hug. Sotaro went without a fight, but as soon as he collapsed against his father, his thin arms wrapped around Kohaku's neck and latched there.

"It'll be okay," Kohaku lied. "Everything will be okay. All right? They've got people out there, helping him right now. An ambulance is on its way. Everything will be okay." Kohaku didn't know what he was saying, didn't hear a word of it, but he knew that if he stopped talking, he was likely to just vomit right there. He pulled back, and looked down at his son. "Seto. Look at me. Hey. C'mon, buddy."

Sotaro looked at him, confused, as though he'd forgotten that Sotaro wasn't his real name.

Kohaku tucked a stray strand of hair out of his son's face and behind one ear. He said, "We'll be all right. I know you're going to worry, but try not to do it too much, huh? You know how your mom is. She'll do enough worrying for all of us. So we have to be strong. If not for Mom, then for your new friend. Huh? Be strong for Mokuba."

It felt wrong, to talk about Mokuba right now. To bring him up at all. But Sotaro looked past Kohaku's shoulder, and Kohaku turned to look as well. Still crying, still clutching at Yuki's arm as though trying to pull it away but unable to, Mokuba's face was covered by his curtain of messy black hair. Every so often, they could hear him sob out his brother's pet name.

His voice cracked, and it came out in a tortured wail: "Nii'tama . . ."

Yuki leaned her head down and cradled Mokuba as tenderly as she would a newborn baby. "Shhh. I know. I know, baby. Niisama will be okay. Don't you worry. It's okay, Mokie." Mokuba flinched, but this time he didn't try to pull away. "Niisama needs you to be strong now, okay? Just like he taught you. It'll be okay. Shhh . . . I've got you, baby. I've got you."

Sotaro bit his lower lip, eyes welling up with tears, and he fell back against his father.

Kohaku rubbed his son's back, and stared at the doors, wondering when Roland would come back in. Wondering if he would still look frantic, wondering if he would yell at them to get moving, get to the hospital, now.

Wondering if he would come back in with his glasses hanging uselessly in one hand, haunted eyes, and tell them that Seto was d—

They could hear Roland from outside, far louder, angrier, and more desperate than Kohaku had ever heard him: "If I see one more person with a fucking camera out here today, I'll rip out their entrails and shove them down their fucking throats!"

And the world kept moving.

Until they heard the sirens that announced an ambulance, it felt like sacrilege that the world should keep moving. That people should keep living. That there was anything at all in the world.

Sacrilege, or dumb, malevolent mockery.

Kohaku held one son, Yuki held the other, and they waited.