It's been a while since I've touched this story, I admit. Longer than I would like to think. But I think I've worked out whatever issues I had with it, and now it's time to return to the battlefield.
With this installment, "Lightbringer" is now officially started on its second half. The plan is to have exactly 100 chapters. So we have quite a way to go, but I hope that the journey will be worth it in the end.
The past couple of chapters have dealt with the aftermath of Seto's injuries. Now, we visit some of the sideline players.
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"We should have brought Mokuba-kun back home," Yuki said quietly as Roland Ackerman led the Yagami family across the grounds. "He must be exhausted. He needs to rest."
Roland didn't even glance back over his shoulder as he chuckled; the sound wasn't particularly joyous, but rather sounded painful. Like he was in pain. "I'm not about to try convincing him to leave," he murmured slowly. "I'd like to keep my job, if it's all the same to you."
"The only way to get that boy to leave the hospital," Kohaku said, "would be to force him. And he'd literally kick and scream all the way back here. I'm not sure he needs that right now." He glanced pointedly at his wife. "Do you?"
Yuki's face fell. She was holding Sotaro's hand as she walked; she squeezed it, and looked down at him. The youngest Yagami was calm, but his eyes were glistening. He had yet to actually cry, but it was obvious that, the longer the day went on, the more his counterpart's condition bothered him. He stayed huddled next to his mother, and would seek out his father every so often. Kohaku would smile when this happened, and reach out to ruffle his hair.
"Excuse me a moment," Roland said, as they approached the front entrance. "Just stay out here a second." The Yagamis all looked confused, but one look at the man's face was enough to convince them to obey. "Thank you." He entered the estate, stepped into the front parlor, and resigned himself to what was likely to be the most exhausting night of his life.
The woman was in her sixties, if Roland's memory served him properly, and she'd known the Yagami family longer than anyone else in this country; she had followed the career of Seto Sasaki-Yagami Kaiba ever since it had begun, and every so often she would visit. As Roland understood it, when Mother's Day rolled around each year, this was the person who received flowers and a card from the richest orphan in the country.
Valery Hitcher was a mythical figure in the lore of the current Kaiba family, and so few people knew she existed that she would probably remain that way for the rest of her life.
Seeing her again, under such circumstances, made Roland want to just collapse in a heap and fall into unconsciousness.
". . . Missus Hitcher," Roland said with a bow. Valery all but leaped up to a standing position. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me here. I'll take you to the hospital soon, but for now, there's . . . something that I need to discuss with you."
Valery's eyes narrowed. "What . . . what is it?"
Roland drew in a few breaths, wiped his hands on his slacks, and eventually just shook his head. "To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't the faintest clue how to approach this. So I'm just going to indulge in a bit of rhetoric and then let you see for yourself." He started rubbing his hands again, then jammed them into his pockets. "Master Kaiba was targeted outside of the main building. He was shot twice. Once in the shoulder, once in the back. He was . . . defending someone else. Protecting them." Roland actually found the slightest ghost of a smile. "I know what you're thinking. No, it wasn't the young master. It was . . . well, that's why I had to meet you here."
Valery licked her lips nervously, and crossed her arms. "I hope you know that I understand almost nothing of what you just said. Is he going to pull through?"
Roland sighed again. "We don't know. He's in surgery. There should be more information come morning. But right now . . . all we can do is convince ourselves that he will, because he has to, and be content with that." He smiled again. "Contemplating the alternative just isn't an option."
Valery smiled in a fashion of her own. But she still looked grim, and rather close to terrified. ". . . You certainly sound like him."
"Anyway," Roland said, waving a hand, "I suppose I should get to what I came here for. If you don't mind my saying, Young Master Mokuba could use your support right now. He's unlikely to accept anyone else's."
Whatever passed for positivity in the room shriveled up and died. Valery nodded like a soldier preparing to enter a warzone. Roland wondered for a moment if she was about to salute. The image was inexplicably hilarious for some reason, and he felt a sudden, almost-insurmountable desire to laugh.
Somehow, he stopped himself.
Roland opened the doors and gestured silently for the Yagamis to enter the parlor. They did, obviously still nonplussed and confused that they had been half-dragged back here, then told to wait on the porch.
He hadn't even bothered to tell Valery to sit down, because he wasn't sure . . . well, some part of him was convinced that there was no way for this evening to go over well, because how could he possibly convince her that—
Valery Hitcher let out a horrified gasp.
Yuki, for her part, was staring.
Kohaku, his face untouched by anything even resembling emotion, stood by his son and waited for . . . anything. Sotaro was imitating his father now. He had no thoughts, no feelings, and no real understanding.
"V-V . . . Valery," Yuki said, with the ghost of a human voice.
Valery's face twisted with entirely too many emotions. She looked at Roland. "Do you . . . think this is funny?" she asked. The worst part about it was that she didn't even sound angry, or offended. She sounded like she was asking a houseguest if they'd like Chicken Marsala for dinner. "I'm not sure what you're doing, Mister Ackerman, but if you expected me to say anything . . . or do anything . . . I'm afraid I can't. I have more important things to worry about than . . . whatever this is."
Detached. Clinical. So polite that it burned.
Achingly familiar.
Roland actually smiled. "I won't even bother trying to explain. You see just as much in them as I did. I won't try to convince you of anything. What I believe has nothing to do with this situation. But . . . please consider at least this: Seto took a bullet for them."
"Two," Kohaku said. Almost snapped.
Roland wasn't sure if it was this statement, or being confronted by her friend—so many years older than the woman she knew—or the fact that she was back in the building that was supposed to be her home just now; probably it was all those things, and who knew how many other factors that Roland couldn't even fathom?
Yuki Yagami started to cry.
It was slow at first, quiet and almost unassuming. Her eyes had been wet for hours now, and it just seemed like they'd started to fall. But then it . . . changed. Roland had heard the metaphors, dams bursting and other such images, but he didn't think he'd ever understood them until this moment.
She collapsed. She didn't wilt, like dying flowers; she didn't crumble like an ancient ruin.
Yuki Yagami became a firestorm.
"He brought us here to help us! We broke into his home and for what?! Why are we here?! Why did it have to be him?!"
Roland closed his eyes, kept his hands behind his back, and didn't say a word. Kohaku tried to comfort his grieving wife, but she tossed him aside. Yuki threw herself about the room like she thought there might be an enemy hidden there, someone she could strangle, someone she could rip apart in recompense for what her son had had to go through for her.
She railed against the Kaiba name, against Roland's team of security operatives, against Yugi Mutou, against everyone. And the more she ranted, raged, vented, the more heartbroken Valery Hitcher's face became.
Roland and Kohaku shared a look.
Little Sotaro hid behind his father and pretended not to watch his mother break in front of him.
Before long, there was no more anger. No more guilt. No more feeling. Yuki simply crumpled to the floor and stared at her own hands. Kohaku took a tentative step forward, but he looked hesitant. He looked like he was waiting for something to happen.
When Valery knelt down beside Yuki and pulled her into a hug, Kohaku looked . . . not relieved, so much as vindicated. Something flashed in his eyes, and he looked like he was fighting the urge to smile.
Yuki clung to her old friend like a lifeline, and trembled.
Valery actually stroked back Yuki's hair, and Roland had a sudden image of Mokuba, huddled in his brother's arms after a nightmare.
"That's all done now, darling," Valery whispered. "No more room for guilt and blame. Now's the time to remember who you are. What you are. Do you remember?"
". . . I remember."
Valery smiled. "Good girl."
They stood up, and when Roland stepped forward they both looked at him.
Roland couldn't help but smirk. "Shall we go back?"
He didn't say it; he didn't have to say it. But it didn't stop him from thinking it.
This was his inheritance. This . . . is where he learned everything that matters.
