I'm trying to get a handle on my ongoing projects. There's a great number of stories that have been neglected lately, and I'm working at ending that streak. With that in mind, we return to a story that I'll admit to not even thinking about for quite some time.

But there's plenty left to cover here, so I'd say it's time to get back to it.


.


"This has to do with that Yugi Mutou boy, doesn't it?" Valery asked; she'd hung back as the Yagamis headed to Roland's gleaming black SUV—it looked like a government-issue vehicle. The sort of thing an FBI operative would drive.

Roland stood beside her, without changing expression. "I'm surprised you would make a guess like that."

Valery gave the man a sardonic expression and cleared her throat. "I've followed Seto's career," she said, almost sharply. "I know how . . . entangled those two are. If I didn't know any better . . . well. Anyway. The point is, he's involved. Isn't he?"

"Yes. He is."

Valery clucked with something like disapproval. But then she sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "The things you see in this city," she murmured under her breath. Her anger was gone. So, too, seemed to be her disbelief. And yet, there was something about the way she watched the Yagami family that seemed markedly similar to the way Seto Kaiba did.

Which was to say . . . just because she couldn't come up with reasons to disbelieve what her senses and memories were telling her, didn't mean she believed any of it. It was a strange state of limbo to be in, and Roland suspected that Seto had been caught in it since the day he and Yugi Mutou had met.

"How did . . . ?" Valery started to ask, then choked on her own incredulity.

"I don't know," Roland said. It felt like a lie. He did know, didn't he? "It's about as explainable as anything else that's happened since Master Kaiba met that boy. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't seek out a professional to make sense of the nonsense in my memory."

"Well, whatever it is he's done this time . . . it's impressive. I don't know how this is happening. I still don't think it is, to be honest. But I know them. I know them better than anyone. Better than Seto himself. And those two . . . the way they talk, the way they move . . . the way you can just tell they're communicating, even without words. There are too many subtleties. Too many things that hurt my heart. It has to be them. But how can it be?"

"I believe Master Kaiba has been asking himself that question ever since they arrived at his doorstep. Today just seems to be the proof that he's come to a conclusion."

"You don't think Seto would do this, if they were strangers?"

"If he thought they were lying about who, and what, they are, then I think he would have let them take the hit. Since he didn't, I can only assume that he's accepted at least part of this as truth. He's treating them like family."

"Is he at the hospital?" she asked as she slipped into a free seat and clicked her safety belt in place. She sounded all business now. Her appointment book had been cleared for this, thank you, now if you could please direct me to the —

"Yes," Roland said shortly, cutting off his own nonsense. "He and . . . everyone else."

"What mood is he in?" Valery asked, which seemed to be her way of referring to Yami. Roland actually chuckled to himself. She really had paid attention to Seto's career. There weren't many people who could tell the difference between the "two Yugis," even among those who'd met them.

"Last I saw, he was . . . affable," Roland said. "I would recommend you keep any discussion with him away from the young master at the moment. He's in a Kaiba frame of mind, if you take my meaning. He's already threatened one of his friends with bodily harm. Considering the state of him . . . well. Just tread lightly."

"I think I know how to handle Mokuba," Valery said.

Roland refused to look at her again as he said: "You say that, but . . ."

He didn't—perhaps couldn't— finish the thought.

"I think it's best to assume exactly nothing about those two," Kohaku said, staring out the window as the city passed them by. He put a hand on his son's shoulder. "They don't operate the way anyone would expect. Who they are, what they are, is a mystery to anyone and everyone but themselves."

This apocalyptic train of thought was the preamble to an oppressive silence that followed them all the way back to the waiting room, where Mokuba still sat at the center of a vigil that shouldn't exist. Connor and Rebecca still sat beside him. Joey still kept an eye on him.

Everything was exactly the way Roland had left it, except for one thing.

Yugi Mutou had disappeared.