Insert "You Know I Had to Do It to 'Em" meme here.


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Seto's right arm was secured to his side by a new sling, sleek and black and proper. He walked like a man possessed. His coat, hanging on his shoulders, billowed out behind him purely from the strength of his strides. There was no idea what he could be thinking, but whatever it was surely didn't have him in a good mood. He seemed determined to prove that even a serious injury, perhaps even a grievous one, wasn't going to take him out of the fight.

He wasn't about to become an armchair general.

Mokuba hurried to keep up with his brother, his own annoyance much more clearly written across his face. "I thought you said you were leaving this to Roland," he said. "You said you didn't trust yourself to keep your composure."

"I don't," Seto said shortly. "I was right. This is a moral failing on my part, and I'll be properly furious with myself once I have time to sit and reflect on it. For the moment, none of that is relevant. I'm not about to let something as petty as my integrity get in my way. Not today. Not with him."

"What's going on?" Fear bled into the young Kaiba's voice. "Who called you earlier? Was it Roland? What's going on?" Seto grunted, which Mokuba took to be affirmative. "Did he get Daimon to talk?" Seto flinched, but just barely. Mokuba didn't blame him. He never wanted to say the name again, either.

"It would seem so," Seto said, through his teeth.

The brothers approached the nondescript little warehouse, which Roland normally used for storage, where Daimon was currently held. Seto didn't pause, didn't acknowledge the men flanking the door, but strode inside. The guards understood hierarchy in their work, and knew better than to get in Seto's way—especially when he wore a face like he had today.

Everyone knew: when Seto Kaiba looked blank, like he'd been emptied of all feeling, it meant that he was furious.

Daimon flinched against the sunlight pouring into the room as Seto threw open the door. He smirked when he saw who was standing before him; he didn't speak. He simply waited. Seto approached the folding table, stopped to one side of where Roland sat, and slammed the attaché he'd been carrying in front of his oldest nemesis.

"Your thirty pieces of silver."

Daimon chuckled low in his throat.

"What . . . what's going on?" Mokuba looked worried and upset. "Why isn't he in handcuffs? Roland! What the hell's going on in here?"

Roland didn't answer; didn't dare to regard the boy. He reached out, clicked open the case—revealing stack upon stack of clean, neat, crisp bills—and snapped it shut again. No words. No signals or gestures. Nothing but business.

Seto closed his eyes. Opened them. "I have one question for you," he said.

Daimon leaned back like a king on his throne. "Please," he said, gesturing grandly. "Speak."

"The boy," Seto said, "who was sent here in front of you. Did you train him?"

Daimon blinked. Stared. Glanced at Mokuba. "The one who shares a face and, if I shouldn't guess, a name with that one there?" Seto snapped a nod like a muscle spasm. "No. No, I did not. Master Kaiba was quite clear that I was to save my time and energy for a worthy subject. I'm afraid your pet simply never made the cut."

Seto grunted. Turned on a heel. "We're leaving," he said to his brother.

"Is that all?" Daimon chuckled again. "You disappoint me again. What could you have possibly learned from so banal a question as that?"

Seto stopped. Glanced over his shoulder.

Silence hung low like fog rolling into a haunted graveyard.

"I learned," Seto said, "whether you deserved the mercy of letting him handle you."

Daimon frowned. "Excuse m—"

Roland drew his sidearm as he stood from his seat, all in one smooth motion. One. Two. Three. Bullets ripped into Daimon's chest, neck, and chin. The sound ricocheted across the empty walls like lightning in a bottle.

As the old man slumped down, an expression of confused betrayal frozen on his face for eternity, Roland picked up the attaché and turned to follow his employers.

Moments later, the door slammed shut, leaving the corpse in the dark.