My first update in the new year. It's been entirely too long. If it's any consolation, know that I put a rather absurd amount of planning into this story, and I haven't let it sit stagnant for the five months I've spent avoiding the actual writing process. This is more than I can say for other stories I've been trying to work on.

Ahem.

I mentioned last time that the first of what I'm calling the Millennium Tests will kick off this chapter, and I didn't lie. It starts here. And yes, there will be one of these mini-arcs for each of the five holders of the other Items. These five mini-arcs will comprise the whole of this third book in the story.

Some of these arcs will be longer than others, depending on what's needed to make them work. My guess is that this will be one of the shorter ones. But I suppose we'll see how things unfold.

Let's get started.


Verse One.


His eyes opened slowly, like the portcullis of an ancient stronghold. He stood up just as slowly, looked around himself, and his face stretched with the sort of cold, self-satisfied pleasure that gave children nightmares.

He was alone.

Stepping out into the hallway, hushed with silence, he walked with surety, with purpose. He doubted that anyone would be awake at this hour; the night was just on the precipice of sunrise. Some part of him hoped that at least one member of this intrepid band was up and about, however. There was a poetry to it that he found easy to appreciate.

The gods had spoken. He knew this. He'd felt it, deep in his bones, burning like an old wound. He was not meant to be here. He was defying holy laws by being here. The will of the universe had laid down its demands, and he was flagrantly defying them.

The feeling was intoxicating. He very nearly laughed as he stepped up to the boy's room.

He'd tried this once, but he'd been interrupted. He was not one to leave business unfinished, and he refused to make the young Kaiba an exception. The fact that Horus the Child had apparently chosen this boy as a vessel mattered very little to him; certainly this meant he would leave the boy alive, but that did not mean he couldn't prove useful in…other ways.

He did allow the barest chuckle to pass his lips as he opened the door, swiftly to ensure that its hinges wouldn't announce him by squealing.

The boy was lost in sleep, curled up under his sheets and blankets, clutching at a plush toy. His face was smooth and gentle, cradled by moonlight. Wouldn't it be such a shame, the intruder thought with a grin, if something were to ruin that lovely picture?

A figure in white stepped into his vision, from the opposite side of the door. His steps were slow, without any kind of fear, or panic, or emotion at all. The man's face was the blankest of slates.

Noa Kaiba's sudden grin matched Bakari's own, effortlessly, as he said:

"…Good evening, Clarice."


Verse Two.


Kisara came into the hallway. In the dark, moonlight-spattered hallway, it was impossible to tell exactly what was happening, but it looked strangely intimate. One of the two figures shifted their weight, and a flash of green hair revealed it to be Noa Kaiba.

"So this is how things are going to proceed. 'Kay? Got your listening ears on?" He stepped back, and Kisara saw that he had Ryou Bakura by the throat. "You come into my brother's room again? With those predator's eyes and that rape-happy little grin on your lips? I'll castrate you with a tire iron."

Noa tossed the white-haired youth onto the floor, and almost gently placed a foot on each hand. A voice that didn't sound like it belonged in such a delicate-looking man slithered its way out of Ryou's lips: "I thought you were fond of my precious little host. Is your loyalty so fickle?"

Noa chuckled. "You're a fun one, aren't you? Whether I like Ryou or not is—what's the phrase? Neither here nor there." He squatted down, bringing his face close to his prey's. "I hear it told you've tried this stunt once before, with Mokuba. I'm not sure what stopped you back then, but here's a guess: it wasn't me. That's a textbook example of a crying shame." He stepped back, plucked Ryou up by one arm and set him on his feet. "I'm almost looking forward to showing you why. Now, then. You have a lovely evening."

He looked up over at his audience, slipped his hands into his pockets, and tilted his head. "Guess I woke you up. Sorry about that." He gestured idly. "Night of passion, you know how it is."

"…Mm," Kisara offered slowly. "You certainly have flavorful tastes when it comes to threats, if you don't mind me saying." She watched Ryou head down the hall. "Are you sure you've done enough to stop him from trying…whatever it is he was going to do?"

Noa smirked. "Not really. I never expect any of my plans to work. That doesn't usually stop them from working. I'm going to be spending the rest of the night keeping watch, probably. Kid's got enough on his mind, worrying about his Niisama. Gotta make sure he gets as good a night's sleep as possible. Care to join me?"

Kisara crossed her arms and considered, as Noa leaned against the wall. He pulled a small knife out of a pocket and started cleaning underneath his fingernails.

"You two are very protective of Mokuba, aren't you?"

Noa shrugged. "Part of the job description."

"No, no, it's more than that. This isn't just because you're supposed to do it. I have an older sister, you know. Her idea of looking out for me was teaching me how to get free drinks on my twenty-first birthday. Never did manage that trick, actually. I mean, sure, she'd babysit every once in a while when I was little, but…you two…you're something else. And it's not because you're rich. My family doesn't exactly want for much. Okay, so we're not billionaires, but we aren't hurting."

"It's this city," Noa said. He gestured randomly around his head. "Call it bad luck, call it good luck. You've only been here, what, few weeks? You've already seen things no normal human being would believe if you hypnotized them."

"Still…I think I've seen a good amount of what you're willing to do for him. It's remarkable."

Noa's smirk, so much like Seto's, left his face. His bright blue eyes looked like they contained a fatal mixture of sadness and incandescent rage. He said, "If what you've seen from us so far seems remarkable to you, I'm pretty sure that says more about your sister than it does about us."


Verse Three.


When Seto was aware of himself again, he also became aware of two things: one, he was no longer standing, but lying down; two, there was someone standing over him, and it wasn't Pegasus Crawford.

It was his mother.

The eldest Kaiba nearly choked on his own tongue as Yuki Yagami reached down and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. She said, "How are you feeling, honey?" in that sweet voice that he barely remembered. Her tone was low, and dream-like, and Seto almost couldn't hear her over the sound of his heart rampaging against his ribcage. He opened his mouth to speak, and found that words refused to obey him. His body refused to obey him. Reality refused to obey him.

Fifteen seconds ago, Seto had been standing in Pegasus Crawford's dining hall, in Pegasus Crawford's castle, on Pegasus Crawford's private island. Now, he was not. And he wasn't back home, back on the Kaiba Estate, which would have made some modicum of sense to his reeling mind. No, he was in a tiny house nestled quietly in a neighborhood roughly three miles east of that lofty perch. If he got up, and looked out the window on his right—he didn't see it, but he didn't have to—he would see a quiet street, where children played soccer and street hockey, and jeered at any cars with the temerity to interrupt them.

Lincoln Street, Seto thought, wonderingly. 2312 Lincoln Street. Domino City. St. Claire County—

"You had us worried," Yuki murmured, interrupting her son's stream-of-consciousness rambling. She was still stroking Seto's hair. "Your teacher said you just…collapsed. Right there on the blacktop. You didn't make a peep all the way home."

Seto somehow, miraculously, forced his vocal chords into submission, and managed to say: "…I'm fine."

He had thought to add more to this intonation, to concoct some story about staying up too late, studying; something, anything, to get this magnificent delusion to leave him alone so he could think—her hand on his head was distracting, distracting and soft and warm—but the sound of his own voice made him stop short, and he very nearly choked again.

He spoke, but it was not his voice that he heard. It was too soft. Too light. Too young.

Seto finally looked down at himself, at the body lying horizontally on a twin-sized mattress bought during a spring blowout sale from a store at the mall that had been replaced three times over. His body, not inches but full feet too short, lay there, underneath a violently purple blanket with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles emblazoned on it.

Did this mean…?

No. No, damn it, it didn't mean anything! This was magic. Pure illusion. Nothing meant anything here. Seto tried to force himself to calm down. But he couldn't. Every time he tried to focus on something other than the goddess sitting beside the bed, every fiber of himself staged a mutiny against him.

Yuki leaned over and kissed his forehead, sending a jolt of something suspiciously like pain all throughout Seto's body. "Little Mister Ivy League decided to study past his bedtime again, didn't he?" she guessed. "And I'll bet you didn't even bother to grab something for breakfast before heading to the bus stop. How many times have I told you to take it easy?" It was a soft reprimand, filled with much more pride than disappointment, and Seto heard himself in that voice. "Go back to sleep, okay? You still don't look too good." Yuki finally stood up, smiled down at him, and turned to leave the room. "I'll wake you for dinner."

She left, and Seto felt a palpable sense of relief rush through him like a high-class narcotic. His brain was trying to cannibalize itself. Half of him was screaming at the world to slow down, slow the fuck down, she's alive and she's here and she just left the room and she's fucking alive. The other half was going through a mental map of Pegasus Crawford's island, trying to find the best place to hide his corpse.

Seto tossed back his brightly-colored bedcovers and stumbled to his tiny feet.

Drawing in a deep breath, he said, "…If you can hear me, Crawford. Run."

The childish timbre of Seto's voice should have made the threat absolutely stupid. Ludicrous. The sort of thing unworthy of note, because it was just so irrevocably dumb. And yet, somehow, it didn't. Seto shook his head, and looked around. He spied a wall calendar sitting above a small writing desk—a desk with no traces of anything even remotely resembling a computer—that proclaimed the month to be June of 1999.

"Nineteen-ninety-nine…" Seto murmured out loud.

Eight years ago.

Seto looked down at himself again. At his flannel pajamas, and his too-short limbs.

He said, at once wonderstruck and offended, "I'm twelve years old."


Verse Four.


He came out into the main area of the house just as the sun was contemplating when it should set, dressed in the closest thing he could find to a normal outfit. This was a pair of khakis, scuffed dress shoes with frayed laces that were too short, and a white button-down shirt. He kept the top button undone, if for no better reason than to keep himself from suffocating.

In the small dining room, off to the side of the even smaller kitchen, Seto saw his mother setting a large bowl of salad greens into the center of the table. His father was setting plates and glasses in front of the chairs; he was still wearing his work uniform, including boots with exposed steel toes.

"Well, hello, sleepy," Yuki ruffled Seto's hair, and Seto flinched. She took in his outfit. "You aren't wearing your sweater," she noted with a chuckle. "Looking good." She winked at him.

A new voice came up from behind Seto, saying: "He's prob'ly got a job interview. He's gonna go out and run his own company, making board games or something."

Seto whirled; his mouth fell open. "M…Mo…"

Mokuba hopped over to the table and sat down, bouncing up and down in his seat. He looked at Seto and quirked an eyebrow at him. "What?" he asked. "Is something on my face?"

Seto narrowed his eyes as he attempted to keep himself under some species of control. He felt a kind of cold, strangling certainty wash over him as he inspected his brother's face. With a jolt, Seto realized that the boy's messy black hair was cut at his collar, instead of tumbling down his back. With a sudden, icy dread, he noticed something else, and the Kaiba in him reared its head and screamed.

Seto said, without preamble: "Who hurt you?"

Mokuba blinked, and Yuki—who was walking to the table, this time with a wide platter of sliced pot roast in her hands—stopped in her tracks. Kohaku looked at Seto, surprised and more than a little unsettled.

"…Huh?"

Yuki and Kohaku shared a glance, before turning their attention back to their sons.

"Your left eye," Seto said. "You tried to hide the bruising with Mother's makeup, didn't you? Smart. Not perfect. Who hurt you?" His voice sharpened suddenly. His eyes flared. "Mokuba, who touched you?"

Yuki sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. Kohaku sat down next to the younger boy and put a hand on his thin shoulder. Mokuba flinched. "Mokuba? Is Seto right? Has someone been harassing you? Is something going on at school?"

Mokuba shook his head. "I dunno what Seto's talking about." Seto flinched at the sound of his given name. "Nobody's been harassing nobody."

Seto slipped his hands into his pockets and raised an incredulous eyebrow. He said nothing for a long moment, but simply stood, silently, waiting. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Then he turned his eyes back to Mokuba, and waited.

Two minutes passed by in absolute silence. Yuki set dinner onto the table, but then stepped back. Mokuba stared at his brother, then at his parents, then back at his brother. After the second minute, he bit his lip and finally said, "…His name's George. George Blake. Him and his friends. They…they've been…"

Seto lowered his gaze and watched the floor for a moment. Drawing in a deep, calming breath, he said, "How long?" Some part of him, deep in the recesses of his mind, noticed that he was asking these questions, instead of his parents. They should have been asking them. They weren't.

"A few weeks. I guess. I don't know. George…he wanted to copy my math test, and I said no way. He's been…messing with me. Taking stuff from my lunch. Pushing me into lockers. Ripping up my homework. Today, after school, he…he…"

Yuki sat down and wrapped Mokuba in her arms. "Oh, Mo-chan…my baby…" She kissed the top of Mokuba's head. "My little baby…"

Kohaku squeezed Mokuba's shoulder. "It's okay. You hear me, little man? We'll take care of this. Don't you worry."

Seto licked his lips—an old nervous tic that hadn't plagued him for years—and ran a hand through his hair—a new nervous tic that he didn't even notice anymore. He could feel himself starting to forget that this was a test, a vision forced on him by a one-eyed lunatic. He felt his sense of morality elbowing past his sense of logic, making him feel responsible for this illusory family that had never, and would never, exist.

"You're always so busy," Mokuba said. "Studying, and stuff. You don't ever pay attention to this stuff. Stuff like…like me."

Seto flinched violently. Yuki leaned back and looked at Mokuba, surprised. "Mokuba!" she said sharply.

Seto held up a hand. "It's…fine. He's right. Too busy setting an example to be a good brother." Just saying the words made him feel slimy. He clenched his teeth, clenched and unclenched his fists, and looked at Mokuba again. The look on his brother's face was foreign, and yet heartbreakingly familiar. It was the look he'd always had on his face when an adult would try to help him; social workers, teachers, even a police officer or two.

He looked helpless, and alone, and positive that there was no point in platitudes.

Seto had never seen that look directed at him before.

Mokuba scrunched up his face. "You're different today, Seto," he said. "You look different. You look old."

Seto smirked. The look was gone.

He said, "Maybe you're just starting to notice this, kiddo, but I've always been old."


Verse Five.


Seto woke up, went to school, and went home. All the time, he sought out any and every sign that he was embroiled in anything remotely close to important. He did homework on the bus ride home, did chores once he got there, and made small talk during dinner in the evening.

It was a simple life, an easy life, which afforded him plenty of time to think, and do, anything he wanted. Someone else looking in might have said that Seto was staring at the face of Nirvana; here he had the option to live without any of the usual expectations that he'd been piling onto his thin shoulders. His responsibilities were homework, chores, and play. Gone were the problems that he'd faced when he was actually twelve: living in a decrepit orphanage, walking over two miles every day to attend college classes, while trying to raise a three-year-old.

But even though his body was younger, and he had parents handling the minutiae of running their household, Seto was a Kaiba. Nowhere was the old adage about idle hands being the devil's playground truer than in the Kaiba family. He thought that if he hadn't known that Pegasus Crawford created this mass illusion, he might have been seduced into enjoying himself.

Almost.

. Seto found himself too restless for words, and he couldn't sit still for any longer than twenty minutes at a stretch. Every moment he spent in Kelly Montgomery's sixth-grade class, he felt like his body was wasting away. Every night he spent eating dinner around a small dining room table, with Mokuba and Kohaku and Yuki, he wondered when he would finally find the key to "earning" the Millennium Eye so that he could go back to his real home, and his real family.

This is your real family, some dark part of him said, when this thought came up. The family back at your lofty estate is fake. Worse than that, it's offensive.

Here, in this tiny house, with its old-fashioned appliances and faulty furnaces, he should have been happy. Even Seto knew that. He could admit to himself, even in the frigid darkness of his current mood, that he should have loved this change, and taken it for everything it was worth, even if it wasn't real.

But he remembered something. Something that tainted every pleasant thought he might have had.

Whenever Mokuba found a new television show to watch, he bombarded his brother with plot synopses and excitable character analyses that rarely made sense until Seto went back and did his own research. He remembered one particular evening. He'd been cooking dinner for the two of them, and Mokuba had come into the kitchen looking like he was grieving a dead puppy.

"What difficulties are plaguing Jared Padelecki this week?" Seto had asked, sublimely uninterested.

"Not Jared," Mokuba had replied sulkily. "Jensen. And that's not the characters' names!" Seto glanced over, and Mokuba pouted at him. "Never mind. Whatever. It's really sad, Niisama. Like, Joey's GPA sad."

Seto snickered, which made Mokuba smirk. This made Seto strangely proud, because they both realized in that moment that, regardless of whatever he might have to say about it, Seto was now paying attention.

Seto washed his hands at the sink, wiped them off with a dishcloth, and leaned against the counter. Opening his arms in an inviting gesture, he said, "Come, young one. Speak, that ye may be purged of ill emotion."

Mokuba gave his brother a suspicious look, but he eventually said, "Okay. So they're hunting a genie this time. Or…they didn't call it that. They called it a djinn. Anyway, this djinn grants wishes, right? But it's all in your head. And Dean, that's the big brother, he gets caught, and he wakes up in this new world—like a new reality."

Mokuba gesticulated randomly with his hands, and Seto couldn't help but notice that he was more interested in this sermon than many of the others, and he thought it had something to do with the fact that the young Kaiba was getting better at giving them.

"A new reality," Seto repeated.

"He's got a wife," Mokuba continued, "but she's actually a lady from a magazine, and his mom's alive but his dad's still dead. And Sam, he's the little brother, he's still at law school, and his girlfriend's still alive, and…and…"

And so it went. Mokuba grew more and more passionate as he talked through the episode's plot. Seto went back to cooking, hands moving independently of his attention, as he kept his eyes on his brother.

"…So then Sam shows up at the house. For Mom's birthday, right? And Dean is trying to talk to him, but they don't get along. Because, you know, they aren't hunters anymore. In this world, 'cuz they learned how when their mom died. Well, not right after, but…anyway. Dean's trying to like his new life, he's really trying, but he can't get into it. Everything's so awesome, Mom's alive and Jess is alive, and Sam is at school. But he keeps thinking about Sam. He can't like his new life, even though everything's so great, 'cuz his brother doesn't like being around him."

Seto wanted to lie to himself, and think that he didn't know why this particular Cliff Notes episode summary for a show he didn't watch popped up in his mind during his first Millennium Test—or whatever asinine title Crawford probably had for it—but he knew better.

He knew that the part of this test that kept distracting him—which also kept him from enjoying, or at least appreciating, the level of detail that the Millennium Eye was able to produce from his old memories of home—had nothing to do with the fact that he had a task to complete. It had nothing to do with him still being in elementary school. It wasn't that the timeline was off, or that his parents were still alive even though Mokuba was nine years old. It wasn't even that he knew it was all an illusion.

It was Mokuba's attitude. It was the fact that Mokuba was avoiding him, and he seemed convinced that Seto didn't want him around. This fact kept tossing itself into the forefront of his mind.

He couldn't like his new life, even though everything was so great, because his brother didn't like being around him.


END.


The show Mokuba is synopsizing, for those who don't know, is "Supernatural," a CW drama created by Eric Kripke, and my favorite TV show. The basic rundown is this: two brothers travel the U.S. in a '67 Chevy Impala, tracking down and hunting supernatural creatures. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, demons. Djinns.

The specific episode Mokuba was talking about is the 20th episode of Season 2, called "What is and What Should Never Be." This is probably one of the most impactful episodes in the entire show, and I hope it's apparent, from this chapter, why that is. I didn't come up with this test based on the episode, but now that I've made the connection in my mind, it can't be broken.

I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter of 2014. The next chapter will pick up basically where this one's left off. I'll see you then.

Oh, and yes. Noa did, in fact, quote "Silence of the Lambs." Does that honestly surprise you?

Au revoir.