An announcement before we begin:

I have set up a blog, "In Cold Blood," which is now my homepage on my profile; the address is as follows: icedblood1986 (dot) blogspot (dot) com. Here I will be posting updates to any project I've written—or any other project, period—as they're posted. This includes updates to a pair of websites I've recently joined known as "Wikinut" and "Triond." These sites are pay-to-post, and I will earn a percentage of ad revenue generated by each page I post for them.

In order to earn some money with this passion of mine, I will be posting all new fanfiction projects through Triond (Wikinut does not allow fanfiction, but other nonfiction projects or original fiction will be posted there). I apologize for this inconvenience, but I hope you understand that I am trying to make more out of this than a hobby. I hope to help my family and myself with my writing. I'm transferring to a university to pursue a teaching degree, and I need all the help I can get. So keep an eye out on my new blog, if such is your inclination. I promise that things won't be too infuriating. It would help me out a lot if you guys could look at what I have posted already, and of course leave feedback if you wish. Any and every response to my work is greatly appreciated and encouraged.

Thank you for understanding, and if you decide to take a look at "In Cold Blood," feel free to drop me a line. I always love to hear from you.

With that said, let's see what Noa's up to, shall we?

Verse One.

Noa half-stumbled through the city like a tourist from another country.

In a way, that's precisely what he was. Mokuba walked alongside him, smiling as his stepbrother asked about various things that had been around since the black-haired boy was old enough to remember anything about the city where he'd grown up. Was that park always there? That building looks new. What is it? They didn't used to have a street lamp there; wasn't there a statue of an old man with a pocket-watch over that way? I liked that old man.

"It's been a long time since you've walked around here, huh?" Mokuba asked. "I mean, even in your…world, I guess, you didn't go out much, did you?"

"Technically, it's been nine years since I've actually walked around this city," Noa said. "But since I've walked around a version of it? About six. I used to go out every day. Otousama programmed the ice cream vendor out by the park—I doubt she's still there—to always have my favorite flavors. I thought it was wonderful, eating ice cream for breakfast every morning. And nothing bad ever happened; my body never changed."

Mokuba listened to this with sharp interest. "Did you get hungry?"

Noa shook his head. "I used to think I did, for a while. But it was just in my head. I thought that I should be hungry, so I was. Pretty soon, I figured out that if I decided I wasn't hungry, then I wasn't. That world was completely controlled by my mind, so whatever I decided, it existed. I suppose you can understand that that would be a…bit of a power trip."

Mokuba nodded, almost awestruck. "Sure…"

"It didn't take long before I just stopped caring. I'd spend all of my time in my old bedroom, affecting the world from there if I decided I wanted to change something. I slept a lot…well, what could pass for sleep, anyway."

"Did Fa—did your father ever…you know, visit?"

Noa quirked an eyebrow at Mokuba, eyeing him critically (again, looking eerily like Seto), before he said: "For a while. Every so often, he'd communicate with me. Sometimes through a phone call, sometimes through a television; sometimes it would even be a letter." Noa laughed bitterly. "I used to wait on that correspondence…after a while I started to depend on it. And it was just about that time, when I thought I'd go crazy if he ever decided to stop, that he…decided to stop."

Mokuba flinched. "I'm sorry."

Noa grinned. "Don't be! That's all over now. The old man's dead, and good riddance, anyway. He was psychotic." He said this with a bit of a tremor in his voice, like a child saying something he knows his parents would disapprove. The grin on his face was that of the clandestine glee of knowing he'd gotten away with it, but there was a touch of fear in his eyes, as if he thought his father might walk around the corner and reprimand him.

When they rounded that corner, the only person they saw was an elderly woman walking a black Labrador. The dog barked excitedly, and Mokuba smiled. Noa kneeled down in front of the animal and scratched behind its ears like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do. "Hey, you," he said. "What's your name?"

"Shadow," the woman replied with a smile. "He doesn't usually act like that around strangers. You boys must have a special touch." She laughed. Noa grinned up at her, and Mokuba's smile widened. Shadow looked over at the boy as if expecting him to scratch now. Mokuba obliged.

"Shadow," Noa repeated. "Like the movie. Golden retriever. Homeward Bound, wasn't it?"

The woman grinned. "Yes, yes! My granddaughter named him. She loves that film, bless her. Watches it so much she's liable to drive her parents mad."

"I remember that movie…" Noa murmured. "It was good. Mokuba, did you ever see that one?"

Mokuba shook his head.

"Mokuba?" the woman asked, white eyebrows rising. "Not Mokuba Kaiba?"

"Yes, ma'am," Mokuba said, bowing his head slightly.

"Oh, my…my, my, if she knew…my granddaughter is in your fan club! What a fun surprise!"

Mokuba blushed. "…Uh…"

Noa laughed. "You have a fan club? That is fantastic! Oh, you have to show me!" He stood up and bowed to the old woman. "Noa Kaiba," he introduced. "I just moved back to the city. My little cousin, here, is showing me around. He never told me about any fan club." He ruffled Mokuba's hair.

"Oh, well, yes, indeed. And so young, too. Remarkable." The woman held out a hand to shake Mokuba's. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Elizabeth. Tell me…would you mind if I…?"

"Got an autograph for your granddaughter?" Mokuba asked, sounding as if he'd rather jump into a pit of snakes. Elizabeth nodded, looking a bit unsure of herself now. "Sure." He shrugged exasperatedly, then flashed a winning smile—he was quite the charmer, Noa noticed with amusement, when he wanted to be—to show that he wasn't angry.

Mokuba pulled a pen out of one pocket of his jeans and took the memo book Elizabeth retrieved from her purse. She thanked him as he scribbled his signature onto the paper (and told her to have her granddaughter call Kaiba-Corp's testing department directly if she wanted to confirm the signature was genuine; he seemed to go through this a lot). Shadow barked, and they parted ways.

Noa was chuckling. Mokuba was blushing.

"It's still weird when people ask me for those. What's so special about my name?"

"Don't be modest," Noa said, ruffling the black-haired boy's hair again. "I was never asked for my autograph. Although…neither was Otousama, now that I think about it. I'm thinking there's something special about you, Mokuba. Maybe that lady's granddaughter…likes you…?"

"Shut up!" Mokuba cried, but laughed in spite of himself.

"Oh, come on," Noa said, grinning, "it could be worse. You could be one of those celebrities everybody hates." He didn't say, like Seto, but he thought it. He had followed his elder stepbrother's career ever since it had taken off when he turned fifteen, sifting through Seto's personal computer network like a conscious virus, and he knew how people looked at him.

Seto Kaiba was the living, breathing testament of his adopted father. And to most people, that wasn't a good thing.

"I guess," Mokuba mumbled. "But it's still weird! I mean…fan clubs? I'm not a movie star or anything, why would anybody join my fan club?"

"You're famous, like it or not," Noa offered. "Famous, rich, and cute. The holy trinity of fan clubs. Don't look at me like that; people love kids…especially when they aren't theirs. You're like Kaiba-Corp's mascot."

"I thought people hated mascots."

"Well, you don't dress in animal costumes and dance on street corners, do you?"

Mokuba snickered. "…No. Niisama's never asked me to do that."

Noa grinned. "See?"

"I still don't get it."

"Of course you don't. You're modest, too. Another point in your favor."

Mokuba quirked an eyebrow at the man who had suddenly taken it upon himself to be his personal psychologist. "You seem to know a lot about this stuff," he said. "You're like Niisama, aren't you? A genius. A prodigy."

"There's that modesty again," Noa murmured.

"Huh?"

Noa shook his head. "Never mind." He finally spied a restaurant that he recognized, and his eyes sparkled. He started toward it, and Mokuba followed, still looking curious. Fixated on the idea of finally eating real food again, Noa didn't actually answer the boy's question until he asked it again.

Noa glanced over his shoulder.

"You'd be surprised how much you learn about humanity when you're not part of it."

Verse Two.

"That's…quite an order, sir."

Mokuba smirked, took out his wallet and flashed his student ID card at the clerk. "I think we can cover it," he said, and took out $100. The clerk's face reddened, and he nodded hurriedly as he took the money.

"Understood, Mister Kaiba, sir. I'm sorry, I…didn't recognize…"

Noa smirked. "'What's so special about my name?'" he whined, grinning as Mokuba punched him playfully in the arm. "Yes," he said to the clerk, "it, ah…it's quite a bit, I admit. But I haven't been here in a long time, and I haven't eaten in…a while."

"I didn't mean to insinuate—I wasn't trying to…I should shut up now, shouldn't I?"

Noa laughed. "Don't worry about it. Oyabun won't hear about this."

Mokuba chuckled. "Oyabun?" he repeated.

The clerk gestured to their right, into the dining area of the restaurant. "Take a seat," he invited. "Might want to pick one of the bigger tables. It will, um…take a while to prepare everything. So just make yourselves comfortable. Someone will be by to get your drinks."

Noa nodded.

After he and Mokuba had situated themselves, Noa leaned back and looked around. "They've renovated," he noted, "but all in all, everything looks the same. I used to come here with my mother every weekend. Otousama didn't care for it, of course. He was a bit of a…oh, why lie, he was a complete snob. This was no higher in the chain of quality than a fast food place, as far as he was concerned."

Mokuba nodded. "He did have…well, refined tastes? I'm not sure if Niisama would come here, either. He prefers his own cooking; I think he only tolerates the staff's cooking at home because he has to. He doesn't like to pay for someone to cook something he could cook better."

"That sounds like Seto, all right," Noa said. "I'm going to take a wild guess and say he reads Ayn Rand."

Mokuba raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know that? She's one of his favorites."

"Ever read anything she's written?"

"No. I thought about it, though. If Niisama likes her so much…he doesn't read fiction very much. Have you read her stuff?"

"Religiously," Noa said, smirking. "You'll understand how I knew that when you read her. It should…resonate pretty strongly. What about you, Mokuba? What do you read? Or do you? You're not one of those 'reading is for losers' kids, are you? I could always pick those ones out of a crowd. They were the ones with the sloped foreheads."

Mokuba laughed. "I like fantasy stuff. Mythology. Isis Ishtar gave me a book on Egypt a while ago that's really nice. It has all the different gods and goddesses and legends and stuff like that. I guess I study a lot…Niisama's kind of rubbed off on me."

"No way," Noa said. "I don't believe it. Why do I recognize that name? Ishtar."

"She's a famous Egyptologist," Mokuba said. "She teaches out at the community college. She was one of the duelists in Niisama's Battle City tournament, too. She let Niisama use one of the Egyptian God cards."

"I thought those things were just a stupid urban legend," Noa said.

"No, they're real. There's three of them."

"Obelisk, Osiris, Ra," Noa murmured. "So have you taken any of her classes?"

"She said I should," Mokuba said, "but I'm still in middle school. I don't know if I want to go to college yet. She does have a mythology class. It doesn't deal with any of the archeology stuff. Maybe I'll take that one. It's on weekends."

"Middle school," Noa said. "Seventh?"

"Yeah."

"You skipped a grade."

Mokuba grinned proudly. "Yep."

Noa leaned back and smirked. "And thus is the Kaiba legacy upheld. I might have known. Ah, ah—don't look like that. I know what you're going to say. Niisama did better. Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure he's proud of you. He'd have to be, if he brought me back on your order."

"I didn't order him."

"Maybe not, but he did it for you. That's special, Mokuba. You know that, don't you? If he'd go so far as to do a favor for me, I think he's liable to do anything for you. He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you. He just doesn't trust you yet."

"He doesn't trust you. Me? He hates. You trust me on this, Mokuba, I know what hatred looks like. It's okay. I don't deserve forgiveness from him. Truth be told, I don't deserve forgiveness from you. But I guess you're just special."

"It wasn't your fault!" Mokuba protested.

Noa's smirk lost its humor. "Proof you haven't read your Niisama's favorite authoress. It is my fault, Mokuba, for having blind faith in a psychopathic tyrant. I refused to see the signs until it was almost too late. It nearly cost Seto his life, and most importantly…it nearly cost you yours. That, more than anything, is why he hates me. Don't worry about it, Mokuba. It's okay. Really. You've done more than enough for me. I don't want you worrying about me, too."

"But you're my brother!"

The smirk softened into a smile.

"...Thank you," he murmured.

Verse Three.

"Tip them. Tip them outrageously. Tip them so much that God Himself will walk through those doors right now to tell you, 'Hey, that's an outrageous tip you just gave.'"

Mokuba couldn't help but laugh as he left a sizable (though not God-summoning) tip on the table. Noa, leaving four empty plates on his side, stood up, stretched luxuriously, and bowed deeply to their waiter as he passed by. "You are a fantastic human being," he said.

"That's quite the compliment, coming from a Kaiba," the waiter, Henry, replied.

"We are generous in our praises when and wherefore we are pleased," Noa said with a flourish. Henry laughed. "In fact, we are so pleased that we will frequent this establishment in the future…frequently."

"He's not talking about me right now," Mokuba said. "Just himself."

"See?" Noa said, grinning. "He understands us."

Henry laughed again, shaking his head. "I'll watch out for…all of you."

"Very good, sir."

Noa held open the door for a young couple with their children, inclining his head in greeting as they entered. Mokuba followed his stepbrother with a smile on his face, thinking that Seto should hire Noa as a spokesman for the company; he had an innate ability to entertain. He certainly had learned a lot about humanity in his time as a machine, Mokuba thought.

Still positively effervescent and bursting with energy, Noa waved and greeted any and every passerby that happened to catch his attention. Mokuba was used to having others' eyes on him, and it was a good thing; Noa attracted attention like a lantern attracted moths. He was almost too energetic, the bounce in his step bordering on muscle spasms. As they headed back toward the hospital on the next block, Mokuba began to wonder if it had been a good idea to let Noa eat as much as he had. His body seemed to have had an adverse reaction to it.

By the time they were walking across the hospital's parking lot, Noa had noticed his body wasn't reacting properly, that his giddiness and bursting energy wasn't normal. "Maybe…" he murmured thoughtfully, "…the trigger in my mind that tells me when I'm full...isn't functioning properly." Mokuba shrugged. He had no idea. "It could be that this body is better able to extract energy and nutrients from food than a biological one," he continued in that same slow, contemplative voice that was the very antithesis to his antics just twenty minutes before, "and the excess from today is…having a…"

Just as they entered the building, his speech slurred, slowed, and Noa collapsed onto the floor.

Verse Four.

"You're an idiot."

Noa looked extremely subdued as he sat on the edge of his hospital bed and looked sheepishly at the floor as his elder stepbrother swept a hand over his angular face and ran it through his thick brown hair. "I might have realized sooner," Noa said softly, even though Seto hadn't specifically asked for a response, "except that it's been so long since I've actually eaten an honest meal that I…forgot myself, and ignored the potential consequences."

"You don't even know what the consequences might have been, much less what they were," Seto hissed. "You cannot tell me that you have studied enough of your situation in such a short time as you've had to understand just what happened to you because of your stupidity."

Noa raised an eyebrow. "With all respect due you, I know more about this body than you might think. I have significant experience with technology, and that combined with the manner by which I currently think, has afforded me with some amount of knowledge in regards to how this body functions."

Seto sneered. "Making up for previous conduct, now? Showcasing your intellect? If you know how your body functions, then it was all the more reprehensible for you to overtax it so quickly."

"Perhaps you are not aware, or do not care, what it feels like to be free from the prison into

which my father saw fit to place me," Noa replied, a bit irritated now, "but I'm hardly interested in the concept of a 'moderate diet' at the moment. I haven't eaten in nine years."

"Do what you want," Seto snapped. "It's no problem of mine if you run that body into the ground. The money is already spent, and I gained something from it that is…disconnected from your existence. I simply believed that you placed more importance on the life to which you've returned. If you think I will simply reconstruct you, rethink your options, because I'm not interested in going through this again."

"I passed out in a hospital," Noa replied. "I hardly see how this indicates that I'm going to die."

"Perhaps you are not aware, or do not care, that you are not precisely bound by the rules of biology anymore," Seto replied, "but let me spell it out for you: the slightest complication could prove catastrophic in your position. You are something of a unique case, in case you didn't catch that."

"Fine," Noa said, holding up his hands, "consider me reprimanded. I'll take care to observe that in the future. Could you have Jay write me up a list of food and drink that I am permitted to ingest? For future reference, you see."

Seto's eyes narrowed.

"...For future reference," he hissed, "keep in mind that it is well within my capacity to remove you from my list of obligations. The next time you make an abject idiot of yourself and pose a potential threat to my brother, I will very seriously consider it." He held up a hand just as Noa was about to speak, and Noa suddenly felt obligated to obey. "Before you tell me that you will never become a threat to Mokuba's safety, because I'm sure that is what you think at this moment, I would remind you that the muscle capacity of your body is averaged at three-hundred-percent of that of an average nineteen-year-old male. Something as simple as a muscle spasm could very well kill him!"

Noa wasn't sure if that was altogether true, but he suddenly understood why Seto was angry.

He was nervous.

And why shouldn't he be? Noa thought. He has no reason to trust me. Did I not tell Mokuba that I fully expected, and wanted, him to hate me? What if he's right? What if next time, instead of passing out, I go berserk? What if I…? If I…?

Noa Kaiba bowed his head before his stepbrother. "Understood," he said.

Seto said nothing more as he turned on his heel and left the room.

Noa was alone, with no company but his thoughts, as he realized what his desire to indulge in such a simple human pleasure as lunch at a restaurant could easily have cost him. And he began to wonder, despite himself, what that meant.

If he had escaped one prison only to become trapped in another.

END.

The idea that Noa is a cyborg is one I've been playing with for quite a while. I didn't broach the subject when I wrote "Shifting Images," because it hadn't really crossed my mind yet. But if you think about it, how else is Seto going to bring Noa back except with his trump card: technology? So, he's a cyborg. One with quite a bit to think about, I think. This will be my first honest attempt (as far as I'm concerned) to explore Noa's relationship with his brothers, and as I believe I have mentioned before, it's going to be quite a ride. After all, mentally and emotionally he's still a kid. A smart kid, maybe smarter than most other people in the world, but still a kid. And he's going to act that way.

At least for a while.