In most of my stories, the character of Darren McKinley is pivotal. If he's a part of a story at all (he makes no appearance in "Cemetery Dance," for example), he's a big part. This time around, I seem to be focusing more on his daughter. Katie has always been my answer to the "fangirl" demographic. So many people in canon seem less than enthused with Seto, and I wanted to have someone in my stories who fell outside of that mold—someone who wasn't Mokuba.

Katie has become less of a statement and more of a person in this story, and I'm both excited and grateful for that. I don't like one-dimensional characters. I like my people to be rounded, and real.

Let's see what she's up to, shall we?

Verse One.

Katie and Renie took Kay out for a tour of Domino City.

Kay Mayer was, of course, no stranger to big cities; travel was nothing new to her; nonetheless, she'd never been on a tour quite like this. They showed her comic shops, and arcades, and amusement parks. It turned out that Renie hadn't been lying when she called her home the Mecca of card games; she saw advertisements plastered on nearly every shop window they passed; ads for Magic & Wizards were particularly numerous, but it wasn't the only game; she also saw Capsule Monster Chess, and Dungeon Dice Monsters, and Pokémon, and Fullmetal Alchemist; one poster in particular—advertising a game, adapted from a Japanese RPG, called Triple Triad—sent Katie into near-hysterics, and they had to stop.

Katie often played the straight man, so to speak, in her relationship with her best friend; nonetheless, it was somehow especially gratifying to see her geek out. She came out of the shop with a booster box and a grin that reached her ears. Renie, for her part, was doing her best to keep a calm façade. Kay could see, though, that there was recognition, and something resembling hunger, in her eyes.

Kay wasn't necessarily opposed to her new friends' hobbies; nonetheless, she felt like an outsider. She'd never really played videogames, or read comic books, or any of the things that Katie and Renie seemed to "fangirl" over. A compulsive desire to join in, to initiate herself, came over her whenever she saw the two of them discuss their culture. Kay knew that a part of it was just their excitable natures; they could have made grocery lists seem exciting.

But when Kay thought back, and tried to pinpoint the last time she'd had fun, in the way that Katie and Renie so often did, she couldn't think of it. She tried to think of the last time she'd laughed, and joked, and played, with a friend; and couldn't do it.

So when Katie slipped back into the car and pointed back at Kay, saying, "You are going to learn this one," Kay didn't feel out of sorts. In fact…she was rather excited.

Their last stop for the day, sometime around four o'clock or so, was a place called the Turtle Game Shop. It was a hole-in-the-wall sort of establishment, and an elderly man was out front, sweeping the walkway leading up to the front entrance. He looked up as the trio approached. "Ah!" he said, putting on a wide grin. "Miss Eubank! Miss McKinley! How nice to see you again!"

"How are you doing, Mister Mutou?" Katie asked with a bow.

Renie gave a jaunty little salute, and Kay waved; because she wasn't sure what else to do.

"We're making the rounds," Renie said, "showing our new blood, here, what Domino's about. Wouldn't be a proper introduction without the turtle. Eh?"

Mister Mutou, who had the wildest shock of dark gray hair Kay had ever seen, gave a laugh fit for Santa Claus. He was short, and rather husky, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that said he wasn't done yet—not by a long shot. Laugh lines crinkled out from his eyes, and a grin seemed to be the natural set of his mouth. He bowed with a flourish and gestured toward the entrance. "Ladies, you flatter me. Go right on inside."

Kay was used to paying close attention to what people said when they thought others weren't listening, and she caught the threads of a rather heated discussion taking place as they approached the front door.

"…fucking stupid? I'm not sayin' I don't believe you, but—Jesus!"

"It had to be done. Do you honestly think Kaiba would have accepted it as a gift?"

"Yami, Kaiba ain't the problem this time! You know as well as I do, Noa's a fuckin' mental case! Maybe he don't give a shit about Kaiba, but Mokuba's got him on a pretty damn short leash! If he—"

"Silence."

The three young women entered the shop.

It was a small shop, as Kay had anticipated. But, even though she had no clue about most of the merchandise for sale here, she could tell that this place was well-stocked. The sheer variety stacked into this tiny store was mind-boggling.

Kay saw the two men who must have been the speakers: one was blond, well-built, tall. He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a black leather jacket over a button-down crimson shirt. He held a broom in his hands like he intended to use it as a weapon.

The other, who was standing behind the counter, must have been related in some way to Mister Mutou; his hair was nearly identical to the old man's, except his was three colors; black, with bright purple tips, offset by bright blond bangs. He was also dressed in jeans; along with his tight, sleeveless black shirt and multitude of bracelets, and the giant golden pyramid hanging from his neck by a thick chain, he looked every bit like he belonged at an Avenged Sevenfold concert.

And yet, as Kay's gaze fell dead-center onto his wine-colored eyes, she felt an absurd—but powerful—urge to fall to her knees before him.

Both were watching their newest customers. The blond man put on a welcoming grin; the other looked surprised. "Hey-hey!" crowed the blond man, setting aside his broom. "If it ain't Ren 'n Stimpy!"

"Asshole," Katie said, but she was grinning.

"Ee-diot," Renie offered, which made the blond man laugh.

"Who'sa newbie?" he asked, gesturing with his eyes to Kay.

"Kay Mayer," Renie said, and Kay lifted a hand in greeting.

The blond man held out a hand of his own. "Joey Wheeler."

Kay shook it. "Pleased to meet you." Then she frowned. "I…I've heard your name before."

"Second-placed the Duelist Kingdom Tournament held by Pegasus Crawford in 2004," Renie reeled off. "Kidnapping, extortion, attempted murder, corporate espionage." She ticked her fingers. "Your dad made a statement, early 2005, calling out how irresponsible it was that it came down to a bunch of kids to fix the cluster-fuck of felonies committed on that island. Allegedly."

Recognition sparked in Kay's eyes as Joey stared, bewildered, at Renie.

"Oh, yeah," Katie said. "I remember that speech. People were hung up on the federal government getting involved in private businesses."

The other had rounded the counter and was slowly approaching. His expression was unreadable, his eyes unfathomable, and Kay turned her attention back to him. She was immediately riveted, like before. Joey glanced over as the other stepped up beside him. "The hell, Yugi? Got a crush 'r somethin'? Gotcher Creeper Face on."

"Uh-oh," Katie said. "Hear that, Kay? You have a fan."

"…Huh?"

Too quickly for anyone to react, Yugi reached out and pulled Kay to him in a crushing embrace. Kay was several inches taller than he was, so she ended up in a half-crouch as he held her head to his shoulder, sounding like he was half-laughing, half-crying.

He said, "Kisara. Dear one. Welcome home."

Verse Two.

The room was long, and lit by candles set in regular intervals on a table swathed with a red tablecloth. A feast fit for kings sat upon the table, and a man sat at the head of it. As Seto stepped gingerly into the long room and forced his mind to work, the man glanced up at him.

The man was dressed all in white, and for one stupid moment Seto thought the man was Noa. But no. No, this man had a much darker complexion than Noa did; not to mention, he could tell at a glance that there wasn't a single drop of Japanese blood running through this man's veins.

The man in white gestured invitingly. "Sit," he said, and his accent was as thick as it was unrecognizable. Seto blinked, feeling suddenly dizzy. "We have much to discuss, you and I."

He realized that the man in white's gold-edged plate was bare.

Seto eventually sat, because his legs would no longer tolerate his weight. He blinked again, forced his blurring vision to clear. He focused, mind and body, upon a loose crimson thread. The man in white spoke again: "You are confused. Your mind is clouded." Seto turned and watched as the man in white lifted a hand. He made a strange gesture, and suddenly everything was clear. Seto could see, he could think, and he felt as though he were an inhabitant in his own body again. "Is that better?"

Seto scowled and said, "What are you?"

The man in white smirked. "I am a man."

"Don't play games with me. I'm lying on the concrete in my own parking lot. I can feel it." He lifted one arm, glanced at it, and then back to the man in white. "Which means this is mental. Evidently you have control over this hallucination, which means you are not a man. Or, if we're playing a semantics game, you aren't just a man. So, I will ask again: what are you?"

The man in white chuckled, glanced off to the side. "I see that my cousin was right about you…" he whispered beneath his breath. He turned his attention back to Seto; he had eyes the color of icebergs. "Very well, Seto. If I may call you Seto."

The eldest Kaiba brother grimaced, and did not speak.

"I am Seti," the man in white said. "I serve the gods. I am…a spirit. I believe that my body currently rests—" Here he cut off, made another upward glance, and said, halfway between intrigued and offended, "—in an exhibit at a Cairo museum." He turned back to Seto. "A husk, unfortunately. Our supposedly illustrious methods of preservation seem to have fallen rather woefully short. I must…rectify that problem. In the interim, I inhabit the golden artifact in your hand."

Seto glanced down at his right hand; he was holding a gold-plated knife.

Seti chuckled again. "Rather an active imagination, you have. I pieced this together before you arrived." The spirit leaned forward. "So. I have a number of questions for you, Seto. Might you indulge me?"

"I might," Seto replied flatly, setting the knife down.

Seti's smile was rapacious. "Glorious."

Verse Three.

It was so mystifying that nobody remembered to be offended.

It was a good thing that, apparently, Yugi was not a particularly "physical" person, because he relinquished Kay Mayer quickly, and literally bounced backward on the balls of his feet, holding out his arms like a man for the cross, laughter in his voice and a song in his eyes. He looked over at Joey as though expecting him to share in the jubilation, but Joey simply stared at him.

This didn't seem to bother the man, who looked as giddy as a child after his first ride on a roller coaster. "Everything is lining up. Everything!" It seemed as though he couldn't quite figure out if Kay actually existed or not; perhaps he didn't trust his senses.

Kay was wearing her best politician's-daughter face, trying to work out what her reaction should be. Finally, she decided on the one that bothered her the most, if only because she couldn't figure it out. She said, "…How do you know that name?"

Yugi blinked, raised an eyebrow. "Whatever else would I call you, my dear? That is your name, is it not?"

"That isn't public," Kay said, sharper than she intended. "Not even my school records use that name. The only place you could have possibly read that is my birth certificate. Who are you?"

Yugi looked thoughtful. Then his effervescence came back, he grinned, and he bowed with a flourish. "Yugi Mutou, King of Games, at your service. I think, dear one, that a great number of people in my fair city of Domino will know you by that name. Joey. Don't be a stranger. Tell me: does she not look familiar?"

"Uh…duh?" Joey rolled his eyes. "Kay Mayer. Sully Mayer's daughter. Been on the news a few times for charity work. You're a volunteer literacy tutor, right?"

Kay nodded. "I am." Then she half-chuckled, perhaps as a way to hide how thoroughly uncomfortable the…King of Games made her feel. She would later discover that this was common. "Forgive my saying so, but you don't look the type to follow politics from clear across the country."

Joey gave a lopsided smile that was disarmingly charming. "I'm fulla surprises. Actually, that speech Renie talked about, that's the one caught my eye. Wondered how the news'd handle that whole fiasco, y'know? Not too many people talked about it. Yer dad was one of the only…ah…upper echelon types who spoke up."

"No, no, no-no-no." Yugi shook his head emphatically and gave a dismissive huff. "Dig deeper, Joey. Think further back. Think of the desert, man. Think of temples and tablets. Doesn't she look…familiar?"

Joey grimaced, clearly confused, but eyed Kay more closely, making her feel self-conscious. Kay ignored it. Then realization dawned on the blond's face, and he put a hand unconsciously to his mouth. "Holy shit," he murmured.

Yugi chuckled. "Precisely. Now…tell me this isn't a sign. Come now. You know better than to trust in coincidences."

"It…might be. Fuck me, but it might be."

"Uh, 'scuze me?" Renie held up a hand. "Mind filling in the rest of the class? Both o' y'all are acting kinda freakish."

"Tell me…Kay." Yugi turned back to the counter and began sifting through various boxes. "Have you ever heard of the game, Magic & Wizards?"

"I couldn't associate with these two and not hear of it," Kay replied. "But until a few weeks ago, no."

"Have you noticed any of the posters around the city so far? On the windows of shops, billboards, things like that? Do any of the characters look familiar to you?"

"Not really, no. Seems like standard, anime-style stuff to me."

Yugi chuckled. He seemed to find what he'd been looking for. He gestured. "Come here, come here. Don't be shy. I know I might seem creepy, but I'm harmless. I promise." He set a small, worn-down little lockbox onto the counter. "Look at this."

He opened the box with a tiny key he slipped from a pocket, and produced a card.

"That's…your grandpa's card!" Joey said. "Kaiba ripped that fucker in half! How'd you get it restored?"

Yugi's smirk was all the answer he intended to give.

He handed the card to Kay. "Now tell me…does that look familiar?"

Kay glanced, skeptically, at the card.

She screamed.

Verse Four.

It was rare for Noa to be serious. Part of the mask he preferred to wear in public—and often, in private—involved a manic level of exultation. He much preferred to smile than to frown; it kept people off their guard and unassuming, and helped him to maintain a certain…distance.

For some reason that Noa didn't think he would ever understand, people trusted smiles; and all too often, they never took the time to look past one of them. They just assumed that someone who could smile must be sane.

Crazy people don't smile. Dangerous people don't smile.

Right?

But on the evening after his meeting with Pegasus Crawford, Noa stepped onto the Kaiba Estate looking murderous. Even Mokuba would have felt intimidated if he'd run into his adopted brother like this. The house staff, going about their usual business, gave him a wide birth without question as he swept past them. They were used to it, after all. Kaiba-shachou wore such an expression on a daily basis. Why should his cousin be any different?

Noa stalked the hallways straight up to his elder's private office. There was the slightest of blips in his stride as he passed Mokuba's room; the door was closed, but he could hear the black-haired boy's voice; he was probably talking to a friend, or a fan; it could even be that he was on a conference call with one of Kaiba-Corp's employees.

The middle Kaiba quickened his stride.

Seto's office was lit, but Noa didn't hear the usual spider-skittering of the man's keyboard. Neither did he hear the eldest Kaiba's voice. Not even the scratching of a pen or pencil. Noa was not prone to superstition by any estimation, but nonetheless he felt a shudder of apprehension run down his spine as he crossed the threshold.

But he was a Kaiba, and so he ignored it. He didn't see Seto in the office, but finally heard something in the adjoining bedchamber. Noa strode quickly across the floor, through the open doorway, and finally found the object of his search. He began speaking before his eyes registered what it was he was actually looking at: "Crawford hasn't benefited from his extended nap. He has his trinket back, and with it his bravado. I'll use whatever power my position gives me to keep him away from you and Mokuba, but you'll need to flex a bit as well if he decides he wants his wife back again. He knows what you did to bring me back. He thinks you'll be able to do the same for her."

It was supposed to be a simple message; Noa, like Seto, didn't believe in small-talk. He had intended to enter the room, deliver his message, wait for a moment to see if his adoptive sibling had anything to say in response, then leave. That should have been the end of it, and he was halfway through turning around before he realized something was wrong.

People often talked about Seto as though he were royalty; either they were speaking sardonically, referring to his arrogant, entitled persona, or else they were speaking literally and referring to his clout. Indeed, Noa had heard plenty of people refer to Mokuba as the Crown Prince of the West Coast, which left nothing to the imagination in regard to who was king. Nonetheless, the closest Seto had ever come to dressing like royalty had been the royal purple trench coat he had taken to wearing sometime after his Battle City tournament had ended.

As Seto turned to face his synthetic twin, Noa finally took in the man's appearance. Seto was dressed in a gold-trimmed white suit, not unlike the outfit Noa had liked to wear in his virtual playground—minus the shorts and the brown loafers; Seto had opted for white slacks (again, embroidered with gold at the hem) and shining white boots. And instead of his usual trench coat, he was wearing a scarlet robe that draped over his lean frame like a cloak.

Noa had wondered off and on for a while if machines like himself could feel fear. That question was answered for him when he saw the smile on Seto Kaiba's face, and the deadly gleam in his eyes—eyes as light as the sky in summer and as dry as a desert breeze.

He was holding a glowing golden rod in his right hand.

"You said something about a trinket. By chance, are you referring to his left eye?"

The voice came from Seto's lips, but the accent was foreign; like everything else.

Noa closed his eyes and grimaced.

"…God fuck it."

END.

Some of you have already guessed, but here it's laid out: yes. Kay Mayer is Kisara, the white-haired vessel of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And yes, this will prove to be important as we move forward. If you can believe it, I'm still in the planning stages of this story. I'm still setting up the game board, as it were.

In the first chapter, I called this story my personal mythology. I wasn't kidding. This one will be a long journey. Will it be as long as "Shifting Images"? I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it will be longer. But we'll just have to see, won't we?

It's not just Kisara who lifts her head and introduces herself this time. Seti also makes his first…real appearance. For those of you who have watched the Season Zero anime, or read the original manga, you probably know exactly what Seto looks like in that getup. And you can probably guess that this particular arrangement won't end well.

I've heard a rumor—shhh, don't tell anyone—that Seto is a bit of a control freak.

By the way, for those who don't know: Triple Triad is a collectible card mini-game featured in the Squaresoft (now Square Enix) RPG, Final Fantasy VIII.