I have been on a general hiatus for a while as I attempt to catch up on schoolwork and get things squared away for my transfer to university. As of now, I'm still on track but also unfinished, so we'll see how things go. In the meantime, I have here an update to the Cult's scripture.

I have called this story a mythology, and that probably doesn't make much sense yet. The reason for that is, this story is big. Not necessarily in terms of length just yet, but in terms of scope. I've been playing with this idea for years, and it's grown in accordance to that. I want to make sure that I do this one justice, because to do otherwise is unacceptable. I hold all writers to certain standards, and nowhere is this truer than in myself. Whether I match up to my own standards is a question I'm not qualified to answer, but suffice it to say the myth part of the equation will show up in time. I beg patience as I get to the point.

Hopefully, I have managed, and will continue to manage, to make it an entertaining ride along the way.

Verse One.

"They're...allowed to know, right, Niisama?"

Seto looked like he was actually running calculations in his head, trying to figure the risk-to-gain ratio, and Noa half-expected the man to shake his head. Thinking about it, Noa didn't think he'd actually heard the eldest Kaiba say no to the youngest in regards to anything so far, but he wondered if this would be one time where he would.

But then Noa thought back to what he knew about these two, to the research he had done, and he asked himself: when had Seto Kaiba—or Seto Yagami, for that matter—ever denied his baby brother? The answer would be yes. It had to be yes. No matter the level of hatred Seto may or may not hold for Yugi Mutou and his band, he would never make Mokuba keep something so important as family a secret from his friends.

His only friends.

They already knew the worst, anyway. Who Noa was. What he was. What he'd done and what he represented. Noa himself had seen to that. The part of the equation that worried Noa was whether or not Yugi and company would be half as forgiving of his previous conduct as Mokuba clearly was. Yugi probably would be. But Wheeler, and Taylor, and Gardner. Devlin, too. He'd been implicated, too.

Who knew with them?

It was a quiet but somewhat disturbing thought that Noa didn't much care what they thought about him, not honestly. But the level of anxiety on Mokuba's face right now as he all but begged his brother to let him reintroduce Noa to his friends, that had an effect on him. If he had to make them forgive him, he would do it. If only to make sure that Mokuba didn't worry anymore.

That was what mattered. He would bury the hatchet, and he would bend over backwards if that's what it took to get them to sign a peace treaty, if only to put Mokuba at ease. In that, he knew, he and Seto were of a mind. It didn't matter if he, personally, wanted their approval or not. Which, he figured, he didn't. He already had the approval he wanted. What mattered was that Mokuba wanted their approval.

Noa wondered how much of that was readable on his face, because Seto was watching him now, and it wasn't with his usual dismissal. It was with something that looked suspiciously like interest. Eventually he looked back at Mokuba, and sighed. "Yes, Mokuba. Of course. But don't expect them to be asforgiving as you have been." Noa saw the man's face soften, and his eyes grow warm, and when he spoke next, Noa realized that for the first time he wasn't hearing Seto Kaiba, CEO of the Kaiba Corporation and richest man in the hemisphere.

He was hearing Mokuba Kaiba's big brother.

Mokuba Kaiba's Niisama.

"...Noa may be family, and you know that he did all in his power to save us from death," and it actually sounded sincere this time, "but they may not realize this. To them, he may still be an enemy. Understand, Mokuba, that this might not go the way you want it to go."

Mokuba heard the change in his brother's tone, and seemed to understand that this wasn't the time to protest and proclaim that that won't happen, I'll make them understand, you'll see, just you watch. Instead he simply nodded his head and said, "Yes, Niisama."

They all three turned when someone entered the parlor; it was Kiko. She bowed. "My apologies for interrupting," she said, "but Mister Ackerman asked that you call him at three o'clock for a conference call with the Arizona branch if you are available, Seto-sama."

Seto checked his watch. "...Fine. Thank you." He looked over at Noa. "Copeland will drive you two to the Turtle Game Shop if you'd like to...visit." He grimaced, and turned his gaze to Mokuba. "Call him when you want a ride. I want you back home by six-thirty. As I recall, you have a science report to be drafting."

Mokuba nodded. "Yes, Niisama."

Seto looked back at Noa. "Look after him," he said.

It didn't feel like a request, or an order, or anything in between so much as it felt like a solemn oath spoken before a priest, a vow before God, and Noa nodded. Resolute and prepared, he said, "Wakarimashita."

Seto seemed to approve. He nodded, and walked away.

Verse Two.

The look on Yami's face reminded them all of a natural predator waiting, salivating, for its favorite prey. But more than that, he looked...fascinated. Those wine-colored windows of cold, calculated insanity were flickering, dodging and weaving as though searching for something. Absorbing something.

When the shop door opened, and the bell rang signifying someone's entrance, Yami bellowed out, before anyone else had even had a chance to turn and see who it was, a greeting that was boisterous, welcoming, and somehow threatening. "Welcome! The prodigal and prodigious sons return to our humble door!" He bowed deeply with a flourish, and his eyes were laughing.

At first Joey Wheeler had the absurd thought that Kaiba had lightened his hair. Then he realized that Kaiba wouldn't be caught dead in jeans, work boots, or a t-shirt. Mokuba looked just like he always did, but the man standing next to him was an absolutely mystifying combination of Kaiba and...anti-Kaiba. His face was sharp, his eyes were blue, his gaze was intelligent. He was tall, carried himself with confidence, and he stood near the black-haired boy, just behind him, with an unmistakable air of protectiveness. It all said: this is Kaiba.

But just the same...the clothes, the light, sandy-brown hair, but most importantly the expression on that angular face screamed that it wasn't Kaiba, and only Yami seemed to understand what the holy hell was going on.

Mokuba looked like he was going to explode.

Of all people, Tristan actually looked like he recognized the guy. He was squinting, and his head was tilting to one side like he really wasn't sure, but all the same there was a part of that look that said this guy, this Kaiba-ish guy, looked familiar to him. Well, yeah, he looked familiar to Joey, too. That was the whole point.

Joey was close enough to Yami to hear that the spirit was mumbling to himself. He thought he caught, "...sign...this is proof...he is the one..." and the blond wondered which one he was talking about. He didn't bother to ask. He looked back over at the pair standing just in front of the doorway. Mokuba seemed to be so excited that he didn't know what to do with himself, and the Kaiba-not-Kaiba looked perfectly content to stand there looking at them until the next ice age.

He'd always thought that Kaiba looked like a statue sometimes, and from the various things Joey'd read, both online and in print, a lot of people agreed with him on that particular score. Nonetheless, Joey recounted the entire thing when he realized that this guy, whoever he was, was the genuine article. Yes, he'd walked in, and yes, he seemed to be breathing, but Joey couldn't help but think...this was a statue. This was barely animated, so fundamentally still that he had to be a damned mannequin. He just had to be.

"You...you guys remember I told you that Niisama was working on a super top-secret project?" Mokuba asked finally, and Joey was grateful that someone had broken the silence. Then he saw the living statue shift his weight, and the spell was broken, too. He felt his entire body relax. "Remember how I said it was amazing, and it was gonna change everything?"

"...Yes," said Tristan, who raised an eyebrow.

"What's going on, Mokuba?" Téa asked. "Who...who is this?"

Yami's grin was splitting his face.

The living statue stepped forward, squeezing Mokuba's shoulder as he passed, and he bowed low, deep, and formal, entirely at odds with his attire. And when he rose back to full height, he spoke, too smoothly, in flawless Japanese:

"Watakushi no namae wa Kaiba Noa da. Yoroshiku-onegaishimasu."

Verse Three.

"Has it healed?"

He'd been flexing his fist, hanging low in his lap, as he stared at his palm and seemed to be doing his level best to forget the fact that he was conscious. His face was contorted in a grimace of such rage and pain that it sent a cold shiver down Isis Ishtar's back. She thought that her little brother was far too young to be wearing such an expression.

She had never been a caretaker to Malik. That job had always gone to Rishid. And yet Isis had been the first of them to actually escape the shadow of their past, and in that wasn't she the greatest irony of all? She, who professed to a belief in destiny, in preordained paths and predetermined roles, had been first to step off the path of her family and forge a life of her own.

So she was the oldest, even though Rishid had been born some years before she had. She ran the Ishtar household, such as it was, and she now took it upon herself to keep track of her brothers in a way that she never had before. She saw the raw pain on Malik's face, those old wounds carved from fury and grief, and it made her heart sick.

She sat down on the couch beside him. He seemed not to notice her. He seemed not to notice anything. He was still in his slacks and polo shirt; he probably hadn't moved since coming home from work. His face was streaked with tears, and she could now see that his hand was still very much burned. He'd removed the bandage and likely rubbed off the cooling gel in a fit of anger, and now he just stared at the bright red flesh of his palm as though it held some vision of horror that she couldn't imagine. The horror of what that wound meant, of what he had done to earn that wound. Everything he had ever endured, everything he had ever done, everything he had ever lost, was in that wound.

For reasons that she couldn't have verbalized if she'd tried, Isis reached over and around her brother's thin shoulders and pulled him to her. He went easily, and leaned against her in silence, still holding his hand palm-up in his lap. She rubbed her brother's shoulder like he was ten years old again, and he said nothing.

He didn't make a sound.

Malik sat there, leaning against Isis with his cheek resting on her shoulder, for what felt like an eternity. She was content in silence, opting to let him say the first word, if he chose to speak at all. And after a second eternity had passed, she began to hum. It was an old song, a song she hadn't even realized she remembered until she started. The lullaby her mother had sung to her, to keep her happy in her life of isolation, her life of rigid control and brutal routine. And it had kept her happy. She had always thought that for all the bad there was in their lives as servants to the long-dead king, there was good, as well. They were a family, united not only through blood but through purpose, and she had never had to worry about growing apart from them.

It was probably why she had insisted that they all move in together, once everything changed. And it was probably why Malik and Rishid both had readily agreed. It was why they'd vowed to each other that they would always be together, that they would take the single shining virtue of their life of slavery; take it, steal it from the past, and keep it to themselves out of spite.

And so she sang, of love and togetherness, of loyalty and freedom. She sang of mercy, and gratitude, and peace. She sang of life. And when Rishid came in from the kitchen, he did not speak. He simply stood in the doorway and smiled.

Malik began to cry.

Verse Four.

"I…who…how…what?"

To say that Mokuba Kaiba looked smug right now would be roughly analogous to calling the Atlantic Ocean a bit salty. Pride and excitement glowed in his grey-violet eyes, and it echoed in his voice. He was wearing the same Cheshire Cat grin he always wore when he was talking about his brother's exploits, but the charge, the current of excitement running through his entire body make it look almost predatory.

Like Yami.

If Mokuba was excited, though, then the spirit of the dead king was rapturous. They had all known that for whatever reason, Yami was rather attached to his rival. And they all remembered the torrential fury that had visited the ghost of Atemhotep when that rival had been turned to stone, seemingly trapped for eternity just inches from the boy standing in front of them, bouncing on the balls of his feet with a lunatic's grin on his face.

And who had done it? A stranger? A wanton sorcerer with a sadistic streak? God? No. It had been this man. Family. The boy who shared this man's name. There was no reason to steal that name, after all. It had to be him. To the world at large, Kaiba Noa—firstborn of Gozaburo—was a long-forgotten memory; and to those few who knew him, he was an enemy. It must be him.

And yet…

"Welcome to my home," said Yami, looking as accommodating as a kindly old matron. "Truly, he works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. A glorious achievement for the world of science and technology."

The man with the light blue eyes and the sandy brown hair dared a quiet, unnerved little smile. Mokuba, his cheeks flushed, jumped up and down, so ecstatic that he didn't even consider that his new companion might not be welcome.

Then again, one look at Yami's face said it all too clearly: he was welcome, now and forever, and woe betide he—or she—who might dissent. And were any of the others really surprised? Not really, no. Not at all.

It made no sense, and that was precisely why it fit Yami perfectly.

Noa cleared his throat. "I thank you," he said, in a deep—though not as deep as the man who resembled him so closely, and not at all gravelly—voice that was warm, bright…and shamed. "I do not deserve your hospitality." Mokuba started to speak, but Noa put up a hand to quiet him. "There are words in no language with which I could properly apologize for my actions. I ask…no. I beg only this: that you permit me the chance to atone. If not for my sake…then for his."

Had there ever been a look so worshipping? So heart-wrenchingly open? Noa didn't look at Mokuba the way that Kaiba did, with such fierce pride that it burned or such desperate affection that it choked. The look on Noa's face was just…open. Naked. Defenseless and content with that. It was the look of the honestly faithful kneeling at the feet of God.

And all of a sudden, who Kaiba Noa was and what he had been didn't seem to matter very much anymore. Never had they heard a request so heartfelt, so remorseful. So honest. There was no choice but to accept it. No other option. There just…wasn't.

In Yugi's mind, as he sat in his soul room with a smile on his face and tears streaming from his eyes, he heard an all too familiar chuckle.

I'm almost disappointed that he's lying, Yami said, the words permeating in through the walls. Yugi blinked. So masterfully presented. So beautifully composed. And so…fundamentally fake.

"What do you mean?" Yugi asked.

He couldn't care less about our opinions of him if held at gunpoint, Yami replied, with that same dark amusement in his voice that had once kept Yugi awake at night. I'm sure that the last part is true. He loves the little Kaiba with a ferocity that I have never seen before. He may well love that boy more than Kaiba does. I doubt it, but it is admirable nonetheless.

"…I don't understand."

He is falling on the sword for us so that Mokuba will not have to make a choice, Yami said. He is offering to atone because we—you—are the boy's friends, and thus you are important. If not for that…this creature would murder us without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow.

Verse Five.

"I understand, Seto-sama," Yoshimi Akiko said with a smile and a bow. "Of course. But…if I may ask…who is he? A friend? A cousin? A…?"

"Cousin," Seto said quickly. "The son of Koshinori Susumu. He is my predecessor's nephew." Akiko had noticed that in all the time she had worked at the Kaiba Estate, Seto never referred to Kaiba Gozaburo as his father. It was always his predecessor.

"And Noa-sama will be living at the house?"

"Yes." It seemed as though Seto were pulling the word out of himself, forcing it past his teeth. "Do as he asks of you…within reason. If you feel uncomfortable about any request he makes of you, tell Mokuba or myself. We will…handle it."

Akiko bowed again. "Of course, Seto-sama."

She tried to remember if her employer had ever said something like that before. He hadn't. She'd heard Roland Ackerman say once that, "He doesn't let anyone into his home that he wouldn't trust with his life." But she thought that, considering how pragmatic Seto was, the only reason he would say such a thing is if he thought it likely that Noa would ask her to do something…uncomfortable.

Akiko said, "…Is Bocchan safe with him?"

She expected him to say, "Yes, of course," or maybe she just hoped for it. Something else she'd heard Roland say was, "Of the ten people Master Kaiba does allow into the house, he trusts three of them alone with his brother. Myself, Miss Yoshimi, and Travis."

Surely, if Noa was now the fourth on that list, then Mokuba was safe with him…right? But the look on the eldest Kaiba's face was pained. Conflicted. Doubtful.

Scared.

And he said, "…If he isn't, then I have just made the worst mistake of my life. Again."

Verse Six.

"You start a new mythology class this week, don't you?"

Isis smiled and nodded. "Yes, Malik. I do."

Malik ran his hands through his bleach-blond hair and fidgeted for a while, like he wanted to say something but couldn't figure out how. Isis wondered if he was going to ask her if she could push it ahead a week so they could have a family outing, like he'd done a while back, the first time she'd taught a summer course.

He didn't.

Instead, he said, "Do you think…could you…use a…an assistant? Maybe for…for grading assignments or…something?"

Isis felt a pang. She had once offered her brother a position as her assistant in the classroom, when he had been struggling to find a job and had been ready to give up. He'd refused, saying that he had to find his own way, and didn't want to be a burden on her.

"Oh, Malik, I'm…I'm sorry," she said. Now that Malik had found work, she guessed that he felt comfortable enough to ask. "I already signed on one of my students for that." Malik's face fell, and he nodded like he wanted her to think that it was no big deal. But she knew what it must have taken for Malik to swallow his pride and ask such a thing, how desperate he must have been to even try. She felt guilt like she'd never known start to strangle her heart.

Then she had an idea.

"But…" she said, and Malik turned to look at her. "How about something else? Would you be interested in helping me deliver lessons? Lecture? Answer questions?"

The look on her brother's face made Isis want to cry. He looked like an eight-year-old who'd just been asked if he wanted ice cream for dinner. "Absolutely!" he declared.

"All right, then," she said, wondering how she was going to get the okay on this experiment, and not caring all that much. She'd never seen a look of such gratitude on her little brother's face before, and seeing it now woke a maternal instinct in her that she hadn't consciously realized was even there.

"We'll work that out."

Verse Seven.

"How?"

It shouldn't have been possible for Mokuba's grin to get any wider, but somehow it did. He said, with a bubbly voice so filled with excitement and pride and unfiltered happy that they couldn't help but smile with him, "I told Noa that if he promised not to…you know…do stuff. I promised I'd convince Niisama to build him a new body."

Téa blinked. Her mouth seemed to unhinge. "…Build?"

Mokuba nodded.

Noa inclined his head. "This body of mine is completely synthetic. Created in a lab." He winked. "Can't divulge any secrets but…Seto-sama is ten times the genius I ever gave him credit for being. He did it. He really did it."

Yugi heard Yami make a curious sound in his throat. Hm. Honest emotion again. He feels for Kaiba, as well.

"That's…fuckin' amazing," Joey said.

"I knew he could do it," Mokuba declared, and his chest puffed out. "Niisama can do anything. He reverse-engineered the technology Gozaburo used to keep Noa alive in that virtual world."

"It's a touch more complicated than that, Mokuba," Noa said gently, with an adoring, accommodating smile. "But yes. Generally speaking, that is what he's done."

"Hey, uh…you thirsty or anything?" Tristan asked. "Wanna soda?" He sounded unsure of himself, like he didn't know whether Noa got thirsty or not.

Noa blinked, surprised. "Ah…no. No, thank you. I'm fine."

"Cool. Mokuba?"

The black-haired boy mulled this over for a moment. "Could I have a 7-Up, please?"

"Comin' up," Tristan said with a wink, and he left the room looking all too pleased to go. He wasn't frightened, not really, but it wouldn't have been out of the ballpark to call him nervous as hell. Mokuba noticed; that much was clear by the flinching glance he gave Noa as the brunette disappeared. But when Noa returned the look, Mokuba's entire being seemed to snap back to happy. He blinked, then looked at the card table where the others were seated.

Yami caught that look; Yugi was sure of it. He could only see what the spirit saw, when Yami had control of his body like this, and only then if he concentrated. If Yugi saw it…then Yami had seen it ten times over. "Would either of you care to sit?" he asked in a half-facsimile of politeness. Mokuba's smile widened, and he even gave a subconscious little nod of approval.

Right on target.

Noa held up a hand. "Synthetic," he said with a lopsided grin. "No fatigue."

"Is that right?" Yami asked.

"Well, I'm sure it has limits, but…for the most part, yes."

"Fascinating." Yami rubbed his chin. "And have you tested the limitations of this new body?"

Noa crossed his arms, looking half-nervous, half-embarrassed. "…After a fashion," he said. Mokuba's face fell. Noa saw this and ruffled his brother's hair. "Mokuba's still not too thrilled with the way Niisama's chosen to welcome me into the family."

"Truth be told…forgive me for sayin' this, but…but I'm surprised he even did it," Joey said. "I mean, don't get me wrong. Ya saved our asses when the whole Missile Crisis went down. Counts for somethin'. Counts for a lot. But Kaiba? Fuck. That guy holds grudges more 'n the Mafia."

He does not like this line of conversation, Yami noted. Speaking ill of Kaiba puts the little one on edge, which strikes heavily on Noa's protective instinct. "Do tell, Noa," Yami said aloud before the embers in Noa's eyes had a chance to catch, "what will you do, now that your life is your own again?"

Noa thought on this. He finally said, after a long silence, "Rebuild my reputation. Prove myself worthy of what Seto-sama has made of my family's name."

Seto-sama, Yami mused. Another acquiescence to the boy's wishes. Fascinating. Yugi had discovered rather quickly that this was his partner's favorite word.

A customer came in. Noa stepped to the side, and before Yugi could even think to come forward, or before Joey even had a chance to speak, the older Kaiba bowed and said, "Welcome to the Turtle Game Shop, sir. Can I help you find anything today?"

The customer, an older man who clearly didn't know what to do with himself, looked around at the shelves of merchandise like an arachnophobe in a museum of mutated tarantulas and said, "My granddaughter asked for a book. A…a dungeons and…something. For her birthday. Handbook? Manual? I don't…"

"Player's Handbook?" Noa asked. "Dungeon Master's Guide? Monster Manual?"

Recognition sparked in the man's face. "Yes. Yes, that sounds…"

"Did she specify the edition? Second, third? Three-point-five? Fourth? The Essentials line is also an option."

"Ah…fourth, I believe," the man said. He pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket. "Ah…ayuh…yes. Fourth."

"Okay, well, we have a bundle here with all three volumes," Noa said, gesturing as Joey lifted a shrink-wrapped box from a shelf and showed it to the man. "It retails for about a hundred dollars, but just for you, we'll sell it for seventy." He winked. "Birthday discount."

In actuality, Sugoroku Mutou was far too stubborn to sell that particular product for anything less than ninety dollars, and that was on a sale. Shall I correct him? Yami asked, amused; and Yugi knew that he wouldn't.

Noa slipped some money to Joey without the customer noticing and went on, "And just for coming in today, we'll toss in a box of miniatures and a seven-piece set of dice." He strolled over to the counter like he'd been there a thousand times before, and pulled up the merchandise in question. "You let your granddaughter know when you give this to her. Have her bring in the receipt, and we'll be sure to set her up right and proper."

The man was grinning. "I certainly will! I wasn't sure about this place, but…thank you very much! I was expecting to pay much more than this!"

Noa bowed again. "My pleasure."

Joey rang up the purchase, scribbling something onto the receipt, and asking for the man's name. He also asked for the name of the granddaughter.

"Alicia," the man said.

Joey wrote down another note and set it onto the top of the cash register, sticking it there with a strip of clear tape. "A'right, then, Charles. All set up. Y'oughtta tell Alicia we run a weekly game down here at the shop. Part o' what's called the Encounters program." The blond handed Charles a flyer. He grinned. "Thanks for stoppin' in. You let us know if we can setcha up for anythin' else down the road."

"Absolutely!"

Charles shook Joey's hand, shook Noa's hand, tipped his hat to the others, and left the shop with a grin on his face.

Joey was the first to speak: "…The hell was that about?"

Mokuba was staring.

Noa shrugged, gave that lopsided grin again, and said, "What can I say? I'm a good Samaritan."

Joey chuckled. Mokuba beamed. Téa looked impressed.

Yami—and by extension, Yugi—was the only one to notice that the sandy-haired man's smile never reached his light blue eyes.

END.

1. Wakarimashita

This can be translated as: "Understood."

2. Watakushi no namae wa Kaiba Noa da. Yoroshiku-onegaishimasu.

This phrase amounts to: "My name is Kaiba Noa. Pleased to meet you." Another way to translate this second phrase, the more accurate way (as I am given to understand) is: "Please treat me kindly."

By using the formal, yet humble, "Watakushi" to refer to himself, and yet using the informal (and potentially rude) form, "da," rather than the standard "desu" at the end of the first sentence, I was attempting to give Noa a bit of a duality. Polite, humble, yet still…off. This is also the reason for his display with Charles at the end of the chapter.

The "Dungeons & Dragons Encounters" program is a real program run by Wizards of the Coast as a way for new players to get into the game quickly and easily. Weekly sessions of the game are run at participating game/comic/hobby shops, and anyone is permitted a spot at the table, provided there's room. This felt like something Yugi and company would be involved in doing, and so I added it here.

It should be noted that, while Yami may be shrewd and quite capable of reading people, he's also a bit of a pessimist. Thus, it's a good idea to take anything he says with a grain of salt.

Or…is it?