If you remember, there was a little agreement between Noa and Mokuba a while back. Noa told Mokuba that he would make sure that Seto cooled off about the…issue of Malik. For a long time, I've been struggling to figure out just what argument he would use to get Seto's mind to change; I've finally hit on it.

The result is the first verse of this chapter.

The second and third verses are setting a couple of major events in motion, which will come to fruition soon. I've come to realize that I've spent 50,000+ words on this story so far, and have yet to reach the first scene of the original story on which this is based. I think this says much more about the original story than it does about this one; I skipped a lot of the usual process with "Shifting Images," and the result is that I have written a full novel-length manifesto of what I neglected before reaching the point that the "real story" can begin.

This is to say that the event that kicked off "Images," that is the introduction of Seto's Egyptian ancestor, is coming up very soon.

Verse One.

"I was under the apparent delusion that we were finished discussing this topic. How many more weeks must we return to it?"

If Seto had to point to one thing about the newest addition to his daily routine—perhaps the only thing—that he appreciated, it was tenacity. Noa had to know better than anyone that Seto detested his presence, and was being entirely deliberate when he avoided it. But Noa wasn't about to play ball. For reasons Seto could only guess (part of him knew, but refused to admit it), he was bound and determined to…

Well…Seto wasn't sure what to call it.

Annoy him to death, perhaps.

"What point would there be to discussing anything at all if the point hasn't been made?" Noa asked, twirling his fedora on the index finger of his right hand. Seto opened his mouth, but Noa cut him off; something nobody had had the audacity to do in a number of years: "I've made the point several times, but you still refuse to accept its merit. I can tell, because it's still written on your face. Maybe Mokuba can't see it anymore, but I can. That means I'm not done. Until I've convinced you to at least think about this fuster-cluck with Malik Ishtar from another perspective, my efforts to now will have been for nothing. I like wasting time just as much as you do, Aniki."

"Why do you insist on calling me that?" Seto hissed.

"Why do you insist on changing the subject?" Noa shot back. "Is this the Seto-sama that's made headlines? Is this the Kaiba-shachou that's built an empire? I surely hope not. I hear tell you're known for cutting out social niceties and general bullshit when you talk to people. Yet here I sit, having experienced little else."

Infuriating.

Disgusting in its misplaced arrogance, eternally vexing in its insistence.

…And right.

"Fine," Seto snapped. "I will explain: I have spent a great number of years attempting to teach Mokuba that my reputation is my own concern. I don't want him feeling insulted on my behalf."

"Yes, you do," Noa replied. "It's what makes it possible for you to play the duck's-back routine in public. Knowing that Mokuba will vent for you lets you wash your hands of it. If he didn't do that, you'd go right back to screaming in peoples' faces, and you'd have an ulcer long before you turn thirty."

"He shouldn't feel insulted on my behalf."

"Shouldn't he? That's what love means, Aniki: putting someone else's needs and wants on a level with your own. If Mokuba loves anyone or anything, and I've reason to believe he loves a great many people and things, it's you. He's proud of you. You're his hero. That wouldn't count for much if he didn't get upset when you're treated like trash." Noa stood up, suddenly serious. "I'm going to mention something that you aren't going to want to hear. And you're going to tell me to shut up as soon as I start, and you're going to try threatening me out of the room. I'm not going to comply, so I hope you'll have the sense to resist the urge to try it."

Was this what it felt like to commune with an equal?

Was this what other people felt when he talked to them?

Seto didn't know.

But he leaned back in his chair and gestured dismissively. "Speak, then. Apparently I can't stop you."

"When you both were trapped in my world," Noa said, and Seto immediately felt his entire body go tense, "and I had Mokuba trapped with me in my…private sanctum, or whatever you'd like to call it, I asked him why he put up with you." Seto felt something snap inside of him, and the urge to do exactly as Noa had predicted—get the fuck out of my office before I rip your goddamned face off—was suddenly so overwhelming that he felt himself beginning to stand.

He forced himself to stay still.

Noa's eyes were hungry, his mouth twitching in the beginnings of an unconscious smirk, and Seto knew he was watching for just such an urge. Seto refused to let this upstart machine get one up on him. He scowled, but did not speak.

"So cold," Noa said, sounding now like he was reciting something he'd memorized from a play; his voice seemed to soften. "So impersonal, so angry. So dangerous. Why would you stay with someone like that, I asked him. Why not stay here with me, I asked him. I wouldn't treat him like that. I wouldn't hold him to such obscene standards. Why, if he just stayed with me, all he would ever have to do is…keep me company. Be my friend, be my family. Love me. Isn't that all family can ever ask from one another? Do you know what Mokuba said to me?"

There was emotion in Noa's voice now. Real emotion. Much like Yami, Seto could tell the difference in him: when Noa was faking, and he faked often, it was too perfect. Too appropriate. Whatever feelings were going through Noa right now, they were tinted with a rawness, a kind of unconscious selfishness—as though by telling this story, by imparting this information, Noa was claiming Mokuba for himself—that was…rare.

That, if nothing else, made Seto listen when he hadn't before.

For the first time in a number of weeks, Noa was being honest with him.

"He said, 'Niisama wants what's best for me. He doesn't want me to sit around, waiting for stuff to fall into my lap. He wants me to push myself. Not 'cuz he expects me to, but because he knows the world does. He doesn't want the world to hurt me, and that means I have to be strong. But I don't care how much I get hurt. I just want to help him.'"

A lightning bolt of something Seto hadn't felt in years surged through him.

Noa's eyes narrowed. "He already knows what you want. He already knows what you expect. And he tries harder than anybody has a right to tell him. There are grown adults, who've already gotten used to this fuck-hole world we live in and half-expect to be confronted by horrible things, who can't muster up that kind of courage once, much less how often he does it. I want you to think about something, Kaiba-shachou, and I want you to think hard: should anybody, no matter what age or gender or background or any other contingency, be forced to sit in the same room with someone who tried to murder them?"

Seto glared; he already hated what he was about to say, hated that he had just been backed into a corner. But he was no liar. He said, "…No."

"Should a ten-year-old boy, who has already been abducted once in his life, starved and kept in a cell and reduced to bait dangling on a string, be forced to sit in the same room with someone who tried to murder him?"

"No."

"What about a ten-year-old boy who's been abducted twice? Three times? Four times? Mokuba's been put into the line of fire so many times, I can't fathom how he's still sane. Do you understand me? My mind is a machine, Aniki; it's the way you made me. I've run through every scenario I can fathom, and cannot figure out how he gets up in the morning. I've read every book on mental and emotional health I can find, contemporary or otherwise, and none of them tell me that. But he does get up in the morning, and not only that, he does it with a smile on his face and an 'I love you' on his lips. Do you realize that every member of that boy's family has failed him? His parents, his godparents, his adoptive parents? You? Me? Not to mention the people who have the nerve to call him friend?"

Seto didn't bother to be insulted. He knew that Noa was right. What else could it be called, letting Mokuba fall into danger so many times, if not failure? Seto was his guardian, his protector. People called it amazing, what he did for the boy. But in the darkest parts of him, Seto knew that Noa was right.

"He comes to you, his Niisama, his last line of defense, after being confronted with one of the most traumatizing events of his life. He comes to you after coming face-to-face with a man who, by all rights, should have gotten a lethal goddamned injection for what he did, and what do you do? Look down your nose at him, and turn your back. Because of what? Because of me? Because he had the audacityto forgive one monster but not another? How many betrayals have you forgiven?"

Silence. Tense, strangling silence.

"But does he falter? Does he miss a step? No. He steps up, and does what Niisama wants him to do. Even though it hurts. Even though it should induce nightmares. Would you do that? I wouldn't. Which brings me to the last thing I intend to say about this matter: by what right, exactly, do we judge him?"

And just like that, abruptly and without any real warning, Noa stepped back, bowed deeply, and turned on a heel.

Placing his hat upon his head, he left the room.

Seto sat there, staring at the door, stunned.

And then he laughed.

Verse Two.

The McKinley family was a mix of normality and eccentricity.

Which made it…perfectly normal.

Kay Mayer supposed that if she'd expected anything, after hearing what she'd heard from Renie, that they would be subdued. Friendly, and gracious enough, but quiet. Distant, maybe. But it seemed that Katie's exuberance and generally accommodating personality had been inherited, because Grace and Darren welcomed Kay to their home as if she were a long-lost relative.

There was an unspoken understanding that everyone, even her husband, was to refer to Grace using her middle name, Jennifer. Both her friends had mentioned this to Kay ahead of time, who decided she would stick to "Missus McKinley" for the time being. She was slim, of a height with her daughter, and carried a quiet sort of authority that Kay found instantly familiar. Here, Kay thought, was a wife and mother who knew precisely what she wanted out of her life, and refused to let anyone get in the way of it. Her hair was cut at her jawline, bobbed and blonde with just the barest hint of grey that might have been a trick of the light.

Jen hugged Renie like she was part of the family, right after all but smothering her own child with an enthusiasm clearly meant to embarrass. Katie accepted this attention with quiet dignity, straining to keep a straight face. Kay laughed.

She hadn't quite known what to expect from her new friend's mother; Katie didn't talk about her much. "She's a hawk," Renie had said once. "One o' those moms you watch for when you're up to no good, 'cuz she's not above calling you out in public. The old girl don't tolerate no bullshit."

Katie had simply grinned a quiet little grin, which had told Kay more than enough on the general subject, so she hadn't asked.

It seemed, however, that Katie took every opportunity to wax poetic on her father. She upheld the man's honor with a kind of ferocity Kay hadn't seen very often; if she was within earshot of anybody criticizing any form of law enforcement, regardless of the context, Kay had learned to anticipate a long, impassioned sermon.

This loyalty came to a head when the good detective, still with a coat slung over his arm, entered the house through the back door and walked into the front room. Katie launched herself at him with a cry of "Daddy!" that would have been right at home on the lips of a four-year-old. Renie grinned, and Jen laughed.

"You again?" Darren asked, quirking an eyebrow. "And here I thought we were finally rid of you." He scoped the room, saw Kay, and frowned. "What'd I tell you, Jen? You keep letting them in the house, we'll end up infested." But his hazel eyes were bright, his smile genuine, and he held his daughter to him as though never intending to let go. He ruffled her hair. "How's it going, kiddo?"

"I'm all right." Katie eventually unlatched herself and gestured grandly. "The new infestation is Kay Mayer."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Kay offered, inclining her head.

Detective McKinley was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a suit with a kind of half-casual air that suggested he wasn't fond of dressing up but had no choice; his slacks and jacket were a soft tan, his shirt and tie black. His dark brown hair was gelled and spiked, his face clean-shaven except for a patch on his chin. He was somehow both younger and older than his wife; something about those eyes, though they gleamed vibrantly, bespoke heavy, heavy hardship.

But then, he was a cop.

Then Kay remembered Zack, and a dark curiosity met her. Not that she was nearly tactless enough to ask. Nor was she tactless enough to allow any of this to show on her face; he seemed to notice nothing of the dark thoughts going through her mind at that moment, because he smiled broadly and held out a hand in greeting. "Pleasure's mine," he said. "Darren McKinley. Whatever they've told you about me, ignore it. They're crazy. We tried to get them on medication, but they skipped town."

Now Kay knew where Katie'd gotten her signature grin from; when father and daughter smiled, they could have passed for twins. She shook the hand offered to her. "I assure you, sir, I take everything these two tell me with a properly prescribed grain of salt."

"Then there's hope for your generation yet."

"What are you studying, Kay?" Jen asked.

"Education," Kay said. "I want to teach. Junior high or high school."

"Good for you." It didn't sound like a platitude. It sounded like real acknowledgement.

"Oh," Darren said, during a lull in the general pleasantries that come with meeting a new person, "before I forget. Because you'll scalp me if I don't tell you." He reached into a back pocket and retrieved a folded sheet of paper. As he unfolded it, he assumed the stance and bearing of a medieval herald announcing a royal wedding. "There will be a Magic & Wizards tournament next week at KaibaLand. Tickets went on sale last month." He reached into a second pocket. "I'm on security, so I got, like, six of them."

Renie immediately snatched up the sheet of paper, read it, and squealed. Kay blinked, and even Katie seemed surprised. Darren, however, was completely unabashed. He was chuckling. Renie handed the paper to Katie. Her reaction was identical to her friend's; she somehow even managed the same pitch.

Kay waited patiently; she was sure she wouldn't have to wait long.

"The Kaiba Electronic Gaming Corporation," Darren announced, "is pleased to reveal that for the first time in three years, former worldwide Magic & Wizards champion Seto Kaiba will enter the arena, to do battle with his none other than his own heir and vice-president, Mokuba Kaiba."

Jen quirked an eyebrow.

Kay frowned curiously. "Heir?" she repeated.

Darren was grinning at her. "Since you've spoken to these two, they've obviously told you about our resident golden boys. Trust me, you'll want to see this. Even if you aren't interested in games, you'll want to see this."

Glancing at her friends, who were giddy with excitement, Kay's frowned deepened. "Indeed," she murmured. "Just out of curiosity, what are the odds of my staying in this city without learning how to play this game?"

"I'd sooner buy my life savings' worth of scratch tickets before taking that bet," Darren said.

"Do you play?"

"Not now, I don't," Darren said, but there was a certain distance, an edge to his voice.

Kay decided to change the subject, her thoughts on Zack again. "How long have you known Mister Kaiba?" she asked.

"Going on two years now." The detective's voice returned to normal.

"What…sort of man is he? Katie and Renie have told me a lot about him, but…sometimes I think they might be biased."

The two girls, locked in a private conversation, looked over. "What was that?" Renie asked sharply. "Biased? I?"

Darren shrugged. "If you go to this event, chances are you'll learn everything you need to know about him. Seto's honesty in public is one of his most grievous faults."

Verse Three.

There was something…different about the elder Kaibas as they came striding up to Isis Ishtar's classroom.

They were dressed like normal: Noa in a white suit, Seto in a black one. Noa wore a hat, Seto wore a trench coat; Noa wore a grin, Seto a scowl. They were mirror images, entirely opposed. And yet…the way they walked, almost like they were being controlled by a single mind, bespoke a…bond? Some recent understanding, maybe?

Isis stepped up behind Mokuba, who was grinning from ear to ear, and inclined her head as the two men approached. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," she said.

"Doctor Ishtar," Seto replied.

"Sensei," Noa offered.

"If I could speak with you privately?" Isis asked Seto, gesturing to the room.

Seto glanced at Noa, who seemed to catch the unspoken command. Seto stepped through the doorway and Isis followed, closing the door behind her. It struck Isis that this was the first time she had been face-to-face with this man in more than a year. He looked no different now than he had then, or any other time she had met with him: equal parts cold, harsh, and severe. Like the icebergs trapped in his eyes.

Isis stepped over to her desk and sat down. "This class's first research paper was turned in last week," she said. "The original assignment required five pages. I offered a compromise for your brother's sake, and told him that I would accept from him a standard five-paragraph essay. He refused."

Seto's usual smirk rose on his lips, though it was not nearly as sharp as Isis remembered.

"I've just gone over the paper he turned in. He's written about the myths of Horus and Set." She lifted it. "Have you read this?"

"I've not," Seto admitted. "What score did he receive?"

Isis chuckled, and handed the stapled sheets to Seto. Atop the title of the paper, "Order and Chaos," was a bright red 93. Seto flipped through the paper, his eyes flitting across each page. When he reached the end, he looked rather surprised, but most certainly not displeased.

"I'm concerned," Isis said. "How is he doing in his standard classes, Mister Kaiba? I would hate to think that he is sacrificing any of them for the sake of my own."

"I receive weekly progress reports from his instructors," Seto said dismissively. "There is no reason for concern." Or at least, he tried to sound dismissive; he actually sounded quite pleased. "Your comments are quite extensive, one might even say critical, considering this score."

"Mokuba has decided to treat me like a college instructor; I intend to treat him like a college student. There are a number of things I felt necessary to mention that did not affect his score. If he has the time and inclination, I should like him to go over these comments, revise the assignment, and return it to me. For extra credit, you understand."

"Indeed," Seto said, reading through his brother's work for the second time. "Is extra credit necessary in this case?" he asked.

"Not particularly," Isis said. "He's doing quite well, actually. Better than a number of the others. But there's always room for a buffer, wouldn't you say?"

Seto nodded. "Very well."

A smile rose on the young doctor's face. "He's a gifted boy."

"Yes, he is." He walked over to the door; as he reached for the knob he said, without looking back, "Will you be assigning any homework tomorrow? I'm afraid I'll need Mokuba to attend a conference with me."

Somehow, Isis knew he was lying.

But her smile widened. "Don't worry about it. I'll work it out with him next week."

Seto glanced back at her and nodded. "Thank you, Doctor Ishtar."

"You're quite welcome."

He left, but Isis could hear the Kaibas' voices as they began talking.

Isis heard Mokuba say, "I got a what?"

She heard Noa laugh. "Atta boy!"

She heard Seto say, "Good work, kid."

Isis could picture the two of them, ruffling Mokuba's hair and patting his back, beaming down at him. It made her think of her own brother, and she suddenly felt guilty. It was a dark pit, that guilt, somewhere between her heart and her stomach, pulsing. Aching.

Suffocating.

"Seti…son of Akhenaten…" Isis whispered under her breath, and shuddered.

END.