Well, hello, there! How fair ye on this fine morning?

Before we get on with the chapter today, I have an announcement to make. A couple of weeks ago, I officially relaunched my YouTube channel: "Story Time with Iced Blood." If you head on over there (there's a link on my profile page), as of this upload you'll find the first nine episodes of my personal "Let's Play" of Capcom's Resident Evil 4.

For those who don't know, think of a Let's Play as one long commentary track set to videogame footage, like you'll find on movies or TV shows; replace the show or movie with gameplay, and replace the cast/crew with a fan. That's me! So if that strikes you as interesting, then head on down and join me as I tackle one of my favorite games of all time. This channel could well become a career for me, so if you want to support me, that's one way to do it. My channel is still in its infancy, so every little bit of support is very much appreciated.

Now then, how's about we get back into the thick of things. When last we left our favorite misanthrope, he was trying to adjust to life in an illusion. Let's see how he's handling things, shall we?

Verse One.

"…His name is George Blake." Yuki pronounced the name as though she were talking to someone hard-of-hearing; it was like she was trying to ensure that the record of this cataclysmic event came out right, even though it was obvious that no one was recording anything. They weren't even talking to the principal, or the vice-principal. Yuki and Kohaku had been delegated to dealing with a college student trying to survive a summer internship.

"And, ah…what is it that this Blake has done?" asked the senior secretary for Quentin Oak Elementary School's faculty assistant. He had a form in front of him, but he wasn't writing anything down. He had the glazed look of someone who wanted nothing less than to come to work, but had no particular choice in the matter.

Yuki's eyes were hard, flinty; her expression was a precursor to her firstborn son's signature glare. She said, "He's hurting my son." She didn't use the word bullying, apparently of the opinion that such phrasing would detract from her credibility. "He came home with a black eye. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't tolerate that kind of treatment. I hope you intend to help me, because I was under the impression that this school had a zero tolerance policy. Am I wrong?"

The secretary didn't wear any kind of nametag, so there was no way of guessing his name, else Yuki would have used it, in the same sort of tone she reserved for her children when they didn't do their chores soon enough for her liking.

It caught the young man's attention. He drew in a deep breath and finally started scratching words into the blank spots on his form. "You said his name was George Blake," he said slowly. "Your son's name?"

"Mokuba Yagami."

It was three o' clock in the afternoon. Classes had let out for the day. A few minutes of repetitive questions later, Seto came striding into the office without even bothering to announce himself. He carried himself with the bearing of the man he had become, rather than the boy he was inhabiting, and as such no one quite knew what to do about him.

He sidestepped the front desk and entered the faculty assistant's office, where the Yagamis were haggling with an unpaid phone jockey who had no clue what he was doing. The school's faculty wanted to tell him that he couldn't just walk in without an appointment, but somehow they couldn't.

Seto crossed his arms and waited for a break in the conversation. He said, "Why didn't anyone on the faculty report this to us?" The three adults in the office all flinched; no one had noticed him slip inside. Seto continued, his voice low and slow: "This school has anti-bullying legislation in effect, doesn't it? Aren't you obligated to inform my parents of any sign of bullying? Physical or emotional? He obviously didn't go to the nurse, but his teacher should have noticed something wrong." Seto's eyes flared, and the intern flinched away from him. "Who is my brother's teacher? He or she should be here. I want to know why this was ignored. Why was—" he almost said I, but didn't; he started over:"Why were we the first ones to notice this?"

The immensity of relief and pleasure that Seto felt while he watched the young intern squirm in his chair was something he didn't think he would ever be able to properly describe. He was used to the look of confusion-tinged fear on the man's face; it brought him back into something like equilibrium.

And then the world turned itself upside down when Yuki turned to look at him and said, "Thank you, honey, but let us handle this. In fact, wait outside in the hallway, please. We won't be long."

Seto's first impulse was to argue, but he stopped himself when he realized every indignant retort that came to his mind didn't match the situation. He wanted to tell her to be quiet, and let him handle this because he was Mokuba's guardian, not her. But that wasn't true, was it? He wanted to tell her that he'd done this before, too many times to count, and the faculty would respond to him far more readily than it would to her. But that wasn't true, either, was it?

Seto bowed his head. "Sorry," he said, then turned on a heel and left the office.

He stood in the hallway, watching the other students as they milled out of the building. He sensed, before he heard or saw, Kohaku approaching him. He didn't turn to look at the man—he didn't think he could stomach looking at a man he'd grown up hating—but kept his eyes out, and moving.

Kohaku said, "…You don't remember your uncle, do you?"

Seto shrugged, because he figured he was supposed to. "No."

"His name is Mitsuru. We call him 'Mit.' Last time you saw him, you were no more than two." Kohaku sat down in a plastic chair next to where Seto was standing. He put a hand on Seto's shoulder, and Seto almost managed not to flinch. "He's a year younger. Close enough that we might as well have been twins. For the longest time, we were pretty much at each other's throats whenever we were in the same room. Got to the point where my mother stretched out the neck of a t-shirt, and made us wear it at the same time. She called it our 'Get-Along' shirt."

Seto smirked.

"Part of the problem, we figured out after about two-and-a-half decades of bickering at each other, is that I was so convinced it was my job to look after my 'baby brother' that I never let him do anything on his own without…you know…injecting my opinion. Know what I mean?"

The smirk disappeared into a scowl. "…That's not the problem," Seto muttered.

"Maybe not," Kohaku said. "But I'm bringing this up because…I can tell you're not in the best mood right now. You're mad. I get it. Your little brother's getting bullied, and you want to help him." He squeezed Seto's shoulder, then patted him on the back. "You've got a few years on Mokuba. It's only natural."

"But I need to back off," Seto guessed.

"No, no, that's not what I mean. I just mean…your mom does a pretty good job advocating for you two on her own. Now, I know you're probably already smarter than the both of us put together. Your brain's so quick it scares me sometimes. But the thing is, this is part of our job. Okay? You don't have to shoulder this one. We can handle it."

Seto had to bite through his tongue to keep from laughing.

"Okay?" Kohaku prompted, and Seto nodded quickly, jerkily. "Good. Now why don't you head out to the younger kids' playground? Mokuba's probably out there. Go and get him, huh? We'll be done soon. Meet us out here."

Seto nodded again.

Kohaku smiled, ruffled his son's hair, and left.

Verse Two.

There were two playgrounds at Quentin Oaks. One was specifically for the use of fifth- and sixth-graders; the other was for first to fourth. Seto noted with some interest that, even though there was no specific barrier which determined this, he could still feel it. It existed independent of any paint on the blacktop.

It was an odd thing to notice, since he'd never been bothered to check if such a hierarchy existed back at his elementary school, which he'd only attended for a handful of years. If such a concept had been in place, wherein it was simply understood that the "big kids" stayed on one end of the school while "the rest" huddled at the other, Seto would have remembered. He didn't. This fact nettled the back of his mind in a way that confused him, since it was usually so easy for him to recall information from his past. What was the point, he found himself musing, of a perfect memory if—well, if it wasn't perfect?

These thoughts, and however many thousands more, had flitted this way and that behind his eyes by the time he came across the scene. He saw Mokuba first, leaving the playground through a gate in the fence at the perimeter, headed for the front of the school. Seto prided himself on the fact that he recognized his brother, even when his most defining feature—from such a distance, that had to be his hair—was markedly different. But, he couldn't help but wonder if this had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the fact that he was living through a delusion.

George Blake came next, flanked by two other boys that looked like they belonged in high school. The newly-young Kaiba (Yagami?) held back as he walked, gauging the situation as best he could from his position, not wanting to jump in until he was sure. When Mokuba finally turned around and took notice of the three boys tailing him, Seto broke into a run.

His legs didn't move as quickly, or as well, as he thought they should.

Seto forced himself to slow down again as he slipped through the gate. It wouldn't do to show himself to a potential threat while struggling to suck air into his lungs like a drowning man. Putting on his most patented scowl instead, Seto clenched and unclenched his fists with a thrum of sudden anticipation. Mokuba had pushed himself up against a marquee announcing a bake sale for the upcoming weekend, and was flitting his vision from one antagonist's face to the next; he didn't even notice his brother's approach.

My Mokuba would have seen me five minutes ago, Seto thought, and felt a twinge of guilt that he didn't understand. Then he thought, My Mokuba wouldn't have let himself get cornered out in the open like this in the first place, and suddenly he understood that twinge perfectly. It would do no good to compare Mokubas. His brother was his brother, and this brother was eight.

This brother isn't real, he thought.

He shook his head; this was no time to wax philosophical. Seto breathed deep, and did his best to project his voice the way that his adult self would have. He called out, interrupting Blake mid-threat: "This is the part where nobody cares about the indecipherable babblings spilling out of your suck-hole. Do us all a favor and go play in traffic."

Seto's sense of satisfaction at the look of sudden surprise on Blake's face lasted exactly six seconds.

The moment of absolute shock, when an enemy doesn't know what to do with himself, and stared at his opponent because there weren't any other options but to let his jaw go slack, didn't happen. Instead, one of Blake's lieutenants turned, reeled back, and sent a fist straight into Seto's teeth. With a disconnected, dispassionate cynicism, Seto flew backward and felt his body slam against the pavement. A shockwave of pain made him clench his teeth so tightly that he thought they might crack.

Blake gestured. "Brought backup today, huh, Yagami?" he asked Mokuba, who had finally noticed Seto but was staring at him like he'd never seen him before. Blake had the voice of a young whale; it gurgled, and it set Seto's tender teeth on edge. "That the best you could come up with? Some nerd?"

Seto clawed to his feet, and brushed off his shirt. His scowl deepened. "This has nothing to do with your victim of the week, Neanderthal. I just don't like your face. Have you thought about covering it with a paper sack? You could draw on it with those scratch-and-sniff markers they sell at hobby stores. You'd look and smell better."

The words weren't necessarily his own. They didn't feel like his own. And yet, they did.

This time he was ready; he sidestepped the next punch, gripped the older, taller, meaner boy by the wrist, and flung the offending obstacle over his shoulder and slammed him into the concrete. Seto was so convinced that he'd actually done this that, when he found himself flat on his back again with clouds in his vision and the taste of copper in his mouth, he actually thought something had short-circuited in his own memory.

He played back the last handful of seconds and realized that what he'd actually done was tried to catch the boy's fist, failed miserably, and smashed his teeth against the inside of his mouth. His body hadn't obeyed him, not in the slightest. It just plain…hadn't.

"Try again, nerd!" Blake crowed.

Seto stumbled back to a standing position again. He was already sore. His new (old) body wasn't used to this sort of punishment, much less the rigorous, ruthless training he'd been forcing onto himself for so many years. His brain told him that he should be able to brush this off, but his body cried out at the injustice of it.

He guessed that he really was twelve years old again. And yet, he remembered being twelve. He remembered that he'd already started learning to defend himself, out of purest necessity. He remembered the older children at the orphanage, who had taken so much savage excitement out of stealing Mokuba's toys and knocking Seto's books into the mud.

With a jolt, Seto thought he understood.

He had known how to defend himself at twelve; this boy didn't. And why not? This boy had grown up with his family. This Seto never went to live with godparents who drank more than they slept. This Seto never lived at an old orphanage with barely enough funding to stay functional. This Seto never sought out the horrific freedom offered by the Kaiba name.

This Seto was weak.

This Seto was knocked backward again, this time by a kick to the middle, and he was so caught up in his stream of revelations that he didn't even feel it. He didn't resist, he didn't cry out; he just crumpled.

Blake chortled, and turned his attention back to his favored target: the trembling eight-year-old boy with hair that was too short and eyes that were too soft. Seto rolled over, shaking as he threw himself up to one knee, and hissed: "You don't have the right to look at him, you sniveling little shit."

Mokuba was staring at him now, focused with every fiber of his little body on the brother that he didn't recognize. He was scared, terrified even, but more than that he was confused. Seto saw the boy mouth his name, that name that sounded so foreign to Seto's own ears.

Blake recovered—this time he had been shocked—and narrowed his eyes as he turned his back on Mokuba. Seto smiled, except it came out like a grimace. Blake said, "…What'd you call me?"

Seto tossed himself up to his feet, swayed, and shook his head. "I called you a sniveling, sister-fucking little shit!" he snarled. "Look at you. Big man. Punching little boys because they're smarter than you. What do you think that proves? What do you think the world sees, when they watch you spitting and snarling at a kid? You think they see a warrior? You think they see a badass? I'll tell you what they see: a pathetic, inbred waste of space!"

"Who the hell are you, nerd?" Blake asked, actually bewildered.

The other boys each grabbed Seto by one arm.

Seto spat in Blake's face. "I'm probably the first person to ever tell you what you are, and you're too stupid to see it. So why don't you find a ditch to die in, Blake? The world will be better off."

Blake sent a mammoth block of a fist slamming straight into Seto's stomach.

Seto remembered his ancestor, his previous incarnation, and the untold eons of torture that Millennium Magic could create. He did now what he'd done then: laughed. He laughed, and tore himself out of the grip of Blake's flunkies. He pushed past Blake, stumbled, and careened straight into his brother, pushing Mokuba flat against the marquee. Mokuba cried out "Seto!" more in surprise than pain.

"Oh-ho, so you do know this nerd, do you?" Blake snarled. "Spill it, Yagami. Who's your boyfriend? Huh? You two kiss each other in the broom closet at recess? Huh? You a faggot, Yagami? Is that what you are?"

"Good God, would you cram it?" Seto spat, holding himself upright with arms that were already starting to shake. "Your stupid voice is lowering my IQ!" He closed his eyes, refusing to look down at his brother. He was about to whisper, Run, but they were already closing in. The first kick sent a knife into his ribs. The second made his breath hitch and he very nearly cried out.

In that moment, when he realized that he was no longer a weapon, Seto became a shield.

He fell to the ground, swept his arms around his brother, and gritted his teeth.

Verse Three.

When his sons didn't come back in a handful of minutes, Kohaku Yagami decided to trust his gut—which said to go and check on them—rather than his better judgment—which told him to wait because Seto would take offense.

He popped his head into the room where Yuki was now speaking to a grey-haired woman dressed in blue. He said, "Gonna check on the boys. Meet us at the car, yeah?"

Yuki nodded. "Fine." She went back to what she'd been saying without a hitch.

This done, Kohaku made his way out to the playground, hands in his pockets; he nearly started whistling. He didn't believe that either of his children could possibly be in any danger. Not now. The likelihood was astronomical. Later, he would wonder at the sheer stupid hubris of this assumption, but in the moment he had no particular sense of urgency kicking at his heels. True, he felt the need to check on his boys, but that was more out of obligation than concern. He figured he might need to play mediator between them—Mokuba was fiery; he'd inherited his mother's temperament—and was comfortable with this role.

So comfortable, in fact, that he'd already slipped into it, and when he rounded a corner and found a group of boys in the front of the school, kicking at something—or someone—Kohaku had no idea what to make of it. He just stared. Then he caught a flash of the back of his firstborn's shirt. He heard Mokuba's voice cry out in a terrified, tortured wail:

"Leave my brother alone!"

People mistook Kohaku Yagami for a slow man, without much intellect. Seto, with his sharp-as-a-razor approach to everything academic that had ever been placed in front of him, had made this mistake any number of times.

Kohaku Yagami was not a slow thinker; he was a thorough one.

In a flash of a moment as he realized that his sons were being beaten, Kohaku realized three things, each as sharp and vivid as any religious epiphany: one, this was far more serious than a simple meeting with school faculty could ever solve; two, if Yuki had been out here, she would have immediately gone on the offensive and torn into George Blake and his pair of friends like a wild lioness; three, Kohaku would not, could not, do this.

He strode forward, his face set in a statue's grimace that Seto would have found hauntingly familiar, and barked out a single, echoing, stark command narrowed into one word: "Hey!"

Where Seto's taunts had done nothing, Kohaku's snarl did: Blake immediately froze, and his friends looked over their shoulders like they'd just heard a gunshot. Years of working on loud, wide jobsites had given the Yagami patriarch a whip-crack of a voice when he needed to be heard. He needed to be heard.

He was.

As he reached the site of the melee, Kohaku kept his stance neutral, his arms flat at his sides, his hands open. He was surprised that the three boys were still there; he'd half-expected them to bolt straight for the hills. Not because they were afraid of him, but because that's just what boys like this did when they came across prey that they couldn't handle.

Kohaku looked at the boy who looked like the leader, and asked, slow and measured: "Is your name George Blake?"

Something in Kohaku's eyes, some distant fire that flared up and sparked in him, sent a shock through the air that they all could hear. Seto's three antagonists went stiff. Seto himself flinched violently, but otherwise he didn't move. He remained half in the fetal position, huddled around his brother. Both boys were pressed against a marquee which read:

SPIRIT DAY BAKE SALE!

SAT. APR. 14. RM 215B.

WEAR PURPLE AND GOLD!

George Blake straightened. "…Who's askin'?" he asked petulantly.

Kohaku's lip curled. "Call me a concerned member of the community. I think you need to get your happy little ass home, son. Now. Unless, of course, you'd like a ride in a patrol car." One of the other boys, who looked younger but much bigger than Blake, clenched his fists. Kohaku calculated for a moment, then lifted up his hands in front of him and cracked his knuckles. There was a satisfying crunch that made the three boys flinch. Kohaku, in a flash of inspiration, added: "Or an ambulance."

Perhaps they realized that picking a fight with a man twice their size—Kohaku wasn't a bodybuilder, but neither was he a couch potato—wasn't worth the trouble. Perhaps they bought into the threat. Perhaps they'd had a run-in with law enforcement before. Regardless of what caused it, Kohaku couldn't help but feel a thrill of child-like euphoria as he watched the boys' battered sneakers beat the pavement.

Seto finally made his slow, agonizing way to his feet. Kohaku dipped down and lifted up his son by the armpits, turned him around and took in the sight of him.

The boy's shirt was ruined. The knees of his pants were both ripped and stained with blood and dirt. Blood trickled from his mouth, both eyes were swollen, and Kohaku was sure that, by the time they got him home and out of his clothes, his entire upper body would be covered in bruises.

The boy stared up at Kohaku, and there was something regal in those eyes that had never been there before. They were too old, those eyes. He was too calm. Too resigned. It was like he'd done this too many times to be bothered to feel anything but boredom. Kohaku stroked back his son's hair. "For a genius, you're a reckless little idiot. You know that, boy?"

Seto actually smiled. He said, "Maybe."

Kohaku hugged him. From over Seto's shoulder, he took in Mokuba. Aside from the tears and snot running down his face, and the remains of his black eye—which was already healing nicely—the youngest Yagami was untouched. He hadn't even scuffed his knees.

Kohaku felt his heart constrict. He patted Seto's back. He felt his little wunderkind's arms rise up and return the gesture; slowly, haltingly, like he didn't know how to do it. Filing this away for later, Kohaku said, in a whisper that he wasn't even sure Mokuba could hear,

"…Good work, son. Well done."

Verse Four.

In stark contrast to the fact that she was marching him back into the principal's office like a drill sergeant on a bad day, the look on Yuki Yagami's face was unabashedly pleasant. Her eyes were almost dancing. The smile on her face was statuesque in its precision, and Seto was sure that, if he were actually twelve years old, he would have had no idea why she was smiling at all. But Seto wasn't twelve. He was entirely too used to recognizing masks, and Yuki's was hiding a torrent of emotions that lent a legitimate thrum of energy to her body, and Seto could feel it bleeding into his shoulder. It made his blood sing, and he found it hard to suppress a smile of his own.

Kohaku had hold of Mokuba; the youngest Yagami was seated on his father's shoulders. The younger boy kept stealing glances at Seto; he looked like he wanted very much to say something, but couldn't. Whether it was because he couldn't find the right opening, or just couldn't think of anything to say, Seto wasn't sure.

Seto smiled whenever he and his brother locked eyes; it was an easy smile, a natural smile, which didn't feel at all foreign on his face. It was the smile he'd worn on nights when Mokuba had a nightmare, and needed to be reassured that there weren't any monsters hiding in the shadows of his room. It was the smile he wore when Mokuba brought home straight A's on his report card. It was a father's smile.

Eventually, Mokuba found a smile of his own.

Yuki stalked straight into the office where Seto had last seen her haggling with a secretary. Now, a heavyset woman somewhere in between middle-aged and elderly was seated at the desk, and she went pale when she caught sight of Seto.

"Oh…my…"

It wasn't the worst beating that Seto had ever suffered; he'd known boys—and girls—at the Domino Children's Home who would have chewed George Blake into pulp and spat him into the gutter. But, it was clearly the worst beating that this woman had ever seen.

"Pardon me," Yuki said, in a voice that was so sickeningly polite that it felt syrupy in Seto's ears. "Could you direct me to the nurse's office, please, Miss Woodbury? I'd like to get my son looked at, before we head home."

"What…happened?" Miss Woodbury stood up, one hand inching up to cover her mouth.

"To use your words…a 'playground incident,'" Kohaku rumbled. He was the only one who looked angry. Yuki's calm was implacable.

"Are you saying…that this boy, this Blake. He did this?"

"He did," Yuki said, like she was talking to a little girl who'd answered a math problem correctly after spending thirty minutes puzzling it out. "The nurse's office, please? I'd really like to make sure that my boy is okay. Thank you."

Miss Woodbury scrambled to extricate herself from her desk and show the Yagamis to the nurse personally. She was practically prostrating herself with promises to handle this situation personally, right now, but Seto stopped listening. It didn't matter anymore. Seto played along with his mother's practiced nonchalance. Whenever this body, this weak body, felt the urge to wince, or hiss in a breath when he moved the wrong way, he let it happen instead of forcing himself into silence. Every time he did, Miss Woodbury flinched.

Showing pain was not a skill that a Kaiba cultivated. It was foreign, and it made his skin crawl. But it served a purpose this time, and so he let it happen.

The school's nurse was a lovely young woman whose name Seto didn't care to remember. She talked sweetly; her touch was gentle and confident. Seto let her go along with her work without complaint or comment. He didn't speak until she asked how he was feeling, and whether he needed anything else.

He said, "You should check my brother's eye."

Verse Five.

It wasn't until the Yagami clan had returned home that Yuki allowed herself to feel anything.

"What possessed you to do something like that?!" she demanded, once she'd set both Seto and Mokuba down at the dining room table. Gone was the stern sense of controlled glee. She'd changed her face again, and Seto found himself mesmerized by the contours of her agony. He knew the fury, the terror, the heartbreak, all coalescing into a futile desire to protect her babies from everything, because he was pretty sure that he'd inherited it from her.

Seto replied to her without any sheepish uncertainty. His voice was as mechanically devised as her own sugary sweetness in Miss Woodbury's office had been. He said, "They were waiting for him. They followed him off the playground. I…drew their attention."

"Why didn't you find someone?"

"If I'd taken the time to find someone else to…intervene, they would've gotten to him. They would have had him."

"What happened, Seto?" Kohaku asked, calmly. "Exactly."

Seto shrugged. "I called them out. Drew their fire. I made sure they didn't remember what they wanted to do."

"How'd you manage that?"

"How else?" Seto actually managed a facsimile of his patented smirk. "I ran my mouth. I got them mad. I, um…succeeded." He looked down at himself, as if to accentuate this point. Mokuba fidgeted next to his brother, started to say something, then stopped himself.

Yuki bit her bottom lip. "Seto-kun…"

Mokuba started to talk again, and this time he managed: "Blake thought…Seto was my boyfriend. He asked me if I was a faggot."

Kohaku raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a great kid. No issues there." He turned his attention back to Seto. "How'd that go over, O Peerless Defender?"

Seto shrugged again. "I told him to cram it. That's what set him off. They decided to let their feet do the talking after that."

"Seto-kun. You…you should have…"

But Yuki couldn't bring herself to say what she wanted to say, which Seto knew was some sort of reprimand. She wanted very much to proclaim her displeasure at what he'd done. Maybe it was the look on Seto's face. Maybe it was the fact that Mokuba had escaped his latest outing with his tormentors without a single new injury. Maybe it was a lack of imagination on the part of Pegasus Crawford. Whatever it was, Yuki Yagami was speechless.

Kohaku put a hand on his wife's shoulder. "He was reckless. Could've gotten hurt a lot more seriously than he did. But…he did it. He protected his brother. Can't fault him for that part, Yu."

"…You're right." Yuki knelt down in front of her firstborn and put her hands on his shoulders. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "I'm proud of you, honey. You did a great job. If you ever do that again, you're grounded for the next six years. You hear me?"

Seto almost laughed. "Yes…Mom."

"Go get cleaned up for dinner, hero." She spied Mokuba, who had his hands in his lap and looked like he was waiting for a punishment. Turning her affection onto him next, she gave the youngest Yagami a quick hug, kissed the top of his head, and said, "You too, little man. Go on."

Mokuba nodded, and followed behind his brother as they left the dining room, the kitchen, and ended up in the bathroom without taking more than fifteen steps. It was surreal to Seto, realizing that his childhood home was this small. It had seemed much bigger when he'd actually lived here.

Once they'd shut the bathroom door and situated themselves in front of the sink, Mokuba mumbled: "I'm sorry, Seto."

Every time Seto heard his given name on his brother's lips, he had to fight the urge to flinch. It crossed his mind that he'd never heard the name "Seto" come out of his brother's mouth before. First, he'd called him "Bubba." He'd had a quick transitional period where he used "Bwudder," then he'd shifted into the now-ubiquitous "Niisama."

Seto turned on the faucet and started washing his hands. "Sorry for what?" he asked, sounding calculatingly clueless.

Mokuba blinked. "For…everything." He gestured to Seto. "I…I just—I'm sorry, okay?"

Seto put his comforting smile onto his face again. "Don't be. This is my job."

"Getting beat up 'cuz I'm a scaredy-cat and bigger kids are jerk-wads is your job? Since when?"

Seto looked at the boy and ruffled his hair. "What year were you born?"

END.

Those of you who have been following my "Good Intentions" series, particularly "Lightbringer," will know that I've been spending a fair amount of time working out the nuances of Seto's biological parents. The ironic part of these most recent chapters is that, even though the whole thing is entrenched in Millennium Magic, the whole scenario is far more mundane than "Lightbringer" provides, which permitted me to get into a much more…normal sequence of events to highlight their personalities.

The ability to explore the Yagami (and thus, Kaiba) family dynamic without the element of unrepentant tragedy is an interesting one, and hopefully you're finding it interesting as well. Until next time, be good to one another. And go check out my YouTube channel!

Okay, okay, I'm done for now. Have a fantastic day!