It's been . . . 10 years since I came to this story. 10 years since I had any idea what I was trying to do with it. I can't pretend that I know what the younger me had in mind for this section, nor can I pretend that what I've written now will be anything close to that.

I'm a different person now.

I'm a different writer now.

I'm sorry it took me this long to return to this particular journey. I will be posting new chapters each week until we reach the end. I can't promise it will be the same story I intended to write when I started, but I can promise that it's as good a story as I could make it.

I hope you enjoy the ride.

Verse One.

Pegasus Crawford sat silently—eating piecemeal from a battalion of little plates set near his right hand—while he watched his old enemy. Someone observing him from the outside might have wondered how it was that he could possibly remain engaged with such an activity; Seto Kaiba was barely moving. He was seated there, stone-still, like a statue. He was barely breathing.

Seto's eyes were wide open, but they were sightless, gleaming a soft golden color.

If that outside observer looked a bit more closely, however, they would have spied that same golden gleam from behind Pegasus's hair; he was watching something far deeper than Seto's body. So focused on this task was he, in fact, that he didn't notice when his majordomo stepped into the room. He didn't hear Croquet Devereaux's soft, clicking footfalls on the marble floor, and he almost didn't hear when Croquet Devereaux spoke softly into his left ear.

Pegasus considered ignoring the interruption.

"Phone for you, Master Crawford," said Croquet.

"Take a message," Pegasus said shortly. "Despite how it looks, I am quite busy."

Croquet coughed nervously. "I, ah . . . think you will want to take this, sir."

Pegasus flinched, surprised, and turned to look at the other man. When was the last time he'd heard Croquet's voice with quite that timbre? Pegasus couldn't remember, but he spied real fear on Croquet's face; it radiated from him like heat waves. It was that, more than anything, that prompted Pegasus to take the offered phone and set it against his ear.

"You've reached Pegasus Crawford," he said, injecting some measure of courtesy into his voice. His attention was riveted on his current task, barely divided despite perceiving two worlds at the same time, but that was no excuse to not be polite. "To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"Considering your previous experience with magic of this nature," came a hauntingly familiar voice, without answering the question or offering a greeting, "I should expect you have a guess on how much longer my brother will be out of commission. Would you mind sharing your best estimate with me?"

Pegasus straightened in his chair. "Aha," he said. "The prodigal son." Noa Kaiba laughed quietly. "Well," Pegasus went on, "considering what I've already seen, it might be that Kaiba-boy will be back home before daybreak tomorrow. Past that, I cannot offer any specifics. The nature of tests like this is fickle, you understand? I feel it would be prudent to mention that interrupting this business is quite impossible. Which is to say, the only way to bring an end to it would be to remove him by force." Pegasus paused. "This would be, for lack of a more nuanced phrasing, excessively lethal."

Silence on the other end.

". . . Tomorrow, then."

"Quite possibly," Pegasus said. "Your brother is progressing admirably. I have learned from experience that it is the most regrettable of mistakes to underestimate him. I cannot guarantee that there won't be roadblocks. It may be that he will struggle, and we will see him remain here for a day or two yet. But that's as long as I can imagine. I will, naturally, keep you updated."

Verse Two.

A soft click announced that the conversation had ended. Pegasus handed the phone back to Croquet and shifted his weight in his chair.

Croquet did not move from his place at Pegasus's side. "How is he doing, Master Crawford?"

"Honestly," Pegasus said, "very well. I must give him credit for accepting the nature of the illusion so quickly. That's the first hurdle, but by no means does that make it easy to pass. Now comes the tricky part." He stood up, stretched, and drew in a deep breath. "He must now learn the lesson which the gods have laid out for him."

Croquet considered this for a time, then he said: "If I may press, sir . . . what, precisely, are we going to do about the new Kaiba?"

"New," Pegasus murmured, "or old?" He laughed to himself. "Ahem. What are we going to do, you ask?" He raised an eyebrow. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean," Croquet said, "he seems to be making a habit out of threatening you."

"Oh. That." Pegasus shook his head. "Given that it is, naturally, part of your job to worry about my welfare, I suppose I have no choice but to forgive your concern." His gaze was still locked on Seto; he sat back down. "However, what we do about Noa Kaiba is nothing." Pegasus paused again, mostly for effect. "I'm not the man I was. I am not going to flinch away from danger simply because it exists, especially when I've brought that danger upon myself. Just as Kaiba-boy must accept hard lessons, so too must I. I will not start a war with this family."

Croquet stiffened. He turned his attention to Seto, like he expected the eldest Kaiba to say something; Seto remained silent. "So, we're just going to let this go. We're not going to do anything about Noa Kaiba. At all."

"Correct," said Pegasus, nodding decisively. "Think about it. What, precisely, should I do? Threaten him back? Have him killed? Call the authorities? Sue? The Kaiba family owns Domino City, and Mokuba Kaiba owns his family. The moment I make any kind of move, the boy will set his hounds on me. I'll be ripped to shreds."

"Sir, that's kind of the entire problem."

"Think past that, Croquet," Pegasus pressed. "What happens if I try to take the fight to them legally? They have much more leverage than I do. Let us not pretend that I've not made a fabulous mess of myself over the past decade. Were I to take illegal measures, that only takes the gloves off. They would then have recourse to do the same. Even if this Kaiba," Pegasus gestured grandly to Seto, "wouldn't harm me, and I don't think he would, there are two others more than willing to eviscerate me. They possess resources I can only marvel at. My only edge against them has always been this eye." He gestured to the golden glow. "And here I am, potentially mere hours away from passing it over to them."

Croquet cleared his throat again. "If I may . . . why are you doing that?"

Pegasus shrugged. "I'm tired of playing God, Croquet. It's someone else's turn."

Verse Three.

The days kept going, and kept going, and kept going, and Seto couldn't shake the creeping understanding that something was fundamentally wrong. He knew something was wrong, and he knew he had to pinpoint what it was. That was the whole point of this nonsense in the first place; it was what Pegasus Crawford was trying to teach him. Seto had to be able to work out the mystery, solve the puzzle, if he wanted the Millennium Eye.

Do you even want the Millennium Eye? some part of him asked, a needling part of his intuition that hid in the darkest recesses of his memory. What are you even doing this for? Why is this the course of action you've decided to take?

"I don't," Seto muttered to himself, one day on the walk home from school, when he decided to engage with this voice within himself for the first time. "I don't want the Millennium Eye. However, I want Crawford to have it even less. Anyway, regardless of what I want, the simple fact is this: threats to my city are bound to grow, expand, and I need to be able to rise to them. This is an expedient way to do that. If I can't, I'll adapt. For the moment, this is my path."

The voice wasn't placated, exactly, but it stopped nitpicking his every decision.

For now.

Seto wondered, not for the first time, how long he'd been sitting in Pegasus Crawford's castle in the real world, where he was surely unconscious. He hoped, not for the first time, that he would wake up at the end of this magical circus to find that an hour or two had passed. Perhaps a weekend. Seto dared not imagine what chaos he would wake up to if it turned out that the days spent here were equal to the days spent there; he'd been trapped in this saccharine prison for weeks.

So it was that he was supremely distracted when he stepped inside the Yagami home, and he didn't hear his mother's words the first time. He spent a solid ten seconds staring at her, blinking, uncomprehending, before he realized he needed her to repeat herself.

Yuki gestured to the couch next to her. "Please, Seto-kun," she said, "sit here with us for a second."

Kohaku was seated next to his wife, and his expression would have been more at home at a funeral home. He looked like he was about to announce some catastrophically bad news, and Seto might have felt nervous about it, in other circumstances; if, in other words, he hadn't spent the past week or so inventing new ways to twist Pegasus Crawford into new shapes when he woke up again.

Yuki cleared her throat. "We, ah . . . we wanted to talk to you about what happened with Mo-chan."

Seto tilted his head. ". . . Okay," he said.

"I think," Kohaku stepped in now, "we may have given you the wrong idea. We spent plenty of time venting our fears and insecurities at you, but we didn't really . . . acknowledge what you did. How important it is. You . . . really made us proud that day, son."

"You did."

Verse Four.

That little alarm, the thing itching at the back of Seto's mind, flared up. He knew something was so fundamentally off about this, but damned if he could figure out what it was. His hackles were raised; he was ready to fight, but he didn't know what to do about it. He felt the impulse to get up and bolt from the room—something he'd felt any number of times throughout his life—but he had a suspicion that he'd never learn anything if he didn't let them continue. So, he stayed put. As much as he didn't want to, as much as it set his teeth on edge and made him want to eat his own tongue, he had to keep still and listen.

"There are things that . . . we can't do," Yuki said, reaching out and patting Seto's knee, "but you can. You showed us that. Just because we were scared about what might have happened, and upset at our own inability to do anything about it, doesn't give us the right to treat you like we did."

Seto wasn't sure what he was supposed to say right now.

He figured he was supposed to be grateful, to smile bashfully and thank his parents for their kindness. All he could see, when he looked at them, was Pegasus Crawford. They didn't look right. They didn't sound right. But Seto knew that that wasn't enough; he knew it wouldn't be enough for him to come back to himself, in the physical world, and declare something as contrite and pointless as:

"I could tell it wasn't real because it didn't feel right."

It was true, but it wasn't enough.

What in the hell was Seto supposed to learn from this?

The best he could do, for the moment, was to play the game. He drew himself up and said: "You were doing what you thought was right. I can't be upset about that."

Seto wasn't sure how much he believed that, or how much it mattered if he did or didn't, but it felt like something he was supposed to say; something his parents would have expected him to say. Assuaging them of their guilt was the next step in the dance, and that was all this mass hallucination was, in the end.

Wasn't it?

"That's not fair to you," Kohaku said. "It wasn't right, what we did, whether we thought it was or not."

"So," Yuki said, "we wanted to treat you with the respect you deserve. It doesn't matter how much we call you a genius if we never bother to treat you like one." She sighed, then settled herself. "What do you think we should do to help Mo-chan with his bully problem?"

All at once, like a crack of thunder behind his eyes, Seto understood. Lightning pealed inside his skull, and he felt his body seize up with the realization of what he was experiencing; what he was doing; what it all meant.

Seto found a laugh, harsh and painful, somewhere in the back of his throat.

His parents stared at him, then shared a worried look with each other.

Seto said, finally: ". . . I love you."

Verse Five.

"Seto-kun?"

"I love you," Seto said again, "both of you. More than I have ever been able to express, more than I've ever loved anyone. Even Mokuba. But I think our time together is over now. I know what you're trying to teach me, and that means I can't spend any more time here. I'm . . . sorry. I wish, more than anything, that I could just coast on in this life, help you work out your problems, have you help me with mine. But . . . I can't."

Yuki and Kohaku glanced at each other again, then looked back at their son.

Their expressions, twin faces of confused worry, melted away.

"Good job, son," Kohaku said, with a sad little smile. "We knew you'd figure it out."

"We are proud of you," Yuki said. Her smile was much more genuinely cheerful, and that made it hurt all the more. "You've done so much, not just for your brother, but for your city. For the world. You've become a beacon for so many people. So many children."

Seto smiled, and it felt real this time. "I feel like this would mean more if it weren't an illusion." He sighed as he stood up and rose to his full height; he watched with something like grief as his limbs grew longer, and he could feel his body changing back. His bones rearranged, and he knew his voice would sound like it should, even before he spoke again; it would be just as deep as it always was.

"Regardless," he said, and his real voice rumbled through his entire body like thunder, "I'm glad to have had the chance to see you again. To spend this time with you."

"Illusion or not," Yuki said, standing up and holding out her arms, "you're not too proud for a hug from your mother, are you?"

Seto drew in a breath, let it out. "In the end," he said, stepping into his mother's embrace, "I suppose not."

Kohaku patted Seto's back, pressed his forehead against his son's temple. "You're a good man," he said, "and you're going to make it out of this a better one. Give your brother a hug for us, you hear? Two, for your mother."

Seto laughed, and it only sounded a little bit like a sob.

". . . Yes, Papa."

Seto's eyes clamped shut against the tears that came anyway, hot and angry, as he cried. He clutched his mother as tightly as he could, knowing that she would disappear all too soon. Yuki rubbed his back, whispering to him, and Seto felt like a boy again. He felt so young, all at once, and he hated that he wasn't. He hated, more than anything, that this had to be an illusion. He hated that it was ending now, and he hated that he was impatient for it to happen.

He wanted to want this.

When he opened his eyes again, Seto was sitting in Pegasus Crawford's castle again; his old nemesis was watching him, and there was entirely too much nervous energy in him to sit down. Seto clenched his fists, unclenched them, clenched them, unclenched them.

"So," said the bearer of the Millennium Eye, almost gently, "what have you learned?"

"That's it," Seto murmured. "No preamble, no explanation, you're just going to hand over the exam booklet."

Pegasus held out his hands. "Forgive me," he said, "but I was, quite understandably I think, under the impression that you wanted nothing to do with me. I thought you would prefer to be done with all this business as soon as possible. Am I incorrect?"

Seto rolled his eyes, stepped away from the table at which he'd been seated for however long, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a headache, and only part of it had to do with the tears drying on his face. "I've been stuck in . . . whatever that was," Seto said, "for almost a month."

Pegasus looked surprised. "Only a month, hm?" he asked, and there was an admiration in his voice that felt genuine. "Not bad, Kaiba-boy. Not bad at all. If I had to guess, I would say that you are wondering how you could have done better, how much time you could have shaved off if you'd only made better choices, but I must say: a month is very impressive."

"How long has it actually been?" Seto asked, instead of acknowledging Pegasus's praise.

"About six hours," said Pegasus.

Seto couldn't hide the relief that made his shoulders sag. He turned to face the man he'd once called a hero. "You expected me to take longer. You expected me to be here, in your castle, for much longer than that. I can hear it in your voice."

Pegasus shrugged. "I'm not sure if it's the right word, expected." He gestured dramatically. "All I can tell you is this: when I went through this test, I was trapped in stasis for nearly a year. 11 months and 14 days, specifically."

Seto searched Pegasus's face for . . . something.

"So," Pegasus went on, "well done, Kaiba-boy. In all earnestness. Very well done."

END.