Chapter 8: Ache
The ache was constant. Joey felt it worming through his system, spreading from his ribs to his hips and shoulders, creeping down his limbs. Like something alive inside, slowly freezing up his joints.
During the helicopter ride, he hadn't felt anything, managed to forget he was even sick—if sick was the right word. Then the doc's pain medication had worn off. Since setting foot on the wacky military ship, Joey's insides had been slowly eating themselves, crumbling up and cracking and making him wish he'd stayed on the blimp with the doctor. It was too late for that now, so he had to hope they could rescue Kaiba soon and get back to some place with pain killers.
"Hey, Zigfried." Joey forced a bright tone, a casual smile. "Think you can hurry it up there, pal?"
The answer he got was something in German, and it didn't sound friendly. Roland worked alongside Krisalyn's brother, but they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Joey's best hope was that Yori would use her good-guy magic and just fry the pods from the inside. Any minute now.
Krisalyn shifted beside him, arms curled around her stomach, darting glances at her pink-haired brother. Joey had to admit, when he'd tried to picture Krisalyn's family, he hadn't imagined it so . . . colorful.
He nudged her with his arm, waited until she looked up at him. Even with the ache, his smile got a little easier while staring into those mint-green eyes.
"What's the story with your brother's hair?" he asked, a distraction for both their sakes.
She licked her lips, glancing at her brother again. When she spoke, her right hand moved in slight gestures, like she was spelling something into the air as she spoke. Was it sign language? She didn't seem to really notice doing it, and she hadn't done it when they'd first met. Joey hoped it meant she was warming up to him, getting more comfortable.
"He's been dying it for as long as I can remember," she said. "Our mansion has a garden of pink roses, and they've always been Z's favorites."
"Oh," said Joey. "Cool."
Then he wished he had something a lot smarter to say. Mostly his throat was choking on the easy way she'd said mansion.
Kris swiped the corner of her eye with her finger, and Joey already had enough ache without her doing things like that, so he blurted out, "You think I'd look good with pink hair? Not that I wanna look like your brother! That'd be—that ain't what I meant. I just . . ."
A very slight twitch moved Kris's lips, and the tension in her shoulders eased. That was worth a bucket of humiliation, at least.
"I like you as you are, Joey," she said softly.
If his insides weren't already all liquid, she would have melted them. Joey grinned.
Then a spike of pain lanced through his chest, doubling him over with a cough, stealing his smile. He tasted blood on his tongue.
"Joey?" Kris leaned forward, brushing his shoulder lightly with her fingers. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Joey forced his grin back in place, shoved the pain deep inside, and locked it up tight, the way he did whenever he had to see Yuugi right after a beating from his dad. "All good."
He repeated it as a chant in his mind. All good. We're good. I'm good.
His mouth still tasted like blood.
He swallowed it.
"So, a mansion!" He gave a low whistle, then realized she couldn't hear it. Or maybe it would hurt her ears. He didn't know how being hard of hearing worked. Either way, no whistle. "A mansion. That's . . . What's that like? Did you get three bedrooms all to yourself?"
Between her focused eyes and worried brow, suspicion radiated from Kris, and though she parted her lips, she didn't speak.
Don't ask, he willed silently. He couldn't be all good if he had to talk about it, if he had to confront the thing slowly tearing him apart from the inside.
The arches of his feet ached. The back of his skull. The tips of his fingers. He'd never been aware of so many body parts at once, and he gladly would have let a few of them go if it meant it would dull that straining, ever-present ache.
But he was Joey Wheeler. He knew how to deal with an injury. He would be fine, as long as she didn't ask. All good. We're good. I'm good.
"Joey . . ."
Zigfried dashed away from the control panel, drawing her attention. Krisalyn took a step to follow her brother, then hesitated. He flipped open some metal box on the wall and began muttering to the switches inside.
For a moment, Joey's heart had leapt with hope, but clearly Zigfried was still stuck, which meant so was Kaiba, and so was Joey.
"Kris, I—" He spoke from behind her without thinking, and it didn't matter anyway, because his voice cut off with another cough. Streaks of blood on his hand. Iron in his mouth.
He stealthily wiped the blood away in his pocket, and he plastered on a Joey Wheeler smile.
All good. We're good. I'm good.
"You can't do that!" Mokuba said.
Noah raised an eyebrow, sliding his hands in the pockets of his white uniform. He said nothing.
"Seto's a good person." Mokuba's traitorous eyes darted toward the screens, which showed his brother as a high priest in Ancient Egypt. He tore them away. Set his jaw. "And he's my brother. I won't let you hurt him."
Noah lifted his chin toward the images, the barest movement. "H-e doesn't care abou-t you."
The words made Mokuba's chest ache. He felt certain if he met that priest, the man would stare him down with cold blue eyes and hate him the way he hated everyone else. Mokuba would be just another obstacle or annoyance for him.
But even so . . .
"I don't care," said Mokuba stubbornly. "Even if Seto didn't know me, even if he hated me, I'd still love him."
"I fe-el the s-ame."
Hearing Noah's quiet voice halted what Mokuba had been about to say. He frowned, and Noah gave a small, barely audible sigh. "I feel the same about m-y father. Even th-ough he hates me."
Slowly, Mokuba's eyes widened. His insides clenched uncomfortably at the reference to Gozaburo, at the memories it stirred. The Gozaburo he'd known hadn't deserved love from anyone.
"So y-ou can't stop me," Noah went on, his voice growing agitated. "My fa-ther will trap Seto's mind here, and then he'll return to the real w-orld in Seto's body. He'll own Kai-baCorp again. He'll have a life ag-ain. And . . ."
The rest went unspoken, but Mokuba heard it—heard it in the plea of Noah's tone, heard it in the longing on his face.
And then he'll finally love me.
"He won't," Mokuba whispered. "He won't care about you any more than he does now. If you help him get everything he wants, he'll walk away, and he won't even think of you. To Gozaburo, we're all just pawns in his chess match."
Noah's gaze snapped to his, glitching sparks. "You don't kno-w that."
Mokuba swallowed hard. "I know . . . I know Seto fought for his love too. He did everything Gozaburo wanted. He did everything right—aced every test, surpassed every expectation. He was everything Gozaburo claimed he wanted and more, and even so, Gozaburo never loved him."
Seto had never directly talked about how much that hurt, but Mokuba knew. The day Gozaburo took them both home from the orphanage, he hadn't really been the one doing the adopting; it had been Seto, adopting a father. Mokuba had seen the admiration shining in his eyes whenever he spoke of Gozaburo's accomplishments. He'd seen the hope when Gozaburo talked about training Seto for a future in KaibaCorp.
Over the years, he'd also seen that admiration dim. He'd watched the hope shrivel and harden into resentment, until the day finally came that Seto snapped. The day he decided if Gozaburo was going to see him as a threat rather than as a son, he would be the biggest threat in the man's life. The day he decided to take KaibaCorp by force.
"Of c-ourse he never lov-ed Seto." Noah's voice hardened. "He already had a son. He didn't need an impos-ter."
Mokuba shifted on his feet, looking away. He wished something in this virtual world would move. Act alive. But the flowers in the garden didn't stir, and neither did the air, and neither did the clouds. Just a frozen picture. Imposter.
"He's the one who adopted us," Mokuba muttered.
"He was tr-icked. Father t-old me about the chess match."
"He's the one who agreed to the match." And Mokuba remembered well enough the way Gozaburo's eyes had glittered when Seto issued his challenge. He'd said Seto's bold ambition reminded him of himself.
"Se-to cheated."
Heat flared through Mokuba's veins, and he balled his hands into fists. "Seto never cheats! Everything Gozaburo's told you is a lie, Noah. All of it."
Noah glitched again, his image wrenching to the side and leaving half of his body behind before it caught up. He grimaced like he was in pain. Before Mokuba could say anything, the images of Seto all blipped out of existence in unison, leaving behind empty air above a dead garden.
Noah flexed his hands, clenching them and unclenching them in the air. Purple light swirled across his palms and faded. Nothing changed. His nostrils flared.
"Zi-gfried outside," he snarled. "That g-irl inside. Interfering so-mehow."
Mokuba's lips twitched, thinking of Yori. He could still remember an anchor on the docks, a wave of helplessness consuming him, and Yori's voice cutting through it: Mokuba, I can save Seto. I promise.
She'd kept that promise. And she was here to save him again.
Gozaburo hadn't won against Seto at the orphanage, hadn't won against him during the corporate takeover. He wouldn't win today. Maybe he had Noah on his side, but Seto had Mokuba and Yori.
Standing tall, Mokuba spoke in a strong voice that sounded just a little like his brother's.
"You said you wanted truth. You won't get that hiding here, Noah, fishing in a system. If you want something from Seto, you'll have to face him directly."
Noah stared at him with cold, flickering eyes. Pixels danced at his edges. The green of his hair looked eerie in the sunlight.
Finally, he said, "F-ine. We'll go to t-he source."
Seto was just staring at the tiny white dragon in the grass, and he still looked like he'd been through hell, so without pausing to consider if it was a good idea or not, Yori stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. She felt silly—a child next to his giraffe height—but she gave him a squeeze anyway and waited for him to inevitably shove her away.
He didn't.
After a moment's hesitation, his arms weaved around her, and she felt the slightest pressure on the top of her head as he rested his chin against it. He drew in a long, slow breath.
She tried to think of something to say, but it all sounded dumb in her mind—you're okay, you're safe, I've got you—so she didn't say anything. Her cheeks burned in the silence, but at least he probably couldn't see that.
Dante apparently could. She caught him smirking from the corner of her eye, half-hidden past Seto's arm. If he'd been close enough, she would have kicked him.
Seto finally released her, stepping back. He looked a little saner, a little more himself, so she smirked.
"I let you out of my sight for two minutes, and you're right back to being a danger-magnet. Roland was worried sick, you know—if you're going to be a bigshot CEO, you should really consider the health of your employees before you disappear off the radar."
The echo of a familiar scowl crossed his face. "I was sabotaged."
"Excuses, excuses. You're lucky you have friends willing to fly all the way out here to save you."
He gave a noncommittal grunt. "Roland brought you? I thought Zigfried's hack made the jet untraceable."
"It did. Roland cut a deal with Krisalyn von Schroeder—quite the family drama—and she led the three of us here to her brother." At Seto's raised eyebrow, she clarified: "Roland, me, Joey, Krisalyn. We filled a helicopter."
His scowl emerged in full Kaiba force. "Wheeler's here? Why?"
"He came to rescue you, Seto, same as me." She frowned. "He rescued you on the beach, too, in case you've forgotten. Despite his blustering, Joey's a good guy. Just like someone else I know."
Seto glanced away as if uncomfortable. "If he hasn't sunk the ship by the time we get out, I'll be amazed."
She whacked his arm. He shrugged her off, turning his attention to the tiny dragon once more. It was impossible to tell from his expression what he thought of his new Ka; he'd repaired his stoic mask.
"I expected it to be bigger." Yori cocked her head, studying the sleeping dragon. It looked identical to Seto's favorite dragon card—Blue-Eyes White Dragon—except the size.
She looked at Dante, jerking her head to gesture him over, hoping for an explanation. He approached, swinging his staff idly in the grass. When he studied the white dragon, he did so with a faintly bemused expression.
"I guess she was more dormant than I was," Dante said at last. "As her mind awakens, she'll grow into her true form. I'm still lacking some of my abilities."
Yori squinted at him. "You sound like you know her."
"Of course." He tapped his staff on the ground, nodding. "She was alive in the past as well. A runaway slave. I never got the chance to speak with her or learn her name, but the white dragon caused quite a panic before—"
"Kisara," Seto whispered. He cleared his throat, but his voice remained slightly hoarse. "Her name was Kisara, and she was never a runaway slave. That was Akhenaden's story to cover her imprisonment."
Yori's eyebrows shot up. "Fountain of knowledge, much? I'm barely scraping together snippets of my past life, and now you sound like you wrote the History Channel special on Ancient Egypt."
At least she knew who Akhenaden was, though she'd yet to receive an actual memory of Yami's uncle.
Slowly, Seto's eyes lifted to meet hers, a swirl of blue confusion. Or maybe pain. "After my duel with Marik, I received all my past memories at once. For a while, I managed to keep it subconscious, but it seems this virtual world structures itself from memories, and now it's all . . . tangled."
"Hence you calling me 'slave.'" It still stung, remembering the disgusted look in his eyes when he'd focused on her.
Dante leaned in slightly toward Seto, confiding, "She's very touchy about names."
"You were Mahad's apprentice." Seto frowned at Dante. Something shadowed his expression. "How did he die?"
Dante fell silent. Pale orange light flickered across his tattoos. Finally, he said, "He was murdered."
Seto stiffened.
"By the albino tomb robber," Dante went on. "The one who attacked the palace."
"You're certain?" Seto pressed.
There was some kind of desperation in his voice that Yori couldn't decipher, because her mind was busy reeling from the albino mention. An image of the spirit of the ring flashed through her memory, his white hair wild, his teeth bared in a snarl. Yami's enemy from the past.
Yami . . . All that time searching for answers, and now they were crawling from the woodwork like termites, and he wasn't even here to hear them. All because Yori had pushed him away. She took a step back from the others, looking over her shoulder for someone who wasn't there, regretting choices she'd made.
What was the point of regret? There were only four seats in the helicopter, and if she'd stayed behind, Seto would still be trapped in some kind of memory prison.
Wait for me, she willed silently to a pharaoh who couldn't hear her. It felt unfair to ask, since his entire modern life seemed to be one of waiting in the dark, but she knew he was strong enough to do it. The least she could do was make a promise. When we meet again, I'll tell you everything. We'll talk for real. Even about the fear.
Her knees trembled. She shook her legs out, kicking the grass. The next silent promise was for herself. Hang in there a little longer, Yori. There's someone waiting.
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Dante's expression, which had hardened into a dangerous scowl. Deep red light glowed beneath his tattoos, echoed in the heart of his staff's garnet.
"Because I watched it happen, Seth! I was there when Mahad died." A deep growl rumbled from his throat, betraying an echo of his dragon side. "And don't worry—I also remember your speech when I returned to the palace, your condemnation that if I'd been half the magician Mahad believed I was, I would have sacrificed my own life before I let a high priest die or the Millennium Ring be captured."
Seto flinched. His eyes darted away. "I don't remember that."
"I thought you said you remembered everything. Everything except petitioning to have me thrown from the palace in disgrace—convenient."
"Guys," Yori said softly. "It's in the past."
Easy for her to say when she remembered next to nothing. She clenched her jaw.
"What I mean," she clarified, "is that we need to get out of here."
Though how, she wasn't quite certain.
As if reading that thought, Seto shook his head. "The way out of here is Zigfried's control panel. You convinced him to plug you in when you should have convinced him to pull us out. Now we're all on the wrong side of the system."
"Hey," she said indignantly. "You're the one who climbed into a pod first, genius. I was just chasing you."
He clenched his jaw so hard that his muscles jumped.
"Why'd you come in here, Seto?"
"I had to."
"Meaning Zigfried forced you at gunpoint?"
"No," he drawled. "Meaning I just had to."
Yori rolled her eyes, but she shrugged it off. Let him keep his secrets; she had plenty of her own. "Besides, Zigfried tried to shut the whole system down and said he couldn't. He said something was fighting him from the inside."
Her friend stiffened at that, so she could only guess he knew exactly what the danger was. After a deep breath, she finally asked the question she'd been dreading to ask.
"Where's Mokuba?"
Pain flashed across Seto's expression before it hardened. "We got separated."
As if Seto would ever let that happen. "So whoever this unknown enemy is, he has Mokuba."
Could she manage a third Ka to protect Mokuba? Though Yori had tried to push it from her mind, a touch of darkness swam at the far edges of her vision. At her uncertainty, a tremor entered her hands, and she clenched them to still it. The bracelet felt overly warm on her wrist.
But she couldn't abandon the kid.
"He's not unknown." Seto's voice had gone quiet and strangely numb. "He's my adoptive father, back from the dead."
Yori shared a glance with Dante, and the magician shrugged.
Seto scowled. "I'm not talking about ghosts. I'm talking about a contingency plan. Apparently, Gozaburo didn't actually die that day."
Raising one eyebrow, Yori said, "You sound skeptical."
"His death was a very convincing performance. I'd like to know how he faked it."
"What happened?"
But he closed up, clamping his jaw shut. At his feet, the white dragon stirred, giving a sleepy little gurgle.
Yori pursed her lips. Before she could speak, someone else did.
"Hard to ad-mit to murder, Set-o?"
The new voice had a fuzzy quality, like she'd heard it over a bad speaker or radio. Yori turned to find two boys standing nearby in the meadow. One, she recognized, and when Mokuba gave her a small smile, she relaxed from her initial battle-ready tension. The other boy, green-haired and white-uniformed, was a mystery. And he certainly wasn't smiling.
"A bit young to be your dad"—Yori shot Seto a glance—"isn't he?"
Seto glared daggers at the newcomer, and it was Mokuba who answered.
"This is Noah Kaiba." He shifted nervously on his feet, faint smile disappearing. "Gozaburo's biological son. I haven't seen Gozaburo yet, but Noah wanted to talk to Seto."
"Talk?" Seto scoffed.
He'd been right to. Noah's eyes narrowed, and he said, "Sho-w me the truth, Seto. Show me the day y-ou murdered my father."
"I can't show you that."
"B-eca-use you're hi-ding from your guilt!"
That same muscle pulsed along Seto's jaw. "Gozaburo Kaiba jumped from the fiftieth floor of KaibaCorp headquarters. You want the truth? You can read the newspaper articles. All eight hundred of them."
"I'll read my own ed—ed—edition." With a snarl, Noah disappeared. It was not a smooth movement but rather like a smashed TV screen, where the image fractured into a dozen pieces before disappearing.
He reappeared next to Seto, and when he grabbed the much taller boy, Seto doubled over with a grunt. Noah's hand on his arm fragmented and sparked, at times appearing to pass straight through him yet still gripping with ferocity.
"Let him go!" Dante shouted, pointing his staff at Noah.
The little white dragon snapped open her bright blue eyes. She threw her head back with a screech. Yori's bracelet flared hot against her skin. The black at the edges of her vision spiked, tilting the world. She reached for support and found nothing, stumbling to the side.
Noah looked down at the tiny dragon. He narrowed his eyes.
With a clear expression of panic, Dante jabbed his staff forward. A blast of fire shot toward Noah, but the boy fractured just as before, the attack passing right through him. Noah lifted one foot, his eyes still focused on the dragon.
In her mind, Yori heard Shada's voice, warning her about damage to a Ka. Killing the dragon could kill Seto. If those rules still applied in a virtual world, she couldn't take chances.
Her bracelet flared with golden light as she released her hold on Seto's Ka. With another little shriek, the dragon vanished.
In the next moment, so did Seto and Noah.
Note: Happy summer, everyone. :D