Chapter Text
MANGA NOTE: The relationship between both Kaiba brothers and Yami in the early manga is nothing short of disastrous. Initially, Kaiba steals Sugoroku's BEWD from Yugi. Yami challenges him to a shadow game (or penalty game) to get it back. Yami wins when Kaiba summons the BEWD, but the dragon destroys itself rather than follow his commands. Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters.
Mokuba, eager to prove himself to his brother and desperate to protect him from Yami, challenges Yugi to his favorite game, Capmon. He threatens Yugi until Yami appears. Although Mokuba cheats, Yami (surprise!) wins. As part of the resulting penalty game Mokuba believes he's being sealed into a Capmon capsule. When Kaiba creates Death-T, Mokuba insists on being one of Yami's challengers. Kaiba misreads this as a personal attack on him, and when Mokuba loses he forces him to go through the Death Simulation chamber he had designed for Yami. Yami rescues Mokuba, and defeats Kaiba by summoning Exodia. He shatters Kaiba's heart, giving Kaiba the opportunity to rebuild it without the darkness that was destroying him.
AU TIMELINE REMINDER: This story begins after Alcatraz and takes off in its own direction. The DOMA, Grand Prix, and (especially) AE arcs do not exist in this story.
CHAPTER 2: THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
Chess is a game of regicide; for the game to end, a king must die. What does it mean then, when a son plays his father? In even the most loving of families, there's a moment of glee in a child's eyes as he calls out "Checkmate!" as he commits not just regicide, but patricide as well. And while we'd like to think that the moment when a father metaphorically destroys his son contains a drop of regret, there's a note of triumph, too. For in some ways, chess has it right – fathers and sons are bound not just (hopefully) by chains of love, but by ties of rivalry as well.
GOZABURO'S NARRATIVE
The law of unintended consequences…
The one law more absolute than death and far less escapable.
It had seemed so simple. I'd adopted a boy. I'd thought he'd be the perfect tool. Young enough to be malleable, angry enough to eagerly follow the road I was laying at his feet, arrogant enough to think he was building it himself.
Intelligent enough to make breaking him a challenge.
I'd let him bring along the younger one. Allowing the little mouse to scurry into my house behind his more talented brother had seemed like such an unimportant decision. I'd thought destroying the bond between them would be the work of a moment, something to do on route to the more entertaining challenge of crushing my adopted son.
It had been a fatal error. I'd thought myself above the law of unintended consequences, but Seto could never have beaten me without Mokuba.
All that was about to change. It had taken a long time, but I'd been proven right. The brat truly was Seto's weakness. Seto had wanted to play a game with him. After all these years he still needed his little brother by his side. He should have remembered; I'd certainly tried hard enough to beat it into his head: the strong never need anyone. He'd refused to listen and payment was about to come due.
It was ironic. Every change Seto had made to accommodate his brat of a brother had allowed me entrance here as well. He'd designed a program where thoughts were given shape. His search went out, drawing information into his virtual world, seeking the avatars stored online. What would you call me? I'd lived in electronic limbo for years. Seto had seen me die, twice, but he should have remembered: nothing ever gets deleted in cyberspace.
He had even instructed this virtual world to adapt itself to individual brainwaves, but you don't need a body to have a brainwave. Unintentionally, Seto had given me a place to hide, to grow strong. Most of all he'd given me a new battlefield where I could defeat him once and for all, a new classroom in which to teach him his final lesson.
My adopted son had beaten me once at my own game; he had beaten me once at his. But this was the third and final time. I'd tried to mold him in my image as if that would give me immortality. Now I had a more direct way to escape death and my adopted son had been the one to put it into my hands. This world was, in many ways, similar to the one my scientists had created, the one my real son had refined. I'd planned to steal Seto's body and rejoin the world back then. That plan hadn't changed. The next time Seto came to check on his game, I would be the one leaving in his place.
I felt like I was being watched. I waited for my greatest disappointment to appear. He'd followed me into this world, looking for something… approval perhaps, or forgiveness, or some sign that he was still my son. Noa had forgotten, just as Seto had, that the strong need nothing, especially nothing weak enough to die. And unlike the last time, he wasn't going to interfere with my plans. Not again.
I scanned the landscape. I'd just decided no one was there when I heard a voice behind me. It was too deep and too used to being in command to belong to my son.
"Interesting. It seems neither of us is alone here."
I turned to see who else my adopted son had unintentionally invited in. Whatever the newcomer was, he wasn't human. At a guess, he looked like something out of Seto's stupid card game. He looked a little like the Exodia Necross I'd played, except he was even taller. His height didn't matter except as a negotiating tactic. A rocket missile is tall too; it's still only a tool. And a bullet is far smaller than a man, but it can kill the mightiest.
Right now, his height was annoying. It forced me to crane my neck to talk to him or address my remarks to his balls. And he hadn't proved he had any, yet.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked.
"Does it matter? If you need a name, mine is Zorc Necrophades. More importantly, like you, I'm someone with a grudge," he said.
"Against that snake I adopted?" I wasn't surprised my adopted son had made enemies.
"No. Against his companion. Why would I waste my time on the priest? The pharaoh is my enemy – and this will be the site of our final battle."
He wasn't making any sense. That didn't matter. For all his size, he was unimportant. I could guess who he was referring to anyway… the kid with the ugly hair and strange eyes who'd helped Seto escape me. I owed him for that, but he was unimportant too – so far down on my list as to be invisible. I could take care of him once I got out.
My new companion surveyed the landscape like this world was a piece of real estate and he'd just signed the deed. "My servant has done well," he said with satisfaction.
I grunted. It might be useful to find out just how many of these cartoon clowns were in here.
"I didn't think you would know enough of virtual worlds to be able to get into one unaided," I observed.
He smiled, a slight thinning of his lips. "All doors are open to a thief."
"A thief?" I asked.
"I had the foresight to bind one to my service 3,000 years ago. He stole his way into the artifacts the pharaoh and his councilors were so proud of. The pharaoh was obliging enough to carry him into this world when he entered it while wearing the puzzle." He shrugged. "It's an irrelevancy. What matters is that we have a common enemy – or rather enemies. It would make sense for us to join forces."
I frowned. It was irrelevant all right, but that wasn't the point. Power is the ability to set the agenda and he wasn't controlling mine.
"It would make sense if you had something I want. You don't. I can get out of here without your help," I said.
"I doubt it. You can feel it, can't you? That what happens here can spill out into the outside world," he said.
"Of course I can. It's how I'm leaving this joint."
He laughed. "And yet, you're not questioning how any of this is possible. Without my magic, this would merely be a more sophisticated form of non-existence, a more intricately detailed limbo. But permanence can only be achieved through a penalty game, and that requires a challenge."
I tried not to laugh in his face. Challenges had gone out of style ages ago. I'd tried that in the last virtual world we'd competed in. I'd failed. Ambushes were much more efficient.
"I don't give a damn how this world was created. All I care about is using it to my advantage," I said. "It's been a long game, but it's time for my adopted son to lay his king on its side and concede everything to me."
I smiled, anticipating my ultimate victory. Family… my corporation… even life itself… they'd all failed me.
Vengeance endures.
MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE
"Warning… Five minutes to detonation… Warning…"
Nisama and me were in the basement at Alcatraz. Just like after the final duel of the Battle City Tournament, the whole island was set to blow up. Alarm bells were clanging, red lights were flashing all around us. I raced for the elevator then looked back, panicked.
"Come on Nisama!" I yelled.
He just stood there, frozen in his tracks. I couldn't get him to move.
"Come on!" I screamed again.
He walked forward slowly. We finally reached the elevator. The doors opened. Isono was waiting inside. Nisama pushed me into his arms.
"I lost. Losers die. Wasn't that the old man's last lesson to me? I'm staying. Get my brother out of here," Nisama said to Isono. "That's an order."
I couldn't see Isono but I knew he nodded. His grip on me tightened. I yelled at him to let go. I kicked him. I tried biting his arms, but my brother had given him an order and there was nothing I could do. The elevator doors slammed shut, separating us.
As soon as the doors closed, Isono vanished. A skeleton, with torn shreds of flesh still clinging to his bones, was gripping me instead. I almost gagged on his breath. The walls of the elevator had turned to unbreakable glass. I was in a Death Simulation Chamber again. Another skeleton, this one with steel arrows for eyes watched, gloating, as a dinosaur with a crocodile snout came closer. His jaws opened wide enough to crush my head. These monsters weren't in any card data base. They'd come from my brother's imagination. They were going to kill me. Nisama was going to let me die.
"Nisama! No!" I screamed.
I woke up with a gasp as Nisama ran into the room.
"Are you okay?" he asked, sitting on my bed and hugging me.
"I had a nightmare," I admitted.
He pressed his lips together. He didn't ask, not immediately. I could see him bracing himself.
I couldn't tell him it'd been about Death-T, even though I was sure he already knew. I considered saying that it had been about that penalty game I'd played with Yugi. He might believe that. I still had nightmares about it sometimes, so it wouldn't exactly be a lie. I'd lost my gang that day, as well as the game with Yugi. They'd turned on me after they'd seen me screaming – and worse, crying – over nothing for about an hour. It had been just as well, I knew that now. But it had hurt at the time, and not just because they'd roughed me up. But Nisama kind of, sort of, trusted Yugi – more than I'd ever seen him trust anyone but me. I didn't want to shake that up by reminding him of stuff.
Nisama was going to ask in another moment. I had to come up with something. I could tell him I'd had a nightmare about our parents. That was safe; it wouldn't bring up any bad memories, just an empty feeling and that was okay. I opened my mouth, then shut it just as fast. Lying about your dead parents to your brother had to be a new kind of low.
"Was it about…" Nisama asked slowly.
"It was nothing," I interrupted quickly, before he could finish his sentence.
Nisama looked at me. I tried to smooth out my breathing.
"You're awake. It's okay. Nightmares aren't…" His voice trailed off.
"Real," I finished for him.
He nodded.
It was an old nightmare. I'd had it just about every night after Death-T. I'd wake up, drenched in sweat, and run into Nisama's room where I'd find him in a wheel chair; his eyes wide open and staring at nothing, and that had been even worse. I'd sit there next to him asking "Why" over and over. But I knew the answer. He'd let in a darkness so bad his mind had had to be shattered to break him free of its grip. He'd let go of everything, even me.
I'd sit there all night, trying to convince myself that the hand I was squeezing had moved, knowing all the while it hadn't… clinging to Yugi's words that Nisama would return and be my big brother again. I'd tell Nisama that no matter how long it took I'd wait for him. I'd sit there saying it over and over, until I was sleepy enough to crawl into his unused bed. And then I'd wake up to see the sun hitting his unmoving body and the only thing I was sure of was that I'd be back here again, after the next nightmare, holding his hand and trying to pretend it was all a dream, when I knew it wasn't.
"Nightmares seem real sometimes," I said tentatively. "Even when you wake up."
Nisama nodded again. "I know," he said. "When I built Death-T…" He paused then continued, "I thought that would make the nightmares stop. It didn't. When I built Alcatraz, I thought if I could just win there everything – the anger, the hatred – would go away. Why isn't it ever that simple?" he said, more to himself than to me.
Now it was my turn to nod. "I thought if I just tried harder, you know, back then, everything would work out." It was the closest we'd ever come to talking about the time just after Gozaburo's death.
I waited to see if he'd clam up. He didn't. He ran his hand through his hair, then looked away and said, "It wasn't you, Mokuba. Don't ever think that. I was the one who should have…" His voice trailed off. He probably had too many "should haves" to finish the sentence. I wished I could get a good look at his face but his head was down and he was still turned slightly away.
"And now, I don't know how to…" His voice trailed off again. I probably could have finished that sentence for him as well. I waited to see if he'd continue. To my surprise, he did.
"I want to be a better brother to you," he said. "That's a prize worth chasing."
As much as I wanted him to keep talking, I couldn't let that pass unchallenged. "You're the best brother ever!" I insisted.
He smiled briefly at that, but he shook his head too. "I've made so many mistakes. I want the future to be different."
"That's why you made this virtual reality game, isn't it?" I asked.
He nodded. "I always won because I had everything tapped out in advance. I could control everything – the challenges, the stakes, what my opponents were thinking, how they'd respond… I was always one step ahead. But with the other Yugi, suddenly that wasn't enough anymore. But what else is there?"
"It's okay if you can't do it on your own. I'm here to help," I said.
He nodded again, but he didn't look happy. If anything he looked kind of ashamed. Somehow, I'd said the wrong thing. I retreated to the one topic that was always safe.
"You always win," I reminded him.
"Not always," he said, but he straightened up and that slightly embarrassed look was gone.
"You always win when it counts," I reminded him.
"We always win when it counts. You're right Mokuba, I'm proud to fight with you at my side. Maybe that's why this virtual world didn't work the way I planned," he added, talking more to himself than to me again. "I can't seem to control it and learn from it at the same time."
"Well, we're going to play it together, right?" I said, suddenly sleepy again. My brother was here. We were fine. He was talking. Death-T was far behind us.
"Always. I promise," he answered.
He lay down next to me. I wasn't ready to be alone. The nightmare was over, but we both knew I wanted to fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He started listing the latest revisions to our game, then ran down the list of tasks he had for the morning, his voice softening to a drone. It was soothing listening to him outline it all. He'd added Non-Player Characters. I couldn't wait to see what he'd come up with this time. He thought they were a waste of storage space so he'd give them snarky names he always had to change before releasing the games to the public.
"I'm doing the final check of the system tomorrow. It'll be ready to play by the time I pick you up from school," he said as he reached the last item on his list.
I smiled and shut my eyes as if that would make tomorrow get here quicker. We were a team and my brother was right: nightmares weren't real.
KAIBA'S NARRATIVE
I couldn't wait for the end of Mokuba's school day. Mokuba had helped me build Kaiba Land, he'd been at my side at every tournament, he'd watched me duel for years. But it'd been a long time since we'd played a game together. Not since we'd played chess at the orphanage, or in those first days after our arrival at the mansion. Gozaburo had destroyed all the games we'd brought with us that first evening. It hadn't stopped us; we'd made up our own. Then I'd forgotten everything except how to win.
Solitary victories weren't enough. I wanted to do this with Mokuba. We'd always been a team. I'd forgotten that, too. But being my partner had mattered so much to Mokuba, he'd followed me into Death-T. Now I wanted this game to be perfect for him. I smiled, imagining the look on his face when he entered my virtual world, when we faced it together.
I'd left plenty of time for the final test run. It was a formality, anyway – or it should have been. But I knew, from the moment I entered my virtual world, that something was wrong. I scanned the landscape, trying to assess the changes. It was supposed to be daylight, but the sky was darker, more like twilight. I looked at the tree branches above me and frowned. The leaves were slightly misshapen, faintly grotesque. They repelled me. I expected my virtual world to change, to adapt. That was its nature. But it should still feel like it was mine; the changes should reflect my personality, be powered by my brainwaves. After all, I was the only player in here today.
Or was I?
The question was unexpected. But once asked, it demanded an answer.
I looked at the trees again. They reminded me of my last, disastrous attempt to create a virtual world, the one my traitorous Board of Directors had hijacked and had tried to turn into a prison, as if there was a cage that could hold me. I looked around, half expecting to see Armed Ninjas attacking again, then shook my head, annoyed. Now if they appeared I wouldn't know if they'd come in answer to my thoughts or someone else's.
I looked at the ground, at the deep, almost purple shadows cast by the trees. They reminded me of being trapped by Pegasus at Duelists' Kingdom… they reminded me of the other Yugi. They reminded me of the Shadow Realm, or whatever the hell that place had been. Those experiences hadn't been part of this game before.
Standing here wasn't going to do any good. I needed answers and there was only one way to go – forward – to get them. I was moving warily now, more and more convinced that whatever world I was in wasn't solely mine any longer.
When I'd left Alcatraz, I'd told Yami I was off to find a new battlefield. I'd designed this game to do just that. But it felt like some old business had followed me in here. A surge of adrenaline and anger pumped through my veins, clearing my head – or clouding it. Gozaburo's face, laughing at me, just as I'd seen it in the sky in that damned virtual world he'd created and then trapped us in, flashed in front of my eyes for a second. I heard him say, "Still so cocky, boy?" I growled. This was my game. It shouldn't feel like a trap. I hoped something would show up here soon so I could kill it.
They moved silently, barely rustling the leaves on the forest floor.
Armed Ninjas.
I grimaced. Their appearance told me nothing. I'd been thinking about them. I'd fought them here before. I could have conjured them up on my own. They were moving through the woods, trying to surround me. The game was capable of adapting. It had called up the memory of the last time they'd attacked, of the way my Blue Eyes White Dragon had taken them out. It figured that there wasn't enough room for it here. But my Blue Eyes White Dragon could fly. I called in my dragon, let it rain fire down on them in an arc. I watched with satisfaction as not just my enemies, but those unfamiliar, misshapen trees caught flame, their branches now yellow and orange as if a fiery autumn had come early. It reminded me of Pegasus's latest cards, the ones I'd been working on before coming here.
The fire almost had a life of its own; I thought I heard screams, just like in that village Yami and I had ended up in. We'd gotten caught there, but that didn't matter. I was exiting anyway. I'd reset the game and try again.
Except I couldn't.
"Unhide codes," I called out, scanning the lines that had obediently appeared, looking for the latest glitch.
For once I'd let myself get distracted. The Armed Ninjas had been a feint. And I'd been so busy reviewing each line of computer code, I didn't notice Injection Fairy's arrival until it was too late.
I tried to spin out of reach, but I was a second too slow. The Injection Fairy's hypodermic needle, its point as sharp as a stiletto, plunged into my hand. I snatched it and whirled around. I wanted to stab her with her own damn giant syringe, but she disappeared. My hand stung. I raised it to my mouth, surprised at the taste of something bitter along with the familiar salty tang of my own blood. It tasted of defeat, of hatred, of all the things I'd build this game to try and erase from my soul.
My hand was throbbing; pain was starting to shoot up my arm, carried through my system by my own blood supply. I went to check the safety system, but the codes had disappeared again. I'd have to follow-up once I got out. Actual pain would make the game less commercially viable. Most people, fools that they were, didn't get that even in games, there was always a price to be paid for carelessness.
I exited. This time there was no resistance, as if the game had accomplished some purpose of its own. My virtual world had always been harsh; this was the first time it had felt alien. Even the wind in the trees had seemed to whistle mockingly; the breeze had Gozaburo's voice. I needed to think, but it was becoming unexpectedly difficult.
I got out of the VR pod and leaned against its side, mildly disoriented. There was a roar in my ears as though I was still in the middle of a battle, not alone in the quiet test lab. I headed back to my office hoping the short walk would clear my head.
It didn't. It just made me madder. Nothing was adding up. Back at my desk, I stared at my computer, flipping from window to window, hopping to find something that made sense. But the familiar programs were suddenly meaningless.
"What are you doing wasting your talent making games? Why be the CEO of a gaming empire when you could be so much more?"
I'd never felt that way. KaibaLand was my dream… it had been my dream my whole life. And yet… this voice was familiar; it was part of me.
"Why plan personal wars that leave no corpses?"
I shook my head as if I could shake the voice out into the air. When that didn't help, I turned determinedly back to my monitor, refocusing on my work, trying to block everything else out. I needed to concentrate, anyway.
I had a lot to do before it was time to pick the worthless brat up from school.
Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping me make it as clear as possible.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Halowing for the title suggestion for this chapter.
Thanks to frenziedpanda7 for catching the mistake I made originally by mentioning Dartz when Kaiba thinks about the Shadow Realm so quickly! I've corrected that paragraph and appreciate your letting me know so I could fix it.
Review Note: I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted before when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If there was a Mokuba Fan Club, I'd be a member. He's an evil little taser-wielding gremlin in the early manga – but at the same time, he's a sympathetic little gremlin because he's so obviously desperate to protect his big brother. And like Kaiba, he has a penchant for making truly horrible decisions along the way.
Comments would be adored…