Yu-Gi-Oh is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No infringement or disrespect is intended by this fanfiction.

Author's Note:
This fiction, the sequel KP Duty, strives to follow canon characterizations and events as presented in the unedited anime. However, because two key characters (Pegasus and Gozaburo) have been purposefully distorted, these stories are unquestionably AU.

.

.

Coming Clean, Chapter 1: Helicopter

by Animom

.

Seto Kaiba stood on the rooftop of Pegasus's castle, in the same place he had stood just a few days before to battle Yugi Mutou. That day, everything had been clear in the shadowless noon light: goals, priorities, possibilities. His determination a white hot blaze, he had stood on the edge, gambling with his life; so sure of his abilities, and in his understanding of his opponent, that of course he had won.

Now, it was nearing sunset. Shadows were long and the rooftop red-orange. Mokuba was safe, Pegasus was defeated, Yugi had his Grandfather back. It was a different precipice now, every last scrap of his energy holding up the mask for his brother.

"What are we waiting for, big brother?" Mokuba asked. "Yugi told me you flew a chopper in here when you came to rescue me. Let's go down and get it, and go home."

Seto was not going to fly out of here, not when the temptation to take the controls and dive downward to cold oblivion might overpower him. He couldn't allow it. But he wasn't about to leave his helicopters here for Pegasus's minions to play with, either. "I called for two pilots to fly out a second chopper. We'll wait for them up here, where they can see us."

A convenient cover, because he wasn't sure he was capable of descending the hundreds of stairs to the forest where he'd hidden the helicopter he'd flown to Duelist Kingdom several days before. The reason – reasons – were spelled out on a piece of paper, folded small and tucked deep in the innermost pocket of his coat, a piece of paper that listed injuries he had sustained while soulless. A sprained ankle, a dislocated shoulder, contusions on his abdomen and back from being kicked and beaten. And other injuries, from more than a beating: abraded knees, burns and lacerations on his inner thighs, torn tissues in places that a mere beating wouldn't have accomplished.

It almost made him laugh, to think that his dominant feeling at the moment was anger: anger that that Gozaburo had been right about Pegasus after all.

He needed anger right now to block out the other emotions. Never before, with all he had gone through – the orphanage, his adoptive father's cruelty, the mind-crushing Game Penalty of his first dueling defeat – had he felt this way. Torn open, hollowed out, trampled. Filthy. Degraded. Disgraced.

"Ow!"

He suddenly came back to himself. He had been squeezing Mokuba's hand. Too hard. Mokuba had let go and was now sitting on a stone bench near the roof's crenelated edge.

"Come sit, big brother." Mokuba patted the stone.

Kaiba shook his head.

"Why not? There's room."

He took a deep breath. "Mokuba," he started; then, "Mokuba, while I was a prisoner," he rubbed his hand over his eyes, "the stone floor in the cell – I don't want to sit."

"What did they do to you?" Mokuba's eyes flashed, simultaneously solicitous and angry. "You're gonna be OK, right?"

"My shoulder is sore," Kaiba said, pretending to search the fiery sky while his throat closed up. "I'll be fine."

The chopper touched down a few minutes later. "I'm going to say goodbye to Yugi!" Mokuba shouted and ran off to the group by the front doors.

His pilots, Quinn and Brasher, confirmed that there was still more than enough light to fly the other chopper up out of the woods, so Quinn ran down the stone stairs. A few minutes later Mokuba came back onto the roof, Yugi and his friends following at a discreet distance.

"Seto ..." Mokuba began."Can they ride the helicopter with us? Please?"

No way in hell. "There are only three seats in the chopper."

"But we have two choppers! And anyhow I told Yugi he could share the front seat with me so that we can both watch the pilot. We're both small."

He knew this look on Mokuba's face: it meant that he wouldn't listen to reason or authority at this point, so there was no use invoking either. Not that he had the energy to do it. "OK." He gave the group his sternest look. "This is payment for rescuing Mokuba, understood?" Without waiting for their answer he turned to the copter and climbed in, tucking himself into the left back seat.

After Yugi and Mokuba piled in the seat ahead of him (Brasher buckled them in together), Mai slipped into the seat next to him. "I think everyone else went down to the other chopper," she said.

Might not be too bad.

Suddenly a commotion at the door."Phew! I thought I'd missed the boat, er, the copter!" The blond appeared in the doorway. "Hey Yug, riding shotgun? Cool." He looked at Mai, raised an eyebrow. "Ya think you could squash over some there, ma'am, make room for me?"

"The back seats two." Seto said firmly.

"Seat, schmeat, plenty of room on the floor!" And with that he turned around, sat on the floor, and slid backwards into the row between the seats, his back to Seto, and pulled his legs up and clear of the door.

"All set?" Brasher yelled, and then they rose into the air, to the west, the sun flooding the chopper with amber.

.

Seto'd always had the trick of going elsewhere.

It had started in the orphanage. Often, after he'd given most of his meal to Mokuba, to distract himself from his hunger he'd pull back from the reality outside of him and go hiking someplace beautiful. The arctic, a jungle, a desert, the moon. Or he'd become a falcon, soaring over wilderness looking for prey, or a submarine diving through darkness, his floodlight startling fantastical deep sea creatures. After they were first adopted, he went though an astrophysics phase. He became an atom at the heart of a sun, sizzling as the pressure of the solar furnace changed him from hydrogen to helium to carbon to iron. A few years later, when Gozaburo started using the cane, and the collar, and the room with the pulley, he'd imagine he was pure number, without any physical existence at all: he'd become a series of primes sparkling down from the Sieve of Eratosthenes; or the digits of pi soaring and diving through n-dimensions of concentric circles; or the Penrose ratio, orchestrating vast plains of interlocking kites and darts. And sometimes he was simply a spiraling Fibonacci sequence, infinite.

He'd been in such complete control of his life the last few years he'd not needed this trick: unfortunately, it seemed to have atrophied, for he couldn't escape the helicopter. In the seat in front of him, Mokuba (on the left) and Yugi (on the right) chattered nonstop about the various dials and controls, Brasher in the right hand seat making the occasional correction. "No, those are the torque pedals." Next to him was worse. They had been in the air less than five minutes when the blond made a big show of pulling off his jacket and spreading it across Mai's mini-skirted thighs and knees. He then seemed to think this gallantry entitled him to some reward, for he draped his right arm casually across her lap. She wrinkled her nose and said something to him with a half-smile; he said something back, obviously some playful challenge, for she mock-slapped him and stuck out her tongue prettily.

How easy it came to them. Friendship.

After a while, Yugi leaned between the seats to talk to the other two. From time to time he turned back to include Mokuba in the conversation, in the circle of friends. How had Mokuba learned to make connections so easily?

Between the roar of the rotors and the blond's big head, Seto could make out scraps of conversation:

"Wasn't it cool when we – "

"Did you see when Pegasus – "

"That was such a great move when you "

"Wasn't it sad when – "

"Oh Mokuba, you never told us what happened when – "

No, he couldn't hear much, pressed back into the corner, but he could see. They were burnished with sunset, their hair threaded with copper and gold. Glowing, smiling, laughing. Fire elementals, seraphim. From his darkness he noticed how they were with each other, touching so freely, with such affection. Of course he was not included. They were in his chopper, but they were all oblivious to him. Take the blond for example: leaning against him, true, but only because he was using the side of Seto's leg as a chair back. The touch meant nothing. He was furniture.

The bad guy, he knew that's how they saw him (if they thought of him at all). And why shouldn't they? He'd almost killed Yugi's grandfather when he'd taken the fourth Blue Eyes by force, taken advantage of his inherent decency to defeat his Dark, and rejected every offer of help during his duel with Pegasus. On top of which, of course, he was the rich guy, the "ruin the curve" guy, the "taller than you" guy. They had probably hated him long before Duelist Kingdom, because he must have seemed to lead such a favored life. Yeah, he'd been favored all right. Wasn't he was doubly favored now, having received favors from both Gozaburo and Pegasus?

Who cares what they think? He gripped the edge of his seat with his left hand, the protest from his injured shoulder welcome. It's not like they need another reason to exclude me. My life is none of their business.

As he sat, rigid with fury, he finally began to feel the familiar floating sensation that presaged the blessed falling inward, away from his body, away from the world's noise and light and pain. He might have found himself soaring the thermals as a hawk again had two things not happened. First, the pressure against his leg was having an unexpected effect, which was intensifying with every small casual movement the blond made as he laughed and talked. Second, when that very same clueless idiot twisted, a moment later, to lean between the front seats to talk to Yugi and Mokuba, he put his hand down on Seto's right foot. The sprained one with the hairline fracture. The sudden pain took him by surprise and he gave a small cry.

At that point all sound in the cabin was swallowed up. Even the rotors seemed to mute.

'Hey man, you OK?" the blond twisted back around, and the hand that had been draped over Mai's lap now moved to Seto's thigh, an unselfconscious gesture of concern.

Seto pressed back into the corner. Don't look at me!

Mokuba's head popped up over the seat. "Is it hurting worse?"

"Put your seat belt back on, Mokuba!" he forced out through gritted teeth.

"Is what hurting?" Yugi asked suddenly, his pale worried face craning around the other side of the seat back.

With a roar in his ears, Seto heard Mokuba cheerfully volunteer, "Oh, Pegasus's bad guys beat Seto up, and his butt hurts from sitting on the cell floor."

"His b- " Mai started to repeat, and without thinking he shot her a look. Her mouth became a small o, and her eyes went wide, looking at him as though he were a three-headed freak.

What had he done? Now she knew. She knew. Even in the dim red shadows he could tell she had grasped what the others were too innocent to put together. An icy sweat swept over his body. He wanted to scream. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to claw his way out of the chopper.

"Cell floor, ha!" Mai said suddenly, looking away from him. "I got bruises from those lumpy beds! And that hand soap – looked to me like he was recycling samples stolen from every tacky motel his staff ever stayed at. The man just didn't know how to treat guests, that's for sure. I mean, eyeballs in our soup, mind-reading, those spooky dimensions you were dragged to, locking people in dungeons – really, what century did he think we're in? Well, at least we know we'll never run into anyone that evil again."

Why? he thought. Why is she changing the subject? It's like she's deliberately drawing attention away from me. Why would she do that? He bowed his head, confusion and shame and nausea competing with the continued throbbing in his lap. I shouldn't have pulled that catheter out so fast.

A light touch on his left knee. He looked up. Mokuba's face was squeezed between seat back and window, his arm stretched out to his brother. "Are you gonna be OK?" he mouthed.

And for the second time that evening Seto lied to him, and nodded.

.

The rest of the ride was long but uneventful. The blond switched position, his back now against the right wall, his legs on either side of Mai's, and dozed. There was much less talking; they were sleepy, the stress of the last few days finally collecting a toll in exhaustion.

Seto would not allow himself to relax, even as the pain ebbed away with his tumescence. He made a mental list of what he needed to do before he could allow himself to sleep that night: go through the post, his e-mail, the fax basket, the telex, skim the financials, listen to voice messages. Get ready for his talk tomorrow with those five bastards who'd sold out to Pegasus. ... And shower, even though he knew it was a cliché, even though it wouldn't be enough to feel clean. Would never be enough. He needed to molt, peel off his skin, slice it away, burn away the filth that covered him, grow shiny new skin, untouched by –

They were landing.

"Can our drivers take them home?" Mokuba was asking.

"No. They're all off duty."

This was a lie, of course: there was always at least one on duty, in case he returned unexpectedly: but what was one more lie? His whole life would be a lie now, a mask hiding the true Kaiba. A phrase from long ago came to him: whited sepulcher. He could feel the maggots already, pressing against his tongue and chest. He needed to get away from everyone before he disintegrated.

"Don't let us inconvenience you, Mister Moneybags. We'll all pile in a cab," said the blond. "I think there's a pay phone I can call from, about a mile down the road. I can walk down there in no time."

Even Seto winced at that. "Don't be stupid." He handed his briefcase to Mokuba and nodded once; Mokuba took out a cell phone.

Kaiba turned his back to them and looked out over the dark valley below his mansion as the other chopper landed on the second pad..

"Pardon me, Kaiba? Could I ask you a favor?"

It was Mai.

Blackmail? Already? She certainly doesn't waste time.

"I'd love to do some work for Kaiba Corp., and I wondered if you could give me a recommendation. I figure a word from you would go a long way to helping me get my foot in the door. Maybe you could write a note on one of your business cards?" She had a pen in hand.

"Huh?" She was blackmailing him into helping her get a job?

"What do you say?" she asked, and, her back to Yugi and the others (who were gathered around Mokuba arranging for cabs) held out her pen to him with a dramatic gesture.

He was so surprised he reached in his jacket, pulled out a business card, and wrote on it Give her a contract to do whatever she says she can handle. He initialed it, and as she took her pen and his card from him she deftly slid a small paper into his palm.

"Call me." She whispered before turning around and striding away. "Alright Jounouchi, they better not be dropping anyone but ME off at my apartment!"

He turned his back to them again, and glanced at the paper. A telephone number, and the words I know what you're going through.

Oh really? he thought. How can you? How can anyone?

.

~ To be continued ~

.

Yu-Gi-oh is copyright © 1996 Kazuki Takahashi and Konami.
No infringement or disrespect was intended by this non-commercial work of fan fiction.

Author's Note, rev 117

Most of those that have been reading and saving my stories (and this story in particular) to their hard drives since 2002 know that I am addicted to revision – because rather than see fanfic as sculpture, I tend to see it more as ... a garden. Constantly weeded, changing sometimes from week to week. (grins)

Anyhow .. this story started out – and has remained – a Kaiba character study / "abuse recovery" story with JouKai elements. As I've picked the work up after the six-year hiatus, re-working chapter 6, and drafting the other stories in this "series" (especially Beholden) I've felt the need to make some adjustments. ~ Generally I don't note them, but this time is different. In place of the flashback of seeing the hentai tentacle manga, Kaiba now alludes to a different memory from his childhood (it'll be explained in Chapter 2). This change reflects my shifting emphasis on including more of this AU's Gozaburo and Pegasus in the story of Seto Kaiba.

(117) 7 May 2010, new flashback