A/N: New chapter up! Read and review, guys! (:

love, fika1603

There were loud persistent knocks on the door. Yugi sighed as he traipsed over to answer it. "I'm sorry, guys, but the shop's closed for today," he said almost mechanically without really looking at the person in front of him.

"Yugi!" a familiar voice heaved as a hand snatched out to rest on his shoulder. "Thank goodness you're still here!"

Yugi's eyes widened. "Tea? What are you doing here? Come on in."

She shook her head, throwing her chestnut locks around her face. "No time, Yugi," she said urgently. "Kaiba wants to hear from you now."

"Now?" Yugi echoed incredulously. He peered over her shoulder, as if searching for any black limousines that might have especially been utilised to send Tea his way. There wasn't any, so Tea must have sprinted here at her own expense. "But Tea, I haven't had time to check! I still have stock-checking to do!"

"I know!" she concurred, throwing her hands up in exasperation before breaking into an angry babble. "I spent the entire day writing up some bogus article about me and him to leak to the press, but when I went to see him, guess what? He said there's no need for it! And he almost broke my nose with the elevator doors! I am going to wring his neck and hang him from a flagpole and let the mob crush him to death!"

"I'm quite sure his helicopter will reach in time to save him," Yugi humoured her wryly. He glanced around behind him and groaned. There were still so many boxes left unpacked, not to mention that the contents of the storeroom had been purged out onto the centre of the shop haphazardly. There was no way that he could settle all of it and figure out Seto Kaiba's past life by tomorrow morning.

"Was Kaiba really adamant to hear from me now?" Yugi asked hopefully. He kept his fingers crossed in his pocket.

"We could just ignore him," Tea suggested malevolently.

Yugi heaved a huge sigh as he stepped out of the store to lock the door behind him. "No," he decided as he held out a hand towards Tea. "Let's get this over with – I don't want Kaiba breathing down our necks."

"Where to?" Tea asked as she took his hand, letting him pull her along running down the street.

"The only place to find out things like that – the library!" Yugi announced with a grin. "Come on!"

XO XO XO XO

"Mr Kaiba, I am really really sorry-"

"Save it, Roland," Seto cut him off as he clambered hurriedly into the backseat. He cast a quick glance behind them: there were at least two other black cars. Roland managed to bring more than enough men. "It's not your fault. Now hurry, we're running out of time."

"Where are we going, sir?"

"The Kaufmann's mansion," Seto retorted. He leant forward to slide open the divider between the front seat and the back, and held out an outstretched hand. "The letter."

Roland hastily pressed the letter into his employer's hands before turning his attention back to the road, where their limousine was hitting all the red lights. Seto made a mental note to keep an eye out for traffic summons in the mail. The letter was printed on normal paper, surprisingly. What was unsurprising was the hieroglyphs on it, detailing nothing more than the fact that Mokuba had been abducted, and that if Seto wanted him back, he must return to face his ancient past.

I am getting really sick of this hieroglyphics nonsense, Seto thought acidly as his eyes stared at the symbols icily. I'm going to put an end to this thing today. He plunged his hand into the inner pocket of his blazer to feel for his phone. A quick look at the screen indicated that he hadn't missed any message or calls. Seems like L forgot about the call. Seto considered initiating the call instead, but decided against it. This was his fight; Ra just used the police and L to get to him. He would deal with whatever Ra wanted by himself.

He suddenly sensed that the limousine wasn't moving. Slightly alarmed, he rolled the windows down by a small width and peered out. He recognized the tall gates running around the perimeter; they were in front of the Kaufmann's mansion, but why weren't they going in?

"Roland, what are you waiting for?" he groused as he slid open the divider again. His eyes widened when he saw that his right-hand man was slumped over the wheel. "Roland!"

Without wasting another moment to think, he swung open the door to the back seat and stepped out, almost instinctively reaching out for the door to the driver's seat. He gently pushed Roland back up to an upright sitting position, checking the latter's head and chest briefly for any bullet shots. There was no blood, so Roland might have just been knocked out with a strong blow. He straightened himself and cast his eyes behind him. The clearing was empty; where were his other men? It was as if everyone had mysteriously disappeared, leaving him the only person in the clearing, still locked out of the Kaufmanns' residence. He stepped forward to try the wrought-iron gate with his hands. It was pointless, the gate was sealed shut.

"Mr Kaiba?"

Seto whirled around defensively to see who was the source of the voice. A tall, lean man in his forties loomed into view, decked out in the all-black suit characteristic of the Kaufmanns' security entourage. Seto could detect from the corner of his eyes that there were other men either hidden or creeping about behind the bushes lining the clearing.

"Where's my brother?" Seto demanded, shifting his weight slightly in case he needed to rely on some form of self-defence.

"Would you come along with us quietly, Mr Kaiba?" the tall man said again.

"How nice of your lady to send me escorts," Seto replied sarcastically.

The older man afforded the young CEO a brief smile and inclined his head into a bow. "It's the tradition of the Kaufmann house to always honour our guests," he answered sweetly. "If you don't mind putting your hands behind your back, Mr Kaiba, we can get moving."

Seto snorted, but complied as he allowed two other men to pin his arms to the back and dragged him towards their leader. The latter appeared thoroughly amused at Seto's lack of resistance, and he commented on it, "I'm surprised, no struggle?"

"You scums are not worth my energy," Seto retorted in disgust. "Now hurry up and get going. I don't have all day."

"Oh, don't worry, you will have all day," the man said cheerfully before turning his back towards Seto.

Seto seethed inwardly as he let himself be tugged along in the man's wake.

XO XO XO XO

Tea's eyes widened as she scanned the contents of a page in a heavy, much-forgotten book in the crook of Domino's Public Library. She hurriedly grabbed the book and leapt off her chair, running as quietly as possible as she sought out Yugi who had set up camp in another corner of the library.

She cast a quick glance around before hissing as audibly as possible, "Yugi! Yugi!"

When he looked up, she pointed at the book in her hand. Yugi rushed over to her, "You found it?"

"I think so!" she whispered back as they settled down in between the shelves and propped the book between them. She pointed towards a small section of a page. "This sounds legit. 'Seto: Former high priest who came to power upon rescinding of the throne by his predecessor, whose identity remains obscured till this day.' That unnamed pharaoh must be Atem!"

Yugi perused the page greedily, but came to much disappointment when he realized that details were scant. "I don't think Kaiba will be happy with just this much, Tea…"

"He should be grateful he even gets a mention here," Tea rolled her eyes as she snapped the book shut. "He can feel for once that he's not such a hotshot after all." She stood up and beamed at her friend. "Come on, Yugi! Let's throw this book at his face and get this over and done with." She made a face. "I don't want to know anything about the investigation anymore." She felt a buzz in her bag and pulled out her phone. "Oh, speak of the devil."

She scarcely had time to say a word into the receiver when a shrill voice which was definitely not that of her employer rang through from the other end, "He's missing, he's missing!"

Tea frowned as she tried to make sense of the babble. "Wait, Mr Roland, wait, calm down. Who's missing?"

"Both of them!" Seto Kaiba's right-hand man wailed in panic.

"Wait, both of them?"

"Mr Kaiba, and Mr Mokuba!"

"What! Wait, what happened? Mr Roland, where are you?"

"I-I don't know!" Roland continued to fret; from the slight rustle Tea heard on the phone, she guessed he was frantically glancing around him trying to figure out where he is. "I remembered pulling up in front of the Kaufmann's mansion, and then suddenly everything went black. When I woke up, Mr Kaiba is gone, and I don't know where I am! And the car is dead!"

"Okay, okay, calm down. Is there anything that you recognize around you? Any street you can walk towards?"

"Well, I see a lot of containers… I think I'm in the middle of a pier?"

Tea heaved a sigh of relief. "Will you be able to find your way out, Mr Roland?"

"Yes, I should be able to," he assured her briefly, before breaking into another panic episode. "But Mr Kaiba and Mr Mokuba! We need to find them!"

"Maybe they just went into the mansion by themselves?" Tea suggested unhelpfully, not exactly very keen about going on the hunt for her employer.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ms Gardner!" Roland chided her, visibly affronted at the prospect that his employer would purposely allow him to be left in the lurch without a word. "Mr Mokuba was taken from school without anyone's knowledge, and Mr Kaiba went after them… I think something must have happened at the mansion."

Tea groaned. "You don't say… Alright, Roland. I'll ask my friends along. We'll meet you back at KaibaCorp. We'll look for them together."

The moment she hung up, she was met by Yugi's curious and rather worried eyes. Without waiting for his prompt, she filled him in on what Roland had just told her. News of the abduction of both the Kaiba brothers provoked an alarmed but weary look from him. Life is indeed isn't easy when you have so many hidden enemies.

The entire journey in the taxi back to KaibaCorp was conducted in silence, both friends secretly equally perplexed by the entire situation. There was no doubt this had something to do with the investigation that Kaiba was looking into. Could things finally have come to a head?

"Maybe Thalia isn't as innocent as Kaiba claims her to be," Yugi finally murmured.

"She sounds like the closest thing we have to a culprit," Tea agreed. "Almost everything about her checks out. I don't understand why Kaiba is trying to clear her of blame."

"Maybe he's trying to protect her?"

"From what?" Tea barely sought to conceal the annoyance in her voice. "It's not like she's anyone special to him. Or to anyone, for that matter, if Ziegfreid could agree to cast her aside like that…"

"I feel bad for her," Yugi commented quietly. When the taxi came to an abrupt halt, he glanced out the window. "We're here. Hey, who's that?"

Tea followed with her eyes to where Yugi was pointing. A blonde with a slim, but not entirely attractive, figure was pacing about in the lobby area, once in a while putting her phone to her ear, only to set it down in frustration. Her eyes kept darting towards the lift lobby, and towards the ceiling, as if willing for someone to appear from the upper stories. Tea noted with a tinge of jealousy that the girl dressed well, in a simple but definitely designer icy blue dress contrasted with bright gold accessories that complimented her blonde hair.

"I don't know, let's go see," Tea said as they got out of the taxi. As they neared the girl, her features became more prominent, and more familiar. Almost without hesitation, Tea addressed her, "Ms Thalia Kaufmann?"

The girl spun around to face Tea at the mention of her name; Yugi flinched as wisps of her blonde hair lashed out against his forehead. Thalia's worried green eyes bored into Tea's cautious cerulean ones as she beseeched, "Seto Kaiba. Have you seen him?"

"I thought he was going over to your residence?" Tea asked slowly, suddenly unsure of the entire situation. She threw a look at Yugi; he shrugged, indicating that he too was equally confused by this sudden revelation.

"He what?" Thalia sounded as if she couldn't believe her ears, and she lapsed into a soft whimper, "Oh no. No no no no. Oh God."

Tea and Yugi was just about to comfort the heiress and inquire further when suddenly from behind them, a familiar raging voice hurled himself at her, "You! What did you do to my boss!"

"I didn't do anything!" Thalia defended herself vehemently, squaring herself off against Roland, whom Tea and Yugi thought would be wise to be kept restrained. "I didn't even know he was going to my mansion!"

"Liar!" Roland was implacable. "You kidnapped Mokuba. I can prove it!" He shoved a letter into her face. "See here? It has your initials on it! T.K.! And Mr Kaiba disappeared when we were in front of your mansion!"

"I'm not the only one in the house who has those initials!" Thalia snapped. "And if I did kidnap your boss and his brother, what would I be doing here trying desperately out of my wits for the past hour trying to call him?"

"Why were you trying to call him?" Tea interjected.

Thalia threw a glance at her. "Something that Ziegfreid told me," she answered defensively. "It's a personal matter; outsiders have no right to know."

Tea was about to respond that she knew quite well about it, but opted to keep her mouth shut. Meanwhile, Roland had taken the opportunity to rekindle the argument with the Kaufmann heiress, and they traded insults back and forth before Yugi finally with a rather loud, "Okay, that's enough!" When the both of them turned to look at him, half in shock, he lowered his voice and continued, "I don't think arguing is going to help us. Let's look for Kaiba and Mokuba, since we know they're probably at your" - he gestured towards Thalia – "mansion."

Roland finally realized something. "Wait, if what you said is true, and you didn't kidnap my boss, then who did?"

Thalia gritted her teeth as she responded, "I told you, you brickhead of a bodyguard, I'm not the only one in the house with those initials." Ignoring Roland after that, she turned to Tea and Yugi, "I don't think they're in my mansion. But assuming someone is out to frame me, I think I know where they might have been brought."