NOTE: I'm writing under the assumption that instead of the final duel between Yugi and Yami, Yugi thought he could accomplish the same thing by opening the portal. The memory world did not happen.

Seto

I woke up knowing that someone was too close to my face. The weight in my personal space was Mokuba. I knew without needing to look, but I opened my eyes to verify that it was him and not Kisara, asking, "Need something?"

Mokuba grinned and threw his arms around me awkwardly, since I was still lying down. One of my arms was propped under my head, but I returned the hug with the other. The kid needed to celebrate, and giving in was much easier than trying to convince him that today was just a Wednesday.

"Happy Birthday, Seto."

"Thank you. How bad is today going to be?"

Mokuba placed his hands on either side of my face to focus all my attention on him. "You'll like my part of it."

"How many parts are there?"

"Two."

"Just two?"

"And a half. Maybe three."

Sighing didn't seem to make the situation any better. I sat up and saw Kuriboh hovering behind Mokuba, but none of the dragons. There was a dark sheet hung over the window, only letting in thin light. If the bedroom door wasn't open, letting in the light from the hallway, I wouldn't have been able to see at all.

"What time is it?"

"Late."

"Since late for me has always been eight, define late in this regard."

Mokuba smiled. "Ready for lunch?"

I frowned and glared at the sheet acting as a curtain. It wasn't there when I went to sleep, so I had no ideas as to how they got it in place without waking me, or how I had managed to sleep for fifteen hours. It must have been the lingering fingers of the flu, because that had never happened to me before, at least, not without justifiable circumstances.

A loud shattering came from the kitchen, followed by an "honestly, Kisara," from Kara. Mokuba winced, but masked it with a smile.

"It's going to be great," he said.

When I stood up, Mokuba told me to get dressed and to meet them in the living room. He left me alone then, and I spent a solid minute staring at the window, trying to decide if I should make a run for it now. But that wouldn't have been fair to Mokuba, not just because he put a lot of effort into whatever plans he had made, but also because we had that agreement that they would kill him if I ran. That left me with the one option. It was just one day. They couldn't cause too much trouble in under twelve hours.

I dressed as slowly as I could. I took extra time in taking a shower, brushing my teeth, and overall procrastinating before opening the bedroom door and bracing for impact. I trusted Mokuba. He wouldn't let them do anything too extreme. It would probably just be Kisara who wanted to take part in any festivities Mokuba had planned. I didn't see Krin and Kara getting in to that sort of thing.

Mokuba's room was empty and all the voices were coming from the living room and kitchen. I listened to the conversation as I approached, trying to determine the severity of their plans.

"You broke it. Are you supposed to break it?" Kara said.

"Mokuba said it isn't supposed to break," Krin added.

"Just go away. I'll fix it," Kisara said.

"Kisara," Mokuba this time, "You can't unbreak an egg yolk. Just start over."

"That's not even the good part of an animal," Kara said.

I knocked on the wall by the kitchen when I walked in, getting all of them to turn around.

"Nope!" Mokuba shouted. He limped across the small kitchen to push me into the living room. "You have to do nothing today. There's coffee on the table and a really old newspaper."

"Why would I read an old newspaper?" I asked, but let him lead me to the couch.

"Because that's what you do when you wake up. You drink coffee and read a newspaper. But you are also going to eat a small breakfast today because Kisara is learning how to cook."

I raised my eyebrows and Mokuba leaned in. "I'm watching her. It'll be edible," he whispered.

He left me in the living room, where Kuriboh stared out the window, frequently glancing to the kitchen to check on Mokuba. I picked up the newspaper and the coffee to humor Mokuba. I took a sip of the coffee and asked, "When did we get a coffee pot?"

"Plenty of empty houses," Mokuba called back.

"So you robbed someone?"

"I left your watch."

"You traded a three thousand dollar watch for a coffee maker?" I asked.

"And the coffee!"

I rolled my eyes and looked at the newspaper. The date printed at the top was from the day the portal opened. The edges were curled from moisture and some of the ink had run together, making the articles at the edges impossible to read. The article in the middle was about a recent change in the stock market. The picture accompanying the article was a long list of the stocks that had gone up. KaibaCorp was near the top in a still-bright green.

KaibaCorp would be worthless when the monsters were gone. There might be cult followings who would still be interested in buying merchandise related to them, but for the most part, the world would want to forget. I would probably just have to go into programming of some sort, maybe working freelance. My name had been associated with Duel Monsters since Gozaburo's death, and now that was no longer something to brag about. If I could get rid of the monsters, that might redeem me enough to be able to get work doing something.

Thinking of work reminded me to check for any new emails. It had been a few days since I checked in with Moore, which was typically a sign that he would be contacting me for a thorough run-down of everything I had done in the past few days. If an email waited in my inbox, I might be able to avoid an unwanted meeting.

The moment I stood up, Mokuba said, "No computer!"

"I always checked my email every morning," I argued. "If this is a normal day-"

"It's not a normal day. It's your birthday. And birthdays are not a time for working."

Mokuba was being ridiculous, so I kept walking over to the computer, but Kuriboh flew over to stop me. He growled something in my face, hovering at eye-level.

"Don't pretend like you care if I work," I said, but he didn't move.

"You heard the furball," Kara said. I turned around to see her leaning against the island dividing the living room and kitchen. "Sit."

I sat back down and propped my feet up on the coffee table. I dropped the newspaper in my lap and kept sipping on the coffee, since apparently that was all that I was allowed to do. Mokuba needed to have a lesson about birthdays, and how to keep in mind what the person who was actually a year older wanted, not what he thought was best.

"More pepper than salt," Mokuba said. "And you've got to flip it super carefully."

"Should I be bothered that you are eating something that came from an egg?" Kara said.

Mokuba started explaining why eating eggs wasn't weird because they never really became chickens, and I turned the page to a random one to keep the illusion that I was reading. It was a Thursday paper, which meant it was fairly thin and the biggest story the city had to report about was some band I had never heard of who was playing in a city three hours away. It was trivial, and as much as Mokuba was trying, it still wasn't normal.

"Okay, breakfast."

Kisara balanced the plate steadily in one hand while holding a bottle of water in the other. I set down the paper to see if the eggs were all she had managed. The plate had two eggs that appeared to be cooked through and not raw, a slice of slightly-burned toast, and a pop tart.

I glanced from the pop tart to Mokuba who tapped against the side of his face, In case the rest isn't good.

Nodding, I accepted the plate. I was tempted to forgo the eggs, but I couldn't see a path to avoid them. I sampled a bite of the egg first before it got cold and congealed. Kisara stood silent above me, clutching her hands together so tightly that splotches of pink broke out from her knuckles.

They were eggs with traces of seasoning. But they were cooked through and unlikely to make me sick, so I gave her a single nod of approval.

She smiled and turned to the kitchen without a word. I expected more of a response from her and waited to see if she had just forgotten something, but she stayed in the kitchen.

"I am supposed to tell you that I am happy that today is the day you were born," Krin said, dropping to the couch beside me. "Although I hardly see why it is cause for celebration. It's not like you had to fight your way out of an egg or anything."

"You're supposed to say happy birthday," Mokuba said. He sat on the arm of the couch between me and Kuriboh. Kuriboh scooted closer to him and Mokuba reached over to put his hand on Kuriboh's head. Kara claimed the chair by the door.

They were all watching me eat, which made me not want to eat anything else. I made a show out of cutting up the egg while waiting for someone to say something distracting. When half a minute of silence past, I asked, "Is there a plan for today?"

"A very complicated and secret one," Mokuba said. "You don't have the clearance for it."

Kara questioned the word clearance, giving me a chance to make the plate look like I had eaten more than I had. That involved eating two quick bites, but trying to make a piece of toast look smaller was impossible. It would have to be eaten almost in its entirety.

"Just don't tell him the game plan," Mokuba finished.

"Why can't I have a clearance for this top secret plot of yours?"

"Can you not just let me act like a spy for one day, Seto? Seriously?"

"Sure," I said, taking another bite. Mokuba celebrated my birthday with more gusto than Christmas, and he had missed his chance last year since we spent the day barricaded in a pitch-black basement of a downtown bar. That had been a really long day that dampened any thoughts Mokuba might have had about making it up on a different day.

"Good. It's not every day you turn eighteen."

"You could really say that about any day. 'It's not every day that a Friday falls on the last day of the month.'"

"It's not every day I push my brother off the couch because he is being a pain," Mokuba said. "Like that?"

"Threatening me on my birthday," I said. I gave up on the plate because the mystery of the day left me with little appetite. He should have respected the fact that I would not want to spend any time with the dragons, and I really needed to use today to go to the mansion. Maybe I could think of a trade that Krin would be interested in to let me leave tomorrow.

"Are you done eating?" Mokuba asked.

I took another sip from the mug and nodded. Mokuba slid off the couch and picked up the plate I had just set on the table.

"See, Kisara? He ate more than I told you he would."

He must have come up with some reason that I wouldn't eat her food, just in case.

"How bad was it?" she asked.

"Better than the pancakes Mokuba made me when I turned sixteen."

Kisara smiled one of her real smiles that looked like she was trying to hold it back, and Mokuba groaned.

"Who puts salt and sugar in such similar containers? And unlabeled at that. I don't take any of the blame for that mix up."

"Birthdays are boring," Kara said. She let her head drop back against the headrest and pulled her feet up onto the seat. "We should just go flying all day."

"No way," Mokuba said. "You should've suggested that last week if you wanted to. We've got a plan and that's that. Now, Seto, stay there."

Kuriboh flew over to support Mokuba's attempts to run to his bedroom. I glanced at the computer, wondering if I had enough time to check it before Mokuba made it back into the living room with whatever he had rushed off to get. Krin spoke up and stopped me before I could try.

"Your brother is insane."

"Sometimes."

"He said you didn't like today."

"I don't."

Kisara walked around the island and stayed over by the kitchen, but stood just slightly in the living room. I felt like I knew the dragons well enough by this point to predict that Krin and Kara weren't planning to do anything other than sit with me all day, but I expected something from Kisara. She was nervous, tapping her fingers and chewing the inside of her lip. She had something planned.

Mokuba reentered the room, carrying something that looked like it was wrapped in part of the newspaper he had found.

"I don't think I needed to wrap it," he said. He held it out to me when he got close enough.

It was a book. There was no tape holding the paper together, just some string wrapped around several times. He had tied the string into a simple bow on top, which I pulled out and then took off the paper.

"Where did you find this?" I asked. He wrapped it upside down, so I flipped it over to look at the cover. It was a copy of The Virginian, which had been my favorite book back in the orphanage home. I thumbed through a few pages that were in better condition that I would have expected. Anything that had been left unguarded or exposed to the elements had been ruined months ago.

"High school library. It was in the drop-off box."

"Thank you."

"I got you something else," Mokuba said, speaking so quickly that the sentence sounded like a single word. I put the book in my lap although I would rather spend the day reading it than whatever Mokuba had planned.

"And what's that?"

"I found it in a costume shop. The lock was still intact, so Kisara had to break it for me."

I looked over at Kisara, who now seemed very interested in the subject. I didn't know that Mokuba and Kisara had left together.

"You got me a costume?"

"Oh no," Mokuba said. He pressed his hands against either side of his face to push down a smile. He wore a t-shirt and sweatpants with no pockets, so he couldn't be carrying anything else to hand over. But Kara stood up and crossed the room to get to the coat closet by the door that we never used.

"Mokuba said you'd like this," she said. She opened the door and brought something out. "But I don't know what it is."

"They had that in a costume shop?" I asked. It was actually difficult for me to hold back my amusement at seeing the white trench coat in Kara's hands. I stood up and walked over to her to get a closer look at what appeared to be an exact replica of my signature outfit back during Battle City.

"Well, it had been close to Halloween before all this," Mokuba said with a grand gesture to what he must have assumed was the universe. "And you were clearly a popular choice for costume. There were wigs."

"Wigs?"

"Wigs. They had an accessory pack with the KC belt and wads of fake money."

"That's one of the funnier things I have heard in a long time."

"What is it?" Kara asked.

I took it from her, holding it up to get a fuller view. I could feel that it was made from a much cheaper material than mine had been. The metal clasps were all just painted plastic and there was no lining inside, but for a costume, it was fairly accurate.

"It's a coat. I had one similar to it a while ago."

"That's ridiculous," Krin said.

"It got attention." I put it on and smoothed it down. The material was too cheap to sit correctly, but the familiar feeling of needing to prove something came out the moment I had it on. I reached under the collar of my shirt and brought out the locket, centering it between either side of the coat, and then turned to Mokuba.

"Well?"

"You're the spitting image of yourself," he said. He walked over and tugged on the pointed shoulder. "Remember my puffy jacket?"

Kisara walked over to me slowly, as if testing to see if I would shoo her off. She reached with a gentle touch to the trench coat, keeping her fingers away from me and focusing only on the coat. She looked up at me and laughed before saying, "We probably would have let you go if you had been wearing this."

They all laughed, and I couldn't find it in me to be offended. She had to have made jokes around me before, but none were coming to mind. It was very different to see her so relaxed, even for just a moment. I took off the coat and tossed it over the island counter, tucking the locket back under my shirt. The trench coat was so much lighter than the one that I had worn for all those weeks. I was almost a little jealous that the people who were going to dress up as me would be more comfortable than I had been.

"All right, master of ceremonies, what am I allowed to do now?"

"You'll call him master," Krin mumbled.

"Sardonically. Mokuba, what's next?"

"The plan is for you to teach them how to play chess."

"Why?" I didn't know we had a chess board in the house. Mokuba led me back to the coffee table where he pulled a small box out from underneath. When he opened it, small cut outs of all the chess pieces were inside. Our coffee table was normally covered with my books or Krin's maps, so Mokuba used his forearm to clean the table with a smooth motion, revealing a hand-drawn chess board.

"I couldn't find a real one. This will work though."

"Mokuba, answer my question."

He rolled his eyes and started setting up the pieces. He had cut small squares of paper and folded them in half so that they stood like small tents, and wrote the name of each piece on both sides. That way, I would be able to see the names of my pieces and the ones on the other side of the board. Half of them had black marker drawn around the edges.

"I want to see if Krin can beat you."

"No one can beat me."

Kara snorted. "You can't be that good."

"Saying that someone can beat me at this particular game is like saying Griggle could beat you in a fight."

"Did you just call me a Griggle?" Krin asked.

"I invited the comparison."

"So, how is this game played?" Krin asked. He stood up from the couch and walked around the coffee table, grabbing the chair that Kara had been using and claiming the pieces which Mokuba hadn't used the black marker on. Of course he would want to be the white pieces, without knowing anything else about the game play.

Kisara and Kara filled in around us, making space for Mokuba and Kuriboh to squeeze in. I sat across from Krin and straightened all my pieces.

"The goal is to take your opponent's king," I said, placing my finger on the top of the word king. "You do that by moving one of your pieces to the same spot as the king. You can take any of the pieces on my side of the board by doing that, but you only win by taking the king."

Krin nodded. He looked down at his pieces until he found the king, pushing it forward within the blacked-out square Mokuba had drawn.

"Each piece moves a different way." Mokuba interrupted with a gesture to the edge of the board, where he had listed all the names of the pieces, and drawn diagrams of how each moved. I talked Krin through each, demonstrating on the board. After explaining them once, Krin, without looking at the reference list, picked up each one of his pieces and practiced the movement.

"Seto-" Mokuba said. "I think you should not do any of the weird moves for the first game at least."

"Define weird."

"Like castling and stuff. Have a straight-forward game first."

Krin looked bored as he said, "If you tell me what the moves are, then I will use them too, and then you can't say I won because you were held back."

I explained every rule to the game, every obscure detail, and even a few of the strategies I commonly used. I didn't want to give Mokuba an opportunity to say what Krin had just mentioned. I was going to win, but it wouldn't be because Krin didn't understand the game.

"Got it?"

He nodded and we started. Krin's initial strategy seemed to be waiting on me to show him how I was going to approach the match. I made sure that the first piece captured was one of his, even if it was just a pawn. His pieces began moving toward one side of the board, and he began taking a bit longer with each movement. I never thought for too long during chess matches, mostly because it made the other person feel like they were doing something wrong in thinking through their decisions. It made me look reckless, which gave them opinions about me without any other proof. I had so many strategies memorized that I really didn't have to think about the moves so long as I knew where each piece needed to end up.

Krin seemed to be thinking about two steps ahead of each turn. He never left his king open or made any move without making certain I would lose a piece trying to take any of his.

I was never interested in playing defensively, at any game or for any reason. I wouldn't have thought Krin would pick a defensive approach, but maybe it was only because he had never played before. I paused very briefly before moving a bishop to make sure I saw each of Krin's future moves laid out on the board. He had a fairly decent strategy, if I was playing a fairly decent game. He moved a knight and I took a rook, and ten moves later, "Checkmate."

Krin surveyed the board for several seconds before nodding. He flicked his king to the floor and looked at Mokuba.

"You were right. I think after a few games, I could beat him."

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"You responded to everything I did how I predicted that you would. A few more games and I will be able to predict everything you do."

If that was the case, he hadn't been playing defensively, but reconnaissance, delaying between moves to make sure my previous one was memorized. It was a much better strategy than I had anticipated him using.

"But you've told me that now. I could just play a different way each time."

"There are only so many different ways," Krin said. "You couldn't keep it up forever."

The word forever hung in front of me. I said something like, "I highly doubt that," to stall for time while I tried to process Krin saying forever. He might have forever. If they were really five thousand years old, their life spans could be infinite. I wondered if they knew how little time I had in comparison.

Kara tried playing against me and lost in under a dozen moves. I could see Krin observing from beside me on the couch, so I threw in a few trivial moves just to skew his data. If there was one thing in the world that I wouldn't let Krin beat me at, it would be chess.

Kisara didn't want to play. She insisted that she understood the rules, but had reasons for not wanting to play, aside from knowing I would win. Mokuba took his turn last, making it almost as long as Krin had. And since Krin had just been stalling most of the time, I interpreted that as Mokuba being the better player.

"You're not bad," Kara said after my "checkmate."

"I've played a lot with Seto. We used to watch the matches all the time."

"Have you ever lost?" Krin asked me.

I nodded. "When I first started. A couple of late night grudge matches later on." I rubbed my neck and avoided looking at Mokuba, knowing the reaction I would find. I never told him about the rematches Gozaburo insisted we had, or how he made certain that he won, but it wouldn't have surprised me if Mokuba knew regardless.

"How long has it been?" Krin said.

"Five years? Maybe a little less."

"Less?" Mokuba asked. He frowned from across the table, wrinkling his eyebrows. "How long did he make you play grudge matches?

I shrugged like I didn't know the answer. "About a year or so," I said, when I really meant, "Until the end."

Kisara stood over Mokuba's shoulder and mouthed, "Lie," but didn't actually say it. The way she looked toward me made me think that she wasn't accusing me of anything, merely pointing out that she noticed. None of them told Mokuba I was lying, and he seemed to accept it as the truth.

While he asked if anyone else wanted to play – even if it wasn't against me – I stared at him and waited for every lie I had ever told him to suddenly reveal itself to him. He might hate me if he knew how much I kept hidden from him.

But he cheerily picked up the pieces and asked if I wanted more coffee. Mokuba took my mug that I had left on the table by the chess set and carried it to the kitchen.

"You visibly love him," Kisara said, waiting until Mokuba had left the room, but still speaking in a whisper.

"What?"

"She's right," Kara said. "You'd think he was your kid or something."

"He is," I answered. Mokuba had walked back into the room, glancing at my hand before looking back up at me.

"I usually check your watch for the time."

"Regretting the coffee maker?"

"Nah," he said, smiling. "We're doing fine on time. In fact, I'd say it is time for our private," Mokuba paused to use exaggerated air quotes, "-celebration. It's a little chilly outside. I'd grab your jacket."

"Is it cold?"

Mokuba nodded and then shrugged. "You've been sick. It's kind of windy and in no way above seventy-five. I'm recommending a jacket."

I had left my jacket in the bedroom, so I got up and headed back down the hallway. Krin walked with me, but Kisara and Kara stayed in the living room. Mokuba went out the back door, instructing me to follow as soon as I was ready. Krin leaned against the door frame while I dug through the blankets on the floor for the jacket I knew I had seen mixed in somewhere.

"So are you going to tell me the plan for today?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Kisara would rather I didn't."

"I'm going to hate it that much?"

Krin tilted his head to the side, almost like he was shaking his head. "She would like a real response, or something like that. I don't think you will hate it."

"It would be great if I could tell when you were lying."

I found my jacket under Kisara's pillow and pulled it on. I grabbed my shoes and started to put them on while Krin said, "I rarely lie."

"But this could be one of those rare times."

"No, it couldn't. I don't care about something this trivial nearly enough to lie about it. You'll probably enjoy what Kisara and your brother have planned."

I tied off the last lace and walked to the door. Krin let me slip by him, only to turn around and walk behind me out the back door.

Mokuba had set a blanket up in the middle of our backyard. He had a couple of books stacked on one corner, including the one he had just gotten for me. There was a cardboard box holding down another corner of the blanket, but the top was closed so I couldn't see what was inside. Mokuba and Kuriboh held down the other two corners.

"Grab a corner, you two," Mokuba said.

Krin and I sat on the corner across from the books, and Kuriboh scooted over to sit with Mokuba. Mokuba had been right about the wind. It tugged at the edges of the blanket and lifted the pages of The Virginian, resting on top of the stack. Mokuba tied his hair back into a messy braid, and Kuriboh kept his eyes closed, lying on the ground by Mokuba's outstretched legs.

"Let me know when you get hungry. Aside from that, we're reading outside today."

I grabbed my book and Mokuba picked up one that had been on the ground beside him. Krin didn't have anything to do, so I asked, "Are you just sitting here?"

"You two can't be alone together outside."

"There's a fence surrounding us," I tried, although the fence was hardly in any shape to keep us in. A few of the boards were loose and resting at odd angles. The hinges on the gate were rusted, which would either make them difficult to open or easy to break.

Krin just gave me an irritated expression and looked at the nearest gap in the fence.

"Why don't you read?"

"Why aren't you reading?" he asked.

I set the book down beside me and checked the spines of all the books Mokuba had brought outside. I had seen Krin reading the maps and from the computer, so I knew that he had learned how, but I wasn't sure how he would interpret fiction. I doubted that he would like any of the plays from the Oscar Wilde book, or the theory behind Plato, but I stopped at The Art of War.

"Here," I said, holding it to him. "See how humans differ from you."

He looked at the title and shook his head. "Of course you would consider war an art."

But he turned to the first page.

I did the same, but didn't start reading. I don't know why it hit me in that moment that I was sitting with a Blue-Eyes and a Kuriboh, but even after a year of dealing with the insanity, that notion was still baffling. It was hard enough to believe that a dragon was reading a book beside me, but I started thinking about the portal that I was supposed to be working to close. The very fact that there was a portal was difficult to accept, because accepting it meant accepting that there was a parallel universe where monsters lived. I reconsidered. They were probably not considered monsters in their world.

"What does the word monster mean to you?" I asked, getting Krin to look up from his page.

"It's what you call us."

I shook my head. "Not how we use it. How would you use it?"

"I don't think there is a definition outside of your world."

"So how would you define it?"

Krin thought about it and answered as he started to read again. "You seem to think of it as any being that you are unfamiliar with, so long as you consider it to be a danger to you."

"I thought you were reading about a cowboy," Mokuba said.

I lifted the book toward my face and didn't read it again. They had to have a definition for monster in their world. If anything, some of the dark monsters certainly fit the description. That one Mokuba had mentioned, the one who aged until he rotted, certainly seemed to fit. Maybe not all of the duel monsters could really be described as monsters, but a lot of them were.

I started to separate them all into groups. The longer I worked on the lists, which were monsters, which were not, the worse the word became in my mind. I would get stuck in debates over the Dark Magician, D.D. Warrior Lady, Flame Swordsman; they weren't monsters, but I didn't know what else to call them. They had always just been characters to me. Now I didn't even had a word to categorize them as.

Souls, my subconscious threw out as a suggestion, but I shook that one away. The only way to get rid of them was to burn the cards, and in doing so, the souls trapped inside. Thinking about them as a soul made the cards seem sacred. They were just supposed to be a card game.

"You okay?" Mokuba asked.

I realized that I had been clenching my jaw together. I had to relax it to be able say, "I'm fine."

In my peripheral, Krin's eyes widened as if they were calling me out on the lie in lieu of verbalizing it. I would understand much more how they could tell when I was lying if I still had their souls in my pocket. I wasn't sure how they did it otherwise.

"Are you hating this? I can find something else-"

"Mokuba. This is nice. Almost like reading out in the garden back home."

"Back home?" Krin asked.

"The house we lived in before the collision of worlds. It had a large garden behind it."

"Where did you live?"

"Just a house outside of the city," I said. I didn't want to give any more information than that. I had to sneak off to the mansion at some point in the next few days, and I didn't want him to have the option of chasing after me.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. Krin went back to the book and I turned a page so it looked like I had as well. I had read the words to the book so many times that I could probably quote the first three pages from memory, so there wasn't much of a point of me actually reading them.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the fact that I was out of the house. With no technology, a limited library, and four non-humans in the house, being inside for more than a day or two without leaving proved mind-numbing. I didn't feel like I could talk to Mokuba while Kuriboh was around, and in the few times he wasn't there, the dragons were nearby.

"Why are we reading outside?" I asked.

Mokuba's face fell to stare at his lap. He stalled with a long "uhhh" before popping back up.

"Because it's a picnic! Surprise. That box has lunch in it."

"That might have been the most unconvincing lie you have ever told me," I said.

"The box does have lunch in it," Mokuba said.

"What are they doing in the house?"

"Decorating?" Mokuba said.

Krin snorted and turned the page. "Is that the word for it?"

Mokuba side-glared toward Krin, his lips scrunched together in an annoyed line.

"Yes," he said. "That's what I would call it."

"You could just tell me."

"Not a chance, big brother. Embrace the ignorance and read."

A gust of wind came through, blowing my hair into my eyes and sending a series of shivers to my bones. It wasn't even that cold yet, but even with the sun almost directly overhead, the wind was cold. The dragons had lived through a winter before. I wondered if it had been hard for them.

"Is there a water bottle in that box?" I asked.

"Yeah!" Mokuba said. He dropped his book without marking the page and crawled forward, bumping Kuriboh and apparently waking him up. Mokuba pulled the top of the box open, cutting deep creases in the cardboard from where he had folded the flaps together. He rummaged inside for a few seconds before producing the water bottle.

"Would you like one too?"

Krin shook his head. Mokuba tossed the first bottle over to me and grabbed a second for himself. He scooted back next to Kuriboh and fell backward so his head was on the blanket. He crossed his legs and rested an arm under his head.

"Blue's a weird color."

"And why is that?" I asked, having confirmed that was I saw of the sky was a perfectly average blue.

"Well," he said. He paused long enough to put his other hand behind his head. "Blue is a synonym for sad. So is the whole sky supposed to be sad for the majority of the day? And the ocean? We live on a pretty blue planet. What's it saying about us as a whole if we've taken the color of the majority of our home and given it a name meaning sad?"

"I'm sure it is a reference to something," I said. "Unfortunately, it's not one of the million useless facts I have tucked away."

"Why is yellow happy? I don't feel happy looking at the color yellow."

"So you are going to argue a definition over personal preference?"

"Why even argue over language?" Krin asked. "They are just words."

"I'm sure if your name was Daffodil you'd be really ready to argue the parents' right to name their child, or the perception that names can cast onto a child," Mokuba said.

I assumed that Mokuba was trying to make me forget about what was going on inside the house by bringing up a random topic. While I did want to know what I would have to endure later on, I played along with Mokuba's absurdity for his sake. He was trying and even though I would rather ignore any significance this particular Wednesday had in my life, it meant a lot to him.

"So shall we change the name of the color or the emotion?" I asked.

"Let's ignore the word blue entirely. The sky is robin's egg. I'm feeling sad. See? No need."

"You want me to trade blue for robin's egg? So on my driver's license, should I switch my eye color over to lapis?" I asked, emphasizing the last word to make sure Mokuba knew that I thought he could come up with a solution better than using a different term. I leaned my head toward Krin.

"And how about him? Should they be the Cornflower-Eyes White Dragon?"

"This is a global travesty and you're concerned about what to call your eye color?" Mokuba ran his fingers through Kuriboh's hair and added, "Besides, Krin's eyes aren't cornflower."

"I would so much rather be hunting," Krin said, turning another page. I uncapped the water bottle to take a sip. Krin was either really interested in the book, or extremely uninterested in the conversation. I sat the bottle down between the two of us, which Krin gave a brief look before returning to the pages.

The conversation fizzled out and we read for around an hour. Mokuba never sat up, but ended up napping with Kuriboh. I glanced over at him every few minutes, still not used to seeing Mokuba with an actual monster, sleeping. Mokuba seemed to be more comfortable around Kuriboh lately, but I didn't plan on living the rest of my life with Kuriboh hanging around. I doubted that there was a card with Kuriboh's soul inside, which meant nothing to find and nothing to destroy. Mokuba ran away from him once, maybe we could do the same.

I read without really reading, flipping the pages and occasionally glancing at a particular sentence. I couldn't help but be much more interested in watching Krin read. It wasn't just that he was reading, but he actually seemed to be paying attention to what was on the page. I thought that the subject would interest him, but he only looked away from the page, and even then it was more of a glance away, if I moved. I wondered if we would be seeing any of Tzu's tactics in the war against the dark.

Mokuba woke up about the time I started thinking more about the food in the box. There was no doubt that it was just stuff from the pantry. Even if Mokuba and Kisara had left to look for a present, he didn't have cash to spend on extra food. Unless he had taken something else that belonged to me and pawned it off for a cupcake.

"I need you to be hungry now," Mokuba said. He propped himself up on his elbows and yawned.

"What did you pack?" I asked. I set down my book as a signal that Mokuba could start bringing out whatever he had prepared for lunch.

Mokuba started to go through the box again as the breeze grew a little stronger. It didn't look like it was going to rain today, but it could be a signal of storms to follow. I hoped that tomorrow would be fairly clear, because I was determined to get the cards from the mansion.

"A box of crackers," he said, pulling it out and displaying it like he was on a game show. "And some beef jerky. There is also a can of pineapple that is still fairly cold, and of course, those chocolate granola bars."

"Did you bring a can opener?" I asked as Mokuba passed over the can.

He reached into the box and brandished the can opener. "I came prepared."

"And forks?" I asked, but he had already brought them out before I finished speaking.

"Seriously, Seto. I am really good at your birthday."

I put the fork Mokuba handed me by the unopened can and reached for a granola bar. I heard a rumor that stores were supposed to be reopening soon, and even talk of a farmer's market downtown. I would have to frequent them, because just the sight of packaged food made my body entirely not hungry. The about-to-expire canned goods were all that had been available for purchase for months, and I was beginning to reject even the idea of them.

"Chinese takeout," Mokuba said. He had opened one of the bags of jerky and was picking small pieces off with his fingers.

"What?"

"If I could have anything to eat in the world right now," Mokuba said.

"What about you?"

Krin turned a page.

"That café on the corner that served the French toast you liked. They made a good garden salad."

"Salad? Out of everything in the whole world?"

"Nothing processed."

"Yeah," Mokuba said. He tapped the jerky against his palm, still yet to take a bite. "I kind of feel slow all the time. But I'd eat a salad second. That honey chicken from Ho's? With the green beans and low mein? That'd be first."

"You have a top ten, don't you?"

Mokuba grinned. "Just a top five. Well, six now that I added your salad to my list."

We read for a little longer after lunch. Mokuba was still working on a book I had loaned him a few weeks back, and Krin was making better progress than I had expected him to.

But I really wanted to know what they were doing inside the house.

I stood up, causing both Mokuba and Krin to do the same.

"Where are you going?" Mokuba asked. He slid a step in front of me, putting himself between me and the house.

"Inside."

"Just tell me what you need and I can get it for you."

I crossed my arms and stared down at him. "I need to go to the bathroom."

Mokuba grimaced and looked around the yard, as if his answer was going to spring up from the weeds.

"You're a guy. Pee outside."

I think my brain stuttered after hearing that sentence, because I had no idea how to process that idea, or the fact that my younger brother had just spoken those words to me.

"Did you just tell me to 'pee outside?'" I asked. I couldn't even repeat the phrase back to him in a level tone. The words came out slower and more emphasized than I would have expected them to if he had just told me to wait or run to the empty house next door.

"It was a lie," Krin said. Out of all my lies so far that morning, I preferred for him to call me out on that one.

"Why won't you just tell me what the plan is for tonight?"

"Because it's a surprise."

"I don't like surprises."

"Just let me have this one. Please, Seto?'

I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I shouldn't have expected Mokuba to cave so easily. They probably all had an understanding to not let me in the house for any reason.

"So we just sit out here all day?"

"Just for a couple more hours," Mokuba said. He wrapped his fingers around my arm and tried to push me back to sit on the blanket. "It's a picnic after all."

"We've been picnicking for at least an hour and a half," I said. I countered the pressure Mokuba was using to stay on my feet. After sitting on the ground for so long, just standing felt like a stretch. Everything ached, but that was just a side effect of the flu.

"You like reading," Mokuba said, trying to increase the pressure to make my knees buckle.

"I'd like reading even more in my room. And you can stop trying to make me sit back down. I'm stronger than you are."

"Is that what he's doing?" Krin said.

I looked down at Mokuba's hands until he moved them. He kept his position in front of me, but glanced at Krin.

"I'll double check inside. I'll let you know when it's clear."

Mokuba walked over to Kuriboh and knelt down to wake him up, giving him a slight shake and saying that he was going inside. Kuriboh flew off behind Mokuba, leaving me in the yard with Krin.

"What did you two do before we showed up?" Krin asked, staring after Mokuba as the door swung closed.

"What do you mean?"

"All you do now is sit around and read. That couldn't be everything."

"You three don't do much together," I said.

"What are we supposed to do like this?" Krin said, holding up his arms in what I guessed was a reference to his entire body. "We're dragons. Not humans."

"I worked a lot. Mokuba had school and homework, and he played the video games my company produced to test them out for me."

"I didn't understand half of that," Krin said.

"We didn't do much together."

"You didn't do much together, but you ran away and forced us to let you be together?"

I turned toward Krin so I wasn't facing the back door. If Mokuba walked out, I would rather not risk Mokuba reading my lips as I said, "I've never been a particularly good brother."

"He still loves you."

"He doesn't know any better. I'm the only family he has ever known."

"Don't you people usually have bigger families?"

"Our family died a long time ago."

Krin nodded and glanced at the backdoor. He smirked before looking back.

"I guess that's why you're so difficult."

I actually laughed. I hadn't expected that to be how Krin reacted to my statement, although I shouldn't have expected anything else. There was no reason to have assumed Krin would commiserate, but it amused me that he responded in that manner.

"Yeah, maybe."

Mokuba leaned out the backdoor and called, "You can come in! Just go straight to your room!"

"Should I bring this in?"

Mokuba wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "Leave it. I'll grab it later."

I took the book with me inside, and Krin brought in the one I had loaned him. Kuriboh hovered halfway down the hall, blocking my view at eye level so that I couldn't see in the living room. I tried to glance past him to see if there were any decorations like Mokuba had mentioned, but there was nothing in the narrow gap I could see.

The door to my bathroom stood open, and the mirror had condensation covering it. I started to walk over to it, but Krin got in my way and closed the door.

"I may need to go in there," I said.

"I'm sure it can wait."

"I'm going to have to go in there at some point today."

"But not now."

I held up my hands in surrender and walked over to the corner where I had set up some pillows to act as a reading chair since Kara wouldn't let me bring an actual chair into the room. Some of my other books were stacked beside it, and I edged them out of the way to sit.

Krin sat against the wall beside me, stretching his legs and propping them up on the blankets. He flipped back through the pages to get to the point where he had stopped.

"So on my birthday, I'm basically on house arrest?"

"That doesn't mean anything to me. And I don't get the significance of your birthday. Who cares what day you were born?"

"Pretty much just Mokuba."

"And Kisara. You can add her now."

"You don't think it would be strange if I acted toward Kisara how she wants me to?"

"I have no desire for you to love Kisara like she loves you. It's unnatural. But I don't approve of the way you treat her."

"I'm not a nice person."

"I'd gathered."

"You're not exactly pleasant," I said.

He turned a page while looking at me, and said, "I'm a dragon. I lead an entire faction of our people. Being pleasant doesn't fit my role."

"I ran a company of five hundred employees with accounts worldwide. It didn't fit mine either."

"Part of that was a lie, but I don't know which part," Krin said.

I sighed and rested the book on my lap.

"I don't know which part either."

"How could that be the truth?"

"Motivation? It's not the whole reason I'm unpleasant?"

"I'm going to just accept that it is. I don't need to hear your sad stories about why you are terribly frustrating to be around."

I picked the book back up and scanned the pages to find where I had left off.

"You don't need to worry about that. I have no intentions of confiding anything in you."

Mokuba walked into the room and waited for Kuriboh to fly in behind him, then closed the door. He crossed the room and collapsed on the bedding pile.

"I don't know, Seto. I don't see how you sleep on this every night."

"Lack of an option. What happened in the bathroom?"

"I think this would give me back problems. I've already got foot problems."

"Mokuba."

Mokuba looked at me and lifted a shoulder. He shifted around until he had settled in the blankets a bit more deeply, Kuriboh scooting up beside him.

"We ran the shower. There's nothing incriminating to be found in there."

"You ran the shower just for the sake of it? Or did someone take a shower?"

"Does it offend you if someone took a shower?"

I had never seen any of the dragons worry about hygiene. I always assumed that since they weren't actually human and were just occupying the forms that their bodies didn't function in the same way. It could have been that, or maybe switching back and forth affected it somehow. It was like their clothing that was always the same even once they turned from dragon to human.

"I would like to know what is going on."

"It's your birthday. I never let you know what is going on."

"Do you think you would love Seto less if your family wasn't dead?"

I could see Mokuba lose his breath in his expression alone. He stared at Krin like his head had just exploded. Turning to me, I could see Mokuba looking for some explanation that would give him a way to answer.

I pressed my fingers against my forehead and covered my face. Krin couldn't have let the subject drop, but had to bring up our parents' deaths up to Mokuba.

"Of course I wouldn't?" Mokuba said. He answered with a slight shake of his head and bewildered expression.

"I don't have to have a connection to you to tell you're lying."

"Why would I love him less?"

Krin closed the book and leveled his stare on Mokuba. "More people to love means it would be divided. Seto said he was a bad brother to you."

I had never seen the horror in Mokuba's face that he was currently expressing. He had been dangled from a helicopter and used as a weapon against me, taken by a monster and threatened by the Slaver, but this was a new expression for me.

"So if mom had made it through me being born and dad hadn't offed himself on I-63, I wouldn't love you because you aren't perfect? Is that what you are telling him?"

"Mokuba-"

"Seto. No. I'll admit that going through the orphanage and Gozaburo and me being kidnapped a thousand times all prove to be good bonding experiences, but you would still be my brother without all that. And you wouldn't have KaibaCorp, so you wouldn't have been as busy. We'd argue about who got to hold the remote or me wanting to tag along to the arcade with you and your friends. Because you would have had friends, geeky, nerdy friends like yourself. I still would have loved you as much, but it would have been just like a brother, not like a parent too."

He sat up a little straighter. "This is your birthday, so I'm not going to pick a fight with you over if I love you more now or in some hypothetical world. And Krin, shove it. I get that you're all scary, but this is not a subject to try to make us fight about."

Krin looked at me like he had just won an argument.

"That is how you need to love Kisara."

And he went back to reading.

Mokuba ran his hands over his face and through his hair, ruffling it into a mess that resembled Kuriboh. The band holding his hair into a braid fell onto the blankets. He dropped his hands an instant later, turning his palms to the ceiling and widening his eyes.

"Don't call yourself a bad brother," Mokuba said.

"Okay," I said. The doorbell rang before I could add, "I won't."

Mokuba scrambled to his feet, tripping when his boot got caught in a blanket, and caught himself on Kuriboh, who growled, but followed.

"Stay here!" Mokuba said, already halfway out the door. It slammed behind him so I couldn't see anything happening, or who had arrived. I didn't even want to give it thought. Thought felt like too much effort when I would find out everything by the end of the day.

We read in silence for a while longer. The silence was only broken by the occasional voice coming from the living room. At one point, I could have sworn that I heard Wheeler speaking, but I trusted that Mokuba wouldn't invite them over if he wanted me to enjoy my day.

The light coming through the sheet over the window grew brighter after an hour or two. I went into the bathroom once, but didn't find any evidence of what was happening aside from a damp towel on the floor.

Mokuba checked in once or twice more, bringing in another water bottle and a cup of coffee. I heard him going out the backdoor, likely to pack up all the picnic items. The only words from outside the room I could understand came from Mokuba talking to Kuriboh as they walked down that hallway. I couldn't get any information out of what Mokuba was saying, since it was mostly comments like "don't bump that," or "can you at least try?"

Krin didn't say anything else, but kept turning the pages, which I assumed meant that he was interested in the subject matter. He read more slowly than I did, so by the time I was halfway through my book, he had only made it around fifty pages in.

I guessed it was around four when Mokuba opened the door again. He had a smile on his face, and excited one that let me know it was time to put down the book.

"Okay, Seto. You ready?"

"As much as I can be."

Krin got up with me. I left the book, but he carried his with him. It confirmed that whatever Mokuba had planned for the rest of the night didn't involve Krin.

Mokuba walked backward into the living room, keeping his gaze on my face while I exited the bedroom and headed down the hall.

Wheeler and Tea were leaning against the kitchen island, which was covered in what looked to be the contents of an entire cosmetics store. Wheeler looked at me with his hand covering his mouth which was obviously smirking. Tea's hands were clasped together in front of her, looking too pleased to make me comfortable with what was about to happen.

Kara stood by the door, watching me like everyone else, only looking much more bored than the others. The others were enraptured in staring at my face, making it excessively difficult to maintain a neutral expression.

I stepped in the living room and looked away from Wheeler, Tea, Mokuba, and Kara to find Kisara.

I almost looked past her when I saw her, convinced that the woman standing in the middle of the room was a stranger in our home. Her hair was braided like a headband that fell down over her shoulder and landed on the chest of a red dress. The dress had a gentle v-neck that stopped short of being too low, and the skirt draped around her knees.

And she had makeup on. Her lips were darker and her eyes had something on them that made them sparkle. Her skin was still just as pale.

She smiled at me and dropped her gaze to her hands, which fidgeted nervously together. Her fingernails had a red polish on them, just a shade darker than the dress. She shifted as she ran her toes through the carpet, and although she was dressed like she was going to a social event of some sort, she was barefoot.

She caught me looking at her feet and said, "The shoes were pointy."

"Heels," Tea said. "I brought some over."

I stepped up to Kisara, getting close enough that I could whisper without anyone – especially Wheeler – hearing me say, "You look nice."

Kisara's fidgeting stopped and she lifted her chin to meet my eyes. "You think so?"

I nodded.

"Well, this is a great moment and all, but I don't feel like waiting around any longer," Kara said.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"I want to show you something," Kisara said. "You'll like it. I promise."

"Just you and me?"

She nodded. "Kara's going to take us, and it will be easier to fly with just us two."

"So your sister is going t'carry you on a date?" Wheeler said.

"I've never flow like that before. This will be a first for me," Kisara said.

Mokuba walked up beside me and handed me my coat. "You'll need this," he said, making sure I took it before stepping away. Kisara's dress was sleeveless, but I doubted that the cold would be a problematic factor for her. They had planned so much already that if she needed a coat, they would have thought about it.

"Kisara looks pretty and Seto hasn't made a snarky comment about it. Great. Can we go now?" Kara said.

I turned around and realized that I didn't even put up a protest to leaving alone with Kisara. Wheeler's comment was actually correct; the set up did seem like a date, a date for which she recruited backup to help her get dressed. Whatever the plan, Krin agreed to leave Kisara and me alone, which meant he approved.

Tea's lips were pressed together in a tight smile, her hands still clasped. She held them up under her jaw with bright eyes in an expression that made me glare at her until the delight faded. I was sure that she and Wheeler stuck around just to see my reaction.

But a glance to Wheeler brought back my plan to sneak into the mansion. I would need his help, and if I wanted to go the following day, now would be the time to ask him, even if I hadn't gotten permission from Krin yet. I thought that I had figured out a way to get him to agree, the only way, even though I would likely come to regret it.

I caught Mokuba's gaze and tapped a finger against the side of my face, saying, "Ask Wheeler to meet me tomorrow. Noon."

Mokuba frowned and mouthed, "Mansion?"

I gave him a quick nod. His confusion didn't fade, but I knew that he understood enough to make the request for me. I would go with or without Wheeler, but if the reports of the mansion were true, having backup would make it easier. He had been in a gang, so I felt confident that I wouldn't have to keep an eye on him should anything happen.

I walked outside with Kara and Kisara, waving goodbye to Mokuba, who promised to leave the door unlocked. The daylight was getting low as the sun dropped toward the horizon. The sky was still a cloudy blue, but the world was touched with yellow. I hadn't been keeping up with the times for sunset, but it was usually around six. That meant it was probably later than I had estimated.

Kisara stood back with me by the house while Kara walked out to the middle of the street.

"You've never flown in this form?" I asked.

She smiled and shook her head. "Is it amazing?"

"It's-"

Kara changed and the light burst cut me off. I turned away, but Kisara stared at her sister, unwavering. I gave the light a few seconds to fade before saying, "-something."

Kisara skipped over to Kara. Kara lifted her head to gaze down at us and huffed in our faces. Her breath was practically a gust of wind, but a sticky, humid wind.

"I don't even know how to get on," Kisara said.

I advised her on how to climb up, using the ridges in Kara's scales as footholds. Kisara's face never fell anywhere under a sheer delight at the new experience. She kept turning to me to smile, now back to her real smiles.

The dress Tea had picked had a loose skirt, so when she sat on Kara's back, it still covered her almost to her knees. She adjusted it anyway and scooted forward to make space for me right behind her.

"You better not drop us!" Kisara yelled. She leaned forward and nudged Kara's neck with two fingers.

Kara snapped at Kisara, getting just inches from her sister's face and barring her teeth. Kisara shoved her away playfully and grabbed her braid.

"If we do fall, I'll try to catch you," she said.

"That's not comforting."

"I wasn't trying to be comforting," she said. Her tone sounded like she was mimicking me, and it sounded familiar, but I couldn't place what she was referencing.

We were off the ground before I had the chance to ask. Kara's wings lifted us with one powerful push and seconds later, we were above the rooftops.

Kisara let out a delighted scream. She reached back for my hands and moved them around her to grab onto one of the ridges on Kara's neck, doing the same with her own hands. I figured that she would use the opportunity to touch her hand to mine for a prolonged duration, but she kept them distanced by an inch.

"This is beautiful!" she shouted.

The flight tugged stray bits of hair from her braid. They blew around her face, but she didn't seem to notice. She just shook her head and laughed. From time to time, she would lean just enough to the side to look at the ground, laugh again, and settle back in a safer spot.

I couldn't appreciate the view like she was because she was so much more interesting. She flew all the time. She was a dragon. She had wings. I wouldn't have thought that flying in this form would have made that much of a difference. But I could feel her joy with every breath because her breaths were so full that they backed her up into me.

She tilted her head up to the sky and held her hands out to either side. My arms were supporting her since they were still holding onto Kara on either side of Kisara's waist, but she didn't appear to be concerned about falling. Her head fell far enough back that it grazed my shoulder and her ear touched my own.

Kisara's eyes were closed, but she peeked one open to catch my gaze.

"I love this," she said. I couldn't hear her, but her lips formed the words clearly.

By the time Kara landed, I didn't think that I would be able to get Kisara down. She just kept telling Kara how amazing it was and how she had to try it the first chance she got.

"Seriously, go home and get Krin to fly you somewhere. Yeah, you'll have to bring Mokuba. He'll love it too. Just trust me, Kara. It's wonderful."

Kisara stood up on her toes and waved her hand as high as she could get it when Kara flew away. She waved long after Kara was airborne, and only stopped when she was a small spot against the clouds.

I took the time to see where we were. Domino was spread out below us like it was a valley and we were on a mountain top. The ground did raise a bit a few miles outside of the city, and a lot of residents of the area had jokingly referred to the little hill as a mountain since it was the closest thing to a mountain that Domino had within fifty miles. The lower half of the hill, where we were, had been cleared to just grass. I thought I remembered a plan to build something, maybe upscale houses or something, on the lower half of the hill, but the specifics had long since been forgotten.

"Come on," Kisara said. She looked at my hand, but didn't ask for it. She gestured with a smile and glance to head up the hill, toward the trees that had been left in the development and away from the city below.

"Where are we going?" I asked. She was excited and hard to keep pace with on the upward climb. I had to lean my weight ahead as the hill grew steeper, eventually getting to the point where I had a tree to grab onto for support.

"When we started looking for you," Kisara started, weaving in between two trees and beaming when a leaf fell in front of her face. "-we could feel that you were close, but it was impossible to pin you down. So we just searched everywhere we could."

She stepped over a fallen tree that had gotten caught between two others. Moss grew along its surface and branched up onto the trunks of the trees around it. I followed after her in the fading daylight. I reminded myself that Kisara wasn't likely to let me get lost, and in the slim chance that I did, I could figure out where I was by following the downward slope.

"I found this spot instead of you. I flew over it, but didn't have enough space to land, so I had to cut through all these trees. It's my favorite place in your world."

I heard the ocean before I saw it. The sound of the waves wafted through the trees for several minutes before we reached the end of the woods. I thought I knew the spot she was thinking of from having flown over them on his way in and out of Domino. The shoreline met up with a cliff a few miles away from the city center. The drop off was nearly flat, nothing more than a rocky crag from the edge of the tree line down to the waves below.

"How often do you come over here?" I asked.

She turned to look at me when she answered, but paused to reach out to my hair. A slight tug and her hand came away with a small twig.

"Less now. I guess now you are my favorite spot in this world, but I don't think that counts."

"It doesn't."

"Well, I just have less of a reason to come here now."

I could see her urge to grab my hand being held back. She looked down at it more than at me, and she recoiled her fingers into a fist and moving it away from me. She kept it under control.

"It's a good thing you didn't wear the heels," I said. I was glad for my own shoes, and even though she was walking barefoot through the woods, heels would have been much more difficult.

"Do people really wear those?"

"A lot of women do."

"I couldn't even take a step. I was like Mokuba without his crutches."

A gap of light shone through the trees ahead, and after walking through a few more yards of underbrush and pushing aside a few branches, the sky opened up unhindered.

"It smells like fish out here," Kisara said. "But I guess I can ignore that for the most part."

"It smells more like brine," I said. I walked over to the edge of the drop off, keeping a distance far enough that falling with a burst of wind wasn't a possibility. The waves crashed against the rock wall and the jagged rocks jutting out of the ocean. Foam splashes rose up several feet, but still nowhere close to our height.

The clouds reached out from overhead to the horizon, sparse and thin. I kept my eyes on the sky while Kisara stepped up next to me. She looked up too.

"I asked Mokuba to give us enough time to watch the sun go down. That's the best part."

I nodded and glanced over at the sun, hidden behind some of the clouds, but too bright to look at for more than a few seconds. It was getting closer to setting and the yellow that had settled around us while we traveled over had turned darker.

"Are you hungry?"

Kisara stepped back from the cliff and over to a basket beside the tree line. She must have flown it over earlier in the day while I was outside with Mokuba and Krin. Knowing what he had in the house, it likely held all the same sort of food that Mokuba had brought out for lunch.

"Sure," I said, although it wasn't really true.

Kisara gave me a knowing look. She sat down on the rough grass, away from the drop off where loose rocks were thickly scattered. She picked a spot closer to the trees, a spot that looked like it had been cleared.

"Mokuba said I should have brought a blanket, but I like sitting on the ground. I probably should have thought about what you wanted, though."

"It's fine," I said. I sat on the other side of the basket so it was in between us. The ground was rough underneath, but a blanket wouldn't have helped other than keeping nature off our clothes. The spot she had picked was the divide between stone and woods, making it uneven and uncomfortable.

"I wanted us all to come," Kisara said. She lifted the lid on the basket and pulled out two water bottles. "Krin said no."

"I don't think that Krin much likes the idea of Mokuba and me being out of the house simultaneously."

"I don't think you guys are going to run."

"I'm not planning on it," I said.

Kisara stretched out her legs and propped herself up with her hands on the ground behind her. She stared out at the sky, now a blend of orange and pink, and sighed.

"I'm really sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"Mokuba told me about that game you used to play, the one that had the cards of us."

I closed my eyes and said nothing. She would keep talking if I stayed silent, and she would answer the question of what all she knew without needing to be prompted. I just had to wait her out, because she didn't know that the cards were a secret, at least, I didn't believe that Mokuba would have told her.

"He said that you were really great at this game, so good that no one could beat you. Well, actually, he said a few could, but he didn't go into the details. He said you had cards of the three of us."

I nodded so she could see that I was paying attention.

"He said you loved us back then."

I opened my eyes. That had been the point of Mokuba bringing up the cards, which meant that he wouldn't have let any risky information slip.

"I did."

"So, I'm sorry we're such a disappointment."

I kept my gaze up on the clouds that looked like they had been painted. The sunlight turned them various shades of orange and pink, and from the angle, seemed to have blended all the shadows like a brush stroke. The sky reflected down into the water, giving the ocean a purple hue.

"As a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, you're not disappointing."

Kisara edged her gaze over to me and frowned, confused. I could tell that she was waiting for an explanation, so I told her outright.

"Those Blue-Eyes cards were some of the most powerful in the game. They represented power and strength, which is what I wanted people to see when they were watching me play. My cards were strong, making me strong standing behind them. You might have been disappointing in the aspect of kidnapping me and forcing me into things, but as a dragon, you are much more impressive than I had ever been able to capture."

Kisara's smile wasn't as bright as it had been on the flight over, but it was still there.

"I don't suppose we could start over?"

"I think we're a bit too far in for that sort of thing."

"Do you want this to work, Seto?"

I took a sip from the water bottle to stall for time, making a show of screwing back the cap and setting it on the ground beside me. Things would be much easier if she couldn't tell when I was lying. I hadn't heard the same from anyone else that had been chosen. I should have asked Yami. If the Magician could read his lies, then it might have something to do with the whole soul-connection nonsense.

"Seto?"

"I don't know how the world can move forward from this," I said. A subtle change of subject was easier than answering the question. "We don't know how to recover from an invasion of this magnitude."

"Invasion," Kisara whispered. "I guess that's accurate."

"Let's say that everything does work out. The government calls off the threat and your people, the Magician's people, everyone starts getting along. As nice as that must sound to you, I don't see how that will ever work."

"Why's that?"

"Imagine that you have to stay like that-" I said, gesturing to her in a quick motion. "-forever. You can't change out of it. Now, you have to wear those shoes Tea brought you in every moment of every day. That's about the closest I can piece together of what it would be like for you to be human."

She nodded. "I couldn't do anything in those shoes."

"Before Yugi - what? Yugi was Yami's, well, let's call him a brother - before Yugi opened the portal, I kind of ran this city. I wasn't part of the government or the people who called the shots, but I had enough power that I bought the city to play a card game for a couple of weeks. People knew who I was because whenever I needed to make an announcement or a press release, I could tap into the city's feeds for all the monitors they had around. It was a bit extreme, but I was a much more dramatic person then. People were afraid of me. The rules didn't apply for me because I could buy my way around them. And then the portal opened. I spent months under the control of a Kuriboh."

"Remember that cut on your face?" Kisara said. She used a finger to trace her cheekbone, drawing an invisible line that mirrored where the cut had been on my face.

"I definitely remember that cut. If I recall, you contributed a bit to that."

She held up a finger. "But I got it fixed for you. I really do regret that whole kicking you around the rooftop day."

"Anyway, no matter how well we got along, we are still weaker than even a Kuriboh. Because we're like you walking around in those heels."

"Okay, so maybe it wouldn't work for everyone. But why couldn't it work for the five of us?"

"Six if you count Kuriboh."

"I'm not counting Kuriboh."

I stretched out my own legs, already stiff from sitting on the ground.

"I would always feel like a prisoner. I would constantly be worried that something will happen to Mokuba if you couldn't get in touch with me. I couldn't go back to my work schedule, travel schedule, and the entirety of my life with you three around. And what kind of life would that be for you? If everyone is getting along, you wouldn't have a war to concern yourself with. Let's face it. Your life right now centers on keeping me close."

"So we have no future?"

"Not one that will make us all happy."

"Sometimes I wish I didn't love you," Kisara said. She ran her fingers underneath her eyes and sighed into her hands.

"That would make things a lot easier."

"But I love you so much now. And it is so different than it was before that it almost makes me think that it wasn't love at all to begin with. It hurts, Seto. Thinking about a future without you hurts. I would give up anything for you without hesitation, but you won't even consider the possibility of trying to make our lives work out for the both of us."

"What does love even mean to you?" I asked.

"Does it have to mean something? Why does everything have to be explained?"

"I'm not too big on things I can't explain."

The sun moved down from behind a cloud and the air turned pink. Kisara's hair, with its natural tinge of blue, looked purple. She was looking at me, staring, a desperate hopefulness shaping her eyes. I almost smiled when I realized that the sunset had turned a Blue-Eyes's eyes a shade of mauve.

She faced away from me, back toward the ocean and the fading sun, and pulled up her knees. Her skirt pooled around her waist, leaving her legs bare. It was cold, but she didn't notice.

"We didn't have a sun in our world," she said. "There's light, but I don't even know where it comes from. You are so lucky to have this one thing that you can point to explain where your light comes from. I know that I'm not supposed to like the darkness because they're the enemies, but I love your moon too. It's wonderful to have a light overhead, even during the night."

"The moon is just reflecting the sun. It doesn't actual produce any light itself."

"So you still have the sun at night. You have such a beautiful world."

She stood up and stepped toward the cliff. I did the same and knocked the water bottle over in the process, but left it on the ground. The sun was nearing the horizon, dark enough now that I could look at it without having to squint. It always seemed to look more red than yellow when it touched the horizon.

"I've been to your world before," Kisara said. "Before that portal opened."

"When?"

"Back when I was much younger. It's where I got my name."

"I've never considered where you got your name," I said. As dragons in their world, they wouldn't have had any way to communicate their names in a way that I, or any human, would be able to repeat. They probably had names other than how I knew them.

"We picked them when we came over. I think Krin liked his name because it sounded close to how we would say his name in our real forms. Kara just picked something close to mine."

"Why were you here before?"

"I guess I got summoned. I don't know how I got here, but I ended up living in this girl. Maybe she called me, because she really needed help. I know that having me around changed her. She looked a lot like I do now."

"Who was she?"

"Her name was Kisara. She wasn't anyone important, but she could summon me in my real form whenever she got in trouble."

I watched the ocean for a while. The wind had died down to a breeze, making the waves a touch less choppy.

"One time, she had been captured and couldn't get up the strength to get me out. These people had her in a cage and I remember, even all this time later, how terrified she was. But this boy ran up out of nowhere and got her out. He probably saved her life."

"Who was he?"

Kisara looked at me instead of the view to finish her story.

"We didn't find out until much later. She looked for him a lot, always desperate to return the favor to him. He was a priest. I don't remember his name, but I remember his face."

"He looked like me?" I guessed. Any time a story about the past included a priest, it somehow tied back to me.

"He did. Your eyes, mostly."

"What happened?"

"She died saving him. Something happened, I don't know what, but I lost some time after that. The next thing I remember is the priest standing in front of this big rock that had an image of me carved onto it. I ended up back home after that."

"So you took her name?" I asked.

"I was really sad when she died for him. She was so strong and determined. If I had to be human, I wanted to be like her."

My hands were getting numb from the wind blowing up from the ocean, so I put them into my pockets. I was surprised that Kisara hadn't told me about that story a long time ago. There was nothing about it that made me think it should have been kept secret.

"I'm only going to say this once," Kisara said. "-since I know that you don't want to hear it."

Kisara turned while she was talking. She kept about a yard of distance in between us.

"I love you."

The light had darkened to blue. The woods beside us became a tangle of shadows and the basket almost disappeared in the darkness.

"I know."

Kisara took a deep breath in and a stumbled step back. "You do?"

Stretching my fingers within my jacket pocket, I said, "You are trying when I have asked you not to. I can see that the effort is making you miserable. You have to love me to torture yourself without an end in sight."

"There isn't an end?"

"You're a dragon."

There was a moment's pause when the words needed to sink in. Kisara nodded and tugged on the braid.

"I would stay like this," she said, touching her hands to her head and chest. "I would never turn back or use the lightning. Seto, I would wear those heels for every moment of every day of forever if you would just let me stay with you."

"Would you be okay with me treating you like a sister?"

"It would be better than treating me like a monster."

It had gotten too dark to see clearly. I didn't know how we were supposed to get back without any light. But a moment later, a spark came from Kisara's direction. The spark erupted into a flame down by the ground, catching on the pile of branches that had been sitting there.

The darkness made the ocean sound louder, like the darkness was a wall that amplified and echoed the crashing. The noise from the woods, rustling leaves, crickets, the hollow sound the wind made when it moved among the trees, all became more noticeable.

"You're not a monster."

"I acted like one," Kisara said. "But I'm different now. I'm trying to be more human."

"But you're not human."

"This is as close as I can get, unless you want me to wear those shoes."

I smirked and shook my head. "It was a bad analogy. You don't need to actually put them on."

Kisara sighed as if she was relieved that I didn't actually want her to wear the shoes. In the quiet that followed my statement, I thought I should share a story like she had just done.

"I went looking for you, back in the very beginning."

"You did?"

"Of course. I didn't tell anyone, not even Mokuba. People already thought I was crazy because of my obsession with you three," I said, then added, "As the cards."

"Did you find us?"

"I did."

"We would have felt you if you had gotten that close."

Back when I had found them, Mokuba and I were still at the mansion, and I still carried my deck with me. I shrugged like I didn't know why they had been unable to sense me.

"You three were still living close to the portal. I was able to see you from a building across the street. I probably would have approached if I knew you could become like this," I said, using my chin to gesture to her.

"That was back when none of us changed. It didn't seem practical. We didn't even know we wanted you then."

"You had all these animals caged with the rubble from the library. Half of the time I was watching was trying to figure out how you got them in the city."

Kisara smiled and twirled the end of the braid around her finger. "Mostly chased in and caught. We worked with our cousins to keep a stock pile of them so we didn't always have to leave to hunt."

"I saw you kill some of them," I said.

"Is that why you stayed away? You've seen me kill plenty of animals."

"You were dragons. I didn't think I could communicate with you. And if you kept animals around to eat, you could have seen me in the same way."

Kisara's expression became serious. "We didn't know we wanted you then. We might have killed you."

"Why did you come through?" I asked. "I had been assuming it was because you felt whatever connection you have to me, but that couldn't have been it."

"There was a gaping hole in our world. We wanted to see what it was."

She ended the sentence almost with a question, as if she planning to add something else. Her lips parted a few times, starting a couple sentences without getting past the first syllable. When she figured out what she wanted to say, she faced back to the ocean.

"I mean, we felt something. There was a pull here that we all recognized, but until we felt you, we couldn't identify it."

The pull could have been their souls, or maybe it was me, but they couldn't feel it so much because I still had their souls. The feeling and pain they could have constantly been describing could have related to my distance from the cards, not from them.

"When I'm standing here, does that pain stop?"

Kisara shook her head, and the loose pieces of her braid fell a bit more.

"Touching you makes it go away almost entirely. It is never totally gone."

I didn't understand how it worked. I thought that I had figured it out, but if they were living without their souls, being close to me shouldn't have lessened the pain at all. Maybe when Pegasus sealed souls into the cards, he was really locking them away somewhere. If that somewhere was their world – I think that Yugi had called it a Shadow World – then when they came over, they still had their souls because their souls weren't banished.

I rubbed my head. That didn't make any sense either. I might never understand how it worked, unless their physical form being close to me was almost as effective.

"You hid from us," Kisara said. "When we started looking for you, you should have known that we weren't going to hurt you."

"By that point, we had to leave our home-" leaving the cards behind, "-and people started disappearing. Mokuba ended up getting chosen and he needed me to keep him alive because Kuriboh wasn't helping. Besides, after you did find me, it validated my need to stay hidden."

"I wish we could go back," Kisara said. "I just want to do this all over."

"I don't suppose a Time Wizard could do that."

She lifted a shoulder. "It would probably just end up the same way. You would still have to go after Mokuba. We would still have to compromise. There would still be the bomb threat."

"I guess not much would have changed."

"You're never going to love me," she said.

"No."

It was hard to see Kisara's face in the darkness, with only the light shadows flickering about to illuminate anything. The confused expression had returned and her lips parted like she was about to say something.

A gunshot rang out behind me.

I jumped and Kisara jumped, both of us turning in the direction the shot sounded like it had come from. It was hard to tell without anything around to bounce the sound around. It faded almost immediately, and was followed by a shout.

"Look here! I got me a Larvae Moth!"

I cursed and reached out for Kisara's hand. She was too noticeable, even in the darkness. With the braid, her hair stood out less, but anyone who got too close would see that the natural white-blue shade was not a natural human color. And if word of her appearance had gotten around, they might recognize her.

"What are you doing?" Kisara asked. Her voice was low and steady, and when I looked down, I saw a small spark playing around her fingertips.

"None of that," I said. I made a grab for her other hand, which resulted in her dissipating the spark.

"They have a weapon. I have to fight them," Kisara said.

I turned her around when we got to the tree line, pressing her back against a tree and closing the space between us. If they were close enough for me to hear a voice, then they could probably see the fire. Maybe they would walk the other way.

"They may have more than one. If they see that fire, they are coming here. I don't think lightning can stop bullets."

I tilted my head to have a better angle for any more sounds coming our direction. Twigs snapped and branches shook, and more than those, the voices were getting louder. I made a decision to not risk anything and to provide a cover for us being out here.

"Don't read into this," I said, leaning forward to kiss her.

I felt her surprised gasp against my lips. I split my attention between kissing her and positioning myself to keep as much of her covered as I could. My arm rested up against the trunk of the tree to cover her hair and head, while my other hand pressed against her cheek. My face stayed on the side the voices were coming from, keeping the other half of her face concealed.

Kisara pushed me back for a second to say, "If they start looking like they are going to hurt you, I'm going to stop them."

"Fine," I said, leaning back in.

Her fingers grabbed handfuls of my jacket. She kept me against her, giving no slack for me to lean away. Having kissed her in the past, I could tell that she was distracted by the voices that approached. She kept fidgeting and adjusting her grip, and every few seconds, static hopped from her lips to mine.

"Who're these lovebirds?" a voice called out.

I made the kiss last for a second longer before moving only my face away from her.

A flashlight shone in my eyes, which prevented me from seeing the group as they filled in the area where Kisara and I had been sitting just a few minutes before. I heard multiple sets of footsteps, but couldn't tell exactly how many there were.

Kisara ducked her head like the light was too bright for her. I kept my arm up on the trunk and waited for the light to point in another direction. It took about ten seconds, but the glare shifted to the side.

"You two know it's dangerous to be out alone at night," said the man who I could now see holding the flashlight.

"I'd heard rumor," I said.

"Those monsters like to come out here," another voice said. I glanced around the group until I found the speaker, a man holding a shotgun. "We bagged us a Larvae Moth just fifty yards from here."

Kisara snorted and I ducked my head down like I was checking on her. She still hadn't raised her head, which made her seem scared or embarrassed. It was a good act. Her hands still held onto me, but that part probably wasn't an act. I would have guessed she was ready to grab me and run.

"Then I guess we will be on our way," I said.

"We can walk you two back down to safety," Flashlight said.

"That won't be necessary," I said.

"Of course it is. I'd hate to leave you two up here and find out that a big bad caught you before you got home safely," Shotgun said.

I heard it in their voices and saw them trying to peek around me to see Kisara. I hoped that if they didn't recognize me, then they wouldn't have knowledge of her appearance. If they were roaming freely with shotguns - and there were plural shotguns - then they couldn't have been chosen. They probably hadn't been around too many monsters in their human form. Maybe they didn't know.

"Or," I said, inclining my head toward Kisara, "-You could finish your hunt and pick us up on your way down."

That got a laugh from the men. Shotgun stepped forward and made a gesture toward the woods. The barrel of the gun lifted when he did so, pointing too close to us.

"No human left behind, yeah? You two can find somewhere a little safer to have some sexy time."

I wrapped my fingers around Kisara's hands in hopes that she would catch on. Unless she had a way to get away from three guns without risking being shot or killing them and breaking the compromise, we needed to go along with them. She could kill them easily enough, probably before they even knew what was happening. Although was little I knew about the men didn't endear them to me, I preferred to get out of this without anyone dying.

She took her hands from my coat. One of them slipped down to hold mine.

The basket was a few feet from us, so we walked over, hand-in-hand, so that I could pick it up. She knelt beside me to grab the water bottles that we had left on the rocks. Her fingers were long enough to hold both bottles in one hand.

"The fire," I said.

Kisara scooted over so her arm pressed against mine. She dropped her face onto my shoulder, which helped to sell the act that she was just some ditzy girl I had convinced to come out to the woods with me. It really kept her face out of their line of sight. Although her face was less distinguishable than her hair, if they focused on her hidden face, then they wouldn't be focused on why we were in the woods so casually.

One of the men in the back used the end of his shotgun to push all of the burning branches off the edge of the cliff.

"Now we can get heading down," Flashlight said.

The group of men walked forward, pushing us to do the same. We stepped into the line of trees, and with only the one flashlight, seeing became more difficult. It helped our case because the faint touches of light that worked through the trees barely revealed Kisara. The light reflected from her hair, but just in small patches. The braid helped tone down the full effect of the silver-blue.

"So, you're a good-lookin' kid," Shotgun said. He stepped up to walk beside us, or, as close as he could walk beside us. The density of the trees kept splitting him his path down from ours. Kisara and I would have had to separate if not for the tight grip on my hand. Walking one in front of the other made it easier for her to keep up and keep the hold.

When I didn't respond to the man, he added, "I'm just saying. Your girl must be awfully pretty. Come on, sweetie. Why don't you give us a smile?"

"She's shy," I said.

Kisara's grip on my hand started to tingle with static.

"That ain't no reason to be impolite. We saved your lives after all."

"I wouldn't go that far."

Shotgun sped up to cut off our path to the front. The group stopped when he whistled, and I got the feeling that we were surrounded.

"I can't change," Kisara whispered. I felt her lips moving against my neck, right behind my ear. "It would crush you."

"You don't seem to understand the idea of gratitude. We're just asking for you to share the love," Flashlight said. He walked up, brushing a loose tree branch to the side to stand next to shotgun. Kisara's other hand grabbed my arm so that she had a grip on either side of me. Her forehead rested against the back of my head and I could practically feel her thinking through possible escape scenarios.

"I would have been grateful to her if you had let us finish," I said.

I scanned what I could see of our surroundings. The other men had stepped in closer, but I couldn't see all of them, not those who were far removed from the beam of the flashlight. They were all close enough for her to attack, but she couldn't hit them all simultaneously.

The light hit me in the face again, blocking out all of my vision. I raised the hand that wasn't holding Kisara's, but was a second too late.

"Aren't you that Kaiba guy?" Flashlight said.

"No, we just look alike."

"No, no. You're definitely Kaiba. You just look different when you aren't on a jumbotron or surrounded by holograms."

"I hear these days you're just surrounded by dragons," Shotgun said. He took a step closer. "But that's not all that different from before."

"Who's the girl?" Flashlight asked.

"Duck."

Her sharp whisper got the point across so I slid from her grip and dropped to a crouching position. Lightning shot out to our front and right side before moving to the left and back. They screamed over the crackling noises that were amplified by the tightness of the trees. Patches of fire burned on the surrounding branches and leaves.

She grabbed my hand again and broke into a run, past the men who were on the ground, but still moving.

"You didn't kill them?" I asked, raising my voice so she could hear me over the other sounds.

"You don't want me to kill people!" she shouted.

We tripped over roots and bushes, but she just kept moving and pulling me with her. I dropped the basket and realized that she must have thrown down the water bottles before she had grabbed onto my arm. She had known it would turn out for the worst.

A tree somewhere around me shot out splinters a split second before I heard the gunshot. I couldn't see where it was to tell how close they were. I couldn't see anything. All I could do was follow Kisara's lead and trust that she was able to see the way ahead.

My foot snagged on a loose branch or maybe a tree root. Kisara spun around to catch me before I even had the chance to start falling. She readjusted the grip on my hand and started to run again in under two seconds.

"I can run faster without holding hands," I called out, but it just made her squeeze harder.

"I'm not letting you go!"

"We don't plan to either!" called someone from behind.

We had to have been close to the edge. It hadn't taken us too long to walk through the first time, so now that we were running, I expected to find the dim lights of Domino spread out in front of us. We were moving in the right direction; the slope downward verified as much, but we should have gotten out.

"There!" Kisara shouted.

"What?"

"Light!"

I tried to look around her to see if I could see the same thing, but she was either blocking my view or she had better eyesight than I possessed. But I glanced back and could see the beam of the flashlight breaking out like tendrils through the trees. The light was hazy. They had to be at least a good distance away, so if they could break the tree line first-

If they broke the tree line first and we couldn't find somewhere to hide, we would be open targets.

"Kisara-" I started, but stopped when the air began to buzz. My hands burned where it met with Kisara's but she wouldn't let me pull it away.

The area opened up before I realized that we had gotten out. I tugged on Kisara's hand to pull her back, catching her gaze so I could say, "There's nowhere to hide."

"Trust me," she said.

She ran again, but more slowly down the steep incline of the hill. The closest place that might provide any cover was a warehouse by the docks. But that was several hundred yards away and the men chasing were too close.

"Kisara-"

"Just run," she said.

I heard them rush out of the woods, almost pouring through all at once. They should have been terrified after being attacked and electrocuted, but a glance back proved that they pursued us with their guns raised. One of the men who hadn't said anything earlier stopped, planted his feet, and took aim.

I was thrown forward when Kisara jerked her arm. I ended up in front of her, and she stopped to spin and face them. Her hands raised in a familiar attacking position before rolls of lightning flooded out. The gun went off, but the lightning must have altered his aim. The men convulsed and crumpled to the ground, but again, she hadn't killed them.

"Run!" she shouted, pointing a finger down the hill.

She had to fly us back. If she couldn't kill them and we couldn't outrun them, flying was the only safe way to get out without anyone getting more injured than they already were.

I did what she said and ran until the bottom of the hill while she held them back with white lightning. But even once I was far enough away that she could have changed, she didn't. She just kept shocking anyone who tried to stand up and looking up at the sky.

Then I saw it. Another Blue-Eyes, probably Kara, heading our direction. Kara roared and the sound echoed and bounced, ripping through the area. Lightning rained down from above as well, and when it landed, some of the men stopped moving.

The burst of light that came from Kisara forced me to turn around. When I did, a felt a pressure around my waist and was pulled into the air. It was still too bright to look, but I felt the ridges on the tail wrapped around me and tried to add extra support by holding on. A few seconds later, I could get my eyes open. Kisara had gotten into the air, but there was a patch of blood on her side. They had managed to hit her and it had injured her. Those men shouldn't have been able to scratch anyone as powerful as she was.

We didn't make it all the way back to the house before having to land. I had started to slip, but no sooner had the grip around me slackened than we were headed toward the ground.

I was dropped in the middle of an empty street, maybe a mile from home. They flew on another hundred yards, which was farther than they needed to go. I shielded my eyes with a hand and walked forward to meet them while they changed back.

"You were shot," I said once I had gotten closer, trying to see how badly Kisara was injured. She was back to her regular appearance, loose hair and brown dress, but the red splotch of blood was growing.

"It's not so bad," she said. "I didn't even notice."

Kara jogged over and grabbed my arm and face. She turned my face in a few directions before doing the same to my body. I pulled my arm out of her grasp and took a step back.

"You said it was a picnic. A quiet, uneventful dinner. What happened?" Kara asked.

"Hunters," I answered for Kisara. "They figured out who we were."

"Seto's fine," Kisara said. "I didn't let them hurt him."

"Are they dead?" I asked.

"Maybe two or three. I wasn't paying that much attention."

"You broke the compromise."

"Kray's been breaking that since he got here," Kara said. She spoke dismissively, but her lips drew tight.

"They'll tell, the survivors. Word is going to get out that one of the dragons living with me killed two or three people."

"We have to go then," Kisara said. "Sooner than we were planning."

"When were you planning to leave?" I asked.

Kara rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm again. She dragged me in the direction of the house with a grip firm enough that I couldn't break out of.

"Kisara, when were you three planning to leave Domino?"

"Soon," she said. Her voice was quiet and whispered so low that I barely heard it. Of course, as if I should have known they were making plans.

I should have known. There had always been that inkling that they weren't comfortable with the compromise, and then Krin had all the maps, but I thought they were planning for a bit down the road. They hadn't been told about the year-end deadline, but the increased military force in the city had to be a clue that something wasn't right.

"How soon?" I asked.

"It had been ten days," Kisara said.

"Seriously, Kisara, stop telling him stuff."

"Ten days? You were planning to pack me up in ten days and I didn't even get to know about it?"

Neither of them answered. I tried to plant my feet, but Kara kept walking at her typical pace. I knew that she was strong, but even my full force couldn't slow her down for a half-step. She didn't even acknowledge my resistance. She might not have noticed.

"I can't just leave. I have things to do here."

"Not anymore," Kara said.

I could see the shadows moving around us and knew that the streets weren't as empty has they had seemed. Even with the compromise, the dragons still didn't want to be out during the night. The dark continued to move at night like the light during the day. We were outnumbered, even if we weren't outmatched.

"And Mokuba? What about him and Kuriboh?"

"Mokuba's coming with us, Seto. I promised you that," Kisara said.

"Furball can do whatever," Kara said.

"Will you just let go of me?"

Kara threw my arm away from her and stepped right into my face.

"You could have died. They were shooting at you. They shot my sister. I'm not in an appeasing mood at the moment. So just stop talking."

"Or what? You'll drag me out of the city? Keep me hidden away forever?"

"Or-" came a voice from somewhere up ahead. "-You'll attract someone you really weren't hoping to run into."

Kara's glare at me might as well have been electric. I recognized the Magician's voice, angry like it had been during our last encounter.

Kisara stepped in front of me and lifted a hand. "Stay there."

The Magician had his staff over his shoulders. He held it up with a hand on either side, which was a nonthreatening position for him to keep his weapon in.

"I'm not here to fight you. I just have one questions for your slave."

"He's not our slave," Kisara said. "And you tried to kill him, threatened to try again."

"Yeah," the Magician said. His smirk was visible in the limited lighting. "I may have to kill him. Depends on his answer."

I knew what the question would be. The problem with the question, aside from the fact that he would probably kill me however I answered, was that even if I lied, Kisara and Kara would know.

"You kill Red?"

"You don't have to answer him," Kara said. She grabbed onto my arm again and pushed me behind her a step. I kept my mouth closed because Kara was right. I didn't have to answer, and not answering would be more convenient all around.

"He does have to answer. Because if he doesn't, I'm going to know that he killed Red. So tell me. Convince me you didn't or tell me you did."

He kept his staff in the unthreatening position while he spoke, so I felt like he had just run into us without meaning to and decided to take advantage of the situation. The shadows around us continued to twist and flicker, which could have been why the Magician could remain calm. He had backup surrounding us, although they likely couldn't kill Kara and Kisara. I was certainly vulnerable.

"Dragon boy, I'm giving you a fair chance here."

"No, I didn't kill him."

Kisara turned to look at me, like she always did when I lied. She realized her mistake right after, but by that point, it was too late.

"Ah, you see, our favorite sweetheart here isn't buying that."

A few sparks shot out of Kara's hand, the one not holding onto me, and the Magician tilted his head with a grin. He gave her a few "tsks" and lifted his fingers around his staff.

"I'm not going to try anything now. But dragon boy, I'd run if I were you."

The Magician headed out to the left, stepping with confidence out toward his home. He never looked back or made another comment, but we stayed where we were until the Magician disappeared into the darkness, around a corner.

There should have been soldiers stationed at each corner. Especially after nightfall, there should have been teams of two or three assigned throughout the city. Unless Kray's group had attacked or scared them off, the only other reason that I could think they were called back. I should have seen at least some of them if Kray's group had killed some of them, or if some had defected.

"They abandoned the city," I said.

"Who?" Kisara asked.

"The people from my government, they're gone."

"What does it matter? We have to get home now," Kara said. They began to lead me through the streets, walking in the opposite direction of the Magician.

"You make too many enemies," Kara added.

"That's true."

By the time we got to the house, it had to be about an hour after sundown. The lights in the living room were on, and down the side of the house, I could see the light in Mokuba's room. It wasn't late enough for anyone to be winding down, even if we did go to be earlier so the dragons could get up with the sun.

"Krin!" Kara shouted before we were all the way through the door.

He took a step out of the kitchen and glanced from Kara to me to Kisara.

"Weren't you in red?"

"I had to fly back," Kisara said.

"You're bleeding."

I shrugged out of my coat and tossed it over the recliner by the door. Kara's gaze scanned me again, as if she wasn't convinced from her earlier examination that I had gotten out without injury. It was actually the first time in a while that I had been in a near-death experience and made it through without scrape.

"I'm fine. So is Seto."

Mokuba limped out of his bedroom with Kuriboh following right behind him. He asked if I was hurt before he made it through the hallway, and then noticed the blood on Kisara.

"It was a picnic. How do you get in trouble on a picnic?"

"They were being hunted when I showed up. Hunted," Kara said.

"I'm going to get you a towel," Mokuba said. He caught my gaze first and mouthed, "You okay?"

I nodded.

"Who was hunting you?" Krin asked.

Kisara told the story in a rough, overviewed version. She skipped over our conversation before the men showed up, as well as the cover I had used to try to distract them from recognizing us. She seemed to focus on what happened after they recognized me. When he got to our encounter with the Magician, Kara took over.

"The Magician knows he killed Red."

"We didn't even have that confirmed," Krin said, glaring at me.

"It's confirmed. He threatened Seto again."

"How did you kill Red?" Krin asked.

Krin tool a large step toward me, but Kisara caught his arm.

"Tomorrow. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

"He managed to kill a fire being with fire. What, are you going to burn us with lightning?"

Mokuba walked out of the bathroom with a towel and handed it over to Kisara. She thanked him with her hand still on Krin's arm and took the towel, but couldn't do more with it than just hold it to her side. She moved it almost instantly and I could already see blood staining the towel.

"We have a few more hours of his birthday," Kisara said. "He can't go anywhere tonight."

I wanted Krin to let the subject drop for a while, so I said, "I can't kill you," knowing that they had no choice but to believe me.

"So you could just conveniently kill Red but not us?" Krin said.

"Right."

"For now, can we just drop it? Attack him with questions in the morning," Kisara said.

"Why do you want us to drop this so badly?" Kara asked.

We had yet to move out of the doorway. The door was closed behind me, but I was still in what I would have considered our entryway. I didn't have an escape path except through Krin, and going back outside wouldn't have been possible.

"I can't really focus on much right now. Maybe it's the blood loss. I just want to sleep before deciphering all Seto's half-lies," Kisara said.

That sounded like a lie. They might not be able to tell when each other lied. It could have been a trait that I just happened to possess with each of them. Kisara was defending me, but also giving me time to think through a potential half-truth.

"You really can't kill us?" Krin asked.

"I really can't."

Yet.

Another ten minutes of arguing and four minutes of inching my way into the living room, Krin agreed to pick up the questioning the moment we woke up. I doubted he relented for the sake of my birthday, but rather for Kisara's sake. There was a lot of blood on the towel.

I used a first aid kit that had been under the bathroom sink when we moved in to patch up Kisara. The bullet seemed to have just grazed her side, but it bled like a fatal hit. I didn't have anything more than bandages and antibiotic cream in the kit, so I made it stop bleeding with some cornstarch Mokuba fished out of the back of the pantry we never used.

"I shouldn't have been so careless," Kisara said, after insisting for the fifth time that she could take care of it. She was on the couch with a clean towel underneath her, and another draped over her hips to keep her covered. She said it wasn't necessary, but that was what I insisted on. Dragon or not, she looked human.

"You got us out of there," I said while dabbing away some of the blood that wouldn't quit dripping. I shifted to try to find a more comfortable position for my knees since I was kneeling on the floor beside the couch.

"We wouldn't have been there if not for me."

"It was a coincidence," I said. "They were just random hunters who happened to find you attractive."

"I am attractive," Kisara said.

I smirked and smoothed the edges of the bandage around the injury to seal it off.

"You're all set."

"Thanks, Seto."

I packed the box and got to my feet to put the kit back in its place. While I did, Mokuba spoke up.

"Can I have a couple minutes with Seto?"

"You're with him," Krin said.

"You know, like, alone with Seto. Just a few minutes."

"After we found out that he killed Red? He's not going to be alone at all," Kara said.

"I just told you that I can't do anything to you," I said. I got back up to my feet, holding onto the first aid kit but staying in the living room. "Can you not tell I'm being honest?"

"You told us you were planning to kill us," Krin said.

"I said I didn't know if I was planning to," I said.

"Either way," Mokuba said. He walked over to me and grabbed onto my sleeve. "You're not trying anything, right Seto?"

"Right, Mokuba."

"That was a lie," Kara said. "We aren't leaving you alone to kill us."

"I'm not going to kill you," I said before thinking over the connotations of saying it. I watched Kisara to see how she would interpret my statement. But I couldn't get a read on her expression, so I looked to Kara, who seemed equally confused.

"Am I lying?"

Krin shook his head. "That was the truth."

"So you can't give me five minutes with my brother?" I asked.

"Go to Mokuba's room," Kisara said. Her siblings sent shocked expressions her way, but she waved them off. She stood from the couch and pushed me toward the bedroom, and with Mokuba's hand on my arm, he ended up being pushed as well.

"He can't get out from Mokuba's room," Kisara said. "Just leave the door open."

"Kisara-" Kara started.

"You just heard him. We can give them a bit of time alone on Seto's birthday."

Krin closed his eyes and crossed his arms. He didn't stop us as Kisara pushed Mokuba and me by them, but Kara had a final comment.

"Just because you aren't planning to now, doesn't mean you won't try something later."

I let the comment slide because I didn't have a response. They left us alone, but with the door open like Kisara suggested. Mokuba sat on his bed, so I did the same, picking up the book on his nightstand just to have something to hold.

"I thought you were going to," Mokuba said, leaving off the unneeded portion of the sentence, kill them.

"I am."

"Sounds like you could use some convincing then," Mokuba said.

"Did you need to talk about something?"

Mokuba smiled and leaned over, using a hand on my knee to keep from falling over. He checked out the doorway before sitting back upright.

"Yami and Joey brought you a birthday present."

He tapped his finger on the book I held. It was one of mine from the stack in my room.

"I don't think regifting counts."

"Open it."

I lifted the front cover and closed it a second later. Like Mokuba had, I checked to make sure that none of the dragons had a clear view into the room. Kisara was back to sitting on the couch, but she was talking to someone and not looking toward us.

"Where?"

"Game Shop. Joey didn't have time to tell me much."

With an eye on Kisara, I opened the book to the first page, where the torn Blue-Eyes card was hidden. I ran my finger over the tape patching the two sides together and thought of the thick scar running across Kray's waist. He might have been with Solomon if I hadn't ripped it. Or even if he hadn't kept Solomon alive, the tear seemed to have been what triggered the rift among the siblings.

I wondered if his group would have been formed if not for the rip.

"Can't keep it in the book," I said. All three of the dragons had a habit of flipping through the pages at random times.

"Under my mattress?"

"Too difficult to get to."

Kisara was getting better about moving my things around, but she still picked things up from time to time. I needed to keep it with me in the event that anything happened, but all of my pockets were too easily accessible. I wouldn't be able to get it out of a shoe. I really didn't want to leave it hidden in the house.

I reached up to my neck and found the chain of the locket. I had been wearing it since Krin had taken me off the street and none of them had questioned it.

Lifting the locket, I clicked the clasp and looked at the picture of Mokuba.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"It's regulation sized."

I used a thumb to pop out the picture of Mokuba, setting on the bed carefully before doing another check of the living room. They couldn't see me putting anything in the locket or their already-heightened suspicions would increase. I stuck the card in the slot where the picture went and found that it was still loose. The picture of Mokuba had never really filled the gap inside, which was several millimeters thick. If I could find the other three cards, they would probably fit.

The picture of Mokuba covered the card, which I placed inside backward so the back of the card showed rather than the image. I doubted they would ask to look at the locket out of the blue, but in the event they did, it might keep them from checking.

"One down," Mokuba said.

"Three to go."

"Joey said he would meet you tomorrow."

I nodded. "Just have to get permission now."

"Do you have a plan for that?"

"Not a good one. It will work though."

Mokuba nodded and let his head fall against my shoulder. He traced the healing scratches on the back of my hand and said, "Don't die tomorrow."

"I'm not going to die. I'll get in and out as quickly as manageable."

"And if something happens?"

"Nothing will."

"But if it does?"

I moved away from Mokuba so I could face him, putting a hand on either shoulder to square his gaze on me. It took a second for Mokuba to make eye contact. His eyebrows were furrowed and his shoulders were tense.

"You should know me well enough to understand that I'm not an idiot. If I thought this would kill me, I wouldn't do it."

"I need you to come back. I can't talk to Kuriboh, not really. If you died, I would die. Kuriboh wouldn't let me leave to get food or to escape the bomb. I really don't think they'd keep me around without you."

"Mokuba. I'm not dying tomorrow."

Mokuba squeezed his eyes shut, and when he did, a tear slipped out. He wiped it away with a sleeve.

"Kid, it's still my birthday. Let's not worry about all this tonight."

"Okay, yeah," Mokuba said. He got his eyes open without any more tears. He tried a smile, but he couldn't get it fully formed.

"I'm Seto freaking Kaiba, remember? Nothing is going to happen."

"You jinxed it."

PREVIEW: Seto goes after the Blue-Eyes cards. Two POVs. Outcome of the Kuriboh poll from like, two years ago.

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