Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Seto Kaiba's Perfect Match ❯ The Truth Is Discovered ( Chapter 14 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The door to the Kaiba mansion opened a bit. "Yugi? Joey? Tea? What are you guys doing here?" A pair of familiar, wide gray-blue eyes peered out at them.
"Mokuba, can you let us in? We really need to talk," Tea said in a hushed whisper.
"I don't know---" Mokuba's eyes darted around. "Seto's really pissed off this morning, and I don't think he'd like me letting you guys in."
"We know about what happened," Yugi said patiently. "We saw Robin earlier this morning, and she was practically distraught." At this, the door opened wider, and Mokuba was revealed, still in his pajamas.
"You know about it?"
"Yeah," Joey said with a nod. "And we really need your help, 'cause we're gonna try and make things right."
Mokuba considered for a few seconds, then sighed. "All right, you can come in, but don't make much noise, OK?" he said, motioning the three of them in.

Mokuba led them to a room near the back of the mansion, the one with the piano. "Seto will have a harder time hearing us back here, since he's upstairs and this is only one-story back here," he explained. "Now, what did you want to talk about?" he asked, flopping down on one of the couches.
"We want to know if you know how to trace email addresses," Yugi said. "I have a plan to find out who sent that terrible email that started this mess."
"It was sure a mess, all right," Mokuba said, bringing his knees to his chest and hugging them. "I heard them arguing upstairs earlier this morning when I was down here getting something to drink. I was going to talk to her before she left, but she was crying so hard she didn't even notice me. I felt really bad for her." Mokuba's eyes were distant for a second. "Thing is, Seto cried too."
"He did?" Joey said in surprise.
"Yeah, after she left. She told him she loved him, said something else I couldn't hear----and then she left. I sneaked up to the room to see if he was OK. He was at his desk like he was working, but had his face in his hands crying." His face scrunched a bit with emotion. "It messes with my mind when he cries, 'cause he almost never cries anymore, and that's when I know something's really up."
"Man, this just gets more fucked up by the minute," Joey said, scratching his head. "I mean, one minute he tells her he doesn't give a rat's ass about her, and the next minute he's crying after she leaves? What the hell? It doesn't make any sense!"
"And Robin didn't take it any better," Tea said. "She cried so hard I thought she was going to dehydrate herself."
"Dang, I wish Seto were able to trust people better," Mokuba said with a sigh. "I mean, she's kind of a kooky girl, but she's funny and smart, and she's good for him."
"I agree," Yugi said, nodding in understanding. "She's done him a lot of good and helped him open up, and you hate to see that ruined by suspicion and distrust."
"That's why we want to find out who wrote that email, and we were thinking you might know how to trace it," Tea explained. "Do you?"
"Yeah!" Mokuba said. Then his face darkened. "There's one problem, though----the only two computers in the mansion which have the tracing software on them are the laptop upstairs and the computer in the----" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Secret lab."
"Secret lab?" Joey said excitedly, and was quickly shushed by the others.
"Yeah," Mokuba whispered. "It's down in the basement. Seto usually keeps it locked, but----" he grinned craftily--- "I have a key to it in my room."
"Sweet," Joey said quietly. "So we can get somewhere on this?"
"Hopefully," Mokuba said. "It'll be good if it gets them back together."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Tea asked, moving toward the door. "Let's get going!"


"You feeling any better?" Tristan asked as he handed me my cone of ice cream. We had stopped by a ice cream cart, and since I was especially in the mood for spoiling myself, given the current situation, I had gotten a personal favorite----a double-scoop cone of strawberry ice cream.
"Yeah, a little," I said, licking at the top scoop carefully so as not to knock it off.
"That's good," he said as we walked on down the street. "You wanna sit down and eat or keep walking?" He gestured up ahead, and I looked and saw that we were pretty close to the fountain, which had been my favorite spot early in the Battle City tournament.
"We could sit there," I suggested, pointing to the fountain, and so we headed there and sat down.
"This was my favorite spot to just sit and think when I first came to Battle City," I explained. "It saw several tries at me restructuring my deck before I got it right and started winning."
"That's awesome," Tristan replied. "I don't duel much at all, but I do have some cards. My favorite is the Cyber Commander."
"My favorite is really Jinzo, because of its effect: negating traps while it's face-up on the field. But the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon is a very close second." Remembering the card reminded me of particularly why the Blue-Eyes was a favorite of mine----because the sexiest man in the world also had it in his deck. I looked away in pain, and Tristan sighed.
"You thought about Kaiba again, huh?" he asked, rubbing my shoulder gently.
"Yeah---aw, hell, Tristan, everything reminds me of him. I just can't understand where I messed up in trying to be a good girlfriend. I did everything that I would like for someone else to do for me. Part of me wants to be pissed off at him, but the rest of me is not angry at him, because I know he gets his suspicion honestly from being unable to trust anyone in his life. Hell, he's only sixteen, and has probably lived through more shit in those sixteen years than most nursing-home patients!" I laughed a little at my humor, but the laughter sounded bitter, and I quieted.
"Really?" Tristan asked. "I knew that you were kind of referring to something bad last night when you were talking about his song and how it was your saddest composition and everything, and then you understood because of something he told you."
"Well, I won't betray his trust----he confided in me something that I understood was to be kept secret, but yeah, he's been through a lot." I shuddered suddenly. "How could so many people mistreat a man like him? I don't understand it. Even though he shunned me and basically told me he couldn't care less if he ever saw me again, I can't bear the thought of harming him, ever. He's too wonderful----I couldn't d-do that to him, but the fact that he thinks I could makes me feel like I didn't prove myself enough---like I didn't sh-show him that I could b-be trusted---" The intermittent sobs took over my voice completely, and my shoulders shook.
"Damn, you really do love him," I heard Tristan say softly as he patted my shoulder.
"I do," I said genuinely, my voice tearful. "Even more than I realized." I thought I heard Tristan mutter, "She's nuts to love him," but I shrugged it off. We were both silent for a minute----I was thinking too loud to notice or respond to anything said anyway. Finally, Tristan sat up from his hunched position and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Well, we'll get you guys back together. Don't worry."


"The door is just off these stairs to the right. Be real quiet coming down 'em, because they can make a lot of noise sometimes," Mokuba advised as the group of four made their way carefully and stealthily down the darkened stairwell to the basement where the secret lab was.
"You come down here a lot?" Joey asked under his breath.
"Aw, sometimes, when I want to sneak up on Seto. One day I was coming down the stairs and fell, and he flung open the door and was freaking out about me being down here, and I just lay there and laughed at him. He didn't like that too much." Mokuba giggled a little bit at the memory.
"Have you ever seen inside the lab?" Tea asked.
"Only once, and that was a couple of years ago. Since the stuff with the company started going full-blast, Seto started coming down here a lot more to work, and so I haven't really had a chance to look in."
"I hope we can find the tracing software," Yugi murmured quietly.
"Me too," Joey said softly. "We gotta get this junk straightened out, because Kaiba and Robin are too good a couple. He was actually getting nice for once----ow, shit---" Joey muttered the expletive and rubbed his upper arm as Mokuba glared at him.
"Don't say crap about my brother, or I'll have to kick your butt."
"Sure," Joey said sarcastically.
"Well, I almost whupped your butt last night, so, ya know---" Mokuba smiled at Joey, teasing him, and Joey scoffed.
"Anyway, here's the door," Mokuba said, finally coming to the bottom of the stairs. "Now, where does the key go?" He slid his hand along the front of the metal door until he came to the card key slot. "Ah, here it is." He pushed the card key in, and a rectangular light beside the door suddenly lit up, flashing red quickly and then settling on green. The door then slid open slowly and mechanically to reveal a dimly-lighted room, with a set of three darkened computer screens, each with their own desk chair in front of them. Except one wasn't exactly offit appeared to be on, but had a very dark screen saver activated.
"Whoa, this is fucking awesome," Joey commented as he looked at the computer technology. "Your brother design this, Mokuba?"
"No, but he probably could," Mokuba said with pride. "Seto's smart like that." He looked around and noticed that the screen saver on one of the monitors was on. "This is weird," he said quietly. "Seto doesn't usually leave a computer screen on like this----he hates for the power to be wasted. I wonder if he left in a hurry or something?" He reached down and moved the mouse around to get the dark screen-saver off. What they saw next astounded them all.
"Holy shit," Joey said softly.
"Oh, my God," Tea breathed.
"I think we have our answers," Yugi said, trembling slightly.

The screen in front of them had a series of emails displayed, several back and forth from the same addresses, but one was different.
"That's Seto's personal email!" Mokuba said in a hushed whisper, pointing to an address.
"His email is Blue Eyes Obelisk?" Tea said, shaking her head. "Boy, it isn't too hard to tell which are his two favorite monsters, huh?"
"Yeah," Mokuba agreed. "But look at these other addresses." He pointed to five other addresses which were displayed. "I think these are the addresses his associates had before he---um, kinda got rid of 'em."
"That would make sense," Yugi said, "because they all start with 'big' and then a number, like they were a group."
"Well, what's that email say?" Joey asked, pointing to a certain email onscreen. "The one that got mailed to Kaiba?"
"Let's see." Mokuba clicked on the subject of the email, which read simply 'Urgent for Mr. Kaiba.'
"Oh, my God," Tea said in surprise upon reading the email. "That must be the email Robin was talking about. See where it mentions about the personal relationships?"
"Yeah," Yugi said, looking thoughtful.
"Man! They are fucked up, mailin' something like that, even to Kaiba!" Joey was indignant. "I'd be pissed off too. But I still wouldn't suspect my girlfriend of doing anything wrong. That's where Kaiba fucked up."
"I know," Mokuba said quietly. "He's just so afraid to trust---you know, 'cause people are always out to get him in one way or another."
"Well, how about we use that software?" Joey asked. "We gotta find out where these motherfuckers are. Man, I feel like kicking all their asses myself!"
Mokuba clicked and tapped on the keyboard, and got into the email-tracing system. "OK, now all we have to do is type in the addresses we want to trace. Then it'll give us an IP address----"
"Whoa, what the hell's that?" Joey asked.
"It's like an identification number for your computer while it's on the Internet," Mokuba explained patiently. "Then we can use the IP address and get a location on where the computer with that number is." He typed in the five addresses and hit Enter, and the software began its tracing process.


I pushed Tristan jokingly. "You're perverted."
"I think someone's feeling better," he joked back.
"Yeah," I agreed. "I do feel a little better. Thanks for cheering me up, even if your humor got a littleuh, shall we say, freaky?" I nudged him and he laughed.
"Hey, if it workswhy not?" I rolled my eyes at him and he snickered at me.
"Don't think you can't be perverted either, Robin----remember, I heard all the dirty little comments you made last night. Man, I've never met a girl with such a dirty mind as you have!"
"Gives new meaning to the term 'practice makes perfect,' I guess," I said with a wink.
"And I'm sure you got plenty of practice with our young CEO," Tristan said. Then he stopped. "Are you OK about me mentioning him?"
"Sure," I said, even though remembering what Seto had said was kind of painful. "It's OK."
"Good----now I can tease you about him," Tristan joked, ribbing me in the side.
"Hey!" I shouted playfully. "Don't do that too much or you'll knock me in the fountain!" The ribbing soon turned into a pushing match, which quickly ended up with Tristan in the fountain and me sitting on the ground, both of us landing solidly on our butts.
"What'd you do that for?" Tristan asked, trying to wring out his hair unsuccessfully----he was sitting right under the fountain's spray, for God's sake!
"You might wanna get out of the fountain before you start drying off," I advised him teasingly, rising with difficulty from my position on the ground. "And I did it because I could," I said, answering his previous question.
"Well, you little minx!" he said indignantly, standing up from the fountain. "I oughta----" His words were cut off as he suddenly got a mouthful of water from the spray, and I giggled as he spit out the water and shook his head, trying to get the water out of his ears.
"Well, I'm glad one of us enjoyed it," he said ruefully, trying to slick his hair back into its normal peak.
"I sure did! You would be great at slapstick comedy," I complimented him.
"Whatever." It was his turn to roll his eyes.


The tracing software was still doing its thing while Mokuba kept a close eye on it. Tea and Yugi had taken the other two chairs----Tea, her legs crossed, bounced her top leg nervously, and Yugi was going through his dueling deck for the thousandth time. Joey leaned against the wall, looking as if he was counting ceiling tiles.
"Man, how long will this thing take?" Joey finally said, breaking the silence in the lab.
"Well, at least it's working," Tea said optimistically. "It is kinda slow, though." Suddenly the computer beeped and stopped its customary low humming.
"We have some results?" Yugi asked, popping up from his chair and gathering behind Mokuba. Tea and Joey followed suit.
"Yeah----it looks like we have the whereabouts of these five computers," Mokuba said, gesturing to the IP address listings that were shown on the screen. "Just as I thought. They're all in the same place----but according to this----that's weird." Mokuba clicked and tapped a couple of times, and a new listing appeared.
"What's weird?" Yugi asked curiously.
"According to what the software found," Mokuba said, "all five of the computers are in KaibaCorp's office building. But I've been in all the rooms of that place, and I've never----" Suddenly realization flashed in his eyes. "We have to find Robin and Tristan, and we have to get over there."