Interlude #14: William's Epilogue

"Good evening." I said to the assembled crowd. "Thank you for coming." I had my welcome speech memorized, but I was still nervous. This was the first time that I was the 'host' - usually my older sister, Auset, did the honors. This year she had her PhD defense at Nagoya University - which was running much, much later than anyone expected - so since I'm the second oldest, I had to give the speech.

"On behalf of my Fathers, my siblings and myself, I welcome you to the annual Kaiba Family New Year's celebration." We actually have our party on the first Friday in January rather than on New Year's Eve itself - mostly so that my fathers can go to bigger parties on the holiday. We also celebrate three birthdays - Papa's, mine and Nobuyuki's - in January so it doubles as a birthday party.

I told everyone when dinner would be served, and where, and what was on the menu. The three newest Geishas from Komo River would be performing after dinner. The ballroom this year had been turned into my gallery and I had filled it with Egyptian-style portraits of the whole extended family. I was very proud of them - especially because Dad pronounced them better than anything he'd ever seen. Since he's an unqualified expert on ancient Egypt, that's as high as praise can get.

The main hall, however, was where we all were and that was the important part tonight. "Next month, my brother will be performing at Carnegie Hall, but he wanted to premiere his new composition here for you tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Mutou Nobuyuki."

I sat down and listened to my brother play. There were actually five people on the temporary stage - including Uncle Noah's daughter, Ryuka, on koto - but Nobu composed the piece and, naturally, all the good parts were piano solos anyway, so it was hard to miss him. It was a long piece - almost forty minutes - but despite that, I didn't find it boring. I did have my sketchpad, though, and I got a pretty good set of chalk drawings of Nobu's quintet. When he finished, the applause was ridiculous. I could see Nobu trying to hide behind Ryuka so I went and got him, and made him stand up front to bow. Father does not approve of hiding. Ever.

He was ok afterward, when it was only one or two people at a time asking him how old he was - 'nine' - or how he learned to play like that - 'don't know, just did'.

My siblings and I are so different, that we often meet people who don't believe we're family. Auset, was an orphan that my Aunt Anzu found. She has dark brown hair naturally, but it's almost always dyed something strange - blue, orange, pink. She was as smart as Father when it came to technical, things but she preferred chemistry and physics to engineering and computer tech. She was the youngest Duel Monsters Grand Champion ever when she won the rank at 9, and held the rank until Father made her 'retire' and "give someone else a chance." She still holds the record for Championship wins - she's even beaten Uncle Yugi, Father and Dad.

They actually adopted Nobu before me so, even though he's younger, he's been in the family longer. He's the only one my fathers adopted at birth - Dad claims that the God Set gave Nobu to him at Deir el-Bahari on New Year's Day, but that would have amounted to international kidnapping so there has to be more to the story than that. Auset was there, but she just shrugs and says that strange things happen around people named 'Mutou'. The weird part is that Nobu has spiky blond hair and violet eyes. Father named him 'Nobuyoki' because in means 'true happness'. He's a musical savant; I've never seen an instrument that he couldn't play within five minutes of touching it.

Ryou-Sensei found me four years ago, when I was still homeless in Agra, India. I was selling Taj Mahal souvenirs I had made out of broken glass and other 'found' materials. I thought he wanted me for a night - which would have been much more lucrative. Boy, was I wrong! I lived with Ryou-Sensei and Uncle Ryuji for almost a year. They taught me to serve tea, and to dance in several different styles, and a bunch tai chi forms. To play chess and go, and the violin, and the flute. And calligraphy. And a bunch of other arts. I was awful at all the physical stuff and the music. Uncle Ryuji still says I have the natural rhythm of a brick wall. But I can beat him at Dungeon Dice and I'm excellent with anything that uses a brush or pen. I'm really good with languages, too - I speak six fluently plus a bunch of others pretty well - so Father used to take me with him when he traveled. Of course, he was still 'Kaiba-sama' then. On our way home from one trip, Father asked me if I liked living with Ryou-Sensei. I said it was a little better than the streets in Agra - mostly because I was angry at the time. Father laughed, and said I was almost as ungrateful a bastard as he was. Two days later, he adopted me.

Officially, each of them only adopted one of us, so it's Jounouchi Auset, Mutou Nobuyoki and I'm Kaiba William. But really they are Papa, Dad and Father to all of us. Dad calls it 'legal fiction to keep the scribes busy'.

"Good job, dude!" Papa came over and ruffled my hair. "Nobu, that was awesome!" He gave my brother a hug. "I'm just sorry the Brain Trust missed it."

"I'm sure she'd rather be here." Dad replied. "William, a rather large number of people want family portraits like the one of the Hondas. You may need a larger studio soon."

I had done them like the ancient kings and queens, facing each other, hands touching, with their three kids standing in place of the Gods. It was pretty cool, but I was kind of done with the Egyptian phase. A US gallery had seen some of my paintings in a traveling exhibit of young artists and e-mailed me, asking if I had a collection I was willing to loan them for the summer. I was planning to pack most of the Egyptian stuff up and send it off as soon as I could. I wanted to talk Father into letting me go to art school in Paris in the coming Spring which was as artistically far from Egypt as I could get.

"Do I have to?" I asked him.

"I would think that if the Minister of Culture commissioned a portrait, you'd be honored." Dad arched an eyebrow. "Of course, I would never force you." Which, translated, meant 'yes, you are going to have to do it'.

That wasn't all that bad. My fathers were pretty cool, actually. Mostly, we kids got to do what we wanted. Occasionally, we had to 'pay the cost' as Father put it. We always had to get good grades and behave ourselves and, every once in a while, we had to entertain some politician or buyer or something. Sing a song, paint a picture. I've done much worse things for much less reason. In Agra, Ryou-Sensei wasn't the first person I had thought wanted me for the night; in fact, he was the first time I was wrong about it.

Once, at a dinner party we had about a month after my adoption, Father asked me to 'entertain' one of the bankers who was asking about some of the art around the house. The banker thought he meant sex - which was kinda what I secretly thought, too - and when we got to the main hall, he tried to undress me. I yelled, and one of the servants came in, and then everyone came in, and it was a mess! Father tried to strangle the banker with his bare hands; Papa and Uncle Hiro held Father back while Uncle Yugi called the police.

I hadn't really been sure that I was part of the family until then. After that, Father told Auset, Nobu and I that the cost we pay for being 'Kaiba' was in our minds and in our hearts. And that if anyone ever tried to hurt one of us again, he would kill them. "You are my daughter, my sons; no one touches that which is mine with impunity." Later, when we were alone, Father told me that the same thing had happened to him once, and that his father had done nothing to stop it. I understood, then, why he had adopted me and, for the first time, I felt like I really belonged with the family. Now, when I had 'entertain' someone, I knew what Father meant. He meant, 'show them what it is to be Kaiba.' And that, I didn't mind doing at all.

I resigned myself to painting more Egyptians as Papa, Dad, Nobu and I went to the ballroom and wandered around; mostly looking at the people looking at the art. There were a lot of people around the picture of Aunt Cyndia and Uncle Maximillion - I'd done them as Antony and Cleopatra. Uncle Noah and Aunt Vivian were actually standing next to their portraits - I'd used Ramses II for them and their three kids.

I'd done everybody - Grandpa Mutou, Grandpa and Grandma Honda, Uncle Moke, Aunt Sera. My personal favorite was a recast of "The Three Muscians." I put Aunt Miko, Aunt Chou and Aunt KimKim in the same positions as the famous piece, but instead of musical instruments, they were holding clothing. Aunt Mai hated the one I did of her and Uncle Yugi, but Dad said it was only because I made it look like she worshiped Uncle Yugi like he was Ra. Except she does, so I don't know why she was so mad about it.

The portraits that most people were going on about, though, were the ones of my three fathers. It had been easy to do Father's - the god Set standing over an image of Father as a High Priest mirroring an image of him as an Executive. And Dad's was pretty straight forward too; the god Atem standing between Pharaoh Atemu and duelist Yami.

Papa's had been the difficult one. I used the god Khepri because his symbol is the scarab and Papa has a scarab tattoo on his chest. But the way Father and Dad told the story, it sounded like Papa was a sex slave in their past life, and I really didn't want to depict that. Plus, if he had to write it down, Papa listed his occupation as 'stay-at-home Dad', but I'd heard him more than once tell people that he was the resident 'Host'. So I had Papa in Egyptian dress with the scarab visible, kneeling in front Khepri. Then, I had him, standing behind the god in modern clothes, giving fish and grain to three children. Papa hadn't commented on it, but I'd seen him wipe his eyes the first time he saw it. Dad told me that he wanted to hang Papa's portrait in the family room permanently. That was the only one I'd planned to keep when I sent the rest to the US; I'd send a copy of it to keep the set complete.

Papa stopped us at the picture of Ryou-Sensei and Uncle Ryuji. I had done their faces together, one behind the other in profile, but their coloring was so different that if you'd never seen them together, you'd think I got the wrong box of crayons.

"I'm telling you, no 12-year-old paints like that." A British guy was telling his companion. "The brush work alone takes years to learn."

"Not really." I said.

"Busted." Papa snickered.

"I studied several of the temples and tombs and just copied the patterns. It was pretty easy to learn."

"You?" The man scoffed. "You did these?" I nodded. "Forgive me, but I find that difficult to believe. Where did you train?"

"Well, I haven't really formally trained anywhere."

"So where did you study the temple art?"

"Karnak, Akhenaten, and Atemu." I grinned at Dad. We had a great time digging around his old tomb - which wasn't nearly as creepy as it sounds. "We went to Tutankhaten and Ahknemkhanen as well."

"Tutankhamun." He corrected me. "And who is Ahknemkhanen?"

"Tutankhaten," Dad said. "My distant cousin perfers the original pronuncation." Papa snickered some more.

The Brit looked at Dad as if he were nuts then looked back at me. "In the actual tombs." I nodded. "They don't let people in the tombs."

I shrugged. "They let us."

"And just who are you?" The Brit asked.

"Who are you?" I asked in response. Now Nobu was giggling with Papa.

The Brit looked at his companion. "What a rude upstart! I, young man, am Colin Smythe-Windsor, the Undersecretary of the British Ministry of Antiquities." He gave me a smug look as if I should now be quaking in fear.

"I see." I bowed. "I am Kaiba William, son of Kaiba Seto. These are my parents Jounouchi Katsuya and Mutou Yami. I'm sure you heard the music earlier, so you've seen my brother, Mutou Nobuyuki - oh, but he's nine so that could not have been him at the piano."

"Or me practicing for all those hours." Nobu added.

"Hey, guys, come on. Give him a break." Papa was still snickering, but he offered the man his hand. "All our kids are prodigies so it's hard to keep the egos in check."

He did not shake Papa's hand. "To have one child prodigy in a family, Mr. Jounouchi, is astounding. To claim to have two, well, it's quite beyond belief."

"So if I said we had three, plus several close friends who all qualify, you'd say..."

"That you were exagerating to say the least."

Papa nodded. "Ok. Who invited you, anyhow?" He wasn't smiling.

"I happen to be a close personal friend of Anzu Mazaki."

"The Director of the Duel Academy?" Papa said, sounding fake-stunned. "Wow, she invited you?"

"Yes." The Brit tilted his head. "Who invited you?"

"Me? I live here." Papa smiled, not his bright, friendly smile, but the one he gets right before he punches someone. "It's my birthday."

"Colin! You made it!" Aunt Anzu appeared before things could get ugly. "And I see you've met the family."

"I -" Colin looked flustered. "Oh."