October twenty-fourth. The venue opens, Seto announces the wedding before anyone goes inside, and the caption changes on every screen in the country. The friends arrive; Joey is already crying. Seto comes in, tells her she’s beautiful, hands her a lipstick, and leaves. The vows. Four men cry, as predicted. In a flashback: the first real conversation between Seto and Priest Seto, the alignment of interests, and the moment Priest Seto turned and left — and Seto thought he saw white dragon wings. Happy birthday, Atem says. Seto says thank you, which surprises her. Nothing changes. Everything continues.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 15 神殺し
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor₋yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
His employer and the woman he loved were, by all appearances, nurturing a very quiet happiness together.
The enquiries — of that particular nature — regarding Seto, whose presence had grown unmistakably warmer, had increased considerably both inside and outside the company. Busy times. But separately from all of that, his days felt full.
The overwhelming majority of enquiries were, of course, about the marriage. When. Who.
About two years ago, Mokuba — the other employer — had told him that his brother had taken the prototype and gone somewhere, destination unknown. “I leave the rest to you” — those words had sounded almost like a final message. He had wondered in genuine alarm whether it would really fall to just the two of them, himself and Mokuba, to keep this enormous company running. It had not been a comfortable feeling.
But Seto had come back. And before anyone quite noticed, standing beside him was a girl with a distinctive aura — familiar somehow, as though she had always been exactly where she belonged.
The highest-priority case, he had been told. In other words: the one.
Anyone watching could see it. The marriage was genuinely imminent — within the year at the latest, he had estimated — and he had everything in place to respond the moment a date was named.
All that remained was to wait for the two of them to choose the moment.
His employer was someone who pressed forward without ever treating hardship as hardship. Keeping up with that inexhaustible stamina and vitality was no ordinary feat.
It wasn’t quite that he wanted to see Seto rewarded. He was not the type to seek returns — he achieved his goals himself. That was precisely why Isono wanted something else for him: to be held in a quiet happiness as well.
It was evening, during a board game.
Atem picked up a button token and spoke. It was the kind of light game that left room for conversation.
“I have something I want to ask.”
“What is it?”
“Lately, Isono has been calling me ‘Madam’ — have we already gotten married?”
“...That man. Let him say what he likes.”
Getting ahead of himself as usual, Seto thought — and then reconsidered. Was it really getting ahead of things?
Isono was a capable person. Mature, as a human being. Seto had told him to see himself as working at the same level as Mokuba, able to manage things alongside him.
When Seto had first decided to go to the Afterlife, he had chosen the prototype without hesitation partly because he knew Mokuba had Isono. Lately, he occasionally behaved oddly — but within acceptable limits.
A current student, possibly postgraduate. Twenty years old. A young executive. All of these played well in the right context. The timing was favourable.
Atem was positioned as the younger sister of a senior Egyptian government official. No lack of standing there.
And KaibaCorp had previously assisted in the excavation and restoration of damaged Egyptian heritage sites — nothing unusual about a connection there.
If they married now, the ring story hadn’t quite died down yet — it would simply be fuel at the right moment.
In other words: a commotion, yes, but no actual problem. If anything, now was the time. That was Isono’s assessment, and Seto found himself in agreement. Isono calling Atem Madam was probably also a way of saying: get on with it.
For an international marriage, the paperwork took some days, but that was the extent of it.
The documents for the Japanese side were already prepared. If it came to it, Ishizu had confirmed she would assist with the Egyptian procedures whenever needed. Once that was done, they would return to Japan, file the remaining paperwork, and it would be complete.
Where to hold the ceremony? Given that the registration would take place in Egypt, and thinking about avoiding press coverage, Egypt made sense. Then again, reporters would follow them abroad regardless.
Seto had a fairly clear sense of his own visibility.
“Shall we just do it? While we’re at it.”
“Are we actually doing it? I don’t mind.”
“Then we will.”
“Right, let’s.”
There is a theory that marriage runs on momentum. It was true.
There was nothing special about this day. They had simply been playing a light board game, the same as any evening. No particular atmosphere of romance.
There had been no rush, no deliberate waiting for the right moment. Isono had added fuel to an already-smouldering engagement, Atem had lit the match, and the flame had caught. That was all.
In the middle of a board game, they had decided to get married. Marriage ran on momentum.
Seto glanced at the board. Currently even. But they weren’t going to finish this tonight.
“Where do you want the ceremony? Egypt? If there are people you’d like to invite, I can arrange it.”
“If we’re having a wedding, I’d want to invite Aibou and the others. But no bringing them over without warning.”
“A perfectly ordinary invitation.”
“Your invitations usually smell like trouble.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m joking. Don’t be angry.”
He caught the mouth saying ridiculous things and kissed it, but Atem just laughed without any sign of being chastened.
That one — if you’re going to say that much, you can certainly clear a few days in your schedule. He wanted to say it. The person in question was, of course, not present.
“Then — first, we go to Egypt.”
“Egypt? Why?”
He gave a brief explanation of the international marriage process. The modern world is complicated, Atem murmured. He agreed entirely. If it had been possible, he would have handled it all online already.
Atem, who had apparently been in contact with Mahad and Mana lately, made an unexpected call.
This was exactly why he had given those two their own terminals — to avoid this kind of interruption.
“What am I looking at? That appears to be a desert.”
“There’s a city too.”
The view swung around, and a thriving city came into frame. People moving. Vehicles.
Then that voice — give me that — and Atem’s face appeared.
What stayed with him was the expression on Atem’s face as she watched the people going about their lives. That was how he knew.
“Is this, by any chance — the living world.”
“Yes. Our country. Egypt. The world you rebuilt.”
He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t look away. The world Atem had protected, and he had helped restore.
He had heard that in the modern era, the power of magic was gone. And yet — even so — the world was this resilient. This beautiful.
“It is a truly magnificent world.”
“It is.”
For a while, he set his work aside and simply watched — the landscape, the people living in it. He had not anticipated this kind of moment.
And that might have been where it ended, if this were a story that ended quietly. But the living world had a way of bringing complications — and reading the air was something Priest Seto could do without effort.
He picked up his brush and returned to writing. If it was going to be trouble, he could simply pass it to that man — who had presumably been watching the same view.
“There’s something else you wanted to say.”
“Oh? How did you know?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“As expected of Priest Seto.”
No trace of negative feeling in the expression. Being with that man and having any other kind of feeling would be the strange thing. Then what was it this time, he thought, running through the possibilities.
Priest Seto’s thoughts went briefly blank at what followed.
“This isn’t really news, it’s more of an announcement — I’m going to go get married. Right now.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Right now...”
“I thought I should tell you properly.”
He didn’t need to ask who to. There was only one person who had turned the Afterlife upside down. That man.
He didn’t think for a moment: you can’t have her. He wasn’t about to be grouped with those other priests, and he had always known this day would come.
But she had called out of nowhere to say it was happening right now. Without thinking, the character he had been writing came out wrong. Readable, but unusable — it would need to be rewritten. More work.
In the living world, there had apparently been quite a commotion just recently — Mana’s doing — but that had been several months ago now.
“Mahad and Mana don’t know yet?”
“I was about to tell them.”
“Then make it a report after the fact. Send it along with a photograph of the two of you.”
Priest Seto said it plainly.
“Is that all right?”
“It is.”
This information needed to be contained here, for now.
If it got out, there would be chaos before the ceremony, and then another wave of chaos after. Better to have it all arrive at once.
When that man had taken Atem away, there had naturally been upheaval.
“The King has not returned — if this continues—”
“Order—!”
While priests and officials raised their voices, Priest Seto moved quietly to stand beside the throne. He had been sitting there himself until recently. A single sweep of his gaze — and the air became like a desert night.
“Silence.”
The voice was low, restrained in volume — and yet it cut through everything.
The priests stilled. Words died in their throats. Eyes fell. No objection, no protest could survive that gaze. Priest Seto stood without moving — quietly, coldly — and the room was his. The commotion became silence in an instant, and stillness returned to the Afterlife.
Priest Seto had not held the throne for nothing. His reign had been considerably longer than Atem’s, cut short as his was. Restoration. Military order. Rebuilding trust among the people. Defence and diplomacy against foreign powers looking to exploit a weakened kingdom. Enemies within who sought to seize the throne or topple the state. He had fought at the front of all of it — a king of force and presence.
He had lost count of the attempts on his life, but fingers were not enough to number them. Each time, he had fought, because showing strength required it.
One word from Seto — who had been warrior and god both — had apparently been more than sufficient. Since then, no one in the Afterlife had mentioned Atem and Seto Kaiba.
“You look rather severe, you know.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Is that so? All right then — I’ll do that.”
He thought he heard: getting really furious is frightening. Priest Seto was unfamiliar with the phrase, but he resolved to look it up on the terminal later.
Atem had been born and raised to be a king, a god — and had ascended the throne as one.
Now, there was no trace of that composed, divine bearing.
The uncertainty, the not knowing what to do with herself — those were gone too.
He didn’t know what that man had done. But she was clearly being treasured. There was simply a person here, smiling happily, fully human.
So the words came naturally.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. We’ll be living here for a while, so I’m leaving things to you — as I always do.”
“As I have always intended. You are going to be happy.”
Even he was surprised by how gentle his own voice sounded.
The day that man had come uninvited to the royal palace — amid all the chaos — Atem had shown, just for a moment, a look of unmistakable joy. No one else had noticed. Priest Seto had.
He didn’t know what she had felt in that moment. Whether the feeling had already been what it was now, or whether it had changed shape and grown into this. But he had understood one thing: she had been waiting. Her eyes had been bright.
That was why he had not moved to stop the intruder. Why he had not intervened when impulsive guards charged forward and were sent back. He had arranged a few things quietly behind the scenes, to allow the visits — but only that.
What power had he used, to come all this way. The guards, overpowered. A white coat catching the desert wind. White wings of a dragon.
For three thousand years and more, power had most often taken the form of beasts. But this one was a dragon.
The dragon had, in the end, slain the god.
A smile touched Priest Seto’s mouth.
“I’m glad to have your congratulations.”
“And I am very glad to give them.”
“Looks like it’s time. I’m off to get married. Talk later.”
“No need. Send the photograph with Mahad and the others.”
“Right.”
Atem smiled — bright, unguarded. Close to the child who used to hide in jars and slack off. No — freer than that, even. More alive in her feelings than she had ever been back then.
Free. Atem was free now.
He let himself remember, briefly, those early years. Three years younger than him. Wilful, mischievous, endlessly troublesome.
Seto Kaiba — bring Atem a happy future. He said it inwardly, and returned to his work.
He would look up “getting really furious” several hours later, and cross his arms.
“Welcome. It’s been a while.”
“Ishizu. Marik, Odion too. Thank you for today.”
“As the Pharaoh wishes.”
“I keep saying — I’m not the Pharaoh anymore. Please stop.”
“No. Your soul is that of a noble Pharaoh, and to me it will always be so.”
How devoted, Seto thought. But Atem was simply Atem.
He had plenty he might have said, but Ishizu was a persistent sort — better to let her have her words.
“Now then, Seto — you are to become the royal consort of the Pharaoh. You are fully aware of what that means, I trust?”
How to answer that.
King, god — those things had long since ceased to exist inside Atem.
Simply told her, again and again, that she was free. Indulged her. Reassured her. Gave her, without reservation, the ordinary things that someone who was a king or a god would never have been allowed. Did it until Atem could accept, from the inside, that she had the right to exist without any of that.
And somewhere along the way, Atem stopped needing the identity of king or god as her reason for being.
That had dismantled the thinking of a living deity — and broken the divinity inside her.
Because he intended to walk beside her, Seto had been careful, and patient, and deliberate: he had, over time, brought Atem down from god to simply human.
And through the freedom and love she had come to know, Atem’s sense of her own purpose had been rewritten — from “being the king” to “being here, because I chose to be.”
All of it the product of calculations Seto never let show. Atem was no longer a king or a god.
“Ishizu, as I keep saying — I’m not the Pharaoh. And as of today, I’m just someone’s wife.”
Seto nearly laughed. The obliviousness was something remarkable. Marik and Odion both looked briefly pained.
“I understand... our sister, Atem... sama.”
“Thank you, big sister. But the sama is strange, isn’t it?”
The four siblings were talking together. At the centre of it, the youngest sister: Atem.
The bond among these siblings was strong — but not closed off. It had room to receive Atem, to love her. The ease with which she fit among them, as though she had always belonged, came from exactly that.
“Take care of our sister.”
“I swear it, above all else. Your sister — I will make her happy.”
With Ishizu’s help, what would have taken several days was done in two. They headed home. The last step was filing the paperwork in Japan.
About a year and a half ago, Seto had begun those quiet days of watching over an Atem who had not yet become aware of herself, and waiting. Then and now — the certainty that Atem had always been looking at him filled his chest.
Each season, he had carefully increased their contact. Chosen his topics. Calibrated the moments to draw her smile.
Deliberately, intentionally, he had created a distance at which Atem could feel at ease.
Six months ago, on White Day — the moment Atem became aware of her own feelings, Seto had proposed without hesitation. He had waited for the moment she could receive it, even through her surprise. And she had.
All of it — even the moment Atem discovered her own feelings — had been a stage set by Seto from the beginning. A place that was hers to stand in. The outcome that was always going to come.
It might look, from the outside, like chance, or the natural movement of feeling. But all of it was the product of Seto’s calculation.
After they had come together, they had spent their days slowly, carefully, confirming the distance between them. And now, in this moment, they were married.
Marriage — the continuation of an ordinary, unchanging happiness.
“So we’re actually married now.”
Atem murmured it on the plane.
“We are.”
“It doesn’t feel real, somehow.”
“I told you, didn’t I. Nothing changes. Just stay beside me. That’s all.”
“That’s true, nothing has changed... when we get home—”
“Atem.”
He murmured something in her ear about a certain custom associated with wedding nights — and she went red in an instant and turned to face the window.
He had meant to say he was joking, but she was facing the other way, so there was nothing to be done.
When they returned to the mansion, it was in full celebration.
The Solid Vision system had transformed the interior into something resembling a party venue — Mokuba’s work, obviously.
Isono was there too, looking like he had been conscripted into helping. He was crying. He had been the one pushing for this marriage himself — and here he was, crying. One point deducted. Today, too, Seto was generous, and Isono started the evening on three.
“Nii-sama, Atem. Congratulations on your wedding.”
“Seto-sama, Madam, congratulations.”
“Mokuba, thank you. But why is Isono crying?”
“Hey, are you still at it? I get it, I get it, but pull yourself together. You’re going to cry at the ceremony too, aren’t you.”
“Yes. That is my intention.”
“You don’t need to cry.”
Yugi would be overcome with emotion and cry. Joey would catch it and cry too. Then Tristan would get pulled along. Atem’s happy tears were one thing — a ceremony with grown men weeping throughout was going to look a sight.
“Seto-sama, the date for the ceremony?”
“The evening of the twenty-fourth of October. Have it run past midnight.”
“Madam.”
It was Atem who had answered.
It was consideration for Seto, who disliked his birthday — and it was possessiveness.
A wedding anniversary was a special occasion. If it coincided with a birthday, it would give him good reason to spend time that might otherwise be considered wasteful — and that was what she had in mind.
“Is that all right?”
“Of course. Isono — the schedule.”
“Yes! Adjusting immediately!”
People who tried to get close to Seto despite his married status would never entirely disappear — but at least his birthday would no longer be simply a tiresome and wasteful day.
“But why the evening?”
“I saw it in a magazine. Seto Kaiba, twenty years old. Twenty is special, isn’t it? Then I’m not going to waste it. The last hours of your twenties are mine.”
“You could have every year of me, whenever you liked.”
Atem went red.
She had apparently just registered what she had said. Atem’s possessiveness ran deep.
“Let’s — start on the guest list—”
“Are you going to disappear into your room and leave me to be celebrated alone?”
“That’s — I’ll do it later.”
It was the love story everyone in the Kaiba household had been quietly watching over. The celebrations went on deep into the night.
