They decide to get married in the middle of a board game, with no particular atmosphere and no warning, because Isono has started calling Atem madam and that turns out to be enough.
Atem reports it to Priest Seto, who ruins a page of work. He watches a modern Egyptian street on a screen and thinks about what a dragon did to a god.
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
Isono's superior and his lover appeared to be cultivating a very calm happiness.
Enquiries in that vein concerning a Seto whose air had changed — which is to say, whose allure had increased further — were numerous both inside and outside the company, and he was busy. But that aside, he was spending fulfilling days.
The overwhelming leader among the enquiries was of course marriage. When, and who.
About two years ago, when he heard from his other superior, Mokuba, that his brother had boarded a prototype and gone off and nobody knew where to, his blood had run distinctly cold. The rest is up to you — was that not for all the world a last will? Would he have to support Mokuba and genuinely keep this enormous company going with just the two of them? He hadn't been able to rest easy.
But Seto came back. And before anyone knew it, at his side was a girl with a distinctive, oddly familiar aura, who looked as though she had settled exactly where she was always going to settle.
The highest-priority matter, they called it. In short, the real thing.
Watching them, there was no way not to know. Marriage really was a matter of days; he'd estimated it would come together within the year at the latest, and had preparations ready so that he could respond whenever he was told there would be a ceremony.
All that remained was to wait for the two of them to decide the timing.
This was a man who pushed forward without regarding hardship as hardship. Keeping up with that inexhaustible stamina and vitality was no ordinary business.
I want him to be rewarded was slightly off. He achieved his aims himself and wasn't a man who sought a return.
Which was precisely why he wanted him wrapped in a calm happiness as well. That was what he thought.
It was at night, while they were playing a board game.
Fingering a button token, Atem opened her mouth. It was a light enough game to allow small talk.
"There's something I wanted to ask."
"What is it?"
"Lately Isono has been calling me madam... Were we already married?"
"...That man. Let him say it."
As hasty as ever, he thought, and then reconsidered whether it was hasty.
Isono was a capable person. He was mature as a human being too, and had been told to look at things on the same level so that Mokuba and Isono could manage on their own.
When he first decided to go to the afterlife, he had judged that with Isono there to support Mokuba it would be fine, and boarded the prototype without hesitating.
His behaviour had been odd now and then recently, but it was within tolerance.
A current student — postgraduate, was it. Twenty. A young executive. All of these had a favourable ring to them. It was a moment when it would work in his favour.
Atem, too, was positioned as the sister of a senior figure in the Egyptian government. Nothing lacking there.
And in the past KaibaCorp had lent a hand to the reconstruction and excavation of ruined sites in Egypt; there was nothing strange about it at all.
Marrying now, before the ring uproar had fully died down, would be nothing but good fuel.
Which was to say: it would cause a commotion but present no problem, and in fact he judged that now was the time. Agreement, then. Isono calling Atem madam was presumably also an expression of intent — hurry up and marry her.
For an international marriage, a certain number of documents and days were required, but that was all.
The documents to be taken out of Japan were already prepared. He had secured a commitment that if it was Atem's wish, Ishizu would lend a hand with the Egyptian procedures at any time. Once those were done, they would return to Japan, assemble all the paperwork and submit it, and it would be complete.
Where was best for the ceremony? Given that the marriage would be established in Egypt, and considering avoiding the press, Egypt perhaps. Though reporters would follow even overseas.
Seto was at least aware of his own level of recognition.
"While we're at it — shall we do it?"
"Are we finally doing it? I don't mind."
"Then we're doing it."
"Yes, let's."
Marriage is a matter of momentum. There is a theory to that effect. It was true.
Today was not a special day or anything of the kind. Right now they were merely occupied with a light board game as usual. There wasn't even a sweet atmosphere.
He hadn't been in a hurry, and he hadn't been looking for the timing. Isono had poured oil on this engaged state, and Atem had lit it. The fire went up vigorously. That was all.
In the middle of a game, they had gone and decided to get married. Marriage is a matter of momentum.
Seto checked the board for the moment. As things stood they were even. But this would not be played to the finish today.
"Where do you want the ceremony? Egypt? If there's anyone you want there, I'll arrange it."
"If we're having a wedding — well, I'd want Aibou and the others. But no bringing them out of nowhere."
"An entirely ordinary invitation, then."
"Invitations from you usually smell of some incident."
"What was that."
"It's a joke. Don't be angry."
He stopped the mouth saying frivolous things, but Atem only laughed, unrepentant.
If you're going to say that much, you'd better be able to make a few days free. The person he wanted to say it to was of course not here.
"Then first we go to Egypt."
"Egypt? Why?"
When he briefly explained the procedure for an international marriage, Atem grumbled that the living world was a lot of work. He agreed with that too; if it had been possible he'd have finished it online already.
"Seto, look at this."
Atem, who had lately apparently been contacting Mahad and Mana, had suddenly contacted him.
He had handed those two a device precisely to avoid this sort of nuisance.
"Look at what? That's a desert, is it not."
"There's a town too."
Within the screen the view turned around, and a thriving town appeared.
People going to and fro, and vehicles like cars.
Let me have it, he heard that one's voice, and Atem's figure appeared.
What made an impression was her expression as she watched the people. Which was how he understood.
"Surely this is — the living world."
"Yes. Our country, Egypt. The world you rebuilt."
No voice came. He couldn't look away. The world Atem had protected and he had raised.
He'd heard that in the modern age the power of magic had been lost. And in spite of that, was the world this robust and this beautiful?
"A very fine world."
"It is."
For a while he stopped working and watched the scenery projected there and the people living in it. He'd never imagined being given a time like this.
And if it had ended there, it would have ended as a good story.
But the living world was, above all, a thing that brought in uproar. Reading that sort of air was nothing to Seto; that much he understood.
He picked up his brush and set down characters. A continuation of his work.
If it was trouble, he could push it onto that one, who had presumably been looking at the same scenery.
"So. You have something else to say."
"Oh? How did you know?"
"Why would I not?"
"That's Seto for you..."
There was no negative feeling in her expression. Being with that one and having such feelings would be the abnormal thing. So he turned over what it might be this time.
At Atem's continuation, Seto's thoughts blanked for an instant.
"Not so much something to say as simply a report — I'm going to go and get married now."
"Now?"
"Now."
"Now..."
"I thought I ought to tell you properly."
To whom he didn't need to ask. It could only be that one, who had thoroughly wrecked the afterlife.
He would never think I won't give him to you. He objected to being lumped in with the other priests, and he had thought the day would come eventually.
But to contact him out of nowhere and say now. The characters he'd been writing slipped in spite of him. It was legible, but no longer usable; a rewrite. More work.
Hadn't there been a great commotion in the living world only recently, thanks to Mana? — but several months had passed since then.
"Mahad and Mana don't know yet?"
"I was about to contact them."
"Then make it a report after the fact. You need only send it along with an image of yourself in your finery."
Seto stated it flatly.
"Really?"
"Really."
This information had to be stopped here, for now.
If it leaked there would be an enormous fuss, and another one after the marriage rite was performed. Better to gather it into one, Seto judged.
When that one had carried Atem off, confusion had of course broken out.
"The King does not return; at this rate—"
"Order will—!"
Amid the clamour of priests and officials, Seto stood slowly beside the throne.
Until a short while ago, the one who had sat there was Seto. He looked around with his eyes alone, and the air changed at once as though the desert had turned to night.
"Be silent."
The voice was low and its volume restrained, and yet it had a force that cut through everything.
The priests couldn't move; they swallowed their words and dropped their eyes. Protest and argument alike were no more than faint shadows before Seto's gaze.
Without stirring, Seto simply turned on them, quietly and coldly, a gaze that took hold of the world. The uproar became silence in an instant, and stillness returned to the afterlife.
Seto had not been king for nothing, and his reign had been far longer than that of the young-dying Atem. Reconstruction, building up the military, restoring the trust of the people, defence and diplomacy against other nations circling a weakened country, internal enemies plotting usurpation and the overthrow of the state. With circumstances like those he had been a powerful king who went on fighting at the head of the line.
He hadn't counted, but the number of attempts on his life exceeded what fingers could hold. It was also a demonstration of strength; each time it became a battle.
That single reprimand from Seto — a king of war and of power, a god — had apparently landed hard, and since then no one had said a word about Atem and Seto.
"You're making a frightening face."
"You're imagining it."
"Really? All right. Then I'll do that, but..."
It's frightening when he's in full-blown rage, he heard. Seto didn't know what full-blown rage meant, but he decided to look it up later on this device.
Atem had been born and raised to be a king and a god, and had taken the throne.
Now, the composed expression of a child of the gods was nowhere to be seen.
She'd said she didn't understand her own feelings or what to do. That anxiety and confusion were gone too.
What that one had done he didn't know, but she must be treasured a great deal; there was simply one human being smiling happily.
So the words came out of him naturally.
"Congratulations."
"Thank you. I'll be living here for a while, so I'll be leaving things there to you."
"That was always the intention. You are to be happy."
It was a voice gentle enough to surprise even himself.
That day, when an intruder came bursting into the afterlife, Atem had shown a delighted expression for only an instant, despite the uproar. Not one of the others would have noticed; because it was Seto, he knew.
What she'd been feeling then he didn't know. Whether it was already the same as now, or whether the shape had changed and become now.
But he did know that she had been waiting. Her eyes had been shining.
Which was why he hadn't stopped that one's impossible conduct when he stormed in, and why he hadn't said a word about calming the situation when the guards who ran out on their own were beaten.
He had worked behind the scenes a little regarding the frequent visits, but no more than that.
What power he'd had, and how he had managed to come this far, was unknown. Guards broken through. In the foreign white garment streaming behind him, he had seen the wings of a white dragon.
From well before those three thousand years, symbols of power were most often beasts. But that one was no beast; he was a dragon.
The dragon had, at last, slain a god.
A smile surfaced at Seto's mouth.
"I'm glad to be celebrated by you."
"To be able to celebrate you is a great happiness."
"It seems it's time. I'm off to get married. Later."
"No, that won't be necessary. When you send the pictures of yourself in your finery to Mahad and the others, send them to me then."
"Yes."
Atem, laughing happily, was close to the boy who'd hidden inside a jar to skive off. No — she was expressing her feelings far more freely than back then. Freely. Atem was free now.
For a little while he remembered his childhood and let himself be nostalgic. Three years younger, wilful, mischievous, fond of pranks; a hopeless boy.
Seto Kaiba. A happy future for Atem. He murmured it inwardly and resumed his work.
Incidentally, it was several hours later that he looked up full-blown rage and folded his arms.
"Welcome. We're glad you've come."
"It's been a while."
"Ishizu, Marik, Odion too. I'm counting on you today."
"As the Pharaoh wills."
"I'm not the Pharaoh anymore, so stop that."
"No. That soul belongs to the noble Pharaoh; to me you will always be so."
How very admirable, Seto thought. But Atem was simply Atem.
There was a great deal he'd have liked to say, but Ishizu was a nagging sister-in-law; let her say what she liked.
"Incidentally, Seto — you are to become the Pharaoh's consort. You understand that fully, I trust?"
Now, what should he answer?
Kings and gods had long since vanished from inside Atem.
He had simply repeated that she was free, spoiled her, put her at ease. The ordinary, which she could never have experienced as a king or as a god, he had given her without mercy.
Until an Atem who had originally carried a heavier duty and a deeper solitude than anyone could accept that she was allowed to exist without them.
And before anyone knew it, Atem no longer needed herself-as-king or herself-as-god as a reason to exist.
That collapsed the thinking of a living god, and destroyed the divinity within Atem.
Precisely because he was the one walking beside her, Seto had carefully and over time brought Atem down into a single human being.
And through the freedom and the love she had learned, Atem's own reason for existing was overwritten from being king into being here because she wished to be.
All of it was rational calculation Seto never showed on the surface. Atem was no longer king or god.
"Ishizu, I keep telling you, I'm not the Pharaoh. And as of today I'm just somebody's wife."
Seto nearly laughed. Airheadedness was a terrifying thing. Marik and Odion had stiff faces.
"Understood... our sister, Lady Atem."
"Thank you, sister. But Lady is odd, isn't it?"
Four siblings exchanging words. At the centre of them was the youngest sister, Atem.
The bond between these siblings was firm, but not an exclusionary one.
There was room in it to accept Atem and to love her. The natural air, as though they had been siblings from the start, presumably came from that.
"Take care of our sister."
"I swear to hold her above all else. I will make my sister happy."
With Ishizu's cooperation, procedures that would take several days were finished in two, and they set off home. All that remained was submitting the paperwork in Japan.
About a year and a half ago, days of watching over an Atem who was not yet aware, and waiting quietly, had begun. That both then and now Atem had been looking at him — that certainty filled Seto's chest.
With each turn of the season he had increased the frequency of contact, chosen his topics, and carefully adjusted the timing for drawing out a smile.
He had deliberately created a distance at which Atem could feel naturally at ease.
That White Day, about half a year ago. The moment Atem became aware of her own feelings, Seto proposed without hesitating. He had waited for a timing at which she could accept it even while shaken. In that moment, Atem accepted him despite her surprise.
All of this — even Atem's own realisation — was no more than the result of what was always going to happen, on a stage and in a place Seto had prepared from the beginning.
On the surface it would look like coincidence, or the swell of feeling. But it was all a product of Seto's calculation.
After the relationship was established, they had accumulated ordinary days while slowly confirming the distance, and now, at this moment, the two of them were married.
Marriage: an extension of unchanged, happy daily life.
"So we're husband and wife now?"
In the aircraft, Atem murmured.
"That's right."
"It doesn't feel real."
"I told you, didn't I. That nothing changes. That you only have to be beside me as before."
"You're right. Nothing has changed. ...Once we get home."
"Atem."
Do you know the custom of the wedding night? he whispered at her ear, and she went red before his eyes and turned her face to the window.
He wanted to say it's a joke, but with her facing away there was nothing to be done.
When they got back to the mansion, the place had become lively.
Using the solid vision system, it was practically a party venue; Mokuba's doing.
Isono, who must have been press-ganged into helping, was there too. Isono had pushed for this marriage himself and was crying. One point deducted. Seto was generous today as well, so Isono's allowance was three points.
"Nii-sama, Atem. Congratulations on your marriage."
"Master Seto, madam, congratulations."
"Thank you, Mokuba. But why is Isono crying?"
"Hey, still crying? I get it, but knock it off already. You'll only cry at the wedding too."
"Yes! That is my intention."
"There's no need to cry."
Yugi would be overcome and cry, Joey would cry along with him, and then Tristan would be dragged in as well. Atem's happy tears were one thing, but a ceremony with nothing but men crying would be unsightly.
"Master Seto, the date of the ceremony?"
"From the night of October twenty-fourth. Have it run over midnight."
"Madam."
The one who had answered was Atem.
It was both consideration for a Seto who hated his birthday, and possessiveness.
A wedding anniversary is a special day. Move it onto the birthday, and going forward there would be fewer occasions when he'd have to spend so-called wasted time on that account. That was the thinking.
"That's all right, isn't it?"
"Of course. Isono, the schedule."
"Yes! Adjusting it now!"
Married or not, there would be no end to those who came sidling up to Seto, but at the very least his birthday would no longer be a troublesome, wasted day.
"But why from the night?"
"I saw it in a magazine. Seto Kaiba, twenty. Twenty is special, isn't it? Then there's no sense in my not taking it."
"You could take as much of me at any age as you like."
Atem went red.
She seemed finally to have understood what she'd said. Atem was strongly possessive.
"Th— the guest list, we should prepare—"
"You'll go back to your room and leave me to be celebrated alone?"
"That's... later, then."
This was the romance everyone had been watching over. At the Kaiba mansion, the celebration went on late into the night.
