/Text/ Spirit to Host

/Text/ Host to Spirit

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A brief burst of static, closely followed by a garbled voice over a radio, and then silence filled the sterile room, broken only by the steady intervals of a heart-rate monitor. There were only four occupants of the room: two asleep, one slumped uncomfortably in the visitor's chair next one of the beds, and the other standing, guarding, at the door. The privacy curtains, white like the rest of the room, were completely drawn, cutting off the sentry from his charges.

A quiet buzzing made the visitor jump, raising his head where it rested awkwardly on the edge of the mattress. He removed one of his hands from its resting place embracing a bandaged one and reached into his pocket to remove a cell phone. Straightening up, he peered at the notification across the screen: it was a text.

Téa: What's going on? There are police all over the place, and they won't let us inside.

The boy sighed. After sitting vigil with him for what seemed like forever, they had gone to get food from a nearby takeout restaurant. It had only been about thirty minutes since the gang had vacated the room, but it was long enough for terror to strike. He glanced to his right at the other sleeping occupant before quickly typing a response.

They were spotted entering the hospital. We're on lockdown.

Téa's response was almost instantaneous. Are you guys ok?

What an odd question, considering the circumstances surrounding them all. He was stuck in this hospital room while the local authorities chased down a killer hunting for them. No, he was certainly not fine. But he knew what she really meant.

We're okay. One of the officers was here just before it all started, but she went off to help find the guys. She left a radio behind, so we can hear what's going on.

He set the phone down on the mattress he had dozed off against and stretched the stiffness out of his neck. From the other side of the privacy curtain, he could hear the radio go off again, but he wasn't able to hear what was going on as the volume was suddenly turned down. Well, so much for being nosy. Now the only sounds to be heard were the reassurance of a steady heartbeat.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The creak of the second mattress and the rustling of fabric made the boy twist in his seat. He jumped up and twisted the chair around in time to see the familiar violet eyes slowly open.

"Yugi?" It wasn't much more than a whisper, but he couldn't afford to be any louder, not when their assailants were somewhere in the building.

The violet eyes blinked against the light in the room, trying to focus before turning to meet slate-grey ones. He pushed himself up on shaky elbows. "M-Mokuba?"

The younger Kaiba leaned closer. "How do you feel?"

Yugi rubbed at his eyes and forehead, to erase the last remnants of sleep, and noticed as he pulled his hand away that his wrists were bandaged. He attempted to sit up, but Mokuba beat him to it, hitting the button on the side of the bed to elevate it.

"Tired…but okay, I think." He took a look around the room. Aside from the one Mokuba Kaiba sat in, three extra chairs were crammed around his bed. A heavy white curtain was drawn, keeping him from seeing anything that wasn't immediately surrounding the beds. A cursory glance down revealed he was still (mostly) dressed, and was only hooked up to an IV line.

"Aside from a few bruises, the doctor said you were mainly just suffering from dehydration and exhaustion," said Mokuba, pointing to the IV drip. "I think those are just fluids, not drugs or anything." He propped his elbows up on the edge of Yugi's bed. "They're gonna keep an eye on you for a while though, but still - you got lucky."

Mokuba followed Yugi's gaze around to the three empty chairs. "Joey, Tristan, and Téa left to bring food back. It's been at least six hours since you were brought in, and we've all been here the entire time."

"I got lucky…." Yugi murmured. What did he mean by that? He struggled to think back, not remembering exactly where he had passed out. His thoughts were broken by the steady beeping in the room and he lifted his head. Wait – he wasn't hooked up to a monitor. And he wasn't the only one that needed saving. If Mokuba had stayed behind to sit with him, of all his friends, that must mean he wasn't the only ill occupant of the room.

Yugi glanced around Mokuba, and felt his breath catch in his chest. "Kaiba…."

Mokuba wiped a stray tear from his eye with his sleeve. "He hasn't woken up yet."

To say that Kaiba looked worse for wear would be an understatement. Unlike him, Yugi saw he was buried under several blankets, both hands wrapped in bandages that covered up past his forearms, and another was wrapped around his head, disappearing under his bangs. His pale skin eerily showed off the heavy purple bruising that covered his neck. There was also an IV line in, although there was more than one bag attached to it, and the machine on the other side of the bed was chirping out his heart rate. As unnerving as the constant beeping was in the otherwise quiet room, he was at least relieved to see the slow rise and fall of his rival's chest.

At least he had been rescued too.

"What happened to him?"

Mokuba frowned. "You don't know?"

Yugi shook his head. "We split up. He had a head injury from the attack in the hotel, but I wasn't around for the rest of it. Is he going to be okay?"

"They think so," said Mokuba quietly, taking his brother's hand in his own again. "It'll be easier when he wakes up. Roland and Joey found him in what they called 'an electrician's nightmare'. They said he suffered from electrical burns, but that obviously wasn't all of it."

Yugi cringed. That sounded painful.

Mokuba jerked his head towards the direction of the door as it opened. Low voices were heard from the other side of the privacy curtain before the door closed again. Footsteps were heard moving through the room and Roland appeared from around the edge of the curtain and sank down into the one of empty clustered chairs.

"Welcome back, Mr. Muto," he said tiredly, "It's good to see you're alright."

The thick bandage over the left side of his forehead did not go unnoticed, nor did the row of stitches hiding along his eyebrow. It was weird for Yugi to see him without his dark sunglasses.

Roland caught him staring and pointed towards the fire extinguisher hanging on the wall. "I was struck with one when you and Mr. Kaiba were attacked. I assure you, it looks worse than it actually is."

"What's going on out there, Roland?" asked Mokuba. "Who was that?"

"One of the investigating detectives," said Roland. "The elevators have been shut down, and the floor's exits are covered."

Yugi blinked. "What happened?"

Roland paused, listening to the sudden radio chatter through his earpiece. "Your assailants apparently were not happy to find you two had escaped. The hospital is on lockdown."

Yugi shivered slightly, drawing his knees to his chest.

Roland suddenly got up and reached for one of the extra blankets on the side table next to his employer's bed, as well as the small bag sitting beside it. "We found this in the building not far from where you were initially held."

Yugi drew the blanket around his shoulders, looked into the bag and gasped. He immediately turned it over, dumping out the shattered Millennium Puzzle.

"Are all of the pieces there?" asked Mokuba, picking up one of the corners and looking it over curiously.

Yugi spread them all out on the bed before him. He set the top piece, still attached to the chain, aside and looked around. "I think so. We'll soon find out, at least."

"Didn't that take you eight years to put together, though?" asked Mokuba, "Do you really think you'll finish it sitting here?"

Yugi smiled. "I had to fix the Puzzle once since I initially put it together, and that was in a burning warehouse. It's almost like riding a bike. Once you first learn it, you never really forget it."

"Oh."

Yugi looked up. "Do you want to rest, Roland? You look like you need it. I can sit in the chair and build the Puzzle if you want the bed."

Roland shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, Mr. Muto. But I need to be awake in case certain individuals make it through that door."

Mokuba looked back towards the door, hidden from view by the privacy curtains. "I thought you said the police covered the exits. Do you really think they're going to get past them all the way here?"

Roland leveled him a stern gaze. "I refuse to take that chance."

Yugi yawned and slowly opened his eyes. He didn't remember falling back to sleep, but after the agonizing last few days, he wouldn't say no to the extra rest. He rubbed the last bit of sleep from his eyes and glanced around.

The Millennium Puzzle, now put together, sat on the small tray table between his bed and the window. Mindful of the IV still coming out of his wrist, he reached for it and placed it around his neck, and immediately felt the familiar presence of the Pharaoh's spirit.

/Yugi! Are you alright?/

/I'm fine…how long have I been asleep?/

/Almost an entire day! Your friends have been very worried about you./

Yugi took another glance around. The lights in the room had dimmed, and the table lamp set between his and Seto's bed was on. All of the chairs his friends supposedly sat in when he was out the last time were gone, as was Mokuba and Roland, and the privacy curtains that had been set up were pushed back against the wall. The room was eerily silent, except from the constant beeping from the machines Seto was still hooked up to.

He blinked and studied his rival. Seto was still unconscious, and the dark contusions along his neck didn't look any better than when he woke the last time. Yugi rubbed a hand along his own neck, trying to mirror where they would be on his own body. From the shape of the bruises, it looked as if someone had tried to strangle him, and he swallowed nervously. Kaiba was tall and he had watched firsthand how skilled he was in fighting and self-defense while trapped in that compound. So for someone to be able to get a one up on him enough that they did so much damage, they must be either be very strong or super lucky.

His eyes fell on Seto's bandaged hands, and he remembered Mokuba telling him that he had also suffered from electrical burns. Maybe whoever took him out tried to fry him first and fought dirty. Either way, it seemed Kaiba was lucky to be alive.

But…considering that the last time he was awake, his kidnappers were somewhere in the hospital, and the lack of security nearby was rather off-putting. He can't imagine that Roland – or at the very least, Mokuba – would have left them both completely alone.

/Where is everyone, Pharaoh?/

With a quick golden flash of the Millennium Puzzle, Yami phased out, and perched himself onto the edge of Yugi's bed. "It is the middle of the night, Yugi. It seems visitors are not allowed past a certain time in this place."

Yugi tilted his head, puzzled. "But…they weren't here the last time I was awake. The hospital was under lockdown. What happened with that?"

Yami sighed. "I'm afraid I couldn't say. It was hard to keep track of what was going on while you were unconscious. I tried not to push too far to connect a link before the Puzzle was put back together and end up disturbing your rest."

The door suddenly opened, admitting Mokuba, Roland, and a woman that Yugi didn't recognize at all. She wasn't wearing scrubs or a doctor's coat, but a suit with a law enforcement badge clipped to the front of her jacket.

"Good evening, Mr. Muto," she said, then paused and looked at her watch. "Well, technically it's morning now. I'm Detective Soto in charge of your case." She dragged two side chairs into the aisle between his and Seto's beds for herself and Roland, and Mokuba took up the one on the opposite side of his brother's bed and laid his head down awkwardly against the mattress.

"Uh, hi."

"I know you've been through quite an ordeal, and I wanted to check in and see how you're doing. May I call you Yugi?"

"Oh, sure," said Yugi, shrugging. "And…I'm feeling as well as I can be, considering everything. I really wasn't hurt too much."

Detective Soto nodded. "I'm glad to hear it. I was wondering if I might be able to get a statement from you, while the events may still be fresh in your mind?"

"Yeah…that's fine," Yugi said. "Can I ask you something first?"

"Of course."

Yugi scratched at his forehead. "Well…when I woke up before, the hospital was on lockdown. Are we still?"

"No," said Roland, tight-lipped, "they were caught…"

Yugi sagged back against his pillows, relief clearly visible on his face.

Mokuba clutched at his brother's blankets and sniffed.

Yugi turned his head and eyed Mokuba carefully. He was naturally upset over his brother's condition, but he wasn't this miserable yesterday. Did something happen between then and now?

Roland continued. "But not before one of them made it to the room."

Yugi's eyes widened and his gaze darted to Seto and Mokuba. No wonder Mokuba was so distressed. Had he been hurt? "They didn't…"

"No," said Roland, and he reached up with his left hand to massage his temples, and it was then that Yugi noticed that his hand had been thoroughly bandaged, and he didn't remember it being that way before. "He was caught, and if it weren't for the…" he side-eye glared at Detective Soto, "eventual intervention by law enforcement, he would be in custody of the morgue, not the police."

"He slipped through under the guise of an officer, and radioed a convincing diversion," Detective Soto explained, "Unfortunately, he did not expect to find resistance inside your room."

"He didn't get to harm Mokuba or Mr. Kaiba," said Roland, "though if it were up to me, he wouldn't have needed medical attention afterwards."

Yugi cringed. He had only ever seen Seto's security head officiating tournaments or helping fly the helicopter that took them to Dartz. It was hard for him to picture the stoic, yet sometimes panicked guard in a serious fight.

"He clocked 'im with the fire extinguisher," Mokuba mumbled, more into Seto's blankets than to anyone.

Roland deadpanned. "I was merely returning the favor."

Detective Soto cleared her throat. "I'm sure you could probably tell this was not the same place you woke up in yesterday. For security reasons and as a precaution, we had you both transferred to a different room."

"Your friends are staying in a different hotel nearby," said Roland, seeming to guess Yugi's next question, "They will be back to see you in the morning."

Yugi nodded. "I can't wait to see them."

"We will, of course, get statements from them as well, since they were instrumental in finding you," said Detective Soto, "For now, yours and Roland's accounts will be enough to get started."

"I can only tell so much," said Yugi, "While we were missing, Kaiba and I had split up, so there's a lot that happened afterwards that I won't know."

"That's alright," said Detective Soto, "I'm sure Mr. Kaiba will be willing to share his side when he is able." She pulled what appeared to be a phone from her pocket and sat it on the arm of her chair. "Are you comfortable with me recording your story?"

"That's fine."

"Alright." She tapped the screen a few times. "If we can, I'd like to get a complete recount of what brought you here, so we can corroborate any security footage that gets pulled. Is that okay?"

Yugi nodded. "I'll do what I can."

"Excellent." She tapped the screen one more time and began her recording. "This is Detective Mira Soto conducting a witness interview in regard to Case #7597. May I have your names and occupations for our records?"

"Roland Isono, personal bodyguard for Seto and Mokuba Kaiba, and Head of Security for the Kaiba Corporation."

"Yugi Muto, and, um, high schooler? Duelist? I'm not sure what would count for that."

"Student is fine," said Detective Soto. "Okay, let's start from the very beginning…"