Author's Note: Originally posted 17 March 2008. 5 August 2008 – revised version. I've only corrected some passages of description and general spelling and grammar mistakes to make for a better and more mature piece. If you've read this before and are reading it again you probably won't notice any differences.

Disclaimer: I disclaim.

Warnings: Swearing and mild violence.

Summary: For years Seto has been paying men to die for him. It is not until he lies half dead in the road that he begins to realise this and what it actually means to him.


Chapter Two

Exit

'My God Roland! What happened to him?'

Roland grunted as he lifted a heavy first aid kit from a hidden compartment beneath the long seat. He paused, panting, his fatigue settling in.

'I don't know what happened exactly, sir,' he said breathlessly. 'I found him like that… I had to drag him out from where he was being kept.' Roland wiped the gritty sweat from his brow. 'He's been unconscious since I found him, but he is alive, sir.'

Seto's eyes made a wavering trail over Campion's bloody form. He had lost all his garments save his torn black trousers which were steeped in piss and blood. One arm had been brutally hacked off just below the elbow. Seto could see a pale bone amidst the glistening red flesh and had to turn away, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe again. He remembered the room that he had awoken in and the awful things he saw; he could very well imagine the sort of situation that Roland had found Campion in.

'Where did you find him, Roland?' he asked in a quivering voice, hissing as his bodyguard peeled the fabric of his shirt away from the crusting wound in his stomach. He swore loudly as Roland doused the puncture in…

'Vodka?'

Roland nodded grimly, biting his lip.

'Don't ask me who re-packed the kit sir, because we're definitely not meant to have vodka in there…'

'Am I employing an alcoholic or what?' he growled through gritted teeth.

'Calm down, sir'.

Seto's head flopped back on the seat as Roland began to apply gauze pads to his wound.

'It won't stop bleeding, sir…'

'You didn't answer my question.'

'Sorry?'

'Where did you find Campion? What did they do with him?' A hint of desperation snuck into his voice, his large blue eyes shimmered in the dim interior lights.

Roland looked at him deeply, frowning. Seto wasn't used to seeing straight into the man's eyes, he always wore sunshades. He wondered if that night was the first time he had ever seen Roland's eyes and for a brief second he found himself greatly distracted by the mint green hue. He took a shaky breath.

'He was on a lower level, in the basement actually.'

Seto blinked, waiting for more.

'They took me to the upper levels,' he said plainly, not enjoying Roland's silence. 'How was he being restrained when you found him?'

Roland was breathing heavily through his nose, not at all wanting to speak. He knew that as soon as they reached civilization again the entirety of the nights events would have to be profiled and analysed by the authorities and that each of them would have to relive their night of horror, more than once most likely. He didn't feel like describing what he had seen so soon after it had happened.

'He was on a meat hook,' he murmured softly. He ceased his medical toil for a moment to rest his weary hands on his knees.

Seto blinked.

'A meat hook?'


Seto glanced about. The entrance hall was large and gloomy, with a dark polished floor and moss green wallpaper. To his left, three closed doors, in front of him at the end of a narrow corridor was another door, slightly ajar and to his right an un-used, dusty staircase spiraling into the darkness. He saw footprints in the dust, but they stopped a few steps up and came back down. For now the door ahead of him seemed the best place to start his search. From the depths of his suit he pulled out his own discreet firearm.

He edged slowly towards the door before him, every limb stringed tightly with apprehension. He tried to imagine what was behind it, he tried to prepare himself, but was frightened when he realised that he didn't want to take another step forward. He was only a pace away, he could easily kick the door open with a long leg and quickly have his weapon at the ready, but the situation was suddenly beheaded and flung akimbo.

CRASH!

Behind Seto one of the three doors was violently swung open. He barely had time to register the cause of the noise before a dark hulking figure lurched towards him. He let out a panicked shout and wasted a gunshot into the wall beside him, flinching unexpectedly at the recoil.

Seto stood frozen and blinking; before him loomed an ominous man who, despite his crooked stoop, looked down upon him from a foot or so above. In the darkness all he could see of the man's face was a faint glint in his eyes.

In a flash of monstrous yellow teeth Seto was reduced to screams of pain


'A meat hook, Roland?'

'They hung him up on one sir, by his arm. I had to cut it off'.

Seto felt sick to his stomach and his flesh became cold. He felt a horrid, familiar swirling inside him, his tongue tightened and his mouth filled with water. He struggled to lean over the seat.

'Roland I think I'm going to be sick –'

Roland stuttered and fussed around, looking for something to put under his master's face, but there was very little to be found within the confines of the limousine. In desperation he flung the contents of the first aid kit across the seat and shoved this box on the floor by Seto's head just in time.

Seto convulsed, his bones clicking, and spilled himself into the tub. Roland turned away, wrinkling his nose as the curds-and-whey vomit made a nauseating splat against the plastic. He supposed there was very little for his master to bring up, and felt a strange pang as Seto continued to wretch emptily, his face twisted with pain.

Finally he was done and slumped back onto his seat, panting and whimpering. Silently Roland reached over to take the tub, intending to throw the contents out the door into the heavy rain. He saw blood mingling with the bile and made a conclusion about Seto's injuries. With a clenched jaw he flung the filth into the rain and set the tub outside the door to let it wash out. He shifted back to where he was knelt before and peered closely over Seto's face, which was now ashen and shone with sweat. His lips were coated with slimy vomit and some trickled out of the corner of his mouth and into his hair. Roland wiped him clean with his sleeve, a muscle in his cheek ticking madly. Seto seemed utterly dazed, he was barely conscious.

'Mr Kaiba?'

Seto's heavily lidded eyes were glazed. He didn't respond.

'Seto?'


Seto awoke somewhere dark and rancid. He was aware that he was in a confined space and his senses went into overdrive. He went to plant his hands firmly on either side of him but found that he could barely move his arms. He kicked out and shot a hand above him and on every side he was met with a wall. Panic quickly overtook him and he began to breathe in heavily, only to make himself gag on the foul air. He paused, wincing as something jabbed into his spine. He shifted; there was something else under his leg. Dreading what it might be he snaked a hand down to investigate. He grasped it at fumbled a while. When he realised what he was lying on top of he opened his mouth to scream, but terror stole his voice.

In a flurry of animalistic fear he pounded on the walls beside him, his desire for escape so great that he truly believed that he could break through anything. Suddenly he fell still and eerie to look upon as his ceiling, a lid of what must have been a large container, was sharply lifted open, letting in the bright, bleached light of the day. His mouth was still wide and contorted in a silent scream and his eyes were bulging. A pale face stared down at him from above. It wasn't the same as the one who attacked him in the corridor, who put him out cold and must have locked him in the box. This face was thin and younger and the eyes were black and so large that his irises stood alone in a near-circle of white.

Seto felt himself trembling; all fear of the severed limbs that he lay upon was completely lost. This face completely engulfed him. He had never felt comfortable with people staring at him, least of all with eyes as wide and penetrating as these. It was as though someone had sucked out the middle of his eyeballs and left a void behind.

His distrust of unblinking, staring people developed into a dread of most anything and anyone with big, blank eyes, but strangely Seto felt his wariness drift away. It was the feeling of getting used to something, like the cold side of a pillow against his cheek, or an unfamiliar hand resting on the inside of his thigh.

Finally the strange creature-boy blinked and Seto blinked back, closing his mouth. He was about to say something when the boy reached a long, spindly hand into the container towards his face. His fingers were an inch from Seto when a larger, meatier hand extended from nowhere behind the boy and plunged into his matted, black hair. Seto was surprised that the boy didn't shriek or even open his mouth to exclaim as he was ruthlessly yanked backwards. Seto pulled himself up to see what was going on, only to be met by the ugly face of the man who had attacked him in the corridor.

He seemed barely human now that Seto could see him in the natural light that pounded through large windows from behind. He seemed as though he must have suffered from severe burns at some point in his life; his entire face had the plastic sheen of scar tissue, half his nose had been eaten away and his yellow teeth were exposed in a permanent snarl where his lips had melted away.

Seto scrambled backwards as the man dived towards him, but a scuffling on the dark, dusty floorboards at the back of the room drew his attention away. The wide-eyed boy had darted towards the oak door, fumbling madly with the wrought iron latch, only to be caught around the scruff of the neck by the man. Seto seized the opportunity to crawl out of the filthy, stinking box whilst the monster was distracted.

The man screamed into the face of the boy, whose feet dangled in the air as he was lifted. Still he made no noise. The man seemed infuriated and garbled strangely, his rage obvious. As Seto crept to the window he kept a wary watch through the corner of his eye. The man was shaking the boy by his neck like a rag doll, spluttering and snarling like an ape. Seto wondered as he stretched a shaking hand to open the window, who were these people? Why can't they even speak?

The window was open! He gave it a push but to his horror the old metal hinges screeched loudly. He heard a thump from the opposite side of the room as the boy was dropped to the floor. Before he had time to even get off his knees and run out of reach the man had him by his hair, dragging him across the floorboards. The man was spitting all manner of nonsense at him amidst bizarre, inhuman shrieks and Seto screamed right back at him, furious that his escape had been foiled. He reached out for the man's leg and with a snarl sunk his teeth in.

He very quickly regretted his actions as he was flung across the room onto his back, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Without time to even blink he felt a large fist come smashing down into his face. Over and over the hideous man brought his fist down like a sledgehammer, sending Seto's blood splattering this way and that. Finally he stopped, sitting up and panting. Seto thought it would be the end of the assault, but his wishes were in vain. A guttural choke left his lips as a rusty knife plunged deep into his stomach.


'Seto!'

Roland had his hands on either side of his master's face and shook him slightly. He sighed when he saw Seto blinking, the haze in his eyes clearing.

'Thank god, sir. I thought you had slipped off, that you wouldn't come back.'

Seto grumbled and knitted his brows together.

'Mmm, I did doze off for a minute there…'

The corners of Roland's lips tweaked, but he couldn't bring himself to smile properly. He let his hand lightly ghost over Seto's cheek as he had when he found him lying in the road. He was cold, his wet clothes probably weren't helping much but Roland daren't to remove them with all the suspected broken bones. He would only worsen things. Instead he contented himself with pushing his fingers into Seto's hair and rubbing the temple with a calloused thumb.

'Sometimes…' he whisperd huskily. Seto lazily opened an eye to look at him. 'Sometimes I wish I had gone to that orphanage, that I had met you and your brother before Gozaburo had.'

Seto frowned.

'I would have adopted you and your brother, and you would have lived with me and my wife and our babies… and be our extra sons.'

Seto saw the flicker of a sad smile on Roland's lips.

'You probably wouldn't have turned out as clever as you are now, but you'd know lots of other things no doubt, like how to ride a horse and birth lambs.'

Roland nestled his other hand into Seto's hair and stared forlornly into his eyes.

'I wish I could go back in time and adopt you, because that's how I love you, like one of my own children.'

Seto pursed his lips in an attempt to hide their quiver, but his eyes betrayed him as tears dribbled out of the corners, falling onto Roland's hands which still cupped either side of his head.

'Roland –'

Ignoring his pain he lifted his arms up and wrapped them around his most faithful servant's neck who leant in and planted a firm kiss on his forehead, the little mustache tickling him.

When the moment had passed, when Roland was sat upright again and Seto's hands had returned to his sides, the rain stopped falling. A tiny spatter of golden dawn had appeared under a dark blanket of cloud on the horizon. The twittering of the early birds sliced neatly through their heads and they both winced.

'Let's go Roland; I'm sure Mokuba is going barmy at our absence. He's going to freak out completely when he sees the state of us…' He cast a quick glance over to Campion. 'Is he still with us?'

Roland leant over and checked the young man's pulse.

'Yes, though faintly. No less than before.'

'Well then, off we go.'

Roland hesitated. 'What about the others, sir? Shouldn't we go back for them?'

'They're dead; I saw their bodies as I made my escape through the house…'

Roland bowed his head, hands fisting into the material of his trousers. 'I suppose they died doing what they were prepared to do. What all four of us were prepared to do for you, actually.'

Seto didn't know what to say. He knew what bodyguards were for, but up until this night all of his near-death experiences were synonymous with his Duel Monsters-related escapades, which he usually went on by himself, though never far off from Yugi and his friends. It was often Yugi who claimed that he had saved his life, but he never really felt like he had brushed so closely past death during those times. Tonight he had taken in the fact that he had for years been paying people to literally die for him, if the situation would ever arise. And now it had. The realisation hit him at the back of the throat like bitter ale and made him queasy.

'Let's get into the front Roland, so we can go home.'

'You should lie down, sir.'

'You already agreed to let me sit in the front!'

'It won't do you any good, sir, you're badly injured!'

'Roland!'

To his utmost frustration Seto saw Roland smiling.

'What's so funny?'

Roland chuckled.

'My youngest daughter, I never let her sit in the front –' he laughed heartily '–and we always argue just like that! Well, sort of…'

Seto stared at him, slightly bemused.

'So are you going to help me into the front?'

'Fine.'

After quite a bit of faffing around, a fair amount of scolding from Roland and an awful lot of swearing from Seto, they were both seated in the front, Roland behind the wheel and Seto in the passenger seat, moodily clutching the blanket that had been wrapped around him.

'Hurry up Roland; I want to get as far away from this place as possible. And as quickly as possible too, I want to see Mokuba.'

K4IBA1 rumbled to a start and the heating blasted out. Seto fiddled with the fans to direct the warm air towards him. He pressed a few buttons below that and some music began to play.

'I won't let you smother it! I won't let your muuurder it! Our time is ruuuuuunning out! Our time is run–'

'No.'

With wide eyes Seto quickly changed the track to something much gentler, and leant back into the plush leather, soaking up the brightening sunrise and the warmth. Soon Roland was zooming along the country road at a satisfying, unlawful speed, further and further away from their awful nightmare. He slowed down got navigate a spate of potholes and Seto felt a strange rush as he saw a sika stag dart through the gold morning mist. In the back of the limo something stirred and whimpered. Seto opened the slat that divided the driver's area to the seating in the back. Campion had awoken and was shivering with shock as he gazed in horror at his arm, or lack thereof.

'Hey Campion, it's okay. We're on our way home.'

Campion stared up at Seto with wide eyes, not certain whether he was more shocked by his absent limb or the soft smile on his masters face.

'We'll be there in a few hours, think you can hold on?'

Campion nodded silently.

'Good. I'll leave this open.' And he turned back to faced the front, blinking calming as the country flickered by.

He felt a sudden jolt as a familiar pale face and shock of black hair shot by the window.

'STOP!'


Author's Note: Cliffhanger thing! This concludes Open Ether. The creepy boy appears again in Siphon and my latest fic Take Me To The Water. Neither of these are strictly sequels but they do consider the events in previously written fics such as this, Brown Paper Parcel and Chocolate Milk as facts.

Name that tune! Seto heard 'Time Is Running Out' by MUSE when he switched on the radio.

... and please review! I love feedback!