Seto shut the textbook with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. He had been trying to study it for the past few nights, and now he was actually understanding the material. But it was draining to read through this much math, and it was late. Mokuba had been put to bed hours ago: it was bound to be at least midnight by now. Oh well, one late night couldn't hurt. The other nights he had gotten a full night's rest, though tonight wasn't the best night to stay up considering Gozaburo was taking him and Mokuba out of the mansion the next morning.
He placed the textbook back on the shelf and his notebook off to the side. His thoughts wandered to his questions from three days before; why did he have things that seemed like they belonged to that boy? He had walked by the portrait several times by now, and noticed the clothing the boy wore was identical to what Seto was given. Then, when he was looking around with Mokuba he found a few others, where Mokuba had happily pointed out that the boy and Seto were near identical.
A close inspection had proven that true, the only difference being that the boy had dyed his hair a mint green. He couldn't compare for height, but the boy seemed to be eleven as well. They shared the same facial structure, and even eye color!
As far as Seto could tell, all the evidence pointed towards him being a replacement for that boy. Maybe he had died and this was how Gozaburo was trying to cope? That seemed like the only explanation for it.
'Gozaburo picked a physically identical child to replace his own—me.'
Now that Seto was thinking about it, he wanted to go have a look at one of the portraits of the boy again. Only for a moment, then he would go to bed.
He changed into his pyjamas and silently slipped out of his room. The dark hallways made him uneasy, but he could deal with it just fine. Either way, the only actual scary thing he could stumble upon was his stepfather. Before he went searching for the portrait, he checked that Mokuba was still asleep. A quick look in showed that Mokuba had just about surrounded himself with pillows and was fast asleep. Seto smiled; his younger brother was fine, probably dreaming about running around in the garden outside or playing with his toys.
Satisfied that Mokuba was alright, Seto shut the door and made his way down the hall to where the portrait hung up on the wall. He had to go downstairs and through the entrance hall to find it. It was dead silent, the only sound was that of his quiet footsteps. It was eerie, to say the least. In fact, it was sombering, as if whatever life that was held in the mansion had been drained, leaving it waiting for its return.
'Clearly the missing life is that boy, if my theory is correct,' Seto mused.
He turned down to the hallway where the portrait of the mint-haired boy hung, and stopped.
Gozaburo stood in front of the portrait, illuminated by the moonlight shining through the window behind him. A thoughtful look was on his face, as if he was internally debating something important. Seto had no idea what he could be thinking about, but he hoped it wasn't about him or Mokuba. Maybe it was about that boy.
Gozaburo turned his head and narrowed his eyes at Seto, who responded by staring back with equal intensity.
"What are you doing out of bed?"
"I just wanted to walk around a bit before going to sleep, I lost track of time while studying." Seto felt like he was making excuses for himself, and the look from Gozaburo implied he had the same thoughts.
"Go to bed. We have things to do in the morning."
Seto ignored the command. "Who's that boy in the painting?"
"Go. To. Bed." Gozaburo shot a glare at Seto, and he felt the chill that his stepfather always gave him.
"I'm just curious-"
"Seto-"
"Okay, sorry! I'll go to bed," Seto turned around and hurried away from the painting and his stepfather.
Even as his back was turned, he could feel the glare Gozaburo was giving him burning holes into his back. The dread that crawled down his spine didn't leave, not for the entire walk back up to his room. It was just as silent as ever, but the meeting made it more unnerving.
There was a lot of things going on that Seto couldn't understand, but he felt that everything was about to come to light. Maybe- maybe it would be better for it to stay hidden. Not that Seto would settle for that, of course. Perhaps he was just overthinking things, was too paranoid about that boy and Gozaburo, but he wasn't going to stop questioning until he found out. Learning information that would be useful was one of his skills, after all.
Not even when Seto was in the safety of his room did the dread leave, it lingered and clung to his chest and spine. He hoped it was just the silence and darkness getting to him. Although he did have no idea what he was even doing in the morning, all he knew was that Gozaburo was taking them to one of the KaibaCorp buildings. Maybe they were just getting a tour and he was getting worked up about nothing, just letting his paranoia get to him again.
He decided to put his worries aside and crawl in to bed, though sleep didn't come easy. His mind was racing with thoughts of who that boy was and what was happening the next day.
'Was I only adopted to be a replacement? Does he just consider Mokuba an extra that I brought along? But if I'm supposed to be filling in the hole left by that boy, why is he so cold to me?' The thoughts danced around in his mind for close to half an hour, in a failing attempt to understand something that should have been so simple.
But then, Seto's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of his door creaking open. He opened his eyes to see Mokuba walking over to his bed, then climbing up it to lay down beside him.
"Seto, I had a bad dream," Mokuba stared at him with wide, teary eyes. Seto wrapped his arms around his little brother and pulled the blanket over them both.
"Hey, it's okay, the bad dream is over now. You can sleep here tonight and I'll keep any other bad dreams away for you."
Mokuba nestled his face into Seto's chest and mumbled a "Thank you, big brother…" before falling silent. Seto waited until he knew for sure that his brother was asleep, before allowing himself to fall asleep as well.
This time, with his brother in his arms, he fell asleep easy.
In the morning, Seto and Mokuba were awoken by the sound of a maid knocking on his bedroom door. He sat up as she walked in, groggy from how little sleep he got.
"Master Seto, Master Kaiba has requested for you and Mokuba to be ready and at the table for breakfast in ten minutes," she reported, before bowing and heading out.
"Way to give me a heads up… Mokuba, wake up, we need to get dressed and have breakfast," Seto nudged his brother awake, who responded with a groan that sounded closer to an exaggerated no. He rolled his eyes and nudged him again, this time getting Mokuba to sit up and blink sleepily at him.
"Big brother, I'm tired though…" Even as he complained, Mokuba slid out of the bed after Seto.
"I am too, but we have to get up. You can sleep more on our way to the KaibaCorp building." Whichever one it was, there had to be at least two in the city with different purposes.
Seto took the hand of his grumpy brother and walked him across the hall to Mokuba's room. He already had an idea of what they each should wear, so he decided to make this as quick as possible. He pulled a nice shirt and sweater out of the wardrobe, some jeans from the dresser, and handed them to Mokuba.
"Try to get changed quickly, I'm just going to go get dressed in my room, okay Mokie?" Seto said. Mokuba nodded, and he left for his own room. Thank goodness his little brother wasn't putting up a fuss today, he didn't want Gozaburo angry at them for being late to breakfast.
'Ugh, Mokuba needs new clothing soon. At least he's supposed to be getting some later today.'
Seto simply grabbed one of the white uniform style outfits from the wardrobe for himself. He still wouldn't wear any of that ridiculous frilly rich boy clothing, the uniform was good enough for him. His pyjamas from the night were dropped into a laundry hamper beside the door and the uniform pulled on. The color meant he would have to be careful to not stain it, but Seto was good at keeping his clothing clean. It was Mokuba who was more likely to dirty his clothing, not that he meant to.
Speaking of Mokuba, Seto found him in the hallway between their doors. He didn't seem to have accidentally put anything on backwards in his tired daze, so they were able to go straight down to the dining room. The younger followed the elder brother down the hall, slightly more alert as he had a few minutes to wake up. The halls were much brighter now that the lights were on and the morning sun was shining through the windows, though the sombering silence from the night was still there. In fact, it was even more prominent than before.
It really wasn't helping his worries for the day.
Throughout his morning, his worries stuck with him. Seto ate his food with Mokuba, a simple meal of pancakes and orange juice, Gozaburo strangely absent. The maid informed him when asked that he had eaten earlier that morning, and was waiting for them outside. Well, no wonder they had to be quick, Gozaburo must have wanted to leave as soon as possible.
The maid took them outside to the waiting car, where their stepfather was seated in the passenger seat. It was early enough that the sun still hung low in the sky and the air held a chill from the night before. The chauffeur opened the back door for the boys, shut it after they climbed in, and walked around the car to the driver's seat. Seto helped Mokuba buckle up before buckling himself in, and not a moment later they were on their way.
Mokuba seemed to take his brother's earlier suggestion and took a nap the first chance he got. Seto himself stared out his window at the buildings and cars that whizzed by, all while making a conscious effort to ignore the dread that filled the vehicle. He still didn't know if the others felt it or if it was just him, but the dread was getting on his nerves. Despite this, he knew there must be a reason. A reason he hadn't figured out, couldn't figure out, would never know until it stared him in the eye with a deadly grin upon its face.
The ride was uneventful, the most exciting thing was some guy who rode his bike into a pole that Seto saw while they were at a red light. But soon enough, they pulled into the parking lot of a large and grey colored building. In reality it was two buildings across the street of each other, with an overpass connecting them. They were at the edge of the city; Seto could see from the window that beyond here there was just hills and fields.
Seto woke up his brother for the second time that day, and the chauffeur opened the car door for them. They climbed out, Mokuba rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Seto blinking at the bright sunlight. Gozaburo stepped out as well, and walked straight to the entrance. Seto tugged his brother along with him and jogged to catch up. He spared a glance up at the sign that stated the building: KaibaCorp Technological Development. The moment they were inside, several people rushed over to hand his stepfather some papers.
"All systems are functioning perfectly," a blonde woman in a lab coat reported to Gozaburo.
"Security checks for all employees involved have been completed and approved employees are on standby," a man in a suit added.
Gozaburo nodded, skimming over the papers he was handed. "Good. Now get back to your positions; we don't have all day." The employees scurried off with a 'Yes sir!', and he turned his head to stare down at Seto, "You will be testing out a virtual reality system. All you have to do is walk around the map and make note of how realistic it is."
Seto raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I thought your company made weapons? And why me, couldn't you have gotten, I don't know, an actual game tester?"
"Kaiba Corporation manufactures weapon based technology, this is a system in development to be used for field training. I decided that you need to be familiar with the products my company produces," Gozaburo responded.
Well, that made enough sense. "Okay, sure. Can Mokuba watch?"
"No. He will wait for you in another room. I'm sure he would find watching you walk around boring."
Seto was about to protest, but Mokuba cut in. "I wanna watch my big brother! I'm not gonna be bored!"
Gozaburo shifted his gaze from Seto to the child, "You will be waiting for him in another room. There are games supplied for you."
Mokuba looked as if he was about to cry. "But I wanna watch! I don't want to go be somewhere else while Seto goes have fun!"
Seto crouched down to eye level with his brother and gave a wide smile. "Hey, maybe we'll be able to try together later! I bet they just don't have it working for two people yet, otherwise we would be able to do it with each other. How about I tell you all about it when I finish, and then we can play a bunch of games when we get home?"
Mokuba nodded with a sad expression, "Okay… but you have to tell me everything."
"I promise I will." The crisis that Mokuba would throw a fit averted, Seto stood back up.
A woman with long dark hair strode over and smiled at Mokuba, "Hey there, I'm going to be playing games with you while your brother is busy. Come on, we have everything set up for you." She held out a hand for Mokuba to grab, and the boy glanced over at Seto.
"It's okay Mokuba, I'll be right here when I finish," he assured his younger brother.
His worries eased slightly, Mokuba took the hand of the woman and allowed her to walk him towards the hall to their left, taking a look back several times as they left.
Gozaburo started walking towards the hallway to their right, and Seto hastily followed. He glanced around the hall, making note of the number of surveillance cameras and how every door seemed to require some form of a key card. Even the elevator they entered to go down to a lower floor required one.
Seto was taken down to the lowest underground floor, B6. He felt as if he was about to walk into a lion's den, he was so filled with dread. The silence encompassed everything, a somber regret seemed to hang over the head of every employee he passed. A few heading towards the elevator seemed blissfully unaware of whatever doom was filling the building, but all the others were carrying an invisible weight.
Seto realized the employees that were feeling the dread he felt were actively avoiding his gaze, and those who didn't spared him a glance of what appeared to be pity. Yet Gozaburo, who no doubt must have known what was happening, looked as if he was filled with a higher purpose. There was a hint of anxiety on his face, but nothing else was clear.
Seto realized that he was about to stare into the jaws of what could be his own downfall, and he was absolutely terrified. But it was too late, he already agreed to do this "virtual reality test" and lacked a key card that would allow him to escape.
They finally reached a huge room that required Gozaburo to not only use his key card, but a fingerprint and retina scan to open the door. The first thing Seto noticed was the large spherical machine in the back of the room, happily humming away. It had a screen, currently turned off, despite the machine being on. Clearly this was the machine going to run the VR program. The second thing he noticed was the pod set up nearby it, large enough to fit a full grown man. Lastly, he noticed the multiple technicians rushing around and checking everything, while several more worked away at computers that looked like they were hooked up to the spherical one.
'This is the lion's den,' Seto thought, 'This is where something horrible is going to happen.'
Seto hoped to whatever God that was or was not there that he was just paranoid, and that everything was going to be fine.
He was jolted out of the fear clutching his chest by the sound of someone speaking to Gozaburo.
"Sir, he's calculated that the chances of this working completely are 87.3 percent."
Gozaburo shot a deadly look at the technician. "And if this falls into the 13.7 chance of this failing?"
"He stated the system should force Seto back into reality, there are no dangers posed if it fails. But sir, I think there are other scenarios that could happen, ones you won't like. Maybe we should wait-"
"Murata, I trust his calculations more than your opinions. Take Seto and get him set up to start."
The technician sighed and beckoned for Seto to follow. Despite his worries, he followed, knowing he had little choice at this point.
He had no idea who Gozaburo and Murata were talking about, probably just whoever was head of this project. But it sounded like this had some risks.
'How could this have dangers? It's a simulation, it's not like I'll be in any real danger.' None of this made sense.
It only made sense if Gozaburo was lying about what this was.
...Seto hoped that Mokuba was safe.
They reached the pod beside the large computer, and the tech opened it up for Seto. Seto climbed in, and found that there was something that looked like a helmet inside.
"Put that on, it scans your brainwaves and will put you into the simulation once we start," Murata said.
Seto did so with no difficulty, although it was a bit big on him. He silently wished to know what else it might do, and leaned back in the pod so he was lying down.
"Great! We'll start it in a minute, but first-" He leaned down, and dropped his voice to a whisper, "as soon as things start going bad, focus on something you need to come back for. Anything that's extremely important, hold on to that. It'll bring you to the 13% chance of this failing, and you need to hope this fails."
Seto nodded, hoping that Murata was giving him advice that would be useful. He had no idea how said advice was supposed to help, but he figured the tech knew what he was talking about.
Murata stood up fully and flashed a grin at Seto. "Great! Good luck in there, kid," With that, the man shut the cover of the pod and walked away.
Seto waited patiently for something to happen, taking slow deep breaths to ease his fear. Soon enough, he heard a quiet rhythmic humming. He didn't know exactly where it came from; it was as if the humming surrounded him. But for some reason it calmed his mind and made him sleepy.
He shut his eyes and for a second everything went blank. Then, the humming stopped, and Seto felt like he was falling. It was only for a moment, but it made him jerk and open his eyes.
What he opened his eyes to was not the inside of the pod, but a large field devoid of life. There was no helmet on his head or sounds to be heard. Seto scrambled to his feet, then turned in a circle to see if there was anything there.
He was completely alone.
The sky was a deep blue, the grass was a light green, it reached up to his knees and there was an occasional breeze. The sun was high in the sky. The green and blue were unbroken, not a single cloud or flower was visible. He was inside the simulation.
Perhaps he was just being paranoid. There was nothing dangerous. Seto decided he would get to work on exploring the map and took off in a run.
He found that in the simulation he didn't run out of breath. His heart rate stayed consistent, he didn't feel tired. Seto made a note to bring that up if they wanted it to be realistic to human limitations. The grass felt realistic, he could tear it out of the ground and smell it, and probably taste it if he tried. He only stopped for a moment to test the realism of the grass before running off again. He wanted to figure out if he could find an edge of the map or if there was another map. But there was just the field, which he assumed looped back into itself.
After a few minutes of running around, Seto heard the sound of someone running alongside him. He froze, looked around, and saw no one. With a shrug he took off again, only for it to happen a second time. Once again he stopped and spun around to try and figure out what the sound was.
This time, he saw a person. No, he saw a boy with mint green hair. A breeze whistled through the grass and made it dance, yet the wind didn't move a hair on the head of that boy.
"You're that boy in the painting!" Seto couldn't help but blurt out. The boy laughed and grinned at Seto, a grin that reminded him of a cat about to eat a cornered mouse.
"Why, yes I am. Did my dad never bother to tell you about me? Oh, I suppose not. My name is Noah Kaiba," the boy, Noah, said.
"Noah Kaiba? Like, the son of Gozaburo? How are you in a simulation?" Seto asked. The idea of Gozaburo having this boy as a son made enough sense, he figured that out earlier, but not how this was possible.
"Simple. I died and my mind was transferred to this computer. Very complicated stuff, I'm sure you wouldn't understand how it works-"
"The mind is made up of electric signals, and so are computer programs. Your mind was recreated on this computer by copying what is basically the code for your mind and putting it here."
"I see you've read a few books. But let's cut to the chase, I'm taking your body as my own."
Seto was dumbfounded. This seemed impossible. Either this was some programmed event, or he was right about something bad happening. Sure, wrong about what it was, but the dread was there for a reason. This is what Murata had been giving advice on: how to prevent his mind from being overwritten.
"You're not taking my body. You can't just cheat death by killing me!" Seto yelled in disbelief.
"Hah, sure I can! And it's not like you'll really be dead. To everyone else, to your brother, you'll still be walking around and talking and alive. Actually, I've always wanted a little brother. How convenient that you have one!"
Seto was suddenly filled with rage. No one took his place as Mokuba's older brother.
Seto charged at Noah and aimed a punch at the other boys face. Right before contact, Noah vanished and Seto heard a laugh behind him. He spun around, off balance from the failed attempt, to see Noah wearing that same grin on his face.
"Ah, feisty! I don't like to fight, but if you insist-" Noah cut himself off to launch himself at Seto. He tried to dodge to the left, but Noah latched onto his right arm. Light burst out from where his arm was held and a blinding pain flared up from it, causing Seto to let out an ear piercing scream.
Focus on Mokuba focus focus I have to meet him after I can't die-
Seto felt his very being set on fire. He focused on his need to be there for Mokuba, focused on pushing back at the pain trying to tear him apart. The light became blinding and encompassed both of them. He heard—felt—Noah yell at him to stop resisting.
He refused to give in. He screamed and screamed and focused on returning to Mokuba, Noah refused to let go of him and kept trying to erase Seto, refused even as the system attempted to force them apart in the programmed safety precaution—he even disengaged it.
Instead of separating them and bringing Seto back, it forced both of them into reality.
They felt like they were falling through the ground, and suddenly they were in Seto's body. Neither noticed properly. Seto continued to scream, not out of pain any longer but at the horror of feeling another in his mind, in his body. Noah was equally horrified, and couldn't help but scream as well.
They screamed in horror at each other, through the same mouth, neither able to grasp full control of Seto's body.
"GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT-"
"-STOP RESISTING STOP I CAN'T GET OUT-"
"-GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
This continued as several people, none of whom they seemed to notice, opened the pod and pulled Seto's kicking body out. They did however, notice when Gozaburo yelled at the technicians.
"What did you do to him?!"
"We didn't do anything! Noah shut off the separation program but not the retrieval one, I think it pulled them both out!"
Both Seto and Noah responded to the sound of Gozaburo's voice and managed to look in his direction.
"YOU TRIED TO KILL ME-"
"-Father he won't stop fighting-!"
"LET GO OF ME!"
They had to stop yelling in order to breathe, but found that they could hear the others thoughts. The fight switched from external to internal, Seto trying to push Noah away from control and Noah pushing back. They stopped yelling, but they didn't stop the kicking.
They didn't hear Gozaburo order the medic to sedate them. Not a moment later a needle was jabbed into Seto's neck, and the darkness of drugged sleep overtook them.