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3. Sugoroku Learns the Truth


Anzu's ears perked up when she heard Jounouchi. He was looking out the window of the boardroom, his eyes following a familiar helicopter as it flew away.

"Kaiba, you freaking jackass!"

She knew that he had far stronger words in mind, but the middle of the Kaiba Corp Tower was not the right place, nor was his younger brother the right company. Speaking of, Anzu turned attention to Mokuba and saw that even he was surprised at the latest turn of events. Mokuba seemed unable to look her in the eye.

"I'm sorry guys, I knew he was going to be busy, but I didn't think he'd be this busy."

"It's okay Mokuba; it was a long shot from the start." Anzu stepped towards him and reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. When she made contact, however, he flinched a bit, prompting her to take it back. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." It was like back in Duellist Kingdom when Mokuba first woke up after getting his soul back, flinching away from all of them as they stood over him in his bed.

"No, it's okay." He was still looking away, but Anzu didn't want to press any further; beyond the fact that it was probably something he would have to deal with on his own, right now too much of her heart was bound up in worry over Yuugi to be able to properly reach out and help anyone else. "Maybe..." Mokuba looked at her shyly from the corner of his eye. "Do you think that maybe, um, I could help with whatever is going on with Yuugi? I mean, instead of my brother?"

"Um…" Anzu looked to Honda and Jounouchi for guidance.

"Why not?" Honda's tone was cautiously optimistic. "We came here to get help from a Kaiba, so why not the one who actually stuck around instead of running off to make his next million." He seemed to realise what he had said while he was still saying it and cringed. "Sorry, Mokuba."

"No, it's okay, Honda."

Anzu wasn't sure what to make of it, but Mokuba definitely seemed more at ease talking to Honda or Jounouchi than to her. Maybe later, after Yuugi was all better and back to normal, she could give some thought to it. Right now she grasped as the slim possibility that Mokuba might be able to help him.

Mokuba looked around expectantly. "So what's going on?"

"Okay," Anzu sighed, hoping that getting the story off her chest would do her some good. "You see, it all started when Yuugi and I were walking to school …"


When Yuugi awoke, his Grandpa and those strange teenagers were gone. One of them, the girl, had looked a lot like Anzu, but she was too old and he was kind of sure Anzu didn't have an older sister. Maybe the girl was a cousin or something who had driven Anzu out to visit him. Or maybe –

"Ow!"

Moving made him notice how awkward and stiff his body was. His arms and legs felt weird and wrong. He looked around the hospital bed and spotted a small mirror on the cabinet beside him. It was obviously for shaving or make-up, and had probably been left behind by some previous occupant. Peering into it, he was alarmed by the face looking back. While still youthful and familiar, it wasn't his face. He tried to get up but his body wouldn't cooperate and he tumbled out of bed to a floor that was much closer than anticipated. While still short, his arms and legs were definitely longer than he remembered. He struggled up and eased himself backwards to perch on the bed. It seemed safer than trying to stand.

There was a man outside the door, flipping through pages on a clipboard. He had a white coat on and looked vaguely familiar, though his actual name escaped Yuugi. Slowly, Yuugi shuffled across to the door, using various parts of the wall for support.

"Mr. Doctor?" Yuugi's voice was quiet, but the man heard him and responded quickly.

"Yuugi?" He sounded very concerned, like most of the doctors Yuugi had known. Despite the hard lines on his face he tried to have a pleasant look. "You shouldn't be out of bed. How are you feeling?" Yuugi noticed the man's name tag: Doctor Yamamoto. It sounded familiar, but only vaguely.

"Umm, okay, I suppose. A bit achy?"

The doctor looked sympathetic. "You're a brave young man, but you don't have to worry anymore. If your Grandpa has been hurting you –"

"What? No!" Yuugi shouted. "My Grandpa's the nicest Grandpa in the whole world! He'd never hurt me!"

"But Yuugi," the doctor said, pausing as if to consider his words. When he continued, it was along a different track. "Do you think it's okay to lie?"

Yuugi looked at him suspiciously, wondering where this was going. "No."

"Would you ever lie?"

"Not … really." Some of the kids at school picked on him sometimes and he didn't tell anymore, but that wasn't really lying; that was just not telling adults stuff they didn't need to know.

"No, because you're a good boy. But sometimes, Yuugi, we find ourselves lying even though we know it's wrong because we tell ourselves we're not doing it for ourselves. We tell ourselves we're doing it to protect someone we care about from getting into trouble. But lying is wrong whichever way you slice it."

"I guess so."

"Someone has been hurting you, Yuugi. You mustn't lie to cover for them, whoever they may be. It doesn't do anyone any good in the end."

Yuugi set his jaw. "My Grandpa," he said, "is the nicest Grandpa in the whole world. He let me come live with him and looks after me. He'd never hurt me."

Doctor Yamamoto continued like Yuugi hadn't spoken. "You may not be able to remember who it is right now, but if you have any inkling, you should tell me or one of the nurses. I'm a doctor, as you can see; caring for people and looking after them is my job. You don't have to protect someone who hurts you. You shouldn't lie to protect someone who hurts you."

Yuugi considered his options. He was loath to tell anyone the truth, but if the alternative was anyone thinking badly of his grandfather, he would have to swallow his own feelings and take the consequences. "Do you promise not to tell anyone?" He had heard that doctors had to keep secrets. He hoped that was true.

Doctor Yamamoto nodded eagerly.

"There are lots of bullies at school. When I don't give them my lunch money fast enough, they beat me up. They say that if I tell anyone, they'll beat me up even worse – outsideschool, where the teachers can't stop them!"

"Hmm." Doctor Yamamoto had a hard look in his eye, like a detective going over clues. "Does your Grandpa help you?"

"He tried. He went to the principal, but that just made things worse. Anzu tried to help too, but the same thing happened. The bullies hate it when people squeal on them." Yuugi's mouth felt too dry. "They said …" He tried to swallow but couldn't. "They said that if I squealed on them again, they'd hurt her outside school too. They're really mean kids."

"Anzu? Ah, you mean the girl we had to remove."

"What? No, that can't be right." Yuugi shook his head, momentarily caught between the bullies in his head and an image of Anzu's cousin. "Anzu isn't …" He groaned as a pain welled up behind his temples and sank to his knees. "What's … happening … to me?" he asked in a panic.

"Calm down, Yuugi." Doctor Yamamoto's voice was quiet and gentle. "You may have noticed that things seem a little … off to you. You've had a pretty big band on the head. While the details aren't clear yet, I can tell you that you've forgotten some of your memories."

"I have?" Yuugi bit his lip in pain. His brain felt like it was about to explode. "H-How much?"

Doctor Yamamoto hesitated before answering. "About five years or so."

Five … years? Yuugi groaned and the whole world went black.

...

"Hmm."

Officer Himura, as Sugoroku had come to know him, was going over the answers he had written down during the course of the interview. Sugoroku had to admit the man had a good ear and a fast writing hand, and despite his scepticism he never tried to railroad or direct Sugoroku to some sort of self-incrimination.

"Well, the investigation is far from over. If the answers we get elsewhere contradict what you've told me, we will have to call you down to the station. But …" He hesitated. "Off the record, at the moment I believe you when you say you've never touched the boy. If we can corroborate what you've told us about bullying, you may be off the hook, Mr. Mutou."

"Really?" All throughout the interview the man had a true poker face unlike any Sugoroku had encountered in his years of gaming and gambling. "Thank goodness, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't believed me."

"The truth of the matter is that my medical history growing up is quite similar to your grandson, so I do have an insight that other officers would not. Kid bullies can be more violent and vicious than anyone realises. Victims are often afraid to speak out, or hide their injuries from family members. It's not uncommon for them to even fake accidents in front of loved-ones so they never question how other injuries came to be there; falling down stairs, bumping into doors, 'accidentally' scalding hands, and other such measures." Even as he said this, Officer Himura's expression and tone remained unchanged. "In any event, I shall give Doctor Yamamoto my recommendation to allow you to see your grandson again, under strict supervision of course. And I do recommend care and caution to avoid another episode."

"Thank you very much, Officer Himura." The two men shook hands and the policeman departed.

When Sugoroku reached Yuugi's room, it was to find Doctor Yamamoto already present. He had pulled a chair up to Yuugi's bed and appeared to be deep in conversation with him. For his part, Yuugi was nodding and shaking his head, but wore such a stunned expression that it put Sugoroku on instant alert. While Officer Himura believed he had not been hurting his grandson, the doctor was more doubtful. One word from either of them to social services and more problems than Sugoroku could deal with would arrive alongside the current situation.

"Doctor Yamamoto," Sugoroku greeted him tightly. "Is everything all right?"

"Grandpa!" Yuugi tried to spring out of bed, but fell back with a pained noise. "Is it true?" he demanded. "Did I really lose my memory?"

"Uh …" Sugoroku looked at Doctor Yamamoto. How much should he say? Officer Himura's warning rang in his ears.

"We've been having a little chat," the doctor said. "Could I have a word outside?"

Sugoroku was fast becoming tired of 'having a word' with anyone in a uniform. Still, he bade Yuugi lie still and followed the other man to the corridor, where they spoke in hushed voices.

"Officer Himura was satisfied with my answers," Sugoroku put in before he could be overruled. "I have not, and have never hurt Yuugi. I'm not some abusive … scapegoat."

Doctor Yamamoto nodded distractedly. "You understand that my job requires me to report anything of that nature that is suspicious. I was not attempting to make you a scapegoat, Mr. Mutou. I have seen children with injuries like your grandson's and there have been stories behind them that make my blood run cold." As if to emphasise his point, he shivered.

The knot of tension inside Sugoroku eased, but only a smidgen. "Why did you want to speak to me without Yuugi overhearing?"

"To be blunt, Yuugi suffered another bout of unconsciousness a short while ago."

"He did?" Sugoroku's own blood ran cold at the news.

"You will remember that I said your grandson is showing signs of retrograde amnesia. My initial prognosis was that he was missing at least five or so years from his recent memory. Having spoken with him just now, I stand by that conclusion, but after recovering from his faint he had no memory of the conversation in which I established my prognosis. To put it in Layman's terms: we spoke, he passed out, and when he woke he didn't remember that we had spoken. He didn't, in fact, remember me at all and was completely bewildered to find himself in a hospital."

The knot tightened again. "What are you saying?" Sugoroku asked.

Doctor Yamamoto sighed. "Very rarely, there have been reported cases in which an individual sustains pure retrograde amnesia as a result of a physical brain injury. However, more often, retrograde amnesia occurs in an individual who also has anterograde amnesia, which is, I believe, the case with your grandson."

Sugoroku frowned. "What does any of that even mean?"

"In the case of an individual with anterograde amnesia, he or she also exhibits loss of memory for events occurring after the injury as well as before it. The amnesia also affects the forming and retention of new memories. In effect, a combination of both types of amnesia effectively halts an individual's development at a single stage and prevent progression from there onwards."

"So what you're telling me," Sugoroku said slowly, "is that not only does Yuugi think he is eleven years old, but in his mind he won't get any older, and every time he goes to sleep he … resets himself?"

"For as long as the amnesia lasts, yes, I believe that may be the case. We need to do some more tests but–"

"And how long does this amnesia usually last?"

"That depends entirely on the individual, I'm afraid. It may be a few hours, it may be weeks, it may be years–"

"Or it may be never." The implications of what was happening almost floored Sugoroku. He resisted the urge to prop himself up against the wall. He glanced over his shoulder, back into the room where Yuugi was examining the bandages on his burnt hands and pulling up his shirt to look at those on his chest as well. The warehouse fire, and holding tightly onto a chunk of hot metal, had left him with fresh scars to add to the old ones. Judging by Yuugi's expression he didn't remember getting any of them. "Yuugi may be stuck as an eleven year old boy forever?"

"If he does have a combination of retrograde and anterograde amnesia – and at this moment in time this is pure speculation pending further tests – it will be as if his memory sends itself back to a certain moment in his past with each new day."

Sugoroku shook his head. This was all too much. Somehow things like magic, card-wielding psychopaths, selfish billionaires and ancient spirits seemed much more manageable than a medical problem with such far-reaching repercussions. Yuugi had always been a constant in his life; a smiling reason to get up every morning, even when times were tough or his aging body pushed him towards the kind of depression that had made his daughter-in-law abandon her son with him in the first place. Yuugi was the one thing he felt he had done right since giving up treasure hunting. To have their bond snatched away, reset to its infancy when Yuugi had only been living with him a short while … it was mind-boggling.

Sugoroku drew himself up. "Can I talk to him? Will he remember it afterwards?"

"I can't answer that, Mr. Mutou, for the simple reason that I don't know. Your grandson requires further testing to even confirm what I've conjectured so far."

Sugoroku nodded and went back into the room without excusing himself.

"Grandpa?" Yuugi looked up at him with wide, questioning eyes; the same eyes he had turned on his grandfather the night Sugoroku got the phone-call to say his son had been killed in a car accident and his daughter-in-law was in intensive care at this very hospital. Yuugi had that same expression now; hesitant, suspecting something was wrong but not wanting to put the question into words.

Sugoroku sat down heavily in the vacant chair. "I guess you have some questions for me, Yuugi."


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