A/N: Sorry for the intrusion but I realized I had some minor setting details mixed up in the last chapter that have now been edited. One line stated that the facility used for the arena was a parking garage, another said it was on the rooftop. I apologize. The setting for the last chapter and the beginning of this is the ground floor of a parking garage attached to the hospital. (If you're coming along a little later in the game, this is no longer relevant.) Carry on.
Seto turned to leave the parking garage, striding toward the hospital's glass door entrance. He noticed beside the door stood a man in a long white coat. The man appeared hesitant, and Seto groaned at the thought of dealing with another incompetent doctor.
He just wanted this to end. To bury him and… eventually… move on.
"Seto-sama?" the man asked.
Without answering Seto turned to the nearest tech, who was busying himself with tearing down the lights.
"Are the cameras off?" Seto asked.
"We're done rolling," was the response. "You looked great out there, by the way. Would you like us to send a recording to your office?"
Seto paused, but didn't consider the question. As long as he held the title King of Games in the eye of the public, the duel didn't matter to him. He didn't need a reminder of this day, or what he was distracting himself from. He shook his head.
The doctor stepped toward Seto with some sense of urgency.
"Sir, I am Doctor Himura. I must ask you to come to the intensive care unit at once."
Seto's eyes narrowed. "For what?"
"I think you need to see for yourself."
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's happening."
"I would rather show you, sir. I…" he paused to clear his throat. "To be frank, sir, I don't expect you to believe me."
Atem approached behind Seto, but Seto glanced over his shoulder and shot a warning glare at his opponent before addressing the doctor.
"Either tell me what's going on, or get out of my sight."
The doctor was silenced a moment, his lips pursed. Seto shifted in the pause, his paper-thin patience burning into ashes.
Atem's friends whispered in the background. He couldn't make out the words until Anzu asked quietly, "Is this about Mokuba? Or Kisara?"
Seto clenched his jaw, but did not respond to the whispers. Just as he took a step to brush past the doctor, the man spoke up.
"Seto-sama, the patient we have been examining was not—"
"Which patient?" he demanded, realizing he hadn't known the answer to Anzu's question.
Doctor Himura bowed his head. "Your brother Mokuba, sir. He was not delivered to this facility as DOA. We have him connected to the EKG machine."
"What's a DOA again?" Jounouchi asked in the background.
"Dead on arrival," Seto responded without turning around, his eyes locked on the man in the lab coat.
Himura nodded, as if Seto's answer needed to be validated. The thought made him burn.
"I don't know what you're trying to insinuate," Seto said. "Why would he need an EKG?"
"Sir… he has a heartbeat."
It was Seto's turn to be silent, but it only lasted a few beats before his voice came back strong, and angry.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he hissed.
"It didn't seem likely, but the doctors in Turkey were able to perform—"
"He was dead in my hands! Mokuba was lying cold on the ground for hours before he was taken to the medical station. You expect me to believe that you resuscitated him? I'm insulted at how stupid you must think I am."
"You don't understand, sir. We don't know how it happened, but you really need to come and see for—"
Seto lunged forward, grabbing the doctor by the collar of his shirt, yanking his face an inch from his own.
"Don't you dare tell me what I need to do. I'm the only one who gets to decide that!"
The doctor stammered, unable to form coherent words until Seto threw him backwards in frustration.
Atem was at Seto's side before he could think.
"Kaiba, I know how this must sound to you right now, but you ought to calm—"
Seto spun and jammed a finger in Atem's face.
"If one more person in this crowd tries to tell me what to do, I'll make you regret ever opening your damn mouth."
He spoke the single line with more conviction than anything he had said during his duel.
"My brother's body was supposed to be autopsied and prepared for burial. Even if what you're telling me has some basis of truth, why the hell didn't anyone update me before he was put on the airplane home?"
"I apologize, Seto-sama, but I have no answer. Perhaps the increased intake at the Turkish facility prevented—"
"I don't want to hear your excuses."
"Kaiba," Atem said, placing a hand on Seto's shoulder.
Seto twisted out of the contact, shoving Atem's arm away.
"How was he transported?"
"I don't see the relevance of—Sir, you really ought to—"
Seto gripped the man's collar again.
"How was he transported?!"
"The… the staff was still… conducting procedures… I believe he was flown in a separate medical aircraft."
Seto's hollow breaths became erratic, and he tightened his grip on the Himura's shirt collar until the doctor's face reddened.
"I flew back with the bodies. He was supposed to be on the same aircraft. If he was alive then, why the fuck didn't anyone tell me?"
"Kaiba!" Atem shouted, forcefully inserting himself between Seto and the doctor. "Let him go."
Atem wrapped a hand tightly around Seto's arm, and nodded to Jounouchi to grab the other. Seto tensed at first, but after a breath released his grip on the doctor's shirt.
"Come on man, play nice," Jounouchi said. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to shoot the messenger?"
Seto scoffed, still glaring at Himura. "Messenger? I doubt it. You're lying to me."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Seto-sama," the doctor said, but Seto caught a glint of something in his expression that made him feel uneasy. He shook the two men off his arms.
"Hey, man," Jou said, "Let's check out what this guy's talking about. Maybe he's not lying."
Seto's eyes narrowed to sharpened slits. "Keep your noses out of my personal business. You will not get a second warning." Then he turned to Himura, holding up his fingers and rubbing the tips with his thumb. "I can still feel his skin under my fingertips. His body was beginning to decompose when I found it. You're either lying or misguided, but my brother cannot be alive."
"Please come see for yourself, sir."
Seto made an exasperated gesture to the glass doors. Himura shuffled through the entrance, holding the door open. Seto followed, but when he heard footsteps echoing behind him he shot a glare over his shoulder.
Atem, who stood in the back of the crowd, placed a hand on Jounouchi's shoulder, holding him in place. Seto let the door close behind him.
"I'll go," he said in a low voice Seto could barely make out through the glass. "But he won't want extra company. Go visit Kisara."
Seto heard rushed trotting behind him.
"I'm coming with you, Kaiba," came Atem's voice.
Seto's pace was quick and sure, but the doctor couldn't move fast enough for him. Seto glanced over his shoulder again, slight relief when he saw the rest of the Yugi-tachi loitering in the garage.
Seto didn't want to admit it, not even to himself. But as the man who rivaled him, both on the battlefield as well as in life, followed behind him wordlessly, Seto felt the distinct hitch of a crutch nestling underneath him. He wanted to fight it, and tell Atem to go back to the others. But, he expected, the man would probably keep following him anyway.
So, he let himself lean into his crutch.
Seto couldn't stop his eyes from wandering to the EKG screen in a far corner of the room. The line was moving at a steady beat. Without so much as glancing at the unmoving body of his brother, he trained his gaze back onto Himura's face.
"You have one minute to explain yourself."
"Sir," a nurse bowed, first to Seto, then to Himura. "I have Marangoz on the phone."
Himura nodded once. "Would you like to speak with him, Seto-sama? He can give you the story from the beginning."
Seto's eyes narrowed. He'd hoped not to deal with that doctor again, but it couldn't be prevented if he wanted his answers. He gave a curt nod.
Himura moved to the phone on the wall, lifted the receiver and punched a button, handing Seto the phone.
"Kaiba," Seto spoke into the receiver.
"Mister Kaiba," came Marangoz's thick accented voice.
Seto's eyes drifted to Atem, and before Marangoz could say anything more, Seto pressed a button to switch the call to speaker.
"I hear you are wanting details on your brother's… ah, situation," the voice came through the speaker, loud enough for the room to hear.
Seto turned to face the speaker of the phone on the wall, glad to have an excuse to turn his back to the hospital bed.
"I'm his guardian. I have a right to this information. I shouldn't have to jump through any hoops to get it."
"I understand, Mister Kaiba," Marangoz said in a slow, placating tone. "Please, though, I ask you to be sensitive to our processing speed due to the tragedy. Some of the details may have been delayed in reaching you."
"All of the details, apparently. Don't ask me to be sensitive to your situation when you've disregarded mine. Just tell me what's going on."
"Yes. The patient was delivered to us in a state we had deemed dead on arrival. He was transported to the morgue with the other passengers and the coroner was to begin the autopsy. This is where he reports that the patient… moved."
"Moved?" Seto mimicked incredulously. "In what manner?"
"The coroner reports that the patient's arm twitched."
"An involuntary spasm. Why would that have stopped the autopsy?"
"The coroner reports that after the twitch the patient's limb moved a second time, lifting off the table and gripping the coroner's hand holding the scalpel."
Seto scoffed. "You expect me to believe any of this?"
"I beg your pardon Seto-sama," Himura commented, "but... I don't see why you wouldn't want to, sir."
Seto eyed the doctor, placing a hand over the microphone. "That's exactly the kind of attitude that has me skeptical."
"You are free to look over the charts if you wish."
Seto dismissed the offered folder. He spared a wary glance at the lump of flesh under the bedsheets, but looked away when he saw the messy dark hair and bandaged face.
"Is there anything else you wish to discuss, Mister Kaiba?" asked Marangoz over the speaker.
"If I require any more information, I'll be in touch," Seto said, and clicked off the call, turning to Doctor Himura. "Has he been conscious, or have you only managed to give him a pulse?"
"He is resting now, but he was awake and speaking earlier."
Seto, with a dangerous glint in his eyes, glared at the man in the white lab coat.
"If that is the case, then I ask again. Why are you only bringing this to my attention now? How long will you doctors keep using the aircraft tragedy as an excuse?"
The nurse spoke up, reminding Seto of her existence.
"Our staff has been working on stabilizing him since his arrival. We didn't want to inform family that the patient is alive before we knew for sure."
Seto admitted to himself that he held a preference for the staff calling Mokuba the "patient". He couldn't seem to think of the damaged corpse he'd carried away from the crash site as much of a person anymore.
He certainly had a difficult time thinking of it as alive.
"You must be absurd to think I'd believe this."
Seto pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number, his eyes hardly leaving the doctor's face. He still couldn't force himself to look at his brother's body.
"Isono," he said after a ring. "I'm with a doctor in the ICU. Meet me here. Third room from the elevator." He snapped the phone closed and spoke to the doctor.
"I am not leaving this hospital without my brother's body. I expect accommodations for the night, if that's what it takes. I should have been home by now."
The doctor bowed low. "As you wish, Seto-sama."