Seto gave Yugi a scathing look, opened his mouth to dismiss the foolishness of it, only to have the old man grunt, and tug him away, with a quaking, gnarled finger pointing at Yami.
"I don't know how, but...the mind link is back, Kaiba." Yugi whispered, in a quaking voice. "And Yami...he's so angry...I don't know what he'll do..."
Seto snorted. "Please, Yugi, spare me the dramatics. As many times as this freakshow has been murdered, don't you think there's a point where he should make a reasonable attempt to get the hell over it and move along to something else?"
Yugi paled even more, and was startled to see Kaiba blanche at the sheer hatred that now radiated through both of their minds from Yami's broken and increasingly shattered thoughts. The shards of reason fell like broken glass over them, and Yami's twitching, bowed face, and eyes storming over into demonic rage and grief made Kaiba's heart clench in his chest. He felt Yugi's warning hands on his shoulder, as the old man gripped both Seto and Yugi, and dragged them away from Yami.
"I don't know what has come over you, young man, but I don't like it. I know that you have been through much, Yami, but that's no excuse to scare everybody. Now, kindly calm down and please tell me what's troubling you so much." Solomon's little speech was ignored by all.
Yami turned to Kaiba with a snarl, the rage making fire sear its way through his gut, the icy despair freezing his heart into comforting numbness, as he slid shaking fingers to the concealing collar about his neck with a sadistic grin, and a broken, mad chuckle.
Hands working at the leather bindings, and his evil smirk only widening into outright glee, Yami flung the collar away, and even Seto found himself gulping and backing away when he saw that glint of something dark and searching and hungry churning in those narrowed, reddening eyes.
It was only confirmed by the shard of perverted hurt and revenge that suddenly flaired into Seto's mind, with a depth so deep it nearly brought him to his knees. With a wince, Seto shivered at the familiar invasion of Yami's storm-dark thoughts blending into his own, and nearly vomited at the madness and the murderous intentions...Sure, Seto was definitely not a nice guy, but the torture, and the images of dismemberment and blood made him sick.
He heard Yugi's gasp of horror as he paled even more, eyes and mouth growing wide, as he jerked his head from Seto to Yami.
He heard Solomon's paternal soothing as he actually reached for Yami's tense, twitching shoulder, as Seto snatched his grip away, instinctively, and smoothly glided between them, his cerilaian eyes narrowed and growing colder as more of Yami's thoughts trickled down through his own. Seto flinched when he felt Yami's hand grip his shoulder, and blanched when he saw the tears, as well as the pleading hiss that Yami choked out...
"Away...get yourselves away!!" It was faint, weak as the star's last glimmer before it was overcome with the abyss, as Yami weakly shoved Kaiba away.
Seto only smirked at him, while allowing a troubled glance to the stricken runts behind him, who were unaware that he was now reading Yami's tormenting thoughts.
"And if I don't?" The question was pompously spoken, but Seto's eyes were narrowed, and troubled, as Yami only stared up at him, his eyes filling with sorrow, and so much raw suffering that even Seto flinched.
Yami's breath seemed to die in his throat, as he swallowed down the urge to latch fingers onto Seto's pale throat, tear out his flesh until he lay dying and hurting and helpless, place his gleeful feet over Yugi's tremoring body and grind his heels into bone and tissue until the bloody aftermath was enough to erase the searing, futile dying that he seemed to live every moment, the madness that threatened to take him, the darkness, with all its hunger, lapping at his decaying heart like a rabid dog...
And Yami's last remnant of control broke forth from the darkness, like a bloated body escaping the river's dredges, as he shrieked and clutched his head, only a hint of the internal war between the dark and the light pivoting with a volital jerk, and nearly collapsing again, only to be anchored to the air around him by Kaiba's demanding, steadying grip on his arm.
Yami's very bones twitched beneath Kaiba's fingers as he tightened the grip to outright, crushing, focusing pain, as Yami's other hand briefly clasped over his own in gratitude.
"Thank you." The tormented whisper was harsh, and spoken only through his thoughts and shining eyes, as Yami convulsed instinctively, as his eyes slid shut, and he put his head in quivering hands.
"Please. Get yourselves away from me! I don't know how much longer I can hold any of this in..."
Yami raised eyes full of fire, and a mouth curled into a broken smirk, when they fell upon Yugi.
The ressurrected memories of Seth's knives, and Yami's stranglehold, and Yugi's cruel torture all overflowed into Seto's mind as Yami allowed him to see what was going to happen, in the only way he had left before it came to completion.
Seto's jaw actually clenched, as he glided one step backwards, panting, and overwhelmed with the tidal wave of sick thoughts that invaded him so cruely, as Yami only trembled, and ventured to ask, in a voice that was so harsh, and brittle, that it sounded like he was growling, or sobbing...
"Now do you see, Kaiba? Do you understand?!"
Seto bit his lip, grimly nodded his head. "I do." His voice was silken ice, as he abruptly spun on one heel towards Yugi, and Solomon.
"If you want to live, you'll follow me. Leave the freakshow here before he starts one of his meltdowns."
Yami heard Solomon's grunt of disagreement, something muttered about not leaving a boy to suffer so much, and then Yugi's nearly panicked squeak as he shot another troubled glance at Yami. Footsteps falling away from him, Kaiba's regal stride, Solomon's comfortable shoes, and Yugi's lighter scampering away.
Bitter, expectant silence, so hungry, so dark...so consuming, as Yami slid to nearly fetal position, and started to weep. His mind was shattered, his heart languidly beating, and every scar had felt like it was torn afresh into his skin as he swooned somewhere in the hellish limbo of memory, and delusion, and a reality he was no longer sure even existed.
Seto kept his uneasy vigilance, resolute and straight-spined as a soldier at attention as he kept glancing at the oak door that stood between them and Yami. By now, he had expected to hear breaking glass, or the smashing of various objects, but the overwhelming silence that filled the small room that Solomon had insisted on barricading themselves in was harder to endure than anything else Seto could fathom. And, from the tattered fragments of thoughts that Seto was able to detect from Yami, the poor lunatic was hardly in a state of mind to carry out any harm. Indeed, if the strange impressions that filtered through the mindlink were any indication of the truth, Yami was huddled on the floor and sobbing like a wounded animal. Hardly a threat, but definitely alarming.
Seto startled when Yugi unexpectedly brushed his arm, and he pivoted with a frown. "What?" Seto barked, irritably.
"You have the mindlink too, Seto?" Yugi ventured timidly, as Seto sighed.
"Whatever the hell you call the thing. Yes, I do." The begrudging admission was met with Yugi's wide eyed wonder, as Seto fought the urge to vomit in disgust.
"Then..maybe we can help him?" The timid suggestion was piped up, as Yugi placed a tormented grip on the door.
Seto only folded his arms, and whispered, coldly, "What good would that do? Isn't his inabilities to deal with his issues the thing that's causing all of this mental breakdown garbage? We're locked in a broom closet, Yugi, in fear of a runt who somehow manages to send us mental images of our own demise at his hands.
Exactly how do you propose using the same thing to make any of this weirdness even slightly more endurable?"
Solomon groused like a bulldog, again, as he lay hands on both Yugi and Kaiba, with a kindly smile.
"Now, now, my dear boy. Don't let that legendary egotistical streak keep you in this broom closet any longer than necessary. Aren't you interested in getting out of this situation as soon as possible, Kaiba? And really, dear boy, what have you got to lose?"
Seto rubbed his forehead. The old man, regrettably, did have a good point.
"Runts!" He squawked in growing alarm at the stricken Motos, "What the hell is wrong with you?! Get away from him!!"