AN: As of Jan 26 2020 this whole fic has been re-uploaded with a variety of tweaks and re-writes to correct inconsistencies, improve story flow and better define the mechanics of the Eye of Anubis. Chapters 5-8 have been partially re-written to include new sections and slightly altered events that give High Priest Seto something to do in the earlier chapters. The Mokuba section of chapter 12 has also been tweaked and a new Kaiba section has been added to chapter 16, along with Atem activating the card Soul Rope in chapter 15.
Yugi
"I-I won't. Allow. You!" Teleia gasped.
Atem had called her Teleia, but she looked so much like Ishizu it was scary. Kaiba and I had ended up looking different to Atem and his High Priest because we were reincarnated in Japan, but as an Egyptian herself Ishizu was almost Isis's twin. It made me want to run over and help her as she struggled to sit up under Atem's Spellbinding Circle despite how bad that idea was.
"Summoning in a Soul of the Pure to return your strength is one folly too many." she chuckled. Atem promptly glanced down at his Duel Disk. It wasn't like the model I'd used at the Duel Disk exhibition - the ones that just got released - instead it looked like Kaiba had made a custom one just for Atem. It fitted him like a glove, in fact it matched his look so well I hadn't even realized it was a Duel Disk at first. I poked my head over his shoulder to take a look at its readout. Soul of the Pure wasn't a card any of us had ever carried in our decks but it was there on Atem's side of the field all the same in the next card slot over from Soul Rope. Was that representing me?
"He will serve me now!" She declared and thrust out her hand. I heard Kaiba's low growl of warning as he narrowed his reptilian eyes.
Teleia's first card played itself onto the field in front of her. It was the size of a stone tablet but definitely a Duel Monster's card in appearance. The Soul Absorption magic card somehow activated despite no cards having been removed from play, but then again Kaiba was now a Blue-Eyes White Dragon so it looked like anything was possible.
"You cannot have forgotten that the afterlife is a dangerous place for living souls, little Pharaoh!" She shouted through eerie witch-like laughter. That didn't sound good. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what Soul Absorption was going to do under these circumstances.
Atem gritted his teeth and scowled at her words. "She is correct." He reluctantly conceded before turning to me just enough to keep Teleia fully in his vision. "Quickly, can you return to your world?" He questioned sharply.
Return? "I don't know..." I wasn't even sure how I got here. I shook my head at him and he hummed thoughtfully. "Is that bad?" I asked, though no sound came out of my mouth.
"A living soul will be very venerable here, especially without a vessel." He answered my question without even needing to hear it, just like he used to. It felt great to have little bit of that connection back.
Teleia cut the warm feeling off with another crazy laugh. Her mad eyes sliced over to me like they were magnetized to my face as the corners of her lips curled up into something that resembled a smile but really wasn't. "Venerable indeed-" Teleia struggled onto her knees and opened up her arms up wide in a hug that looked everything but welcoming. "-Now, as my spell bids you, be absorbed into my body and restore my strength!" She commanded and I took a step back away from her.
The magic card pulsed and I was lifted off of my feet and into the air as though being pulled up by an invisible string.
"Uh, Atem?" He couldn't hear me, I knew that, but he shouted my name out as the gentle tug of the card turned into a massive yank and reeled me in until I fell forward into its pull.
"Come to me, little soul!" she smirked. I blushed as the spell sucked me toward her cleavage and turned to run. I got no traction while in the air and must have looked like a cartoon character as I scrambled on the spot.
"Yugi." Atem called out my name. He paused like he was deep in thought. "She's right." He told me, beginning to grin as I'd felt him do so many times before when drawing a winning card. "Go towards her." He added, throwing Teleia a taunting smirk.
That seemed like a really bad idea, but this was Atem we were talking about. His eyes locked onto mine, so certain and confident and impossible not to place all of my trust in no matter how crazy his request was. I nodded back and stopped running on the spot. I didn't doubt him for a moment.
I heard a disbelieving snarl from Kaiba somewhere behind me as I relaxed into Teleia's spell and let it drag me forward at an ever increasing speed. "Yessss!" She cried, her skewed dress, messy hair and desperate eyes with tiny pupils making her look more like an animal than a human. She licked her lips as I flew towards her, about to collide into her breasts as Atem's voice cut through the air.
"Now, Magical Cylinder; rebound Yugi's soul back toward me!" Atem shouted.
"No!" Teleia shrieked. The moment before I could smack into Teleia's chest one of the tubes appeared in front me, my momentum throwing me into it as it funnelled me from one cylinder to the second and shot me out of the other side back toward Atem like some kind of carnival ride.
"My Magical Cylinders turns your Soul Absorption spell back on me-" Atem boasted, his fingers grasping at the Millennium Puzzle around his neck. "- or more specifically, my Millennium Puzzle!" He declared, naming it as his target. His eyes caught mine as I hurtled back toward the Puzzle, beginning to feel way too much like a ping-pong ball for comfort. His expression was determined, but apprehensive. Even though we weren't sharing my body anymore I recognized the silent question in his face; he was asking for my permission. I smiled back and nodded encouragingly, understanding his logic. The Puzzle was made to store souls so it was the best place for me right now, especially if Teleia wanted to somehow use me against my friends. I wouldn't let that happen.
He blinked slowly in reply, "Just temporarily." He assured me, he kept looking for some bit of hesitation from me but he didn't find any. I trusted him with my life, uh, and my soul.
"I promise to return you after Teleia has been dealt with." he quietly added as I reached out to touch the Puzzle, phasing through it and into it at the same time. It wasn't my first time as an astral projection or my first time getting stuck inside of the Puzzle, so I just went with it and allowed Soul Absorption to shepherd me into it without a fight. It was like falling down a long tunnel, or into an old well. I fell away from the light of the outside world and deeper into the dark depths of the Puzzle, suddenly spinning and slowing as I reached the bottom until I was floating inches from ground and was finally able to safely touch down on the stone floor.
"This won't take long." Atem's voice announced, reverberating from the walls around me like a loud speaker.
"Good luck, partner!" I shouted back, a little surprised to actually here the words come out of my mouth and echo around the chamber.
"Thank you, Yugi." I could hear he was smiling from the tone of his voice. It felt good to actually be able to talk again. After he beat Teleia I hoped we'd get the opportunity to catch up for a bit before I had to go back home.
I felt Atem's concentration shift away from the Puzzle and back towards Teleia, giving her his full and undivided attention. This felt strange. I couldn't close my eyes and watch though Atem's like I used to when he was still the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle. There was some kind of disconnect, more like the way it had been when we'd fought against Anubis and I'd been forcibly dragged into the Puzzle along with Joey and Tristan. I really missed those guys right about now.
I glanced around the unfamiliar antechamber, not really recognizing a whole lot now that Atem's Soul Room was fully furnished. Every time I'd been inside of the Puzzle it had been barren and hollow; really just a labyrinth of empty corridors and rooms with stairs that went everywhere and nowhere at the same time... but that had been while Atem had still been Yami, back when he'd had no memories.
It wasn't empty in here anymore.
Instead it was a mighty Egyptian palace with hieroglyphed walls, golden decorations and lavish furnishings stretching in every direction. Braziers and wall sconces threw warm orange light across every surface and incense filled the air but somehow despite the new additions it was all still Atem. The decorations were dignified without being too crazy and there was a hush to the place; a pensive sort of aura just like the one I'd sensed from him every night he stayed up as Yami brooding over his past, or future, or the many duels in between. Even though he had a real name now I couldn't help but think how well the name 'Yami' had fit him, and it still did; everywhere in the room the light didn't touch the shadows were almost pitch black in depth. Mysterious and fathomless but natural and benign. I made me feel warm and nostalgic at the same time.
Actually, the more I grinned at the shadows and reminisced the more I realized that there was just one bit that didn't look like it belonged. A thin golden rope that seemed to glow like an old night light was feeding into it, drawing my eye along its length and into an overshadowed gap in the Puzzle wall.
But actually it wasn't a shadow at all.
Tiny pin-pricks of light became obvious as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Stars. They were stars. If I squinted I could make out thousands of them in the bluish-blackness. The opening itself was about the size of an average door, but it was more like a hole someone had knocked through the wall. Jagged bricks had toppled to the floor at the void's threshold and the stones had been pulled away from each other to create the gap.
That didn't seem normal. The Millennium Puzzle had always had a bunch of rooms with strange things in them, but never a hole into outer space. "Hey, Atem?" I called out, I wanted to ask about it but I wasn't sure if he'd hear me now that his focus was back on facing off against Teleia.
He didn't reply so I frowned to myself. Soul Rooms were weird places. They were a bit like dreams; they had their own internal logic that wasn't always easy to figure out, but everything in them usually had some kind of meaning. I didn't know what this tumbled down wall meant, but it had to mean something. I had to check it out for Atem's sake. If something was wrong in his Soul Room then he needed to know about it, and fast.
The bricks of the wall crumbled away under my fingers as I grabbed onto them to steady myself, the dislodged pebbles just dropping away into empty space without a sound. I moved to the glowing rope instead, holding onto it tightly. It was hot and it pulsed in my hand and disappeared so far into the distant reaches of outer space that I couldn't see an end, or what it was tethered to. I was just happy to have something to keep hold of. I took a deep breath and leaned through it. If I really was peeping into outer space holding my breath wasn't going to help, but it felt like the right thing to do.
Even as a disembodied soul my heart went crazy in my chest. The idea of losing my grip and going hurtling off into space was terrifying. This must be what astronauts felt like right before a space walk. The moment my head leaned beyond the safety of the Puzzle walls a shiver went down my spine. This place was definitely foreign. It didn't feel like Atem at all.
It was eerie. It was silent and empty. Just taking a first step towards the gap and out of the warmth of Atem's Soul Room made me feel chilled and like I was just as isolated as every single one of the stars... but even so the view was amazing. I could see galaxies and make out familiar constellations in the foreground, most of them I recognized from the sky above Domino on the rare days the city lights didn't drown them out. Behind them purple, pink and orange nebulas swirled together against the black background. Even the stars themselves danced and flickered. They were never still and for some reason it made me think about the ongoing fiery explosion each of them represented.
Whose was all this? It wasn't Atem's, that was for sure, but it also felt familiar. It was cold and dark and really really lonely, but beyond the surface there was the heat and intensity of stars combusting, living and dying, always shifting no matter how still they seemed from a distance.
Was this... "Kaiba?"
The bricks of the Millennium Puzzle came to life as I said that, pulling away from me and retracting in on each other to widen the opening. My hand instantly slipped from the gold rope and I fell through into Kaiba's space as the stones I was standing on pulled away from my feet and my footing fell out from under me.
"Whaaaaaa!" I tumbled forward to free-fall through the cosmos... for about ten seconds and then smacked into something I couldn't see with a hollow thump, like a goldfish bumping into the edge of its fishbowl.
"Uhhhhh." I peeled my cheek back from the barrier it was smushed up against and sat up. The darkness of space still stretched on in every direction but now my own reflection stared back at me like a mirror. What was this? Glass? I reached out to touch the barrier. It was solid and cool against my fingers, they even smudged it a bit as I pulled away. Was this a cinema theater, or a very large computer screen?
"Hello." A familiar voice greeted me mildly from somewhere above my head.
From the bottom of this glass bubble I glanced upwards to see Atem's unmistakable silhouette perched upon a platform suspended above me.
"Atem?" The room was so dark I could barely see him through all the shadows. I guess he'd heard me after all, but how could he be fighting Teleia and be in here at the same time? He offered a hand and with a burst of strength he pulled me up onto the platform with him. As I found my feet I realized I was wrong, sort of.
I stared into my own face, or his version of my face. It was Atem as he'd been as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle.
"Yami?" It felt good to say that name again out loud.
He hummed. "In a manner of speaking" he then replied amicably. His skin was pale and eyes were as purple as mine, just like they'd been when he'd been in control of my body. They looked over me warmly despite my slip up.
"Sorry! I thought -" I cut myself off. I didn't really know what I thought. "It doesn't matter." I finished with a smile and pulled him into a hug. I had to lift my arms to curl them around his shoulders. He wore clothing I didn't recognize but sure looked like something that would have come out of our shared dueling wardrobe.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you." He teased with a confident smirk.
"Why do you look this way? What happened to your stuff?" I questioned, perking an eyebrow as I did. "Not that it isn't great to see you like this again." I quickly added for good measure. Yami pulled out of my hug, blinked and looked away, lost in thought for a moment.
"It's complicated." He eventually replied.
"Okay." I nodded back. His expression warmed at that. With a flourish of his jacket he turned and walked away down the platform and into the bowels of the room. For the first time I got a good look at the room. "Where are we?" It looked like a laboratory… in space. It was bathed in cyan light like the set of a big budget sci-fi movie, and, "Wait, is that -" My eyes landed on the Millennium Puzzle, slowly being slotted together by a robotic limb in a giant test tube at the end of the walkway. That wasn't right. I frowned. "What's going on?" I asked Yami, or Atem, or whoever this was. I tried to keep the suspicion from my voice by I'm not sure it worked.
He turned back to me. "We are in Kaiba's Soul Room."
That's where we were? I glanced around the lab again, the clinical and spartan surroundings suddenly seeming a lot more revealing than they really were.
"Though the facility it takes the form of is part of the KaibaCorp space station." Yami added, the blue light of the room making his pale skin appear alien and ghostly. Space station? Oh yeah, that had been all over the news a few months back. "I see." And I really did. The hallmarks of Kaiba's design preferences were everywhere. Clean lines and harsh angles and everything bathed in unnatural light. Even by the standards of current technology it was overly futuristic. How was it that Kaiba could be the reincarnation of someone born thousands of years in the past and also seem like he'd been born too soon in the present? Just looking at all of this stuff made my head spin.
"I exist here as a holographic dueling simulation of the Pharaoh." He continued and then paused, the pensive gaze never leaving his face.
"A hologram?" I was speaking to a hologram? But he was so convincing. "But you seem so real?" Was he a version of Yami that Kaiba had created? Just the scope of it was mind-boggling, for Kaiba to have remade him with such pin-point precision.
"I know", he replied smoothly. "Kaiba has spent a lot of time perfecting me." He boasted, proudly. That seemed a little weird. Despite being 'perfected' Yami was slightly taller than me which was confusing since Atem himself was now a bit shorter. Maybe Kaiba saw him as being a little larger than life. "Although he only bothered to upgrade me to his Solid Vision technology after the true version of me achieved his destiny." He explained, his smirk of amusement faded to a more natural expression.
I frowned at that. Once you got passed the fact that this was an artificial intelligence it seemed cruel to keep a version of Yami trapped here like this, especially when he was clearly sentient. "Are you okay with being a hologram?" I questioned, slowly.
Yami hummed to himself and went back to staring out of the window at the stars. "To be hologram projected by Kaiba's computers is not much different to being a spirit hosted by the Millennium Puzzle." He noted mildly and I frowned at his tone. It sounded so distant. He turned back to me with a small smile. "Though I have missed you, partner."
"Yeah." I agreed with a nod. "I miss you so much too."
The was a contemplative pause as Yami debated asking something. I let him work through his thoughts as he figured out what it was he wanted to know. "What's 'Atem' like?" Yami eventually asked, his purple eyes watching me with an intensity that felt faintly probing.
"He's-" I paused and frowned. Memories made up who a person was and I hadn't had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Atem again since he regained them. It felt weird to confess even to myself that I didn't really know one of my best friends. Yami watched me closely, waiting patiently for my answer. I had to try my best. How to describe Atem? He was 'different', but still confident and kind – or that was the impression I got anyway. "-nice." Was the word that emerged from my mouth, lamely.
Yami watched me blankly for a long moment and then smirked, leaning back a little to push out his hips and relaxed into our dueling pose – a pose I missed.
"Good." He concluded, his stare becoming sphinx-like and utterly unreadable.
"How is it that you came to her-" Yami cut off his own sentence abruptly and stood very still, tilting his head slightly like he was listening for something.
"What's wrong?" I couldn't hear anything.
"I don't know." He replied in a hushed tone. "There it is again." He remarked with a frown.
A hoarse, barking cough muffled by a side door drew his gaze away and my eyes followed his as they trailed toward the button to open it.
I followed him, glancing over his shoulder as he peered through the doorway into a long and very very dark corridor. The hallway seemed nearly endless. I could make out doors lining it as far as my eyes could see. Most were closed, but a handful of them weren't.
This corridor wasn't something of Kaiba's creation. That's the feeling I got. I didn't know anything about space stations or engineering, but it seemed unlikely a long unlit corridor was part of its intended design. In fact something was off about all these doors.
Several were open but they were all damaged. Two looked like the doors had almost been ripped off of their hinges, and a third looked like something had clawed it apart from the inside. One of the ones closest to us was just very slightly ajar but a cold odorless chill came from it, breezing through the hallway.
"These doors should all be closed." Yami noted, a bit of anger heating his voice. "Anubis must have disturbed whatever was inside of them to fuel his powers when he emerged in Kaiba's body."
I wasn't sure exactly what Yami was referring to but I didn't doubt him for a second.
The hacking cough sounded again and it was louder this time, sounding all scratchy like it was coming out of a sore throat. The noise came from the room closest to us, the one with the chill and the ajar door. It was just a few steps down the corridor.
"What do you think is in there?" I wondered
Yami gritted his teeth. "Memories. Ones that breed dark emotions."
Dark emotions? "Like anger, and hate?" I questioned. We both knew Kaiba had a problem with those two emotions. In fact the whole world pretty much knew Kaiba has issues with them, you only needed to watch a recording of any one of his duels to see that. Yami nodded to me, looking intense and focused. "The very same." He confirmed. "Others too. Regret, shame, fear and desperation, even grief if left to fester-" he looked more and more unhappy as he listed them off. "That's not good." I noted. "No, it isn't." Yami agreed tonelessly.
"And I doubt leaving them open will do Kaiba any good." Yami observed as he paused at the doorway. He was hesitant, but it wasn't something anyone else but I would have picked up on. It was all in the way he shifted his weight and stared at nothing, focusing his eyes on a single point while listening intently. How had Kaiba known to program him to do that? Yami had never shown anything less than total confidence when they dueled – I got the impression he'd always been determined not to show any kind of weakness off to Kaiba. They had some kind of mutual understanding and respect, but one that had to be earned and carefully maintained.
I guess as part of that in the past when something was up with Kaiba Yami was always the first person to lead the charge in his defense, but something was holding him back this time. "You can't leave this room?" I guessed, watching him linger in the doorway.
"As a hologram projected by the technology in this room I can't wander any further." He admitted, "But the doors must be closed." He sounded so sure about it that it had to be important.
"No problem. I'll go take a look." I assured him. He watched wordlessly as I stepped into the corridor and toward the sound of the cough. "Thank you, partner. I'd appreciate that." He nodded and I nodded back.
I shivered after taking a few steps down the hallway. It sure was chilly. The cough came again like it was designed to guide me. It was wet and hacking. It sounded really bad.
With a light push the door to the room fully opened with a long creak of its rusty hinges. The handle itself felt a little loose in my palm as I gently pried it open just enough to poke my head through the threshold. If this was Kaiba's Soul Room who knew what was in here. I could be one creaky door away from being eaten by a Blue-Eyes.
Oh.
It wasn't that bad.
The room was easily identifiable as a dormitory, or something close. The rows and rows of thin metal bed frames made it obvious. Even though it was clearly the middle of the night in this room the moonlight through the windows was bright enough to see by. It looked like it was winter; snow was piling up outside and when I exhaled I could see my own breath. Most of the beds were occupied by a kid, deep asleep under a plain moss-colored comforter, but it was the bed at the end with two familiar faces that drew my attention.
It was the Kaiba brothers, but they were tiny. This was some sort of memory then?
Like all the other kids in the room Mokuba was deep asleep, but huddled up in a mountain blankets. He looked smaller and paler than I'd ever seen him before. He choked out another rough chesty cough as I spotted him, but didn't stir or wake up from it. He kept on sleeping. The same couldn't be said for his big brother.
Kaiba was awake – very visibly awake – lying next to his brother on the bed above the covers like a child-sized guard dog in a set of flannel pajamas that looked a little too short at the wrists and ankles. He watched Mokuba as his coughing fit passed. His big blue eyes almost shone in the moonlit room and they were filled with something Kaiba had long since learn to hide from his expression – real and obvious worry. He curled up a little tighter and shivered, his eyes never wavering from Mokuba's face even for a second, like he expected him to vanish into dust if he looked away.
The chill in the room was bad and the second set of sheets cocooning Mokuba like a human burrito quickly explained why the bed next to him seemed to have been stripped bare of bedding all the way down to the mattress.
With a cough so substantial it made Mokuba's body convulse a little he opened his eyes slowly and groggily, either used to it or too exhausted to react to his brother looming over him on his bed watching him sleep.
"Seto?" Mokuba croaked, barely audible.
Kaiba nodded at him, a small smile that looked like it was intended to be reassuring but fell short of being at all believable flickered across Kaiba's much rounded face.
"It's okay Mokie-" he replied, smoothing down a crease in the comforter and handing Mokuba a glass of water from a nearby night table. "-Drink this and then try to get back to sleep."
Mokuba bobbed his head sleepily, only half-awake at best. His little fingers sluggishly reached out to take the glass from his brother, Kaiba himself not letting go of the glass until he was sure his brother had a good hold of it. He slowly sipped it down, spilling a little as a cough ambushed him while drinking.
"That's great." Kaiba praised, taking the glass back from Mokuba once it was empty and replacing it on the bedside table. "Now go back to sleep." He quietly encouraged, his childish voice not only higher but also much softer in tone than the teenage Kaiba we'd come to know so well.
Mokuba burrowed back down into the hive of blankets and pillows. After a moment his breath evened out into sleep, though it was still raspy. Kaiba's false grin faded back into an expression of concern. He sighed, deeply, silently and then my worry shot up to match his as he covered his hands over his mouth to stifle a cough of his own, his shoulders jumping as he silently convulsed with the muffled cough.
Watching them made me anxious. This was a memory and there wasn't anything I could do, plus the Kaiba brothers clearly recovered from their respective illnesses. I didn't need to feel concerned but I still did. I really liked kids. I loved helping them pick out new toys and find cool new games in Grandpa's shop, it was the best part of the job. It was hard to watch them struggle and the brothers were both so small here.
Kaiba shivered a little and glanced towards the door I'd come from. There was an old radiator secured to the wall, inactive and from the look of it half-dismantled. That explained why it was so cold in here.
"It's you." Kaiba's young voice traveled the distance across the room without waking up a single other sleeping boy. Who was he talking to? I turned back to him and got caught in what would grow up to be his stare of assessment, though through a kid's eyes their shone an obvious anxiety and hope badly hidden behind fake indifference.
I looked left and then right. There was no one else here, so he must be talking to me. "You know me?" I questioned as pointed to myself. That seemed weird. Though this was a memory it was also a room in Kaiba's Soul Room – it looked like he was able to see me here, even if that deviated from the original memory.
"'Course I do. What da'you want?" Kaiba questioned, smartly. His tone was defensive and he clambered off the bed to stand in front of Mokuba as he slept, hiding him from sight. As he stood up he straightened his spine and crossed his arms to make himself appear as tall as possible… but he was still just a little kid. It was like he somehow already knew he'd grow up to be crazy tall and had started prepping his mannerisms in advance. I tried not to smile at just how unintimidating he was right now. At the moment he was about the same height as Mokuba had been in Duelist Kingdom – maybe a similar age too. He looked kinda cute, really. With puberty separating them the Kaiba brothers could hardly look more different, but the resemblance between Kaiba at this age and Mokuba as I remembered him was way more obvious.
His big eyes slowly narrowed at me as I guess I forgot to reply. "You better get out-" he warned "Or I'm gonna call the orderly." Despite the softly hissed threat instead of holding his ground and glaring at me, this younger Kaiba padded across the floor toward me, eyeing me closely with a bright curiosity. He circled me like a shark before pausing right in front of me a staring upward into my eyes with a badly hidden interest.
"What's up with your hair?" he demanded.
I had no idea what to say to that. With Kaiba it wasn't really an option to back down. I couldn't see that changing no matter what age he was. Confrontation wasn't something I enjoyed but I was the picture of confidence as I channeled Atem's weird ability to cut Kaiba back down to size. "What's up with yours?" I parried keeping a friendly tone of light challenge in my voice that I knew was sure to keep him interested.
"My hair's normal. Yours looks weird." He informed me matter-of-factly. He crossed his arms in a way that was all too familiar and then cocked his head to one side in a manner that wasn't.
"You some kinda punk?" he taunted with a little smirk. It vanished as he was abruptly jumped by a coughing fit of his own, his skinny body shaking as he tried to muffle the noise with his hands.
"Woah there, are you okay? I reached out a hand to steady him as the coughing fit passed, the little Kaiba looking much paler and suddenly so very tired. Little tears pricked at the corner of his eyes and he blinked them away. Poor little guy was totally exhausted.
"You should go back to bed." I told him as I patted his shoulder.
Kaiba glared at me defiantly and then his eyes softened to become hesitant instead of hardening to become outright rebellious, which was normal for his older self. "I need to watch over Mokie." He told me, breaking eye contact to look over his brother. "I promised." He added softly.
"But you can't do that if you get sick too." I reasoned, nodding to show I understood.
"But what if he gets even worse while I'm asleep!" Kaiba suddenly snapped in a flare of outright anger. "What if he chokes? Or he coughs himself to death?" His words sped up as they tumbled out of his mouth and he swallowed thickly, staring back down at Mokuba once more possessive and a little desperately. "What then, huh?"" his eyes landed back on me and his prickly words failed to hide the masked plea for reassurance, for an answer that would some make everything better.
"I can watch him for you." I told him. Kaiba looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "-Uh, if you'll allow me to, of course." I quickly added.
Kaiba's arms crossed a little tighter as he considered my offer, usually it looked standoffish, but at this age it looked like he was hugging himself. Tightly.
"Why would you do that?" he asked quietly, his large blue eyes peering up at me hesitantly from under his heavy bangs.
"Because we're friends." that answer came naturally without a second thought. We were friends - we really were. It was time for me to live up to that. I smiled at Kaiba's young face, hoping he'd pick up on the honesty of those words – the genuine belief that lay behind them.
"No we aren't" He argued.
"Yes we are." I replied, trying not to laugh at how bolshie he was. I'd seen the Kaiba brothers as kids before in Noa Kaiba's virtual world, but talking to them was really different from just watching memories.
"Just saying something doesn't make it true." He insisted and frowned at me.
"Well, you're right about that." I agreed, not quite sure what to do. It looked like even at this age Kaiba already had a stubborn streak. Atem would have known what to say to prove that I really meant it. Oh, that was it. "Let me do this for you and it'll prove that we're friends." I reasoned. He watched me for a long moment, eyes darting around for a trace of a lie in my expression.
"Whatever." He settled upon with heavily feigned reluctance. I nodded, grinning at how much more reasonable Kaiba seemed to be as a little boy than as a teenager.
He trotted back to Mokuba's bed and peeled back the comforters. Looks like sharing a bed was something the brothers did routinely. Mokuba instinctively shifted over a little to make space as Kaiba nudged at him, the older brother curling up a little around Mokuba's as he unconsciously nuzzled against him. Even though they looked pretty settled Kaiba's alert blue eyes didn't waver from me so I sat down at the end of the bed where he could keep an eye on me without hurting his neck. I sat still and watched the snow fall through the window as even Kaiba eventually closed his eyes when I did nothing else interesting. Even Mokuba coughing in his ear and sniffling barely provoking a response as he dozed on the cusp of consciousness.
"Y'cn go now." he muttered into his pillow, barely awake from the sound of it. "N'shut the door behind you." he slurred.
"Okay." I nodded and then felt silly because there was no way he could see that with his eyes closed. Quietly I padded back to the door, pulling it closed behind me when a softly spoken vow fell tiredly from his lips.
"M'gonna get us outta here. I just gotta."
The door clicked shut.