Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

A/N: So you know that saying about 'your life flashing before your eyes', that's kinda what happened. All of those flashbacks memories are going on during this one chapter. So Kaiba is recalling all of that while this has been going on. If you wondered about those weird moments when he would see surgery's and such going on in his memories.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

'Please let me save you!' There was no sound from inside the theater. Sound proof glass probably to ensure that surgery was not distracted by the world outside. But what it lacked in sound it made up for in visual presentation. The room held few colors and those it 'did' hold were all pale in shade. White walls, silver metals, off white plastics that held up trays or monitors, off white bed sheets and faded blues fabric that was draped over the surgical bed.

The room was kept crisp clean undoubtedly, only people bringing in any sparse amounts of color. He could see the black pants, the tops of business shoes and sneakers wrapped in that same faded blue fabric to keep what was under it off the floor. The bound up ponytails of black hair as well as the pale skin of the people hustling around. The people and this one large black faced monitor that held various colors and lines, disappearing and reappearing at a pace. A computer monitor that was projecting heart beat and other life signs.

There was a body on the bed, long and covered in that faded blue colored fabric, smeared in blood that seeped outward like a blooming red flower. The hair was capped off like everyone elses' with someone sitting above his head, holding a mask over the nose and mouth. A man was off to the side against a hard brushed gray steel sink drying his hands as a petite nurse waited to snap on white, rubber gloves over those hands. While another nurse went about tying the back of the surgical scrubs on.

Both order and chaos reigned in the room. Everyone was running around like mad yet there was order amid the bustling bodies. The surgeon made his way to the table, the nurses with their trays and gauze waited. Their expressions were mostly lost behind masks that covered their noses and mouths, leaving only their eyes to express their emotions. There were multiple men and women in the room, all preparing to perform some ritual on the body before them.

All that Chaos going on inside a single small room. At least to him it felt small looking from the outside in. On one side there was him, on the other side there was someone important to him, and beyond was that damn demon. That monster always laughing, because if it had to go down, it was going to take away something precious as compensation.

The memories didn't want to stop, every day, every moment recalled as though it just happened yesterday. Somewhere there was a small army, their souls sleeping in stone, else where in the world, there was a plan coming together. He had a plan when he did this. Every step along the way was planned out to the second.

But what was that plan?

The surgeon was handed a sharp scalpel and leaned in over the body on the operating table. It should have been him, he should have been the one standing over the Pharaoh performing the ceremony. Only he was a coward in the end, he ran off the last time and honestly why would the Pharaoh believe he could perform it 'now'? There was fresh blood staining the surgeons rubber covered hands, his gestures were hard and urgent as he stuck his hand out.

One of the ever attentive nurses rushed to place a wad of gauze into the surgeons hand before he lowered his hand down. The surgeons' movements were tense and focused, he waved the hand holding the scalpel to indicate several things below him. There was just so little to see, mostly backs of men and women, wrapped up in faded blue with white straps that came off like spider silk weaving a piece of a web on each back. Off white shirts, black slacks, or white tops and white skirts, moving and flitting about.

It was annoying, busy work, yet if he shifted his gaze to the right he could see the Pharaoh sleeping, the mask still over his nose and mouth. The man at his head keeping a fixed gaze between the machine beside him, and the read out that he could see, above. His vision was partially obstructed, and occasionally he would lean to the side as though keeping up more with 'those' machines than the one by his side.

He began speaking to a nurse off to the side, throwing his hand up in a display of agitation that seemed very unbecoming of a surgery.

Minutes were rolling by, blood smeared gloves and stained the clean surgical equipment. There were bags of blood held aloft on a metal stand dripping blood to replace the terrible amounts the Pharaoh had lost on his trip from the stadium to here. There was a device that had a bag that moved in time with the Pharaohs' breath, expanding and deflating at a strangely calm pace. In fact it was very nice out here, outside of time and space. Just watching as the events in a single room carried on, like looking out the window of a high rise building and just watching the world walk by.

The surgeons began using clamps, closing off blood vessels in an effort to keep from more blood spilling needlessly. Nurses passed gauze and clamps with a steady rhythm until they both stopped on a dime. A pair of bent nose scissors were offered by a nurse and grabbed by the surgeon. Slowly, delicately, the head surgeon began reaching in the exposed chest cavity. With care the surgeon lifted up what was probably a bullet and placed it in the hands of a waiting nurse holding a large faded blue napkin.

That bullet shouldn't have been in the Pharaoh, nor should the next one that was extracted.

The surgeon patiently slipped the blood stained scissors into the chest, but there should have only have been two bullets. Seto didn't know the anatomy of the human body 'that' well, he was aware of the ribs and they would have been broken to get to the heart. There was a chance that the bullets shattered or chipped a rib causing pieces that might need removing.

They weren't extracting shards of metal after all, the metal from the Pharaohs' buckled vest couldn't be in his chest. Right?

Not that Seto was really watching what was going on in the room. Even if to the astute observer he appeared to be watching the room with the same near single minded fixation he gave his company. The truth was that his mind was back in Egypt, his memories playing out before his eyes on the large window that he was, physically, looking through.

Yet there was still something left of Seto that was focused on the here and now, something that observed the room. The numbers on the screen that noted oxygen, heart beat and pulse, and the irregular sudden spike in that rhythm. Which was probably the most out of place aspect of the room. Everyone was moving with confidence and urgency between the operating table and the surgeons, nurses dabbing away sweat or moving about the body like ants over a corpse. But it was that one man who stuck out with his nervous energy.

The anesthesiologist sat at the head of the table, his attention shifting from the monitors near by to the Yugi's face and further down said table. While everyone else held expressions of stoic confidence and professional concern, his eyes expressed worry, and internal thought. Something had happened, something that he was uncomfortable about, those were the eyes of a man doing mental calculations and coming up short.

Time was sluggish, moving faster in the past than in the present, grating on Kaiba as he wondered if these buffoons could go any slower.

The side surgeon was dispatched, leaving the room using his back to push open the swinging double doors that had let Yugi in.

Maybe he expected family to be waiting, but if that was the case he was clearly not in the know about Yugi. But at least he wasn't stupid enough to be unable to recognize that the man standing at the window wasn't there for his entertainment.

"Mr. Kaiba? You're here regarding the patient?"

He barely bothered with a nod.

"I need to contact his next of kin. In case..."

Kaiba reached up and pulled out his cellphone, before flipping it open and holding it out to face the surgeon. "His next of kin is in another country working. You want someone who looks after Yugi? Then talk. Now."

"Mr. Kaiba... I might need to talk to kin... Mr. Mouto's heart has sustained serious damage, one vein has been severed by a bullet, his heart has been sliced in several pieces due to the metal of his buckles. The buckle knocked the bullet off its course, saving Mr. Mouto from a direct bullet through the heart. But the bullet and the shards of the buckle have still done extensive damage and..."

Yugi took a bullet to the heart for Kaiba...

That brat, willfully took a bullet to the heart...

But without the surgeon in the room, he could see Yugi a little better on the operating table. He could see the blood staining the thin sheet covering Yugi. The hands working INSIDE the Pharaoh's chest cavity.

The hands twitching at Yugis' side... The people in his way might as well not even have been there any longer. Regardless of who stood between them Seto could see Yugi bleeding...

"I think they need you."

It was the last thing Kaiba said as his eyes followed the flexing fingers up the hand, across the arm, the elbow and further until he was at Yugi's face. Yugi's eyes were scrunched up in pain, a pain that was recognized by the anesthesiologist. The head surgeon backed off in alarm, the nurses looking among each other in concern. The assistant surgeon needed only a glance through the glass before he rushed back into the room.

"-weight wrong so badly!? Because its not..." the door swung shut behind the surgeon cutting off the rest of the sentence. But one didn't need to be a surgeon themselves to understand the context.

The anesthesiologist would need to know Yugi's weight as part of how he would administer the anesthetics. However; Yugi had not been to the hospital since he finished his massive growth spurt, so the information would be sorely outdated. But there would be no time to properly weigh Yugi given the situation, and unless they had his student information, and why would they have it on hand like this?

Meaning the drugs were wearing off, their potency was slipping and Yugi was waking up.

On an operating table.

With people digging through his organs.

Yugi's hands started reaching up from the table, almost blindly seeking out what was going on. The nurses froze for all of a second before the one nearest dropped the gauze in her hands onto a tray and took his hand in desperation. The assistant surgeon rushed forward as well as a small splurt of blood rose into the air. As though a clamp had suddenly come loose while the nurse holding Yugi's hand seemed fixed on his face. With their masks there was no way to tell if they were trying to talk to him, to explain the situation or to calm him down.

A look at the equipment was starting to show signs of a collapsing situation, as the blood pressure was starting to spike upwards. Heart rate was increasing, pulse turning erratic while Yugi began to pull his legs in and the other nurse tried to bring force the legs back down. All the while the anesthesiologist was trying desperately to do something with his own machines. Probably trying to find a way to make Yugi go back under quickly without overdosing. Yugi was looking about the room, his eyes semi wild, disoriented and wide. While the surgeons were busy trying to stop the renewed bleeding in Yugi's chest.

Yugi tried to pull the mask off his face, only to have the nurse holding his hand with one hand hold it in place with her other hand. But whatever she was saying finally sparked some semblance of awareness from Yugi as he turned to look up at her. His sight wasn't exactly the most focused thing in the room given his expression. But he finally, spasmodically, began to bring his legs down again. It was a stilted motion, possibly due to the immense amount of pain he was in. Then there was the fact that his spine was by proxy exposed to the world given his chest.

There wasn't enough blood in those packets to make up for what Yugi was losing, there wasn't enough time to get the drugs proportioned out properly. If this botched mess didn't leave Yugi a vegetable, it 'would' leave him mentally, emotionally and possibly intellectual damaged. It was quite possible to say that the proclaimed 'King of Games' was dying with every second now on that operating room table. It would almost be a mercy for the Pharaoh's eyes to close and never open again in this life time.

The nurse not holding Yugi's hand was dispatched, and rushed out of the room, her cries to the nurse station for assistance piercing the air. Cries for more blood to be brought with the rest of her words lost as she disappeared down whatever hole she fell into. But there was a small rumble of noise like a storm on the distant horizon.

Yugi's heart rate was still rapid, his pulse was reaching numbers associated with Olympic runners, but he wasn't moving anymore on the table. The two surgeons were busy one had his back to the window blocking the view of the open chest cavity. But there was no hiding the growing amounts of blood on them. After all if Yugi's heart was scratched up and it was starting to work harder what was there to say that it wasn't starting to leak out blood where it didn't need to? What was stopping the heart from stretching and straining against the panic and tearing open?

With the remaining nurse forced to move around the bed to take care of both surgeons on her own. Dispensing more gauze and wiping away the sweat that accumulated on both surgeons. Her own gown stained in blood along the hands and sleeves.

Minutes dragged along as though pulling Fuji behind it. There was a sudden group of people who came barreling into the room. But the computer screen seemed more interesting, the pulse and heart rate that slowly came down to the numbers it held before. New bags of blood were put into place, there was another nurse came running in behind them. Something was said that had the anesthesiologist throw a hand out in anger and turn his attention back to the machines he worked.

Slowly the disruptions settled down, the new people left quickly, unwashed and unprepared to be in a surgery. Leaving two people, one who was scrubbing down the other who was getting the necessary hospital frock ready. Once the one scrubbed down was ready, she slipped on the scrub and the one helping her tied it off then quickly left. Leaving her to go and prepare the other pouches of blood for the surgery on her own.

The original five back to their work, their movements were almost delicate; the people in the room looked as though everything was coated in broken glass. Their movements fearful of setting off some terrible event. It was tedious to watch people working when their efforts were lost on the viewer, so instead he turned his attention to the screen.

It was easier to look at the computer screen, he knew screens and computers. He could figure out the heart beats and pulse, watching each spike of the line showing that Yugis' heart was still beating. But time had yet to catch up to its proper pace, making each spike a painful wait, a wait that was shared with the anesthesiologist and the woman taking care of the blood bags.

The surgeons kept working, occasionally looking at the anesthesiologist before looking down at their work. The peaks and valleys of the heart rate were finally widening out to what was a proper heart rate, while the pulse numbers kept going down further. He didn't know the details of how the heart beat, but there was a faint recollection to his own visits to a doctor.

Was a pulse supposed to be that low?

The anesthesiologists' head was focused on the screen, when the two surgeons drew back their hands from Yugi's body as though they had been shocked. The valleys grew wider on the screen and the numbers were still growing lower still. There seemed to be a sudden meeting going on as all eyes turned towards the head surgeon.

He lead the dive back into the cavity the group working more feverish and still the numbers were dropping.. There was no mountain on the heart beat side, just one long valley, as a nurse ran to the doors shouting something a code or some such. He couldn't understand this strange language. In the brief time the door was open the only sound he could detect was that of machines, and the wrenched lack of such sounds. Where was the heart beat? The pulse, the sound of the ventilator providing oxygen to Yugi. Where was the mechanical noises?

The swinging doors were all he could see, for the longest time...

1:53PM glowed on a clock on the wall inside.

SLAM