Joey walked back over and looked down at Kaiba on the floor. "Why didn't
you wake him up?"
"I thought it might be better if we let him talk." Yugi shook his head and crouched down to feel Kaiba's pulse. "He's fine. Come on, help me a sec." He lifted Seto's feet and looked over at Joey who then lifted up the other half. They placed him on the couch and then Yugi kneeled down next to him again. "I hope everything is okay. They both seem pretty shaken up about it."
"You don't think he was serious do you?"
Yugi turned and looked at him. "About what?"
With a nervous laugh the blonde wrung his hands. "About him killing everybody?"
"Oh." He looked back at Kaiba. "I hope not Joey. I sure hope not."
*****************
Tristan was walking towards the game shop after school shaking his head. 'Sure they'll come back right after they take him home. They'll just come back tomorrow, that's all. Does that matter?' He smirked and rolled his eyes. 'I bet they've been hanging out at the shop all afternoon and just didn't feel like going back.'
He walked in the door and the bell ringed as he opened it. Looking around him he shouted, "Yugi? Joey? Anybody here?!"
A few moments later Yugi's Grandpa came out of the back. "Hello Tristan, they aren't here. Yugi called and told me they were still at Kaiba's."
"Oh, thanks." With a smirk he waved and left the shop, making his way for Kaiba's. 'So they're still there? I guess something must have happened.'
****************
It didn't take him that long to get there, and when he did, he walked in the door and looked around for his friends. "Hello?! Anybody home?!" He went into the kitchen. "Is anyone here?!"
"Hey Tristan." Mokuba looked over at him from where he was sitting at the table with concern all over his face. "Is Yugi back yet?"
Tristan shrugged and pulled up a chair next to him. "Beats me. I just got here. What's with the long face?"
Mokuba sighed and looked at the floor. "I'm worried about Seto. Joey's up in his room with him right now, and Yugi told me not to go in there before he left. He went to Tea's. Said something about finding out what happened."
"Well, it couldn't have been that bad." He put on a smile. "Come on, cheer up. You're brother'll be just fine. How 'bout this. Let's play some cards? That'll take your mind off of things." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a deck. "Here we go. So what do you wanna play?"
"I don't care." The younger Kaiba shook his head and stared at the floor with a sigh.
"Let's play go fish. Here." He shuffled the cards and dealt them out. "I'll go first. Okay. Do you have any threes?"
With another heavy sigh Mokuba picked up his cards and stared at them. "Go fi-"
"NO!"
Both Tristan and Mokuba's eyes snapped up as they looked over at the stairs and saw Kaiba running down them with a knife in hand and Joey chasing after him.
"Kaiba! Come back here!"
"No! You can't stop me!" He ran out the door with the blonde trailing close behind him.
"You aren't getting away that easy!"
"Um." Tristan looked back at the cards in his hand and drew one. "Your turn."
*****************
Seto ran out of the house and out next to it into the trees. He darted through them as branches scratches against his face. He could hear Joey behind him, running after him, trying to catch him, trying to stop him. But he didn't want to be stopped, he wanted to do it, just one clean slice and then he wouldn't have to see it anymore. There would be no more pictures of the dead following in his mind. All he had to do was get one clean slice. One slice, ignore the pictures for a few brief moments and then they would be gone. He'd seen himself dead, he'd seen Tea, he'd seen Yugi, Joey. everyone. He'd killed them all, and he was smiling. Through it all he was smiling. How could he do that? How? He didn't want to see it anymore. He just wanted it all to stop. He wanted to stop seeing the mangled forms that were haunting his thoughts.
"Gotcha!" Joey leaped forward and managed to grabbed Seto's feet, bringing him to the ground.
Kaiba kicked at him. Tried to make him let go. He just needed a few seconds. Then he would be able to stop the pictures. Stop the images. Stop them once and for all.
"Let go of me!"
Joey gritted his teeth and continued to hang on. "I'm not letting you!"
Seto's eyes hardened and he kicked out at Joey. hard, which gave him a brief moment in which he yanked out his feet and then jumped on top of Joey and held the knife to his neck. "You. Don't. Get. It. You idiotic buffoon. I don't want to see it anymore. I want it to stop. Do you want me to suffer? Is that your purpose? To cause me pain?!" He pushed the blade against Joey's neck causing a slight amount of blood to begin dripping out. "Is that what you want?!" A brief moment passed and Kaiba's pupils shrank and he sat up looking at the knife in his hands. "I'm doing it again." He let the knife roll off his fingers onto the grass and then he backed away from Joey. "No, no, no. I can't be doing it. Not again. Tea!" He clutched at his skull and started shaking. "No! I won't! Stop it! Stop making me see this!"
Kaiba's brain transformed the world around him into a shape of red. He looked down at his hands, they were dripping, dripping blood down onto the stained grass underneath him. Seto glanced around him at all the dead bodies. There they all were. Tea. Yugi. Tristan. Joey. Mokuba. He'd killed Mokuba. Dead. They were all dead. "No. No. NO!"
Kaiba screamed and fell down onto the grass. "Stop it! STOP IT! Why do I have to keep seeing this?! Stop showing me!" He sobbed into the grass as he shook. "They're dead. All dead, and I killed them. I left myself all alone. Alone to deal with everything. And now Mokuba. I killed Mokuba." Tears dripped down his face. "I'm so sorry Mokuba. I didn't mean to turn out like him. I never meant to put you through the pain that I went through." Gripping his hands together he gritted his teeth. "I never wanted to. I hate him. I hate him! BURN IN HELL YOU BASTARD!!!" Kaiba grabbed the knife off the ground again and started ramming it into the ground. "YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!" An image of Gozaburo flitted through his mind and appeared before him. He had a smug grin on his face as he looked down at Kaiba on the ground.
"Still haven't learned. Have you kid?"
Seto stood up and glared fire at him. "May you rot in hell."
"A little hostile aren't we?" He began pacing circles around Seto with his hands behind his back and a stern glare locked onto him.
The young executive clenched his fist and his shoulders went rigid as the gaze started to chill his spine. "You lying, filthy, bastard."
A swift slap met with Kaiba's cheek. "Do not speak ill of your elders!"
Seto continued standing there with body tense, as his cheek grew red. "Die."
Another slap connected with his other cheek. "I told you to listen!"
"No." He glared defiantly at Gozaburo until the former owner of the Kaiba Corporation swung his fist into Seto's stomach. Falling to the ground he grunted in pain and curled up. "No."
Gozaburo shook his head and landed a hard kick to Seto's side. "Foolish boy. You never did know when it was time to shut up, did you?"
Seto's body began to shake as tears slowly began to squeeze out of his eyes in pain. "I'm s-sorry, s-sir."
"Sorry is for fools!"
"I-I didn't m-mean t-to."
"You ungrateful little swine! I should never have taken you under my tutelage. You ignore it and then blame me for giving you the power you now have. Ha! You're just a lost little child wandering around in a grown up world." He landed another kick to Seto's side. "Get up you unworthy rat!"
Seto remained curled up in a ball sobbing.
"I said GET UP!"
Shaking miserably he stood and stared at the floor. "I-I-I never meant t-to be ungrateful sir."
Gozaburo took his fist and slammed it into the side of Seto's head. "You pathetic brat!"
Seto's world spun as he clutched at his head and finally collapsed onto the floor.
*****************
Joey watched Kaiba zone out into his old world and then fall to the ground. Cautiously walking up to the fallen form he held a hand to his own neck and then took the knife out of Seto's hand.
"Sheez Kaiba. What's up with you man?" Grabbing the fallen executive and swinging him over his back Joey headed back towards the mansion.
******************
"Got any kings?"
"Go fish. Got any fours?"
"Go fish. Got any- Seto?" Mokuba looked up and saw Joey lugging his older brother in and dump him down on the couch. He rushed over with his face full of concern. He then looked up at Joey. "What's wrong with him?"
The blonde shrugged as he caught his breath. "No idea. He zoned out and then just sort of collapsed." His eyes settled on Tristan. "When did you get here?"
Tristan looked down at Kaiba. "Oh a bit ago. What was Kaiba trying to do?"
Joey briefly glanced at Mokuba who was still looking over his brother and then at Tristan. With his finger he made a motion of slicing his throat.
Tristan's eyes spread wide. "You're kidding, right?"
"No dude."
"Why?"
Joey shrugged. "Dunno exactly. Something about." His eyes wandered to Mokuba again. "Um. stuff." He rubbed at his neck a little where the cut was gave a half smirk. "We gotta wait till Yugi gets back before we can really find out."
Tristan's brown eyes found the slight hint of red on Joey's throat and he cocked his eyebrow. Joey just batted his arm at him and kneeled down next to Mokuba. "We'll have to wait until Yug gets back before we can really do anything."
********************
Tea was curled up on her bed shaking her head as Yugi sat on the end of it and stared at her.
"So what happened?"
She shook her head. "It's okay Yugi, you don't have to get involved. I'm just fine, he didn't hurt me."
He nodded and then shook his head. "That's good Tea. But I really do need to know what happened. I have to find out what's making Kaiba act so crazy."
Tea buried her face in her knees. "It doesn't matter."
Yugi sighed and shook his head again. "Please Tea? You need to tell me."
"He just. He held a knife at my throat, okay?"
"Do you have any idea why.?"
"No."
Yugi's eyes scanned Tea and he could tell she was lying. "What is it?"
"Well. well."
"Did it have to do with you cutting?"
She looked at him and blinked a couple of times. "How did you know about that?"
"He told us at lunch."
"Oh."
"Did he say anything?" Yugi was trying to find some way to get what info he needed out of Tea. He couldn't help either of them if he didn't know what was going on.
"H-he just asked me. If I liked cutting myself. and that was when he pinned me down."
'Okay, so there was a knife, he pinned her down, obviously she was scared, he must have seen that, and now he thinks he killed her.' "He thinks he killed everyone."
"What?"
Yugi looked over at Tea and realized he'd just said his last thought out loud. "Oh. um. nothing."
"Did you just say he thinks he killed everyone?"
"Well. yeah."
She gazed over at Yugi with concern as she continued to hug her legs to her chest. "Why does he think that?"
He shrugged. "I really don't know. At lunch today he was all spaced out and then he said he'd killed you. Of course Joey had a spazz about this, and then Kaiba started screaming that he didn't do it. It was weird. We took him home, and then I called you. Joey had another spazz attack and started strangling Kaiba, then Kaiba started punching Joey. And then just all of a sudden he stopped and started going on about how he'd killed us all." He shook his head. "I came here after Kaiba passed out to see if I could find anything out from you." A thought entered his head. "I hope Joey doesn't strangle him while I'm gone."
Tea sighed heavily. "I would go over and help. but I'm scared. I'm scared he'll do it again. He was acting so strange. Right after he stopped pinning me he started asking me to stop cutting, because it hurt him. He tried apologizing, but. I mean. What can you do about something like that?"
"Hm. I understand. But would you mind coming back with me? You don't even have to be in the same room. It's just in case we need to ask you something more."
She cringed and reluctantly answered, "If. you really need me. Then I guess. I could."
((* feels all bad for making the chapters so weird * I'm sorry people... Just one more chapter of ish kinda this. and then it's better. I'M SORRY! Just please don't flame me or anything * is depressed and uneasy about the fic * I just hope you people still like it and will keep reading even though these parts are kinda screwy. but please bare with me. Laterz, and remember Keep Reviewing! It does get better, I promise!))
"I thought it might be better if we let him talk." Yugi shook his head and crouched down to feel Kaiba's pulse. "He's fine. Come on, help me a sec." He lifted Seto's feet and looked over at Joey who then lifted up the other half. They placed him on the couch and then Yugi kneeled down next to him again. "I hope everything is okay. They both seem pretty shaken up about it."
"You don't think he was serious do you?"
Yugi turned and looked at him. "About what?"
With a nervous laugh the blonde wrung his hands. "About him killing everybody?"
"Oh." He looked back at Kaiba. "I hope not Joey. I sure hope not."
*****************
Tristan was walking towards the game shop after school shaking his head. 'Sure they'll come back right after they take him home. They'll just come back tomorrow, that's all. Does that matter?' He smirked and rolled his eyes. 'I bet they've been hanging out at the shop all afternoon and just didn't feel like going back.'
He walked in the door and the bell ringed as he opened it. Looking around him he shouted, "Yugi? Joey? Anybody here?!"
A few moments later Yugi's Grandpa came out of the back. "Hello Tristan, they aren't here. Yugi called and told me they were still at Kaiba's."
"Oh, thanks." With a smirk he waved and left the shop, making his way for Kaiba's. 'So they're still there? I guess something must have happened.'
****************
It didn't take him that long to get there, and when he did, he walked in the door and looked around for his friends. "Hello?! Anybody home?!" He went into the kitchen. "Is anyone here?!"
"Hey Tristan." Mokuba looked over at him from where he was sitting at the table with concern all over his face. "Is Yugi back yet?"
Tristan shrugged and pulled up a chair next to him. "Beats me. I just got here. What's with the long face?"
Mokuba sighed and looked at the floor. "I'm worried about Seto. Joey's up in his room with him right now, and Yugi told me not to go in there before he left. He went to Tea's. Said something about finding out what happened."
"Well, it couldn't have been that bad." He put on a smile. "Come on, cheer up. You're brother'll be just fine. How 'bout this. Let's play some cards? That'll take your mind off of things." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a deck. "Here we go. So what do you wanna play?"
"I don't care." The younger Kaiba shook his head and stared at the floor with a sigh.
"Let's play go fish. Here." He shuffled the cards and dealt them out. "I'll go first. Okay. Do you have any threes?"
With another heavy sigh Mokuba picked up his cards and stared at them. "Go fi-"
"NO!"
Both Tristan and Mokuba's eyes snapped up as they looked over at the stairs and saw Kaiba running down them with a knife in hand and Joey chasing after him.
"Kaiba! Come back here!"
"No! You can't stop me!" He ran out the door with the blonde trailing close behind him.
"You aren't getting away that easy!"
"Um." Tristan looked back at the cards in his hand and drew one. "Your turn."
*****************
Seto ran out of the house and out next to it into the trees. He darted through them as branches scratches against his face. He could hear Joey behind him, running after him, trying to catch him, trying to stop him. But he didn't want to be stopped, he wanted to do it, just one clean slice and then he wouldn't have to see it anymore. There would be no more pictures of the dead following in his mind. All he had to do was get one clean slice. One slice, ignore the pictures for a few brief moments and then they would be gone. He'd seen himself dead, he'd seen Tea, he'd seen Yugi, Joey. everyone. He'd killed them all, and he was smiling. Through it all he was smiling. How could he do that? How? He didn't want to see it anymore. He just wanted it all to stop. He wanted to stop seeing the mangled forms that were haunting his thoughts.
"Gotcha!" Joey leaped forward and managed to grabbed Seto's feet, bringing him to the ground.
Kaiba kicked at him. Tried to make him let go. He just needed a few seconds. Then he would be able to stop the pictures. Stop the images. Stop them once and for all.
"Let go of me!"
Joey gritted his teeth and continued to hang on. "I'm not letting you!"
Seto's eyes hardened and he kicked out at Joey. hard, which gave him a brief moment in which he yanked out his feet and then jumped on top of Joey and held the knife to his neck. "You. Don't. Get. It. You idiotic buffoon. I don't want to see it anymore. I want it to stop. Do you want me to suffer? Is that your purpose? To cause me pain?!" He pushed the blade against Joey's neck causing a slight amount of blood to begin dripping out. "Is that what you want?!" A brief moment passed and Kaiba's pupils shrank and he sat up looking at the knife in his hands. "I'm doing it again." He let the knife roll off his fingers onto the grass and then he backed away from Joey. "No, no, no. I can't be doing it. Not again. Tea!" He clutched at his skull and started shaking. "No! I won't! Stop it! Stop making me see this!"
Kaiba's brain transformed the world around him into a shape of red. He looked down at his hands, they were dripping, dripping blood down onto the stained grass underneath him. Seto glanced around him at all the dead bodies. There they all were. Tea. Yugi. Tristan. Joey. Mokuba. He'd killed Mokuba. Dead. They were all dead. "No. No. NO!"
Kaiba screamed and fell down onto the grass. "Stop it! STOP IT! Why do I have to keep seeing this?! Stop showing me!" He sobbed into the grass as he shook. "They're dead. All dead, and I killed them. I left myself all alone. Alone to deal with everything. And now Mokuba. I killed Mokuba." Tears dripped down his face. "I'm so sorry Mokuba. I didn't mean to turn out like him. I never meant to put you through the pain that I went through." Gripping his hands together he gritted his teeth. "I never wanted to. I hate him. I hate him! BURN IN HELL YOU BASTARD!!!" Kaiba grabbed the knife off the ground again and started ramming it into the ground. "YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!" An image of Gozaburo flitted through his mind and appeared before him. He had a smug grin on his face as he looked down at Kaiba on the ground.
"Still haven't learned. Have you kid?"
Seto stood up and glared fire at him. "May you rot in hell."
"A little hostile aren't we?" He began pacing circles around Seto with his hands behind his back and a stern glare locked onto him.
The young executive clenched his fist and his shoulders went rigid as the gaze started to chill his spine. "You lying, filthy, bastard."
A swift slap met with Kaiba's cheek. "Do not speak ill of your elders!"
Seto continued standing there with body tense, as his cheek grew red. "Die."
Another slap connected with his other cheek. "I told you to listen!"
"No." He glared defiantly at Gozaburo until the former owner of the Kaiba Corporation swung his fist into Seto's stomach. Falling to the ground he grunted in pain and curled up. "No."
Gozaburo shook his head and landed a hard kick to Seto's side. "Foolish boy. You never did know when it was time to shut up, did you?"
Seto's body began to shake as tears slowly began to squeeze out of his eyes in pain. "I'm s-sorry, s-sir."
"Sorry is for fools!"
"I-I didn't m-mean t-to."
"You ungrateful little swine! I should never have taken you under my tutelage. You ignore it and then blame me for giving you the power you now have. Ha! You're just a lost little child wandering around in a grown up world." He landed another kick to Seto's side. "Get up you unworthy rat!"
Seto remained curled up in a ball sobbing.
"I said GET UP!"
Shaking miserably he stood and stared at the floor. "I-I-I never meant t-to be ungrateful sir."
Gozaburo took his fist and slammed it into the side of Seto's head. "You pathetic brat!"
Seto's world spun as he clutched at his head and finally collapsed onto the floor.
*****************
Joey watched Kaiba zone out into his old world and then fall to the ground. Cautiously walking up to the fallen form he held a hand to his own neck and then took the knife out of Seto's hand.
"Sheez Kaiba. What's up with you man?" Grabbing the fallen executive and swinging him over his back Joey headed back towards the mansion.
******************
"Got any kings?"
"Go fish. Got any fours?"
"Go fish. Got any- Seto?" Mokuba looked up and saw Joey lugging his older brother in and dump him down on the couch. He rushed over with his face full of concern. He then looked up at Joey. "What's wrong with him?"
The blonde shrugged as he caught his breath. "No idea. He zoned out and then just sort of collapsed." His eyes settled on Tristan. "When did you get here?"
Tristan looked down at Kaiba. "Oh a bit ago. What was Kaiba trying to do?"
Joey briefly glanced at Mokuba who was still looking over his brother and then at Tristan. With his finger he made a motion of slicing his throat.
Tristan's eyes spread wide. "You're kidding, right?"
"No dude."
"Why?"
Joey shrugged. "Dunno exactly. Something about." His eyes wandered to Mokuba again. "Um. stuff." He rubbed at his neck a little where the cut was gave a half smirk. "We gotta wait till Yugi gets back before we can really find out."
Tristan's brown eyes found the slight hint of red on Joey's throat and he cocked his eyebrow. Joey just batted his arm at him and kneeled down next to Mokuba. "We'll have to wait until Yug gets back before we can really do anything."
********************
Tea was curled up on her bed shaking her head as Yugi sat on the end of it and stared at her.
"So what happened?"
She shook her head. "It's okay Yugi, you don't have to get involved. I'm just fine, he didn't hurt me."
He nodded and then shook his head. "That's good Tea. But I really do need to know what happened. I have to find out what's making Kaiba act so crazy."
Tea buried her face in her knees. "It doesn't matter."
Yugi sighed and shook his head again. "Please Tea? You need to tell me."
"He just. He held a knife at my throat, okay?"
"Do you have any idea why.?"
"No."
Yugi's eyes scanned Tea and he could tell she was lying. "What is it?"
"Well. well."
"Did it have to do with you cutting?"
She looked at him and blinked a couple of times. "How did you know about that?"
"He told us at lunch."
"Oh."
"Did he say anything?" Yugi was trying to find some way to get what info he needed out of Tea. He couldn't help either of them if he didn't know what was going on.
"H-he just asked me. If I liked cutting myself. and that was when he pinned me down."
'Okay, so there was a knife, he pinned her down, obviously she was scared, he must have seen that, and now he thinks he killed her.' "He thinks he killed everyone."
"What?"
Yugi looked over at Tea and realized he'd just said his last thought out loud. "Oh. um. nothing."
"Did you just say he thinks he killed everyone?"
"Well. yeah."
She gazed over at Yugi with concern as she continued to hug her legs to her chest. "Why does he think that?"
He shrugged. "I really don't know. At lunch today he was all spaced out and then he said he'd killed you. Of course Joey had a spazz about this, and then Kaiba started screaming that he didn't do it. It was weird. We took him home, and then I called you. Joey had another spazz attack and started strangling Kaiba, then Kaiba started punching Joey. And then just all of a sudden he stopped and started going on about how he'd killed us all." He shook his head. "I came here after Kaiba passed out to see if I could find anything out from you." A thought entered his head. "I hope Joey doesn't strangle him while I'm gone."
Tea sighed heavily. "I would go over and help. but I'm scared. I'm scared he'll do it again. He was acting so strange. Right after he stopped pinning me he started asking me to stop cutting, because it hurt him. He tried apologizing, but. I mean. What can you do about something like that?"
"Hm. I understand. But would you mind coming back with me? You don't even have to be in the same room. It's just in case we need to ask you something more."
She cringed and reluctantly answered, "If. you really need me. Then I guess. I could."
((* feels all bad for making the chapters so weird * I'm sorry people... Just one more chapter of ish kinda this. and then it's better. I'M SORRY! Just please don't flame me or anything * is depressed and uneasy about the fic * I just hope you people still like it and will keep reading even though these parts are kinda screwy. but please bare with me. Laterz, and remember Keep Reviewing! It does get better, I promise!))