Ok, another weekend has arrived, meaning another chapter! I'm in an extreeeeeeeemly happy mood right now so I'll just get on with it! (nice attention grabber for the title, no? ^^)

21. Kantugo's Betrayal~

                They decided to go back to the room Kinou was in earlier with Tanurah to begin working. Starting off, Kinou just worked on making things come to her; Lonu tried restraining the pillows several times, but Kinou always got them away from her with a couple of tries. After a long while, Kinou realised that controlling where the pillows went was as simple as turning her hands from side to side. If she wanted to move something left, she would make her left hand face down and parallel to the ground and leave her right perpendicular to it, and just the opposite for moving something to the right. Following that train of thought, she discovered how to move things up and down as well: by turning her palms up to the ceiling, the object would go straight up, and if she left one of her palms face up and turned the other down, the object would move sideways in midair. There still was the problem of how far the object moved, however. Kinou had no idea how to decrease the intensity of power she exerted, and the things would always have to run into something or she'd have to drop her hands to make them stop moving at a great speed. After nearly an hour, Kinou sat down, exhausted. Lonu was also very tired; she had offered herself for target practise, and had been running around the room while Kinou made pillows and teddy bears fly after her.

                "I'm exhausted," said Kinou, falling heavily on her back and staring at the ceiling.

                "Me—too," gasped Lonu, holding her sides and leaning against a wall. "Goodness, I can't remember the last time I had run that much."

                Kinou laughed weakly; she was in a slightly better mood, but she still had a cloud of worry blocking out most of her thoughts. Closing her eyes, she thought of Emily… We could have had so much fun… If she were here, I'd make her fly around everywhere, and she'd love it. She rolled over on her stomach and rested her head on her arms, feeling drowsy. She was just about to fall asleep when she heard a knock on the door of the room.

                "Come in!" called Lonu, straightening up and smoothing out her apron.

                Kantugo opened up the door. Kinou stared at him, not moving as he stepped in and glanced at her before talking to Lonu.

                "Mr. Kaiba has requested that the girl come to see him," he said.

                "All right, then, just give me a moment to—" began Lonu.

                "Alone."

                Kinou kept staring at him. He's definitely not Kantugo. He's standing different, his voice sounds off-key somehow….and… he just doesn't seem the same at all, she thought. Lonu gave Kinou a quizzical look before turning back to Kantugo.

                "Well, then… I suppose she'll be going with you then?"

                "Yes," he replied shortly.

                "Why can't Lonu come with me?" Kinou blurted out. She didn't want to be left alone with him.

                Kantugo looked at her coldly. "Because Mr. Kaiba wanted to see you, and you alone. He needs to discuss something very important with you."

                "So why does he need you to walk me there?"

                "He wanted to make sure you didn't go running off. He knew you were going to be apprehensive about speaking to him after what happened, so he sent me to escort you."

                Kinou raised her eyebrow. Something's not right here. Why would Seto want to talk to me? He's hardly gotten involved with anything, except for maybe walking me practically everywhere.

                Lonu stretched. "Well, that's good 'ol Mr. Kaiba for you; doesn't trust anyone, that man. Come by and see me when you're done, Kinou, ok?" She walked out the door, yawning and muttering about a nap.

                Kantugo looked at Kinou. "Let's get going," he said, turning towards the door and starting to walk out. Kinou stayed on the floor.

                "Why should I trust you?" she asked coldly.

                He stopped at the door, but did not turn around. A short pause stretched out the silence already between them. "Because I helped you escape from that hell hole," he murmured.

                Feeling a little taken aback, Kinou bit her lip. I don't really have a choice. She slowly stood up and followed him out.

                They took a different route to Kaiba's office than Kinou knew, so after only a minute or two, she was completely lost. Kantugo had not spoken to her since they had left and she worried that he was angry. She cleared her throat quietly.

                "So… are you ever going to go back? You know, to Marik's place?"

                He still did not speak to her, so she kept silent. They kept walking and finally, Kinou stopped. "Ok, this is taking way too long; I know Seto's office is closer than this. Where are you taking me?"

                Kantugo stopped as well. "Back to where you belong," he replied softly, facing her.

                Kinou folded her arms. "Where, might I ask, is that? I doubt you're talking about my home, since you have no way to put me back there."

                He stepped forward. "I am taking you back to your master, foolish girl."

                My master? What the hell does that mean? Kinou thought. "Foolish girl; that's something Yami Marik would say! You're not Kantugo!" she yelled, backing up.

                "Very perceptive," he sneered.

                She started to run, but he caught her arm and pulled her back, wrapping his other arm around her waist. "Going so soon, my dear?" he asked, smirking, as a bright Millennium Eye appeared on his forehead. He began morphing back into Yami Marik, the twisted grin still plastered on his face. Kinou was frozen with fear, remembering the last time she had seen him; horrible images flooded her mind as she tried to escape his grasp, but he used the same strength he had used on her bed to keep her in place, and she couldn't move. Her other arm was free, so she raised it in an attempt to punch him or do something to make him let go of her. He caught her other hand and tripped her; she fell on her back, and the force of hitting the ground knocked the wind out of her. Swooping down on top of her, he held both of her hands above her head with one of his once again and grasped her painfully by the neck with his other. He leaned very close to her as she struggled for breath and hissed, "You are coming back with me whether you like it or not; there's nothing you can do about it."

                And the world went dark. Kinou again found herself floating in nothingness, no light source shined out, and her body was semi-transparent. She twisted around, but couldn't tell whether she had actually moved, for there was absolutely nothing to focus on. Nothing was happening, and she couldn't feel anything. She tried pinching herself extremely hard, but she didn't feel any pain. Ok, so touch and sight are pretty much gone, she thought to herself. She tried calling out, and her voice did sound; it stayed as a loud echo for about 30 seconds before fading away. "Hello?" she called again. "Is there anybody there?" Listening for some response, she heard none. Closing her eyes, she curled up, hoping this blackout wouldn't make something worse than the previous experience. She worried that she would hurt someone; she wasn't worried about getting away from Yami Marik, but what if she moved on and tried to hurt Seto again? What if she succeeded? Nothing happened for about a minute until she woke up, holding a door shut and panting. She nearly fell over since she had gone from a fetal position to standing up in a split second, but she caught herself and took a few deep breaths.

                Her side was aching; she suspected she had been running, but when she reached down to clutch at it, it hurt even more. Pulling her shirt up slightly, she saw there was an enormous bruise now forming slightly above her hip, and noticed her hands had a little bit of blood on them. She quickly looked around for any lacerations on her body, but she only turned up the old bruises from her dream with Yami Marik, as well as a few new ones and a long, shallow scratch across her left shoulder. Lifting up her hand again, she saw no cut that the blood could have come from, either. It must be someone else's, she thought, swallowing hard. A slight groan made her whip around to discover that she had run into Tanurah's hospital room. He was asleep, it seemed, but he was talking quietly to himself in short fragments.

                "Didn't work… needs more… must go back to……" He reached out his hand and clenched his fist. "Why won't he……… I can do it… I can…"

                Kinou was extremely frightened and slowly turned the doorknob as quietly as she could to get out. As the door creaked open, some light from the hallway seeped in, but she opened the door just wide enough for her to slide through so that no light would reach his pillow. He kept muttering to himself as she peered worriedly through the crack of the door before closing it. She rested her head against the door frame, beginning to wonder what had happened while she had been out.

                "What are you doing here?"

                Kinou jumped nearly a foot in the air and whirled around, flattening herself against the wall. Kaiba now stood in front of her, his eyes widening at seeing her as she faced him. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked.

                She couldn't speak; she merely tried opening her mouth slightly, but only a whimper escaped her lips. He looked from her to the door and his eyes narrowed. "Did you try to attack him while he was asleep? You coward," he spat, and she flinched. "Looks like he won, though I have to admit it looks like you gave him more trouble. Who will you go after next? Kantugo? Oh yes, I forgot, you can't hurt him, because he's dead."

                Kinou shook her head. "That wasn't Kantugo," she murmured dryly.

                "Don't start that with me again," he said, holding up his hand.

                "It wasn't!" yelled Kinou, shutting her eyes and putting her fists against her forehead. "That was not Kantugo! That was Yami Marik, and you all were too stupid to realise that! I was practising with Lonu and he came to get me, and when we were alone, he turned back into Yami Marik and attacked me!" She broke down and started crying, sinking to the floor. "I don't know how I got away; he had me on the floor by the neck, and I blacked out and found myself in there with all these bruises and—and—" she held out her hand without looking up at him. "I don't know where this blood came from, but I don't have any cuts on me, so it must be someone else's… I'm so scared…" she whispered, keeping her hand out.

                Kaiba stood for a moment, not speaking, but then he got down on one knee and gently cupped her hand in his, steadying its shake. "Kinou…" he murmured. She looked up at him and he guided her other hand to her right cheek. When he took it off, she saw more blood on it, and realised she had not checked her face in her search. She looked back up at him, and he gazed into her eyes with a pain she had never seen before.

                "Come on," he said, helping her up.

                She stood up and he put his hand around her waist to help her walk. "I don't know much about medicine, but I'll see what I can do to clean you up."

                Kinou stared up at Kaiba as they began to walk down the hallway. What the hell just happened? she wondered, thoroughly confused. He didn't say anything else to her until they were back in his office, where he told her to sit on his desk while he looked for some kind of bandage. As he was rummaging through his things, she kept staring at him, not believing she was actually there.

                "Are you feeling all right?" she asked him.

                "What do you mean?" he asked, not turning around to look at her.

                Kinou bit her lip. "Well, you're not being yourself… at all." He turned around and fixed her with a piercing stare.

                "What's that supposed to mean?"

                "I'm not saying it's bad," said Kinou hurriedly. "It's just… you're being…nice." She looked back at him, hoping she didn't just ruin the only time she had ever seen him care about someone's well being, excepting the many times he had gone after his brother to save him.

                "Would you prefer me to fetch someone else to kiss your ouchies to make them feel better?" he mocked.

                Kinou smirked. That's more like it. "No, I'm good," she replied.

                He walked over to the desk with some Kleenex and a bottle of water, giving her a glare that warned her not to make fun of the substitutes for real medical equipment. As he put a folded Kleenex over the neck of the bottle and shook it to get it wet, Kinou couldn't help but smile. Who in this godforsaken world would believe that Seto Kaiba is actually spending time to take care of someone? It's ludicrous, but I like it a lot.

                Kaiba turned to her with the wet tissue in his hand. "Move your bangs out of the way," he said, tilting her head so that the cut across her cheek was facing him. She obeyed and closed her eyes, basking in the feeling of him touching her face ever so gently. As he dabbed at her cheek, she could feel a slight tingling on her cut as the water evaporated off her skin. He used about seven napkins before he finally took a step back. Kinou opened her eyes and put a hand to her cheek, gingerly feeling the deep cut.

                "I managed to make it stop bleeding, but it still looks disgusting," said Kaiba. She laughed weakly. "I don't have anything to put over it, so you'll just have to go to the hospital wing to get something."           

                "Thank you," said Kinou, trying to smile and failing miserably.

                Kaiba went to put everything away, all the while throwing glances at her, like he wanted to ask her something. When he came back and sat in a chair in front of the desk, he looked as if he had chosen the right words to say to her. He crossed his legs and laid his arms on the arm rests, gripping them slightly as he spoke.

                "Why did you attack me?"

                Kinou stared back at him, guilt rising in her mind as she tried to think of a logical way to explain it to him. No words came, however, and she instead looked at the floor. "I—I don't know," she murmured finally.

                Neither of them spoke for a while; neither moved either, and the barrier of silence that had been with them earlier emerged once again to separate them. Kaiba sighed heavily, and spoke again, it seemed, with some difficulty.

                "Do you want to know the reason I've been keeping such a close eye on you?"  Kinou still did not look at him, but she inclined her head slightly to show that she did. He took a deep breath. "A few months ago, when I first started research on the reinoty virus, a boy supposedly infected with it was brought to my attention. Tanurah had already begun experiments, unknown to me until I walked in on one of them. When I asked him about the boy, he said that he had come from a school for the gifted in a town he had just returned from, and he was doing tests to see if he had any relation to the virus. After a while, the boy started to rebel against all authority in my mansion; he would randomly attack people, much like you've been doing. I once found him in the doctor's office, badly injured and unconscious. Tanurah told me he had escaped from his office and run off in my mansion; he was found later with cuts and bruises all over him and he had fainted from a loss of blood. Right after he recovered, he escaped again and never came back. I had my mansion searched from top to bottom for him, as well as whoever might have injured him the first time he went out by himself, but my staff turned up nothing…"

                Kinou had looked up in the middle of his story, confused. He wasn't attacked when he went out alone; he attacked Dr. Tanurah and injured them both. And he didn't disappear into Seto's mansion; he was locked up. But then he said he had the mansion searched, so why didn't they go searching through that hallway? Maybe they couldn't get through the door… but this is his mansion, why would he have a door he didn't have the key for? She had been talking so much to herself, she didn't notice Kaiba had stood up until he was very close to her.

                "The last time someone came here, he went mad and got himself hurt when he went wandering around by himself. To me, you're already starting to act like him. I've been making sure you're under surveillance because…"

                "…because you didn't want the same thing to happen to me?" Kinou finished for him.

                He merely looked into her eyes, almost imploringly. "I can't have you disappearing anywhere." She could hear the old, forceful tone she knew so well creeping back into his voice. "I want you right here…"

                Coming even closer, he gently pushed her back onto his desk, immediately causing several stacks of neat papers to scatter to the floor. He leaned in, and she could feel his breath on her face as he whispered to her, "I want you, Kinou."

                Once again, a far-off yell echoed through her mind, stronger than before, but she still couldn't hear what it was saying, and frankly she didn't care. He was inches away from kissing her when there was a loud rap on the door. Before she knew it, he had stood back up and sat back down in his chair. "Enter," he said curtly.

                Lonu carefully opened the door and bowed. "Am I interrupting anything?" she asked, smiling at Kinou. "I was just wondering where she was and why it was taking so long—"

                "We're done," Kaiba cut into her sentence. "I will speak to you later, Kinou."

                "Oh wonderful," said Lonu, beaming, as Kinou shakily slid off of Kaiba's desk. When she walked over to the door, Lonu gasped. "Good gracious, child, what happened?" she yelled, pulling Kinou towards her and turning her cut cheek towards her.

                "I'll explain on the way," said Kinou, giving Kaiba one last look before slowly turning to walk out the door.

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*whew* Yet another long one! I might put up the next chapter this weekend, but I'll need to think on it ^___^.