Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! And the characters within it do not belong to me. Neither does Reg Corona; in the real world, he is my dad's partner, and therefore belongs to the IRS.

A/N: Still reading? Good! My goal is to finish this thing before A) Yu-Gi-Oh becomes known as an antique, or B) before I lose interest. So enjoy, and I'll try to dish out chapters at a more reasonable rate.

Warnings for this chapter: As of October 10, it's unbetad. Both of my betas are busy in the extreme and I decided not to bother them with it right now. So for now, if you want to, feel free to point out little mistakes or things that don't make any sense. It would be much appreciated.

Solace

Chapter 12

Kaiba Corp had a very strict dress code: uniform or suit, depending on your station. Your hair must be cut above the shoulder if you were a man, or tied back if you were a long-haired woman. The Kaiba brothers were, of course, the exception.

But then there was Reg Corona, the chief accountant. He looked out-of-place in a suit and knew it, so unless he had a remarkably important meeting he just came to work in jeans and a polo shirt. His hair was very long and dark with a few strands of gray, badges of a well-lived middle-age. He kept it in a ponytail, but even then it draped past his shoulder blades. His skin was deeply tanned, partly due to genetics and partly because of those teenage years he'd spent living out of his car with his wife, when they had traveled around learning the mundane financial laws of various countries.

When Seto Kaiba had taken over and cracked down further on the dress code, he'd fired Reg immediately. Two years and too many chief accountants later, he'd tracked Reg down and rehired him. Whether or not Kaiba liked it, the man was eerily good at bookkeeping for large companies. Once Reg had been in charge of accounting, no one else was quite up to par. Seto Kaiba required the best.

And besides, not many-if any-other accountants would be willing to hike through the woods on their day off to investigate a phony hospital. Reg had volunteered. Kaiba simply couldn't deny that Reg was a strange but too-difficult-to-replace asset to Kaiba Corp.

The last thing Dr. Newton expected to see that day was Reg Corona.

… … … … … … … …

An aide knocked politely on the open door to the operating room and waited to be acknowledged. The doctor finished rinsing blood and a strange pale green slime off of his gloves, threw the gloves into the garbage, and turned around.

"Yes?"

"There's someone here to see you from Kaiba Corp."

Dr. Newton frowned thoughtfully. "That's a surprise. Tell him I'll be down in a few moments."

The aide-Arthur was it?-nodded and headed back down the hall. Newton looked back at his sedated patient and re-checked all the vital signs, wrote instructions for the nurse, and turned to leave.

Partway to the stair well he stopped and snapped his fingers, as though suddenly realizing something deserved a sound. He went back to the patient's chart and, underneath the medicinal instructions, wrote "Caution: patient's skin is highly toxic. Do not handle patient directly."

Satisfied, he went to the lobby to find a long-haired visitor refusing a glass of water from Arthur.

"Good afternoon. I'm Doctor Newton." He flicked his gaze over the cut-off jean shorts, tinted glasses, and white t-shirt. "You're from Kaiba Corp?"

A nod and a brisk, "Reg Corona," was the only introduction the doctor was given before a red folder was thrust at him. "You accepted a charitable donation from Seto Kaiba?"

Newton took the folder, thumbed through copies of the checks Kaiba had given him. "Yes."

"Ah. Would you be willing to show or tell me what you did with all that money?"

Handing the folder back and trying not to show how unsettled he was becoming, Newton said, "Is there a law which will require me to show you?"

"Not in the city of Seaton, which Forest Hills is a part of. Barely." Reg smiled sharkishly. "But if you refuse, I already have grounds to call the police in on this."

Newton forced himself to smile warmly. "There's no need for that. I was only curious. Arthur and I will show you around."

As expected, Reg demanded to see more than simply the cafeteria and restrooms. He also wasn't satisfied with empty rooms or the excuse of "patients needing rest, not visitors". When he strayed too close to the Recovery Hall and operating rooms, Newton finally told him to leave.

He didn't think Reg would have looked more pleased if he'd been told he'd won a house in the Bahamas.

… … … … … … … …

Isis had said she'd be on the news. It certainly wasn't her first time on television, so Malik had at first not been the slightest bit interested. But 10 p.m. came and she and Rishid were in the other room making dinner, or just giving Malik space. And Malik was bored. Besides, it was possible Isis had something new to say to Domino.

The first feature was about the wild fire burning on the outskirts of the city, and the second was about global economy. Malik was about to change the channel when one of the reporters chirped, "And now for a truly bizarre story, unearthed by Domino's own Kaiba Corp."

The screen changed to a more somber-looking reporter standing in the woods on a familiar leaf-strewn dirt path.

Malik crept closer to the screen, his pulse screaming.

The camera moved up to the building as the reporter spoke. "This is Forest Hills Hospital. At least that's what they've been claiming, but if you've never heard of it, don't worry. Neither..." she paused dramatically. "...have the patients." She carefully opened the door to the building and stepped inside.

Police officers were standing around the lobby, but the news crew continued straight past them, and up the stairs. "From what you've seen, it all looks like a hospital, right?" She stopped on the landing. "But up this hall, the police found something that shocked them."

Malik couldn't move, couldn't hear anything but the reporter and a strange hissing buzz echoing in his ears.

The camera moved slowly down the red hall and into the very same room Malik had hidden in.

"In these cages, the police found people sedated and with animal parts grafted to them. I've been told that some of these people were so animal-like you could barely tell they were human." Cages, steel, police tape. The reporter stood on the edge of it. "I've been told there were over forty people found here, and twenty more who were being prepared for the surgeries. Down this hall, they found the operating rooms, which we haven't been allowed access to yet."

She moved away from the kennels. "Who was responsible for all this?" A photograph image filled the screen. "Raul Newton, a once-respected surgeon. He had been taken into police custody along with his staff of twelve. Meanwhile, all of his victims have been taken to a local hospital while police scramble to find their families. Live from Portland, this is Amber Jones. Back to the studio."

Isis's interview came near the end. Malik didn't really see any of the stories before it, and only vaguely noticed Isis's story because his siblings came in to watch it with him.

Neutrally, Isis asked, "What did you think?"

Rishid was watching Malik very closely, the teen noticed after a moment. And he was smiling faintly, because he'd seen Forest Hills or because of something from Isis's feature he couldn't guess.

So he pulled Isis into a wordless hug and when he let her go announced he wanted to go for a walk. The three of them went out into the fog together.

… … … … … … … …

It was well past noon by the time Malik had risen and begun showering. Isis and Rishid were gone by now, housekeeping would have passed his room by, and it was still a little foggy and damp outside.

Hot water ran over the gashes on his arms, stinging, keeping his mind from wandering away.

He was free of Newton, and if anything could have lifted a weight from him, he supposed this would have been it. And it did help; panic was far from him now, and he could feel his old confidence prowling ever closer. Yet so did the same misery he'd been enveloped by for months now. And he couldn't shake it away, couldn't fight it, couldn't explain it. It simply was.

The difference was that now he knew he should feel better, and he didn't. There was simply no excuse for it, and so instead of allowing the grayness to fold around him, he became angry.

It was irrational to feel angry at himself, but it kept everything else at bay and he welcomed it. It was as close to feeling like himself that he'd come in nearly a year.

After what felt like a half hour but was probably closer to two, Malik got out and, without bothering to dry off or dress, lay down on his bed and listened.

It was something he'd done since his tenth birthday without really understanding. After that ceremony he'd had nothing to do but lay on his stomach in agony, and it got lonely when Rishid would leave. Sometimes the pain had been too strong for him to even think, and so he'd begun listening to nothing at all. After being forced to lie there for weeks, it had become something of a habit.

Malik had always been capricious, and in childhood when some sharp emotion would overcome him he would snap at Rishid or even Isis, but neither of them ever really reacted to it. Sometimes Isis would send him away as punishment, and he would run down unlit sandy corridors until he was panting and exhausted. Then he would sit near a lamp and hear darkness and water and his own tumbling thoughts. 'Listening' was a habit that had been useful when he'd grown and begun his hunt for the Pharaoh; it had kept his anger always burning, and it had allowed him to reach some of his most vicious schemes.

At some point in those long-ago hours, he'd begun hearing whispers. He heard them now in the daylight in a familiar hotel room, but they were faint and nothing half so threatening or chilling as that first voice he had created. And he could banish them. He knew that. He had banished a darkness that was far, far stronger than any whisper.

Then why couldn't he shrug off anything else? Emotions weren't truly more powerful than their master...were they?

Tersely he followed this vein of thought.

If he was honest, frustration wasn't even a feeling. It was a collage of emotion and color and actions and failures. It was an animal dragging his hopes and expectations through murky water. It stood by and waited until it could strip everything away, flay everything he tried to make himself be.

That was why he couldn't shake it off. Each time he tried, it fed frustration.

And yet...yet he wouldn't stop trying. That was inconceivable. There was nothing left at all if he stopped struggling.

Abruptly he stood up, had to wait for a wave of black dizziness to dissolve and then returned to the bathroom to dress.

It took an hour and a half to reach Ryou's apartment, but that was alright since Ryou wasn't even home from school yet. Malik had already resolved to wait inside for the other teen, so he walked around to the balcony. He carefully pushed the toes of his boots into the railing around the ground floor apartments, and then just as carefully climbed up to balance on it, grabbing the bottom of Ryou's balcony to steady himself.

He pushed up with his legs, prepared to shift his weight onto just his arms, and from there pull himself up against the railing as he'd done several times in the past. But as he took his weight off his legs, he found that he couldn't support himself. Frustration swept in as Malik had to allow himself to drop to the ground. He had never been too weak to hold his own weight, not even as a child.

It took a moment of tense, afternoon-heated silence before he realized that the gray numbness was gone. Instead of emptiness there was smothered irritation, directed not at himself but at his surroundings. It was a childish reaction, but one that he always had and had never been able to change.

And for the first time in nearly a year, he felt the familiarity of who he was. He was too stunned to wonder that the only way he could recognize himself from a distance was through feeling annoyed. The fact was that he felt something besides misery.

"Malik!"

That surprised exclamation had been Ryou, from behind him. Malik glanced over his shoulder, his agitation at the balcony fading quickly now that someone with keys was present. "You're home early."

There might have been a flicker of curiosity (as far as anyone knew, Malik couldn't possibly have known the other teen's schedule), but if so Ryou replaced it quickly with a smile. "Not really, I just finished a large test earlier than expected. I thought I'd come home and get something to eat before going back to school." He paused and sheepishly added, "Would you like to come in?" It was obvious that Malik would, since he was standing outside the building, but it was only polite to ask.

So the blond didn't answer, but instead led the way up to the door.

A/N: Kudos to the readers who predicted Kaiba would save the day! I considered a Rambo-type ending to the hospital, wherein Bakura and Ryou would jump in with truckloads of hand grenades and dynamite, but let's face it. Nothing is more scary than a pissed off accountant.