Lightning-Dono: Hmmm...Things are about to grow between Isis and Kaiba from this point on. :) Be it hatred or love, it grows.

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Everything had been under control. Kaiba had carried out one of the best orders in his whole entire lifetime. But even so, he felt a sudden decline in his once growing enthusiasm. Something just didn't feel right. It felt like what he had just done had left a gaping hole where something should've belonged. It was like being a scientist, looking at a crater, and just knowing that there should atleast have been a meteorite there to fill in the missing blanks.

The reason why Kaiba felt so horrible was because why he had done it. He hadn't just commanded his workers to do such things just because he liked the way the words felt on his tongue. To him, it was like sweet revenge for annoying him. Just bugging him out of his mind had made Isis go through what she had.

But even more, it was because of what he had felt when Isis had asked him how he felt about her. Of course, Kaiba was expecting nothing more than a simple, "I don't feel a single thing. In fact, I couldn't care less about you and your lovey-dovey ways." to come from his mouth. Instead, he was faced with the fear that he actually liked her, unlike the things he had believed before. Wasn't Isis nothing to him? Kaiba had pondered upon this fact for so long his head had spun like a Merry-Go-Round on hyper speed. Then why had he started sweating profusely when she had inquired how he felt about the time they had been together? He had felt a hot feeling, like boiling water rising up through his veins and spilling through his pores, making his face turn as red as a ripe strawberry.

He couldn't spend much more time thinking about such things. The man was CEO; meaning he had a company to run, and if he didn't do his job, the building would crumble beneath his feet like a poked toothpick house. Kaiba thought that the company was already at a vulnerable enough position due to the fact that he had just executed his men to commit a crime, unknowingly, with him.

Kaiba thought he could feel the Earth rotate on it's axis; the rough, buoyant waves of terror carrying him all the way to the control room, where he heard something that he dreaded hearing. He didn't want to elongate the time between now and when he would be figured out, so instead of turning and pounding down the hall in the opposite direction, he listened to a playback of the last moments in that helicopter.

"MAYDAY! MAYDAY!" Came a despaired cry, fuzzed by static. The person sounded much like hell was ascending and coming to suck him in. Kaiba could barely hear the plea due to the racket of ricocheting metals in the background. Just the very noise made his stomach do back flips as his chest tightened, making it hard for him to breathe.

Relax, he told himself calmly. Your mind is making you nutty. The sharp voice of the man that arrived to him broke through.

"This message was given by the helicopter that you had sent to carry a passenger to Egypt. Unfortunately, it crashed. Suspicions have been aroused that the crash was caused by lack of fuel." He held out a fully typed document; neat, centered, and double-spaced, just like Kaiba wanted all of the paperwork to be.

He refused to take it, for he already knew what had happened.

"It has been confirmed that the fuel meter had stopped directly at empty, which meant that either the engine was going haywire or the fuel tank had actually been emptied. Evidence points to the empty tank because they broke it to find that there was not a sufficient amount of fuel left." The man raised his sunglasses to eye his boss in question.

"We'll take care of that soon," Kaiba replied, his voice not even shaking. But internally, that was a different story. He felt like his whole system was shutting down as he drew up a chair weakly and collapsed onto it, holding his head.

The last person he had ever wanted to see came running up to him from a room down the hall.

"'Niisama!" Mokuba cried, skidding infront of Kaiba, regaining his balance, and stumbling over to his brother.

"...What?" Groaned Kaiba, turning towards the wide-eyed pre-teen before him.

Mokuba cleared his throat. "It has been reported that the pilot and the passenger of the said crashed helicopter survived, but the co-pilot was later rushed to the emergency room of a hospital in Saudi Arabia, but later passed away." The boy paused to sniff up a tear. "The pilot and passenger are still in critical condition, but experienced doctors say that they will make it." Mokuba looked up at his brother, who was weary and slumped over in an unusually lazy position.

"Good. Send the family of the co-pilot a bouquet of red roses and a card to inform them of his death. I'll make sure that the pilot and passenger are fine by paying them a brief visit." Kaiba displayed a grim smile and sent his brother on his way.

- - - - -

She was lost in a mess of white, soft blanket. Surrounded by tangled wires that threatened to strangle her. But she couldn't let them! Flailing her arms, she thrashed at the things that were delaying the inescapable. Isis partially knew that she would be dead in a matter of time. Why else would they be placing white blankets over her and connecting her bloodstream to wires where they inserted salty fluid to sustain her body's chemical needs.

Isis opened her eyes to appear in a whitewashed world. The flickering lights from a TV flashed around the room, soft music projecting from the black box. So she wasn't gone from this world. Not yet. And even if she was, this was the last place she would've chose to have been.

The unmoving air smelled of medicines and sickness while a dull buzz resounded in the background from machinery that were being used by doctors to test certain things. The room was confined, sheets strewn across the floor from beds that were being cleaned by maids. People lay on the beds beside hers, either in deep slumber or propped up on pillows, watching the aliens skip around on colorful clouds of rainbow on the TV. Certainly there was something better on, but Isis understood the use of a peaceful, kiddy show. It prevented tension from patients and kept them from overreacting to their present condition.

"Nnh," Isis groaned, just for the heck of it. Apparently, the nurses were deaf and walked by without even noticing that was sitting up, supported by her elbows. Suddenly, a sharp pain grew in her side, forcing her back down, whimpering in pain, trying to mute the throbbing ache by clutching her side. For some reason, her side was as hard as plastic, which frightened her out of her wits until she pulled back the sheets and noticed the thick bandaging.

Finally, a nurse that was dressed in a light pink gown with badges and a white jacket worn over it was attentive enough to notice that Isis was awake.'

"Ah, new patient, eh?" Her accent was nothing close to that of...Where was she, anyway?

"Where am I?" Isis asked.

"You are at a hospital in Saudi Arabia." It was a British accent for certain. Her light brown hair fanned out around her as she rushed to Isis's side to help the woman up. "You were found in a helicopter wreck reported earlier today. Luckily we found you or you would've bled to death. Imagine – a piece of metal this big-," the nurse indicated by using huge arm gestures, supposedly measuring out an imaginary fragment of metal. "-piercing your side! They thought you were done for, but I insisted."

"What a suck up," Isis muttered angrily. She didn't need anyone boasting for believing she was alive after suffering that horrible ordeal. Just the knowledge that her love had tried to kill her was too great for Isis's fragile mind to handle.

The nurse was distracted for a split second. "Huh? What was that?"

Isis returned to her original, semi-innocent personality. "Nothing. Just saying 'Suck it all up'. My brother used to say it whenever we had to endure something that inflicted extreme frustration." She smiled in a fake cheery way.

"Oh." The nurse seemed a little puzzled, but she let it go. "Anything you would like to drink? Juice?"

"Water will do."

The young, long-haired lady before her seemed a little startled to hear a patient refuse sugared drinks. They were good for keeping energy levels up, but with what she was hearing from Isis now, perhaps sugarless drinks were much preferred.

Isis let out a sigh through her nose. "I hope you're enjoying your triumph, Kaiba." Kaiba had every right to be celebrating right now, but Isis couldn't see why. If she were him, she would've been moving several thousand miles away to live under a new identity so the cops couldn't find her. But even so, he was world renowned Kaiba Seto, creator of duel disks and technology surrounding the area of Duel Monsters. The man with the unsurpassable knowledge of how to create life-like holograms of monsters and allow humans to experience virtual reality. Many people already had their eye on him and would certainly notice it if he just suddenly neglected all work and flown off a different country to sit on the street and play pretend.

Much to Isis's amusement, the nurse tripped on a loose floor tile on the way back. She suppressed a laugh as the lady kindly handed her the glass that was now half-filled with water.

"Sorry about that," she apologized, worry fluctuating her voice.

Isis was about to reply, in an attitude-filled voice, "Don't be sorry, just don't do it!" But her condition held her back. Besides, Isis realized that was immature and insensible, so she accepted the apology and took the glass of iced water. Condensation built up on the side of the glass as she leaned against the stack pillows behind her to watch the presently speaking aliens. They were conversing in another language, so it all sounded like random gibberish to her.

Then, the door swung open easily and there, in the middle of the doorway, stood a tall man, clutching the handle of his briefcase like his life depended on it. His eyes were cold, but hinted of worry and regret.

Her hands nearly slipped to drop the glass and spill the freezing water all over her front. What in the world was he doing there? It wasn't everyday that you attempt to injure someone else, or cripple them for life, and come to say sorry. But knowing the person standing there, he probably wasn't coming to hand out roses and donate to the coat charity in the lobby. He probably came for something more.

"Konnichi wa, Isis."

For once in their entire lifetimes, Kaiba's eyes beamed right into Isis's. Finally they were seeing.

Eye to eye.