Chapter 5: Pain

Over the next few days nothing really improved. Mokuba kept having dreams his older brother would kill him and Seto still hadn't slept very much. He wished he knew what was going on with them. Seto knew he was suffering from his lack of sleep. Or at least the people around him were. He snapped at everyone who even looked at him. He was starting to get a little paranoid about everything.

"Big brother," said Mokuba

"What!" he snapped.

Mokuba stood in front of the door to his brother's room, afraid to go near him.

"I...I just wanted to know what's going on with you."

"Nothing!"

"You aren't acting like yourself."

"Mokuba, I need some time alone right now. Why don't you go down and bother Tilly for awhile instead of me!"

Mokuba sighed. He wasn't about to argue with his brother while he was in this kind of mood. Mokuba went back downstairs to the family room where Tilly was reading a book.

"I'm back, Til," said Mokuba.

She looked up from her book, "That was fast," she answered.

Tilly was one of the maids that worked for Kaiba. Actually she seemed like more than a maid. She did go around and clean up the house a bit, but she was also Mokuba's home schooling teacher. Also, whenever Kaiba had to go out of town on business she would be there watching Mokuba because she was one of the few people that he trusted with his younger brother. Tilly was there a lot too. She was Mokuba's friend and treated him like he was her own child. She had shoulder length dirty blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Yeah well he seems pretty mad," frowned Mokuba.

"He seems kinda grumpy lately."

"Why would he be grumpy?"

"Maybe he hasn't been sleeping very much."

Mokuba thought back to all the times when he ran to his brother's room when he'd had a bad dream. His brother was always awake doing some work for Kaiba Corp. He hadn't really noticed anything being odd because he'd been so upset when he ran in.

"Maybe you're right, Tilly," Mokuba said. "But I wanna know why he hasn't been sleeping."

"He could be working on something big again," she suggested.

"He would have told me that," said Mokuba.

"Don't bother him about it right now," she said. "Just stay here and watch TV or something."

"Okay," he said sadly although he really wanted to find out what was wrong with his big brother.

Upstairs, Seto typed furiously on his laptop, but his attention wasn't fully concentrated on his work. He was thinking about how his attitude has been toward his brother lately. He felt horrible knowing that it was scaring Mokuba. He kept trying to shake it out of his mind, but it wouldn't for some reason.

"Yes, that's it, mortal," said that dark voice. "Keep thinking about the hurt of your loved one so in turn it will hurt you."

Suddenly, Seto felt very light headed. He decided to take a break and go sit on his bed. Although the chair he was sitting in was next to his bed, he could barely walk because of the dizziness. As soon as he sat down on his bed, he passed out.

A few hours later he awoke to a stinging in his arm. The same arm and same spot that was already hurt. He grabbed it and felt that his sleeve was wet. He looked at his hand and saw blood on it.

"How did my arm start bleeding?" Seto asked himself. "I don't remember doing anything to it."

He walked over to his bathroom to clean it up. He was shocked when he looked at it. It looked like someone had cut it with a knife while he'd passed out. It wasn't very deep. Seto didn't know what to think, but decided not to worry Mokuba with it. He probably had enough on his mind already. So he hurriedly cleaned it up and wrapped a new bandage around it, and acted like nothing had even happened.

The next day was Friday, and Kaiba had to go to a very important meeting after school. He wasn't exactly looking forward to it either. In the middle of the meeting he decided to tell them to reschedule it. He could hardly pay attention between his drowsiness and the stinging in his arm. After many objections, he was able to persuade them to meet at a later point in time and went home.

When he got there the house was completely empty. Mokuba and Tilly weren't there. Kaiba was furious and went upstairs to his room to think, but ended up passing out again. He awoke again to stinging on both of his arms this time. He lifted his sleeves and saw some tiny cuts everywhere. They weren't deep just like the first one. They looked like tiny cat scratches. Deciding to ignore those he got up and looked out his bedroom window. It was dark outside, but he saw two figures running for the door. He decided to meet them downstairs. He was standing in front of the front door when Mokuba and Tilly ran inside.

"Mr. Kaiba!" Tilly gasped.

He glared at her.

"Mokuba, get upstairs," ordered Kaiba, not taking his eyes off Tilly.

"But, Seto..." he started.

"Don't argue with me!" he snapped. " Just do as I say and get upstairs!"

Mokuba ran up the steps and Kaiba started on Tilly.

"Where were you?"

"We...we went to the park, Mr. Kaiba," she answered. "Mokuba got done with his studies early so I took him to the park."

"And what gives you the right to take my brother anywhere you please?" he snapped.

"I just thought since you were going to be in that meeting for the rest of the day we would go to the park."

"Oh, so you thought since I wasn't going to be here it would be okay to take my brother anywhere you wanted?" Kaiba asked her. "Because you two would get back before I got home?"

"No Mr. Kaiba, I was pretty sure you would know that he was with me," she said.

"And what if he wasn't!" yelled Kaiba.

"Mr. Kaiba..."

"LISTEN! Mokuba is my responsibility! I need to know where he is!" Kaiba yelled. "When you watch him he is your partial responsibility! You don't make the decisions about what's best for him. I do. You have to clear things with me before you can take Mokuba anywhere!"

"I'm sorry, Sir," said Tilly. "It won't happen again."

"It had better not," said Kaiba. "You're fired."

"What!" she gasped.

"No!" yelled Mokuba from the top of the stairs.

"Mr. Kaiba, you can't."

"I beg to differ," he said. "Now get out, and never talk or come near my brother ever again."

"Please give me another chance," she begged.

Kaiba only glared at her. She decided not to argue with him. She sadly turned and left. Mokuba ran down the stairs in tears.

"Big brother, how could you?!" he sobbed.

"Because I had no idea where you were."

"You knew I was with her!"

"Maybe I didn't!"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just because she wasn't here doesn't mean that you were with her, Mokuba!"

"Why would she have just left me here!?"

"There could have been another maid here."

"You didn't have any right to fire her!" Mokuba yelled.

"I was her employer and she was my employee. I had the complete right to fire her!"

"What ever happened to MY big brother?"

"What?" Seto blinked in surprise.

"The one that was nice to everyone," said Mokuba. "Where exactly did he go?"

"He's dead and buried six feet under with your mother and your father and he's not coming back!" Kaiba yelled.

"I don't see how Mama could have loved someone like you!" Mokuba yelled at him.

Seto was shocked, "What?"

"You heard me. I don't understand how she would love someone as cold hearted as you are!" exclaimed Mokuba. "She was probably happy that she died so she could get away from you!"

Seto couldn't say anything. He stood there for the longest time staring at the floor beside Mokuba.

"Get out of my sight," he finally said.

Mokuba, who was still in tears, ran up to his room. Seto felt like he was about to cry as well. He never expected that his younger brother would say something like that to him. He sank to his knees thinking about how his life used to be. He looked up towards the ceiling.

"You promised that you'd be there for me," Seto whispered. "But you left me."

He knew his mother didn't mean to leave him. It wasn't her fault that she bled to death. It just happened. He made the same promise to Mokuba, and he didn't want to break it. Especially because there was no one else in their family.

'I'm beginning to grow stronger,' said the voice. 'It won't be too much longer.'

All of the sudden Seto felt a sharp pain on his shoulder. He grabbed it which made it hurt a little more. Then he felt the blood on his hand.

'What's happening to me?' Seto thought to himself. 'I know that no one was around to do this to me.'

He quickly went to clean it up and then got back to work.

The sound of Mokuba's sobs were the only sounds coming from his room. He didn't know why he said those things to his brother. He knew his brother was different before they were adopted. It was like he couldn't help himself. He'd seen the hurt look on his brother's face, and that made him cry harder. Seto never looked like that before. Mokuba didn't know what to do. He wanted to tell his brother he was sorry, but he knew that Seto probably didn't want to see him. Mokuba sighed and thought about his brother's words, "He's dead and buried six feet under with your mother and your father and he's not coming back!"

Mokuba sometimes wondered if that was true. He tried to shake it out of his head and soon cried himself to sleep.

The voice laughed with satisfaction,

"The more pain my mortal host feels the stronger I become, whether it be physical or emotional pain." The voice laughed once more. "I'll use this boy's fears to destroy him."