Chapter 5

Trying to work was increasingly difficult. The more he tried to keep on task, the more the burning image of…of…her stayed in his mind.

"Wait," he said aloud. "I am not seeing her. I am seeing my favorite Duel Monsters card. They are not the same." He felt his sanity was leaving. How could those two be mixed together? Talking aloud seemed to help him see the reality in his life by forcing him to notice that he was living and acknowledging reincarnation did not exist.

"Why is it those two are like one in my mind? It doesn't make sense to me. Yes, they both have blue eyes, but if I start categorizing people according to that, soon many others will be seeming like Duel Monsters."

He took it back. This was not helping. Nothing could help. Despite all the walls between them, Kaiba felt he knew exactly where Kiseira was.

I need to do something, anything, to take my mind off it.

Kaiba dug out his deck from his briefcase, cutting it to one of his favorite cards. He gazed at the dragon in all its glory, blue eye glittering in intelligence. For the first time, he looked at the white dragon body, realizing how it reminded him of the paleness of the girl. Maybe, somewhere in his past, he had seen Kiseira when using one of his Blue-Eyes White Dragons. That at least made some sense.

Deck not really helping, Kaiba replaced it with caution and care in its holder. Then, he stood up. Work and all thought of it abandoned, he was going to do something to get himself rid of the memories. No! They were not memories! They were just some phantasms sprung from an over-acute memory. But if that was all it was, someone else might have some answers.

Down the hall, last door on the right. Or the second-to-last, depending on where she was.

For the first time, he realized he had not told her where the library was, what computers she could use, or any other types of hobbies in order to fill her day when Metsukiao was not fussing.

Within the room of the infant, she was sitting on a rocking chair with Metsukiao. She looked up when he entered and gave a timid smile.

Now that he was here, of course he did not know what to say. Why are you haunting my thoughts? Do I really know you? Why do I think of my Blue-Eyes instead of you? All those questions were questions he would never ask.

He had to be the one to explain himself, however. "I was just wondering if you could explain something to me."

"Yes?" she said quietly, continuing to rock back and forth. Her eyes were mostly focusing on the child except for the occasional glimpse of Kaiba.

Crossing his arms, Kaiba reassured himself that if he sounded like a fool, it would not really matter in front of her. After all, she acted stranger than this.

"Have I seen you before?"

A pure, sweet smile crossed her lips. "I said I knew you, Seto. Don't you know me?"

Turning away, a frustrated groan came from him.

Horrified, the girl ceased her rocking and stood up. "I'm so sorry. I did not mean to insult you." Eyes worried, she looked as if she could have cried for her mistake, whatever it was.

For some reason, the sharp retort always present on his tongue did not release itself. Maybe it was because of how contrite the girl was already. Or maybe it was because his strange dreams and visions held nothing but gratefulness and even awe, though he scorned to think it, for this girl. It made no sense and he refused to acknowledge it. Either way, he decided not to make an issue of her vague sentences.

"It wasn't an insult. I…just don't understand…" Such a helpless feeling was alien to the young CEO, and he did not want it to continue.

Her voice was closer, making him tense. "It is hard. But I trust you will accept and understand. I can wait until you do."

Too many riddles. "Don't you know anything you're talking about? Can't you tell me something substantial?" The rage overpowered him for a moment as he turned and grasped her shoulders. Even just seeing her so contrite did not stop him from tightening his hold. "I don't believe in any hocus-pocus nonsense! Why can't you be in the reality more?" With every few seconds, he gave her a little jerk. The long hair that always struggled to fall into her face jerked like a spider trying to catch itself before hitting the ground.

Metsukiao began wailing as she was in a forced rocking that was not very comfortable. Kiseira's eyes were wide and swiftly growing terrified. Yet, with her weak body, she could not hope to break free—especially with a baby clasped in her arms.

From the doorway, a gasp sounded. "Seto! Stop it!"

A smaller form grabbed him and pulled on his arms. Slowly realizing what he was doing, Kaiba's eyes were as wide as the others'. Trembling a moment, he released her shoulders. Everything was silent but the child.

Glancing from face to horrified face, Kaiba could not believe his actions. He looked at his whitened hands and formed them into fists.

"Seto, how could you?" Mokuba was going over to the frightened girl and child.

For one brief second, Kaiba looked around. Then, he turned and hastened out of the place.

-

Everything had been going terribly wrong. The lack of sleep, the strange dreams and sights, the vague words, and the feeling of a faint stirring of memory.

"…and lastly, the denial of your past, Kaiba! The past makes us who we are!"

"Look at the priest across from the pharaoh. That's you, Kaiba."

"There's a poem for the pharaoh written by you, Kaiba!"

"Aaah!" Kaiba clutched his head hating all his memories of people claiming a past that did not happen. "It's just not true!"

And now, it was making him act oddly. To shake an infant as he had been shaking Kiseira…that could be deadly. His brother would be furious with him and Kiseira frightened. As to himself, Kaiba could not blame them. What could he possibly say to justify his actions? There was no way to do so.

Looking across the river, Kaiba settled on its bank for an extended stay. He was not worried anyone would be searching for him.

-

There was an uncanny silence once the baby stopped crying. Kiseira had given over the child easily and sunk into her rocking chair. Her eyes had seemed to lose some color and turned closer to ice than the lake waters. Also, her flesh was clammy and cold.

"I'm sorry, Kiseira. I had no idea he would do something like that. I don't understand what's going on. But, I will understand if you want to move on and get out of here. You shouldn't have to deal with such stuff." Mokuba's face was turned away, though his voice betrayed his emotions as it became thick with unshed tears.

Someone she had trusted beyond all others. What had happened?

Right then, the boy needed more comfort than she did. Metsukiao was placed in her crib, and Kiseira swiveled Mokuba around to face her as she crouched there.

"No, Mokuba,"—here she smiled—"I am not going anywhere. This is where I have been searching, that I know. And Seto? He is still searching. Soon, he will find it."

The boy raised his depressed face to look into her eyes, his own sparkling and shining in the struggle to keep his tears in.

"I don't know what you mean," he whispered.

"You might yet. Right now, I don't want you to be angry."

He did not answer, but his hands were clenched in fists. Kiseira took them, however, and pulled them apart.

"Anger has never solved anything. And, he is lost, as I said. He did not know what he did."

Mokuba still did not reply, merely leaving his hands limp at his sides. He turned and walked out the door, sending back one last question for thought.

"How many others will he hurt until he does know what he does?"

-

There was a light meal for those in the household, but neither Mokuba nor Kiseira arrived for it. Instead, some food was placed in their respective rooms. Master Kaiba's was still vacant.

The sun was sinking into the horizon in a watery vision of pale yellows and pinks. Birds ceased their flapping and settled into their homes for the night, giving up the sky for other beasts. Several pinpricks of light appeared in the velvet midnight blue garment worn by Night. Soon, a waxing crescent would join them.

Out near the river, not far enough from the road to eliminate all sounds of accelerations, honks, and engines, the time passed as it must. To the one there, however, he did not notice it slipping away. Nor did he appear to care about the deepening gloom settling in among him. To his back, several streetlights sent forth a sickly, orange glow. Before him, the clear light of the stars and thin moon were reflected in the inky blackness of the softly gurgling river. Such light was too gentle to illuminate anything.

Ishizu had told him, had shown him images from Egypt. Yugi had even been trying to mess with his mind during their last duel on his tower by telling him to believe his past. But he had not wanted to. In a world where science explained everything worthwhile, it could not explain the images of a sandy country beset with pyramids. There was no understanding why that stone tablet he had seen before, one of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, kept coming before his eyes with a reflection of Kiseira. Things like this did not happen to a well-respected CEO who felt science and research could conclude anything.

Now, Kaiba thought, I'll pretend as if reincarnation really exists and that I was a priest in Egypt. Kiseira must have been there. In Ancient Egypt. And what? She commonly used the Blue-Eyes?

That did not make sense with how Ishizu told it. "If you have any more doubts, look at his monster. It's the Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" That monster was his and his alone.

Where could he find answers? Kaiba wanted to laugh. There were no answers, no proofs. That was why he was having such difficulties in the first place.

Ishizu was gone, and that wacky woman had been the one to claim to know a lot. Her Millennium Necklace showed her images…what a joke.

His heart thudded to a stop suddenly. She had given her item to someone else. And what was more, that same someone had another item that perked his interest, but he would never admit that he was intrigued.

Slowly, Kaiba got to his feet and dusted himself off. This was the last person he wanted to seek out…No, that would be Wheeler. But Yugi was a close second. Sometimes, though, he had to do things he did not enjoy for future benefits. There was no way he was going back to his house until he had some answers about what was happening to him. He could not risk harming his brother or even his foster sister. The last person there he refused to include, though it was she who was most on his thoughts.

-

The knock came as a surprise. Who would knock on their store's doors after hours? Grumbling about people who did not know how to read, Grandpa Moto went over to put an end to the incessant knocking.

"Can't you see we're—"

Kaiba stood there, glaring at him. "Yes, I know you're closed, which is why I am not here to buy something. I need to talk to Yugi," he finished in a mutter.

"Yuuugiiii!"

Well, gee, I could have done that and sounded a lot more threatening to make him come, Kaiba thought.

Panting as he came running into the room, he skidded to a halt when he saw the CEO just within the doorway.

"Oh, hi, Kaiba."

"I came for one reason and one reason only." Kaiba stopped and looked at Solomon Moto.

He got the hint. "I'll just go and leave you youngsters to yourselves." He walked away. It was just in time. Kaiba's eyes had grown much narrower at the word "youngsters."

Yugi's huge eyes were extraordinarily serious. "Yeah? What is it?"

This was uncomfortable. Usually, he hated to even think about this topic, which reminded him that perhaps he was wrong about all these odd memories. "I need to talk to the other Yugi." There, he had said it.

Within a flash, a sterner voice came from Yugi to go along with his harsher eyes. "What's going on, Kaiba?"

Why did everything Yami say sound like a threat? At least, every time he spoke Kaiba's name it was like a promise of death to him.

Scowling, Kaiba shoved his hands into his pockets and replied, "I want to know about Egypt." Then he looked the pharaoh in the eye and waited.

Yami smirked. "I thought you didn't believe in your past, Kaiba. I'm glad you're finally beginning to come to grips with it."

It was more like it was gripping him. By the throat.

"So, let's get this over with. What do you know?"

"I think it might be best if we used the Millennium Necklace, don't you? It can probably show you more than I remember. I, too, have lost most of my memory of the ancient world. But that was not because I was trying to bury it."

Kaiba had had enough of the jibes. It was only the image of his brother's panic-stricken, horrified face that kept him here. He needed answers so he could go back to being himself and not harm anyone.

Yami led the way through the shop back to Yugi's room. Then, from a sack, he pulled forth the Necklace. Something within the bag still pulsed and seemed to have life to Kaiba, and it was with a strain he pulled his consciousness from it and attended to the Spirit of the Puzzle.

He was putting his hands on the Necklace and closing his eyes. For a long while, nothing happened. Obviously, the pharaoh did not know how to use it as well as Ishizu.

"How odd," Yami said with a frown as he opened his eyes. "It seems not to be showing me anything from the past at all. I see absolutely nothing. But I know it has worked for me before." He still remembered seeing the image of Joey and him dueling in the streets after the Battle City Tournament was over. That had happened.

Kaiba was thinking what a waste it all had been when his attention was diverted by the throbbing, pulsing item still in the bag. It held whispers for Kaiba, calling, "…sand…hot…pyramids…priest….duels….Ka…Blue-Eyes…Seto…Kisara…"

"What…" Kaiba cleared his throat. "What about the Millennium Rod?"

With a start, Yami made the connection. Yami Marik had claimed Kaiba had tapped into its forces before and changed the future because of what he saw there. That was why he had won the duel against Ishizu.

"Of course!" Yami exclaimed. He dug into the bag and pulled the slender shaft out. Atop it, last to appear, was the odd ball-like decoration that had an engraving of an eye on it and two appendages like mini axes coming off from either side.

Kaiba reached out his hand to take it. Before he could do so, the item began glowing purple and a ching sound came from it. As his hand settled around it, he was aware of how right it seemed.

Instantly, Kaiba was where he had been once before. It was like when he entered his virtual world and saw the world going by him as he stood. Instead of his made world, images were flying past: the same images that haunted him by night and with every closing of his eyes.

There was the faceless pharaoh, peering at him intently. Next, a collection of others with dark skin and glowing items, dressed in flowing garments. Out of place was one girl with skin as pale as the reflecting stars above. She was ill, lying on a bed. Then came the picture that had come to him on his Dueling Ship. He, an ancient priest, was holding the white-haired girl as he stood before a tablet depicting an engraving of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And now, he understood something else. The girl was dead.

Suddenly, a priest wearing a mask of black came to view. His triumphant feeling was evident like when a dreamer can feel something or just know. He was overshot with the image of Gozaburo, but the connection between them was not like Kiseira and the Blue-Eyes, or even Kiseira and Kisara. Gozaburo and that priest merely acted similarly. The one was not the vassal for the other.

All the sensory images were accelerating, showing items that made little sense. There was a burning village, a vanished pharaoh, a white-haired thief in red robes, and many, many, different Duel Monsters. Some of them were different, however. The cards he played with had faces and looked human if they were humanoid monsters. Some of these were blank-faced. One, the Dark Magician, got a face, one that had been on a priest from before. The pictures accelerated, as if some other mind controlled them and was growing excited and needed to get through them all quickly.

A pain had started in his head and now, except that he was seeing visions, he knew Yugi's room would be all black.

"ENOUGH!" he screamed, dropping the Rod with a clang and holding his head with one hand.

The room came back into view, but slowly, Kaiba realized he was on the floor. This had happened with the visions Ishizu showed him as well, but kneeling before the pharaoh was shameful. With a great struggle, he rose to his feet.

The other Yugi was looking at him thoughtfully. As Kaiba grew aware of his surroundings, he wondered if he had truly screamed aloud. Had the boy's grandfather come running?

If he had, all was quiet and still now. Yami dropped the hand he had extended to help him rise. Kaiba did not even remember seeing it.

"So, you saw some of your past?"

"That must mean you didn't. Yes, I did."

"The Rod shows me nothing. It was yours, you know. That much I am aware of." After a pause, Yami said diffidently, "You could take it for awhile. Maybe it will show you more when you are able to handle it. Thus far, I don't know when I will need it."

For some odd reason, Kaiba was nodding. Already, his hand had reclaimed the long piece of gold. "I will take it." Realizing what he was doing, he added hastily, "Just until you need it." Certainly, the CEO had no reason to keep it or even want to keep it.

The pharaoh nodded gravely. The next moment, Yugi's wide eyes were peering up at him.

"I'm so glad you came, Kaiba! I hope the Spirit helped with what you needed!" He smiled at the young man.

"Yes, he did," Kaiba said abstractly, gazing at the Millennium item in his hand.

Kaiba was turning to leave when Yugi called over to him somewhat quietly, "It can be hard to deal with, Kaiba. I know." He hesitated, wondering how far his main adversary would let him go. "You can always come to me for help if you want it. It was the trust of my friends that really helped me."

Kaiba chuckled darkly. "Yes, well, I'll be certain to speak to my friends about it, Yugi. I'm sure they'll be as accepting as yours since they're a figment of my imagination and act as I wish." With that, Kaiba walked out the door. A moment later, the bells on the shop's front door rang out in the still house.

Yugi sighed. At least Kaiba was beginning to accept something.