Dear Doctor
JK: This is it folks! The last chapter! Wow! As with 'I swear by Apollo', most of it was written when I was supposed to be studying for more mock exams. Joy.
Entry Collection no. 12: ludorum rex
Subtitled (Latin): (The) King of Games
Dedicated to Dave, this is my last present to you, Grandave. It's not exactly handmade, but it's certainly from the heart.
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, and I am not a doctor.
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Dear Journal,
Well, Kaiba-sama won the duel against Jounouchi-san. Maybe he'll be in a good enough mood to grant me some leave?
I certainly hope so!
In any case, Motou-san and Ishtal-san are having the final duel at the moment. Fingers crossed for the little guy winning! Ishtal-san certainly won't like losing, but he'll deserve it all right… knocking me out like that…
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Later…
Things are starting to get weird. Rashiid-san just up and left his room. I checked with the medics I stationed there. Turns out they all decided to go looking for a cup of coffee at the same time. Very unprofessional. I'll be having a word with their supervisor later. There is simply no excuse for negligence like that.
Well, in the meantime, my patient has gone missing again.
Wonderful.
I expect the sky to fall on my head any minute now.
The traditional 'pair of smoking boots', anybody?
I'd better go and send out security to look for him… again…
Do you think I'm becoming a little bit jaded here?
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Later…
The little guy won! Hooray! Now we can get off this kami-sama-forsaken island, back to civilisation, and I can start begging Kaiba-sama for that holiday.
In other, equally important news, both Rashiid-san and Bakura-san have turned up, safe, and not too much the worse for wear, according to my preliminary check-up. Best of all, Kujaku-san has woken up! She's in the clear! I can start to breathe again.
Even if, for some reason, she wants me to pretend that she's still under. I think I heard she and Jounouchi-san's sister talking earlier about an 'evil joke', of some sort. No doubt, they're going to give Jounouchi-san a bit of a scare. Perhaps I should stay in the room and watch? I think I certainly deserve to, when you consider how much of a scare he's given me during our stay here.
Of course, possibly the best part out of all this is the fact that it's now only a matter of time until this blimp is fixed, and we all get back to Domino, until I can have a nice, steaming, wonderful cup of coffee…
Yes! Excellent!
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Later…
Dear Diary.
I promised myself that I wasn't going to call you that, but this is the sort of moment that deserves a sappy beginning like that.
Dear Diary,
I've seen many things in my nineteen-odd years as a doctor. I've seen people born, I've seen patients die, and I'm pretty sure I've even seen most of what happens in between.
I've watched people with cancer live long and full lives, and I've seen children die before their true time.
I've seen crippled walk, and athletes collapse.
I've seen most of it, and treated it all to the best of my ability. There's always more to see though, always something different, always new advances being made, information being discovered…
I've been tempted, a few times, in the dead of night, when a patient I've been treating has passed away, to give it up, to hang up my stethoscope and go home, and then…
Then I saw another live, against all the odds, and I realised that, come what may, the ups and the downs have to be taken as they come.
It's not that there's just a light at the end of the tunnel. It's that, sometimes, that light isn't really a train coming straight for you.
Jounouchi-san is fine. He's energetic, even. Bouncy.
I'm still treating Rashiid-san for some of his more severe burns, but I expect him to make a full and complete recovery in short order. I'm taking advantage of this opportunity to treat him for exhaustion. Turns out he went all the way to the top of that damned tower, too. In his condition!
I've also arranged to have Ishtal-san treated for exhaustion, and have urged Isis-sama to get him to see a specialist for his apparent psychosis. She has assured me that he will, and I accept her word.
Kujaku-san appears to be fully recovered, which is leaving me entirely confused.
Possibly the strangest of all of this is the mysterious return of Bakura Ryou from wherever he was hiding. I've given him a complete examination, and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with him. Even the cut on his arm seems to be healing well – perhaps a little too quickly, but there is no sign of any infection. He certainly appears to be utterly healthy. If it weren't for the few, oddly lost moments that he had while I was examining him, I'd say there was nothing wrong with him. He's in the peak of physical health, though he refuses to tell me about where he was, and how he avoided being found by the security teams.
The only people who remain injured from this little field-trip-of-terrors are Omi-san and Mathews-san.
They received normal, average, everyday, human injuries. They weren't struck by lightning that shouldn't have been there, they weren't suddenly flung into comas, they just took a step at the wrong moment on this blimp.
Is it just me, or is there something strange in itself about that?
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Much later…
I've finally found you.
It's been a very long time since I looked at these pages. Nigh on three years, in fact. Looking back, I still can't believe that any of this ever really happened, but at least now I have you to remind me that they did. My own little bit of proof.
Perhaps I should fill up this last page?
Yes, I think that would be best.
Don't think that I would leave this tale unfinished, the ending needs to be told, and you, m diary, seem to almost be begging to know what happened after Battle City.
I… I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. I'm not sure why… But… It's almost as though you want the last page to be filled. You want the story to end, just as you called to me when I first saw you, to pick you up, to buy you…
To write in this journal, to record those events, a dairy of happenings, stranger than fiction…
Hm…
Omi married Hana, and they had two boys and a little girl. They still work for Kaiba Corp, although not always with me.
Gregory Mathews went on to become Mokuba Kaiba's personal bodyguard, but was fired when he hit on one of Mokuba's teachers.
The husband of the guard in charge of security cameras on the blimp got an XU1 Cordless Drill for his birthday.
And as for me? I got that holiday that I was after. Kaiba-sama agreed that I could do with a break. Three whole weeks! It was pure bliss.
Later on, I wrote an essay about comas, and was laughed out of the scientific community. I still work for Seto Kaiba however, on the proviso that I never make public the events aboard the Battle City Blimp.
But who'd believe me anyway?
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The contents of this diary are classified, and not to be released to the public. The consequences of any possible public knowledge of the aforementioned events are far too terrible to be considered.
Signed:
-Name blanked out for security reasons-
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JK: To our beloved Doctor, we bid a fond farewell. Maybe, one day, I'll take him out again, clean up this story again, and see what happens.
Until then, well… We'll just have to see, won't we?
Of course, there's always the chance that I might write a few more stories about him… or about Omi, Hana, and Mathews.
The point remains.
It might not even be this year, but…
The tale will continue.
JK Fie'r, 2005