Chapter 14

After hearing the announcement about Roland's death, Kaiba did not hesitate to continue his search for Mokuba. It was almost dawn and he, Serenity and Zene had already trekked for some hours, before the locator had started to bleep. But as they now followed the signals that it had picked up, Kaiba knew that they would soon be seeing his brother.

He hadn't planned on leaving Emma behind, but knew that she would understand the situation that he faced. But still Kaiba felt uneasy with the two girls who were practically strangers to him and would have felt better if he had somebody there that he bonded with.

It was only then that he realized it was his own fault for the isolation he had caused himself. It wasn't like there weren't people who wanted to get to know him, but he had become so use to pushing people aside that may of them were now dead and the chances to become friends gone.

He suddenly felt all alone and quietly spoke the chorus of a song that he had heard Emma listening to a few days earlier. Strangely enough it kind of reminded him of her;

"All of this from a girl who's

Scared of the spiders

And she's scared of the dark

She's scared of the bogeymen in the park

But if anybody comes near me

I know she'll cut their balls off"

Kaiba looked up from the locator and in the distance saw Mokuba standing with Duke and Andrew. "Mokuba!" he called out at the top of his voice and was unable to hide his joy as his brother turned towards him and began to run closer.

Zene and Serenity collapsed on to the ground as they were exhausted to go any further. At least now they knew where everyone was and didn't have to worry about being eliminated anymore. Zene still had her doubts but at the moment she was willing to trust both Kaiba and Serenity since they had made it this far together, and possibly even the other three since the eliminations that had been announced were mainly people who she had been travelling with. Perhaps other people weren't as bad as she imagined.

Kaiba dropped the locator since it had served its purpose of helping him find Mokuba and ran to meet his brother half way. All of his loneliness seemed to disappear at the sight and though of being reunited with the one person he wouldn't be able to live without.

"Seto!" Mokuba shouted happily and laughed as he raced towards him. He felt as though it was taking forever to be with his brother again but knew that nothing could separate them now that they were together again.

Suddenly there was a loud explosion as parts of earth were thrown up in to the air. Kaiba used his arm to shield his face as the earth rained down on him. When it had stopped he lowered his arm and the sight that met him was unbearable for him to handle. On the ground Mokuba was sprawled out in all directions as his body had been twisted from the explosion of the landmine that he had triggered.

"Mokuba!" Kaiba screamed and rushed to where he lay. There were tears built up in his eyes as he lifted Mokuba in to his arms. Black hair covered Mokuba's face which Kaiba moved out of the way to see his brother look as though he was peacefully sleeping. "Wake up, Mokuba." he said in a tearful voice as he gently shook him.

"Player, Mokuba, has been eliminated. Five players still remaining." the speaker called out.

By the time that the other four had reached the tragically reunited Kaiba brothers, Kaiba had already pulled Mokuba close to him, his face buried in his chest as he shook and wept silently.

Emma had tried as hard as she could to reactivate the millennium key, whilst Noah tried to summon up a control panel to allow him to try and gain access to the programme's data so that they could open a window for Emma to re-enter the game.

"Maybe we'd have more luck if we worked together." Emma said as she approached Noah and placed the chain of her millennium item around his neck so that it now hung on them both. "Just focus on opening up the window that we need."

Together they closed their eyes and thought only of escaping from where they were. The millennium key began to glow and a computer screen and keyboard appeared.

"It worked." Noah could hardly control his amazement as he ducked out from under the chain and began to type away at the keyboard. Emma watched the screen as the images changed as Noah was circling through all of the views of the game that were available. "I've found them." he said as he zoomed in to the group of people that were out it the open.

Emma was glad to see that Kaiba and the girl's had found Duke and Andrew, but as she looked closer she could see Mokuba's dead body as Kaiba cradled him in a similar way to that of a parent would hold a small child. "This could tear him apart." she gasped and turned to Noah. "Come on lets go."

"You're taking me out of this place!" Noah asked in surprise.

"Unless you want to stay here." she replied as she held out the still glowing millennium key in front of the screen. She quickly found that Noah and herself were being pulled through to the other side and back in to the game, and as soon as her friends appeared before her Emma strode straight up to where Kaiba was.

"Where did you come from?" Zene sounded shocked at just seeing Emma appear out of nowhere.

Emma hadn't heard Zene as she was too focused on Kaiba. All she wanted to do was to hug and comfort him, but knew that she wouldn't be able to keep herself together for him if she did. He had told her earlier that somebody had to remain strong otherwise none of them would make it out of the game, and knew that at that moment she was the one who had to be strong for them. The only thing that was keeping her from breaking down was the fact that she now knew that none of what they had experienced was real, but she knew that Kaiba wouldn't believe it even if she tried to explain everything. She just had to get everyone out and end all this as soon as possible.

"Seto get up." Emma ordered Kaiba in a stern voice. She didn't like the way she was sounding but knew that it was necessary. "It's just a computer programme designed by Gozaburo to mess with your head, none of this is real." Kaiba didn't seem to hear a word of what she had just said as he continued to stare blankly at Mokuba.

Noah made his way across to Kaiba, causing Serenity to gasp at the sight of him. He knelt down beside his step-brother. "She's right Seto, Mokuba's not dead. Please don't let father succeed in discouraging you."

"What the hell's going on?" Duke asked.

"We're trapped inside a computer programme." Emma explained as basically as she could while she still stared down towards the three Kaiba brothers. "All we have to do is get out of the programme and destroy it to return everything back to normal."

"So we've been inside some kind of computer game?" Andrew asked slightly confused. "But how, why?"

"Its nothing that you need to know." Emma snapped as she removed the millennium key from around her neck and moved away from Kaiba towards the others. "Right now we all have to get out of here, so everybody gather round." The four of them did as they were told, but Kaiba stayed where he was, and Noah still beside him.

"What about Kaiba?" Serenity asked.

"I'll stay with him." Noah assured. "There has to be at least one of you remaining in the game."

"No." Emma told Noah firmly. "I need your help in the real world."

"But I can't do anything because I don't have a body." Noah protested.

"Just stick close to me and the millennium key." Emma told Noah as he joined the rest of them.

"So you're going to leave him here and alone." Zene glared at Emma unable to accept that Kaiba was to be left behind.

Emma sadly stared at Kaiba. She didn't want to leave him but there was no other way that she could do what she had to do. She turned to Zene. "Please stay with him. The last thing that I want to do is leave a friend alone, but I have to go and do this. It's the only way to stop this nightmare."

Zene hesitated for a moment as she didn't like the idea of being left behind either, but she nodded in agreement as she could think of worse things than being left alone with Seto Kaiba. She broke away from the little group and walked to stand beside Kaiba.

She order the others to focus on where they needed to go, and Emma used the powers of her millennium key to transport them out of the game and programme, and back in to the real world.

Zene watched them disappear as she sat herself down beside Kaiba. The locator was too far away for her to hear the bleeps that it made.