Chapter 15

As they woke up almost simultaneously, Emma, Duke, Serenity and Andrew all gasped for breath. They looked around themselves as they regained control for their breathing, and saw the others scattered around the room. They where either laid on the floor or slumped against one and other where they had been before the seizures were caused. Looking like they were sleeping, not a single one of them showed any signs of injury.

As she glanced down at the millennium key which glowed as a result from it containing Noah's spirit, Emma quickly scrambled back on to her feet. "You guys stay here and make sure that the others are still breathing." she told the three that she had brought with her back in to reality. "I'm going to go up to the main system for this thing." She left them behind as she made her way to the staircase which led up to the control room that looked down in to the presentation room.

Once in the room Emma approached the main computer and took the millennium key from around her neck. "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing on these things so it up to you now." she said to Noah as she held the ankh in front of the screen so that he could transfer to inside the Kaiba Corp system.

Noah appeared on the screen and told Emma his plan. "Bit by bit, I'm going to forward all of the programme's data on to the screen in front of you. From that point on all that you have to do is highlight it and press delete."

"Okay, sounds simple enough." Emma confirmed as she searched for the correct keyboard to use from the choice of three in front of her and sighed; "All that hard work that Seto did is going to be destroyed, isn't there a way of saving some of it?"

"You can make a copy of the system's data and then go through it at a later date." Noah told her.

"Will that be safe?" Emma asked as she didn't want anything like this happening ever again.

"Yes." Noah replied. "As long as this part of the programme isn't activated again."

Emma thought about the risks of retriggering the deadly game, and also about all the effort that Kaiba had spent on the programme himself. She didn't want him to lose such a huge chunk of his hard work and decided that she would check the disk herself when she was alone to prevent anything bad from happening to him. She clicked on the icon on the screen that would copy the data and hoped she knew what she was getting herself in to.

Back in the game Zene sat near to where Kaiba was still knelt beside Mokuba's body. He hadn't said a word or even removed his sight from his brother.

Zene was beginning to feel very uncomfortable with the situation which was making her feel alone and abandoned. She hadn't realized just how frightening being alone could be and prayed for the end of the game so that things would return back to normal.

She talked to Kaiba even though she wasn't getting anything back in response as it was the only way she could keep herself together. "I wouldn't have thought it was possible either if I hadn't seen them disappear like that, but now I know that everything will be okay." she laughed nervously as she forced herself to smile. She had made an art out of hiding her true feelings.

"I know that you're in shock and that you probably won't remember any of this but …" Zene paused from what she was about to say. For a moment she felt weak as she was about to reveal her own thoughts and feelings on what they had all experience so far in the game. At least it was to someone she trusted and respected and not some phoney friend that she knew in her normal life. "I think that what has happened here is a good thing." She stopped herself from saying more as what she had to say would have sounded heartless to anybody who took the time to listen.

Kaiba turned his head to face her and glared at Zene, who felt like she shouldn't have said anything at all by keeping her mouth shut. But she couldn't stop herself from saying what she truly thought even if it had seemed to offend one of the few people the she admired. She didn't even think that Kaiba had been listening as nobody else seemed to lately.

Wishing that she could have taken back her last comment Zene tried to explain what she had meant by it. "What I mean is that we've been exposed to situations that we wouldn't have otherwise and as a result have seen other sides to people that we wouldn't have thought we'd ever see." She couldn't believe what she was saying as she always kept her feelings to herself. Was this the side of her that she didn't know she had? She hung her head as though she was shameful of what she had said and pulled her knees up to grasp. "I just think that its made us realise that we all have hopes and fears that we're not fully aware of. Maybe its even helped us all to become better and stronger people."

Zene felt her throat tighten up and eyes water but couldn't find an explanation to its cause. She was glad that her hair was hanging down beside and in front of her face as it gave her the cover that she needed to regain control of her emotions. Unexpectedly, she felt Kaiba place his hand on top of hers. She looked up and once her vision was free from hair, she saw that Kaiba had a comforting smile on his face. She had chance to smile back weakly just before Kaiba knocked her backwards as the sound of machine gun bullets filled the air. It didn't last long and was followed by the sound of somebody cursing from lack of ammunition.

Terrified, Zene lay with Kaiba's bodyweight pinning her down. She managed to push him off her as she struggled free. On seeing the blood she realised that he had been protecting her by taking all of the bullet shots. "Kaiba!" she yelled as she pushed at him rocking him from side to side. He didn't respond and quietly she whispered; "Seto?"

"Player, Kaiba, has been eliminated. One player still remaining." the speaker told Zene what she already knew.

Tears began to run down Zene's cheeks which she didn't even bother to attempt to wipe away. "I'll see you again soon." she told Kaiba as she knew that it would all be over soon and that they'd all wake up back in the real world.

"Allow me to help!" came a chilling voice from behind Zene as the remaining eliminator wrapped the thin wire thread around her neck. He may have been out of bullets but the item he found during the night would do just as good a job of eliminating his last target.

"What's taking her so long!" Andrew complained as he stood in the middle of the presentation room.

"Almost done!" Emma shouted down from the control room as she had heard Andrew's comment loud and clear.

"I'm having some trouble accessing the last bit of data." Noah told her as he struggled to make it appear on screen.

"Can you hurry it up a little!" Emma heard Duke shout up above some noise that had broken out where he was.

Whilst Noah was taking care of the programme, Emma approached the window to tell them to calm down below. When she looked out she saw that an image appeared on the TV screen and was shocked by what it displayed. She saw Kaiba's body covered in blood and Zene being attacked by an eliminator who was trying to strangle her. With everything happening so fast she had completely forgotten about the second eliminator. She had to delete the programme before Zene was eliminated otherwise all was lost and the others would remain in their coma-like status.

"I don't mean to sound rude but; try harder!" Emma told Noah as she returned to the computer. "If we don't end this soon then its all been for nothing."

On the screen, Zene had managed to force herself backwards and throw the eliminator over herself. She removed the wire from around her neck which hadn't dug in too hard since some of it had been caught around her collar. She only just had time to dive out of the way as the eliminator came charging towards her. She slipped and felt the hard ground beneath her as she fell. Quickly getting back on to her feet she prepared herself as the eliminator made one last attempt and forced her to the ground as he charged at her once more.

"Game Over." The speaker voice said it's final announcement.

"No!" Emma cried and rushed to the window to see what had become of Zene.

Zene was covered by the eliminator who moved slightly, but only from the fact that she had to crawl her way out from under him. Almost free from his weight she kicked wildly at his arm that had become entangled with the belt that hung down to her knee, which caused the eliminator to roll over on to his back. There in his chest directly buried in to his heart was a small flip knife that Zene had been given in the bag at the start of the game. She had used all of her mixed emotions to help her find the strength that she needed to survive to make it back to the real world, and so she had won the game. All she had to do now was wait. Alone.

"She won." Emma laughed with relief. She wanted to get Zene out of that place as quickly as she could before the loneliness had time to take effect upon her, but suddenly Zene's collar began to glow. "Why is her collar glowing?" she asked Noah hoping that he would have the answer.

"I don't know." Noah replied as he finally managed to display the rest of the data and himself on the computer screen. A terrifying thought came to him. "My father may have programmed it to eliminate everyone, regardless of whether or not there was a winner."

Emma saw Zene's collar start to flash, and she pushed herself away from the window and back in Noah's direction. "We have to end this now!"

Noah highlighted everything on the screen, including himself. "Just press delete." he told Emma.

"But you're on the screen." Emma protested as her finger hovered about the delete button. "Won't that delete you too?"

"It will." Noah replied. "But there's no other way that I can keep the data displayed otherwise."

Emma looked sadly at Noah as he stared out from the screen at her. He hadn't seemed like a bad person to her and she wished that there had been something that she could have done for him. The lives of the many out weigh his own; Emma told herself as she closed her eyes and pressed down on the button.