Disclaimer: You don't own me. Er… I don't own you. Um, I mean, neither one of us owns each other. Or Yu Gi Oh!. But I do own this story. So… don't steal it, ne?
The raven-haired child lay huddled on the floor, his breath rasping in his throat. It hurt him to move, hurt him to breathe. The very blood pounding through his veins made him ache as his pulse echoed in his ears, sending shockwaves throbbing through his already sore head. Every muscle in his body stung with a fiery fierceness the likes of which he had never imagined.
Well… Not every muscle. Never, in the month or so since his accident, had the young Kaiba ever looked on his useless legs with anything less than sorrow and contempt. Now, his curse had turned into a marginal blessing. He felt nothing below his waist; his crushed spinal cord and broken nerves sent no burning signals to his brain. For that, he was grateful. The rest of his body certainly wasn't doing him any such favor.
His eyes, which had previously been squeezed shut in agony, slowly opened. He was met with blackness, but as before, he slowly adjusted to the dim light. He started to sit up and winced, hissing in pain as his body protested. He hastily lay back down, his stomach churning with dizzy shock.
He took a few deep breaths, willing the bile that rose in his throat to stay where it belonged and not come heaving up his throat and out of his mouth onto the cold stone floor. Under control once more, he tried to look about him without moving his head, unwilling to cause any further unnecessary pain.
He was in the cell again, the small, dark room that he had originally woken to. Someone – a guard? – must have carried him here after they had finished with their… fun.
Mokuba shuddered at the remembrance. He had not been allowed to stay in the unconscious state that their first few blows had sent him into for long. Rather, he had been dragged away from the sweet, numb blackness by any means the brutes had thought would work, usually via dumping his head rudely into a bucket of ice cold water, bringing him sputtering back to life. Then the beatings would continue. Multiple wounds bled sluggishly from various places on his body, and ugly bruises were beginning to form on his arms, torso, and even his painless legs.
And what for? Why had this happened? To amuse Shade's flunkies? Yes, but there was an underlying threat here, as well. This strange Shade could have had anyone for his games – he had said so himself – but he had chosen Mokuba. He had chosen the brother of one of the most powerful, dangerous men in the country, if not the world. No one in their right mind messed with Seto Kaiba or his cherished brother.
Several criminal masterminds had attempted – even succeeded at – kidnapping him before. Take Pegasus, for example. Pegasus was most definitely not in his right mind, and he had had his eye fixed on Kaiba Corporation. If the best way to get what he desired was to steal the brothers' souls, well, so be it.
But Shade… He had claimed – or at least, implied – that his desire, whatever it was, had nothing to do with Kaiba Corporation.
That was bullshit, in Mokuba's opinion. Who didn't want to usurp the infamous CEO of Kaiba Corporation? And why else would he bother with the risky business of capturing the young vice president?
He had said that they wanted 'someone who was very much concerned' with Mokuba's wellbeing. Who else was there but Seto? The only other people who might even care were Yugi Motou and his friends, and if Shade wanted Yugi for something, there were better ways to get at him than by taking Mokuba.
That led him back to where he had started, with a single question that made his insides ache almost as much as the rest of him:
Why?
With that one word, a flood of other inquiries attacked him, overwhelming his brain and demanding to be answered.
How long had he been gone? A day? A week? He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious for. Did Seto know he was gone? Was he looking for him?
Of course he's looking for me! He promised he growled angrily to himself. He'll get me outta here, I know he will!
That being the case, how close was he to finding the boy? Did he have any leads? Was he charging through the halls of this hellhole right now, trying to find the child who had been stolen away from him? Or did he sit in the dark, as Mokuba did now, struggling to figure out what had become of his beloved brother?
Mokuba had no answers.
Desperate for some kind of relief, for anything to take away his mental anguish, even if nothing could help his physical pain, he brought his hand to his throat, moving slowly so as to not aggravate his wounds any more than necessary.
He noted dimly that his shirt, torn off for the torture session, had been returned to him, but he didn't care about that. His hand groped for the one form of comfort he could possibly have left.
It was gone.
His eyes widened as his fingers were met with no chain, nothing to signify that a locket had once hung around his small neck. He dropped his hand to his heart – surely it was there; it had to be…
But his locket was gone.
That was the lost straw as far as Mokuba's emotional control went. Warm, salty tears formed at the corners of his eyes, and a strangled sob escaped his lips. He didn't care if anyone was watching him, laughing at the pain they had caused him. It was gone. He had lost it. Had they taken it from him? Had it fallen off somewhere along the way?
Did it matter?
His hand closed into a fist over his heart. No, it didn't matter what had happened to it. The locket symbolized his bond with his brother, and something had severed it. That was all he needed to know. It was gone, and it took his last hope with it.
Mokuba curled into a ball, sobbing his broken heart out. Seto had abandoned him? Was that was it meant? It couldn't, no, it couldn't… Fate couldn't be that cruel… Surely there was another reason; it was a coincidence, it had to be. It didn't mean anything deeper…
Did it?
"Seto…" he moaned. "Big brother… Don't forget about me… Don't leave me here… Please come for me… Please…" Slowly, his eyes drooped, and his head nodded. He cried himself into a troubled sleep.
Meanwhile, in a place not too far from the dark little cell and its despairing prisoner, but for all intents and purposes a universe away, a teenaged boy strode triumphantly through the halls of a magnificent white mansion, clutching the device that would soon become his savior. Seto Kaiba's eyes glittered predatorily, and he tightened his grip around the transmitter. His other hand closed around the small Duel Monsters locket about his neck, and he was painfully aware of the other locket, a great weight in his pocket.
Don't worry, Mokuba, he thought. I'm coming.