Late, again. (shame) Although this time I have a reason. I had to go up north to visit blood relations, had to sit in a car for 6 hours straight both ways. It wasn't that bad though, I slept most the time, didn't get any writing done though. (more shame)
While I was writing I liked to divide this story into three climaxes. The first climax is about to begin, won't say anymore then that, mwahahaha.
Japanese term for this chapter, actually it appeared in the last chapter but who's counting: "Mou hitori no boku" means "my other self" in English. Yugi calls Yami no Yugi that in the anime and manga. I use it because it always sounds stupid for Yugi to say "my other self" repeatedly but that's just me.
Oh yeah, "yadonushi" means host/landlord/master, take your pick. Yami no Bakura calls Bakura that in the manga when he's introducing himself. See, in the manga, Yami no Bakura and Bakura actually talk to each other! Proving once again the manga is so much cooler than the anime, WOOT!
This chapter was brought to you by: science fiction of many sorts
Enjoy.
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Chyaputa 10: Magical Scientist
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The fuzzy nothingness was ringing dully around him, blanketing Yugi's thoughts in unconsciousness. Tiny noises began to seep inat first then louder ones slowly filled his empty mind. Yugi could feel a hard, cold flat surface beneath him, quiet and steady beeping echoing around his head. His fingers twitched restlessly. An electric wire of pain shot up his arm into his brain. He flinched.
'Where… am… I…?' he thought sluggishly. The noises grew louder, so loud that his head was starting to ache.
A cry of rage shattered his remaining dormancy. Yugi's violet eyes snapped open. A gray unfamiliar ceiling was hanging above him, the sounds of electronic equipment hummed and beeped around him. He tried to sit up but found cold metal restraints at his waist, ankles and wrists and a metal band across his forehead, holding his body in place.
"What the…?" There was another ear splitting roar of frustration. Yugi shifted his head as far as it would go to the side, his eyes squinting from the throbbing pain in his skull. He saw the dark personality of Bakura locked just as Yugi was onto a table next to him, desperately struggling at the restraints.
"Bakura-kun…" Yugi's voice came out in a weak squeak. "Where…?" Bakura ignored him, focused on trying to set himself free.
Aibou? the voice echoed painfully around in his mind. Yugi winced. Are you okay? he asked frantically.
"I'm not sure…" Yugi answered vaguely, drowsy eyes squinting at the ceiling. "Where are we?" he asked quietly looking around as thoroughly as the metal headgear would allow.
I don't know. I blacked out right after you did. Blacked out? Suddenly the memory came back to him. Bakura's shouting, Ishtar-sensei entering his room and attacking him with her guards. Yugi's eyes scanned the scene around him more frantically.
"Did Ishtar-sensei bring us here?" Yugi asked gaze darting from one side of the room to the next.
Probably… the other answered skeptically. The walls were lined with loud humming machines and blinking lights. Yugi had the disturbing impression of being in a mad scientist's laboratory like the kind one would see in one of those old science fiction movies. As he examined the metal bindings that restrained him he also found several wires attached to his flesh, all connected to large devices with flashing wide screen monitors full of strange unreadable graphs and readings.
"I can't see over the table, do you know if Malik's here?" Yugi asked his other personality.
"Shit, my head hurts…" someone spoke from behind Bakura. Yugi recognized the speaker's voice.
"Malik! Are you there?" Yugi cried back, straining against his confinement to look over Bakura's table, who was paying absolutely no attention to conversation happening around him.
"Yugi…?" the voice spoke again. "Where the hell am I?" There was a groan as if Malik had tried to sit up. "And why am I tied down!" he cried his voice raising in pitch. Yugi could hear the futile struggles of Malik fighting his restraints just Bakura had done.
There was the sound of a door opening and light from the outside hall way floated into the room. There was a click and the ceiling lights were turned on. Malik, whose table was closest to the doorway, suddenly growled.
"You bitch! What have you done to me!" Malik snarled kicking uselessly at the metal bindings. Ishtar's calm stoic figure came into view. She swept the room with her deep blue gaze, taking in the three unhappy captives on the medical tables.
"I see you are all awake," she observed mildly, eyes turned down to her clipboard.
"Ishtar-sensei, why did you bring us here?" Yugi asked struggling to keep his eyes on her as she circled the room, checking the machinery and writing notes on her clipboard. "What are you planning to do to us?"
"Do to you?" she repeated, looking down at Yugi's medical table. "I'm going to save you," she answered simply, turning her blue eyes to meet his. They were abnormally clear and sharp, firm resolve reflected in their depths.
'She's serious…' Yugi thought as his breath caught in his throat.
"Release me now!" Malik demanded harshly. "Let me GO!" he screamed. Ishtar ignored her sibling protests, turned away from Yugi and walked over to the control panel at the front of the cramped room. The sound of the rapid clicking of keys under the doctor's fingers floated passed Yugi's ears.
"I've tried everything," the doctor explained. "But nothing worked, drugs, treatments, therapy… nothing. I don't want my brother to go through anymore pain…"
"You're the one who's been causing me pain!" Malik shrieked angrily, thrashing his limbs hopelessly. "You're the one who's trapped me in here!"
"Yes, I am," she agreed, her voice dangerously low, her speedy fingers pausing, over the keyboard. Yugi strained his neck to watch her sad eyes drift to the floor. "I began to think that if all I had done till now has only cause Malik pain then why should I continue?" she choked. Across the room Malik grew suddenly silent. "But then some time ago, I noticed that when Malik transformed he radiated a strange dark energy," the doctor explained, slowly reclaiming her old formal tone.
'Dark energy?' Yugi pondered resting his aching neck back on the table.
"I didn't understand what it meant, I thought I was seeing things but then I saw Bakura and the same thing happened," she continued, hands clenching and unclenching nervously at her sides. Her blue eyes were wide; staring transfixed into her memories. "I studied this strange energy for three years. I sent a proposal to the hospital, asking them to fund my studies on this mysterious compound but they laughed it off saying I should focus on my patients. Then when I thought all hope was lost I was approached by a man who offered me money to keep Kaiba Seto in the hospital."
"Kaiba-kun!" Yugi cried unbelievingly. "So he was right? You were being paid to keep him here?"
She lifted her head up, eyes breaking out of their trace, focusing and then narrowing as they landed on Yugi. "Yes. I'm not proud of it but I needed that money to fund my research. Finally some kind of progress! And then you came, Yugi," she added sharply. "And I saw it again! When you were fighting that patient Keith, that exact same shadowy energy engulfing you two when you were fighting!" Yugi flinched that the memory of Keith's unconscious body lying on the floor but didn't voice a response. "It can't be a coincidence. This has to be the answer," she concluded staring hypnotized at the flashing lights on the control board in front of her.
"But what are you trying to do to us?" Yugi questioned, taking hold of his voice again. "What can you possibly get from bringing us here?"
"I've found that with these special machines, I can manipulate the energy that you radiated during your transformation. Not a large enough amount to do anything critical but…" She began to type on the keyboard once again. There was a clinch of metal and machines around them began to light up, spurring into motion.
"What are you doing?" Malik exclaimed. An eerie chill shook Yugi's spine; he didn't like how those machines had wires attached to his arms and legs.
"By cutting the dark energy that bonds you to your dark side, I'm going to separate the sides of your personalities," she explained calmly not even looking up. Yugi froze.
She's going to what? Yugi's other self cried, voice panicked.
"T-that's i-impossible…" Yugi stammered in shock.
"Of course, I've never actually tried this before…" she continued honestly. "But I'm confident it will work. After all, I already know this disorder is no ordinary sickness. Objects flying magicallyacross a room, nurses acting against their will, teenagers getting their lives taken away in a game…" She pressed a final button on the keyboard and stepped back satisfactorily. "This can be the only way…" Three individual glass cages were being lowered down on Malik, Bakura and Yugi. The dark Bakura's struggles intensified, Malik screamed as the glass walls sealed closed around him.
"You bitch! Let me out of here!" he shrieked, his voice echoing painfully on the sides of his glass cage. Ishtar stared at him from across the room pitifully.
"This time Malik I promise, I will save you," she answered, a relieved smile lighting up her dull face.
"Ishtar-sensei! You can't do this!" Yugi shouted through the transparent cage, his own voice ringing around him. "I understand you're desperate but what you're doing is wrong! You've already caused Kaiba-kun to suffer at your hand, do you really want the possible death of you brother to weigh on your conscience as well!" But even as Yugi's throat grew dry from shouting, he knew it was no good. Ishtar's face did not flinch or falter once at his words, she was even not looking at him anymore. She turned silently away from him before he even finished his last sentence.
"I have already considered the possibilities," she answered not facing him, "but this still the only way…" Yugi's arms shook, fear crawlingdowninto his stomach making him sick.
It's no use. She's already lost all hope, his double said sadly. To her, there is no other choice…
"But there's always another choice!" Yugi protested.
'If she does this… if she actually manages to separate us, I'll be alone again…' Yugi thought silently, terror creeping into his mind.
"LET ME OUT! YOU BITCH!" Malik screeched. Yugi could hear fear and panic echo in his words. The doctor was unmoved;staring fixedly on the control panel in front of her, a hopeful almost insane light glowing in her eyes.
"Bakura Ryou," she called. The dark Bakura did not look up. "To complete this experiment the original personality must be in control of the body. Please switch now," she ordered. Bakura acted as though he hadn't heard her. Ishtar frowned in deep irritation. "Switch now!" she demanded harshly. Inside his cage, Bakura snarled.
"Like I would willingly hand over my yadonushi's soul to you!" the dark personality of Bakura spat nastily, dark eyes flashing dangerously, his mess of white hair settling on his head like razor sharp spikes. Ishtar's face faltered, fingers suspended over the keyboard, her eyes nervously twitched over to her sibling than to the controls again.
"I-it doesn't matter!" she decided impulsively and began to type again. "As long as Malik's ok…" The machines overhead spurred into movement.
"You can't do this, Ishtar-sensei!" Yugi cried shrilly. "You can't sacrifice Bakura-kun and I for your brother! Please, Ishtar-sensei!" But she ignored their protests.
'She can't,' Yugi pleaded, squeezing his eyes so tight they stung. 'She can't take him away from me. Please, she can't… please…'
"Initiating sequence," the doctor said mechanically. There was a hiss and the wires attached to Yugi's skin shot electric currents through his veins, fiery hot pain coursing afterward. Yugi's screams resonated dully off the glass walls and echoed through his skull.
Aibou! his other self cried desperately. Hang on Aibou! The burning electric current stopped and there was a split second of absolute dead silence. Yugi's mouth fell open, trying to gasp for air. All the sudden he noticed almost invisible dark red lights floating around him, radiating off his sweating skin andswirling in the air likesteam.
'What's that…?' he wondered silently, too weak to speak. No sooner had he thought this then an aching throb shook through his limp body. There was a pain-filled cry inside his head; his other personality was screaming.
Yugi sensed movement below him. He turned his head and was surprised to see a figure kneeling on the ground. The person looked exactly like himself, like he was a Yugi's twin or clone. This double cried out again, one hand clutching at his heart.
What was that? Who was that? There was a sharp pain in his chest as if an iron hand had just grabbed Yugi's heart. Could it be…? Was that him? Was that his other personality curled up on the ground beside him?
"M-mou hitori no b-boku?" Yugi asked, voice trembling, his own body weakened from the electrical attack of the wires. There was another deafening throb that echoed through Yugi's body and his darker side gasped in pain again. "Mou hitori no boku!" Yugi cried, suddenly panicking.
My strength… his other self gasped, the voice in Yugi's mind getting quieter, further away. I can't feel… His hand was tightening on his chest. The same dark red aura was leaking like smoke out of his body, twinkling around him.
"Mou hitori no boku, you have to stay with me!" Yugi cried, eyes watering. "We have to stay together!" Then to Yugi's horror, his other half's form actually flickered, like a candle in the wind. He could see the double's color begin to slowly drain, fading into red sparkling smoke. "NO!" Yugi screamed; voice choked with tears.
There was a loud bang and Yugi's ears popped. He heard yet another angry roar then a crash of broken glass followed by a high pitched scream. Another air pressure pop and a large computer monitor flew right over Yugi's head, shattering the glass walls of his cage. The metal clamps holding Yugi down to the medical table, snapped open. Not even bothering to see who had released him, Yugi forced his limp aching body over the edge of the table and onto the floor next to his other self's hunched fading form. Yugi's trembling hand reached forward to grasp his other self's shoulder.
"M-mou hitori no boku…" he said shakily.
Yugi's hand touched his other self's shoulder. It felt like warm vibrating energy under his fingertips.
/I feel so weak…/ his double said, looking hopelessly at his hands, which had become transparent. His voice wasn't echoing out of Yugi's skull anymore; it sounded faint and small.
'But I can still see hear him so he must be okay,' Yugi convinced himself, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around his weakened other personality's neck.
/What happened/ his other half asked lifting up his head up stiffly and finally looking into Yugi's wide purple eyes.
His eyes were red, a dark intense familiar color.
Yugi was too shocked to speak. He forced himself to look around the room, tearing his eyes away from his other half's gaze. The glass walls of Bakura's and Malik's cages had also been smashed open. Yami no Bakura was leaning over a trembling Malik on the floor and Ishtar was no where to be seen. Dark Bakura turned around; his cold black eyes hooked Yugi's unsteady gaze.
"Bakura-kun…?" Yugi muttered in awe.
'Did he release us?' Yugi wondered. Bakura's dark personality stood up, dark brown eyes glowing in the dim light, unlike Yugi's other personality, he was not transparent but seemed to have stayed in control of the body.
"Can you walk?" he asked Yugi sharply. Yugi nodded then turned uncertainly to his double who was still kneeling on the ground.
/I don't think I can stand/ he admitted apologetically to Yugi before he had a chance to speak. Dark Bakura dusted stray fragments of glass off his white hospital shirt.
"What about Malik?" Yugi asked cautiously. The darker half of Bakura scoffed.
"If he can't move, we'll have to leave him," he answered indifferently. There was a loud complaint from the floor.
"I'm not dead!" Malik groaned in irritation. He sat up and touched the bleeding cut on his forehead with the tips of his fingers. Yugi ran over to examine the injury.
"It doesn't look too bad," Yugi said prodding the cut with a curious finger. Malik hissed with pain and jerked his head away from Yugi's hands.
"Don't poke it!" he exclaimed indignantly. Yugi grabbed his sleeve, about to rip of enough cloth to give Malik a makeshift bandage but dark Bakura stopped him.
"That will have to wait till later," he said walking over behind a table and reaching down to pick up something from the floor. "We have to get out of here as soon as possible." He came back up, a transparent ghostly form of his own host, Bakura Ryou, thrown casually over his shoulder.
"Bakura-kun!" Yugi exclaimed. "Is he alright?"
"Just unconscious," dark Bakura answered shortly, not looking at Yugi or his unconscious host.
"Wait! Where's the other Malik?" Yugi asked looking around again.
"Clearing the path for us," Yami Bakura said shrugging as a yet another loud bang echoed through the hallway, followed by all too familiar insane laughter.
/A little too enthusiastically/ the other Yugi muttered trying to struggle to his feet. Yugi rushed to his side.
"You shouldn't move," Yugi advised worriedly, wrapping an arm around his back. "Let me help you."
"We seemed to have interrupted the machine that Ishtar hooked us up to before it could complete its job," guessed Bakura's dark personality critically. "The halves that were becoming separated from the body seem to be having a worse time than us," he said, indicating his ghostly light personality who looked fast asleepin his arms.
"What about him?" growled Malik, indicating his dark side, awkwardly stumbling to his feet as well. "He doesn't seem to having any problems," he spat, his head jerked toward the hallway, hate echoing in every syllable. Yami no Bakura shrugged.
"He'll probably feel it later," he answered. "Now lets go."
"What are we going to do now?" Yugi questioned, aiding his dark side over to the door.
"What else? We're breaking out of this accursed hospital," the dark side of Bakura side simply.
"But where will we go?' Yugi asked.
"Anywhere that's not here is fine with me," Malik cursed and spat distastefully on the floor.
"That's the idea," dark Bakura answered sharply and exited the room. Malik followed right behind him.
"Guess this is it then," Yugi said forebodingly, pulling himself and his double toward the door.
/Well, you did want to get out of here, right/ his other half reminded Yugi weakly. The hallway was covered with scattered medical carts, unconcscious hospital staff, broken lights that had been ripped from their spot on the ceiling and chunks of wall and ceiling plaster. As Yugi looked down the long corridor he saw every once in a while a large gaping whole in the wall.
"The other Maliksure has been busy," Yugi muttered uneasily.
/We'd better get out of here before the whole building collapses/ his reflection added.
"Hurry up!" Malik cried annoyed, arms crossing over his chest. Yugi nodded as he and his transparent double rushed forward, following behind Malik and dark Bakura.
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"There take that!" Jounouchi cried triumphantly, as, after a long grueling struggle, he was finally able to take Kaiba's rook. "How's that, rich boy!" he taunted gleefully, grinning like an idiot. Kaiba moved his queen next to Jounouchi's king.
"Check," he announced coldly.
"What?" Jounouchi cried outraged. "Another damn piece…" he cursed glaring at the board. Jounouchi closed his eyes in concentration and placed both hands around his head contemplating his next move.
"Just hurry it up, will you," Kaiba muttered as if he really couldn't care less about the ending of the game. Jounouchi frowned and moved a pawn forward into the path of the queen. Kaiba sighed took his pawn.
"Check," he said again. Jounouchi growled in frustration.
"I hate this game," he grumbled.
"Then why are you playing?" Kaiba asked mildly. Jounouchi turned his angry gaze up to Kaiba's face.
"You see anything else to do?" he snapped. Kaiba shrugged apathetically. That was true. There wasn't anything else to do. Jounouchi and Kaiba had been playing chess everyday for the passed two weeks. No reason why, Jounouchi was just sick of trying to avoid Otogi and Honda everywhere he went. At least chess helped take his mind off his "friends" and his aching leg, but, now that he thought of it, he didn't know why Kaiba was still tolerating him.
Jounouchi finally picked up his knight ready to make his move when a low far away boom echoed through the game room. He and Kaiba looked up.
"What was that?" Jounouchi asked. Kaiba shrugged. "Aren't you even the least bit curious?" questioned Jounouchi.
"Not really," he answered indifferently. There was another boom; this one sounded much closer. The other patients in the room were standing up and turning to each other questionably. There was a crackle of static and a woman's voice came out of the overhead speakers.
"All patients are ordered to please return to their respective rooms and stay there until further notice," the voice said. Chatter spread through out the room as nurses and doctors, some of them looking as confused as the patients, directed their charges to their rooms.
"What about that, huh?" Jounouchi asked rudely as the message was repeated.
"What about it?" Kaiba asked standing up. Jounouchi frowned stubbornly.
"Where are you going?" he growled.
"Back to the room. You coming, idiot?" he snapped. Jounouchi muttered something dark under his breath but stumbled grudgingly to his feet. Just then a pair of twittering nurses passed them, heads bowed down in secret conversation. Jounouchi caught a few words as they walked by.
"…in the Red Wing! Some kind of gas explosion?" one exclaimed. Jounouchi's eyes widened and he immediately turned away from the direction of the other patients.
"Where are you going? Our room is this way," Kaiba said seriously, grabbing his roommate's arm. Jounouchi's head snapped around, eyes glowing determinedly.
"They said there was a gas explosion in the Red wing!" Jounouchi explained fiercely. "Yugi's in there!" Jounouchi took Kaiba's temporary moment of hesitation to pull his arm away from the brunette and wobble off toward the lunch hall. Kaiba watched him walk away knowing that Jounouchi was about to do something very stupid.
'Why the hell should I care?' he thought and turned around ready to walk back to his. But he stopped, his feet wouldn't move, hands clenched at his sides. He hesitated then suddenly cursed out loud.
"Damn that idiot!" he swore and turned around to run after his roommate.
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Yugi was running down the hall as fast as he could while trying to support his other self. No matter how much his limbs ached Yugi told himself his darker half must have had it much worse. He was sure that if his double could actually breathe he would have been wheezing and panting for air by now. The thing that was strange was that the other personality's phantom-like form didn't even feel very heavy, in fact it was almost like Yugi's was holding warm condensed air under his arm.
'He'll be alright, I just have to get him out of here and he'll be fine,' Yugi told himself over and over again. Malik and Bakura had stopped, waiting for him to catch up.
"You're so slow, Yugi," Malik taunted although he didn't look much better than Yugi did. Yugi grinned apologetically, still gasping for air.
"Sorry," Yugi panted as he finally reached them. "Are you alright, Mou hitori no boku?" Yugi asked. His double nodded weakly.
/Sorry, for making you carry me/ he said, eyes closed and voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm sure you would do the same to me," Yugi answered holding his other self close to his side. His darker half grinned and leaned his head against Yugi's shoulder.
"Let's keep moving," dark Bakura said, holding his own transparent double over his shoulder. Malik and Yugi nodded but before they could start moving again, a loud screeching alarm erupted over their heads, red emergency lights flashing sending distorted shadows over the white walls.
"They've noticed we've escaped!" Malik cried over the alarm, hands clasped over his ears. Yugi probably would have done the same if he was not still holding onto his other personality's body.
"Come on!" Bakura shouted urgently as he turned and continued running down the hall. Malik and Yugi were about to follow when Yugi suddenly heard that familiar electric whirring of a door about to close and Malik was just about to follow Bakura through doorway.
"Malik-kun! WATCH OUT!" Yugi cried, leaping forward, grabbing Malik's arm pulling him back. Malik came to a stop just as the electric doors closed, inches away from his nose, cutting off Malik and the Yugi's path.
"Shit!" Malik shrieked, falling backwards and stumbling to his feet. "That thing could have cut me in half! What the hell is a door like that doing here anyway?"
"Probably emergency doors to stop escaped patients like us," Yugi guessed.
"But Bakura's still on the other side!" Malik exclaimed. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"
At that moment dark Bakura's face suddenly appeared in the tiny window of the electric door that had just closed on Malik's face. He mouthed the words, "go around" before turning around and running off down the hall.
"It can't be helped. Come on, there must be other ways to reach the exit besides this hallway," Yugi said helpfully. Malik cursed loudly, glaring hatefully at the electric door that stood between him and his goal.
"Whatever," he spat frustrated and followed the Yugis down a smaller hallway.
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Yeah... lots of confusing stuff happening.
Basically our party is now split up with Yami no Malik, Ryou and Yami no Bakura on one side of the door and Yugi, Yami no Yugi and Malik on the other, though technically Yami no Yugi and Ryou are both more or less unconscious. Sounds fun, don't it?
NEXT CHAPTER! Part 2 of escaping from evil hospital! But what about Ishizu? Where did she run off to? And how the hell are they are they going to get out with guards and doctors guarding the exit? Its Jounouchi and Kaiba to the rescue!
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