AN: Here's chapter three! Thanks to TaintedApple for continuing to review my stories. Yes, Mokuba does show up earlier on and he'll go away for a bit, but he's a bit more pivotal than you might realize. There are plenty of things to see here, too, although they're kind of obvious if you ask me.

... AN#2: The previous formatting sucked. Yes, I'm a n00b. Whee.

Chapter 3

3:03 PM

Mokuba sat for a few moments, thinking about his own opening move. With a shrug, he picked up his own king's pawn and moved it forward one space, as Kaiba had done.

"That's what I just did, Mokuba," Kaiba told him flatly, a fleeting grin on his lips.

"Well, the only person I ever really played with is you," Mokuba explained. "I know most of your moves. And because you always win, I'd thought I'd see how I'd do just copying you this time."

Kaiba chuckled a bit, and told Mokuba, "we'll see how far you can get with that." To his surprise the words sounded a bit like an echo to him, as if he had heard them before. The sensation never ceased to bother Kaiba, even if his pet diagnosis did that to him every now and again. But this time it wasn't as if it were some illusion that he had never experienced before; this was déjà vu.

He played the game through with Mokuba. At one point he made a mistake that eventually allowed Mokuba to gain a huge material advantage over him. Instead of fighting back, however, Kaiba simply decided to give the game to him, wryly thinking that it was about time he do so, anyway. By the time the game ended some forty minutes later, Kaiba had knocked his king over instead of letting Mokuba barrel roll him with the pieces he had developed.

"Wait, you're giving up?" Mokuba said, his voice cracking. "You're letting me win?"

Kaiba smirked, and his azure eyes flashed almost devilishly. He quoted his previous thoughts: "It's about time I let you win."

Kaiba's eyes glanced down at Mokuba's back row of pieces, and noticed in shock that none of the queen side pieces – the queen, the knight, the bishop, the rook, even the pawns – had been played. Mokuba caught his eye and laughed nervously. "I thought I would lose, so I only played off of one side, just for fun," he explained. "It's kind of weird, ain't it, Seto?"

Kaiba's brow furrowed considerably. "Yeah. It is." He looked again at Mokuba, whose mouth began to move. Instead of the voice coming from Mokuba, however, the voice he now heard echoed from somewhere in his head. And it wasn't Mokuba's voice at all, was it?

Now you have to adopt us.

"What did you say?" Kaiba asked, staring at Mokuba.

Mokuba spoke again, apparently repeating whatever he had said before; but again, Kaiba still heard the voice in his head, now you have to adopt us. Kaiba's eyes widened, and the pupils dilated.

Suddenly he felt like he was falling. From where, or to what, he didn't know, but while he was falling, his eyes were seeing something else, his ears were hearing something else –

Pawn to E3!

Pawn to E6!

Pawn to E4!

Hey, that's my move, kid!

He saw himself, far younger. Back at the game with Gozaburo Kaiba, all the way in the past. At the game that determined their fate… it was like it was playing over again… he was back in 1990, Mokuba cowering by his right-hand shoulder, himself with a mind blissfully clear, confidence no longer an issue…

Checkmate!

What? How could I lose…

Gozaburo had lost, and Kaiba had won, and then-

Now you have to adopt us.

Kaiba and Gozaburo both reacted to the younger Kaiba; Kaiba in horror, and Gozaburo probably as well, but also with a strong streak of disbelief.

You heard me. You promised!

Kaiba became aware of screaming. He was spinning backwards, upwards, he didn't know in what direction anymore, and he began to feel his own throat making the sounds. The vision passed again, and he felt his eyes open.

He was on the floor. He was still in the living area, and Mokuba was standing over top of him, shouting, eyes full of tears; but Kaiba could not hear him at all. He saw Mokuba swaying; and then realized that everything was swaying. He tried to sit up, but he felt his arm give way as soon as he tried. Kaiba called out for Mokuba, but Mokuba didn't look; Kaiba had the suspicion he was only gasping or babbling or doing something else entirely incoherent. He closed his eyes in desperation, and everything began to melt away. With a last thought to Mokuba – and remembering his promise to return to work at five – he felt himself faint.

~X X X ~

Kaiba dreamt. It was a normal occurrence for him to dream; he had vivid dreams quite often, but never paid them any heed once he had awoken. This one was much simpler than the convoluted ones he normally had.

He found himself in a black void. Kaiba first thought of the Shadow Realm, but then recollected that that particular wacko experience of his had a purplish hue. This one was just black. He felt, despite the darkness, that there was direction to everything; as his eyes got used to the lack of light, something began to form in front of him, on the same level as his feet, several meters in front of him.

They looked like tiny crystals at first; they were the only source of light, and they were everywhere, shining brilliantly. But as he neared them, it was as if his presence snuffed them out; they grew dull, nearly invisible. Kaiba felt himself kneel down, and pick one up; it was in fact a large shard of glass. And then Kaiba was picking all of the glass shards up. He didn't know where he put them once they were picked up, he didn't know what happened to them, but he kept on moving through the darkness, picking up the pieces of shattered glass, some as large as the first, others small, but every single one was handled individually. Kaiba felt he had no control; he was helpless as his body moved around the darkness, searching for the broken pieces.

Kaiba didn't really know when he happened to awaken. He remembered the dream, quite surely; quite well enough to believe it had been real. He had simply slipped away from it and almost thought he had entered another dream before he opened his eyes and was practically blinded by the light. He began to hear things; the steady drip of something, a soft beeping sound, and murmuring voices. He closed his eyes again, and tried to move; he found that although he could, he felt something holding him down, as if he were in some sort of suit.

Gradually the voices grew more coherent, and Kaiba could open his eyes. So far as he could tell, he was in a hospital room; the dripping was coming from an IV that he couldn't see, and the beeping was the heart monitor. It wasn't a patient room, however, and Kaiba suddenly realized that his chest felt cold. And slimy. And it was crawling around… Kaiba tried to sit up, but then there was a flurry of activity and Kaiba found himself back where he was before. The weird feeling had stopped, however, which Kaiba found as at least one thing that he had solved. A figure stepped forward, and Kaiba squinted, trying to distinguish detail. It was humming softly.

"Who are you?" Kaiba asked.

The humming stopped abruptly. The figure moved closer, and he felt breathing on his ear.

"It's me, Seto," Mokuba said. "Can you hear me?"

"…Mokuba…"

Kaiba felt enormous relief to know Mokuba was there with him, wherever he was. Mokuba started humming, this time loudly, as he turned away. Two more figures approached; they both looked like doctors, seeing as they seemed to be mere streaks of white.

More humming between Mokuba and the doctors. Then one moved closer to Seto, hovering close to his ear, but unnervingly, as if he felt uncomfortable doing so. I feel the same way, Kaiba mused.

"Mr. Kaiba?"

"…what."

"I'm Dr. Kujaku. I'm afraid something's happened to you."

"….I noticed…"

He felt the doctor's breath tremble; he must have been laughing nervously.

"You've had a seizure."

The simple truth almost passed Kaiba by. He almost asked the doctor to repeat himself before he finally begun to understand. So that's what happened. A seizure. So there is something wrong with me.

Kaiba heard himself moan. He shut his eyes and then opened them again, straining to see better. If he had somehow been debilitated and couldn't run his company, that wouldn't really bother him, save for two reasons. For one, he would be stuck with nothing to do, and his psychosis would come back and itch at him until he went insane; and second of all, he wasn't quite ready to hand off KaibaCorp to Mokuba. Not that Mokuba wasn't going to be qualified, of course; Mokuba was in college, and Kaiba had never even been to one so far as he knew. It was only that at age twenty-four, he wasn't quite ready to give up his position as CEO. He had been planning on a good twenty to twenty-five more years, at least.

"…what's wrong with me?"

The other doctor stepped forward, in what seemed to Kaiba an attempt to stop the other doctor from repeating himself. "Nothing." It was a girl's voice. "You're fine, Kaiba."

"…the seizure…"

"Yes, you had a seizure. It was minor. It was probably stress-induced. You'll need to rest for about a week or so. Just check email or something every now and then. You'll be staying here and you'll be monitored."

Kaiba made some effort to get into a sitting position; these were futile, and doctors were quick to tell him that sitting probably wouldn't happen for two days.

Two days!

Kaiba groaned, but soon his groan had become a yell. Damn it, why was he hospitalized when he had one of KaibaCorp's most important maneuvers to set forth? Damn it. Damn it all! He didn't have time to be debilitated like some half-torn chew toy left to rot in some corner. He needed to get things done!

"Try to relax, bro." Mokuba again. His brother's voice sounded so warm and reassuring. "You'll be okay. I've talked with Hiroko; there is no meeting. She never scheduled it."

"Figures," Kaiba mumbled, causing Mokuba to laugh.

"Well, it's still you in there," Mokuba said, sounding relieved. "Don't worry, bro, I'll be here until the end of the week."

"…you're wasting your vacation…" Kaiba became aware of a nurse fidgeting with the machine to his right hand side. Mokuba looked at her, but nodded quickly and turned back to face Kaiba.

"What do you think I would do if I had school? Stay there studying all day when I knew you're in trouble?"

"True," Kaiba muttered. Quite suddenly, he felt something being pushed against his skin; the nurse was giving him something. When Kaiba opened his mouth to ask her what she thought she was doing, he instead was almost instantly knocked into a black sleep.

Okay, a few explanations:

- Kaiba has undergone a stress-induced tonic-clonic seizure. It starts with a simple partial seizure (SPS), which is his feelings of déjà vu; followed by development into a CPS (complex partial seizure), where Kaiba appears blank to Mokuba but hasn't fainted yet (this is when he hears the voice in his head instead of Mokuba's voice). These two things lead up to a tonic-clonic seizure (the classical type portrayed on all of the television shows), which is why Mokuba appears so then goes into a postictal sleep, which is a 5-30 minute non-responsive period following the clonic phase. It is in this phase that Kaiba has his dream. (As you can see, I try to keep as much accuracy as possible.)

- The moves I chose for the chess game are the literal ones shown in the anime, in the flashback where Seto faces Gozaburo. I basically analyzed the game-board screenshots. I am this nerdy. Next question.

- The true fans of Yugioh will recognize the doctor's last name. This isn't really a canon sibling, but I screwed the rules a bit. (Don't think I have any money, though, abridged series fans!)