Thanks again :)
This chapter contains scenes from episode 143
Chapter Seven
Why is he still holding onto me? Seto thought to himself over an hour later as he stood with Noah clinging to him. The boy had finished crying all of his tears a while ago but still remained where he was. If he thinks that I've forgiven him for what he's done just because of a few bad memories, then he's greatly mistaken. He raised his arms ready to pull his stepbrother from him but froze as he remembered the empty promise he'd made earlier which he would now have to follow through with. Why had he agreed to help this boy overcome his traumatic past? "There are some things that I still need to do." Seto looked down and then gently removed the boy from himself.
"Of course." Noah replied as he wiped the last few tears which hadn't dried, from underneath his eyes. "I didn't mean to keep you from watching the tournament. I'm sorry, brother."
Brother?! Seto's eyes angrily narrowed on Noah. "Just because we now have a better understanding of each other, it doesn't give you the right to address me as your brother. Mokuba is the only brother I have. You got that kid?"
"I have." Noah nodded though clearly he hadn't as his mind swam with confusion of the sudden change in his stepbrother's tone.
"I reckon it will all be over with now anyway." Seto sighed as he changed the subject back, the keyboard and screen reappeared in front of him. Did he really need to react like that just because the boy thought of him that way? It wasn't like he had been forced to address the younger boy as his own so what harm could it do to let Noah call him brother? Seto sighed again, maybe he should apologise to the boy.
"Come on, you rust bucket. Start up already." Duke's voice could be heard as the screen reset itself to show images from the last security camera that they had viewed from in the airship's cockpit.
"Quiet back there." Several of Seto's men franticly tried to get the aircraft to start up. "The thrusters are not responding at all."
"Keep trying!" Duke ordered.
"Quiet!"
Seto stared at the cockpit's image, something was wrong. As well as his men he could also see Duke, two of the three fallen duellists; Bakura and Mai, and the mutt's sister standing there, the rest of Yugi and his geeks were nowhere to be seen. The girl started to cry and she was soon comforted by her friends.
"Wait until I get my hands on him." The Dungeon Dice Monsters creator snarled as he hugged the younger girl.
"You'll have to get in line behind Joey for that one." Mai told him.
"Then I'll hold while Joey pummels him." Duke replied.
"Come on guys, I'm sure Kaiba didn't intend for any of this to happen." Bakura butted in. "He wouldn't have the island blow up knowing that we couldn't leave beforehand, would he?"
"But he did know, Mokuba told us so." The mutt's sister sobbed and then added; "We're all going to die."
"How would father be able to blow up the island?" Noah asked Seto as he watched the girl passed across to the woman before the boys left the cockpit.
Ignoring his stepbrother, Seto typed away on the keyboard and brought up all the information on the failed engines. He cursed as he realised that there was nothing he could do within his programme to help fix the situation and then turned his attention to accessing the destruction programme for Kaiba Corp Island. His eyes widened as he saw that the hour countdown that he had originally set up was now at less than fifteen minutes remaining before the destruction began. No. He began typing again to see what had become of the distress message. "The helicopter should be here by now." He growled.
"Seto, what's going on?" Noah demanded not wanting to be left in the dark over what was happening.
"This island's gonna blow."
"Yeah, I figured that much." Noah replied sarcastically as he rolled his eyes, only to receive a disapproved glare from his stepbrother. "Why is it going to explode?"
"Because I built a control room underneath the tower for the sole purpose of doing so." Seto went on as he checked more of the security cameras onboard his aircraft. "Destroying the island was to mark my victory over Yugi and symbolise the beginning of my new untarnished future. But I never intended to start the destruction programme until the island was clear of everyone but Mokuba and myself as we'd emerge from the carnage in my Blue Eyes jet."
"And you had the nerve to call me a spoilt brat?" The stepbrother received another disapproving look for joking in the serious situation at hand. "Can't you just override the programme?"
"Not without the key cards." Seto sighed heavily as he knew that the key cards he was referring to hung around Mokuba and the impostor's necks as part of the lockets they both wore. "Over a dozen people are about to die, all because of me." He slammed his fists hard against the keyboard.
"You're not the one to blame for this, he is." Noah's hand found its way up to rest on the taller boy's shoulder. "It's not your fault Seto."
Of course it's my fault. Seto thought to himself as he threw Noah's hand away from him. This whole tournament has been just one big mistake after another. No, maybe Noah was right, it wasn't his fault. He glared hard at the screen displaying the Ishtar's room, it was hers. If it hadn't of been for his first meeting with Ishizu then he never would have held the Battle City tournament like the woman had suggested. She had revealed to him the facts about the God cards which sparked his hunger to have all three in his deck.
"Hello in there!" The sound of the mutt's sister came from the Ishtar's doorway.
"All right, time to abandon ship." Mai was stood next to the girl as she ordered them around. "Come on, hurry."
"There's only a few minutes left." The girl squeaked as they ushered the three Egyptians out of the room.
"The medical chopper has just landed so get onboard quickly!"
A weight was lifted from Seto's shoulders as there was now a chance for everyone to escape from the island. He just wished that he could somehow make sure that Mokuba was safe and sound. Part of him knew that Gozaburo wouldn't be foolish enough to throw away the new chance of life that he had stolen which meant keeping his brother out of harms way in order to go undetected from the body switch, but there was also a part of him that knew his stepfather would want to destroy everything that he had, including Mokuba.
"He's safe." Noah spoke as though he had been able to read Seto's mind. "I can feel it." He looked at the countdown which only had a few minutes remaining. "Now we have to leave too otherwise we run the same risk of being destroyed like the one we barely escaped back in the virtual world."
"How?" Seto asked as there was nowhere else they could transfer themselves to.
A smile appeared on Noah's face. "Haven't you ever wanted to surf the internet? Literally?"