((Author's Note)) Hey everybody, I'm back with yet another chapter. I want to once again apologize for the extremely late update; school and work have both been a pain. Anyway I finally got ahold of some time to bring you this installment.
So now, I hope you all enjoy it.
Chapter 27
Mello's Pov (3rd person)
The room the trio entered was simmilar to a hospital. Long white halls and linolium tiles over cold cement. The only difference was that the doors were large and metal as if ripped from a high security prison with barred windows and huge latches.
"Whoa," Matt breathed out softly.
"Yeah," Ayata muttered.
Mello took another moment to look around. "So now what?" He asked.
Suddenly, there was a loud scream from a good distance from their current location. Ayata's ears perked up. "It's Yugi!" Without a second thought, Mello bolted down the hall. "Mello!" Matt followed closely behind his best friend with Ayata chasing the both of them, trying to get them to stop. "Guys, stop, you're making too much noise."
Mello ignored the girl as he continued to follow the echo of Yugi's scream, stopping momentarily to make a sharp turn. I'm coming Yugi, don't worry. Suddenly he felt a sudden impact to his right and fell onto the hard floor. A jolt of pain shot through his shoulder and hip, causing him to groan.
"Mello!" Matt called out. "Come on, man, where'd you run off to?"
When Mello regained his senses from the fall, the first thing he felt was a unnaturally warm body shivering against his own. He blinked the haze from his eyes to see a familiar shade of teal hair tickling his nose. He gave out a groan of relief as he sat up and saw the beautiful features on that pale tan face that he came to deeply care about. "Yugi?"
The girl that now laid in his arms opened one of her eyes for a brief moment. A golden orb rimmed by red looked at his face before slowly moving above his head to read his name. It flashed completely red for a split second and a single word, a name, "Mihael" whispered from her lips before it closed and she fell unconscious with nothing but her shallow panting to show she was still alive.
Still in shock that he had actually found her, he quickly called out, "Matt, I found her. Over here!" Matt and Ayata ran toward him. The former knelt down to feel Yugi's forehead, which had accumulated a sheen of moisture.
"She's burning up," he said, "we have to get her to Ryuzaki."
Ayata piped up. "I'll do it. You guys go find Nishiko. I'm sure L will send back up once I get there to apprehend her." The two boys nodded in agreement and she picked Yugi up, albeit with a bit of difficulty, and ran back toward the entrance to the tunnels.
Matt helped Mello back to his feet and the two of them ran the direction Yugi had come from. Eventually they came across a door that was different from the rest.
The door was slightly larger and made from a different type of metal. The most significant difference, though was insigna of a wolf and an atom surrounded by two words written in hiragana; Akiteru Labs.
"This has to be it," Matt concluded. Mello nodded in agreement and went to open the door.
The room inside was well lit; but it allowed anyone who entered to see the terrible mess. It was as if a massive storm blew in from the heavens, leaving papers and several random tools (most likely used to torture Yugi) scattered all over the floor.
"What happened in here?" Mello wondered aloud as he wandered the room, picking up a random piece of paper to read it.
Matt continued to wander until he tripped over something. "Oof!" He looked over to see what he tripped over and let out a gasp. "Oh my god...Mello, I think I found Nishiko."
Mello looked over to his friend and then down toward the floor at what he was looking at. Matt was right, he did find Nishiko. She was dead.
~*TimeSkip*~
When L sent reinforcements into the tunnels and found the boys with Nishiko's corpse, Watari had immediately sent it in for an autopsey, although it wasn't really necessary. Matt and Mello had found her body with a scalpel still lodged in her temple as well as her hand still holding said object. To anyone who had seen it, they would automatically assume the death a suicide.
"That doesn't make any sense," Violet argued when told the news. "That woman was too determined to commit suicide. Why would she kill herself just when she finally got the one thing she's wanted for the past decade and a half?!"
"That's what we're trying to find out," Watari calmly explained.
Mello glanced over at Kani and Near, who had remained silent since he and Matt had returned from the catacombs. He then noticed something. "Where's Ryuzaki? And Equal?" he asked, "And what about Yugi? Is she okay?"
The entire group of investigators were silent for a moment before Light spoke up. "They left to take Yugi to someone Ryuzaki said could help. Said she was an old friend or something...A woman by the name of Nikaido, I think is what he said."
Near nodded and said, "She was the daughter of a genetic scientist who was killed for not complying to the demands of terrorists designing a viral weapon to destroy the world. I took the liberty of tracking her down since I was the only one other than L to know her current location."
Matt 'Oh'ed in recognition of the name. "I remember her now. She and Yugi were roommates until she was eighteen and left to study becoming a doctor like her father."
"Hold on a second," Matsuda interjected, "Wasn't Yugi's father a genetic scientist too? That could mean she might be after her as well, couldn't it?"
"Like I said, Mr. Matsuda," Near stated, "I've known Nikaido for years and she is someone that can be trusted."
"Not to mention the fact that Equal told us that Akiteru studied cross-species genetics, and not viral-genetics like Nikaido. While simmilar, they aren't in the same field," Aizawa stated.
"Oh, yeah..."
Watari's cellphone then decided to ring. He quickly excused himself to answer it. When he returned, he had a small smile on his face. Mello looked at him hopefully, knowing well that it was L on the phone.
"Yugi's going to be alright," the older man announced, "however, they won't return until morning, so L wants us all to return our main focus onto searching for the Second Kira."
Mello sighed in relief.
"As for the boys, however, as well as Miss Violet and Miss Ruby, Ryuzaki has asked me to book them all a flight back to England since their services are no longer required."
Mello blanched. "What?!"
Watari turned to the blonde. "The only reason he allowed you three to stay was to assist in finding Yugi. Now that she is found, you are to return to the orphanage and await further instruction. He has already spoken with the headmaster and had him arrange rooms for the other three."
"Other three?" Ayata asked. "You mean my sister and I are leaving too?"
"And me?" Kani asked.
"Your mother has already agreed that it would be best for you," Watari told the four-year-old.
Matt took his turn to ask a question. "When do we leave?"
"Tomorrow evening. It will give you all time to say your goodbyes to Yugi. However, I must tell you that it is unknown how much damage was inflicted on her while she was gone, so it's best if you don't take anything she says personally. She might not be aware of what she says."
Yugi's POV(1st Person)
The first thing I noticed when opening my eyes was the darkness and silence that obscured the right side of my vision. My body and muscles were stiff and sore and I didn't want to move; but I pushed myself to a sitting position anyway, so that I could get a better glimpse of my surroundings.
I was in a regular bedroom with a window and door as well as a dresser, most likely holding several articles of clothing. I suddenly noticed the presence beside me and turned over to my right so that I could see who it was. I saw a familiar mop of dark hair and pale skin draped over the side of the bed and assumed...
"BB?" I asked softly, my voice hoarse and raspy.
The man opened his eyes to reveal not the psychotic red eyes of her only friend, but the calculative blue eyes of his mortal enemy, L.
"Yugi," He said softly, "how are you feeling?"
As I looked into his eyes, all of the daze I felt slowly bubbled into anger. I balled my hand into a fist and punched him, throwing him against the wall just below the window.
"You son of a bitch!" I yelled at him, standing from the bed. Suddenly I heard footsteps from outside the door, but I ignored them as I approached the form of the World's greatest detective and picked him up by his hair and roughly kicked him in the face.
The door opened as I continued to beat the man up; and he didn't fight back. He just let me kick and punch him into a bloody pulp until I felt two pairs of arms grab ahold of me and drag me away, kicking and screaming.
"I hope you're happy, Lawliet! Beyond Birthday is dead and it's all your fault!" I shouted at him.
"Yugi, calm down," a woman's voice said abrasively, but I wouldn't have any of it.
"Let me go, you bitch!" I seethed, "Let me go or I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!"
"Yugi," a younger voice said, "it's alright, you're safe. Don't you remember me?"
"Why would I remember a fucking cunt like you?!" I demanded as one of them bent my arms behind my back and pushed me down to my knees.
"Maki, give me the syringe."
Suddenly, I felt a needle pierce my neck and my world went completely black.
L's POV (3rd person)
L watched the light leave Yugi's eye as the tranquilizer Equal gave her took effect almost instanly. The young woman known as Maki Nikaido held out her hand to help the detective to his feet.
"Don't let what she said get to you, Ryuzaki," Equal told him. "The drugs in her system made her say those things. Hopefully the damage isn't permanent."
"I'm well aware that the effects of the drugs would cause anyone to reveal the darkest part of their subconscious," L stated. "However, the traces of acid found in her bloodstream are of an unknown origin, according to the lab tests recovered from Nishiko Kuroka's reports while experimenting on her. It is possible she used the side effects of the acid to her advantage and pushed Yugi to mentally link Beyond Birthday's death to me rather than to Kira as an attempt to hurt me as well as possibly kill me.
"However, that can't be the entire reason for these experiments. From what I could dig up on her, Nishiko had a sort of obsession with Dr. Akiteru and was also there the day that Yugi set the laboratory on fire, destroying any progress and research that he had made as well as pushing him into near insanity. From this information, I can conclude that Nishiko was either attempting to finish what Akiteru had started when making the breakthrough by testing Yugi's physical and mental limits, or she felt that Yugi deserved to suffer for what she did almost six years ago when she broke out of confinement."
"That does give us possibilities on why Nishiko was hurting Yugi," Maki stated, "But the real question is, will Yugi pull through this? I know she's a strong girl, she has been ever since we had met back at Wammy's; but the poor girl has been through so much just this past month. Maybe all that torture really did push her to her limit."
"No," Equal denied. "I refuse to believe that. As long as Yugi is alive I'm certain she'll pull through. And if she's anything like her mother she'll come out stronger than she did when she ran away."
((Author's Note)) There you have it folks, I hope you enjoyed.
Now since I don't know when the next time I'll be able to update is, I think it's best if I take the last bit of my time to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Who knows, Maybe I'll have time before then to write a one-shot with Yugi and the Wammy boys celebrating the holidays.
Until next time...
-Garden of Time