"What the hell?!" Joey exclaimed, struggling against his restraints. All four of them had their hands locked in medieval stocks so that they couldn't escape the guillotines above them. "What kind of sadistic theme-park attraction is this?"

"Stop squirming like that," Seto ordered sharply. "It won't do you any good. Just let me think this through and we'll be free soon enough."

In front of them were four buttons, each with a unique label: 00, 11, 10, 01. All they knew for a fact was that three of the buttons would cause the blade to drop, and one button would free them.

"How can you act so calm?!" Joey shouted, continuing to babble in panic until Anzu managed to plant to plant a firm kick on his rear end.

"Calm down, you big baby," she scolded in irritation. "None of us will be able to figure this out if you don't shut up!"

"Do you have any ideas, Yugi?" Seto asked, staring down at the numbers, then up at the letters. He was starting to see a pattern.

"No, but you look like you might have a thought about this," Yugi answered nervously. Seto felt bad for him, the poor little pacifist trembling with fear.

"Maybe..." Seto was hesitant to say anything in case he was wrong. They only had one chance to get this right while keeping them all in one piece.

"Well, what are you thinking?" Yugi asked. Focusing on the puzzle itself helped him to maintain some degree of composure.

"The answer is eleven," Seto said, and he could feel Seth agreeing with him. He reached to push the button, but Anzu's voice stopped him.

"Wait! Don't touch that!" she cried. "How do you know? Explain it to us."

"Well, I've been working with computer programming a lot, so I'm used to seeing computer data bytes everywhere," Seto began, only to be interrupted.

"What's a data byte?" Joey asked, still looking nervous, but restraining himself from panicking so as to avoid another kick from Anzu, whose eagle eyes fixed him with a stern look.

"A bit is the smallest unit of computer data," Seto explained with a sigh. "It's composed of a single digit that has one of two values: zero or one. A byte is any set of multiple bits. These," he said, pointing down at the buttons and numbered buttons, "Are binomial bytes to me, not just numbers. And those," he pointed up at the letters, "Cumulatively, form a byte. Break the lines and circles down into pairs, and you have the same four binomial bytes: 10, 11, 00, 01. You could also look at it as the permutations of 0, 1, choose two, allowing for repeats, as a part of the branch of math called combinatorix—"

"Enough with the nerd talk, just get to the point already!" Joey shouted, making Seto scowl. "I don't see any numbers on the wall, so I still don't understand how you think eleven is the answer."

"You asked me to explain my process, didn't you?" Seto asked sourly.

"I get it now!" Yugi said, his eyes lighting up. "It's eleven because it's the only number distinguished from the others at all. I mean, the fact that it's pointing down makes me kinda nervous, but—"

"So are we certain that's the answer?" Anzu asked, unwilling to pay the price of an incorrect answer.

"Yep," Seto said, reaching down to push the button labeled "11." They all held their breath until they saw Seto be freed. Then they breathed heavy sighs of relief and followed suit.

"How did you figure that out so fast?" Anzu asked, but Seto just shrugged.

"I work for KaibaCorp, and they only hire smart people." He smirked as he turned to face the blond and added, "Sorry, Joey."

"Hey! I could get hired by KaibaCorp if I wanted to be!"

The others laughed good-naturedly, but Joey seemed stuck on that point.

"Not a chance, Joey," Seto taunted with a smirk. "Unless you're applying to be a janitor there."

"Alright, that's it!" Joey shouted, pulling an unsuspecting Seto into a headlock. Seto was only in it for a few moments though before he elbowed Joey in the ribs, causing the blond to wince. Seto seized Joey by his shirt and threw him to the floor so that he landed on his back.

Seto leaned forward, his eyes glinting as he smiled and said, "Remember, Joey, I could still beat you in a fight if I wanted to."

"That's what you think!" Joey grabbed Seto by the shoulders and pulled hard enough to unbalance the brunette, who toppled forward and landed on Joey. He grunted from the force of the impact and Seto's fist caught him in a light blow to the side.

"You knucklehead. Next time, think before you act."

"Alright, you two, break it up," Anzu said at last, exasperated with them. "Enough horseplay. I wanna get out of here with my head on my shoulders, thank you very much, but it seems like the only way we're getting out of here is to keep moving forward." Seto moved off of Joey, getting to his feet, then offering Joey a hand to help him up.

"Onward to Death T-3."

Blocks were falling from the ceiling and they were struggling to keep up with staying out of the way. There was a door-sized hole in the wall higher up and the floor was covered in a blue and yellow checked pattern.

"Have any of you figured it out yet?" Anzu called as she crouched on a block next to the wall, anxiously watching the ceiling above her head.

"There's something there," Yugi muttered as Joey pulled him up onto the block with him.

"There's definitely a pattern here," Seto said as he stood on a block in the corner. "I just… can't pick it out yet." He was so busy analyzing the patterns that he didn't notice that one was about to fall on top of him.

"Seto, look out!" Joey shouted, alerting him just in time. Seto side-stepped, ducking his head. It was a close call, but he was fine.

I've seen this before, Seth said broodingly. I know I have.

"Oh, I'm an idiot!" Seto exclaimed suddenly, bonking his forehead with the heel of his hand. "It's a chess board!" It all started to come together in his mind. He'd been tracking the way the blocks were falling, so now he had to put pieces to the blocks. Once he did that, he could predict where they were going to fall.

"A chess board?" Joey repeated, looking confused.

"Seto, keep your head up!" Yugi called, concerned for the brunette, who didn't seem to hold any concern for himself.

"Anzu, move to B7!" Seto called from his perch as he hauled himself up a neighboring block before the next one fell on top of him.

"What?"

Seto sighed, remembering that not everybody knew chess grids by memory the way he did. "Towards this side!" he clarified. "Yugi, you too. You're about to be squashed."

Yugi looked up, and even though a block wasn't falling on him yet, he decided to take Seto's word for it.

"How the heck are ya' doin' that?" Joey asked, astounded, as he helped Yugi onto a taller stack of blocks.

"It's chess," was Seto's almost humble answer. "All I had to do was figure out where the pieces were, which side they'd come from, and where they were going."

"Ugh," Anzu groaned, putting a hand to the side of her head. "I knew you had a big brain, Seto, but I had no idea that just trying to think the way you do would give me a headache."

"Watch out, Joey!" Seto called, continuing to climb. "You have to keep moving."

Seto was ahead of the others, closing in on the hole nearer the ceiling. Once he was up there, he could guide his friends to join him without being distracted by his own safety.

"I'm almost there," he called down to them. Once he'd hauled himself up into the tunnel, he turned around with every intent of calling out to them, but saw that a wall had closed him off from the room where his friends remained. "Hey, what is this!" He banged his fist against the metal-plated wall. "Let me out!"

That's not going to work, genius, Seth said at last.

Are they going to be alright? Seto asked worriedly, filled with a fear like nothing he'd felt before. He was always careful to keep Mokuba safe, so he'd never been in any real danger before. But now his friends were in real danger, and he didn't put anything past Noah Kaiba at this point.

"Let me check." Seth's spirit disappeared behind the metal-plated door for several moments. When he came back, Seto was tense. "They're fine, for now. The blocks stopped falling and an exit opened, but I can't know where they're going."

"As long as they're okay, I guess I can stop worrying," Seto muttered, turning around to look down the dim tunnel. There was a single sign on the wall proclaiming: "Death T-4" with an arrow pointing in the direction of the far exit. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.

"I don't really have a choice but to continue, do I?" Seto said with a sigh. He felt a cool draft of air as Seth put a ghostly arm around his shoulders.

"Don't worry, I won't let him do you any harm," Seth assured before letting his visible image dissipate. Seto just nodded and moved forward. When he reached the end of the tunnel, he found himself emerging into an arena with bleachers stuffed full of people. For a moment, he froze. This was like a nightmare to him. While Seto had always striven for excellence, he'd also striven to keep himself out of the spotlight as much as possible. Yet, he still craved recognition for his accomplishments. It was a complicated dynamic that he didn't have the time to figure out with everything else going on in his life.

In the very center of the arena stood a little girl in front of a glass box. She was wearing a frilly black dress and her hair was tied back in a pair of pigtails, but there was something achingly familiar about the lilac tinge of her grey eyes.

Why does she look like she could be Mokuba's twin? Seth asked, confused.

Don't ask me, I don't have a clue who she is, Seto responded with all the nonchalance of a verbal shrug.

"Welcome to Death T-4!" she said, spreading her arms as the crowd cheered. "My big brother warned me that a challenger would probably be coming through today."

"Your brother?" Seto repeated, starting to put the pieces together. "You must be Noah Kaiba's little sister, then."

"My name is Adina Kaiba, and you can only advance to Death T-5 if you can beat me in a game of Capsule Monsters!"

"What happens if I can't?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at the precocious child.

"Whoever loses shall be subjected to a penalty game of my brother's creation: the experience of death!" she announced, earning another cheer from the crowd.

"This is ridiculous; she's just a child. She's far too young to be involved in something so morbid." Seth seemed to be truly revolted by her involvement in this "amusement park."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Seto smiled at her confidently. While he didn't have any capsule monsters of his own, he'd played before with Yugi and he knew the rules of the game well enough.

"Let me help you," Seth said as Seto followed Adina into the glass box. "She's being corrupted by the influence of her brother, but she's not too far gone. Allow me to aid you, and we can save her soul."

Alright, Seto conceded, trying not to sound so terribly reluctant about it. Seth was right: she was just a child, and if Seto could help keep her from rotting like her brother by allowing Seth to play with him, then he was more than willing to allow it. Seto wasn't above hating someone with all of his being, but he acknowledged souls to be very valuable things indeed (now that he believed in them, that is). Corrupting a soul was equivalent to taking a life, and allowing it was equivalent to causing it. That's how Seto saw the world, and he didn't plan on changing his mind about that. As he and Seth merged, he felt a sensation of unity and wholeness come over him, something that he couldn't explain unless Seth's words—that Seto was his reincarnation—were true.

"Game on!"

The table used some of Seto's holographic technology, and that irked him a bit, causing Seth to remind him to stay focused.

Meanwhile, Anzu, Joey, and Yugi were watching the game of CapMon on a screen while they sat inside a prison cell somewhere beneath the arena.

"Come on, Seto! Beat that little brat! Yeah!" Joey cheered loudly.

"Pipe down, or you're not allowed to watch it at all!" The security guard watching over them seemed cross, but then again, who could blame him? At the moment, he was a glorified babysitter for some rowdy teenagers.

"Do you really think that Seto can beat Noah Kaiba in Death T-5?" Anzu asked Yugi, concern apparent in her azure eyes.

"We'll worry about that when the time comes," Yugi answered with a sigh. "For now, he just has to beat Adina so that we can go free. Then we can support him in his duel with Kaiba."

Author Notes: First of all, a big thank you to everybody who voted for who they preferred Seto's love interest to be! Everything that was voted for will be acknowledged in some way, shape, or form in this fic. ^u^ Everybody's happy, yay!

So, I'll admit, my Death-T research was spotty at best. If you ask me what really happened, I would only be able to give you some general info and no details. I hope that makes this AU retelling of the Death-T arc interesting instead of making me sound utterly ignorant. ^_^' As for details I don't give, like how Death T-1 happened, or how they got into the guillotines in the first place, assume that whatever's canon carries over to this.

As always, please review and tell me what you think of where it's going, because I am a wretchedly needy author who needs constant support in order to continue writing. :D