Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Final Distance ❯ Hippo Campus ( Chapter 2 )

Dear Me, Myself, and I

Chapter Two--"Hippo Campus"

Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh, and neither do I own Toudo Naoya. He's from Persona.

If there was one thing that Yami hated, it was phone calls that came during the dead of the night. Usually those calls were from either drunkards who thought they were calling their teenage girlfriends, telemarketers from America who dialed one too many digits, or obscene phone calls. The latter made up the largest fraction of the phone calls, and tonight was just not the night that he wanted to deal with such things, so he hid inside his soul room, letting his aibou nearly smother himself with a pillow before giving one last annoyed groan as the rings continued.

"Why can't we just get an answering machine?" Yugi wondered aloud as he padded to the phone, scratching his head while he picked up the phone. "Hello, Turtle Game Shop, how may I-" He was interrupted by the voice on the other end of the line.

"Yugi! Thank god, why didn't you pick up right away?!" Mokuba's voice came though the phone, loud, clear and desperate. "Mokuba?" Yugi nearly dropped the phone as he pressed the receiver to his ear, his heart suddenly thumping at a bad hunch. "What's wrong?"

"It's Seto…" fear crept into Mokuba's voice as he began to babble through choked sobs, "He just came home and fainted and now he's got a really high fever and he won't stop sweating and he's just muttering something in his sleep and…"

"Mokuba, you need to calm down," Yami took over as soon as he heard the first few words. "Did you call the ambulance yet?"

"Yes, and they said they'll be here soon but I'm scared!" Mokuba's voice cried frantically as Yami heard the sound of something like a painful moaning from the young CEO. This time Mokuba nearly dropped the phone but he caught it with his other hand before it landed on the ground. "Please come! Hurry!" His voice was then drowned out by sirens wailing in the back, pounding of the door and footsteps, and finally the phone clicked and the line went dead. Yami shot back to his room and pulled on his clothes, then hurried out the door, leaving a note just in case this was going to be long night.

It was.

Clouds…swimming in a sea of blue… The smell and softness of sand beneath him, he felt like he was floating, walking on such soft ground. His long white cloak swirled around him in the gentle wind of the sunny day and he turned around, frowning at the fact that he was found.

"Seth…"

Who are you…?

The man who had discovered his hiding place smiled in triumph, walking towards him at first, then breaking into a run, but Seto could never see who he was due to the ripple-like mirage that came from the sand in the heat of the Egyptian day.

"Seth…!"

Is that my name…?

The man gained distance and reached out his hand.

"I…"

The noise of the midnight ER was loud enough to wake the dead. Four nurses pushed Kaiba through the whitewashed halls of the hospital towards the operating room as two doctors ran alongside of them, one holding a clipboard and another holding an IV. One of the nurses pressed an oxygen mask to the brunette's face, the whooshing of the oxygen from its tank and wheezing into the lungs of Seto frightening Mokuba as he tried to run alongside the stretcher. But he was pulled away by security that deemed him as "an obstruction to the doctors." Orders were shouted over the pitiful screams of Mokuba, and footsteps became louder and more frantic as Kaiba's face continued to pale and twist in pain drastically.

Yami came in just in time to see the tip of Kaiba's head disappear through the closing doors of the operating room and the red light above the chamber door flicker on for the next eight hours.

It seemed like forever until Yami was approached by a young man in a white doctor's lab coat leading Mokuba by the hand. The younger Kaiba's eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were red from rubbing them too much due to crying. When Mokuba saw Yami, he broke down again and ran towards the former-pharaoh, his wailing echoing through the empty halls of the hospital.

"Shh…" whispered Yami, his shaky hand running through Mokuba's unkempt black hair, "It's going to be all right…you'll see…" He then glanced up at the doctor who did not leave them to their privacy, who clutched a folder in his hand. Yami's eyes went wide at the sullen expression the doctor had on his face. Please say that it was just fatigue, please…Yami's eyes begged the young doctor, Please don't break this child's heart…

"We had to keep him for a bit of questioning, sir…" the doctor said, pulling a folding chair from beside the hospital benches and sitting down in front of Yami. Mokuba sat down next to Yami and clutched the Game King's shirt as though this was the only thread that kept him in a safe sanctuary. "Legal matters," continued the doctor, "May I ask your name, sir?"

"Yami," replied Yami, his crimson eyes never ceasing to give the man in front of him that begging look that suddenly turned into a nearly threatening one.

"I see," the doctor said, seemingly not surprised by the least. He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and looked down at his own shoes for a few seconds before looking back up at Yami. "My name is Toudo Naoya, Yami-san. Kaiba-san had put you and your family as his emergency contacts as well as guardians should anything happen to him…and so I must disclose his information to you…" He shifted uneasily in his chair, though not from physical discomfort, it seemed. "I must remind you, Sir that all information that I tell you must remain with only your family members until the operation is done…or even beyond that…"

"Get on with it," Yami nearly growled impatiently, his hand still on Mokuba's head, trying to comfort the shaken child however he can. The young doctor's golden eyes went to Mokuba for a split second and then he nodded, opening the folder he held in his hands.

"Kaiba-san is not suffering from a mere fatigue or migraine, I'm afraid," Toudo said, almost as though he read Yami's mind. "Nor can I give you the comfort that he is suffering from a heavy flu." His face went grim as he looked up into Yami's red eyes, his own gold ones seemingly burning into the pharaoh's soul. The master of games shuddered despite himself at the pressure he felt from this man that didn't look a day over 20.

"Kaiba-san had suffered from a very rare form of a virus that ate away at his hippocampus, causing the headache, and we had to remove it in fear that it may and most likely will devour the rest of his brain."

"His hippo-what?"

"Hippocampus. It is like a switchboard in the brain that converts short-term memory into long-term memory."

"What does that mean…?" Yami's voice became shaky now, the sound of all this medical mumbo-jumbo scaring him. He prayed to Ra that it was just the unknown terms that was intimidating him.

The doctor bit his lip and his right hand reached up to touch one single earring on his left ear before continuing. "It means that he will no longer be able to create new memories after this operation. Certain other long term memories he had before may also be lost…"

At that moment, three minds seemed to click and snap simultaneously.

To be continued…

This fic is not based off of the movie "Memento," for I have never even seen that movie before. It was inspired by a 12 minute video I saw in psychology class about an Englishman whose name I only know as "Clive" that had the same thing happen to him. Reviews would be greatly appreciated.