Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Rewind 1 ❯ Ripples ( Chapter 20 )

Please bear with my grammatical and syntactical errors (I'm sure there are many of them). I'm in search of a beta, since I'm having problems with time organization! I hope you like this chapter- it's the last of the plot. In the next chapter (already written, MWAHAHAHA) we focus on the romance. I hope you like this, it came out a bit more philosophical than intended. Sorry for the extravagantly late update, but it just couldn't be helped! QQ

Please review, tell me if you like it, and i'll post the next (reapeat: ALREADY WRITTEN) chapter for you next week. You won't have to wait! Just please, I beg of you, tell me what you think of this! Oh, and a note: all japanese script in this story is actually real japanese (at least my japanese teacherwould hopeso).

Also, one last note: I haven't forgotten my Nemesis story! Since this one isdrawing toa close, I'm gonna focus on that soon enough! Thank you for all your reviews! I'll respond to everyone in the next chapter!

Drops of water- they make no sound. They are merged into a greater whole- a stronger whole. A mass of waves which never ends and never begins, just like its ripples. Do you know that ripples are not only on the surface of the water, but inside it as well? They shake it from within and perturb it, but one could never imagine this by looking on its lean surface.

Where the ripple begins is easy to discern. It is the centre. It starts off small and meaningless but grows constantly, incessantly, assimilating everything in its path. When the smaller ripple gives way to the bigger one there is a very slim expanse of space, a tender touch, which proceeds in the violent spur of independent growth. This is how the ripple is born.

It doesn't matter how big the circle is. The centre always remains the same- the cause is one. It doesn't matter how many unidentified particles will be shaken, how many pretty molecule spheres will jingle. The white ball is always one.

It takes two things to start the reaction: the white ball and the stick to push it. The dewy leaf and the drop of water.

When I show you the moon, do not look at my finger

Do I?

Which mirror will smile back at me now, at this very lonely hall? There are mirrors everywhere, and so there is no colour. How does a hall of mirrors look when there stands no one inside? What colour is it?

Your prison. Its bars are waterfalls of broken glasses. What squall blows and rains hail down our dreams?

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

Water and wind never end. They flow prettily, both liquid. Charming but always unattainable, as though seen through a blur, where I can nor touch nor taste nor discern truth from fact and folly.

Those waters, I've never seen such circles, I bet. Such waves that swallow us down, into the oblivion of our sins, which all start from one lie.

My waters, my winds, the bars of my prison. I'm thirsty and it's right in front of me, but I can't drink. That's been my nightmare all along, hasn't it?

What colour is a mirror, in itself? Does it even exist when there is nothing for it to reflect? Mirrors are the colours of my emotions, like broken glasses.

The colour of tears.

-

There wasn't much to understand. There could have been pain, possibly lots of it, given those hundreds of deceptively juvenile faces, all drawn in the same grin.

When you break a doll, how easily do you assemble it back again?

In retrospect, no one knows which words belonged to Noa and which to her memories. What memories? She doesn't know.

How right is it for us to desire to bend destiny? Is it our right to try to cheat death? Who decides?

Does destiny exist? Is that what drew them all together, that fateful day, at that lab damned by all that is Good and True? Or perhaps it wasn't destiny, but something much more plebeian, much more boring, perhaps Kaiba.

She wouldn't know. After all, she hadn't been there.

Being a GOUL was much more torturous than it may have sounded. In fact, she didn't know how to explain it, herself. She understood what she was doing, and that tortured her, but, knowing there was no way to resist that persistent strain in her brain, that force, she took comfort that it really `wasn't her fault'.

Within GOULS, there was only one consciousness. In their minds, they couldn't have thoughts unshared with the others. It seemed as though they were not really individual anymore. Their brain had grown into something bigger, more unanimous. A place where Noa's will and their own thoughts became one. The only thing they had left of their personality was their emotions, untouched by Noa and protected into a place deep inside them.

Maybe in the old days they would have called it a soul, although it was difficult to recognize people like Bandit Keith as anything but soulless.

But really, at times, she didn't know whose hand she was moving. It felt like it was hers, but it was really someone else's leg. Their body was hers as well, since their brain was common.

Still, Noa seemed to have not been able to reach their last citadel, their hearts. Noa hadn't been able to make them want to do what they were doing, after all. She wouldn't let him break that.

Yugi…help us…only you…

Yugi…

For the first time in her life, Tea felt what it was like not letting yourself cry.

-

It came as fast as a flash, really, Marik pondered dazedly. He should have known better the moment Noa started to act weird. He should have known this would happen. Why wouldn't it? Hadn't everything that could possibly go wrong already happened? But still, hope is the last to die, and he hadn't been counting on all the logic of a notoriously logical supercomputer going AWOL overnight.

But really, he should have known. He eyed the much detested 290 clone from the corner of his blurred vision. Talk about scum of the earth. If it hadn't been for this idiot's brilliant ideas, they wouldn't be here right now. Well, they probably would have been in a similar situation, but at least they wouldn't have walked right into Noa's clutches by themselves.

And how truly ironic it was. In the end it was neither the clones nor Noa's ominous hologramatic self who attacked them. Keeping the element of surprise omnipresent, their digital blue host had preferred to assault them with some computer controlled, gigantic robots.

Very ironic, considering they had been hoping for the HQ door to open. Of course, what they hadn't known at the time was that when it opened, right after Noa's flamboyantly dramatic speech, it would bring with it a waterfall of steel giants, infused with what no-doubt seemed as biological armour and looking every bit the disgusting monster that every rookie thriller director hopes to manufacture.

There wasn't much to do really. Behind them were marching the obsessed, blond, identical zombies and in front of them an army of gun-loaded, cockroach shaped, giant metallic terminators. Marik and his band of misfits had no guns, no stamina and no hopes.

Well.

It couldn't have gone much better from there, could it? It would just be safe to say that Noa's crystal, hologram eyes reflected the entire process of decline with determinedly anti-mechanic, visceral glee. He could not control the clones, because their brains hadn't yet been synchronized with the Rod, so he sent his little Titan bodyguards in for a chat instead.

Bakura's fangs had been exposed to the fullest as he was captured and dragged, kicking, howling, biting and clawing in the fashion of a wild beast, inside HQ by his very own metallic friends. Marik didn't go down quietly either, expressing his rage more practically but just as uselessly; he at least attempted to fend off the machines. Serenity screamed when Bakura was removed from her side and she realized she would bear the brunt of a new machine's attack. Yugi tried to protect her, much like the others before him, but his extremely slim build and his frail limbs were not as powerful as they were when striking down virtual game opponents. He was torn quickly from the ground and violently towed into HQ, much like the rest of them.

As for the notorious clone, 290, who should have been aware of the weaknesses and defects of something nurtured in his own HQ, he proved quite clueless, on that aspect. What was really remarkable with him was that when he saw the machines exit the HQ, he immediately shook his head and admitted they all just stood no chance, now. Nevertheless, he did put up a respectable fight and truly surrendered only when a double edged sword was brought at hair's breath from his throat.

Noa didn't even have to open his mouth. The machines automatically carried them inside the very HQ they had initially hoped to enter. The giant steel fists literally crushed their prisoners torsos. Marik only had a fleeting look behind his captor's iron skeleton before the HQ door closed behind him. The frantic, bloodlusting faces of a dozen himselves yelled at him from afar, desperate at having lost their prey.

Noa's hologram was turned towards them right now, grinning still with that crystal look as he slowly faded behind the closing doors.

-

He couldn't move. He tried his hands, then his legs, but it was no use. Yugi was stuck, the unpleasant sensation of his bangs sticking to his forehead becoming almost an unbearable itch, coupled with that persistent feeling of sweat, hunger, blood and exhaustion that had been penetrating his senses for the better part of that hellish night.

His ”spirit energy” as he was wont to call it, was quickly dissipating. Shedding a glance at Bakura's direction easily proved he was having the same problem. It wasn't difficult to see Bakura and Serenity form his current position. Bakura was hanging exactly opposite from where he was and Serenity was cuffed to the lower wall on the left. Yugi winced again and tried to persist in making his energy take over his host's consciousness. Having his Brightside waking up in the middle of this wasn't such a good idea.

In fact, Yugi was sure this was what Bakura was thinking right in front of him, while hanging from the wall, his arms and legs attached to metallic clasps, spread in the position of torture. Bakura was obviously having a hard time too; Yugi easily recognized that strain on the scumbag's face as similar with his own: Bakura's effort not to move any more than absolutely necessary, his reluctance to waste energy...yup, the same symptoms.

The “spirit” cannot remain in the host's body for too long at a time. Isn't that right? That's what you told me, Yugi, I know…but why do you have to go…

Tea…

I don't want you to think I don't respect the `other you' as well. He's my childhood friend after all…it's very strange talking to you of yourself, `other Yugi'…

But I have to go…I can't remain in this body for very long, or else I'll lose my energy…

But still, even for a little longer…stay with me, Yugi…

I…I want…

Brightside…

Even when she calls my name in her dreams, though, I can't help but think it's you she's actually thinking of…And I don't know if I should be jealous of myself or not…to be happy to be loved by her, at least through you…or to be even more hurt by it…

They hadn't shared any words with Bakura or the others ever since they were brought in here. Apparently, Noa had taken much time to prepare for this. This, which he called “Rebirth”, or “Reunion”, or whatever. Yugi didn't really know what it was the paranoid computer wanted, save from a body to take as his own. Whose, he didn't know. His own? Ryou's? Marik's?

Speaking of Marik…Surprisingly, for once, he didn't seem to be at the centre of events. Much like Serenity and 290, he seemed discarded at the side, like a doll, which has been broken and become ineffective in some way. The three of them where simply bound at the wrists and where sitting on the ground, guarded by two giant robots, which, as he had found out, where called XEt209Z, or X, for short.

But the true significance of the X really was greater than they had initially thought. Their real usefulness to Noa surpassed the realms of imagination. They were his arms and legs. They pressed buttons where he needed them pressed, they moved things, they captured prisoners and much, much more.

Noa was nonexistent. He was only cables and chips, not tissues and limbs, not material. To become material, he used the X, and he seemed to be doing rather well, up till now. He should have been satisfied with that and with dominating the world through MediCorp and MultiCorp, but he wasn't. After all, Noa was only human, and he wanted more.

But it wasn't material he wanted, nor power. He seemed to dream of only one thing, a desire Yugi could identify with. The search of a body. His own, very own, human, body. In Noa's case, he simultaneously had everything but had nothing. He knew everything, but knew nothing.

He was a super-intelligent encyclopedia of knowledge no human would dare to dream to become. However, Noa was actually nothing more than a spoilt brat who wanted to have everything brought to him the moment he wished, and was unable to understand the concept of `No'. Yugi had swiftly observed this, his nature perceptive as it was, via Bakura's incessant banter against Noa. Albeit idiotic and useless, Bakura's constant cursing of Noa provoked answers from the computer more than once, and though Noa at first remained composed and indifferent, he progressively displayed annoyance and a sense of actual personality in his responses.

It was easy for Yugi to sort him out to the “blundering, possibly unloved, spoilt richkid' category.

And he was right. More right than he'd initially believed actually.

“What are you planning to do with us, cyber freak? Just because daddy didn't give a fuck about you doesn't mean you have the same right towards everybody.” Bakura was, unsurprisingly, ranting again, although his exhaustion seeped through it and made it lose its biting edge.

“Oh shut it…” Yugi muttered under his breath, earning a square glare from Bakura before Noa barked back.

“Don't you dare say a word about my Father, you petty little ant! I'll soon prove to him and you I'm stronger than any mortal!” the computer was getting angry now, almost shouting over the constant rustle of X moving, preparing for god knows what.

“What's the matter, freak? Hit a nerve? There's gotta be a reason why it's Seto up there and not you, after all, right?” Bakura pressed on.

“SHUT UP!” the computer actually shouted and an X compulsively carried out his will by grabbing Bakura and tugging at his hair, making him bite his lip in order to keep from screaming. Yugi tensed unconsciously `That idiot…'

“Bakura!” were heard calls from their friends, who lay bound beneath.

But soon after, Noa's cyber face from the screens relaxed its tense grimace and the X released Bakura, who let out a growl of relief. “What am I doing….you' re not even worth it, you worm. You don't even matter, in the grand scheme of things. It's only Father who matters, and I will prove to him what I must!”

“You do realize you're getting a bit repetitive, right?” Marik quietly remarked from somewhere out of Yugi's vision, encouraged by a snort from 290. It was almost eerie, how those two could seem alike, at certain times.

“If you had lived as much as I did and went through the same events, you'd learn to be patient as well, clone.” Noa coldly dismissed, not even bothering to look at Marik, insulting him even more by ignoring him.

Marik's jaw set rapidly, Yugi could almost hear it from his suspended, hanging position.

“Don't call him that!” Bakura almost literally howled, his eyes spitting blood. But Marik's voice came fast and submissive in its surrender.

“It's all right Bakura…he's right. I am, in all truth, a clone…”Bakura would have probably objected if Marik hadn't continued, now with a biting tone “…but at least I'm not a computerized psychotic little boy.”

“You wouldn't say that if you knew my true age, human.” Noa calmly countered, but this time, Serenity had an answer ready for him “The man is not judged by his years but by his countenance. And you are not a man. You are a child who has not been loved by his parents.” She explained, with more scientific precision than Yugi could have ever hoped to put into words.

“What do you know? You're just one a puppet! My puppet. What do you think you understand of men? Your dear brother? Was he a man? He became one of us so easily, that I would hardly deem him worthy of the title `man'. A stray dog is more like it.” Noa said with an actual compassionate tone, as though his understanding face could make Serenity doubt her own words, which it did, to an extent.

Joey's features, his warm, endlessly trusting brown eyes. Loyal and true. Stray puppy…always looking for someone to take him in, love him…tell him his existence truly wasn't useless. Yet Joey was more of a man than this mechanic little brat would ever be. He always supported his mother and little sister when he had to. He always carried the burdens of their father's arrests. And now, when a father himself, he sacrificed himself for the wellbeing of his family. His wife, the most capable woman Serenity had ever met, loved him with all her heart. His dreams of card games...What was Joey, if not a man?

“You know who Joey reminds me of?” Noa's torturous voice went on, now seemingly lost in his own reminiscing rather than the answer Serenity longed to hand him. “Someone I met long ago. He too shared your dear brother's tendency to overly trust the good will of others. Like your brother, he too constantly seemed to be searching for someone to guide him through his hardships, albeit no one could see this in him. He wasn't so obvious. Even so, I could see it, I could, because my perception of human nature surpasses that of ordinary humans…”

The violent movements of the X as they literally trashed the HQ into something completely different was fading into the background. Yugi didn't really know what they were doing to the room, except that they were installing machinery everywhere and walking in and out, carrying different, suspicious devices.

“Who was that person?” 290 asked, in somewhat of a bored tone. It didn't seem as though Noa needed to be egged on, however, since he`d lapsed into a story he wanted to tell. The thought came to Yugi again that perhaps Serenity was right. This was just a child, unloved, unwanted, who overall needed human support and to share something with someone else. At least that was what was revealed by his attitude. But Yugi didn't want to keep on thinking in that direction, since a small bubble of compassion for the psychotic Noa was starting to grow in him, and that was no good.

“It was someone I didn't know what to think of. Because I didn't have feelings then. I was already dead…But still, I never would have thought Father could ever compare me with him, I could see it, clear as day, that he, unlike me, was completely lost. Where I was overconfident, he was unsure. Where I was rich and experienced, he was poor and lacking. But still, Father chose him…chose him to be my rival.” Noa `s eyes hazed over, becoming lost in thought, which was unusual in itself for an AI simulation.

“Your rival…haven't you been telling us, that's…” Marik started, but Noa finished for him.

“…Seto.” The blue-haired, cyber boy's eyes froze over “Seto. Seto, Seto, Seto, Seto. It's always him! I can't stand it anymore! Ever since he appeared, that's all Father cares about! He's all Father talks about. Seto this and Seto that! I can't stand it anymore! I'm so much better than him! Why can't anyone see that?” he started a full-fledged whine, actually seeming more hurt than cross. Jealousy can be a retched thing, and most self-mutilating.

No one spoke a word, their curiosity about Kaiba's lost past more enticing than they even realized, themselves. This stood for 290 as well. Yugi found himself actually straining his energy just to hear that story!

“Seto was an orphan- would you think of that, an orphan!” Noa spit the word out as though it spelled abomination on its own “Father found him in some withdrawn orphanage, him and his beloved little brother. They were inseparable, you see. What we'd call two in one. You bought one, you got the other as a prim. Seto wouldn't go anywhere without little Mokuba…”

Kaiba had a little brother? Yugi sunk in thought. He'd never heard anything of another, younger Kaiba heir…

“This happened in 2000 at the most…” Noa said.

“That's impossible!” Serenity countered immediately “Kaiba Seto hardly seems more than twenty years old!”

Noa smirked in a most malicious manner. “That statement could have been remotely relevant. If the one you recognize as Kaiba Seto had anything to do with human principles of any sort.” He stated, and Yugi became even more confused than he was to begin with.

“What are you saying, Noa?” Yugi ground out in his rough voice “that Kaiba isn't human?”

“Yes, Game King.” The computer started “ that is, in fact, exactly what I'm saying.”

Yugi had nothing to say to that and waited for Noa to elaborate, which he lost no time in doing “Back on 2000, Seto, the orphan, challenged my rich, businessman father, the head of the greatest pharmaceutical corporation on earth, in a chess match.”

“A what?” 290 echoed, utterly oblivious of anything not having to do with his everyday life environment.

“A chess game, you dolt!” Marik remarked in annoyance “ an old strategic game.” 290 huffed in annoyance and looked away from what could qualify as his alter ego.

“My father, Gozaburo Kaiba, world chess champion was then beaten by that little orphan. This made a deep impression on him, he later told me, so much so that it led to his accepting Seto's demand that he adopt the two orphans.”

Noa smiled solemnly at this “Thus began the long war of attrition in my Father's head over who was worthier to reign over MediCorp -later named KaibaCorp. Seto began to be privately trained into the ways of a future giant company leader. However, as Father so delicately put it, `Seto lacked aspiration'. He was a fool. He wanted to build funfairs for orphans, not expand MediCorp's power. Imagine that! The total idiot! Father understood me to be much more superior to Seto on this aspect, so he never stopped researching for a way to revive me.”

At this point, Noa's smile turned positively ferocious, and he turned to Bakura “I recall he had a specific, young, ingenious scientist working ardently on my case. What was his name again…? Ah, yes. Of course. How could I forget that half-breed, phenomenal piece of work! Yuuta Bakura. Nehti's father.”

The riot of the X this time fell on deaf ears, since everyone was completely stunned. Bakura had turned from pale to extremely pale in a matter of seconds. He didn't even seem to have the energy to curse.

“You see, it wasn't enough for Father to have me as a Cyber Computer. He wanted me to be revived…Yuuta was the only one with enough brains and ambition to do it. However, though extremely smart, Bakura was a coward…he wouldn't assess to using real human specimen for his experiments. Even when he thought he found a way to link human and machine enough to make a cyborg, he wouldn't try it on a real human.”

Noa grinned suddenly “But Father really did have good methods of persuasion. Yuuta couldn't refuse anything when threatened with the life of his family- his wife and child. He did experiments all right, and they were mighty sick, if I may say so.”

Bakura gave a violent lurch but managed nothing but a spasmodic movement. Noa snorted.

“Apparently, it runs in the family, as we can see from this sufficiently interesting piece of trash.”

Bakura neither moved nor spoke. He just stood there, under Noa's mocking scrutiny, while a muscle pumped furiously in his jaw.

“Well, one thing led to another from then on. Yuuta's research became more and more advanced, and he was constantly black mailed into action. He didn't recognize that some sacrifices must be made for the sake of evolution, though. This is why, when the time came when he tried to betray Kuru Eruna, Father made Yuuta's worst nightmares come true. Now, personally, I think Father had a field trip out of torturing Yuuta, but I think he enjoyed torturing his loud-mouthed, hyperkinetic little son even more.” Noa grinned at a fuming albino.

“As for Seto…well, some things must better be left unsaid. All you have to know is that Father forgot what he initially set out to do, after all. He forgot he needed an heir, forgot about me and Seto. Forgot about our contest, which Seto wasn't even aware of. What father actually wanted, in the end, was to be the leader of KaibaCorp forever, himself. Why fight to immortalize an heir, he thought, when he could just as well fight to immortalize himself. He wanted to become immortal…and in order to do that, he took all necessary means. Even if that meant destroying and using Seto…and me, as well. He made us puppets, in the grand scheme of things.”

There was unmistakably a current of sadness under those polar artificial eyes “Even though it had started for my sake, it turned completely against me in the long run, didn't it? Don't worry, though…Father didn't really think things through where I was concerned…Sometimes I think I hate him for forgetting me…but most moments I know I don't…love…hate…stupid words.”

As the voice ominously faded, the mechanic riot again came into focus, and Noa's face broke into a wide grin, his attention seemingly diverted.

“Enough with this preamble however. My Agents inform me we can now enter the main subject.” “Agents”, as they had learned was a euphemism for the X. How fitting. Noa laughed loudly, his cavernous mouth bringing to mind the countless images of evil overlords Yugi had encountered in virtual games.

Dark Yugi's arms hurt, and so did his legs. The exhaustion of his body weighed him down, and the electric strain his energy was putting on Yugi's body was now starting to take its toll. He'd probably either loose consciousness soon, or give way to his Brightside. Both conclusions where unfavourable, given this situation. However, the Game King didn't know, yet, that he was about to get the shock of his life in a few minutes.

“Let me roughly explain the situation to your minuscule human brains” Noa started, in a faked eager tone “First of all, you might question my motives, but I have already explained how clear they are. It's simple really. I'm looking for a body, to be resurrected as a human.”

“Wouldn't that make you a minuscule mortal as well?” Serenity ironically questioned, but Noa was not phased. “Of course not. Once I channel into a body, that doesn't mean that I can't channel out of it. I intend to use bodies as suits. Wear them for some years, then switch to another, then to another.”

“You want immortality as well.” Marik loudly stated, sounding utterly disgusted.

“Is this immortality thing the new trend or what?” Serenity sneered.

“Say what you wish” Noa countered “But you're not the one who'll live forever.”

“And I don't want to. Have you ever realized how meaningless and boring that would be?” the girl defended, but Noa openly ignored her, obviously taking for granted that she knew nothing and he everything. He opted to continue laying his evil schemes on the table.

“I have thought of channeling into Seto, but I don't much fancy going from one machine to another. Seto's only difference from my current self is that he is mobile, a thing not as indispensable for me as you'd think. No, the whole idea is to become human again.”

Noa smiled at the two hanging men innocently “I guess we can all think of a human with a brain ready to accept a machine.” He snickered, making Bakura narrow his eyes and Marik gasp from below.

“You bastard!” the blond started shouting, seeing Noa's vicious look and not liking it one bit “What the hell are you thinking-“ but Serenity stopped him with a steady look. She turned her attention to Bakura and Yugi, who both seemed somewhat tense, if not downright haunted.

“You're going to use Ryou's or Yugi's body?” Bakura asked in disbelieving trepidation, making Noa smile. Bakura was sure the answer was yes by that smile alone, so he was somewhat surprised by what came up next.

“Of course not, you visceral little mammal. I don't want to channel into someone connected with the Millennium Rod. I much prefer a little treat dear old Father has prepared for me. It was a very special case. I bet you'll like it. In fact, my agents tell me they're bringing it here right now.”

Exactly on cue, an array of banging noises was heard from the background, and a parade of X marched in the room, carrying two eerily familiar contraptions.

“One may say I could be doing this but to spite you” Noa laughed in a completely flabbergasted Bakura's face “but I've actually quite taken a liking to this one. It's a perfectly prepared body. Infused with more transplants and toxins than you can ever imagine, he's utterly perfect for my purpose. Not only that, but by the specific preparations he's undergone, all his physical measurements have been recorded and assimilated to my system. This is a body completely prepared, especially for me. A special suit, if you like, which has been carefully cut to my exact measurements…so that I can channel my `soul' in it.”

And just like that, Noa pointed towards the newly brought things. They were revealed to be two familiar water- tubes. The ones they had all seen in the Hydro Room. Two tall pillars of water. Two men, eternally sleeping. The Emperor of the Earth, Atem, who Yugi didn't yet recognize as his own person and the son of Yuuta Bakura, the notorious Nehti.

Marik had never seen them, never really seen them with his own eyes until then. He'd only seen a fuzzy image through a screen, and it really couldn't do much for rendering the ancients' true countenance. He knew one of these bodies had to belong to Bakura, and could feel his heart beating frantically when he recognized a man he remembered from 600 centuries ago- a man with black hair and red eyes. Had he been looking elsewhere, he might have noticed 290's lingering gaze and become jealous, but he never really tore his eyes away from the two sleeping bodies.

But then, what Noa had said hit him full force. Suddenly, he realized that just when he'd found the true Bakura, Noa would take him away…“Wha- You-You can't!” Marik started shouting, but Noa was already preoccupied with talking to an utterly horrified Yugi.

“…I understand the shock of meeting your own body from outside, Yugi, but I admit I don't much care about it. I have much work to do and cannot presently amuse myself by observing the expressions provoked by your erratic, frantic thinking.”

Yugi nearly couldn't breathe. The flashbacks were coming so fast, he was practically choking, not at all aided by his current anatomically unorthodox stance. He couldn't even see Bakura's narrow frown at him as he started panting, while staring at the body which had once belonged to him: the body of the Emperor, Atem. That brown haired, sleeping stranger who Yugi couldn't really accept was himself until he got those scorching flashbacks…

Your Highness, they're expecting you…we must hurry.

I don't understand. What's the meaning of this, Big 5!

It's them! It's them! They've come for you!

Your Highness, please follow us. This is for your own safety.

Poison gas has been released in the Parliament vents. I repeat! Poison gas has been released in the vents. Evacuate immediately!

I knew it! I knew you were behind this, Kaiba!

On this tragic day, we have gathered to mourn the sudden disappearance of our Chancellor, the Supreme of the Senate, the Emperor of the Universal Nations…

Where—where am I…

The one place which has a future!

…Mana…where…

To Kuru Eruna, your Highness! Where kings are slaves!

Yugi was left literally speechless, blinded, deaf and mute, with tears threatening to wet his proud, sharp cheekbones. Noa, obviously, couldn't care less. He only kept on laughing. Laughing and laughing…he was unexplainably, maniacally happy at having provoked enough pain to shock a proud man into silence.

Within the fuzzy sound of Marik's indecent cursing of Noa, Serenity's calls for love and understanding and 290's startled yelps, Yugi met the piercing, silent gaze of his annoying albino adversary. For once, there seemed to be no hostility hidden in those occult, red eyes, but only a kind of silent, mystic understanding. As though Bakura was the only who understood, the only one who knew what it was like to see your life after you've lived it.

Yugi was filled, suddenly, with a sense of abstract remorse for this man. He slowly, wearily turned to look at both their hibernating bodies, both tall, both slim, both soulless. He wanted to learn, suddenly, whether he and Bakura had been enemies in their past. Did they even know each other? Did they hate each other? Why?

Seeing his body, he recognized he must have been at least thirty years old, and suddenly couldn't help but wonder. Who was he, really, except the emperor? Bakura's body revealed he was much younger. To the Game King, Nehti looked like a teenager having just reached adulthood. Much like what Ryou and Marik were today.

Suddenly, Yugi felt tired. This constant fight, this strain to hate, to keep winning, to dominate… He didn't want that anymore. The moment he'd seen Tea for the first time, he'd immediately been reminded of someone else, albeit he didn't know who. A girl…a girl from his past…the same sparkling, kind blue eyes…

…Mana…

He didn't understand why, or how. He only knew, the moment he met Tea that he only wanted to live with her. Quietly. Peacefully. Even if that meant staying in Yango. But his damned destiny, it seems, had a way of finding him even when he didn't come looking for it.

He watched Bakura, his tired face worn down from his intense troubles, his fair features almost turned another colour because of the dirt and blood. Then, he looked at 290, also broken and looking positively dead, every bit the beautiful puppet, the clone of something great- a work of art, a copy of a famous painting, having captured the movement and the atmosphere, but not the inner spark. And last of all, he looked at Noa, that fake digitalized face, probably the mental simulation of the boy he once was.

Seeing his guffawing face, his merciless eyes, even so Yugi couldn't bring himself to hate them like he once did. He couldn't find it in himself. Noa, especially was a child. A lost little child, who was looking for a father, a mother. Some compassion.

Marik and Bakura…both of them so confident, so adult, yet simultaneously so lost and broken. Yugi knew they considered him to be only a showoff for games, but he found it ironic that at this moment, he was the only one to find peace in himself, and understand his true purpose.

“All the preparations have been made. The excruciating special torture Nehti's body went through was all for the sake of preparing him for the installation of another soul- my soul. Nehti is empty right now, he's in suspended animation, and so is Atem. Out of the two, the body measured and ideal for me is Nehti's. However,…” Noa's words were there, but they held no real meaning. He spoke all right, but Yugi couldn't really hear anything. He looked at Noa's mouth opening and closing and all he could hear was “help me,..please…someone…I'm all alone…”

You've always been one to understand others like this, haven't you…it's almost intrinsic, you once told me. You can't help it, isn't that right?

Marik was shouting, yelling something at the top of his lungs about how Noa couldn't do this, how Marik wouldn't let him do this, how…Bakura was glaring, Serenity crying…290 also looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't dare, watching Marik.

“However…” Noa pressed on, and Yugi strained to actually listen to what Noa was saying “However, the body cannot live without the soul. What we had initially tried to do was take out one soul and put in another. In this case, erase Nehti's and install mine. By extracting Nehti's brainwaves, we rendered his body in this state of soulless hibernation. However, when we tried to channel me inside the body, we found it impossible. It seems that the original brainwaves need to already be in the organism, so that the new, incoming one can find a place to `settle' in the organism. Alien brainwaves seem not to be able to autonomously adjust to a host body. The original brainwaves must already be there, and all the alien has to do is overpower them with his own.” Noa smiled carnivorously down at a weakened, glaring Bakura.

“Now that you've brought yourself and your precious `Ring' to my hands, I have every element of the equation needed to complete my plan!” Noa laughed once again, and Yugi felt a resounding echo inside him shouting “you can't change a man's soul…the ones who die are meant to stay dead…you can't…replace…”

“To put it all simply, Bakura, all I need to do is put you back in your body and then take it over, dominating your will, your soul, with my own,” Noa gleefully finished.

“That can't be done!” Bakura ostentatiously barked “you can't take my own body from me, because it was meant to be mine! My soul will be most powerful when it's inside it!”

Noa let out a strangled sound which more resembled a sob than the laugh it represented “Is that so? In that case, I assure you, all the proper measurements have been taken, all the experimental deaths committed, all that could possibly go wrong has been tested and corrected. Science overpowers your idiotic beliefs. As for what you call your `spirit', all I have to tell you is that Nehti has been asleep for more than 600 years! Trust me, once he wakes, he won't be in the best of health! You can forget what you now experience as Ryou's para-personality! His original energy sustains his body for you. It's completely different having to feed and sustain your own body! You'll fall spectacularly Bakura! I'll dominate your will very easily!” Noa spit at a glaring Bakura's face “ And if that isn't enough to convince you, here's a simulation.”

And with those words, Noa's virtual face disappeared and its place took a huge digital board of indecipherable numbers which none could discern. “This is the chart which constantly follows Nehti's vital systems.” The numbers kept rolling form high to low, changing. Suddenly, a matching chart came to the left of the huge screen, siding with that of Nehti.

“This is the chart for my own, hibernated body's life force.” Noa's voice boomed “Now, observe” he said, and all watched as Nehti's and Noa's statistics started to become more and more similar, until the numbers were completely identical.

Marik's crystal eyes widened and his voice started chocking, the sight unbearably abnormal to him, for some reason. The same could be said for Bakura.

“You have no idea” Noa started “How much experimentation and procedures we had to go through to turn this…” and he displayed in the screen the chart of Nehti's original stats “…into this.” and he showed the image of Nehti's final chart, which was identical to that of Noa.

“And when I say `experimentation', I mean things that haven't gone very easy on Nehti. There have been some minor drawbacks on the body itself, namely, some unusual symptoms in the eye colour or nature of the nails and skin. However, it's nothing that can't be dealt with. It's a good start.” Noa said, making Bakura thrash around.

“You bastard! How dare you speak of my body as though you're choosing your clothes!” he yelled, his arms bruising by the force with which he drove them against his metal clasps. Just then, there started approaching a couple of X. Noa grinned.

“This is the simulation of what happens when my brainwaves are inserted in your body.” The cyber boy said, and in the screen came the thermal mage of two bodies and a bar between them, which signified “Host assimilation process”. The group watched, in utter horror, not even caring for the ominous presence of the approaching X and the violent thrashing sounds around them, as the bar progressively all became blue and a female digital voice echoed “Procedure success: 100”.

Noa's face then appeared in the screen once again, this time grinning with a nearly compassionate smile, which, when juxtaposed with his crazed eyes, created the effect of insanity. “You, see, Nehti…there's just no way to escape it. You must accept your fate. You were born for this. Born to be part of something great. Born to become…my vessel! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” the laughter of unrestrained paranoia hollered, extremely clichιd in all lunatic cases of evil homicidal maniacs, but not at all comforting in its clichι.

As his laughter faded, their attention was drown to the hovering presence of the mechanic giants, who had now come extremely close to the hanging two.

“Yugi too?” Serenity yelled in disbelief, trying to save what few vestiges she could of her friends ”Why? You only need Bakura!”

Noa seemed to ignore her, at first, looking intent on what the X were doing, but finally answered her “Oh, that. For backup, of course. Atem's body has undergone the same kind of preparation, although it hasn't been completed. Even so, if something with Nehti goes wrong, I can always try again with Atem.”

“Yugi! Bakura! Do something!” Serenity desperately begged, but her pleas fell on deaf ears, since Yugi was too far gone in his sea of oblivion to understand sorrow for his long lost life. He understood Noa, he understood…

“Noa!” he shouted, always proud “I know you're hurt because of what your Father did to you, but choosing the easy road of death and destruction is always easy! Imagine what you could do with your powers, with your scientific knowledge! Imagine how you could redeem yourself by helping people instead of destroying them- this would also show your father what a man you've become! A good man, Noa! A man who prefers the difficult, ugly road instead of giving up and becoming the monster they've tried to create out of you! NOA! I understand how much men have hurt you and how you think of them as polluting your world, but please, try to remember, you're a man too!” Yugi finished with what seemed too be the last of his strength, his speech seeming to indeed reach Noa's secluded digital cell and shake it.

“SHUT UP! You neither know nor understand anything! You're just another one, using words to convince and coax and then stabbing in the back in the first chance! I don't need you, you hear? I'm better than you, and I'm going to prove it to you, by taking everything you hold dear and destroying it! Your body, your memories, your self! I'll destroy you, you hear? You and everyone else like you, and I'll be the one and only ruler, in the end!” Noa violently shouted.

“The king who reigns after the end of the world reigns over carrion. Do you understand the meaning of this, Noa?” Serenity countered, but Noa didn't yield.

“Then I'd rather reign over nothing than live forever in this cage! I'm more brilliant than anyone could ever hope to be! All these years of patience, of quietly waiting, everything has finally paid off! Now is my time to shine, and none of you will take that away from me!” he shouted again, this time taking care to magnify his face ominously on the screen.

“You're pitiful.” Marik then calmly said, his throat dry and hoarse “Pitiful. Just because your life has been deprived of love, you're jealous of everyone and everything else, and you wish to destroy them. You're pitiful.” On Marik's side, 290's eyes lowered to the ground, not knowing why these words made his chest tighten so painfully and his eyes sting. An image of Bakura's red eyes flew to his mind, but it was suppressed by another wave of asphyxiation when the red of Bakura's eyes swirled to a world of his red sweat, where two people were kissing, pressed against a wall.

“I'mpitiful? I'm pitiful?” Noa asked, as though incredulous “This comes from the man who's a copy of a hundred thousand others. What makes you think you're so special, anyway? You're not the real man! You may even not be original in your faults. Who knows whether there are more ineffective clones in the sequence? And who would I be jealous of? You? Or maybe your little friends? I want to hurt you all so deeply that you will plead for my mercy. I want to erase every ounce of pleasure from your existence. And with you, Marik, this is even easier, since I'm going to take away your most important person.” Noa said, with resolve.

Suddenly, the sound of the X moving became more pronounced, and all were startled when a giant robot appeared right between the hanging Bakura and Yugi, blocking the vision of Noa's face on the screen.

Yugi didn't really have time to feel, or think, very much. He felt a sense of drowning sorrow, a sense of having failed the purpose of his life. All his life, he had tried to convince others, though they never took him seriously, to respect other people and to help them whenever they could. All his life, at least what he concretely remembered of it, had been a constant struggle against some evil force trying to pull him down. Poverty, stronger people who enjoyed bullying others, vindictive ones who refused to acknowledge they were hurting themselves even more by hating, even his own Brightside, who made him carry an abstract sense of constant guilt, for some reason.

Noa was going to erase his memory, he was sure of it, even if it hadn't been explicitly mentioned. Noa was going to pulverize what little of his being still remained untouched, and then crush it with his cold, electronic will. Yet, out of all this, nothing bothered Yugi as much as the prospect of what his own hands may do while under another soul's control. For the first time in his life, he felt like kneeling, as though beaten in his best game. The idea of his body doing something his soul didn't approve was worse than death. His body…being dominated by someone else…even if it hosted someone else's soul, it would still be his body, wouldn't it…his body and soul…who decided which was tied to which…who…

…Decides?

A digital dead child? It doesn't seem right…But still, who? God? What is God? He's not here, and even if he was, Yugi would curse him, since who is he to choose which soul goes where?

There is no power which controls us…Noa would use his science to have his way, and he would prove that this link between soul and body does not exist. By erasing, by pulverizing every part of the other soul, he would manage to do what Yugi had always been afraid men would one day be able to do: to utterly, unbreakably kill. He would abuse to no end, he would dominate every little part of that alien body, do with it whatever he wanted and shed the blame on the original personality, since it was `their body'…

`My body….or is it…Yugi's body…'

When Tea calls my name, sometimes I feel like…it's not me she's calling…it's something else…what she wants me to be. A good man…you.

`Do I abuse a body as well…am I guilty, of the same crime…?'

Even so…even so…In my life…I've loved…

`When my will is noble…does that justify my means?'

I love-

-

They were all caught unprepared, though Noa's evil laughter should have served as a warning. They didn't expect it to happen so fast. The robot standing between the hanging two turned to Yugi so fast that it was brutal. Yugi seemed startled, waking, one might say, from a dream daze. When the robot fisted an iron claw on his chest and tore at his shredded shirt's fabric, no one except for Bakura was fast enough to realize this assault's purpose.

The Millennium Puzzle's fleeting sparkle flashed so sharp and sudden, that even Serenity, who didn't have the ability to see the hologram version of Dark Yugi could almost see his delicate spirit being torn from his host's body. She could almost see it, just as Marik and Bakura's wide eyes did, as it wrung residually, fighting to cling to Yugi's body. But the droid had pulled the puzzle away completely, and Atem' s image started to lose it's shape of Yugi- it's image of the determined violet eyes, the stray thin blond locks that sweetly covered Yugi's left eye, the frail arms and wiry legs, almost juvenile in their slim shapelessness—now he was only a spectre. The shining, man-shaped shadow that Marik had recognized as Bakura in the KC base.

YuuGi Ou- Game King. Or perhaps, his ghost?

Bakura's eyes turned wide and strangely frantic, knowing his turn would come next. When he turned to look at a stunned Marik , the tanned boy was sure he could see his red eyes drip blood from their pain. Suddenly, it was all in suspended animation. Bakura's pale wrists were dragging with them his entire torso, as he pressed them frantically against his restrains. His torn clothes, revealing all those slants of pale expanses, those full lips, now forgetting to form sneers but reverting to their indigenous, slightly open gasp. Those eyes, not narrow and frozen, but spherical and burning.

For a moment, Marik forgot how to think, and could hear nothing, except his breathing. Those eyes which were haunting him. Those snowy strings of hair, flying like fingers trying to grasp him but unable. He saw, in Bakura's eyes, all fear and desperate anger, and words which had been left unsaid. He saw a plea, and felt his knees weaken, knowing he could do nothing, nothing to stop this. The Rod had been taken from him, and he was just a kid. Helpless. Just like that time…he could do nothing to protect the ones he loved.

Nee-san?

Bakura opened his mouth as though to speak, realizing he couldn't escape and opting to speak the last words he wanted to say. Marik was writhing, his wrists were bleeding from trying to escape the metal binds. Next to him, 290 looked on with a face of utter sorrow, while Serenity, with a grimace of desperation, was also trying to escape.

“NO!” Marik was shouting, seeing in slow motion, the mechanic clutch fist in Bakura's shirt, the albino eyes not turning to the attacker but remaining adhered to Marik's.

You can't! We have so much to do that we haven't done yet! I have to show you things! I want-

I want to live with you! -I-

This time, Serenity was sure she saw it. It was something white, like a ghost, truly, or maybe it was Ryou's white hair as his spirit was dispatched from his body. The bells of the Ring like Asian legends coming back to life, determining the fate of the world, the Judgment Day for Marik. He heard a breath…like the sound a person does when he dies, which climbs from deep inside his lungs.

After that, there came no sound. Ryou Bakura's body sagged down like an empty sack of potatoes, a rag which has been worn and tossed away. His porcelain features were left unmoving, as Serenity, her heart beating wildly, waited for him to wake up as Ryou, but was left despondently disappointed.

Just like Yugi, Ryou hadn't recovered yet, but remained still in that stance of suspended crucifixion, machines hovering over him, his long white hair hiding his face. A ghost, a figure illuminated from within its own body- Serenity thought she saw- but maybe that was because of her own tears.

And Marik, Marik who was screaming, high and hoarse, right in front of a bewildered 290, couldn't even see. He wasn't crying- he had no more tears to shed anymore. He just couldn't see and he couldn't hear- he couldn't focus on anything. He kept trying to breathe, trying to move his limbs, trying to make his mouth open, open, but he couldn't. Like a ton of bricks the memory assaulted him, that he had felt this once before, when a man dressed in white had exited his room, and there was gas all around him, and he was suffocating…

He was dying. He was dying all over again. This is how dying felt like, he knew it. He remembered. He couldn't even tell anyone that he was dying! He was trying to tell Bakura or Serena, but he couldn't- he couldn't breath-

“Marik!” Serenity was calling him, but he couldn't hear. All he could hear was Noa's voice, huge and overpowering over his meek crouching figure “I'll erase all their memories and then install them in their original bodies…this is the beginning of the end…”

There were machines, and there was shouting. Distantly, Marik realized that Noa would manage to kill him even more deeply, since he would kill all the memories of the one he loved- Bakura…Bakura wouldn't remember him, even if he came back!

He thought he saw the ring flashing, as though trying to override itself, trying to move out of its captor's mechanic grasp, but to no avail. There was the sound of machines, and the distant sound of Serenity calling for Ryou, and 290 shouting something at him, which he couldn't understand.

The X which held the two Millennium Items moved towards the panel where Noa's screen overlooked, and, after a couple of breathtaking moments, two sickening cracks were heard. The next thing Marik knew, now more alive and alert than ever, since he was preparing to die again, was that something was thrown at his feet- something strange…deformed…

Who is to decide destiny? And what if they decide wrong? And who is the one to decide what is right and wrong? How do we…

All I ever wanted was to live with the one I cherish the most. Why is that so hard?

Bakura's golden ring. Now, like Bakura, turned inside out, defiled by some steel hands who could effortlessly bend the unbreakable metal so many had tried and failed to forge. Marik had wanted time and time again to see the secrets it held inside, to try and find a body for Bakura to have as his own…now he realized how selfish he'd been. If only he'd realized how lucky he was to even have Bakura as a spirit at his side. Now he wouldn't even have that. No more cheeky smiles for him. No more red eyes.

When Noa channeled into Nehti, if he really managed to do it, then Marik would be the one to kill him. He'd be the one to kill Noa's spirit forever, he' be the one to petrify every feeling of mercy and goodness inside him, regardless of what Bakura may have wanted, and he would take revenge, revenge. For all those times they've killed me…me and everyone that mattered to me! I won't be helpless anymore!

He'd said a thousand words at that silent moment- his blood eyes- so round and liquid - like balls of fire, like volcanic craters…

I wanted to be with you…I'm happy I'm dying…I'm glad -I…Isn't it so ironic that I'm finally dying now?… We've loved- ….- ever since I met- don't forget me- please -don't forget me!

Oh yes. Noa would die. He'd die even if Marik had to kill himself to do it.

The cold female AI voice was back, spelling clearly Marik's new death—“

Don't forget…what I felt…

“Memory banks cleared”.

And just like that, within seconds, all Marik had ever done, ever wanted, ever achieved. All Bakura had incidentally ever felt for him, all Bakura had ever realized about himself as a person…all of it was gone.

“No…Bak…Baku…” Ryou was whispering in his raving nightmare, just as Yugi was for his Game King. Who knew what connections had just died, when all the intense feeling of sharing your soul- your deepest existence with another person had been erased in that person's memory. There was no memory now in that person…'Ryou? Who's that…do I know him…Who are you? Who am I? What am I? I want to die! Why can't I die!' Marik just imagined…

“This is it, my guests. Now your lucky eyes will bear witness to the greatest evolution of all mankind. The final countdown! The final citadel! The soul!” Noa cried, as the X punched various buttons and made various panels open and close. Marik saw the platforms where Nehti and Atem's body were sleeping be raised and suspended even higher than they already were. Beneath them, special slots were revealed and extended.

Serenity could only watch, struggling frantically, as the X approached the sleeping men's capsules and inserted their brainwave chips- wide and gold- in the proffered slots. While framed with Noa's frantic guffaws, the body stat panels in front of the water capsules turned from blue to green.

It is ironic isn't it…all this time I've only wished for one thing…Now that I have it…I don't want it…

“We have to do something! We can't let him do this!” Serenity was shouting, and 290 agreed with her. Ryou and Yugi were still partly unconscious, but seemed strangely troubled in their sleep. Marik tried, desperately, to override his frantic thoughts of what would happen if Bakura really awoke as Noa, in order to come up with something. This time, however, he had nothing. No Rod, no GOULS to back him up, no Bakura, no Bakura…

He felt like crying and screaming, but it just couldn't come out. The hurt was actually so fresh that he had trouble believing it yet. He still partly believed that all he had to do was glue the ring back together and put it in Ryou's pocket, and Bakura would come back again, all smiles and winks and teasing comments.

My…destiny…

But that wasn't so, was it? Because even if he came back, Bakura would have no memories of him…Even if he came back, he wouldn't be the same Bakura anymore, and he could never become the same…

Every man's experience is different, which is why he is special for his own qualities…The same man can grow to different personalities, depending on…the circumstances…in…which…he…

Noa didn't appear on the screen for a while, but they could all see things happening in the screens, medical readings, preparations. Besides, they had Noa running a constant, torturous commentary for them “Now I'm settling the nervous system adjustments” “Now I'm taking a reading of Nehti's recently awakened brainwave power” “Now I'm doing this” “Now I'm doing that” “Now I'm ripping you heart out of your body and shredding it to tiny pieces by killing the one you love and making him forget you forever, so that he can die without even knowing you.”

Finally, after what seemed like a nightmare of eternities passed and Noa had made all the necessary `preparations', he jarred Marik and Serenity back to reality by uttering what they most feared.

“Well, I suppose the time has finally come for you to witness the Rebirth. You see, through my Rebirth, you shall witness the Rebirth of all mankind. Through me, you will see the dawn of all the new age symbolizes. Immortality. Eternity. We have finally become…Gods.”

“You can't possibly mean that.” 290 incredulously said, as though not particularly involved with the affair, but merely observing “You, being an all-knowing supercomputer who has functioned in a medical institution should recognize the ravings of a lunatic when you hear them.” He said, with faked mile amusement.

“Supreme intelligence often borders lunacy, it's true” Noa's smile broadened dangerously, kindling the spark of Marik's hate “But that doesn't delete the belying brilliance.”

And then, turning towards the sleeping Nehti's body, his eyes retrieving that strange spark, which implies a silent sadness along with its insanity, he continued. “A brilliance which you are lucky enough to witness be born.”

And just as he said that, his voice having lowered dangerously, there were a couple of clicking noises and everyone's attention turned to the panel in front of Nehti's capsule. The readings on the screen had now turned orange. A slight grin from Noa was all the warning they had.

“Initiating brainwave transfer process” the same, detested female voice said, and Marik briefly felt his stomach sinking and lurching before being spurred into frantic, but fruitless, thrashing. He tried to escape, along with 290 and Serenity, each for their own frantic purpose, but all for something common. As a familiar percentage bar appeared in the screen in front of them, the future of the world where people could exchange souls and bodies and remain immortal flashed before them.

For Marik, everything that had happened which truly mattered was extremely personal, but being now faced with this, this possible future, this `Rebirth', he realized that when he fought Noa's vision, he wouldn't only be fighting for his own goal, but for something greater, something more important. At that moment, when images of tortured people who sat in laboratory cells and of people having their Hyper Arms installed flashed behind his closed eyelids, for the first time, he felt the need to protect, to right what was wrong.

You always say you don't have a hero complex…I wonder….

And at that moment, for once, Marik felt what it must be like to be Yugi, a man who always thinks beyond, a man who always uses big words like Friendship and Freedom and Love to speak. Marik always thought Yugi was speaking hypocritical cant, but now he finally understood what it was like to think so widely, in such an expanded way. What it was like to understand, through personal tragedy, why the world is wrong. This was the first step, the realization, in gaining the will to change this world.

He thought of all those victims, he thought of Kaiba Seto's eternally frozen, crystallized oceanic eyes, suspended always in the middle of a lurching emotion, and never able to express it. He thought what Kaiba Seto may have been like before whatever happened to make him a half-human, half-robot cyborg. He imagined Seto' s hoarse voice, his wide eyes, his long limbs writhing violently as all signs of the divine spark died within him, dead even before his life was wretched away from him. Dead in dreams, dead in day, dead in night.

Seto's death, which never came yet never stopped, his killed eyes, his nullified thoughts, which had been reduced to non-autonomous so completely…all those were signs of all those victims. Victims…victims…an army of victims. Old and young, male and female, human and non-human…all of them, led by that proud, unbending spine; those blue eyes which stand tall and smirk, reign and freeze and kill.

And behind him, all those men and women, those deformed creatures the Big 5 destroyed. All those who died in Kuru Eruna- those poor children who were lured to the devil's keep in search of a family to love them. Millions, billions of souls- the ones with hyper arms- those truly so unnecessary abominations- adorning their monstrous arms. Among them was a man with blond hair, chestnut eyes and a warm smile, which seemed to come from the world beyond that of the dead- from the world of forgiveness.

Mai, Joey, Seto, Ryou, Marik, Rishid, Bakura, Noa… all those millions, millions of people, tortured and dead. What had happened, one wonders, to make Seto what he is today? What had he been like with the brother he loved so much? Did Mokuba have blue eyes and white skin too, like Seto's robotic face? Did he ever laugh?

And Bakura…who knows what kind of life Nehti had had before his father's sins brought him to the sacrificial position of the greatest scapegoat of Kuru Eruna? What did Nehti do in his life- what was his personality, really? Was there anything left of it in order to be exterminated by Noa now?

Marik focused so much on all that pain, all gathered in the face of a small child, an abandoned digital little boy, who personified in his insane, dead eyes all the spirit of this Era. Marik focused so much of his power on that progressive percent bar, he thought that his will alone would break the screen. But he knew that his power didn't work with objects, or people who weren't under his mnd control. Still, 290 was lurching next to him, obviously tortured by the mind control Marik was trying to cast. Marik knew that the mind slaves must also be affected, but there was nothing they could do to stop the process of Nehti converting to Noa…Bakura…Bakura…

“STOP IT! YOU'RE KILLING ME!” 290 was shouting, but it was all Marik could do, and he didn't know what more to try. He felt so helpless, his beloved being exterminated in all ways before his eyes and he was unable to do a thing! And it was more of an extermination for Bakura's personality: his soul would fall to oblivion than for him to die naturally! What sins had Nehti committed in his life, for which he had been so severely punished in eternity?

“MARIK!” Serenity suddenly yelled, her eyes wide and looking at the screen, and for a moment Marik thought he had succeeded, because the screen had suddenly started to flash red. However, he soon realized it wasn't his mind control that was doing anything, because the percentage progress bar froze and started flashing red. In fact, all sub-screens started flashing red, in the fashion of a red alert. The X were immediately immobilized and didn't move at all, the lights on their mechanic bodies flashing red as well. Noa's surprised face suddenly appeared in the screen, now tinged in the omnipresent red colour.

“What's happening?” Noa frantically questioned, as he seemingly tried to trigger some controls to no avail “What's the matter? Why is the system not obeying?” he yelled in his whining, perturbed voice, too preoccupied to answer Serenity's calls.

“Perhaps you miscalculated, NOA!” Serenity loudly mocked, unable to hide her glee, as red light and sirens went off around them.

“Impossible…” Noa transiently answered her, and seemed to honestly believe it, as he apparently fought to take over the controls again.

But, as they later discovered, it was neither Noa's miscalculations nor Marik's visceral attempts at mind control which had stopped the system procedure. It was a loud, barbaric, obviously evil guffawing sound, which, curiously enough, did not belong to Noa.

Marik hadn't been so honestly startled for a long, long time.

Noa's image on the screen started deteriorating, eaten away at the edges, as though becoming rotten, or infested with some kind of virus.

Wait a second!

Virus?

“I knew this would happen one day, Noa.” A loud, very strange voice uttered, and they all recognized it as the same voice which had guffawed previously “That's exactly why I took some precautions”.

Noa's face, now half eaten away, gasped in fright, and the boy covered his face, as though caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Fa—Father?” he blanched, amusingly enough, and they were all granted with the image of a grown man replacing Noa's on the big screen. Was…could this really be? Noa's father? Gozaburo…Kaiba? The man who had started all of this?

“What did you think Noa, that I'd let you live on after death and not do it for myself? Of course I did” the newcomer didn't even waste a second on Marik and his friends, not even for the sake of introducing himself “I placed a bug in the system, designed to awaken when you'd try to channel yourself into a human, which I knew you would, someday”.

Gozaburo Kaiba. Fat. Ugly. Old. With a greasy mustache and greased back hair to go with it, dressed in a laughable red suit, unbelievably tacky in its bad taste, just as the man himself. He gave a sense of cheapness, overall, a sense of uncultured greasiness. Even if he wasn't there in person, but merely as a digital presence, he surely betrayed his lack of experience with high society, which originated from plebeian canniness and not real genius of spirit. It showed that he didn't belong to their time by the way he talked, those archaic phrases he unconsciously used. The language had changed very much over the years and he obviously hadn't caught up. His way of speaking was understandable in general, however, and, in any case, Marik had seen much worse in Yango, not to mention in his Ancient Rail classes with Rishid.

“I knew you'd try to become human again, and I programmed myself to trigger immediately when you tried it. Now, using the technology you've uncovered ever since my death, I can become human myself, instead, and be the eternal leader of KaibaCorp!” he raved. For Marik and Serenity it was obvious this man didn't even know what year it was, let alone seriously construct a plan. He was just a raving lunatic! Contrary to his son, who was actually both computer and human, this was merely a greedy, simply egotistic, evil bastard.

“Who are you?” Marik ventured to open a discussion with this stranger, only to have his apostrophe severely ignored.

“I see the clone has grown up. Last time I saw him he was a child! And what's this? Another clone! This lab has changed since the last time I saw it, but no matter, your computer memory banks will slowly be fed into me by the virus, and soon I will completely replace you as ruler of this system! I will become even better than my good-for-nothing son!” Gozaburo declared, still not revealing his identity, but now undoubtedly proving he was who they thought him to be.

Fleetingly, Serenity acknowledged businessmen had hardly changed during the centuries, still old, greedy, stingy and ugly. The only exception to that rule was the odd charming, bachelor, connoisseur, businessmen heartthrobs, like Seto Kaiba, but then, they too eventually grew to be stingy, old and fat, didn't they?

“Just you wait Noa. Just you wait. I'm going to wipe you out of this system and control ev-“ but Gozaburo stopped suddenly and gasped, as though having just received an information so exciting he could barely hold it in.

“Atem?” he said in disbelief “The Emperor? When was he captured without my knowledge! This must be the work of the Big 5! Imagine what will happen when I channel into his body!” and like the extremely greedy bastard that he was, simultaneously similar and different from his son, he started laughing in pleasure, probably imaging the possibilities- the doors- the lost Emperor's body would open for him.

“Is he an idiot?” Serenity whispered to Marik, wincing from her bound arms “Doesn't he realize Atem hasn't been the Emperor ever since 600 years ago?” she asked in confusion.

“He `s not aware what year it is!” 290 answered her silently, trying not to draw the raving Gozaburo's attention to him “He probably thinks that it still is only a few years after he died or something!”

Marik shook his head, as he watched Gozaburo set the X into preparing Atem's capsule in the same way Noa had prepared Nehti's `There is no way this idiot will succeed! Atem's body hasn't been prepared to host him, like Nehti's has been to host Noa! He'll fail for sure!' he thought to himself in glee, unbelieving of Bakura's luck at not being turned into Noa, due to Gozaburo's bug! Still, he could not help but worry whether or not a part of Bakura's personality had been lost with what little Noa had managed to damage. And of course, now he was worried for Atem…

“Noa!” Gozaburo explained “I know how you tried to transfer yourself in Bakura's son, but I won't need that type of special preparation. My spirit is strong enough to overpower that of the Emperor!” the apparently careless man ranted.

“Father! N-N..no! stay here with me- father—please” Noa's slightly fuzzy voice echoed from somewhere in the background.

“Shut up Noa! Let go of me! You'll never be able to block me with that kind of stupid nuisance program! I've always been superior to everyone, and especially to you! To think I once wanted you to be my heir when I could live forever, myself!”

“F-father, no!” Noa's voice was heard again, but then was obviously squelched by Gozaburo.

“First I set the equation” Gozaburo steadily said, as two different medical charts were brought to the forefront of the screen. One showed the brainwaves of Atem -the host body- and the other of Gozaburo -the prospective candidate.

Serenity gasped “Oh my God! I can't believe it! Look at their waves! They're completely different!” and she was so right, Marik pondered. Gozaburo couldn't have chosen a more incompatible person than Atem, it seems. Noa obviously seemed to catch on to this quite quickly too.

“No! Father can't you see how impossible this is? His brainwaves are so different!” Noa started “his body will never sustain you- AHH!”

“SHUT IT, NOA!” Gozaburo growled dangerously, obviously having erased another part of Noa's power and taken as his own “I know what I'm doing! Once I'm human again, I'm going to destroy you! You and this entire lab, just to make sure I'll be the only one who'll ever know the secret of immortality! The Sleepers were just a cover! A cover for me to become immortal! I and I alone, will become GOD!”

Many things happened simultaneously. First of all, the female computerized voice echoed around the lab, over the percussion of Gozaburo's laughter “Self-destruction system ignited. Access Granted. Welcome, Alpha Three.” The computer greeted Gozaburo, and Serenity suddenly remembered her search for the Alpha- the men responsible for the creation of Kuru Eruna. Oh well, seems like she found one of them. “ Self-destruction process initiated. Self-destruction countdown shall begin in three, two, one. Self-destruction countdown initiated. Laboratory will self-destruct in 59 minutes and 23 seconds, counting.”

Marik's eyes widened, realizing a timer had just been set over their heads. Seeing as they had to find a way to stop Gozaburo and Noa, save Bakura and Yugi, find the Rod and escape with Kaiba and the rest of the GOULS was on their to-do list, setting a time limit was not one of the best additions Marik may have fathomed.

The next thing that happened was that Atem' s numerical statistic charts appeared in the screens, sided with Gozaburo's statistics. Gozaburo seemed to be preparing the same process Noa had prepared for Nehti. Only something was different. Two X approached Atem's and Nehti's capsules, and they both pressed some buttons on the touch-screen panels, which were displayed in front of said capsules.

Serenity, who had seen a close-up of those capsules, did not like the button patterns they seemed to be pressing. Unfortunately, her worst nightmares seemed to be coming true. The female voice wrung again, preaching yet another disaster.

“Hydro- Capsule compressor released. Initiating decompressing process”

Gozaburo's grin did not seem one bit reassuring. Coupled with Noa's desperate pleas not to do what he was planning, Gozaburo's non-existent logic proved even more dangerous. Thus, Marik, Serenity and 290 were forced to watched the `decompression' process and what it entailed, mainly a series of intravenous electric shots on Atem's and Nehti's bodies via the cables connected to their limbs. Had the liquid they were suspended in been real water, the electricity could have just passed through the water, which was a catalyst. However, it must have been some other sort of liquid, the nature of which Marik hoped never to discover. Perhaps it resembled the liquid in a natural womb. However, that possibility was even more disturbing.

Unexpectedly, the female voice started speaking “All systems released for self-destruction process. All systems released. Sleeper capsules released. Clone capsules released. Hydro Capsules released. BioRobot units released.”

After these words, perhaps the best thing that had happened all night took place. The metallic clasps that were binding Marik and his friends automatically opened. Marik jumped up immediately, trying to spark life back to his numb legs and his absolutely deadened arms. Serenity and 290 copied his movements. They tried to move inconspicuously, wary of the X surrounding them, but it only took a moment for them to realize that the X weren't functional anymore. Unknowingly, Gozaburo had helped them a lot by triggering the self- destruction system.

However, that mumbo-jumbo about releasing the `Sleeper Capsules' didn't seem so much fun. Nevertheless, all Marik had to do now was find that Rod, and Bakura-

Bakura! Frantically, not knowing what to press and what not to touch, Marik ran to the Hydro-Capsules, where Atem and Nehti's bodies had now started to spasmodically thrash. The movements were harsh, violent, like those of uncontrollable skeletons. More than once, a hand or a leg hit the capsule glass surface, the sound, although partly muted, was violent and brutal- unfeeling, just like these half-dead bodies seemed to be.

“Now! Now I ordain destiny!” Gozaburo practically screamed, and started laughing insanely as he started the process of transferring his brainpower- his soul- to Atem's body.

“NO!” Noa's voice screamed, to no avail, but that didn't stop Gozaburo from transferring. The process percentage bar appeared on the screen and Marik was forced to keep watching, frozen in fright and anxiety, and utter helplessness, as electric power seemed to shock Atem from the wires that were connected to his head.

“Warning. Warning. Brainwave incompatibility alert. Cancel process immediately. Warning. Warning. Possible danger. Warning” a dozen alerts went off, Noa's face appearing on the screen with static, obviously worried and desperate.

“Father! You'll- “

Marik stayed transfixed, he alone standing before Atem' s capsule, where the electric currents had grown so much in intensity and frequency that the whole capsule glowed, as though from lightening.

Serenity and 290, who had stayed behind to tend to the fallen Ryou and Yugi, were so shocked by the sudden intensity that they ran frantically to Marik's side. Nehti Bakura's body was thrashing also, but it now seemed a completely stable awakening procedure, and very mild, faced with what was happening to Atem. Serenity's hands flew to cover her mouth, her eyes wide and terrified.

Atem' s brown, wild hair where flying towards all directions as he shook his head. When he raised his face, they all saw he wore an expression of desperation, as though he was fighting. The warnings of the computer kept echoing around, but Gozaburo wasn't stopping. He wasn't on the screen anymore; he was nowhere, yet everywhere!

Why are you always so righteous…not everyone can be as perfect as you. You can't blame them for that.

Suddenly, the percent bars froze and the computer coldly declared “Transfer process failed. All files quarantined. All products wasted. “

Wasted.

“YUGI!” Marik was hitting the glass with all his strength, Serenity shaking and nearly biting her palms in despondence “YUGI!” Marik was shouting, even though he knew that even if the man behind the glass answered, he wouldn't be Yugi, but someone else. And yet, he tried. He kept trying. Atem' s face was slowly becoming slack, his eyelashes fluttering underwater.

“YUUUGI! ANSWER ME! REMEMBER US! YUGI!” “YUGI!” they shouted, inow joined by a frantic 290, who had left the fallen Ryou and Yugi. The real Yugi, who had already woken behind them, at first confused and now terrified, as he saw his friends shouting at the man inside the capsule and not understanding the horror of who he was.

You can't expect to make the world better…it was made this way for a reason.

But I hate those kinds of people. The kind of people like Gozaburo Kaiba, or the Big 5. They always try to make others do what they want…I only want…

I want to…make the world a better place…is that so bad, Mana?

I have to…I have to…because I'm the Emperor, and all those people are expecting this of me. I have to…

I have to stop him

Marik watched, his amethyst orbs wide and desperate, as Atem' s eyes flew open in the last spasm of his body. His eyelids flew open to reveal two twin violet gems, unlike those of any other human. Pure, sharp and almost cruel in their honour. His mouth opened as though trying to speak, but everything came out mute in the drowning water. He limbs floated silently, his open eyes now unblinkingly reflecting the flashes of electrical thunder that were shocking his unmoving, frozen body.

“YUUUUUUGIIIII!” Marik practically screamed, along with Serenity and a newly awoken Ryou. A shocked 290 and looked on as a desperately sobbing Yugi, now having caught on, clawed at Atem's capsule, with Ryou trying to pull him away.

They all watched, silent and not daring to speak or move their eyes away, as the computer declared that the `awakening sequence' had been completed. They watched as the water in Atem's specimen tank started to empty, its surface lowering gradually.

“Father…” Noa's voice echoed in a hushed tone, it's childish, lost quality sounding absolutely fitting to the friends' situation. It really did feel like they'd lost their father, although Noa hadn't meant it for the Game King, who had always seemed the most mature man in their company. Yugi…the Game King…his romantic lectures always gave them that extra spur they needed to go on. His persistent, exited belief in the good within people always gave Marik's friends a motive- a hope they would have otherwise lost. Yugi…

The water lowered, but the man didn't swim in its surface. Instead, he sunk along with it, until his feet touched the tank floor. The wires had been removed from his body ever since the water started emptying, and so now he body was let free, finally, to sink to the tank floor. His hair wild, his eyes wide and unblinking, his face turned upwards as he stayed sitting on his prison's floor. There was no doubt as to whether he'd be waking up or not.

The creation of the new world, Marik thought, as he watched what no doubt once was a proud, strong man. For some inexplicable reason, watching Atem's presence, his eyes, overpowering and alight with hope even at his last moment reminded Marik vividly of Seto Kaiba. How proud, how rigid and courageous this man was. Marik felt more than acknowledged Yugi crying in front of Atem's still corpse, which remained damned to be imprisoned forever in this prison the colour of glass tears.

“Stop that” Marik said, touching Yugi's shoulder and pulling him back calmly. Yugi tried to shake him away, but Marik's grip became firm and he pulled back harshly, dragging Yugi to his side, where Serenity was already sobbing in Ryou's embrace.

But no good man can change the world alone…you know that. Then why do you-

Keep trying? Because I believe that one good man can influence many more than an evil one. Because I need to.

You know, one day, you're going to meet your greatest failure because of this romantic fantasy of yours.

Hm. Maybe. But until then, at least, I can be content on overthrowing a few evil overlords first. Right? Besides, when I die, I wish to be remembered for something I've done. I've made a bet with myself, that I'll try making more people remember me by doing something good rather than something malicious.

That goes against the laws of history, you know. Hitler. Mussolini. Stalin. Jack the Ripper Da Vinci. Michellangello. Gandi. Who's better known?

The dictators and murderers, I know. That's exactly the challenge of the bet.

“Why? Don't you believe he deserves to be mourned?” Yugi bitterly questioned, not turning to look at Marik.

“I believe…” Marik started, turning back to look at the fallen Emperor and suddenly being filled with a sense of relief, of understanding the nature -the limit- of this man's soul “I believe he wouldn't want you to cry over something as trivial, Yugi.” Marik finished with a thick voice. Having said that, making Yugi stare at him with the last of his silenced tears, he finally understood why he hadn't liked Atem in the beginning.

Because Yugi -or Atem- was everything he'd always wanted to be. Noble. Loving. Honourable. Proud. Honesst. True., that' s why he frustrated Marik so. Because the blond boy knew he could never become like this man: the role model for every man.

“Marik…” Serenity started, her voice slightly coarse but now seeming more worried than anything else. She seemed distracted by something behind Marik's head when he turned to her, though, so Marik instantly turned to where she was looking.

“NO!” he yelled, as he saw electric sparks flying through the cables connected to Nehti's head. A glance to the computer screen revealed what Marik had feared Noa was doing. He was repeating his father's mistake. Albeit, Noa wasn't like his father. Perhaps he'd manage to transfer into the body prepared for him. Marik didn't know if that was actually a fate even worse than death.

“Stop NOA!” Marik yelled at the top of his lungs, now running to Nehti's capsule, where he looked up and saw black silk threads and a red ribbon flying everywhere around, as Nehti thrashed his head around, his face obscured by his raven locks “Can't you see it can't be done?”

But, to Marik's surprise, he wasn't allowed to continue, since someone else stepped up.

“Don't you understand” Ryou questioned Noa loudly “that nature has set things in a certain pattern of death and rebirth? Those who die are meant to stay dead, until nature finds another way to utilize their essence and life force!”

Serenity must have probably explained, roughly, the situation to Ryou, but the albino boy, now with his true, subdued countenance, spoke with an ardor he had never shown in… anything before. It seemed as though Ryou had meant to say this for a while, and had now finally found his chance. He needed to say it.

“Who do you think you are? What kind of hubris are you committing by trying to play God? Do you really think you can take the man's soul out of his body and replace it with another?” Ryou's brows had furrowed, his arms moving violently, pushing Marik to the side and proceeding towards the screen, where Noa's frowning face appeared behind static “Were you really so stupid as to think that it will ever be possible, regardless of science, to erase the very organism who was meant to exist in a body? Just because you don't understand and can't have something, you try to destroy it, in order to claim you're stronger than it!”

Noa didn't seem to be responding, only glaring behind his percentage process bar, whose process curiously seemed to have stilled “Do you really think you'll ever become human again?” Ryou asked, and Noa was jarred back to reality.

“That's what I've been trying all along!” the boy defended.

“And do you think you'll be happy, Noa? Because that's what matters in the end, being happy. Do you think, even if you do manage, by moving another man's arms and legs and by seeing through his eyes, you'll be happy? You think you'll be wiping out Bakura's personality, when in truth you'll destroy your own, too! After a while there will be no `Bakura', but there won't be any `Noa' either. You won't recognize your self, and, just like sick people, in your own mind, you'll stop being yourself. You'll be assimilated in the destruction you're trying to provoke. You'll never be able to change a man's soul, Noa, no matter how smart you are! You can't live forever!”

“The measurements are perfect!” Noa heatedly argued “Nehti is perfect for my purpose! He's a body designed to fit me perfectly! The procedure is going smoothly! There is no way-“

“I don't care how the procedure goes, NOA!” Ryou yelled now, banging Noa's screen and making Noa glare violently “you can't pull his soul out! You just can't! I don't give a damn about how perfect you think you are or how perfectly you've prepared your procedure! The dead can't come back to life, Noa! They mustn't!” Ryou was now touching Noa's face on the screen, his eyes having softened.

“So please, accept this…and rest. You can't convert a man to something else. There is no way to do that, or resurrect yourself. Even Seto, who you've hated and envied so much simultaneously, is still human, even after all you've done to him. He's human, Noa. Whatever lives on this earth is human, because when it dies, someone will cry. We'll cry for you, Noa. You're not alone.”

Noa's startled face, his wide eyes didn't even blink when the female computer voice broke out “Error. Error. Error. Unable to complete data transfer. Unable to complete transaction. Files quarantined.” When the words settled in for Noa, his image was already dissipating, his `data' being put on quarantine. His startled face still watched Ryou, now frantically displaying his disbelief at what had happened.

“This…this can't be…everything was perfect…” he whispered dejectedly.

Ryou smiled “I told you. You can't change a man's soul. I'm actually glad I had the chance to talk to you, Noa. I feel like I've finally ended this in the source where it began. I feel as though I've reached the roots. What you've been trying to do all along is live. Live, right? Maybe forever, but maybe not. But human, right? Always human. If you wanted immortality, you could have taken it easily as what you are now. But it must be lonely in there, right? It must be very lonely…”

Serenity approached the screen and took Ryou's arm, the two staring at Noa's fading image with that expression of parental understanding. It seemed to scare Noa.

“Please” Serenity started “Please fly to our memories and rest, just as all our friends have.”

“I…I want…someone…Seto…always had Mokuba…I hated him for that…I—“

And just like that, they last of Noa's cleansed blue eyes flashed, and with him flashed for the last time the screen of the mainframe computer of Kuru Eruna. Ryou and Serenity, as well as the others, were very silent as Noa faded, and now only the self-destruction warning remained, saying they only had three quarters of an hour left.

“Oh no!” Serenity gasped “Nehti!” and she pointed behind Marik, who whirled around immediately. Everyone ran desperately towards the floating man, hoping to at least salvage what little they could. Everyone tried not to stare at Atem' s body and be reminded of their fresh tragedy, which was much too new to fully register. All except Yugi, who kept staring at it, tears rushing down his cheeks.

Ryou was also thinking about the void in his soul, which had already grown in the place of his ring. He could only imagine what it would be like for Yugi to actually lose that other part of his soul, which Ryou didn't even want to imagine not having. He resolved to save Bakura's soul in this stranger…this familiar stranger…whoever he was.

“Dammit! Along with Noa, all systems have shut down!” Serenity yelled, as she punched the deadened, blank screen of the panel in front of Nehti' s capsule. Marik tried to figure out what to do along with her, but was propelled into action when he took a look at what was happening inside the tank. The cables were disengaging from Nehti' s body, and it didn't seem too tender a procedure either.

“Bakura!” Ryou shouted desperately, while Yugi turned his head away from the sad sight in utter sorrow and horror combined. Nehti was still thrashing wildly around, probably the residual effects of all those varied electric shocks.

“Shit!” Serenity uncharacteristically cursed “the system's dead! The water won't empty!”

Ryou turned to her immediately “Are you joking? He'll drown! Is there no other way?”

Serenity helplessly shrugged, while she stepped away for Marik to have a go at the dead panel. “God damn it! We can only hope he won't wake up soon-“ Marik started saying, while raising his eyes to look at Nehti's now calmly floating figure.

They all kept staring at the floating body, trepidation obvious in their facial expressions and the strain of the self-destruction timer weighing down on them. Nehti was unmoving and silent, long black eyelashes covering motionless eyes and red ribbon having long ago untied from his forehead.. In fact, though Ryou didn't want to think about it, maybe he had not survived-

“Ah!” Serenity gave out a small yelp when two red eyes opened all of a sudden, in the midst of the absolute quiet. Nehti stayed staring at her for a second, moving his black hair out of his vision by a slight shake of his confused, breathtakingly angular face, while Serenity stayed frozen.

“Quick! We have to break the glass!” Yugi shouted over the commotion, looking around for something sharp he could use. He found a metal rod on the ground from near an X robot and grabbed it. Turning towards the capsule, he prepared to hit it.

“Wait!” Marik shouted, lunging but not making it in time. Yugi let the metal hit the tank, only to have it almost roll back against him. The capsule was untouched. Nehti, meanwhile having started to blink faster and push the top end of his water prison, was startled by the sound of something hitting the glass from the side, since he obviously couldn't see anything around him in the liquid.

“Oh no! Nononononono don't panic!” Serenity shouted at him as though he could hear, pulling at her own hair, knowing that once a man panics, his oxygen consumption accelerates dramatically “Don't scare him!” she shouted, but it was too late, since Nehti seemed to believe he was under attack. He started hitting the sides of the tank frantically, eyes scarlet wide and mouth uttering muted calls for help.

“We can't break such enforced glass so easily!” Marik shouted, and started looking for something sturdier to use. He searched around, his heart beating wildly, having just met the same eyes as the one's he'd thought dead `I'm not losing you now…we've come this far…I won't let you go…'

But time was passing and they could find nothing, do nothing.

“OH MY GOD! DO SOMETHING!” Serenity literally screamed, distracting Marik enough to make him turn around. He saw Nehti, his red eyes liquefying into true, honest fear as was trying to push upwards, against the lid of the tank. His movements were becoming spasmodic, going into pre-drowning shock, his face extremely expressive in its desperation, his mouth now with muted screams. The moment Marik turned around the red eyes fixed on him, as tough Nehti could see him sharp and clear. Black long ribbons of hair were still flying around Marik's vision when he turned away, frantically searching. From outside the capsule, Nehti' s animalistic hitting the glass was nothing but a dull, slightly perturbing knock. His long nails clawing the glass must have been absolutely heart-kindling from where he was inside the capsule, but they were nothing but muted little scratches now, like the noise mice make when running on wooden floors.

“DO SOMETHING! WHATEVER!” Serenity screamed again, half- covering her eyes and half clutching at her pounding heart. Finally, not knowing what else to do, 290 and Ryou grabbed the steel shield-like object they was holding and started to bang it on the glass together, making Nehti focus and start hitting responding fists on the glass from the inside. Following their lead, Yugi started doing the same with his metal pole, from the other side of the tank.

“SHIT!” Marik roared, and grabbed a most unlikely candidate for a tool- the gigantic arm of a dismembered X.

“Get out of the way!” he barked at the others, while running towards the tank, gaining momentum. Behind Ryou and Yugi's hits, Nehti's corresponding, desperate banging fist was becoming much slower, weaker. Upon seeing what Marik was doing, Ryou and Yugi fled immediately, and Serenity lunged to the side. Marik came running, whirling the titanic steel instrument like a flail.

The first time it hit the capsule nothing happened. Had Marik been in his senses, he would have realized he was crying without realizing it `Hold on' he prayed, as he saw the gentle curve that Nehti's back formed with his hair sinking perilously low `Hold on'.

By the time he managed to flail it a second time, Nehti' s long limbs were starting to curl on the tank floor, much like Atem's dead ones. His hand was reaching upwards in the stance crying for help, his red eyes were closing, and a burst of bubbles flew upwards from his mouth.

“NO!” Marik shouted, and flung the steel arm for the third time. This time, the unbreakable glass cracked.

“Quick, Marik! Once more!” Serenity yelled, and this time, Yugi, 290 and Ryou came to help Marik with their strength. Nehti's precious minutes had almost run out, his eyes having closed almost completely, his mouth left open in a mute plea, when they finally hit the tank for the last time. Water - or whatever that disgusting liquid was - started to decompress violently out of the tank from the cracks of the glass.

“Quick! Get away from it, or else you'll get hurt!” Serenity shouted. Ryou and the others started to back away, but Marik wasn't fast enough. The wretched thing broke before he had the time to move away. He felt himself slip on the fallen water, and then he was sucked in an enveloping current. He tried to cover his eyes, afraid of stray glasses blinding him. And he was right, since a moment later he felt a wave of watery essence hit him from above, along with some of those blasted shards. When he thought the worst was over, however, he heard Ryou's “Watch out!”. However, nothing could have prepared him for the dead weight that fell on him a second later, almost choking him.

When the final brunt of the current was over, he tried to open his eyes, but could only see black. He was suddenly reminded when he'd woken up to the white of Bakura's hair, but chose not to reminisce at that inopportune moment.

“Get him off! Quick! We have to hurry!” Yugi was saying, and Marik felt the dead weight be lifted from above him. He soon realized the aforementioned dead weight was, in fact, a very weak, frail, black haired man.

“Quick! “ Serenity shouted and crawled over the fallen person, whose body was so weak it allowed itself to be merged with the shape of the ground. As though dead. But Marik didn't want to think about that possibility…

Serenity started pumping Nehti's chest steadily. When that didn't seem to work, she shut his nose and cast CPR on him. Marik stood over her, watching anxiously. It took four, maybe five times for her to succeed, finally. With a choking sound, Nehti coughed up liquid, and kept on coughing until he could breathe freely. Serenity tried to support him, but moved away when Marik crouched over their ancient newcomer.

And just as Marik wanted, just as he'd dreamed from the start, his sun-tanned face was the first thing Bakura coherently saw in his new world. The red eyes were extreme in this state, there was no other way to describe them. He remembered them from his memories of seeing Nehti for that one time when he was a child. Marik now realized that Bakura's red eyes in Ryou's body hadn't been genuine- they had always been a bit blurred- as though glazed over by some blue or purple layer. But this…this was pure, red scarlet. It was utterly crimson, the complete colour of drying blood.

Nehti moved his mouth, as though trying to speak, but nothing came out, even though he tried many times. They were all gathered above him, some smiling, some nearly crying, most just disbelieving. This was like a birth of a new man.

“Welcome…” Serenity smiled brightly, but Nehti seemed so startled by the sudden decibel of her voice that he cringed away, as though trying to become one with the ground, where he was lying.

290 was staring, his eyes wide and unblinking, at Marik's expression as he looked at Nehti. That expression…His own face…did he really look like that when he…when he…loved? He wouldn't know, would he? He'd never loved.

Everyone was so deeply moved, each for their own reasons, that they couldn't speak. Ryou, understanding that the other part of his soul was safe and finally had a chance to be happy, Serenity, for finally having met this mysterious man in person…The only one who carried a residual bleakness was Yugi, his eyes moist and unable to focus, trailing back unconsciously to a blank capsule, where a proud and honest man slept, forever. Why couldn't he have his Darkside as well? Why only Ryou? Life…life isn't fair, is it…Yami?

Marik kept staring at Bakura's half-closed, tired blinking eyes, as though willing them to remember him. But nothing came back except a vision of sensual confusion. Marik felt a glum sense of utter disappointment envelop him, even when faced with that shadowed, utterly indecent redness in the other man's eyes. That was until Bakura's sharp orbs closed tiredly, exhausted even more, now, with this war of attrition.

“We have to go!” 290 suddenly started, his voice carrying not a small amount of disguised rejection “This place will self-destruct in twenty five minutes!”

“Oh no!” Serenity gasped, as she watched Marik take his very torn shirt off “What will we do with the GOULS? We have to either fight them to get their chips out, or control them with the Rod, until we're out of here!”

Marik used his shirt as a piece of cloth to cover Nehti's private parts. After he'd tied it around the crow-haired man's narrow hips, he picked Nehti in his arms like a doll and flung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“I say the Rod.” Marik stated “At least until we can get out of here. It'll be much faster that way.”

“I agree.” 290 said, but looked away when Marik frowned at him.

“We can't keep using them like this.” Serenity argued, sighing. “where is the Rod, anyway?”

They all looked at Marik, who shrugged with his free shoulder “The X took it away from me when they caught us!”

“You mean you have no idea? Tsk. You're pretty careless, aren't you.” 290 now sneered.

Marik made as though to defend himself, but was interrupted by Yugi. “Either way, we're taking Darkside with us, aren't we? To bury him. So we must hurry…”

They all looked at each other, somewhat guiltily. “Yugi…”Marik started, but Yugi glared him down immediately, with blind determination.

“What? Don't tell me you're going to leave him here? I knew you were! You only ever think of Bakura and-” Yugi erupted “Is that how important he was to you! You won't even bury him? He was , he was...a hero! And I'm-..And you don't even underst-“

“Stop it, Yugi!” Marik interrupted, his honest sense of duty overpowering every other sense. Boy, Bakura's help would have been very useful right now. Marik wasn't very good with dealing with this “You know that's not true. I…I cared for your Darkside too; we all did. And it's true that I care about Bakura, and I want to save him if I can- just like Atem. And don't think I don't blame myself for what happened, because I know I should have been there. He's just another ghost following me, now. Another reason I'll go to Hell, probably.”

Marik turned towards their friends' fallen body “But even so, I mustn't let myself do the same mistake twice. I have to hurry- we have to hurry and save everyone else, or else more lives will be sacrificed. And I bet that if Atem had a say in this, he'd want us to keep going and save as many of his friends as possible- save Tea. Even if that meant leaving him behind.”

Marik took a trembling Yugi's shoulder, in front of a dazzled Serenity and Ryou “I understand your feelings toward him, Yugi, and I want you to understand mine too, that I admired him so deeply that you can never imagine, and that I want to live up to him and what he entrusted in me by killing our worst enemy, at the cost of his life. Do you understand that, Yugi?” Marik solemnly asked, and, at Yugi's tearful nod, grinned slightly, motioned to the others and walked towards the exit of that damned room.

“Be prepared” he aimed the question at 290, mainly “there may be more clones lurking around.”

“…Oh joy. I'd forgotten about that. But you had to remind me, didn't you?” the other clone huffed, frowning with crossed arms.

Marik smirked “Can't have your pretty face looking like that. I'd hate to see it bruised, after all.” Ironically speaking of his own face, he didn't seem at all displeased at the prospect of 290 being bruised, however. A quick squeeze in his heart told him that he sounded a lot like Bakura, and he stopped right there, because it hurt to think of Bakura, even though he was actually right there, in his arms, more concrete and yet more absent than any other time.

From behind there came Ryou's resounding voice “Hey Serena, are there even more clones?”

Marik truly wanted to fall off a cliff right then. Ryou had only seen 290.

-

When Marik and company exited HQ, they weren't prepared for the carnage they encountered, albeit having seen much gore that night. Apparently, Noa hadn't deemed the clones indispensable to his purposes. Since he didn't control them, he simply had his `Agents' wipe them all out.

Ryou and Yugi, who hadn't been with them during the fiery events of their long fights against the clones hadn't had any sort of preparation for this vivid image of slaughter. The both threw up, although at different times. As for Marik and Serenity, they didn't have anything left in their stomachs to begin with. 290 didn't even bat an eyelid. The disgusting clone. Marik was sure he had no feelings- or perhaps he did, which was why Marik was so unexplainably irritated by him. He was irritated by the possibility of someone with his face having similar emotions with him, and what that might mean.

Were they the same person? Did they have the same soul…No…Ryou's words came back to mind. No one could steal a person's soul…however, he had stolen the original Marik's personality, against all odds! If only Bakura were here with him…If only…

They were following 290, who was guiding them down the bloody corridors toward the main hall, where the GOULS were gathered. 290, whose face was strangely frozen, as though he had no feelings. Well, he didn't, did he? He was a clone. How had Bakura so eloquently put it, 290 mused. `He had no soul'.

He'd been staring at the ground, though, so he was surprised when he raised his eyes to meet what lay ahead.

There was a figure, relatively short. 290 didn't think he recognized having seen it in Eruna before, but then again, crazy things had happened that night. What was one more insanity?

“What's that?” Serenity whispered worriedly.

“I think you mean `who'” Yugi commented, offhandedly.

“He doesn't look like a clone” Marik observed, keeping the shallow, low tone of voice the others preferred to speak in, for fear of alerting the stranger.

“I think it's a kid.” 290 whispered, and took another step forward. He saw a golden glint coming from the figure's direction and recognized it immediately “The Rod!” he marveled, and internally debated whether or not to start running towards the stranger.

“True.” Marik noncommittally admitted, but recoiled when he saw 290 preparing to run “Wait! Let's not rush…let's keep the element of surprise.”

But it was very hard to sneak up to the short person, especially when all they had to work with was a narrow corridor, which only went two ways and which echoed each and every small breath, let alone serious noise.

As they approached their footfalls alerted the unknown child, there was no doubt. However, there was no indication the stranger acknowledged their presence. They had come close enough to see that it was, indeed, a child. Whether it was a boy or girl was debatable, since she or he had long hair, but a strangely lean body. It didn't take much for the small company to realize the child had a mechanic limb, a leg, and, in fact, bits and patches of the skin on his exposed torso were also mechanic.

When they'd come close enough, the child turned towards them, verifying he was a boy and revealing a slightly strange, half-robotic, half-organic face. He didn't seem to be an android, but, rather, a human merged with a robot. It wasn't as monstrous as it could have been, but to see the image of a child mutilated like that was more than hurtful.

The boy's eyes were very big, the colour of onyx graphite, and were perhaps the most notable thing about him. On the other hand, his hair was dingy and eaten away at the edges and his clothes chapped here and there, providing a sort of strange, elastic-looking ensemble of shorts and a torn, sleeveless shirt. However…in his hands he held something not at all dismissible, if the Millennium Rod could qualify for this description.

“I can't believe it…” 290 whispered hoarsely, seeming honestly unable to believe his eyes “I thought it was a legend…”

“What was?” Marik questioned tensely, but 290 didn't answer him.

“…Nii-sama?” the boy suddenly asked, his voice a somewhat melancholy monotone. There was a sense of static there, as though it came out of an old radio or something of the sort. Marik noticed when the boy opened his mouth to speak that his teeth were made of steel.

Ryou blinked and walked forward, looking curiously at the boy. “That's Japanese for `brother'. I wonder where he heard that…” then he kindly fell to his knees in front of the boy “ Nihon kara kita nda no ka? (Do you come from Japan?) “ he questioned kindly, and everyone watched as the boy took much time to think the question over, as though registering carefully that someone was talking to him. It seemed as though he hadn't talked in a while.

Marik observed the boy, looking for any sort of indication that the boy knew who they were or who this `brother' was. It wasn't easy to discern an indigenous Japanese, nowadays. The Japanese had long ago, along with the Chinese and the Korean, lost the exclusivity of their special characteristics, since, with the globalization, the Asians had spread to the whole world and mixed with all other kinds of people. If one carefully thought about it, the Japanese, the Chinese and the `foreigners' were one and the same.

“Nii-sama…” the boy repeated, as though unable to understand, after all. Ryou made a soft sound of confusion and tried again. The next time, the boy answered quicker.

“Nii-sama…Nii-sama o mita no kai? (Brother…have you seen Brother…)” he looked lost, he looked sad, withdrawn, and lonely…and worst of all, he didn't look alive.

“Ja…(well…)” Ryou started, attempting to pat the poor thing's head and wincing when the boy showed no sign of acknowledgement “Sonna taisetsu na hito o mitsuketai nara, boku to issho ni sagashite kurenai no ka? (Since you want to find such an important person, why don't look for him with me?)” he asked eagerly, watching the boy's noncommittal eyes slip from his face to the floor and back.

“Nii-sama de…shiteru? (Do you know brother?)” the boy finally asked, seeming to consider the offer, which Marik and the others hadn't understood.

Ryou grinned meaningfully “ Jitsu wa, ano hito ni tsuite, kimi ni kiku tsumori desu (I was planning on asking you about him, basically.)” he answered, and then hurried to ask the boy's open face “Onamae ga nan da? (what's your name?) “ he asked quickly, hoping to gain a straight answer.

“…Mokuba da ” the boy answered quietly, and Marik felt his insides freeze, just by the mentioning of that name- the name of the boy who Noa proclaimed was Seto's beloved brother.

“Ryou, what's going on?” Serenity asked, also shocked by that name. Ryou turned towards her and explained “He's probably lost here, but I'm not sure. He's looking for his brother and his name is Mokuba…he's not very talkative, as you can see…I think there may be something wrong with him.”

Marik thought that was the understatement of the century, given the boy's half-mechanic condition. “Tell him we know his brother” Marik told instructed Ryou “We'll take him to him.”

Ryou seemed perplexed “Will we, really?” he questioned in confusion “How?”

Marik narrowed his eyes in thought and looked at the boy. Shuffling Nehti's weight on his shoulder, he kneeled in front of the boy, who turned to look at him with his undead eyes. Marik noticed he was clutching something with his left hand, the one that wasn't holding the Rod. He was clutching something hanging from his neck…a locket, perhaps, but Marik couldn't see.

“Seto Kaiba” he simply uttered, and watched in justified certainty as the boy's eyes sharpened and focused almost violently, as though something brutal, vicious was kindling beneath them, which was somehow trying to come out to the surface, but unable.

The boy didn't speak, he just looked on, staring at Marik as though mesmerized, onyx graphite metallically sparkling in his eyes, absolutely steeled over.

“…legend...”290 whispered, as he watched the little boy stare at his alter ego with his dead eyes, almost breaking his necklace by clutching so hard.

-

In the end, whose memory is lost and whose found?

Our dreams, like lost futures…under what cherry tree will we meet next time?

Will you be waiting for me, as always, or will I find you gone? Whose red, liquid flowers now decorate my hands? Even that which is red and green and pink to me seems black and white. The most clear visions blur behind my eyes and my ears are deaf, still.

What sweet tourniquet can be wrapped underwater? No! No don't-

We…

How many are we? I don't understand, yet. Whose consciousness is lost under the glasses and whose found? Whose eyes reflect my emotions best? Which mirror best describes my features?

Black and white, my world, and see-through. The red petals seem to me to be black wings and the white only tears. Your warm hands, your breath, nothing's changed and yet everything.

Even when I die, will anyone remember me? I want…I want to be remembered. Will anyone know my story…?

In the never-ending waters, the ripple always is one. The others always fade; there is only one sharp one. Rivers of tears may flow from me and perturb the hidden depths, but still nothing shows on my surface. My waves will cover me- I trust them.

The centre of the ripple is one and the same. The reaction which starts everything. Once the circle becomes too large, and you stand on its side and not above, you cannot find its centre, its source. There are snippets, there are visions of smaller causes, smaller centres. Ripples, Needs.

…I loved…

Who do you protect from the current? Yourself, or perhaps the ones you love? Why are you sadder when a human dies than an animal? Who cries for an animal? Do other animals cry? What's the difference between my death and that of a mere sparrow?

o-ku-

you'-ll be v-ery sad-

y-ou-

Which mirror reflects me best? My memories, like shards, cut me from the inside. I shouldn't. I shouldn't have. tried.

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

Checkmate.

I shouldn't have started it.

Deep inside, the aspiration of the man. How do I become a man? How do I become a father? How do I become a brother? How do I remain myself? Who am I?

Am I?

I shouldn't have done it- I didn't realize at that time, what I really had to do, how fast the ripples grow. Where this would take you.

The ocean's depths, all in your eyes .What colour are they, I never determined. The colour of metal. The colour of pain. Where have you sunk me? Where did you cast your revenge? I never listened to you, did I? Even though I loved…I did…

Your favourite trees, why can I not discern their colours. Inside these steel sockets, which mirror can truly see me? What mirror?

When I look at it I only see you. Even though you always smile at me, I know I'm not a good father. I know I'm not a good brother. I'm not a good man. I always imagined you'd come to me in my dreams. But the only thing I ever dream of is water. It's quiet.

I've always thought, the ones who see no colours can only discern red. Blood. They can recognize it.

I was wrong.

In my steel, never-ending sockets, my world, the ripples of my centre sin.

Checkmate, Kaiba- san.

CHECKMATE KAIBA-SAN.

---mok-u…--b-a

whose love…? Will fly?

White doves, even, seem like tears, in my colourless, never-ending sockets.

But I was wrong. It's blue, like your brother's eyes that you liked. I only see discern blue.

-of the ocean--

It's quiet.

It's the bottom.

-

“Before, you said something about a legend…” Marik mentioned quietly while once more switching shoulders to carry the black haired man's body. His naked torso was in cold sweat from the dingy, humid climate down in Kuru Eruna. He kept feeling Nehti's long hair tickling his back, and was half-tickled, half-warmed by it. Nehti's body was cold, even colder than Marik's exposed torso. His skin, still wet and utterly pale, slipped slickly, but not entirely unpleasantly over the tanned youth's body. He felt Nehti have a spasm more than once, but chose to ignore it as a reflex aftereffect of the electric shocks. However, he hadn't yet made a single sound, not even a growl, or a tired exclamation.

“Yes…” 290 said, shedding a quick glance to the company behind them, where Mokuba's deadened face stared off to the side, as Ryou dragged him along. They were out of earshot. Good. “They've been telling this story in Eruna for a long, long time…” he said, smartly omitting mentioning `they' were the `Tomb keepers', knowing it would only serve to aggravate Marik.

“Go on” Marik frowned at him, nevertheless “what kind of story?”

290 grinned slightly and turned to his alter ego “What else? A horror story.” He let that trail on ominously as he expertly made a turn in another corridor “The story of the spirit of the Tombs. A little boy always looking for his Brother…he's got metallic nails, and whoever speaks to him will meet his doom, since the boy is cursed…”

Marik felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise on end, but refused to acknowledge his discomfort. Mokuba had had metallic nails…but 290 might as well be messing with him! Damn. Where was the horror-fetished Bakura when he was most needed?

“That's a tad farfetched, don't you think?” Marik commented, and 290 grinned.

“Which part? About the spirit of all those who died in this tomb and now seek revenge or about the doom…?”

“I appreciate the fairy tales, but do you know his real story?” Marik sneered, but 290 didn't smile at him.

“I told you what I've heard. What Noa said about Seto's younger brother wasn't much. Perhaps looking at the boy's current state can help you put two and two together.” He finished.

“In what sense do you mean?” Marik inquired, confused. The boy's current situation? Perhaps he meant the fact that Mokuba seemed to have mechanic parts…?

“No worries. You can ask Seto. We're here, already.” 290 said, in a tone of finality, and walked faster towards the source of light on the end of the tunnel. He suddenly turned towards Marik, a strange, unidentified expression on his face as his eyes fluttered to Nehti's pale, convulsing form “You seem a bit tired with carrying him…need any help?”

Marik's eyes hadn't narrowed so much ever since he'd talked to Gozaburo. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

290 shrugged, seemingly nonchalant. But Marik knew better than anyone how to decipher his own expressions. 290 was feeling…certainly anything but nonchalant. However, pity was something Marik didn't want himself to feel with this particular person.

“Suit yourself”

-

“Matte (wait)” Mokuba's japanese tone sounded suddenly, exactly five feet away from the main hall, where Seto and the rest of the GOULS expected them.

“”Wait a sec” Ryou stopped suddenly, calling to the others “Nanda no ka? Mou jikan ga nai sa… (what is it…we don't have time…)”

Mokuba turned expressionlessly “Nii-sama o mitsuketaso da na…(it seems I've found brother…)” he told a very perplexed Ryou, who just stared at him.

“Kedo, Mokuba-kun…(but Mokuba…)” Ryou started, confused, motioning for a frowning Marik to keep patient “onii-sama no iru tokoro o shinakatta to omotta noni (I thought you didn't know where your brother is…)”

Mokuba smiled, obviously trying to look reassuring, and, honestly, it was the scariest, if not most murderous smile Marik had ever seen. Serenity actually gasped and grabbed Ryou for support.

“So da na…(that's right…)” Mokuba was saying at a deeply troubled Ryou's face “Deeeemo, naaa…anata no kotae ni kiomi ga atta…nii-sama no basho ni tsuite…shita…to ka (but…I was interested in your answer…regarding the place where brother is…did you know , or…) “ Mokuba trailed on, making Ryou frown.

“Hoka no hito ni, onaji no kotae o kiita no ka, Mokuba-kun… (have you asked other people the same question, Mokuba?) Ryou asked quietly, and Mokuba smiled again, but didn't answer. He just suddenly tugged on Ryou's hand, pulling him to an alcove to the right, inside what probably once was a laboratory. The rest of the company followed.

“Kite mirou …(come and see)” Mokuba's voice, like a lost whisper…”Nii-sama no uchi o…(brother's house…)”

290 suddenly lurched forward and blocked Mokuba's path “No! Don't follow him! He'll kill you!” he rigidly told Ryou, and the albino took a surprised step back.

“We don't have time for this…” Yugi phrased urgently, but no one listened to him, albeit the computer's warnings that they only had twnety minutes left.

“He's just a boy…what can he do…?” Ryou asked, bewildered.

“Don't follow him.” 290 advised, and Ryou seemed torn between the suddenly completely innocent-looking Mokuba and 290's experienced voice. “This is what he does…I've heard all about it…many clones have died this way….”

“Dooshita no…(what's wrong?)” Mokuba asked curiously “ nanika nga atta no (did something happen?).

“Betsuni…(nothing…)” Ryou chose the diplomatic way out, as always “jitsu wa, hontou ni jikan ga tarinai, Mokuba - kun…moshi hoka no toki ni onii-sama o tazuneteikeru no (actually, we don't' have enough time, Mokuba. Perhaps I can visit your brother another time…?)”

Mokuba's jaw set sharply, and he turned onyx eyes to 290, who looked at him with an unmoving gaze.

“Noa sent you, didn't he?” he asked the japanese-speaking boy, as though fully confident he understood everything “he sent you to kill even more people.”

Mokuba looked on, completely oblivious of what he was being told, or , if one took 290's words seriously, satanically acting as though he didn't understand.

290's eyes suddenly flew to Marik “Let's leave, now.” He urgently said, as though afraid of a little child “we shouldn't have said we know his brother! Dammit!”

Marik's eyes narrowed “He's just a boy! What can he do? What is it you know and aren't telling me? Why did we say the wrong thing?” he asked and at 290 dismissive motion, he persisted “I need that Rod!”

290 glared at him “Are you willing to endanger us all?”

“Let's take him to Seto!” Serenity desperately offered, and at the mentioning of the name alone, the boy turned his eerie eyes towards her, the head actually twisting around his neck like that of a doll, so that it was completely unnatural. It had literally twisted 180 degrees, so now he was watching her behind his back. She started to shake, but tried to suppress it.

“Yes, he'll sort it out.” Yugi offered his opinion, but 290 shook his head in the negative.

“Seto won't help us. We can't escape this now…the curse…” he started, sighing…obviously desperate “Look, let's just go in the hall…” he made to move, but Mokuba's steel fingers had wrapped around his wrist within seconds.

“You're not going anywhere, Brother.” Mokuba said, in flawless English, with a grin that could rival no other in it's satanic innocence, not even Noa's.

290 suddenly turned his eyes to Marik, spelling out only one word. `Run'.

Marik interpreted it within milliseconds and made as though to start running, but immediately felt something rigid pulling him back. It only took one scream from Serenity to warn him, before he saw Mokuba's tongue, utterly metallic and very long, rolled around his wrist.

290 stayed motionless and exchanged looks with the others, warning them with his eyes not to move. He glanced at the motionless Marik and Mokuba.

“You'll be my Brother tonight” Mokuba's voice still sounded, but it couldn't have possibly come from his preoccupied mouth.

Marik turned to 290, who stared first into Marik's eyes and then to the damned Rod. They needed that blasted thing. Marik's only acknowledgement was a slightly erratic breath.

“What…what's wrong with this…this thing…” Yugi started saying, terrified, as he didn't know what to do, whether to run or stay.

“… monster…” Ryou stuttered, stepping back, having blanched completely.

290 sighed slowly and closed his eyes “He's the ghost of all who died here…the spirit of the dead who were tortured…he always looks for his brother…I didn't recall the legend until now, but now I remember…he collects victims as revenge for all the deaths of his loved ones. Every time he meets a man in the tomb, he asks if they've seen his brother. If you answer no, he cries and thanks you, and if you still refuse to help him, he still cries and says you're happy for not knowing his story and torturing him with it. But if you tell him you know who his brother is, or that you'll help him find him, he follows you and then leads you to his room, where he's collected the corpses of his victims, corpses that he calls his brother and sleeps with. After you see this, he asks you if you've seen pain in your life, and, once you answer yes, he pulls your eyes out , since you don't deserve eyesight, if you think you've seen pain.”

Serenity whimpered, seeing Mokuba's grin at the rendition of what could only be his true story. “There is a meaning to his actions, I've been told” 290 finished, looking at the small child and sighing “that you shouldn't mock the dead. Because Kaiba Seto is dead in a robot, and is eternally unable to be freed, he's left his dead spirit in his beloved brother's body, in order to take revenge. When you refuse to acknowledge you know the real Kaiba Seto, and understand that the one you know is the abomination Kaiba Seto has become, you will not be punished. But if you are ostentatious enough to believe you know Kaiba Seto, when in truth you know a manufactured droid, the ire of his brother will fall upon you…Kaiba Seto's wrath…”

“How ironic, that Noa made sure to give this ghost the Rod we need so much… we shall not have it, I bet, unless we quench Seto's bloodlust by sacrifice…You see, though we Tomb Keepers use Kaiba fearlessly, Seto' s soul haunts us always in payback, as though we were the ones that did this to him…In order to relieve the undead spirit of revenge, a tomb keeper must die…” 290's eyes slipped slowly to Marik…”either you or I…”

In the dead silence, where Serenity could even feel her every breath be drawn out of her body, she felt something like a luminous ghoul hover. Maybe this was it…the haunting of all those souls which Kaiba represents…that blue eyed, silver-white spirit which flies to you at night and steals your breath. It haunts and takes you far away, in the land where the spirits live alone. And amongst them, their king…that tall man, who guides them…that man with fearsome eyes, that ruler who heartlessly watches from above his blue layers. There is a little boy looking for him, but destined never to find him. Even when they are near, the boy never approaches, as though unwilling to meet what his brother has become…

“It is useless to try and escape …this is a cyborg. Human-turned-machine” 290 explained, looking at Mokuba's sparkling eyes “It can transform into a gigantic robot, like the X, only it has double the IQ and ten times the creativity in murder. The greatest problem, however, is that it has feelings…it understands…and yet doesn't understand, because the consciousness of all those victims is heartless, and a man as proud as Seto has a spirit which never feels mercy…”

No one dared to move. No one dared to even breathe. They thought they heard a squall of wind drift by, and they turned to the doorway to the main hall. It couldn't be a coincidence, or perhaps Marik's influenced mind control which had brought him here, but Seto Kaiba stood there. Thin, proud and strong. And robotic. So very robotic.

Oh, and look, the irony! Around the thick pillar of his straight neck hung his own symbol of payback. The same locket which adorns his beloved brother's chest. Seto's was open, a picture of a happy, human Mokuba very vivid inside it.

Two parts of the same soul. One soul, one consciousness…the dead…or perhaps Seto and Mokuba's grudge.

Alight on the head of that dark shadow, which smiles eternally down at the aggressor, glow like gems the twin blue eyes, dark, deep and brutally crystal -consuming and bottomless like the pit of the ocean. They stare eternally from above, taller than everyone, stronger than all. They stare, as always, robotically, unable of any other stare, as Mokuba- that questionable ghost that roams the halls- commits his will. And Seto, strong, tall and unable to act for himself, stands there unmoving, unblinking, unflinching, as the last vestige of his rotting real existence eats human meat to live, and searches for its brother. Is he the older? Is he the younger?

290's eyes lowered. He never thought it was the truth- this grudge which his elder had been so fond of talking about. In the dark halls of Kuru Eruna, at night and day alike, young 290 had always feared the eternal guardian would come for him…But then again, the young brother never came for a young clone…he always visited when the victim was twenty one years old. Twenty one.

Like Seto had been…

Seto, whose grudge now hovers above them even though they are innocent. He should logically be able to understand, able to forgive. But even though he stands right there, he understands nothing. And Mokuba, Seto's real will, he deosn't even want to understand. He was meant to have no mercy, and whoever made him was heartless enough to be very good at his job. No way out. No way of pleading. No way of fighting.

But Marik had seen…that spark of strange confusion igniting in this creature's heartless eyes at the sight of the newcomer…it did have emotions after all…Perhaps there was a way to break Mokuba's cold exterior. Even right now that Seto had approached, Mokuba had his eyes fixed on him, as though fighting to recognize him. There was a spark of something in that heartless onyx, when faced with anything to do with Seto, much more with Seto himself. It was as though Mokuba knew who Seto was, but simultaneously didn't want to recognize him as Seto.

Marik suddenly had an idea! How hadn't he thought of it before? The way Mokuba froze whenever someone mentioned Seto…the way Mokuba was looking at Seto right now, as though fighting to see him through a foggy dream…Marik suddenly realized the key to Mokuba's weakness: he was a little boy, after all. Just like Noa, a lonely child, who needed to be loved. Turning to look at a certain untamable CEO, Marik understood perfectly what he had to do.

“Seto, come give your little brother a hug.” He simply said, and all watched in fascination as Seto, staring at Marik with a very strange expression, walked confidently towards the boy, controlled by Marik. In the meantime, the more Seto approached, with his sapphire eyes glittering not-so-robotically, the more Mokuba slackened his hold of 290 and Marik.

Marik felt uncomfortable. He knew he had settled an order and was controlling Seto through mind control, but, strangely enough, it didn't feel like Seto was obeying him…It was as though he was acting on his own will, using Marik's issued orders as a catalyst.

With his blue eyes half-closed and his jaw slack in a very uncharacteristic expression, without a single word, Seto walked up to a startled Mokuba and lowered to the boy's height. Marik could have sworn, right then, that he saw tears in Mokuba's eyes at that moment. But, really, how could a machine cry? When Seto reached for Mokuba, the boy reached for him as well and Marik wondered, offhandedly, whether the room had suddenly grown brighter.

“Nii -sa…ma…” Mokuba's staticky voice whispered, his eyes frantically flying from one part of Seto's metallic body to another. He reached out, too, moving as though to touch Seto's hand. His eyes flew from Seto's locket to his eyes, possibly not understanding, possibly truly unable to express what he was feeling.

“Nii-sa…” the little boy's voice faded, as though unable to finish. Marik didn't issue any command then, but Seto said something nonetheless. None of them heard what it was, not even Serenity, who was standing the closest to the brothers. But whatever it was he said, Mokuba smiled through his tears, and it wasn't a malicious, or horrendous smile. It was sweet, and true, and wonderful, and everyone felt that it filled the dark corridor with light.

Yugi wondered, watching Mokuba and Seto's cold fingers touch, if that smile was the one that had made this boy so important to his brother. It seemed, even though Yugi could see that Seto wasn't smiling, that his blue eyes were warming from the inside.

“Mokuba…” was that really Kaiba's voice? It sounded different than ever before. Louder , somehow…more concrete…more original.

“Nii..sa…” and with those disjoint syllables, as if they were his last words, Mokuba seemed to freeze in place, like a layer of stone had covered him. His limbs froze, his eyes still wide and left unblinking. His hand was outstretched with his fingers not quite having reached to clasp Seto's hand. The blue eyed man, on his part, didn't move either. He just stayed there, with his arm unnaturally kept in front of him, statuesque.

Mokuba's movement had been in slow motion. It was as if he would remain eternally stretched, trying to reach the other, but never managed. When the little boy stopped moving altogether and stayed that way for a long moment, Marik carefully stepped between them, followed closely by Yugi. The spiky haired youth bent down to the two brothers' level and watched Mokuba's stony face. Nothing moved, not even an eyelash. Only a tear slipped solemnly from one of his wide, hoarse eyes. As for Seto, his face remained poised in a hopeful gaze. Was it the connection of two souls, or maybe the mockery of something warm and real? Were the tears on Mokuba's cheeks warm, or cold and steel? Were they human, or not? Yugi didn't want to touch them, feeling that he'd be polluting something pure.

They had to hurry, however, since Nehti was beginning to become a torture on Marik's shoulders, although the youngster was extremely light. In fact, Marik didn't even want to think about how light he was, or how slick his exposed skin felt. That smell that came from the unconscious ancient- that disturbing scent of medicine left in a place for too long. Like this, in Marik's arms, he felt like a dead doll, a worn suit- he didn't feel very human. Whenever Marik remembered his startling red eyes, he thought he heard someone let out a long breath…

Marik, seeing the Golden Rod held in Mokuba's hands, broke from his reverie, and remembered the fact that they had to hurry. After he waved a hand in front of Mokuba's eyes several times, and tried not to let himself be caught by the expressive, ironically robotic, faces, he slowly extracted the Golden Rod from Mokuba's hands.

Once he stood up he exchanged a look with 290, and both nodded in assessment. They had to leave. Marik called for the others to follow him as he progressed towards the main hall. A tearful Ryou, Serenity and Yugi followed him, and a slightly more skeptical 290.

Marik turned around to make sure everyone was coming and saw Kaiba still kneeling, frozen in that same position. He looked down, at the Rod in his hands, and then at Kaiba. Should he…prompt Seto to come with them? Or perhaps he should be left here, to sink with Kuru Eruna, finally freed? It was true that Seto symbolized the entire logic of Kuru Eruna- the logic of destroying human nature. Should Seto be left here…along with his brother…to be destroyed and lost to oblivion? On the other hand, Kaiba was recognized as the owner of the greatest pharmaceutical company in the galaxy…there were many things that Kaiba could do- good things- by using his power…

But then, Mokuba's face…all that grief…

`I can't make that choice…' Marik finally decided `Even if Seto isn't a man, I can't seem to be able to not treat him like one..' he decided. He wanted to leave this choice up to Seto. Even though he knew that if he used mind control on the GOULS to get them out very fast, Seto would also follow, he wanted to convince himself it would be Seto's choice, whether to leave or not…

“Ten minutes until self-destruction” the familiar voice of the computer declared, and Marik was brought back to reality when the others started running towards the main hall.

“Quick!” 290 was saying “Now that Noa's systems are down and there's R8, I'm afraid it's practically impossible to get out of here!”

“You're telling us this now?” Ryou asked, exasperated, as he ran towards the end of the corridor. 290 shrugged and refused to answer. The next time anyone spoke was when they finally reached the hall, where the symbols on the walls were glowing red and the GOULS were aimlessly walking around.

They all heard echoes of strange, unearthly groans from the corridors, so when Serenity asked what was happening and what new monster had come to haunt them, 290 told her that the Sleepers in the cryo-capsules had all been awakened as a measure of Noa's breakdown…they were practically dying, now, in their capsules. Serenity felt her hair raise, remembering those stony faces. “Shit!” Marik swore, seeing that the exit on the end of the hall was, unsurprisingly, sealed.

“Maybe you can use the GOULS to break the doors down!” 290 proposed.

“Are you crazy? They're human, just like us. They can't!” Marik immediately argued “Besides, I don't want to use them like that!”

“At least I proposed something.” 290 distastefully said.

“Well, someone else, then…” Yugi started “Use Kaiba! He's made of metal!” but Marik shook his head again. Serenity, however, answered before he could speak.

“Who knows what may happen if Kaiba leaves Mokuba's side!”

Everyone stayed silent. They approached the door, inspected every part of it, actually tried to make the GOULS help push it, but to no avail! They had no laser to break through it…

This commotion continued, until 290 became very silent all of a sudden, and turned to Marik.

“There may be another way…” he started, and Marik didn't much like that reluctant tone of his voice “There is a trigger in one of the symbols to open the doors manually…But one of us has to…stay behind. In order to ensure that the doors stay open until all the others are outside…”

Marik narrowed his eyes and shook his head “Not an option”.

290's intense glare silenced his protests, however “Listen to me. I know this place. And I know there is no way for you to exit that door. At least not in the next five minutes…Look, there's no time to talk…you have to leave and I…I'm…”

“No!” Serenity shouted “you can forget about it right now! I'm not letting anyone else sacrifice themselves! Not even someone who I don't know that well!”

“That's right!” Yugi agreed, and Marik knew of whom he was thinking, behind his violet moist eyes “Enough people have died!”

“I'm…” 290 started, and his eyes first went to Marik, then to the unconscious Nehti “I'm glad I met you…”

Marik was becoming angry “stop talking like you're going to die! You're not!”

“Three minutes until self-destruction” the computer urgently warned, and everyone felt their hearts speeding up even more.

“…tell Bakura…” 290 started, looking at the ground, and then quickly raised his face to look at Marik's eyes, so identical with his and yet so different “that I'm grateful” and with those last words, he turned around and ran to one of the chamber walls, searching for a symbol. Marik and Ryou had started to run behind him, to stop him, but when 290 pressed a specific symbol on the wall, they heard a resounding noise, like the shake of an earthquake, and turned to see the numerous doors leading to their freedom slide open.

“GO!” 290 was shouting “get the hell out of here!”

“I'm not leaving without you!” Marik yelled, not acknowledging how a strange pattern was beating in his heart and how his eyes seemed to sting.

“If I let go of this button, the doors will close!” 290 countered.

“Then let's leave something in your place to keep it pushed! I don't know! A stick?” Ryou reasonably offered.

“No! There's nothing!” 290 shouted, shaking his head, and Marik got the sick feeling that the clone…wanted this.

“I…”290 was saying “I'm a clone…and this is my home…” he looked at the ground, then at Nehti, strangely “I...my place is here…” he turned to Marik “I'm glad I had the chance to meet you. I understand why you're different from us…I…I really admire you…if there's something I want, is for you to think of me as I think of you, so I'm going to do something special. I need…I need to do this…”

Marik was strangely silent, within all this frantic commotion. He looked at 290, his twin, saw his determined, pleading eyes and once more wished Bakura were here. He recognized his own desperate face reflected back at him, and felt his heart constrict.

“MARIK! We need to go!” Serenity screamed from the other side of the room, but Marik was still looking at 290. Waiting.

“Go.” The clone whispered, and Marik's brows furrowed. He understood that need. The need to be a man for yourself. The need to believe in something. To belong. To know you are special in yourself... Marik didn't think any other clone would do what 290 was doing. He didn't even know if the original Marik would do it…this is why he respected it as something individual: the choice of a soul.

Marik slowly turned around, still thoughtful, ignoring Ryou and Yugi's calls for 290 to change his mind “Go!” Marik shouted, forcing his telepathy in the Rod, directing it only where he wanted it to go. Only the GOUOLS were affected by it, not 290, who looked on, his hand on the button, smiling slightly in a sad way.

“GET OUT!” Marik shouted, and he watched in a flurry of movement as all the roaming GOULS sparked to life and started running towards the exit.

“One minute to self-destruction.” The computer's voice echoed ominously, somehow magnified in their frantic thoughts. In the hurricane of movement, Marik didn't recognize who was who. He saw the reluctant Ryou and Yugi leave 290 sides with twin remorseful looks, he saw some familiar faces running. Joey…Serenity…Pegasus…they were all running out the door and down the endless final corridor, which would normally also have other doors diving it in sections.

Marik turned and gave 290 a final look, seeing that look of pride on his face. Once he turned to leave, last of all, he heard 290 voice, identical to his own.

“Marik…” he called, and the tanned youth turned. He caught the thing 290 threw at him, and recognized it as a small mechanic remote “It neutralizes all GOUL chips.” 290 finished, with a small, sad smile “Tell them I'm sorry”.

Marik felt his face twist in a smile too, and he knew it was the same as the one he was seeing on the other “Thanks…” and now, staring deep into the other's eyes “…Marik”

290 blinked, and the last thing Marik saw of him, was his reserved grin of triumph and his solemn tear, the sign he had finally gained what his important person had wanted of him: a soul. As Marik ran, he thought he saw somewhere the stone gaze of two metallic eyes, the smile of a small child who looked for his brother, but it was all lost in his desperate effort.

“Ten”

He ran threw the door, not looking back, not daring to lose even a moment.

“Nine”

He felt his muscles almost breaking with the strain of running so fast with someone else's weight on his shoulders.

“Eight”

He saw the light as though in a dream. It was a hatch on the top of a metallic ladder.

“Seven”

He shuffled Nehti on his shoulders and prepared to climb up, egged on by the cries and cheers of his friends for above, who were stretching their hands towards him. Marik started climbing, and he blindly grabbed the first hand he could reach for. The swirling colours in Yugi's eyes filled his vision as he was roughly pulled up.

“Four”

Suddenly, as he looked at their hands, as though in slow motion, he saw that the others were holding him too, all their hands, together…joined.

“Three”

He couldn't hear anything else. He couldn't hear the countdown anymore…he just heard the thuds of his beating heart, and what seemed like a breath- a sigh…maybe it came from Nehti. He couldn't hear anything until a huge booming sound. Suddenly, the ground started quaking violently and they all fell from their feet.

The silence lasted for an eternity, as he let himself fall down from the vibration. There was light everywhere, suddenly. The hatch on the floor, like a volcano, erupted suddenly, spitting fire upwards, and Marik swiftly grabbed the hated golden rod and tossed it inside, to burn for eternity.

He swore he saw something white flowing upwards from the fire, like strings from some spirit's long gown. An onyx rainbow flashed somewhere. and then he saw someone run up to the crater, but couldn't recognize them, since their figure was haloed by light.

He saw, however, that the hatch door closed suddenly, trapping all the fire inside, and he knew that, somewhere, a button had been released by a man with a sad smile. Nehti, who'd fallen to his side, had the lights reflecting off his pale skin, and he groaned lightly, trying to regain his senses but failing still.

“Marik, here...” Serenity said, and handed Marik a dark cloak, which she draped over his naked shoulders. He didn't speak, just stood there and stared on, watching as the totem of all his hate and torture…watching as the pedestal- the monument of the deaths of so many innocent people was being burnt to ashes beneath him.

With a sense of importance, he looked at the remote resting in his hands, and pressed the button which read “Release”. After a few moments, a dozen confused cries echoed around them, some of familiar and some unfamiliar voices. He heard Serenity's cry of “JOEY!” but never managed to understand much of it. He felt something warm on his shoulder and recognized Rishid's comforting large palm…And then there was Yugi hugging a crying Tea…

The blond youth's lavender, crystal eyes didn't even move…they only kept staring forward, at that now inconspicuous hatch on the floor. The tall figure standing above it turned around slowly. There were two lockets hanging from his neck, both half open.

The last thing Marik saw, before he finally fell unconscious, were oceanic blue eyes

He smiled.