Work Text:
Mokuba watched with worried eyes as his brother walked down the stairs to his underground lab in the Kaiba Mansion.
He had spend the bigger part of the last months down there, shoving off responsibility over Kaiba Corporation to his brother.
Mokuba had asked him what he was cooking up in the catacombs under the mansion, but Seto never replied. He was jittery from the lack of sleep and spoke even less than usual.
Mokuba pushed the worry away and hoped against all hope that whatever was hogging Seto’s attention would be finished soon.
When Mokuba came to the kitchen the next morning Seto was nowhere to be found. He called, but got no reply.
The worry from the previous night came back full force and Mokuba raced up the stairs, barging into Seto’s bedroom without knocking. His brother’s bed was empty and unused, increasing Mokuba’s worry further. Had Seto slept in the labs? Or worse, had he collapsed down there?
With pounding heart Mokuba ran down the flight of stairs, through the corridors and down more stairs until he came to a halt in front of the heavy security door to the laboratory.
He punched in the master code, impatiently jumping from one foot to the other, waiting for the computer to recognise him. Then the control panel turned red, quite clearly reading ACCESS DENIED and Mokuba’s world came to a stuttering halt. Never, not even during Death-T, had his brother kept him locked out like this.
With a determined frown he navigated back to the main screen, typing in a sew lines of code in the control panel.
Seto may be a genius programmer, but Mokuba was still a hacker who could best any of his brother’s programs if he put his mind to it. He would show Seto! As if this puny little security protocol could keep him out.
He was just about to run his code, when the door to the lab opened to reveal his brother.
"And what exactly do you think you are doing here?”, Seto snapped.
He looked like he got hit by one of the Blue Eyes’ Burst Streams. His hair was a mess, the shirt spotted a few coffee stains, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“I was worried about you, Nii-sama”, Mokuba explained: “And somehow my master key code didn’t work, so I checked the system.”
“Tried to hack it, more likely…”, Seto mumbled. He rubbed his eyes, suppressing a loud yawn. “Never do that again. I changed the master codes for all the lab doors.”
“But.. Why!”, Mokuba exclaimed, shocked. Seto loved secrets, however this was odd behaviour even for him.
“It’s none of your damn business, Mokuba. Get out. I need a shower and get ready for work and you should be in school”, Seto snarled, his voice holding a malice Mokuba hadn’t heard since before the cluster fuck that had been Death-T.
It scared the younger Kaiba, but he knew there was little he could do right now. So he escaped the scene, silently vowing to get into that laboratory at the next convenience. His brother must be seriously out of it if he believed that the codes he created could keep Mokuba out.
Later the same day Seto wandered down to his lab once again. It itched in his fingers to go straight back to his latest ‘project’ but first he would have to up the security for the lab, otherwise Mokuba would be in here in no time.
He sat down at his desk and powered up the computer. While he waited his gaze wandered to the medical tank that held his project. Or his dirty little secret, it didn’t really matter what you called it.
The tank was illuminated in a dim blue. Various control panels and screens monitored the state of the body hanging in it. Tubes with nutrients and an oxygen mask kept the soulless being sort of alive.-
The computer beeped, waiting for Seto to type in the passwords, but the young CEO ignored it and instead chose to get up and stand in front of the tank.
The blue light made his face look hollow and even paler than it already was, as he raised a hand to put it against the glass.
The tank was heated to keep the body in a pristine condition.
“I’m sorry for taking so much time, my love. But it won’t be long now. I’ve almost done it. Soon I’ll be able to get your soul back and transfer it into your body”, Seto mumbled his breath fogging up the glass for a second.
Seto tiredly leaned his head against the tank. “If only I still had the scripts of Noa’s world, then I could have used the codes from there. But like this I had to rewrite everything in addition to trying to find a way to even locate your soul.
"But soon you’ll be back with me, my love. Then we will finally be together, Yami…”