Sometimes the ties that bind are wrought of blood -- even when the other isn't family. AU. Genfic. Seto and Yugi. Prequel (with Lucid's permission, of course!) for Lucidscreamer's Yu-Gi-Oh Y/YY Romance, 'Shadows on the Nile'.

Ties of Friendship

Prologue

The psychic awareness of Mokuba's location burned in his brain with an almost physical agony. He had to get to Mokuba, before it was too late. He knew Kaiba's brother was in trouble. The man who held him would hurt him -- very soon. Yugi knew it as infallibly as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow.

Kaiba had brought damn-near a private army to storm the warehouse. Yugi had never realized the power of money until he'd seen the forty, stern-eyed, coldly professional men who responded to Kaiba's summons. Yugi was content to hang back and let these combat-trained men handle things...

But the psychic agony in his mind wouldn't let him. The danger to Mokuba was escalating, spiraling up in a threatening crescendo that Yugi knew would only end in the poor kid's death if he didn't do something. He ran toward the outer door that even now Kaiba's men were breaking down. He didn't pause, and would have smashed into the door except they did get it open in time. Kaiba was right on his heels.

"What the hell are you doing, Mutou?!"

"The danger -- it's increasing. I have to get to him, now!"

"He's my brother. You've done your part..."

"No! Somehow, I know -- there's something -- I have -- to do!" Yugi gasped as he ran, somehow managing to keep up with Kaiba's significantly longer strides.

"What can you do that I can't?"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Yugi shouted. "I just know -- there's something -- I still have to do!"

That 'something' had become clear at the next barrier. Mokuba's kidnapper, a man named Keith Howard, had thugs in his employ. Those thugs pounced on Kaiba and his men, determined to keep them from advancing into the large central storage room that was the entire width of the warehouse. Across that expanse, on the rise of a concrete loading dock, a blond man held a long, bared blade over a small, struggling body. Snatches of a wholly unpleasant, braying laugh, and taunts floated through the chaos of the battle raging at the door.

"Haw, haw! You'll never see him again -- in one piece, that is! I might not have gotten my ransom from you, Kaiba, but I got my revenge! Or, I will, once I slice your little brother into little, bloody ribbons!"

"I'll see you in hell first!" Kaiba shouted. He struggled to move forward, to enter the room and go to his little brother, but the mercenaries holding the door kept pushing him back. Yugi noticed more than one gleam of a blade in the throng of battle near the door. Somehow, he managed to twist the right way, duck and sidestep in some seemingly preordained pattern that not only kept him safe from harm, but served to get him into the room, and out of the sight of Keith's mercenaries clustered at the entrance. He made his way as quickly as he could using the boxes stacked one atop the other in the warehouse to hide his approach until he was right there at the base of the stairs of the loading dock.

"I think I'll let him get halfway across the floor before I slit your throat, you little brat!" Keith said. "You've been so much trouble, I'm gonna see how many times I can slice you before you pass out -- that is, if you don't just die first!" He cackled again.

"Mokuba! I'm coming!" Kaiba yelled. Yugi turned his head. Sure enough, Kaiba, Roland, and a handful of others from Kaiba's squad of men had fought their way into the room. Dozens of Kaiba's men poured through the door -- more than enough to control Keith's men still battling at the doorway. Kaiba charged through the warehouse to get to his brother.

Keith's hand, holding eighteen inches of wickedly sharp blade, raised up. His other hand twisted into the hair on the back of Mokuba's head, forcing the child to arch in pain -- and making a very easy and tempting target of the boy's neck. Yugi watched how the muscles in Keith's bicep bunched. The man was insane. He was really going to slaughter Mokuba.

"It's too late!" Keith cackled madly, bringing his arm down in a swift, wide, vicious slice toward Mokuba's exposed neck.

"MOKUBA!!" Kaiba's cry was of fury and despair. Yugi knew that Kaiba knew he couldn't get there in time to stop Keith. He sensed Kaiba's panic that he was going to be forced to watch as his little brother, who he loved more than he loved his own life, was killed before his very eyes. Kaiba knew, and still he charged forward, striving to stop it, somehow. Futile, hopeless, but...

Yugi's psychic sense set his brain on fire, screaming so loudly that the din of the room couldn't pierce it.

No! NO! I will NOT let this happen!

Yugi vaulted over the lip of the loading dock just as that blade came down.

"Where the hell did you come from?!" Keith shouted.

Yugi had nothing. He had no fighting skill, had never been seriously threatened by a knife before. He held nothing in his hands that could be used as a weapon to stop Keith, catch or deflect that lethal blade, or as a shield to protect Mokuba from it coming down into his vulnerable neck... Nothing. Nothing at all.

Except his hands.

He jumped forward, stood directly over Mokuba, and thrust his hands up, over his head. Keith, unable to check his attack, stop it or redirect it, slashed viciously across both of Yugi's hands, slicing open both palms -- just as the enraged Kaiba and his men got there.

Kaiba grabbed Keith by the front of his jacket, his hand twisting the fabric tight enough to threaten to choke the man to death. With adrenalin-charged strength, Kaiba, using only that one hand, flung Keith with impressive force toward the floor below the loading dock.

"Kill him!" he growled at his waiting men.

Roland's arms came down around Yugi, supporting his weight as Yugi staggered. Yugi couldn't seem to get his arms to cooperate. He wanted to drop them, or at least move them so his hands would stop raining blood all over Mokuba, but they didn't pay any attention to his wishes.

"That was the bravest action I've ever been privileged to witness," Roland told him. "I've got you, Mr. Mutou."

Even with these reassurances, it wasn't until Kaiba had scooped Mokuba up into his arms that Yugi could force his arms to relax. He watched as Kaiba hugged his brother tight for a very long moment before gently freeing his brother from the plastic binders Keith had restrained his wrists with. Dimly, Yugi was aware of Roland wrapping his hands tightly in clean gauze from a first aid kit one of Kaiba's men had brought. Yugi thought it best to watch Kaiba and Mokuba, so he wouldn't freak out by looking at his hands. He knew he was hurt -- badly. A terrible thrill had shot through him, body and soul, as that blade had sliced into his hands. He had been very suddenly, and forcefully, brought to the realization that he was mortal -- and very, very fragile. Now, he couldn't feel his hands at all. He resisted the urge to look down and make certain they were still attached, afraid that perhaps they weren't.

I don't want to faint, Yugi thought to himself. That would be -- embarrassing, after all that's happened.

Determinedly, he continued to watch as Kaiba felt carefully along each of Mokuba's limbs, checked through his hair for wounds, compressed his mouth into a thin, dangerous line at the signs of bruising on Mokuba's arms and legs, and the faint bracelets of blood where Mokuba had struggled against the plastic binders Keith had used on his wrists. Kaiba's panic seemed to ease once he reassured himself that the blood all over Mokuba was Yugi's. Mokuba, for his part, appeared stunned, neither crying nor laughing in relief, seemingly unaware that the ordeal he'd endured was over.

That was when the ambulance and police arrived. Roland stayed with Yugi, explaining in detail the first aid he'd applied, and accompanying Yugi on the ambulance ride to the hospital. Once he'd been loaded and the ambulance was on its way, pain, more intense than anything he'd ever felt before ignited in his hands, and Yugi's world dissolved into that swirling, red agony.