Late that night after going to bed Seto let his thoughts wander as he slowly drifted off into his own dreams:

He was in a dark void. No floor, no ceiling, no windows. He was just there in nothingness as he watched the swirling array of purples, blues, and black drifting slowly around him. As he looked around him he saw a line of people; all of them had wings and were standing in front of one gigantic person with a jackal head who was holding a scale in one hand. As each person came up to him the giant reached inside their chest and pulled out their hearts while they stood there before him. Placing the heart onto the scale he was holding he watched as it either went up or down.

When the scale sank down the jackal let loose a low growl and swallowed the screaming person whole and then he beckoned to the next one in line. Seto walked and got into the back of the line for some reason unbeknownst to him. He watched the line slowly diminish in front of him and grow behind him until it was just before his turn. He watched the man in front of him walk up to the jackal god and have his heart taken out and put on the scale. He closed his eyes and was obviously praying and didn't see the scale slowly sink to the ground.

The jackal just kept a blank expression on his features and lifted the man off the ground before sliding him down his throat. Taking the feather off the scale he waved his arm at Kaiba to come over who slowly strode up in front of him.

Reaching his hand forward the god phased through Seto's skin and pulled his beating heart from his chest and placed it on the scale. It sank slightly and then the jackal placed the feather on and watched the scale level itself out. Blinking slowly the jackal pulled the two items off and watched the scale level out once again and then he placed them back on and it didn't move at all. He then looked over at Kaiba and spoke in a low flat voice that sounded like it was radiating through the realm. "You are an opposite to yourself."

Seto blankly stared back at him, "What does that mean exactly."

"The scale goes neither up or down. You have led a life of darkness and a life of light. You are at an imbalance and yet a perfect medium. There is neither a reason to stop you nor a reason to let you go."

"I don't understand." Kaiba shook his head to the side ever so slightly as what the jackal was saying tried to sink into his brain.

The blank hollow perfect black eyes stared directly at the icy blue orbs of Seto. "In your life you have been both light and dark. When child you were the brightest of whites and then slowly as you grew the light faded and was engulfed in an orb of the darkest ebony. And then something or someone changed you once again which caused the two to combine into an orb of gray. There is not a light side, nor a dark side, no yin-yang sort of relationship, but they are both intertwined together in a perfect weaving that cannot be separated, only added to. In a few words, you are conflicted with yourself."

Seto let this run through his mind and sighed heavily. 'How does he possibly know this? I don't understand, what is he talking about with my life being both dark and light?'

"You know what I'm talking about Seto Kaiba. Either side of yourself is refusing to admit it to the other, but you know it is true."

Kaiba looked at the jackal and frowned slightly, "Get out of my head."

The god bared his teeth at Seto briefly before taking the heart off of the scale and placed it back inside the body where it belonged. He ran his finger in an X over Seto's chest and then muttered something in an ancient tongue before he reverted back to speaking to Kaiba normally. "You may wish isolation, but that will only cause pain to your light and drive it further beneath yourself. Only if you open your soul to others will the darkness go back inside the recesses where it belongs. Do not develop an opinion on this. Only let it become part of your train of thought or else when you return again the scale will not be in your favor." The jackal headed god slowly faded into the vast darkness along with his line of recipients waiting to pass judgment and left Kaiba all by himself in the endless void until.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Seto's eyes snapped open and he leaned over and pushed the button on his alarm clock. He got up and got dressed before he went into Mokuba's room and woke up his little brother. After that he traveled downstairs and grabbed some breakfast before he drove Mokuba and himself to school.

*****************

However much Tea may have wanted to keep away from her friends she was starting to miss them, and as she went over and sat with Bakura she kept glancing over at them. Inwardly she wanted one of them to come ask if she wanted to sit with them, after she'd yelled at them she felt that is would seem a little stupid to just come back like that.

Bakura glanced over at Tea and watched her keep looking over at her normal table. "You can go back over there you know."

She snapped her head back and looked at him. "Oh, um, I wasn't looking over there. Just staring off into space."

'Yeah, sure.' "You still can go back there, there isn't anything tying you here." He smiled slightly and slowly ate his lunch as Tea glanced over at the table once again.

"Well. I guess so." Getting up she grabbed her food and headed over to Yugi and the gang.

******************

Yugi was leaning on his hand and spinning his food around on his plate with the plastic fork idly. He glanced up at Tea sitting with Bakura and sighed before going back to staring at his food.

Joey gave him a little nudge and smiled, "Come on Yug, spinning it won't make it taste better."

Sighing again Yugi stabbed a piece and stared at it before dropping it back on his plate. "Oh, I know that. Do you think Tea will come back soon?"

Tristan looked at his smaller friend, "Sure she will. She can't stay mad at us forever. Can she?" He glanced over and at Joey who in return rolled his eyes.

"Of course she will. Come on guys, it's not like she died or something. Look she's even coming over here now."

Perking up Yugi looked over and sure enough Tea was heading their way. When she arrived at the table she plopped her stuff down and smiled.

"Hey guys."

"Hi Tea." Joey smirked a little and then glanced at Tristan in an I-told- you-so way, who answered with a roll of the eyes.

"Are you still mad at us?" Yugi's face expressed both hope and sorrow at the same moment as he put this question to Tea. Joey cringed slightly as he hoped that the question wouldn't spark a new anger.

She just shrugged, "Maybe a little, but hey, you guys are my friends."

"So how's Kaiba?"

Joey would've smacked Yugi right then if he had been Tristan. He glared a little at his shorter friend, 'Yug, come on, don't tread on such rough turf.' He was immediately relieved however when Tea answered this question with a simple. "I don't know."

Yugi was about to ask about this when he caught Joey's glance and he decided to be quite. 'I wonder why she doesn't know.' He shrugged and went back to eating his lunch.

*******************

After Kaiba finally decided it was time to stop working that day he went into his room and pulled out the knife again from his desk drawer. With a little smile he made three little slices on the opposite hand from yesterday before cleaning the knife yet again and crawling into bed.

He was in the dark void again and standing before him was the jackal once more. With a blank expression on his face the god shook his head at Seto. "Conflicting with yourself again are we. You did not pay heed to my advice. The darkness is slowly regaining control again over your body. You must gain control of your light and not try to restrain it. If you do not hide your light then your true emotions shall be released."

Seto felt the hole start burning in his chest again as his thoughts wandered to pictures of Tea. Shaking is head he took a deep breath before speaking. "Emotions are just tricks of the brain, mere programs the body has made for itself and fooling you into listening. They aren't really there."

The god reached down into the black expanse and pulled a struggling Mokuba out of the ground by his hair. With a still blank expression of indifference to the moaning cries of the little one he was paining he stared at Seto.

Without thinking Kaiba jumped at the god who was holding his little brother. But when he hit the jackal it was like he had run into a brick wall. Backing up slowly and clutching at his head the sound of Mokuba's cries reached his ears and he once again thrust himself at the one tormenting his little brother. This time however, instead of hitting against the god, the jackal caught Seto by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

"The light is in you, but you restrain it. Look." The jackal released him and lifted Seto's hand in front of his face, who saw a white aura surrounding it. The god then dropped Mokuba who merely dissolved back into the ground and then stared back at Kaiba.

Seto watched the light slowly fade around his hand and the black mist swirled back. He then glared up at the jackal; "You had no right to do that. Mokuba is my brother, he never did anything to you."

Face never changing the god stared blankly back at Kaiba. "That was not Mokuba, that was an illusion. In your point of darkness he was the only thing that kept your light from being completely snuffed out. You should be thankful for that, and not take it for granted."

Seto's eyes hardened at the accusation of taking his little brother for granted, "I'd never do anything like that. Mokuba is the world to me."

The jackal lifted Kaiba's hands in front of his face and turned so the backs were clear to Seto. "You already have." He then dropped Seto's hand and once again faded back out of existence into the black void.

***************

Tea walked into the classroom the next day feeling happy. She was with her friends again. Everything was cool. And of course, when everything is just too good to be true. it really is. So as she was sitting in the classroom waiting for school to begin her eyes wandered over to the one thing that could ruin her bliss. Kaiba. He was hunched over his desk with his head in his hands in a not very normal for Kaiba to be doing sort of way. 'It has been a while since I talked to him hasn't it. I hope he isn't mad at me for ignoring him.' v ****************

As it turned out Seto wasn't in the least bit mad at Tea. He was just lost I his own thoughts. 'Why am I feeling like this again? I haven't been like this ever since. then. When Yugi took that part of me. So why is the feeling back? Is what that guy said really true? Have I been taking Mokuba for granted? No, impossible, I would never do that to him. Not on purpose anyway. But then would it be true? Through all that I've been doing to myself Mokuba's feelings never fully entered my thoughts I'd imagine. But I never meant to hurt him. So if I stop hurting myself will it all really be better? I'd doubt that. And what is this "inner light" he's been talking about? Is this the light that has been surrounding people in my dreams? Like it was with Mokuba? And Tea? Is there something inside them that I just don't have? There has to be something I can do. It can't just be this final decision. But what is it? What could I do? He said I had light when I was trying to save Mokuba from him. I saw the light. But what caused it? What could be causing this light to come and go? It doesn't seem to come to me. Why not? In my dreams it constantly surrounds almost everyone. except me. I don't understand. I want to, but I don't. What could be this thing that is apparently so important that my very existence as a soul depends on it? What could it possibly be? Is it the desire to help others? Is it the will to fight? Is it just the plain fact of being a quote unquote, nice, person? What? What?! I just don't know. I don't understand. What could that guy have meant that I "restrain" my inner light? What could he mean? What can I do?

****************

Tea watched him shaking his head with that sort of dazed look on his face and furrowed her brow. 'What could possibly make him worried so much? He looks sort of confused. I hope everything is okay.'

****************

The day passed on, class went as normal, homework was normal, work was normal. Everything just sort of dragged forward as Kaiba traveled through the day and finally fell into bed still thinking about what was the light and why didn't he seem to have it. Until once again, as his eyelids closed and dreams began, the somewhat familiar jackal head appeared out of the dark expanse of Seto's mind:

Kaiba found himself standing before the god once more in the endless realm.

"I see you have been thinking about what I said."

Seto nodded.

"You still do not understand, do you?"

"No."

"And you wish to know, but you do not. And this frustrates you?"

"Well. yes."

The slightest of smiles flickered briefly on Anubis' muzzle. ((It's bugging me, so I'm going to start calling him Anubis, even if Kaiba doesn't know his name.)) "Then ask what you wish me to tell."

Kaiba stared at the ground as the thoughts that had been running through his mind all day resurfaced once more, before he answered, "What is the light and why don't I have it?"

Anubis nodded. "Good questions indeed, now allow me to answer." He then snapped his fingers and the dark surrounding suddenly switched to a white expanse.

Seto looked around himself before looking at Anubis again whose colors had been reversed. So instead of a black face and appearance his while body was white with a black mist sharpening the more distinct figures such as the outline of his body.

He was about to say something when the jackal pointed at Kaiba who then looked at himself. He was the exact opposite of Anubis. Black all through with white drifting around him and there was a globe of light swirling inside his chest, which he stared at. "What the-"

"To answer your questions; you do have an inner light. It's just suppressed into that orb you see. And for your second question." He snapped his fingers again and the colors shifted back to normal. "The light is various things: Trust in yourself, trust in others, protecting those that you care for, being courteous to those around you, the will to live, the will to love, believing in dreams, believing your heart versus you mind. all sorts of things that can be summed up into the category of your heart. Some posses more darkness inside themselves than others. Take your classmate Bakura for example." With another snap of the fingers a warp colored Bakura stood next to them. "He has and outer light, not an inner one, and quite another part of him that he keeps to himself." He snapped his fingers again and Bakura disappeared. "You on the other hand keep to yourself, but in an entirety. Except for a few choice moments when you set your light free." A picture appeared next to them flashing scenes of playing with Mokuba before it went black once more. "But I see you recently have been conflicting with yourself in a quite a rapid sense." Pictures of him and Tea appeared with the colors reversed and the orb in Seto's chest would spread and glow until it was taken back down to the smaller size by the black aura. "This is my last visit to you Seto Kaiba, and hear this before I depart. Your light will surface if it is allowed. And Tea is a good thing for you, let her help."

Seto could see Anubis was about to fade away again. "Hey wait!"

"Yes?"

"Why have you been helping me?"

The jackal held up the scale and feather with a slight smile, "It is my duty to save lost souls from reaching me before their time." And with that he disappeared not without sending one last image into Kaiba's brain: A picture of himself walking around his room with a bloody knife on the desk and his wrists oozing red liquid until lastly. he was lying on the floor limp with a pool of blood surrounding his hand and his eyes glazed over as he lay there on the floor lifeless. Dead.