Scar

Broken Puppet

(based on no episode in particular. Honestly, it just popped up randomly when I was halfway through the third installment. I'm trying to explore more about the other Arclight brothers, so it kinda provide a backstory as to why they followed Tron's order without question)

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own YGO Zexal, otherwise, IV would be an anti-hero protagonist along with Rio as the heroine, and the anime would be full of dramas instead of card games!

***

They found him one stormy night, when they were bringing clean bandages and his night medication to his room, standing before the sink counter in the adjoining bathroom, head hung in between his hunched shoulders. Blood splattered all over the counter and floor beneath his feet, dripping slowly from the hand covering his right eye. The bandages that were supposed to cover the wound on his face scattered on the floor, almost unrecognizable among pools of blood.

III was too shell shocked to do anything but stood still in front of bathroom's door, while V—having recovered quickly from his initial shock—walked towards his younger brother. He winced slightly when the pad of his shoes squelched against fresh blood.

How could a few inches of gash wound spray that much blood? It could only happen if the muscles around said wound strained considerably. What had his brother seen to make him that tense?

As he got closer, he could see that his brother gripped the end of the counter with one hand until his knuckles whitened. His body shook uncontrollably, while his other hand that covered his right eye had its bandages soaked completely with blood.

"IV—"

"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" IV bellowed, lashing out his free arm and backed away. His unobscured eye was wide open, slightly glazed, its pupil dilated to the point it turned almost black as if he was afraid of something.

As far as V concerned, that was probably the case.

The silver haired man still wasn't sure what had gone wrong with the procedure his brother had undergone a few days back. He had made sure that his brother had been fully sedated, and while the execution had utilized robotic hand, it had been under supervision of their doctor. IV wasn't supposed to feel anything—or even move—for, at least, twelve hours.

But IV had abruptly awakened in the seventh hour since the procedure had started, dazed and confused at first, then started to scream bloody murder, thrashing and trying to wrench his limbs free from the restrain holding his body in place. To avoid further risk, they stopped the half-done procedure and bandaged him after a few more doses of tranquilizer.

Then again, it hadn't stopped there. He would occasionally murmur something incoherent in his sleep and every time the young man woke up, he was always looking at his surrounding with horror as if afraid something would jump out of the shadow and pounced on him. Due to the unstable condition, they were unable to proceed with the surgery.

That was the least of their worry, though. The wound would heal eventually, with or without surgery. What worried V the most was his brother's emotional state. IV was famous for his mood-swings in daily basis, but he was acting like a mental patient since the incident. It was pretty obvious that he was the one who undid the bandage on his face—for some unknown reason. If he kept that up, he might not be able to recover in due time, and would be a liability to their plan.

"I can rig his memory, if needed," Tron had offered when V told him about the incident.

"That's not what I'm concerned about, father," V replied, looking concerned. "IV was supposed to be fully sedated for half a day, but he woke up anyway, and that was when he started acting weird. He's always the stubborn one, who knows what'll happen if we play around with his memories?"