The Art of Subconscious Illusion: Rewritten (Death NotexHouse, MD crossover)

Nightmare

Full Summary: The rewritten version of the original well-loved fic, this portrays the story of the fight between House the diagnostician and the mental patient who calls himself Kira. One week is all that is allotted for him and his team to save Kira from the world and himself…and House's neck is on the line.

A/N: Here, the seventh instalment of Art of Subconscious Illusion: Rewritten, ready to enjoy. Considering the ample progress that we're making, I think the time may come to henceforth delete the original fic, and let this one be the 'One and Only' (as Chesney Hawkes would say). This would be useful, in particular, because of the fact that, from here on out, I'll be giving you completely new, original, never-before-seen footage, and so getting rid of the discontinued fic would keep that impression of originality. I'm currently on the fence about it, so if you can find the time to vote in the poll over whether or not to delete the original, that would be immensely useful.

All the best, eh?

Chapter VII

Nightmare

Once the patient had been returned back to his room and into the arms of his worried parents, Cameron and Wilson made their way back to House's office, where Drs House, Chase, Foreman, and the child-like Ryuzaki were waiting for them, all standing with their arm folded in annoyance – apart from Ryuzaki of course, who was still crouching in his seat, now preoccupied with a lollipop of the maroon-coloured cherry flavoured variety. Now in the relative calm of the office, and virtually away from danger, Cameron unclipped her bug from the sleeve of her shirt beneath her lab coat, and gave it to Ryuzaki, who set it up to be listened to on House's PC, while her and Wilson let spill about what happened during their search for Light Yagami.

When they'd finished listening to the audio, the reactions around the room were very different. Ryuzaki, for one, carried on licking idly at his lollipop, his eyes noticeably narrowing behind his mask. Foreman and Chase, however, looked worried, Chase covering his mouth with his hand while Foreman began to sweat. House, however, who had every reason to be worried about his potentially imminent death, did nothing. Well, nothing other than stay where he was, preparing himself for a witty comeback. "Seven days?" he asked, "Ha! I could diagnose this kid in three days, and with a hand tied behind my back!" House, with his Simba-like trait of laughing in the face of danger, was never one to disappoint, death being no excuse in his book.

"Per-lease!" Foreman sighed, wiping away the sweat, "Curing that kid is going to be harder for us than it is for a drug addict to quit, and even the mighty House could do that in three days!"

Suddenly, Chase was bent over double with laughter, "'You will die in seven days…' hey, Cameron, Koji Suzuki called, he wants his catchphrase back!"

"Shut up," she retorted, "this is really serious business. We have seven days to diagnose an extremely violent, mentally ill patient who probably has a split personality, and if that wasn't enough, thinks he's Kira."

"First of all, we really only have six days, as today counts as the first one." Said Ryuzaki, with an erudite finger, "Second of all, split personality? Explain."

"Well, when we all first met him, he was manic, going on about 'eradicating filth' and killing criminals, but when he was talking with me a little while ago, he was talking about not wanting to be Kira anymore because he didn't want to hurt his family. In my opinion, that could not be because he's having manic episodes, but because he has a second personality – a 'Kira personality' – who has his own motives and his own way of thinking, with his real personality – the 'Light Personality' – battling for control, hence the deal he made with us."

"I really doubt that," said Foreman, dominating the conversation, "because if that were true, then we wouldn't have anything to blame the hallucinations on, and since a myriad of things can cause hallucinations, we'd be practically on step 1 again."