"Do you really think that you can defeat me, Kaito?"
He's heard similar things before. Do you think you can win with a body like this? he remembers, hands on his shoulders and cold eyes staring down at him and he'd won then, hadn't he? He'd won and Chris had been gone for a while, but then he'd come back and things had been… well. Not like before. They're both too far past that, they're too old and they know too much about the world to slip back just the same. But they'd built something up anew, and it's not the same now but it's better for it, in the end. Stronger.
(it's something real, not the gossamer strands of a teenage romance that was torn apart so easily in the end)
Except this is different. The words might be similar but the speaker is nothing like him.
Although there are some similarities, aren't there? he thinks, only it isn't- it's not his thought, it's not his voice, and Kaito tastes bile because he should be past this, he should be okay but he's not, is he? Those claws are still dug deep, those hands still hold him, and for all that Kaito prides himself on being strong - because he has to be, because he's an adultand the others are children and they need someone who can stand strong and hold them up when everything around them is falling apart - right now, standing in front of him, Kaito feels as weak as he ever has done.
And the worst part is he's still there, he's still watching Kaito and Kaito doesn't think for an instant that he doesn't know exactly what Kaito's thinking. Because he always does, doesn't he? It's what he does, gets inside your thoughts and learns what makes you tick, what drives you forward and what pushes you back and what makes you freeze, deer in the headlights.
(especially when you make it easy, especially when he's what makes you freeze up)
Kaito stops, though. Forces himself down somewhere deep or up somewhere high, deep down where he's hidden or up out of his body, and he doesn't know which but even after so long - even after a reprieve that he should have known would never last - it comes as easily as breathing to flee like that.
(stop, breathe, play your cards)
(he cannot have you, not again, and he cannot have anyone around you)
(you are strong, you are-)
Except he isn't. Not in the face of him, not with years' worth of memories flooding through him all at once because he's stupid, he's stupid and he'd let himself forget, think it was over. He's not strong at all, and the field eats at him and drains his energy but it's nothing, nothing compared to what his very existence does to Kaito. Because Kaito is used to fighting a body that wants to crumble into dust and light and who-knows-what - because he knows photon mode has done things and so he wonders what will happen, when that end finally comes - he's used to rallying against the pain and using it, used to burning up like a dying star because one kind of pain is no different to the other and so it might as well be a pain that can drive him forward, mightn't it?
But it's not his body that's failing him now, and Kaito is used to a ravaged and broken body because he always has hismind, and when that fails him…
(when that fails him he's always had Yuuma; Yuuma who's bright and blazing with every one of them falling into place around him like his own personal solar system; Yuuma who taught him that maybe sometimes it's okay to rely on other people, maybe sometimes it's okay to reach out a hand and trust that someone will grab it - except that Kaito ran into this battle all alone and it doesn't matter if Kaito reaches out, if Kaito reaches by his own choice for the first time and says please, someone catch me because Yuuma is too far to even know that Kaito is fighting in the first place)
So Kaito stands there, stands alone on legs that don't want to hold him and plays his cards and makes stupid rookie mistakes because- because he's scared, because he's terrified, and Kaito has been turning fear into anger for years but here, standing before him across a hopeless duel, his anger deserts him and leaves only the fear and he feels so very small, so very lost. And Heartland speaks again then, tells Kaito how much he's looking forward to seeing Haruto again after he wins, and Kaito looks down at a useless hand of cards and his eyes burn and he thinks no as his legs buckle and send him falling to his knees - again, again, always in front of Heartland - and his vision goes gray around the edges so that he has to shut his eyes and choke back bile because he's failed, he's failed and oh god, Haruto and then-
And then his eyes are snapping open at the sound of his name, his gaze lifting to where Yuuma stands before him with a grin splitting his face and Astral blazing at his side like they were never apart, like all of this has been just a nightmare and now it's time to chase away the last of them. Except that Kaito's body is still betraying him, still won't let him off the ground to finish the duel and end this himself.
(but he doesn't have to, does he?)
So Kaito does the only thing he can. The only thing he should.
He reaches out, and he says please, and Yuuma catches his hand and grins down at him until Kaito can't help but smile himself.
(yeah, okay, he thinks, you win)
(and Yuuma does win, of course)