Sometimes you feel like you know it all, like you've lived through everything and nothing can surprise you anymore, of course that that's when life decides to sucker punch you, just because it can.
Ryo opened the door warily. He didn't have any appointments planned for today, nor could he remember telling someone to come for anything, so he couldn't for the life of him imagine who could have knocked his door. He was, however, ready to tell whoever was on the other side of the door to get lost, but then he opened the door and his words died on his tongue.
"Ka- Kaiba Kisara?" Ryo stammered through the name, blinking in surprise.
"Hello, Marufuji-san" the white haired woman smiled.
Ryo looked her up and down, trying to find a reason why Kaiba Seto's wife should be standing on his threshold.
He came out blank.
"What are you doing here?" He finally decided to ask.
Her gentle smile didn't falter "May I come in, Marufuji-san?"
Ryo looked subconsciously at the inside of his apartment, everything seemed tidy and clean. He knew he shouldn't care about it, but, even after everything that had happened in these last months, he still respected and admired both Seto and Kisara Kaiba.
He nodded slowly and Kisara entered with a muttered thank you.
"Do you mind if I take a seat?" Kisara asked once she was inside without waiting for Ryo to offer it.
He wasn't even sure if he wanted to offer to be honest. Ryo couldn't remember the last time he interacted with someone whom he actually wanted to be polite to.
"Sure," he answered with a confused frown.
He still didn't know why Kaiba Kisara had come to see him, but at least the surprise had dimmed down by now.
"Do you mind if I call you Ryo?" He shook his head, he didn't really care either way. Kisara just nodded; her gaze remained serene even though her hands fidgeted with each other "I want to be as direct as I can with you, Ryo." She took a deep breath, letting it out as slowly as she could "Listen, I know about the underground duels."
Ryo was just glad that he'd been sitting already or he would've fallen. Kisara waited patiently until he recovered. When he did, the surprise moved aside to let the fear in and with it, a strong anger came.
It was so infuriating, how this woman thought that just because she was Kaiba's wife she could come to his house and say stuff like that.
Ryo glared at her, his anger flaring up as she remained as calm as ever "So What? You expect me to get on my knees and beg you not to kick me out of the circuit? Because if that's what you're waiting for then I suggest you to stay on that seat."
Kisara's lips turned upwards, making Ryo glare at her harder.
"Ryo, you do realize I've been living with Kaiba Seto for four years, and we've been married for three, right? What I mean is, you can drop the glare because I'm immune to it at this point."
Ryo felt his blood boil. How dare this woman come to his house and treat him like a damn child? "What do you want?" He asked, erasing every trace of politeness he was still holding unto from his tone.
"I just want to talk to you," Kisara continued, her voice as calm as before "I know you're participating in underground duels. I can see it in you," her gaze traveled through his department before those deep, blue eyes settled on him again "As for your last question, no, I'm not here so you can plead your way into staying on the circuit. I just came to warn you."
"About what?"
Kisara eyed his chest for a moment "You're quite young, Ryo. In fact, I believe you aren't even on your twenties, am I right?" his glare was the only answer she got, it seemed to be the only she needed because her smile came back, even though now it seemed rather sad "I saw your files from the Academy Ryo. I know you're smart, that's why I want to ask you, just how normal do you think it is for a healthy teen your age to get so many aches on his chest?" she finished, completely serious.
Ryo frowned, more out of confusion that annoyance. Yes, he'd had some pain on his ribcage every now and again, almost like needles stabbing his heart, especially after duels. But… "How did you…"
Kisara just gave him another sad smile "You are quite young, Ryo." She repeated "Underground duels aren't as knew as they may've made you think. They've been around since even before the duel disk, they just became more popular once the duel disk was introduced, aesthetics I suppose" she looked down at her lap "You're so smart, Ryo, and both Seto and I can see all the potential you have. Don't worry though, Seto knows something changed with you, but he doesn't know what, and I won't tell him, not now, and probably not ever."
And for a moment, just for a fleeting second, Ryo actually felt the relief and the gratefulness rolling from him in rivulets. But all of it soon became weariness.
"Why?"
For the first time, Kisara looked taken aback "Well, Seto loves this game, and the moment I tell him about the underground he'd hunt down the hosts and everyone who'd ever had anything to do with it. And I don't want your career to end like that."
"So you'd lie to your husband just to save me?" It sounded way more preposterous said out loud.
"No." Kisara sighed "Listen Ryo, I'll hold my tongue about the underground duels for a while, just enough for you to get out of them. And you don't have to worry about the consequences because the moment you do, I'll tell Seto about them and they'll be gone. They won't hurt you. But you need to get out. You need to save yourself, because that's not what I came here for. I'm just giving you a way out."
Ryo mused about it for a moment before talking again "And what if I don't?"
Kisara licked her lips "Then I doubt you'll get to see them fall."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
The woman in front of him seemed to age ten years before his eyes "Did you know I met Seto when I was nineteen?" She asked out of the blue. Ryo only nodded, confused as to where was this going "Well, I used to live in England, before coming here. I already loved duels before meeting him. And I looked-" she took a moment to find the right word before continuing "Exotic, I guess, yeah let's leave it at that. And so did my best friend. She was a beautiful redhead, an Irish girl I met during my time traveling through the UK. She was also a duelist. It seems like most people are nowadays," Kisara chuckled "but I guess that's not surprising when it gives you the chance to see the duel monsters so close and alive. The thing is that she liked to go to clubs, and she tended to drag me with her. Back then the hosts were more bolt, there weren't as many security devices and internet wasn't THAT big of a thing. So one day a man in a suit came to us in a club. He said he'd seen us duel in the exhibition the day before and asked if we wanted to get some easy money out of it." Kisara ran her hand through her hair "We were seventeen, and we weren't exactly the smartest people alive, to be honest. So we didn't see anything wrong with it, after all tournaments and exhibition duels were starting to pick up, you know? It was a novelty and we thought, why not? So long story short, he took us to an arena where the underground duels took place, we saw them, we were forced to participate in one. And then we were paid, and I decided to never set a foot there again."
Ryo frowned, he could still remember his first duel like it was yesterday. The way is nerves ignited with pain, the way the crowd kept encouraging them to hurt each other, even though it was obvious he was just a kid compared to them. He remembered how afraid and disgusted he'd felt in those first minutes in which he didn't understand, and he couldn't imagine Kisara in a situation like that no matter how much he tried.
"My friend wasn't that… conscious" Kisara's voice brought him out of his thoughts "I tried to get her to quit, we didn't need the money, not really. But you know how it is. The adrenaline, the power, the endorphins. It's addictive. It sucks you in. Like a snake, luring you to their side. Besides she always loved power and drama, it appeared to be the perfect deal for her. So she stayed." Kisara frowned, her pink tongue poking out to moisten her lips. Her gaze traveled around the room, settling on her lap for a moment before going back to Ryo's, she gave a soft sigh before continuing "I came to Japan to study my university, and I met Seto. The closer we grew the further apart Alissa and I drifted. I didn't hear from her for almost an entire year. It was my first year, and I was not prepared for the differences between the British school system and the Japanese one, so I didn't really have any time left to worry about a girl on the other side of the world, no matter how much I loved her." Kisara's eyes narrowed as she concentrated on Ryo's cheeks, the teen resisted the urge to squirm under the scrutiny. She gave him a small smile that didn't reach her eyes "She had freckles, too" she said softly "Way more than you, of course. She was a redhead after all."
Her words made something heavy fall on Ryo's stomach.
"What happened to her?" He asked reluctantly.
Kisaras's eyes went to his chest "The duels were quite new. They didn't know anything about how to do them. Not that they do know, but the thing is that they used to be even more dangerous… It didn't take long for Alissa's body to start to resent the shocks..." Kisara shook her head "By the time I was able to contact her… it was too late already." She looked up, willing her shining eyes to not spill their tears "You should've seen her… She used to be so beautiful, at the age of seventeen she could make men fall to her feet with just a smile… And her body, God, her body, people used to say it had been carved by Michael Angelo himself… But by the time I arrived to London she was nothing but skin and bones…" Kisara looked at Ryo again, her pooling eyes full of resolve "She died of a heart attack before her twentieth birthday, Ryo" She said slowly "Her body couldn't take the shocks and her heart just gave up. You've seen it with your own eyes, and even if they'd managed to regulate the strength of the shocks that doesn't erase the fact that your body shouldn't be exposed to electricity. I don't mean to scare you, but what makes you believe you'll be able to survive this, when so many others haven't?"
Ryo was the one to break the eye contact this time. He couldn't process what he was hearing. He was smart, as smart as Kisara had said, so of course he knew his heart wasn't working as it ought to. But that didn't mean the thought of it failing him altogether ever crossed his mind.
He rubbed his face, not really sure of what to do with this information. Now that he thought about it, he'd never seen a "veteran" on the club, no one who had been there for more than two years. He'd brushed it off as the club being new. But now that he thought about it, neither the premises nor the motions of the duels looked improvised.
"Why didn't you tell Kaiba-san before?" His voice was constricted even to his own ears.
"In the beginning it was just a case of me wanting to forget that it had happened at all… And after Alissa died, well I couldn't really bring myself to talk about her, you know?" She chuckled darkly "In fact, this is the first time I have said her name in almost a decade…"
"And now?"
"After a while of trying to ignore it and repress it, I realized how bad it was actually getting, and I was going to say something but…" Kisara looked at him, unsure of what to say, before steeling herself "I know that for the media, Seto and I look as the perfect couple, but we had a rocky start, a very unstable and fragile rocky start. I know how coward this will sound, but I didn't want to risk it by telling him about how I had kept this secret, about the sport he loves the most nonetheless, from him. I'm really sorry I didn't act before, Marufuji-kun, I can't express how much I am, that's why I'm giving you the chance to get out before Seto breaks hell loose on these people, because he will. He will erase every single one of them, that I can assure you."
And they deserve it, he thought.
Ryo mulled over her words for a moment before shaking his head.
"I'm not an unconscious brat, Kisara" he said quickly "I know what I'm doing, the setting of the shocks is so low I can barely feel them anymore, and I never have more than one duel per week" he explained "It's not that much, nothing my body can't take" Kisara closed her eyes, a quiet growl coming out of her mouth. It made Ryo feel like a chastised child and, thus, more eager to get her to understand "People play with electricity all the time, there are entire kink groups dedicated to that," he blurted without thinking, his cheeks growing red, and he winced at his own boldness.
"It's different, Ryo," Kisara said without missing a beat "Those are small, concentrated shocks. What you're doing is electrocuting yourself, during a stressful moment, for about half an hour, every week. Sometimes more, because I know you do have more than just one duel a week from time to time."
"What is this, a prosecution?" He snapped.
This woman really had some guts to believe she could call him out like this, in his own house, where she came uninvited to, may he add.
Kisara just sighed "You have six months, Ryo." With that, Kisara stood up all of a sudden and started to walk to the door "Listen," she said stopping "I understand, ok, I understand how luring power is, how you feel safe when you think you're in control and above everything else. I know you think no one can hurt you anymore, but you aren't seeing the whole picture. You have so much potential, Ryo, don't throw it away, for something like this. I'm not telling you to leave it today, but please just think about what I said." She took a small card from the pocket of her blue blazer and put it on his key bowl "This is my number, if you change your mind before the time's due, call me and they won't be an issue anymore."
With that Kisara left the door, her words echoing on Ryo's head.
The teen buried his face on his hands; small shining spots dancing behind his eyelids.
Could this really kill him? After all, they were just duels, nothing more, and the shocks were so small he really barely felt them anymore.
Could he go back to dueling the old way? No, at least he didn't think he could. He'd been blind to the true meaning of duels, how they are wars, and how in wars you don't go around pandering your enemy.
Besides, what would it say of him if he quit? He was no weakling, he could take the pain, but he wasn't going to lose against anyone again. He refused to be humiliated that way again, to go through that once more would be worse than anything the underground duels could do to his body.
Ryo shook his head. He wasn't going back. In fact, there was no reason for him to go back to how things were, he was the Hell Kaizer, he was going to live his life however he decided to and no one was going to change that, not even Kaiba Kisara.
I'm trying to get back into writing so I can edit and finish 2am, so I thought a one-shot was a good place to start?
Since this is going to have to be posted as a crossover in here, I don't really think anyone will even see this but if you do, I'd really love some feedback?
Thanks for reading!