When Powers Collide
In the aftermath of the Ceremonial Duel, the world fell apart. An evil yet to be sealed lingered, unlocking that which the Pharaoh had sealed. The world ended. And now Seto Kaiba is about to step back to stop it happening again. Rated for violence, war-themes, gore, language, character death.
Prologue - Time
Time. Time is something the world no longer has. Time is something the world has not had for the past sixteen years. Atem is gone. Yugi is gone. Everyone is gone. Few of us remain.
This country is stained with the blood of our fallen comrades, those who at one time, I would have turned away. We have been forced underground; beneath the crimson earth. The sunlight does not light the ground beneath the blood. For years, we could only reflect, without a way to fight back. That reflection… opened my eyes. Everything that I said while he - while they - was alive, I now regret.
Once the Pharaoh known to us by that time as "Atem" and Yugi Mutou faced in what was known as the Ceremonial Duel, it was as though the world outside that underground chamber had screeched to a halt; nothing else mattered outside of the cards they threw upon their Duel Disks, the monsters that battled. Two people, two souls, each had their own body, their own identity. After three years. And this had been their chance to learn which was stronger. Which was truly the King of Duel Monsters - the title they had shared over my head since our meeting. The result was a surprise, based on the past - their friends had been unable to decide who they wanted to win, who they wanted to suffer. By the time Atem's three Egyptian God beasts had been eliminated - all in the space of a turn - it had become clear to me who would survive the bout. Atem passed on and into the Afterlife that had been promised to him at the end of his millenniums-long path. His friends shed many tears; their hearts ached with his departure.
Little did they know they would join him in eternal peace within a number of years.
I, myself, have suffered through this war. KaibaCorp collapsed completely in the instant war broke out over Domino City, it's reputation had been difficult enough to keep after several incidents between the Battle City tournament that laid questions and answers ahead of Yugi and Atem and the journey they took into the past. Atem's past. That was not the end. My younger brother - the only shred of blood I had left that I could hold onto - Mokuba Kaiba had been captured at the time of Yugi Mutou's passing. He had been held hostage against us to prevent any assaults on the deadly force we faced, but without those that we could depend upon, we stood no chance anyway. What Mokuba is alive or not… is something that I no longer know. And it tears at my very soul. Each day is agony to live through, it's Hell on Earth.
Earth had descended into Hell.
Of the few survivors around me, I am only familiar with one: Maximillion Pegasus. The creator of Duel Monsters, our first true enemy; the man who sealed my brother's soul into a playing card and forced me to duel Yugi and choose between the two in need of rescuing. After the tournament, we had believed him to have passed on; apparently that hadn't been the case. Two others remained in our company; a soldier from a 'Xiaolin' temple who calls himself 'Omi' and a man from American. A man who speaks of large mecha and soldiers of different colours and ancient representations; of dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures - a man calling himself Tommy Oliver. Each have their own enemies to face in the war, each have their comrades buried beneath the bloodied gravel.
The world has become a wasteland - not even a shell - of its former self; no happiness, no light, no life. Everyday, we would hope for a sign, for a window of opportunity to pass through to peace. To avenge those we had lost. But we cannot even break through the first line of defence. It seems hopeless. Perhaps if Atem were still in this world, we may have stood more of a chance of surviving, of saving those we stood by.
That bastard Tomb Robber known as Bakura… his return had been predicted through means we couldn't comprehend; Atem's departure from the modern world was meant to have sealed the darkness in which he had been born and had been buried beneath. We could only come to the conclusion that another evil had stumbled upon the dark realm in which he had been imprisoned, lifting the meaning of Atem's eradication. The darkness had been reborn in the absence of light.
After everything that has passed in the sixteen years since the rebirth of darkness began, the cycle that repeated itself; there is nothing to horrify us anymore. Memories of dying comrades haunt us; Joey Wheeler - whom I had despised for many years - had been one of the victims towards the end of the conflict; shot down to die in a pool of his blood painting his skin, his clothes, his hair. He was sinking into death; unable to move, unable to live, unable to escape the inevitable.
Despite dying, he was desperate to get his message from his heart to his comrades who stayed by his side; words barely louder than a hoarse whisper, insisting that he had been driven by the death of his sister and his need to avenge her. Each fell at the hands of the man who had hidden within a friend of their. The man filled with nothing but evil, a being with no heart, no mercy. He gave none a chance to live.
Tremors had ripped the world's skin apart; many incidents that had occurred to bring about our demises; the tremors that tore open the earth beneath Tommy Oliver's comrade, dragging them to their ends in the mecha they used as a weapon. An army of evil that had overthrown everything we had defended; every meeting that had occurred in the past meant nothing compared in the face of these combined forces. Who said evil could never win?
Those words had been broken, the world we live in each and every day, expecting the end to come, is proof that such a claim is not possible. Perhaps we will be gone in days, in weeks; we can only hold out for a short while longer. Perhaps another force will appear in this dead world and destroy those that had brought harm to it.
That which was meant to remain sealed. The permanent seal that fell apart.
We stand alone in this post-apocalyptic world, facing the deadliest army this planet could have seen. I, Seto Kaiba, cannot see a ray of hope through the blanket of clouds that hang over us threateningly. I cannot see the path to protect what remains of this world in the hopes of rebuilding what we lost.
Surrender is imminent. The once 'Great' Seto Kaiba has lost hope. We have lost in this war, Death hangs his scythe over our heads constantly. How long can we last? We've passed our life expectancy here.
- Seto Kaiba. Day XX, Month XX, Year 20XX
Next time
The final counterattack the world has to offer. One chance to set everything right. Survivors will lay their lives on the line in order to gain one more chance to save the planet they loved and lost. Chapter One - "Ceremonial Aftermath".
Kai guys. I know people have been looking at this for a while without any sign of an update. Truth is, I really wanted to get on with this, but I never did this story justice and the twelve chapters that had been written and not uploaded were lost when my desktop went down. But there's one duel in this tale that I've wanted to write since a friend and I played it out - so that's my main inspiration. That and those who have supported this - said friend was the creator of the plot (the idea for the three-way cross) and I had volunteered to become the words. Thank you very much for supporting this and I promise I'll make the wait worthwhile.
- CuteYami, 2nd May 2009