Author's Note: Surprise, surprise! I saw the new YGO movie, Dark Side of Dimensions and I'm off-the-walls ecstatic! Dat ending though! That's just... BEGGING for more to come after it! So since the movie was all about accepting Atem's death and moving on and embracing the future, I figured I'd help give Kaiba some much needed closure. I feel like even at the very end of the movie, he never really got it, but the ending left a very perfect potential segue to lead into that.
WARNING: I... think this might be the first time I've actually written from Kaiba's POV maybe? ? ? It was hard! So I'm sorry if I don't do him justice (I definitely don't write him very often). ALSO, if you haven't seen the movie yet, THIS STARTS OUT RIGHT AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO SPOILERS! ! ! !
Disclaimer: Takahashi-sama owns Yu-Gi-Oh, is the brains behind the existence of the movie, and I'm simply experimenting with some possible ideas.
Immediately After
There he was. At long last, he stood before the Pharaoh in the flesh. All the expenses he'd put into this, all the determination and dedication he'd put into making this happen, and it had all finally paid off. He was here, facing the Pharaoh, and he was going to duel him on his own terms. He activated his Duel Disk and stood expectantly, a slight smile on his face as he watched the Egyptian King rise from his throne. If there was one thing Kaiba knew with certainty about the Pharaoh, it was that he was never one to back down from a challenge. This rematch was long in the making.
"Kaiba…" Pharaoh said, the first to speak, and his deep voice echoed in the silence.
"Pharaoh," Kaiba said with a nod of acknowledgement. "I've been waiting a long time for this moment."
A whole year spent trying to make the impossible possible. And he'd done it.
"Did you think you could escape me in the Afterlife? Well, if you did, then you're dead wrong." He swore the Pharaoh's mouth twitched at that. "There is nowhere you can go that I won't follow you if it means I can defeat you once and for all." Kaiba pointed at the Pharaoh and declared, "Pharaoh, I challenge you now! Just try and defeat me if you can!"
And now they were back on track, in the familiar routine their rivalry had always entailed. He knew the Pharaoh and how he'd react. He'd give one of those supremely confident smirks of his and declare his acceptance of the challenge. Then they would duel, pushing each other to their limits, just as they'd always done. Only this time, he would beat him.
"No."
Kaiba faltered. The imagined scenario in his head stopped dead and he stared blankly up at the Pharaoh. Impossible. Surely… surely he'd misheard. There was no way the Pharaoh had actually turned down a challenge… had denied him the chance for victory…
"Excuse me?" Kaiba said quietly, his blue eyes fixed squarely on the Pharaoh and bored into him. He dared him, dared him to repeat that to his face.
"You heard me. I will not duel you, Kaiba," Pharaoh said, slowly and deliberately, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
Kaiba was stunned, but he quickly covered it with a snarl and a glare. "What's the matter? Are you a coward?! Has losing to Yugi made you soft-hearted or has being sent to the Afterlife made you grow lazy and comfortable in your superiority over us mere mortals?"
"No, Kaiba, I have no need to fight you here," Pharaoh sighed and stepped down from the throne to level ground. It didn't even matter that he was almost two feet shorter than him, his very being oozed with raw power. "I laid down my sword when I left the mortal realm for the immortal one. I have enjoyed our rivalry and if it was your time to die, I would happily duel you for old times' sake, but that is not the case and I will not duel you like this."
Pharaoh pointed meaningfully at Kaiba's right shoulder and only then did he glance at it. Black and purple soot-like specks were leaking out of his shoulder upwards into the air and disappearing after a foot or so. He'd last seen those coming off his body when he had dueled with Yugi against the Millennium Ring-poisoned Diva. Kaiba honestly hadn't even noticed the stuff coming out of his arm.
Kaiba scoffed and stared down at the diminutive king. "This is irrelevant. It doesn't affect my dueling ability in the slightest. All I'm seeing is you making excuses to not duel me."
Pharaoh crossed his arms and frowned up at him. "Kaiba, you're not dead. You're dying. If you don't go back to the realm of the living, your soul energy will be slowly siphoned off until there's nothing left and there will be no Afterlife for you. Your soul will be simply gone and you will cease to exist."
"Well, if you care about my soul so much, then why don't you just shut up and duel me so that I can defeat you and get out of here before that happens?" Kaiba said.
"And what if you don't?" Pharaoh suggested coolly. "What if I agree to duel you and you lose? Do you plan to duel me for all eternity until you beat me or die trying? Is that what your goal is?"
Kaiba glared. "You can't win forever. You will lose at my hands."
"Will that be enough to satisfy you, Kaiba?" Pharaoh asked with a skeptical raise of his eyebrow. "I duel you, you defeat me, and you'll happily return to the mortal realm knowing that you have conquered your rival at long last?"
Kaiba opened his mouth automatically in response, but no words passed his lips. He had no retort to give for this. He'd always prided himself on deciding his own future and not letting his past control him, and yet somehow, he had not thought beyond meeting the Pharaoh again. He had not considered what he would do if- when he did actually win.
He had no answer.
"Yes," he replied anyway. It sounded correct, but the word sounded empty and meaningless. He could see the Pharaoh didn't believe him either.
"Kaiba…" Pharaoh said quietly and Kaiba nearly growled at how Yugi-like his tone was. "You did not come here to duel me. You came for something else, and I'm afraid I can't give you what you seek. I'm dead, Kaiba, and the dead are not meant to walk among the living any more than you are meant to walk among the dead."
"I don't need you to patronize me, Pharaoh!" Kaiba spat.
"I'm not. I'm telling you what you need to hear because I know you and you won't listen to anyone else. I highly doubt you'll listen to me either, but for the sake of our friendship, I owe it to you to try," Pharaoh said with a steely look in his violet eyes, but his speech was still too gentle, too sympathetic.
Too Yugi.
"I'm dead, Kaiba. Dead and gone and not coming back. Not for you, and not for Yugi anymore either, but you refuse to accept it. I'm a thing of the past, a dead end, and chasing after me won't lead you into the future. Just as Yugi and his friends have done, you have to let me go. You have to keep walking forward into the light and carving your own future and you have to accept that I won't be a part of that future. You still have your company with your incredible over-the-top holographic technology and a little brother who adores and admires you. They are your future. Continue to chase me and they'll lose you. Mokuba's only thirteen; he's too young for you to leave behind. Now go…"
Pharaoh took a step back and swept one arm out to the side in a commanding gesture. "Return to those who still need you and don't look back. If you try to come after me, Kaiba, I will force you out and I can't guarantee you'll be thrown back to the mortal realm. I promise you this though: if you still wish it once you have lived your full life, I will gladly duel you again."
Kaiba didn't trust himself to speak. His heart burned and his head ached, but he latched onto those final words like a drowning man grasping for a life raft and he nodded curtly. "I'm holding you to that promise, Pharaoh," he said stiffly.
He spun on one heel and stormed out of the throne room and out of the palace back the way he came across the desert. He didn't stop and he didn't look back even as he disappeared from the sandy plains and rematerialized in his space station. Kaiba glanced momentarily at the digital clock. Four hours, huh? He shrugged and the first thing he did was call Mokuba as he stepped out of the pod.
"Mokuba, it's me. I'm back," he said once the line connected him to his little brother.
The shock in Mokuba's voice was evident, but the heavy relief and ecstatic joy he heard in his tone as he spoke was overwhelming and the Pharaoh's words came back to him. "Mokuba's only thirteen; he's too young for you to leave behind".
Kaiba swallowed the uncomfortable lump that had lodged in his throat and he completely shut down the pod. He smiled slightly in response to Mokuba's complaints over the phone. "As if you could get rid of me that easy. Now be honest, how many different ice cream parlor shares did you invest the company into while I was gone?"
Just as he'd promised the Pharaoh, he didn't look back.