A/N: No action, but I finally got started on that romance I promised. Well, nothing happens but the foundation is being laid. More plot, more character interaction and development, more OC's. If you haven't noticed yet, I have no reservations about pumping my fics full of OC's. Thanks very much to everyone who took the time to review, I loved them! You guys are awesome, for serious.
Disclaimer: Don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, so stop pestering me for the rights.
Chapter Seven: Of Seto and Kaiba
"Where exactly are we headed?" Yugi asked again, repeating the question that it seemed Seto had no intention of answering.
The group were practically jogging to keep up with the long, purposeful strides that Seto took eastward. Wordlessly, he'd shown them the card they'd recovered from Michael and left the cave. Since then, his steps had followed the same, direct path east, following some invisible objective that was as clear as day to the young prince. It had been an hour already and he hadn't spoken since.
Finally, Serenity was tiring of the ambiguity. "Prince Seto…" she called, whineier than she had intended to sound.
Seto turned around and rolled his eyes at the group. "Lortosia, alright? I have to verify that this card is genuine. I never asked you to come along. Feel free to go home. Quietly."
"I'm coming," Damien assured him. "Anything to spite Azrael."
Serenity nodded too, "Whatever the guys we were chasing were about, I'm sure this is the way to follow it." Yugi nodded his agreement.
For a moment, Seto regarded each of them with an odd look. Finally, he groaned slightly, "Fine. Then follow. Quietly." With that, he was off again.
The trek took them to the mountainous edge of the desert within an hour of the discussion. The journey passed largely in silence, as Seto wished, with little but hushed conversation between Yugi and Serenity. The AI's seemed capable of not talking for days at a time if they didn't see the purpose. Inane chatter was one thing Kaiba hadn't integrated into his creations.
Conversation, however, seemed necessary at the moment. The section of mountain they had reached was nearly sheer and totally unassailable. It was similarly impossible to climb stretching as far as sight was possible in either direction along the mountain bowl.
"What's the plan, prince?" Damien asked, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
Seto looked toward the group with a slight bit of disappointment on his face. "Why does nobody wear capes these days?" he muttered to himself. He removed his navy blue cape with one motion and passed it to Damien. "Put it on, hold out the flaps so that it serves as an air pocket. Rainbow hair?"
"Yugi, sir," Yugi corrected him.
"Yugi?" Seto blinked, "Named after the first Deiprelate? Never mind. Hold onto Damien's torso for all you're worth. Don't let go."
Yugi and Damien both gave Seto a look that told him they though him insane, but nevertheless they complied. Seto repositioned them closer to the cliff side and then nodded. "Serenity, take a few steps back from the cliff, please. I'll be helping you to the top."
Serenity did as she was told, but with a bit of curious confusion. The set up seemed increasingly ridiculous, but they still followed Seto's orders. He nodded to her once she was far enough away, and then took a moment to survey his plan. Everything seemed in place, so he pulled a card from his deck box and placed it on the ground. Then, he walked back toward Serenity. He scooped her up in his arms with one fluid motion, and muttered a quick, "Hold on," to her.
"Rising Air Current!" Seto declared, and instantly the card on the ground emitted a bright light. All around the edge of the cliff, the air suddenly rose with an incredible force. It picked up underneath the cape Damien wore and both he and Yugi were catapulted into the air. Higher and higher they rose, until finally the air current cut off just shy of the cliff. Their momentum carried them the rest of the distance, depositing them on the edge of the cliff. Frantically, they scampered to safety.
Then, Seto darted forward with all haste. The second he hit the air current he dived forward. The air picked him up and flung him high above. With princely grace Seto manoeuvred himself to hit exactly on the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately, his toe caught the edge of the cliff and he instead landed unceremoniously atop Serenity. Realizing what a compromising position he was in, he rolled off of the girl and pulled himself to safety, tugging Serenity after him by an arm.
"Would it have killed you to explain that before we did it?" Damien snapped.
"Come on, prince, we could have used some warning," Yugi agreed.
Seto merely grunted, dusting himself off and recovering the cape from Damien.
"Serenity will agree with me. Right?" Damien called. No answer came. "Serenity?"
They turned and saw Serenity staring in awe at the vista from the climb. Beneath them stretched a lush jungle, fertilized by the rain that fell before the desert. Its verdant greenery sparkled with life and vitality as it stretched like a great moss carpet. But what Serenity was staring at was beyond that. The young redhead lived in Japan. She had seen the ocean. The ocean in Japan, however, was a grey-green hue and almost always reflected the pollution-ridden clouds of the overcast sky above. Kaiba's ocean was a sparkling sapphire, gleaming in the rays of the afternoon sun. Patterns of light danced on its placid surface, unbroken as far as the eye could see.
"Incredible," Serenity muttered to herself. Behind her sat a wasteland expanse of desert in which almost nothing could live. Ahead of her was a verdant jungle, and beyond that there was a perfect sea. Two opposites, separated by so very little.
"Wow, Serenity, would you take a look at that!" Yugi muttered.
"There it is, along the beach there," Damien told them as he pointed to the large fishing settlement along the sea. "Lortosia, the most beautiful city in the world."
Seto simply smirked. Damien had said the most beautiful, and Seto was inclined to agree. Most of the people, even those in Lortosia, would likely call it the second most beautiful. Only the handful of people like Seto and Damien had seen the true ugliness in Sandalphon, the church capital.
They took a rest then, on the landing atop the mountain. Seto sat in thought somewhat away from the rest of the group. The others sat in a small circle on rocks that made makeshift chairs. They took the opportunity to steal a drink and a meal, ravenous and parched from their journey through the desert.
"Hey, there's something I've been wondering…" Serenity asked between bites of the jerky that Damien had provided them with. "Why did Tristan's body disintegrate and Michael's stay?"
Damien raised an eyebrow on you, and then sighed. "Foreigners…" he muttered, "What do they teach you guys in school? When a duel monster kills someone, his or her spirit is absorbed into the monster. In a way, its how they eat. It's a process called soul binding, through which two souls become one, more complete soul. When someone dies naturally, or is killed by a human, the soul has no suitable soul with which to bind. Instead, it stays in the body until it festers into a malignant spirit or is refined into a monster card."
Honey eyes churned with confusion as she thought it over. "How can a human soul merge with a monster's soul?"
"Monsters have more in common with us than you know," Seto answered as he rejoined the group. "We're all from the same creator, after all. Isn't that right, Damien?"
"So they tell us," Damien replied.
The two seemed to share an inside joke for a moment, and then Seto turned his eyes to the others. "Let's move."
The group descended the less steep side of the mountain into the jungle. Seto strode toward another invisible objective, and this time Damien was with him as though their target should be obvious. They worked their way down and into the jungle for another half hour before they found their way to their objective.
They came to the edge of a river, flowing away from its natural spring higher up along the mountainside. There, tethered to a wooden stake in the ground, sat a substantial raft in the waters. "These rafts are left along main streams to make travelling through the jungle possible. We're lucky that there's one on this side, most of the time the people who use them just let them drift back to Lortosia," Damien explained.
"Get on," Seto commanded.
The group piled onto the raft, Serenity sitting up front for the view while Yugi sat toward the back, trying to balance it off. Damien took a seat at the far back, removing his boots and easing his feet into the warm water of the stream.
"Do you want to get leeches?" Seto sneered as he stepped onto the raft. His hands clutched a simple pole, used to navigate the stream, having already undone the tether.
"I have some salt," Damien replied dismissively.
Seto began to pole the raft down the river. While the others enjoyed the verdant scenery, the Dragon Prince's eyes remained ahead. Almost never blinking, he kept his eyes on the stream, carefully avoiding thick patches of vegetation and speeding them along. Serenity turned her eyes towards the warrior, armour gleaming in the late afternoon light and his navy cape billowing ever so slightly behind him. His deep blue eyes glowed with intellect and focus.
"What are you thinking about, prince?" she asked quietly.
The prince seemed surprised and turned to look at her. He paused for a moment, his eyes searching her and scanning her face, and then he turned back. "I've got a lot to think about, actually. This card… is a part of the Forbidden One. That means that, confirming my worst fears, Azrael wants to wake it. Moreover, I've just killed the remaining man responsible for the death of my brother, and on top of that I'm going to see a sage who was like a father to me in Lortosia that I haven't visited in almost two years.
"Despite that," he continued, "I was just reflecting on something that my mentor told me."
"Your… mentor?"
"General Shale. One of the last remaining champions." Seto caught the expression of confusion on Serenity's face and realized that required further explanation. "Champions are those trained in all three major disciplines. We can summon, cast and fight, but in exchange we don't get any innate abilities. It was why I had been hoping you had some of those abilities I lacked."
"What did he say?" Serenity asked, genuinely curious.
"He told me, 'Life will never miss a chance to push you down the stairs. If you've already fallen, it'll kick you a couple of times'."
Serenity screwed up her face and laughed a little. "Well, I guess that's one way of looking at it."
Smirking slightly, Seto turned his eyes back toward the petite girl sitting on the raft beside it. "And how would you choose to look at it, little mirror girl?"
The small girl looked back into the forest. "My brother sometimes says that all it takes is faith, in your friends and in yourself, and you can handle anything life throws at you. I'm not entirely sure I believe it."
"I can believe that you need faith in yourself. I've never met a friend worth depending on," Seto replied.
"Really?" Serenity asked, tilting her head to the side as she looked up toward the prince. "I'm finding I'm having a hard time stopping relying on my friends. They're so used to me relying on them, they have a hard time believing I can make it on my own."
"Don't let them convince you of that," Seto advised her as he returned his focus to advancing the raft. "I owe you. Two now, since you warned me about Michael. If you can take care of me, you should be more than able to take care of you."
Serenity smiled at Seto and rose to her feet. She moved to the back of the raft and sat beside Damien. The black haired rogue looked up at her with a grin. "Why, hello there. You should put your feet in the water, it's exquisite."
A blush crossed the young girl's face. "Damien, how many leeches are there on your feet?"
Sweatdrops formed on the back of Damien's head and he scratched his neck abashedly. "Two… maybe three?"
Serenity squatted beside Damien and wrapped her arms around her legs. "You… you just saw your brother die. How are you handling it?"
Damien shrugged. "I'd already thought him dead, or close to it. This… doesn't really change anything." The look on Serenity's face said that she didn't believe him. "Well, your friend was killed by Red-Eyes outside the cave. How are you faring?"
It was Serenity's turn to shrug. "I'll see him again," she reasoned.
"How… do you figure?" Damien replied.
Nervously, Serenity fidgeted. She'd forgotten that there was no heaven in this world, of course the idea made no sense to him. As quickly as possible, she formed an explanation. "Where I come from…" she started, "we believe that when you die, you go to a perfect world called heaven. So… even though Tristan's dead, I'll see him again there once I die."
Yugi chuckled quietly to himself. To him, it sounded clear that Serenity was trying to come up with an explanation for her slip up. Damien, however, seemed to buy it. The people of Kaiba knew little of Venyore, after all, and they had used the excuse that they were from Venyore to explain why they were unfamiliar with local geography while in the den of thieves.
"Heaven, eh?" Damien muttered as he leaned back on the raft. His eyes drifted to the clouds, now turning the slightest tinge of orange in the beginning of dusk. Quietly, he sat for a few moments while Serenity regarded him curiously. "Sounds nice," he finally decided, and Serenity smiled.
"I thought…" she said a moment later, "that you had said that Tristan was in a better place… after he died."
Damien nodded, "When I was a boy, being trained by Azrael, I used to spend time with the a prelate named Jophiel. He told me that our perception of the world is seen through a lens, and that that lens is our soul. So, when you're killed by a duel monster and your soul merges with its, your soul becomes more complete and the world becomes that much brighter, that much better. Kind of like your heaven."
Serenity nodded a bit. "Yeah… kind of."
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Lortosia, the Seaside Sapphire, had started as little but a single fisher's hut and a spring. Now, it was the third largest city in Kaiba. The city was designed to be shell-like in form, its white buildings jutting from blue tiled walkways and streets, bathed in the dusk light. The sprawling fishery housed eight hundred of the world's inhabitants, the wealthiest on average of any city in the world. As their raft slid into a dock on the westward river harbours, the foursome took a few moments to take in the city.
Seto, however, had very little time to waste. He was off before anyone was sure where to, and the group could only follow in a half-run. Twists and turns brought them deeper into the city, under the interconnecting spires and spikes of the various structures. Joyful voices met them in the street as villagers went about their daily business, hanging laundry from hanging ropes and cleaning vegetables in the streams and aqueducts that ran from the village's spring.
After a time, Seto came to the structure he had been looking for. Taller than most of the structures, the bluish tint of the plaster that composed the structure stood out from the unblemished white of most of the other structures. In the reddish light of the now full-on dusk, the tower was almost purple. They reached the large wooden door, only to find it nailed shut. A note was also nailed from the door. Seto tore the page from the door and read it aloud.
"To whom it may concern, the proprietor of this library has been accused of heresy and blasphemies against the church and has been sent to stand trial at Sandalphon under the order of Prelate Azrael. Damn! Either word travels fast or Azrael was prepared for us to discover his little game. Sagaelen…" Seto muttered.
"So, what do we do now, prince?" Damien asked.
"You shouldn't let Azrael push you around! What are you afraid of him for?" Yugi added.
Seto raised an eyebrow toward Yugi. He studied him, as though trying to determine whether or not he was serious, and then scoffed. "Ridiculous," he muttered. Suddenly, a hand clapped down on Seto's shoulder. The prince snapped into action, drawing his blade and wheeling around. In one fluid motion he knocked the arm away, grabbed it, spun the man and placed his sword to the back of his neck. A moment later, he released the man. He was a royal guard, after all.
"Don't ever touch me," Seto warned.
"I… I'm sorry, prince. I come bearing a message from Cobalt," he stammered.
Blue eyes scanned the messenger suspiciously. "How did you know I would be in Lortosia? I didn't even tell Steward Roland where I'd be."
"S-sir… messengers were sent to every stop the train makes to find you, sir," the messenger explained, sweating profusely and rubbing his sore arm.
"I see… then it must be urgent. Get on with it."
The guard stared at Seto for a moment, and then finally regained him composure. His face hardened, and he delivered his message. "Sir, King Aildren is dead."
Serenity, Yugi and Damien looked to Seto. His face showed neither grief nor joy, a simple look that explained that the fact didn't surprise him. Still, he stared at the messenger for some time. His father was dead. How was he supposed to feel about that? His mouth opened, and he spoke, "So they want me back for my coronation? I don't have time, I have more important things to do."
"S-sir?"
"I said get lost! I can't waste my time in some ceremony just to technically get a role I've been fulfilling since I was ten! Get the hell out of my sight!" Seto snapped.
The guard cowered, but he didn't leave. Seto fixed him with a glare that Yugi and Serenity had a hard time believing Kaiba could have programmed so perfectly, but the guard still didn't leave. "Sir… King Aildren was murdered. There's a rumour going around that you're responsible, and Prelate Azrael says that if you don't come back to defend yourself, with no heir apparent, the Council of Prelates will appoint a new king."
As his eyes wandered out to sea, a dark cloud covered Seto's face. "It's dusk," he stated, "There should still be one more train to Cobalt today." He turned back to the others, "There's no need for you to come."
Yugi laughed, "Come on, prince, we're not giving up that easy! We've got an adventure on our hands, and I don't want to miss it."
Seto tilted his head to the side and shrugged. "Suit yourself," he stated coolly and strode off to the train station.
The train was fairly typical, wooden and metal boxes on wheels hooked together. Around each of the passenger cars was a deck with a thick metal railing, covered by a black overhang. Seto purchased tickets for the four of them and selected the cart furthest back. It was early evening, the last of the sun's glow peeking out from beyond the ocean, and the group entered the cart proper to escape the cold night air.
Inside, the train cart was less than spectacular. It contained two bunk beds and a couch between them. Seto leaned against the door while the others selected beds. The tan and red colour scheme was also less than riveting, but the cart was warm and the beds were surprisingly comfortable. It wasn't long before the three fell asleep, leaving only Seto awake.
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Serenity awoke to find the moon high overhead, half-full in its rotation. Climbing out of bed, she could feel the mechanical hum as the train cruised over the track. The bed underneath her was undisturbed, the covers still tucked underneath the mattress. The redhead pushed the door open and walked to the back of the train.
With one foot atop the rail and his back against the wall of the cart, Seto stared into the night sky. Serenity stood at the corner of the deck, curiously regarding the prince. "Aren't you tired?" she asked, moving to stand to his side.
"I don't sleep much," Seto explained.
Serenity left it at that, choosing a spot of wall to lean against. It was cold, and she wished she'd taken more than her usual pink and yellow shirt and blue shorts to wear on this little game of Kaiba's. She wrapped her arms around herself, and stared off into the night sky.
"If you're cold, you should go back inside. Don't fall ill just to keep me company."
The girl offered Seto a warm smile. "It's alright, prince, I like it out here. The stars here are beautiful…"
Seto simply grunted. A moment later, Serenity found his cape offered to her at arm's length, and she couldn't help but accept. Draping it around herself, she instantly warmed up. The cape was already warm with body heat. It was a minor detail, but it showed the level of focus in Kaiba's game. "Thanks," she muttered, after a moment.
"You're from Venyore," Seto stated more than asked.
"That's right," Serenity replied.
The prince nodded slightly. His eyes reflected the light of the moon as he stared off into the night sky, his armour sparkling in the starlight. "They… In Venyore, they say that when you're born, a star is also born. Throughout all your life, that star grows and burns until it finally snuffs out when you die. They say that by locating which star is yours, and by seeing which other stars are around it, you can tell which people you'll become close to, which people you'll become enemies with and which people will be important to you."
Serenity tore her eyes from the star-scape long enough to study Seto's face. They remained firmly focussed on the heavens above, steadfast but somewhat pained. Finally, Seto turned to look back at her.
"My father's star is gone now. It used to be right…" he turned back and pointed toward a faint empty bit of space, "there."
The girl's honey eyes fell to her feet. "I guess…" she murmured, "I guess we've each lost someone important to us recently. Tristan, Michael, King Aildren… When it rains, it pours, I suppose."
Seto nodded slightly. "My father had been ill for ten years, it wasn't like this was a shock. Still… knowing he's gone… is different, somehow. Azrael had my father killed. He did it because he knew that I have the first piece of the Forbidden One and this was the only way to get me to return to Cobalt. I guess it's just one more thing he has to answer for."
"Are… are all the people in the church so bad?"
"No," Seto answered resolutely. "But some people within the church have forgotten why it was formed."
Serenity blushed a little, feeling somewhat stupid even though she shouldn't have known what he was talking about. "Why… was it formed?"
Seto turned and gave her a sceptical look. Seeing she was sincere, he explained. "Eight hundred years ago, or so, horrible monsters called 'God monsters' ruled over much of the world. Existence was difficult at best, and less than a quarter of humans born ever made it into their teens. But a hero emerged, a man by the name of Kaiba." Serenity stifled a laugh. That was predictable; Kaiba was the great hero in his own world. "He defeated the monsters and sealed them away, but he was mortally wounded. So great was his sacrifice, though, that the creator made his soul into a great duel monster with powers beyond those of even the God monsters.
"But people forgot about him, forgot what they had learned from his sacrifice. They became hedonistic, selfish, evil. Kaiba saw what had happened to the people he had sacrificed himself for and he became very sad. He asked the creator to grant him true death so that he wouldn't have to see his people like that, but the creator would not listen. He told Kaiba that people were that way because he had taken away what had kept them good, and pure: the fight for survival. So Kaiba struck down the rulers of the world with great fury, and the people called to him for mercy. One man, the only worthy man in the world, stepped forward. His name was Yugi, and he implored Kaiba to hold his wrath. In exchange, he offered Kaiba the peace of true death.
"That was when the church was established. Yugi became the Deiprelate, the ruler of the church to ensure the hearts of its people were ever hearts that believed in sacrifice for the good of all and in subordination to the creator. As he promised, he granted Kaiba rest. He hid his body somewhere in Kaiba, so that he could one day return, but until then he gave him a sort of death. That was when the church was established.
"Or so we are taught," Seto explained. "It was forbidden that any but the Deiprelate bring Kaiba back to the world, and he became known as the Forbidden One. These days, the church simple polices the people into a sort of dumb submission. It would seem that they've become so arrogant as to try and reawaken the Forbidden One. It's heresy, and moreover they don't realize that they won't be able to control him. That's why it's so important that we stop them."
Serenity nodded, and the two stood in silence for some time after that. The redhead dwelt on what the prince had said, the story, and the imagery within it. Was that how Kaiba saw the world, hedonistic and evil? Was that how the world was? He had certainly wasted no effort in the creation of his game, so rich and detailed was its histories and its mythologies. She was only pulled from her contemplation when they passed under an archway. With a loud squeal, the train pulled into Cobalt. It was dawn.
A/N: There's a lot of story telling in that one, and explanations. I actually like it, but let me know what you guys think. After all, that's a bit more important than what I think of what I wrote. Even if you don't like it, tell me. Come on, you know you want to.
