Author's Note: The final instalment in this project. Day number 8 and this oneshot is for the prompt "Especially for You". Now this little chapter has to be the easiest one to write, but it did strike me as the most poignant too ... probably because it was the concluding part to such a great challenge! I hope you enjoy! xxx
Not another soul dared interrupt the solemn silence of the graveyard. A black crow fluttered away from a nearby tree and cawed its harsh warning out – the only disturbance to the sympathetic stillness of the occasion.
Winter was closing in fast and a cold breeze blew at the old woman, chilling her down to her bones. Looking down at the grave before her, she shook her head sadly and smiled a heartbroken smile. Too much had changed lately and she found it very hard to keep up with constant updates not only in technology but to Domino itself.
A distant rumbling gave away the telltale sound of a Duel Runner's engine. She could remember a day when walking through Domino City was dotted with the pavement spectacle of duels being played on the streets. Nowadays it was almost too dangerous to watch the motorcycle Duel Disk hybrids at a close distance. Something had been lost in the interim, some intangible sense of spectatorship that she revelled in when she was a much younger woman.
Looking over her shoulder, the frail woman tutted as she saw the three suited men standing in the shadows nearby – that would be the doing of her children or grandchildren.
Not giving her bodyguards another thought, she took a few small steps forward and felt her heart drop a little with each advance. It had been years now and yet it still hurt like a fresh bereavement every time she ventured here. Her kids would no doubt complain about her being out and about in the cold weather, but they could never understand.
He had been her everything. The intimidating CEO whose duel she had walked into … literally into and through the holograms on Domino's business plaza. The opponent had tittered a laugh, but she had been frozen to the spot slap bang beside a massive Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Somehow she had managed to get herself out of the duel and that same CEO had found her at work in the local library three days later.
She hadn't been expecting to be asked out. But that moment of doubt was fleeting and she had never looked back from their first date. A happy life full of travels and dramas and three children had followed to complete the idyllic picture. Those three kids were adults now with their own kids and two great-grandchildren were soon to be born.
It was just a pity she had had to do it without him.
"Hello my love. It's windy and there have been a few small drops of rain … I still miss you."
Her Seto. He had been the one and only love of her life and the eleven years since he had left her had been an agonizing sentence. A life full of the stresses of KaibaCorp had caught up with her partner in life and he had gone peacefully in his sleep beside her so long ago. Now verging on her nineties, Kisara held out only for the promise of an afterlife in his arms.
The tribulations of family were well and good and she adored her children and grandchildren and her nephews, but life was long and she was tired.
The wind blew again and the Kaiba matriarch shivered beneath her expensive coat, colourless hair blowing in the breeze. Anyone passing by the cemetery would be forgiven for thinking her a ghostly apparition. But she was all too corporeal and the grief in her heart all too real every time this anniversary date rolled around relentless.
He had greeted her for their second date with a bouquet of white roses and proclaimed 'Especially for you' and she had blushed and refused to throw the flowers out even after they had withered on their stalks and her roommate had complained of the sorry state of the blooms.
Laying the poignant bouquet beneath the smiling face of her young husband, Kisara let a tear roll down her wrinkled cheek and traced thin fingers over his picture.
"Especially for you, Seto."
Turning away from the headstone before she let her old heart hurt too much, Kisara slowly ambled back towards her bodyguards. Her eyes saw someone by the trees across the graveyard, but when she looked for the tall frame with his blue eyes and smug smile, only a stranger looked back; her eyes were playing tricks on her lately.
Taking the arm the youngest bodyguard offered her, she smiled up at the youth. He was a grandson of Roland's and was a newbie to the team, but more of a family friend than an employee; Roland's children had been playmates with her own three.
Slowly exiting the graveyard with her little entourage, the elderly Kisara was deaf to the bustling city and the revving Duel Runners, blind to the loved-up couple who passed by and oblivious to the young ghost that stood by his own grave and watched her leave, waiting until the day he could smile at her again and hold her in his arms.
A/n- Thanks for reading everyone and I hope you all enjoyed this little collection!
Note: I would like to sincerely thank zelka94 and reijiakabutt for putting the entire Seto x Kisara Week into action. It was an absolute blast to be a part of such a fandom-driven event and a great inspiration to see all the amazing artwork and fantastic fics created by the project. I can't wait for next year to do it all again! xxx
