I'm taking it nice and slow for a chapter now, thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! I'm gonna take advantage of this new Private Messaging system, so expect a few calls from yours truly!

21/11/05


Chapter IX: Letters to a Brother

In a candlelit room clothed in darkness, a figure sat, hunched at a desk. The scritch-scratch of a fountain pen could be heard, and the dim candlelight threw shadows across the walls, where a painting hung of two smiling boys, frozen in time.

Dear Mokuba,

I'm sorry, little brother, for I have failed you again. I could not rescue you that one time and I could not avenge you last night. I hope that you will forgive me, your brother who has strived for vengeance all these years.

Not one day passes when I don't think of your smiling face; the sadness it brings into my life reminds me of who I am, why I'm still here.

Damn it, last night that one should've been mine, his own arrogance should've been his undoing. I won't describe the magic lasso again, I'm sure you've heard enough through all my other 'kills'. Back to this one- he was mine, but then what? Another spirit I sensed! I completely forgot about the other one, the purer one. That is what drew me to him in the first place, the two souls that collided, called through the bones of all Duellists magic. That is how advanced I am now, in the art of Duellist.

I will not let you down again. I swear it, Mokuba, I won't rest until the whole abomination has been destroyed, that I have vowed and vow again. You will have your vengeance through me.

Seto Kaiba

Seto Kaiba placed his fountain pen down and closed the leather-bound tome. A single tear splashed onto the volume. Wiping it away, he placed the tome into his secret safe, and descended down to his basement to sharpen his stakes.

xXx

When the housekeeper came in to clean Kaiba's room he stopped. The painting of his master and his late brother had been swung back, revealing a safe which hadn't been locked. Sighing, the housekeeper went to the safe to close it, and found the book. Curiosity getting the better of him, he opened it tentatively, and read:

Please, if nobody can comfort my aching soul then at least hear my cry, for there is no light, no truth! For so many years I have lived thus, believing it to be true, that there was indeed justice, but from last night, I can say that with my heart I just don't believe in anything anymore.

I never knew my parents; you were all I had. Why me? Why? Wasn't not knowing my parents enough? How much more suffering can there be, to be brought up in an orphanage where nobody knows who you are, nobody loves you? To have to claw your way out of the gutter, with no one by your side apart from your little brother, your only anchor of hope in the world that just doesn't want to know.

My poor brother! I thought we were safe, that nothing could harm us. I had acquired enough money from my genius; we were living as well as we could have when disaster struck.

I never believed in them at all, they were merely flights of fancy that attributed themselves to the minds of foolish people. In fact, then I believed in them as much as I believed in magic, and my opinion of them was the same, which goes to show. Well, they came for us in the night, of course, inhuman monsters they were. I thought they were the locals at first, but the speed in which they moved, the delicacy and darkness in their eyes! I should've acted sooner, but what chance would my security have stood anyway, against something that moved like liquid ice?

They took Mokuba; I only survived because I was in the living room at the time and had fire as a weapon. They came in through his bedroom, I knew they were after me from the start, but once they saw they couldn't get me they took him instead. And now, my hand is shaking, as I write, I can't trust myself to name these creatures for to name them would make them real. So I write…they are vampires, nosferatu, the undead, for what else could have faces as ghastly as those and drink the blood of my servants so innocent?

Today I renounce my duelling to take up a far more darker art, the art of the true Duellist. It involves a calling of spirits, rituals of dark sorcery and secrecy. Some may call it shadow magic, but I trouble myself not with these names. Perhaps I spoke a bit harshly. I will merely lay off my duelling tournaments for a while until I have mastered this new art, for I have discovered that the only power us mortals have against them is the ability of shadow magic, to control the very darkness they reside in.

And so, from this day forth, my soul shall be tainted with dark blood, it will no longer be pure and that I have to be sorry for. But for Mokuba, for all that I have left in this world, I swear that I will seek these creatures down and destroy them as they did my soul. Let this be a record of my innocence lost, a marker for a new era in the life of the great Seto Kaiba.

The housekeeper shook his head sadly. Master Kaiba had changed so much since that incident, he'd changed even as he'd been writing this entry, the housekeeper could see that. He wished there was something he could do, but Seto had long since stopped talking to him or the other servants. He'd confided his sorrows to him once in the past, but that had ceased as all communication ceased. All he could do now was to hold his tongue, protect the secrets of the Kaiba name until the day would come for judgement.

Sighing, he placed the book back and swung the painting back to it's rightful position. Seto Kaiba would have to be more careful in the future. Switching off the light, he left the room. The dining room hadn't been cleared yet; there was plenty of work that still needed to be done.


Hope that explained everything, and keep reviewing!