Book I | The Abyss

Duelist Kingdom Arc

Part VI

Seto Kaiba: 18 years old

Kisara Pegasus: 16 years old

…

In the castle Kaiba stood on an automated bridge overhanging a chasm he could only assume had once been an oubliette. Perhaps it still was, under Pegasus's reign. On either side of him were two balconies– the one on his left, some ten feet above him, wrapping the entire wall, and the one on his right at eye level, small, and with a single throne upon it. However, the master of the castle was not currently on his throne, but before him, on the bridge, over the abyss. It would have taken nothing at all for Kaiba to hurl him down and be done with it. His fingers itched for it. But then, he remembered Mokuba's limp form in the dungeons.

Yugi, Joey, and the rest of their cohort had filed onto the balcony to his left. Kaiba was shocked to see them, having defeated Yugi mere hours before– but also secretly relived. Of all things, the sight gave him reassurance. He was pleased that the boy would still have a chance to fight for his grandfather, as he himself would now fight for Mokuba.

The arena lowered between him and Pegasus. Kaiba had been unable to use his Duel Disk. Pegasus's price for the use of Kaiba's technology during their duel was that Mokuba, or what was left of him, operate it. And Pegasus had brought out Kaiba's little brother, soulless, on a chain. Kaiba's rage thrashed against his ribcage. The dirt and squalor that had horrified him in the darkness of the dungeon now stood stark and grotesque in the light on his little brother's eleven year old face. Pegasus grinned at Kaiba patronizingly, as though to say that, for all of his titles and technical innovations, Kaiba still hadn't learned that fighting wasn't the only way to inflict damage on an enemy. A man's spirit could be broken in much easier ways.

Pegasus's one good eye flitted to the smaller, vacant balcony, as though he could see something the rest could not.

Kaiba had been unable to do anything. He could not fight a duel, even in body, against his little brother. "You win," he uttered, before the duel had even begun. They would not use Kaiba's Duel Disks. He would not have the edge. And Mokuba's vacant eyes haunted him as, with two tugs on his chain, Pegasus's men took the little boy back out of his brother's sight.

"You're a creep … and a monster," Kaiba whispered, his voice weary and quivering with disgust.

"Watch it, Kaiba, you're in my world now," The creator's voice had lost its mock-playful tone and was all ruthlessness now. "Defeat me in a duel, and I'll release him as promised. But," he smiled at Kaiba that same predatory smile that had stretched across his face in the dungeons, "fail, and not only will his soul remain in bondage, but yours will join it." And with those words the rules of the game were set and, unbeknownst to Kaiba, it became a Shadow Game.

"We've known each other for a long time," Kaiba called across the battlefield, his mind flickering back to when he had been just a boy and he had phoned his idol in the middle of the night… when he had asked him to take in the girl he had seen that afternoon at the orphanage. "Now we'll finally see if the Master is the Duel Monster's Creator, or the Champion." Since the night of the gala, since they had first shaken hands, Kaiba had always somewhere known that it would come to this.

Time to duel. Night fell on Duelist Kingdom. The two titans clashed. It had been at least three days now that Seto Kaiba had gone without sleep. For the last twelve hours he had been fighting Yugi Mutou. The day and night before that he had landed on the island, fought Joey Wheeler, and had run the dungeons with Kisara – speaking to her for the first time in in six years. And before that… the helicopter. He'd had no food or sleep in over seventy-two hours. He drew his cards and, as he did so, he felt that someone he could not see was staring at him. Fortune favored him. He had drawn the Blue-Eyes with his first hand.

As they dueled Pegasus behaved like a child, mourning the loss of a monster with despair in one instant, only to gloat with glee the next as he set his own cards down. And all the while, it was as though he could read Kaiba's every thought and predict his every move. That golden Eye of his caught the light and flashed.

Kaiba stared at him across the field. I'll just play something that I know he can't defend against. He took the card which had always been his truest defender.

"I use the card Prophesy." Pegasus cut in. "It gives me the right to guess whether your card has an Attack Power higher or lower than 2000. And if I manage to guess correctly, Kaiba-boy, then the card in question becomes mine."

Kaiba stared at him, mutely, knowing that his hand was shaking for them all to see. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with the desire to push the card back into his hand. To protect it, as he had failed to protect it so entirely for the last many months. As he had failed to protect her.

Pegasus guessed right, and then he went one further. He closed his eyes, humming ridiculously. "But wait, wait. Something else is coming. Yes…yes! I see Blue! I see White!" Kaiba's hands felt clammy. "Could it be… Yes! Of course! I see the Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

…

Wordlessly, Kisara stepped out of the shadows on the right-hand balcony and before the throne of her father– into the field of the Shadow Game.

"Enough! Here, take it!" Kaiba snarled, slamming the card down on the table. A flap spun and flipped over, spinning again on Pegasus's side, card within the older man's grasp.

Pegasus plucked it from the playing board and brandished it about. "Now the most valuable card in your deck is mine!" He grinned, before fixing his gaze on the newest arrival. "Ah, Angel-face, how nice of you to join us."

They all turned to look at her. Yugi, Tea, Tristan, Joey, her father, the other duelists, Bakura and Seto. For the first time she appeared now before them all. She swept her eyes across the field before her, with duelists across from her and duelists above the chasm. Alone, on the little balcony, she took in all the players of this macabre act. Barely capable of standing straight, sick and deathly with the pains and poisons that wracked her body, she gripped into the handle of her cane as though she were immovable. Self-consciously, Kisara looked down at herself, and attempted to smooth out the creases and dirt smears on that same blue button-up. She then returned the gazes of the crowd, before turning to her father, who was sliding the Blue-Eyes card into his hand demonstratively.

"Now I have two things you care about Kaiba," he said with a giggle. "Your dragon, and your brother. Let's see what else I can take." Kisara. It was a very real, vocal threat about the girl who had just entered the chamber. He was threatening Kaiba with Kisara.

"I hardly think that's necessary, father." Her quiet voice somehow reverberating through the room and, in its own way, acting as a threat. The parent and child locked eyes.

"Father?" Joey whispered, turning to Yugi. "Wait, hold up. Back up a bit. Pegasus has a kid? Since when? Why have we not heard about this before? Who is she?!"

"That's Kisara Pegasus," Bakura whispered. "He adopted her six years ago, when she was ten years old. Sixteen now. Doesn't play Duel Monsters. Said to be something of a prodigy in aircraft mechanics and execution. She's also supposed to be in the top five fastest runners in her age group in the United States of America."

"…She doesn't look like much of a runner right now," Tristan noted, craning over the balcony. "And what's with the hair and the skin tone. I mean, pale is pale, but that's just–"

"Forget the skin tone," Mai Valentine, a tall blond woman and one of the other finalists of the Tournament butt in, "Look at the way Kaiba's looking at her."

Kaiba looked as though he was about to walk straight off the bridge. He was gripping into the walls of his arena so tightly that it seemed he would break through the frame. And his eyes were riveted on Kisara with an expression that mixed absolute relief with sheer horror, as though there was no one in this world he would rather see less, and no one in this world he would rather see here.

The duelists on the upper balcony exchanged looks of disbelief. Bakura stared, fixated.

Kisara turned to look at Kaiba. To the whole room it was clear that, while they did not say a word, they spoke volumes. She then looked up to the other duelists. "Apologies for any interruption," she said in a quiet, paced voice. "I'm Kisara Pegasus. I see you've already met my father. I'm just here to…arbitrate." Gingerly, she lowered herself into her father's throne. With a sigh of relief as the chair took her weight, she leaned back, closed her eyes momentarily, and then looked once more to her father. It was in the little benign smile that she gave him that the resemblance in their mannerisms struck – that it was clear she'd lived under his roof for the past six years. She smiled like a force of nature to be reckoned with.

The duel went on. Kaiba attempted to infect Pegasus's deck with the same Crush Card virus he had used on Yugi's deck only earlier that day. And Pegasus deflected it with unnerving deftness. Pegasus toyed with him. The fatigue of the many sleepless days and nights began to take its toll. Kaiba looked to Kisara– and she kept her gaze fixed on him knowing that, should she look away for an instant, he might drift off into open sea. She was his final anchor.

Pegasus drew a card. "Tell me something, my old friend," he addressed Kaiba, "did you like watching cartoons in your youth?" An ironic thing to ask an eighteen year old. Kaiba stared back at him, unblinking. "Is that a no? Kaiba, you're even more cold-hearted than I thought. For me," he visibly sighed, "they were the absolute best. Oh, how I'd spend hours watching the never ending antics!" Kisara pressed her lips together. More than once, when she was ten, eleven and even twelve, had she and her father sat on the couch together, watching the umpteenth episode of Funny Bunny. The memory only hurt now.

"Welcome, Kaiba," Pegasus flourished his arms about, "to Toon World!" Card set, a green book careened onto the scene and from it a popup medieval town burst onto the arena in fumes of violet smoke. Several of the duelists covered their mouths, coughing. "Let the fun begin," Pegasus leered. Within moments it became clear how deadly the playful looking storybook was. A card that had never been released into circulation because it was considered too powerful, Toon World transformed any monster in a cartoon version of itself, who could then escape into the hardcovers of the book, impregnable to any attack, and from which he could accost his enemy at will, before fleeing back into his leather-bound sanctuary. "Well," Pegasus said, surveying his magical book of terrors with satisfaction. "Why don't I now show off some real Toon power?" He thumbed through the cards in his hand. "And what better way to demonstrate than on a card I stole from you."

Kisara's jaw set. Pegasus brandished the Blue-Eyes. She did not even know whom her father was talking to, her or Kaiba. All she knew was that she could feel her nails digging into the arms of the throne as she sat rigid, poised for the pain. Kisara wondered, whom exactly of the two of them was he trying to hurt more?

Kaiba whispered, "No…"

Kisara shook her head mutely. Both had eyes only for the card in Pegasus's hand.

Pegasus laughed before smiling ferociously at Kaiba. "Please. Allow me to show you what your beast is capable of under my control!" After all, she had been under his control for the last six years. Then too he had acquired her because of Seto Kaiba. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" He declared, setting the card on the table. He turned toward his daughter and whispered, "…awaken."

The dragon's roar shook the hanging arena as it tore onto the battlefield in a shower of sparks. Kaiba's face contorted in dread. For the first time in his life the beast that had always protected him and had been his final shield now snarled from his opponent's field.

"Yes!" Pegasus cried out. "Now, cross the threshold into Toon World!" The book opened and, with a plume of smoke and sparks, pulled the dragon down into its pages. The beast cried out in terror. Kisara's cane, which she had rested on the arm of the throne, clattered to the ground as her four limbs gave one violent shudder. Pegasus did not so much as blanch, while Kaiba all but vaulted across the abyss to her. "Behold," the creator of Duel Monsters forced Kaiba's eyes back to the field, "the new and improved Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon!" The book careened through the air, spinning, before falling open. From its pages burst– an abomination.

Small and bug-eyed, it no longer looked like the dragon on whom every scale gleamed and whose eyes bore the intelligence and shade of human eyes. Now it resembled a flying gremlin and it cackled indecently at Kaiba and at them all. Her body wrenched. Kisara closed her eyes and sealed her lips against the agony which she had known would come. It was though her insides were melting just beneath the skin. She did what she could to rein it in. After all, aside from her father – and Bakura – no one else here had seen the effects that her connection to the Blue-Eyes could have. Not Yugi. Not his friends. Not the Pharaoh. And not Seto Kaiba.

She fell from the throne.

…

"Kisara!" Kaiba tore his eyes from the monstrous little demon, not even attempting to curb the panic in his voice. She had collapsed out of sight, behind the railing. "Kisara- What the hell? What's happening to you? Kis-" His voice caught in his throat. Slowly, very slowly, the tousled mat of white hair obstructing her face, she was clambering back onto her feet with the aid of her cane. She was shaking. The room remained silent but for the Toon Dragon's giggle.

With one turn of her head Kisara Pegasus pushed the hair back out of her face and looked across the void to Seto Kaiba. He swallowed. Her nose was bleeding two red streams down over her lips. The color stood stark against her colorless form. She touched her fingertips to the blood, seemingly almost surprised, before streaking the back of her hand across her nose, smearing the color along her arm. Kaiba said nothing more. Kisara turned to again stare across the chamber at her father, and stood erect, fighting through inhuman pain. Even Pegasus had stopped smiling for an instant. For a second, he almost appeared afraid of her. Her strength of will was one that unnerved even him. Most of all him, who had grown so accustomed to the wills of men bending at his command. Then, she smiled at him. "Please, Father. Allow me to show you what it is capable of under my control."

Kaiba closed his eyes. He had to make a decision. He looked up and across the void to Kisara, the residue blood smudged across her face. He did not understand what was happening between her and the playing field. At least… he did not think he wanted to understand. But her words resounded in his ears. Show you what it is capable of under my control. That was something he could understand. That was a notion behind which he could rally.

"Pegasus," he growled, "your underhanded dueling tactics have gone on long enough." Whatever pain was attacking Kisara had gone on long enough. Kaiba folded his cards. "It's time someone put a stop to your cheating ways." He slapped the cards down onto the table.

Pegasus's eyes widened, not understanding, his certainty shaken twice in as many minutes.

Kaiba continued, confident, level headed. "I may not know exactly how you're cheating, but somehow you can see my cards. So… I'm abandoning my present hand." Pegasus stared at him. "Perhaps if I can't see what I'm playing, you can't either."

Perhaps now that he was not even looking at his cards Kaiba would have to believe more than ever in Yugi's Heart of the Cards. The thought came unbidden to his mind. He did not push it away. He reached for the topmost card on his deck. Kaiba tensioned. This was his one chance of rescuing his little brother. He drew the card, eye riveted on Pegasus. "I put all my faith into this next card!" It was as though his brother was there with him, guiding him. "So now let it be revealed!" He slammed the card down on the table.

Kisara gripped into the handle of her cane tightly, her forehead creased in concentration. Her eyes shut. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon unleashed a deafening roar as it breached the field.

Pegasus stumbled back, eyes wide with shock. As the beast bore down upon him, his head snapped and he looked at his daughter. They all did. "You…" he hissed. "What do you think you are doing?! Agh!" Pegasus threw up an arm to shield her from his view. Everyone looked from daughter to father and back again. It was almost as though he was trying to block out some sort of light that she was emitting – a light visible only to his Eye. A light that seared into his socket.

Kisara was smiling, looking at none of them in particular. Her eyes, pupils and whites, had taken on a glimmering blue sheen, as though she had some unearthly blindness. As though she was now seeing from somewhere else entirely. The Blue-Eyes turned its head.

"Yug'" Joey leaned into his friend. "What the hell is going on here- holy shit!"

From the roots of Kisara's white hair streams of dark blue issued forth, coursing down through the tips until her every strand of hair was the indigo of deep water. She lifted her chin and, smiling faintly as her hair whipped and cracked around her as though she were engulfed in a singular wind, she answered, "Why father, I am simply exercising control."

"I have absolutely no idea…" Yugi breathed back, his own eyes riveted. He had a theory, but it was too bizarre to voice allowed. And yet…what else could it be?

"Explain yourself!" Pegasus spat, averting his eyes, unable any longer to look at her.

"Explain myself…" she said, as though trying out the notion on her tongue. She spoke over the sound of her own hair cracking in the wind. "Yes, I suppose you would ask that of me. After all, as you realized all too bitterly that first day in the dining hall after my accident– that day you had Mokuba brought to the castle– I am the only person whose mind your Eye cannot read." Her smile was almost apologetic. "Your predecessor also found it inconvenient."

For a moment her father was silent, eye rooted on her in what appeared to be fear. Then Pegasus barked out a humorless laugh. "I give you credit, child. You exhumed more of your past-self than I would have thought possible. The pain of those remembrances could not have been easy to bear. So, as you are quite right that I cannot read your mind, why Kisara? Are you doing this out of bitterness?" The playfulness in his voice was undermined by the caution.

Kisara stared ahead, seeing nothing. Her hair whipped about her, the color of the sea. A strand caught in her mouth. The Blue-Eyes looked from Pegasus to Kaiba, and back again. "No," Kisara said to her father. "I love you. I will always love you. And I am not so uncertain or insecure a 'little girl' to not know that you did love me entirely. No matter how many days separate that from this, there was a moment in time where you adored me with all the emotion with which I love you. And, in honor of that love which you once had for me, and for the love that I still bear for you – I do this now."

Somewhere in the words it had stopped being clear which of the two men before her Kisara addressed.

Kaiba did not understand the feeling burning in his chest. His heart beat as though it would burst. He wanted her to look at him. Wanted it badly. Yet her gaze remained unfocused, transformed by whatever sheen had overtaken her.

Pegasus looked from his daughter back onto the arena. He looked past the cartoon creation, and onto the dragon that Kaiba had summoned. "Oh, but she is beautiful," the creator of Duel Monsters whispered.

Kaiba's breath caught. Had Pegasus been referring to his daughter, or had he been referring to the dragon? Did Kaiba now have his answer as to whether or not the Blue-Eyes was female? The very question he had not asked all those years ago when he had first called the Pegasus Castle? Did Pegasus refer to both girl and dragon as one?

Joey Wheeler looked down at the scene, from Kaiba, to the young Pegasus girl, to the Blue-Eyes. "I can't say I understand completely what's going on but… Kaiba listened to his heart, and it paid off for him bigtime."

Kaiba twitched at the comment, and looked up at the blond boy. It was strange, but for the first time in his life he saw, not the irksome obstacle who had stood between him and Pegasus's Castle in the middle of the night, but just what he was – an unkempt, unruly, disobedient young man from the slums. One in whom there was some fight, and some notion of loyalty. The vulnerability that Kaiba had felt when he'd called out to Kisara across the chamber subsided. Yugi Motou. Joey Wheeler. For some reason Kaiba felt that he had entrusted them with his affairs before, on an island not unlike this one. Though Kaiba knew such a notion to be ludicrous. The sleep deprivation was getting to him.

Pegasus was smiling at Kaiba now. It was true that Kaiba had folded his hand so that Pegasus could no longer read what monsters were at his certain disposal. However, the delightful thing about a duelist of Kaiba's caliber was that he had long since memorized his entire deck. Every monster. Every card. Pegasus didn't need to see his hand. He could look directly into his mind.

The Toon Dragon attacked, and Kaiba was able to deflect it. However, that would only work for so long. As Kaiba reached for his deck, he hesitated. I need to destroy that little monstrosity here and now if I'm to have even a chance. Otherwise– a chill went through him. Not only would I have lost this duel, but I'd have lost my only chance of winning my brother's soul back. He stared down at his cards, and reached for them again. I have to trust in my deck, for the both of us.

For all three of us.

He drew the card, and it was perfect. Chains tore across the field and bound the Toon Dragon, weakening it and fixing it to one spot from which it could not escape. Kaiba looked to Kisara. She nodded. She gave him the permission which he did not consciously recognize he needed. Kaiba bellowed for his Blue-Eyes to attack, and it destroyed the Toon. Kisara closed her eyes and rocked back and forth. It hurt her, but she could endure.

The field was clear. "Now do you understand that nothing will stop me from rescuing my brother, Pegasus!?" Kaiba was shaking. Though she had masked the pain he had still noted it. He had still noted he'd had to eliminate his dragon, though a grotesque version of itself, to achieve security. The rush of emotions was one which he could not suppress with the fatigue that he was already battling in his own body. "Even destroying my own Blue-Eyes." He lowered his head. He could not bear to look at her.

"Daw!" Pegasus teased, though his eyes were fixed warily on the Dragon. "Kaiba-boy! Your treasured Blue-Eyes White Dragons mean so very much to you, don't they?" He was goading him in front of Kisara. "Well, as creator of Duel Monsters I'm truly touched by your devotion." He allowed the word to hang uncomfortably in the air. "But," Pegasus whispered, drawing a card, and once more looking at his daughter, "when will you learn that the same devotion is not returned by the Blue-Eyes." The comment cut to Kaiba in a way it should not have. An insecurity he had long buried caused his jaw to set. "For as you see," Pegasus exposed the card he had drawn, "they are not so loyal."

A Dragon Capture Jar loomed on the field. Made of dark brown clay, with a gargoyle-like face of a dragon molded into its front, it caused the Blue-Eyes on the field to recoil with a hiss, for Kisara to press a blood-stained hand to her mouth, and for her unseeing blue-sheen eyes to widen in fear. "This will make two Blue-Eyes I've stolen from you won't it?" Pegasus said calmly, ignoring his now violently trembling daughter. "How you must hate me," he said with pure relish.

The smoke from within the Jar plumed into the air. The Dragon's neck reeled back, trying to get away. Once enveloped, the Blue-Eyes let out a pitiful cry as it thrashed, pulled from Kaiba's side. Its claw caught at the rim of the Jar. It tried to fight, its head flailing just in view, human eyes bulging with terror. It was sucked into the urn with a sickening squelch. The Jar's face glowed crimson red, like fire and blood. Kisara doubled over, and wretched into her hand. Blood gushed out of her mouth and through her fingers. She stumbled forward and gripped hold of the railing. The blood dripped down into the abyss.

She screamed into the darkness.

"Kisara! Look at me!" Kaiba did not want to believe what he was seeing. First Mokuba, a hollow shell. And now this. He did not think he could take it anymore. She hung there, on the banister, limp and lifeless. Finally, her bloodied hands leaving stains on the marble, Kisara heaved herself back up, looked back up and their gazes met. She was looking straight at Kaiba. Her eyes were once more her own. They were streaked with tears.

"You see? While I may not be able to press the advantage of my Eye, there are other ways to skin a lizard," Pegasus mildly broke the silence, filled otherwise only by Kisara's ragged panting– as though it was not his daughter bleeding out before him. "Kaiba," he addressed his shaking opponent. "From the little bit of poking around in your head, I feel that it is only right you should know that you did indeed 'lose a piece of yourself' the day you first fought little Yugi." Kisara coughed through the blood. "You lost her."

Kaiba's hands twitched as he remembered again the feeling of the card tearing between his fingers. "Pegasus," his voice overrode his thoughts. "I don't know what you are doing to her right now, or what you have been doing to drive her to this state, but make it stop this instant."

A lesser man would have balked. Pegasus smiled. "Oh, you foolish, naïve boy. Did you really think I was the one hurting her?"

"Stop it, father." Kisara rasped the words out. Her mouth was like a black cavity in her face, her teeth completely smeared in the blood.

He looked at his wretched daughter with amusement. "You mean you really haven't told him? Kisara, Kisara, I always did believe that great heart would be the death of you." He turned to Kaiba. "Four Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards… That's all that I released into the world. No more. And what have you not done to take possession of them all? Their previous owners– an American, a German, a Hong Konger, and Solomon Mutou of Japan, if I recall them all correctly."

Kaiba bristled. He didn't like this. Quite frankly he could have given two shits about what the idiots on the upper balcony thought of his past. He didn't have to explain anything to them. But not in front of her. Not her.

Pegasus continued slowly, savoring every detail. "…One by one you clawed the Blue-Eyes from each of their trembling grasps. You forced the American into bankruptcy." Kaiba blanched. "For the second card you made deals with the mafia. And from what I understand the Hong Konger committed suicide not two days after you paid him a visit." Pegasus looked Kaiba up and down where the latter stood ridged as stone. "And I hardly need tell of the tragic sequence of events that hospitalized old Grandfather Mutou." Kaiba said nothing. Kisara said nothing. Pegasus whispered, "…What horror have you yourself not inflicted in the name of processing this card?"

When had this become his trial? Kaiba's next thought rose unbidden. Am I truly guilty?

Pegasus went on, "Did I send her to live in a castle on an island, when she was so terrified of water?"

"Father, stop."

"Did I rip the card in half, laboring under some twisted notion that I was punishing it for betraying me by acting in the hand of another duelist? Did I then infect the Blue-Eyes from some secret base in my mansion, hiding like a coward?" Pegasus leered. Kaiba swallowed. "Did I allow a mammoth to force through her torn side, which had already been ripped in half so viciously that she could hardly stand without a cane!?" Kaiba looked at Kisara with fresh eyes. He stared at her shaking form. Dread at what Pegasus was telling him muddled all other thoughts. His mind begged him to reject what he was hearing as nonsense – there was no way the girl was connected to the card – but his eyes confirmed the truth. The creator of Duel Monsters rattled on. "You must have hated her very much for not taking care of you, for not keeping her promise to you, as you imagined you were owed. What a way to have your bitter revenge."

Pegasus's words from some minutes before resonated in Kaiba's head. 'I'm truly touched by your devotion. But, when will you learn that the same devotion is not returned by the Blue-Eyes. For as you see, they are not so loyal!' …Of course she was not. How could anyone possibly be loyal to their tormenter?

"I didn't know," he croaked. He gripped at the arena, eyes riveted to her. "I swear I did not know." All those times he'd felt hesitation, and had shoved it down. With a hollow thud within his chest Kaiba watched shock strike Kisara's bloodied face. Not until this moment had she been certain of his ignorance on the matter. Some part of her had believed that he knew he was inflicting pain on her, and had not cared. My god. What have I done? Why had she tried to help him in the dungeons? She should despise him, just as Pegasus implied. Did she despise him? How could she not.

…Had he, Kaiba, truly been the cause of all Kisara's illness and injury?

"And, on that note," Pegasus flipped his silver hair. "I think I'll play The Dragon Piper."

A tremor went through Kaiba and he tried to get his head back in the game. He blinked, staring at the field. Dragon Piper… That could only mean one thing. Pegasus was going to draw the Blue-Eyes of out the Jar and bend it to his will. He would turn it into another Toon. The nightmare would begin all over again, as would Kisara's pain. "No way," Kaiba snarled in response to his own final thought. "Not if I can shatter that Dragon Piper right here!"

In a blind fury and a desperation, knowing that he could not allow her to come to any more harm, Kaiba attacked.

Kisara cried out for him to halt, but it was too late. As his monster struck the Piper, Kaiba's own Crush Card virus came back to haunt, and infected his entire deck in one strike. He threw up a hand as sparks and crackling electricity engulfed his deck, spreading the virus. The air was filled with the smell of burnt paper. His deck hissed and spilled across the table. With a collection of only the strongest monsters, a virus that would have been crippling to another duelist was fatal for Seto Kaiba.

"This can't be…" Yugi whispered, clutching at the railing.

"One more attack, Kaiba-boy, and you're finished. Shame, when you consider all that's on the line," Pegasus gloated.

Kaiba stared blankly ahead. The rage drained from his face along with the blood. He felt cold and sick. If there had been anything in this stomach Kaiba would have heaved it out now. "Mokuba…" he rasped, "I tried my very best…"

"Your best failed you!" Pegasus laughed.

A new Toon monster hurtled towards Kaiba. At least… at least the Blue-Eyes had not become a Toon again. The Dragon Piper had not bent her to Pegasus's will. No… Now it simply remained in that Capture Jar upon the field, a prisoner of this castle as much as Mokuba was. Kaiba's dull eye turned to look at her. She stared at him with a mirrored look of horror. "Forgive me Mokuba… I am so sorry." He closes his eyes to the destruction, and to Kisara.

The blow hit like a scythe of death and destroyed Kaiba's last line of defense. "There are no more cards you can play!" Pegasus cheered. "Therefore you lose, Kaiba-boy."

As though on cue the arena shut down. The holographic projectors went silent. It was over. "And you've lost much more than just this duel, haven't you, Kaiba? You've lost the only chance you had at rescuing your baby brother!" Pegasus smiled. "You let him down. But don't worry my dear friend," he reached into his coat and drew out a blank card. It bore the same background as that on which Mokuba's image had appeared the night before. "I'll spare you the agony of carrying on in this world without him."

"Dear god, Father, stop! Please, stop!" Kisara was practically halfway over the railing again, her head whipping from Kaiba to Pegasus. "Stop! Don't do it! I'm begging you, please!"

Kaiba stirred from the stupor of his loss. "What is that?" he whispered, fear just barely registering over the devastation and fatigue.

The Millennium Eye gleamed, and Pegasus's hair billowed around him. Everyone in the room threw up their hands to shield their eyes from the light– except for Kaiba, who was transfixed. He could not tear himself away from that brightness. Suddenly, he was very afraid. "It is the final fate of your soul, Seto Kaiba!" Pegasus's voice echoed across the light.

Kaiba tried to yell. His voice wavered, then rose to a gasp, a muffled cry and then, as the gleam subsided, it muted. As though snuffed out. On the card, the downcast silhouette of the eighteen year old Seto Kaiba appeared.

…

Kisara felt numb. She backed away from the railing, gripping her cane. Somewhere in the back of her throat was the horrible tightness which made her feel that she ought to cry. But her face was numb. She tried to swallow, and she tasted blood. Her father, meanwhile, cooed at the vacant form that remained of Seto Kaiba.

"And while your soul is away, your body will be employed as my obedient servant." He lifted the two versions of The Soul's Prison card before him. "Ah, the brothers Kaiba! One in each hand." Pleased, he looked from one to the other. "But even though your cards are so very close, your souls have never been further apart! At least when I had Mokuba locked up you were both still living within the same dimension," he boasted loudly. "But now," he sighed dramatically, "you're worlds apart." Carefully, almost dotingly, he returned the cards to within his coat. "Take away that empty shell," he ordered casually without even looking across the field. "Teach it to wash dishes or something."

Kisara stared mutely as two men came down the ramp, took Kaiba underneath the arms, and hauled him away. As they dragged his limp body his feet scraped the floor.

"What do you say, Angel-face," Pegasus snapped to look at her so suddenly that Kisara stumbled back a step. "Perhaps you need a new manservant to do your laundry? I see you've made quite the mess of your shirt. I would happily gift him to you. After all, never let it be said I wasn't a loving father."

Kisara glanced down at her front, splattered in blood. Still she could not speak.

"However, all that being said, you have hardly been the loving daughter," Pegasus chided. "Really darling, what was that? Siding with the enemy, even after everything he has done to hurt you, while I have done nothing but care and love you, ever since I took you in out of the goodness of my heart all those years ago!"

Kisara looked back up at him, not comprehending. What was he talking about? What on earth was he talking about? Did he not realize what he had just done? To Seto? To her?

"Quite frankly, this pathetic little crush, as well as your interference, insignificant as it was, almost cost me the duel! What with a Duelist Kingdom Champion to select," he gave a wave at Yugi and his friends on the other balcony, "I'm afraid I simply cannot stand for any more interruptions. And so, I've truly sorry my darling, but you'll just have to go."

With a flourish, Pegasus pulled a knob on his side of the arena, and the floor vanished from beneath Kisara's feet.

It was a trap door. The same trap door that, within the next few days, would eject the finalist Keith Howard when, forgetting it in a blind rage, he would try to gun Pegasus down in revenge for the humiliation he had suffered at the Intercontinental Duel Monsters Tournament. Now, however, the door opened for Kisara. With no one in the world left to care about what would happen to her, Kisara looked across the room in desperation as the emptiness rose up to meet her. Amidst the sea of shocked faces she, for an instant, locked eyes with Bakura– enraged and mortified.

In the next instant Kisara's heart rose into her mouth as she fell. She careening down a tunnel, ricocheting off stone walls, yelping with each collision. Somewhere along the way her cane shatters. She hits her head. The world was spinning darkness.

The tunnel fell away around her. The sea air hit her nostrils and, for an instant, revived her as she hurtled through the air down the side of the cliff. She hits the water, and the darkness of the night gave way to the blackness of the waves. For a moment she sunk limply with the pain, deeper and deeper. Then the voices found her, as they always found her in water.

"Save us!" "Kisara!" "Help!" "Daughter!" "Kisa!" "SISTER!"

Her body convulsed, limbs tearing in all directions, her torso on fire. They were coming for her. All those hands grasping at her, begging her to save them, telling her she had failed. They came to drag her into the abyss from which she could not save them. To which she had condemned them. One pair of arms wrapped around her and hauled her body through the water. There was nothing she could do. They had her. She could not break the grip around her. She opened her mouth to scream, to cry out the one name that could save her from the deluge.

"CRITIAS!" The last of the air gushed in a stream of bubbles from her mouth. The abyss engulfed her.