A/N: This chapter will not be what you expected. I don't know what you expected, but this isn't it. However, I do like it. Anywho, much thanks to those of you who reviewed. Especially those of you who saw fit to taken fifteen minutes to write me a short story. I love them! At long last, reviewer responses for chapters 8-10 are up (or will be, once the page refreshes --) on my profile page! To be honest, this chapter would've been up earlier but a freak thunderstorm caused my PS2 to become sentient, and it forced me to play video games for the last few days, so I couldn't edit. Again, not my fault.
Disclaimer: Don't tell anyone, but I have a secret ninja attack force being trained to coerce Kazuki Takahashi into giving me the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! Until they do, I don't own it.
Chapter Eleven: Diverging Destinies
With a great roar the entire room burst into flames. Seto was prepared. A single motion brought the magic card he'd had on the ready before him. The room was already alight. He bellowed the name of the card. "Ring of Defence!" The ring formed in front of him, its wild spinning driving off the hungry flames. Though he couldn't see a thing outside of the raging inferno, he heard the cries of his foes. Backed against the wall, he offered a silent prayer to whoever may have been listening that the ring held.
Great beads of sweat formed, not only from the fire, and Seto relaxed against the stone. Suddenly, a great crashing noise drew his attention, almost the same moment as the fire died. Smoke filled the room and sight was impossible, desperately he searched for the entrance of the corridor. He needed air badly; the room had none left. Finally, he found the area where the entrance had been. In its place was a pile of stone. He pressed his hand against it and swore. The explosion had collapsed his way out.
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"Prince… Seto…" Serenity muttered as they watched the ceiling of the tunnel collapse almost halfway through. More than ten metres of tunnel had collapsed, the supports scorched away by the fire of the explosion. Seto's plan had achieved its goal, but how much was sacrificed for it?
"The prince… sacrificed himself? No, he must have had a plan…" Damien muttered incredulously.
"How could he… he knew that was going to happen. We could have won! How could he throw his life away so foolishly?" Yugi blurted.
Serenity didn't stay to listen to any of it. Instead, she rushed ahead and grabbed one of the stones. She lacked any significant physical strength, but she heaved the stone away. This was going to take too long, she realized. Immediately she called forth Kagemusha to aid her. It didn't take the warrior long to catch on. Together, they began to scratch away at the massive pile of stone. It was like using fingernails to carve a sculpture. Almost no progress was made, but Serenity raged on. She had been useless in battle. But if there was any chance she could save the prince, she would do it. He may have thought that he owed her, but she owed him just as much. Rock after rock she heaved, but he hands were quickly wearing down and she was running out of energy. It was an exercise in futility. She stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"He's gone, Serenity. It kills us as much as it kills you, but there's nothing we can do about it now. At least we can take some solace in that the card is gone for sure, now," Damien offered, placing his hands on her shoulders and gently kneading her tense muscles.
"Damien's right, Serenity," Yugi agreed, "There's nothing we can do for him now."
"But…" Serenity whined. She nearly collapsed against the stone pile, placing her hands on the stone and reaching for who she knew was somewhere beyond, or underneath.
"We should go. There's a place I know in the Duchy of Solitage that can grant us refuge, especially from Azrael. I doubt he'll be dissuaded from his chosen course of action, but we've taken away a powerful ally." Damien pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her the same way he had when Tristan had died. She was too stunned to even notice the gesture.
"…alright," she agreed finally. They would leave Seto behind, in his cairn in the mountain.
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Seto found himself lying on his back on the cooling stone of the natural cavern. It was effective not only for rest, but it brought him below the smoke that had filled most of the room. He let his mind wander, not caring where it led him. It seemed that time was infinite now. His hands were bloodied and raw from trying to remove the stones, but the exertion had been fruitless. He was trapped.
How much his life had changed over the last few days! His father had died, he was exiled from his country, and the Deiprelate was planning the downfall of humanity. And now, having stopped their plans, he would die alone of the floor of some godforsaken cave. Suddenly, that thought struck him. He would not die alone.
Tentatively, he drew his brother's silver Blue-Eyes White Dragon card from his deck box. He let his fingers explore the smooth card's texture, his eyes dwelt on the barely illuminated image. A soft sigh escaped his lips. Nobody would find his body. He would have no one to refine his soul, and no monster to bind his soul to. Eventually, he would become a malevolent spirit to torment the world. A plague upon his own country. He could, of course, order his brother to kill him. The act would bind them together forever, but somehow the thought disquieted him. It wasn't right. He would leave his brother as he was. No one, not even him, would despoil his brother's purity.
He let out another soft sigh. At least he had fulfilled his obligation to that girl. By now, she was likely safe far from there. Damien would take them to a safe house from the church to rest and recover. Perhaps Damien would succeed in his advances on the girl and the two would be wed. They could return to Venyore. How he longed to see Venyore one last time! To stand on its beaches and bask in the beauty of its infinite expanses! But that would not happen.
Without realizing it, he willed the dragon into being. It formed within the cave, though cramped, and immediately cast about to find its foes. Finding none, it turned a quizzical glanced back to Seto.
"No, Mokuba," Seto chided with a chuckle, "No monsters today. I wanted to see you. One last time. Father would be so proud of you, if he could see you. He never did realize that you'd become so majestic a monster." The Blue-Eyes set its head in Seto's lap and he sat up, idly stroking the smooth top of its head. "Not even your white lightning will bail me out this time, though. If you tried to use it on that blockage you'd probably fry me. I'm sorry, Mokuba. I don't know how long you'll lie in the cavern, but I'm sure that you deserve better. It seems I've failed you one last time."
The dragon snorted a blast of dragon breath in Seto's face as a reply.
"No, I am not wrong. I shouldn't have dragged you into this. I should have entrusted you to the Empress of Venyore while I had the chance. Then you wouldn't be in this mess."
Pressing its nose into Seto's chest, the dragon's eyes turned soft and mellow. Blue met blue as Seto stared into his brother's eyes.
"I'm glad you're here with me. I wouldn't want to die alone," Seto admitted. Who was going to hear him, besides his brother?
The dragon closed its massive eyes and Seto leaned against it, relaxing gently into its hard, cool scales. It could always be worse, he supposed. He let himself drift into sleep, expecting never to awaken. When he did, several hours later, he was on his back on the floor. Mokuba had long since vanished when the summon wore off, and his body ached from sleeping on the hard stone. He pulled himself to his knees and scanned the room groggily. There was less smoke than before.
That could mean only one thing. The smoke was escaping. Quickly, he tore off a section of his wonderful new cape and wrapped it around his mouth. He took a moment to find the charred body of the original Keith. Swiping his sunglasses (he had assumed they were enchanted when he saw them, and the battle had confirmed it), he tucked them away into a belt pouch. Then, rising to his feet, he began to feel along the wall of the cavern. It was obvious where the draft would be. He found the small hole that Keith had punched in the wall with his broadsword. It was not so small anymore. The blast had blown out most of the hole, and it seemed large enough to squeeze through.
Feet first, Seto pressed through the tight hole. His armour scraped along the stone, but his feet found a hold and he slid through. With his feet placed on either side of the small crack the gasses had been in, he found that it was narrow and thin, not more than half a metre deep and two metres long. Below, it stretched infinitely, disappearing into untold darkness. Above, faintly, dusk light shone through a gap. He climbed.
His hands were raw from clawing at the rock pile barring his exit, but he winced through the pain and dragged his body from ledge to ledge. The climb was narrow and treacherous, but he had hope for life, and it seemed a meagre obstacle. Minute after minute he climbed. The pain was excruciating, but with hope restored Seto was unstoppable. Finally he assailed the last ledge, drawing himself out of the crevice and onto a mountainside not far from Yugi's Pass.
"You kept me waiting, Dragon Prince. Not like you to delay while there's still a task at hand," a voice declared from behind him. Seto didn't even need to turn. It was a voice he was unlikely to forget.
"Raziel. So, Remiel has you running errands for him now, too?"
"Oh, no," Raziel refuted coldly. "I'm here because I so wanted to be here. I always told you that if you were so reckless eventually it would cost you. I wanted to be here when it did."
"Well, your timing's off. I made it out, alive," Seto informed him.
Raziel gave a toothy grin, but Seto still had his back to the prelate. "I know, that's what's so delicious. You gambled with your own life. You lost others'. When that tunnel collapsed, it collapsed back further than you thought. It crushed the sorcerer, the girl and the rogue. They're dead."
Seto spun and glared at the prelate. "You're lying."
"It isn't prudent to lie, prince. Or, not-prince, as it were. In another hour that politician, Bakura, will be crowned. When he is, whatever claim you had to the throne will be gone. Your friends are dead, your position is gone, your father is slain. Who do you still have to fail?" Raziel asked evenly. "Oh, yes. The old man that Azrael sent to Sandalphon. He'll die soon because of you, too."
"Shut up, Raziel," Seto spat. He was trembling, furious. It was impossible! He'd orchestrated the move to save those three. He'd killed them. Once again, he'd failed someone who'd been counting on him. Once again, he'd failed to protect those he cared about.
"Control your anger, Dragon Prince. You have no one to blame but yourself. And what did you gain in exchange for their lives?"
"Your little scheme is finished," Seto replied defiantly. "The pedestal was destroyed. You cannot complete the Forbidden One, and so you cannot summon him."
"A valid point. Or would be. But, unfortunately, Sachiel beat you here. He had the card as you were being crowned, and returned to Cobalt on the very same train you left Cobalt in. Your friends died in vain."
Seto snapped. His blade was in his hand, and he lunged toward the yellow-robed form of the prelate. For a brief instant he hung suspended in air, and the next he struck the prelate. Instead of drawing a grunt and an injury, he was rewarded with a blinding white flash as the prelate disappeared into nothingness. He fell to his knees from the fall, and dropped his sword at his side.
As his head fell back, slack, he looked up at the night sky. He realized that it looked emptier tonight, and he knew it was because the stars of those he had come to befriend were gone. From somewhere within his soul he let loose a bellow of bestial rage, and then collapsed into the oblivion of sleep.
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From her seat next to the roaring fire, Serenity stared idly into its leaping flames. She didn't know why his death had affected her so much. After all, he didn't actually exist. Therefore, how could he die? His death, in truth, made no difference in the larger scheme of things. Still, it left her feeling hollow inside. Tristan's 'death' had been one thing. It only meant he was ejected from the game, and she would see him again (although she wasn't sure she wanted to) at its completion. But Prince Seto… was truly gone.
Yugi seemed equally detached. If his partner had been there, he would have told him that it wasn't his fault, and that it had been Seto's choice. As things stood, Yugi couldn't help but blame himself for the death of the warrior. Seto had ordered him to use the fireball, but if he had only been smart enough to catch onto his plan he would have refused. At the very least, after all he had done for them, they owed it to Seto to retrieve his body and see to it that his soul was refined. But they had left him.
"Come on," Damien tried, hoping to pull his two companions out of their self-instituted isolation. "We're acting pretty glum for three people who just stopped a plot to destroy the world."
"The cost was too great," Serenity replied, not taking her eyes off of the fire.
"Too great? Too great! It was one man's life in exchange for thousands. Even Seto would agree the cost was not great at all!"
"I think he already made that argument, even if it was without words," Yugi answered.
"Fair enough," Damien answered, gnawing on a piece of meat in his hand. They had stocked preserves of food while in Cobalt that would last them long past their trip to the Duchy of Solitage. Silence ensued for almost an hour before finally something occurred to their camp.
"Well, well. If it isn't little Yugi! We hadn't expected to see you here. To be honest, I didn't think you'd even get invited!" The declaration came from a familiar grating voice.
"Weevil," Yugi called inquisitively into the darkness outside their camp from which the voice had come, "What are you doing out here? It's the middle of nowhere."
Stepping into the light of their campfire, both Weevil and his attached-at-the-hip companion Rex Raptor were garbed in their normal attire of choice. In addition, Weevil carried a simple iron rod, and Rex wore basic chain mail. Over his back, Rex wore a round shield and some variety of pole weapon, with a wicked looking head on it.
"We're on our way to Yugi's Pass," Weevil replied, stressing the name 'Yugi' as he sneered at the rainbow haired youth. "We were just thinking of turning in for the night when we spotted your little campfire here. Who'd have thought it was little Yugi and friends?"
"Yeah. We certainly hadn't expected to run into you losers out here. But, now that we have, want to split a camp?" Rex asked.
"Sure!" Yugi chirped, inviting the two consistent troublemakers into the circle around the fire. Serenity and Damien exchanged a look, but they couldn't come up with a sound argument against the two.
Both of the duellists smirked as they were invited into the fold. They took their seats and exchanged a glance of their own. So far, so good.
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"Prince Seto is no longer a concern of ours. The rest of the group will be much more vulnerable now," Raziel informed Azrael in the halls of the Holy Church in Cobalt.
"You killed him?" Azrael asked incredulously.
"No. How do you think I got back here so quickly?"
"He killed you?" Azrael asked, even more incredulously.
"Don't say that like it matters," Raziel shot back, leaning against the wall and staring at the black-haired prelate. "It was the fastest conveyance possible. In truth, he did me a favour."
"So then, oh all-knowing Raziel," Azrael sneered, "How is he no longer a concern of ours?"
"He's convinced they are dead."
This time, a genuine smile crept across Azrael's face. How delicious, the prince thought his beloved friends were dead. What despair that wretch would know! "How ever did you manage that?"
Raziel smiled back. "I told him. Raziel knows all."
"Hmm. Even if Keith did fail, this is so much better than even his death. I do love to watch them suffer. And what of the card? Did Sachiel secure it?"
"Of course," Raziel replied. "He was gone long before they ever reached the city. Both arms are in our possession, and soon the missing leg will be recovered. Remiel's lack of regard for keeping to personnel within the church disturbs me as much as it does you, but the infidels have their uses."
"And what of the last two shrines? Have we located them yet?" Azrael pressed, eager for news of their impending triumph.
"No," Raziel admitted. "Our searches have remained fruitless thus far. However, we are assured that it is not within any of the fiefs. Therefore, logically, they are somewhere in the untamed lands."
Azrael grunted. "That is unfortunate. It will take quite some time to scour the untamed lands for those shrines. Well, what is Seto's objective?"
"He knows that Sachiel recovered the card. However, for the moment, I have sent him to the one place he can do the least damage," the bald prelate explained.
"And that is?" Azrael led.
"Sandalphon."
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Seto's body ached as though he had been eaten by an ornery Tri-Horned Dragon, and then spat out and trampled. Twice now had he slept atop nothing but the hard, uneven rocks of the Segregos Mountains. Every muscle in his body raged in protest as he rose to his feet, but he silenced them by force of will. The sun's rays streaked in from over the ocean to the east, rising from atop the Serendipity Islands to cruise over the Kaiba plains and meet him on his mountaintop.
He stared for a long while at the sun, allowing him a few moments to sort out his emotions. The first that struck him was unbelievable despair. His failure to his friends had been great, had cost them their very lives. It was another object on a long list of failures, and together they amounted to the deaths of nearly everyone he'd cared about. He pushed his despair aside. There was no time for it. The second emotion that struck him was anger. Raziel, in addition to Azrael and Remiel (and apparently Sachiel), had turned against him. They persisted in their path of wanton destruction, seeking the ultimate downfall of humanity for a reason he could only speculate at. He pushed his anger aside too. It only served to cloud his judgement.
Finally, he found the emotion he'd been searching for. Buried beneath his despair and anger remained the glimmer of hope he held for Sagaelen. He pulled his eyes to the north, toward the holy capital Sandalphon. The sage had been imprisoned because of his relationship to the prince, and Seto had no intention of letting him rot.
Silently, Seto lamented that he had neither the time, nor truly the ability, to shed tears for his fallen friends. They seemed to have deserved that much, even Damien. The plan of the prelates concerned them as dearly as it did him, but nevertheless he knew that few others would have pressed forward so courageously.
"For you, then. Damien, who stood defiant against the wrath of Azrael. Yugi, who bore the name of the first deiprelate with pride and honoured it. Serenity, the delicate girl who saved a soldier prince. Donec omni pereo," Seto declared. He was hardly poetic, although art had been taught to him since infancy. It seemed too little to mutter only those few words in memory of those who had fallen for him, but it was all he could spare. Sandalphon was calling.
He pulled his brother's card from his deck box again, and stared at its familiar image. In the six years that had passed since his brother's death, he'd summoned him twice prior to the last two days. In the last two days, he'd summoned him three times, and now he needed to summon him a fourth. He hated putting his brother through this, but unfortunately he had little other choice. Calling forth the beautiful serpentine monster, he mounted it and leaned in next to his brother's head.
"North, to Sandalphon. Hurry," he urged the beast. And then they were off.
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Yugi yawned and stretched as he finally came awake. The sun was partway through its early morning climb to the sky above, fully above the horizon but not much higher than that. Before him, the fire had smouldered down to nothing but glowing embers letting off soft silken streams of smoke. The boy wrapped his arms around his legs and sighed. He was struck once again by how lonely he felt. No familiar voice echoed in his head. No presence lurked in the back of his mind. He was alone, and he was beginning to want out of Kaiba's game.
But he didn't want to feel sorry for himself. After all, he was here of his own volition getting paid to play a video game. Both he and Serenity were now level two (Serenity had picked up an ability called Double Summon on her level up following the cave-in in Yugi's Pass) and they were beginning to get into the swing of the game. They had just lost their biggest protector, but they were becoming more confident in their own abilities.
He spared a grin for Serenity as he glanced at her sleeping not far to the side, and another for Damien who had crept as close as possible to her during the night. Just out of arm's length of the girl, it wasn't hard to tell what he had in mind. Yugi chuckled slightly. Kaiba was nothing if not thorough, especially in the wants of his character designs. Drawing his gaze to the other side of the fire, Yugi quickly noticed that both Rex and Weevil were gone.
"Didn't even say goodbye," Yugi muttered to himself. To him, they were two more people who chose to see him as a rival instead of a friend. He had enough rivals. He could always use more friends.
Suddenly, Serenity stirred. She quietly pulled herself from her bedroll and to her knees. With one hand she brushed dust and dirt from her outfit as she fixed her hair with the other. They all needed a bath, but for Serenity it was unbearable. This would be her fifth day since she'd bathed. She licked her lips and pulled her water canteen from her pack, downing a swig of the water and then rinsing her mouth in an attempt to cure her morning breath.
"Morning, Yugi," Serenity murmured as her hair gradually fell back into place. She gave an enormous stretch and rose to her feet, taking a few steps around to try and get blood running through her body. With a slight smirk, she glanced at where Damien was sleeping. "Aw. He must've been cold. Still, it was fortunate for me I didn't decide to sleep in or I might've woken up with a bed partner. Did Weevil and Rex go already?" she asked when she had finished surveying the campsite.
"It looks that way," Yugi answered.
Serenity nodded her acknowledgement, stretching broadly and placing her hands on her hips. Suddenly, a wave of suspicion struck Serenity and she pulled her deck box from her waist and opened it, hoping to assuage her paranoid fears. Instead, she confirmed them. "Yugi, the card is gone."
A/N: The use of latin in this chapter (Donec omni pereo means Until everything perishes, although I'm certain the grammar is atrocious) is something I debated over, but I think Kaiba just might see fit to add the dead language to his game for dimension. On top of that, Prince Seto is incredible interesting to write for. He really is half-prince, half-Seto. This chapter, you got to see more prince than Seto, and I'm not quite sure how it turned out. Why not review and tell me?