Chapter 13: Critical Success Factor
As they hiked across the desert he was silent, saving his energy for walking. He had put Mokuba between himself and Sarah, and kept glancing over both of them as he stayed at the back so he was sure he wouldn't lose either of them in this endless sea of sand. One wrong turn, one brief moment of inattention, and he was sure they could easily get lost in the towering dunes. He was nearly constantly checking them, looking for signs of weakness or strain, although neither were hard to see after their third day of this endless trek. They were all starting to tire, and Mokuba was showing it worse than Sarah, although she too was beginning to lag. He was starting to fear he'd made the wrong choice, but it was too late to turn back and there was no guarantee of safety where they had been. The weapons he'd found on the men he and Duke had knocked out gave him little hope that whoever came after them wouldn't be even more well armed. There would be little he could do to protect them against that.
But despite their aimless wandering at least Mokuba was unharmed, other than being shaken up by the kidnapping, and that was something no matter how enraged he was at getting jumped in his own highly secure home. If they lived through this he was going to work out exactly how they had managed that. It was no small feat to get through the array of safety nets he had in place, but apparently he and his security team had missed something. That or someone on that very team had let them in on purpose. Not that any amount of security would have helped Sarah once she left the mansion, but Mokuba at least would have been protected and he wouldn't have gotten knocked out.
Of course he had been infuriated by being abducted along with his brother, as that was completely unacceptable even if six well trained men had jumped him at once, but when one of those men walked into the makeshift prison with Sarah over his shoulder, when he was sure she was safely tucked away in her apartment in Domino, he had nearly lost his mind. He had simply assumed that if she wasn't with them she would be left alone, but he had clearly underestimated the danger he put her in simply by being on friendly terms with her. However, there was more to it than that. Seeing who else had been taken was all he needed to know that somehow whoever was behind this was involved in their past, the one he disliked thinking about even in his own mind. The only thing he had in common with all the people in this ragtag group was duel monsters. He hadn't seen any of them, except Sarah and Mokuba, since he graduated, and had no interest in doing so. Well, perhaps Yugi, but only so he could finally crush him in a damn fair tournament now that the god cards were out of play.
The only conclusion he could draw was that someone else that was in their last life was now out in the open and ready to cause mischief for no apparent reason he could currently understand, and had recognized her the same way he had, or worse, had worked out what he had in that elevator. Sarah, for all she looked like nothing more than a beautiful and poised young woman, was possibly the most dangerous person on the planet, and she didn't even know it. He was sure now that somehow the blue eyes had found her in this life as well, somehow escaping the confinement the pharaoh had placed on the monsters, to be reborn into this world a second time. But then he couldn't see how she could be here otherwise. It wasn't as if she simply housed the blue eyes, her very soul was the great beast. He wasn't sure the two could be separated without her body dying.
And what was worse, was that unlike when she was Kisara she had no idea. In her last life she had been able to control the dragon, even while nearly being stoned to death by a town full of fearful peasants. She had let the blue eyes out only when she had no choice, only when he was in danger, only when she was willing to nearly die every time she recalled it, because the power of it nearly killed her when she unleashed it. Now she had no control at all if her panic attack in the elevator were any indication. To make it even more nerve wracking he was also sure after going back over the police report on her uncle's death much more closely that she had killed him, unconsciously or not. There was no other explanation as to how a man could be electrocuted that was nowhere near a storm, a powerline, or any sort of heavy equipment that would need a very large power source. The police had found her beaten, bloody, and unconscious in her uncle's house. The dragon must have broken loose when he attacked her. He could fill in the details from there, although the thought of anyone treating her that way was sickening. Still, there was nothing he could do about her past, so he tried not to think of it as it only set his temper off and focused on the here and now.
They had fallen to the back of the pack the last two days, guided by him rather than an inability to keep up. Tristan had sprained his ankle yesterday when they were walking down a sand dune, and all the others were taking turns helping him walk, which was keeping them at a moderately slow pace after their initial dash out of that building. They had been walking for hours tonight, with no real purpose or direction, and he wasn't sure how long this could go on. It was hot, and they didn't have much water left. Not for as many people as they had, although he wouldn't be opposed to cutting off Joey completely.
On top of that rather fatal issue, because they wouldn't survive long without water here, all of them were accumulating a sunburn, especially Sarah who's skin was so beautifully pale. They were only walking in the early morning and late evening when the sun was out, but it was clearly enough to ruin her bare arms, face, and exposed neck. She'd been stoically silent about it, but he'd seen her shifting in discomfort when they woke up tonight, having been sleeping as best they could through the heat of the day in whatever shade they could find. He couldn't see how to help her with that though, as he had nothing for her to cover up with. He had been in only a pair of pants and a dress shirt when they had been abducted from the mansion, having ditched his much beloved trenchcoat when he'd come in the door from the office.
"Are you alright?" He asked her just after midnight, breaking several hours of silence. Everyone appeared too tired to talk, even the friendship gang was out of morale boosting speeches, thank all his ancestors. Thinking he was talking to his brother Sarah said nothing, looking at the endless sea of sand surrounding them. "Sarah?" He asked.
She looked over at him, her expression tired, but alert. "What?"
"Are you alright?" He repeated.
"I'm fine." She replied tiredly.
"You're sunburn is getting worse."
She wasn't worried about that, he could tell. "If I were you I'd be more worried about our water situation than my skin."
"Believe me, I am."
"What?" Mokuba asked.
"Let me worry about that." He told him calmly. "We have enough for at least two more days."
"One." She corrected, and he could only assume she had been monitoring their intake closely. "We're all sweating like crazy. We'll need to hydrate more than normal." She shook her head. "We need to find something soon or it won't matter."
He could only agree as he looked about. They were coming up on another massive dune, the sand piled nearly as high as a twelve story building, and he could see everyone was set to walk around the base of it, as they had so many others now. Knowing climbing it would be arduous didn't stop him, or even have him hesitating. He might be able to see something from the top of it. As they approached it he started up it at once, knowing there was little choice if he wanted to find them all help. Sarah and Mokuba stopped at the bottom, both of them breathing heavily.
As he started up Sarah called to the others. "Hold on! Seto's trying to look to see which way to go!"
He heard a variety of responses to that, but even Joey and Tristan were too tired to pass up a break. Halfway up he looked down and saw nearly all of them had collapsed, either sitting or lying over the sand, taking a break while they could. Sarah was standing at the base of the dune, watching him go up, and Yugi was beside her, saying something too softly for him to hear. Thinking he better not be putting any of his nonsense in her head he continued up, his breathing ragged and his legs aching by the time he got to the top. Despite his exhaustion, thirst, and anger over the whole situation he couldn't help but think the view was impressive. The sloping sand dunes appeared to go on forever, and the unobstructed view of the stars was breathtaking, even if that was rather poetic a thought for him.
Turning his eyes back to earth he began to scan the horizon scruptiously. He couldn't see as far in the darkness, but with the moon full overhead he could still make out quite a lot. After several minutes of searching, and having turned in nearly a full circle he saw something different in the expanse of sameness. Squinting his eyes he strained to see what the shadow was and eventually made out a number of straight lines sticking out of the sand, nestled between three more great mounds. A restrained sort of optimism filled him as he recognized that they had to be trees. Letting out a low breath he headed back down, marking the direction they needed to go in, which was slightly to the east of where they had been walking.
Going back down, which was much easier, he jerked his head the way they needed to go. "There might be something that way." He told them, not wanting to get their hopes up if he was wrong.
Sarah, ever ready to try, nodded and picked up one of the three backpacks they had found and stuffed with all the supplies they could shove in them. They had been passing them back and forth to carry as they went so no one would get too tired, and it appeared Yugi had traded his off to her. That must have been what they were talking about. "Let's go then. If there's a place with shade we need to get there before the sun rises."
Yugi smiled at him and he glared back, having no interest in getting any closer than they already were. Yugi sighed, shaking his head, and moved back to Tea and Bakura, who he had been walking with for most of the evening. He took the lead, since he knew where they were going, and reached over and gently tugged the pack off of Sarah's burned shoulders. "Give it to me." He said.
She tried to wrestle it back, skipping around Mokuba to try to hold onto it. "It's my turn, Seto. You carried it yesterday."
"I'll manage somehow." He said dryly, grappling it away from her.
"I'm fine." She insisted, even as he threw the bag over his own back. He hummed in response and she huffed at him in annoyance. Sarah liked when things were fair, liked to pull her own weight, but that didn't mean he had to let her all the time. Besides, it was fun to irritate her and this was one of the few ways to do it. And it would get her mind off things too, which he thought was helpful. She grumbled under her breath about it until they were really walking again and then fell quiet. They walked for nearly two more hours before they got to the spot he saw, and when he came around the last dune separating them he let out a very quiet sigh of relief. Spread out below them was the most picturesque example of an oasis he had ever seen.
He stopped and behind him the group came to a halt, looking around him. There was a long pause and then Tristan let out a loud whoop and raced passed him, slapping a hand over his shoulder as he went. "Alright, Kaiba!"
He brushed his hand over his shoulder as everyone else rushed forward, irritated by the unsolicited touching. Sarah paused next to him, and he heard her whisper something under her breath in what he thought was Welch and he strongly suspected was a small prayer of thanks to he didn't know who. The relief in her eyes was obvious and he was sure how very aware she was that they had nearly all died out here, not that they still couldn't. Still, he felt a sense of pride in finding this for them, of being sure they were safe and had what they needed to survive. It was the same way he felt after he tore Kaiba Corp out from under that bastard Gozaburo and he knew Mokuba would always be taken care of.
The moment was somewhat ruined by the idiocy of his traveling companions, but he still felt good about it. Curbing his exasperation he followed the rowdy group as they headed toward the very fortunately found oasis, the water just peaking out from behind a scraggly looking bush. The were running at it headlong, yelling, and no doubt attracting anything that wanted to hurt them in the next three square miles. The palm trees were a welcome sight, as was the sound of crickets, at least the ones he could hear over Yugi and his gang. They had heard nothing but the wind over the sands for days now.
On one edge of the place, across from a small, bubbling spring that was feeding the life here, was a large rock outcropping that towered even over the great waves of sand. He was looking around, his eyes sharp, with a restraining hand on his brother to keep him from running into anything the others were attracting to them. He didn't want him bolting into danger with the rest of them. However, it appeared there was nothing here to worry about, and he eventually let his brother go so he could drink his fill. Sarah was gulping water out of one of the containers they had with them, refilling it at least four times in rapid succession before handing it off to him as he got to the edge of the small pool. He nodded to her, taking it and filling it as he crouched down. The water wasn't cool, but it tasted better than any water he'd ever had, likely because he was on the verge of serious dehydration. He'd been sweating heavily, like everyone else, and his shirt had been soaked through a dozen times over. His body was frantic for water and he drank as much as he could without throwing it back up, watching to be sure Mokuba got all he wanted and wasn't crowded out, although no one was really pushing after the initial grab for the liquid.
Relaxing slightly he lowered the old bottle from his lips to look around and realized that Sarah had vanished. He stood up at once, and after several irrationally panicked moments, which he wasn't proud of simply because he lost sight of her, he spotted her in the last place he would have guessed. Sarah had already climbed halfway up the steep rock face on the far side of the oasis and was making steady and confident progress toward the top. For a moment he was confused, but then realized she had every intention of doing exactly what he had done several hours ago. She was looking to see if they were close to anything else. Walking over to where she was he studied the rock, seeing it was weathered with age and the elements and had a number of indents in it which made excellent hand and footholds. As long as she was careful he doubted she would have a problem getting up. That didn't make it a safe proposition though.
When she was about three quarters up the fifty foot face he spoke below her, sipping water between comments. "Don't fall." He told her, his voice level and calm. "There's no way to stop internal bleeding out here."
"Thanks, Seto, real comforting." She called down as she kept going. She was apparently skilled at climbing and wasn't having much trouble as she went. Her movements confident and smooth.
"What are you doing?" Mokuba asked, coming up next to him. "That's not safe."
"She's trying to see if there's anything around us to walk to." He told him calmly, understanding why she was risking a fall. "That's the highest thing we've seen in two days. Of course how well she can see is debatable in the dark."
"Will you be a little optimistic for once?" She panted as she was at the last ten feet. "There's a full moon and you saw this place."
"Save your breath for climbing." He advised.
"Save your bossing for work." She fired back, which had him huffing out a laugh despite himself.
A minute later and she was at the top, hauling herself up over the edge and he craned his neck up. She vanished for a moment, save for one foot, and he could only surmise that she had flopped onto her back to catch her breath. Even with a lot of handholds that had been an impressive show of athleticism. A few moments later she got up, standing a few inches away from the edge. Going up on the very tips of her toes she looked out over the desert. She turned about, squinting, and stared off farther to the east for several long moments. "Well?" He called up.
"There might be something over there." She said, pointing toward it. "But I'm not sure. If there is it's far off." She shook her head and looked down at him. "I'm not sure I'd risk my life on it, and that's what we'd be doing. I can look again when the sun comes up. That might help."
"We can't stay here." He pointed out. They might have water here, and some shelter with the large cliff face, but there was no real food. It's not like they could survive here indefinitely on a handful of crickets.
"We don't even know where here is." She responded. "Other than not Japan." She waved about herself as she looked down at him, frustrated with the situation, but not with him. "This could literally be any desert on the planet. We have no way of knowing, and no way of knowing which way to go." He was quiet, thinking, and she shifted as she prepared to climb back down. As she was checking to make sure the way she came up was the easiest way to get down she paused and got down on her knees, staring down at something. "There's something up here!" She called down.
"What is it?" Mokuba asked.
"Who are you talk-" Duke started as he came up beside him. "Gods, is Sarah up there? Get down here before you hurt yourself!"
"I'll do what I want, thank you." She replied. "It looks like a carving." She continued her conversation with them. "A bird, maybe? Hold on." He saw her hand darting around and thought she was brushing the sand away. Sarah frowned down at it before shifting on her knees to look over the side. Her face was the picture of puzzlement. "I think… I think these are hieroglyphics."
By this point everyone was standing at the base of the large rock. Yugi spoke up at once. "Hieroglyphics?" He asked, interested. "Are you sure?"
"Well no." She told him. "I don't read ancient Egyptian, but it looks like pictures in the books on it I've seen in school. It could be something else though."
"Can you come down and draw it?" He asked her, hating what he was about to say even as he said it. "Bakura can read ancient Egyptian." He left out the part about being able to read it himself.
"Seriously?" She asked with interest. "Did your uncle teach you?"
"In a manner of speaking." Bakura muttered sarcastically, and he could only assume he wasn't the only one with some hatred toward ancient Egypt. Bakura certainly had gotten the short end of the stick as far as ancient entities were concerned.
Sarah, having not really heard him from her perch, continued. "Let me look at it for a second so I get it right. I'll be down in a minute."
"Be careful!" Tea called, and for once he couldn't even be annoyed with such honest concern.
Sarah sat on her knees and studied whatever it was quietly for about a minute. When she was sure she had it memorized she got up and started to climb down. She went down carefully, but even more quickly than she went up, and when she was nearly all the way down Duke stepped forward and wrapped his hands around her slim waist. He lifted her slightly and she let go, allowing him to get her the last foot or so down. The sight had him nearly sputtering out loud in rage. He didn't even bother to consider it was an overreaction to someone else helping her. He couldn't believe the audacity of Devlin touching her, and it took all his willpower to say nothing about it. Sarah crouched down and began to sketch what she saw in the sand, thinking nothing of it, but Duke saw him glaring and smirked at him, amused with his outrage.
As he seethed quietly, Sarah finished and sat back, giving Bakura room to see. The other man crouched down next to her as he read it over her shoulder. It was a short message, and very to the point. "Interesting." Bakura said. "This is fairly modern."
"What's it say?" Mai asked, leaning in with all the rest of them.
Bakura answered. "To the east."
"That's it?" Joey demanded.
"That's all it says." Bakura agreed.
"Wasn't there anything else up there?" Tristan asked.
"No." Sarah told him, looking disappointed. "I checked. But the only thing that I thought I could see was to the east. It was so far though, it just looked like a bigger heat wave."
"It doesn't seem like there's much we can do until tomorrow night." Yugi pointed out. "It's only an hour or so until dawn. We might as well rest here until then. We have plenty of water, and the trees and this cliff will give us lots of shade."
Unable to disagree he said nothing. There was always the chance that the men that took them could come looking, but they might also think they had already died of exposure. Unless they randomly picked this way to search for them there was no way of knowing which way they went, as the wind had blown their footprints away almost immediately. Certainly no one in the world was that good at tracking. Knowing waiting was the best course of action he headed back to the spring to get some more water, turning things over in his head as everyone settled in to rest.
Mia and Serenity followed after him a few moments later and sat by the water, taking turns drinking out of another water bottle. They didn't speak to him, and he took no notice of them as he tried to work out how to get out of here. Unfortunately he had little to go on, save the hieroglyphics Sarah had found. He had read them as easily as Bakura, and if they were here there was only one place they could be. He didn't know what he was expecting. It seemed he was cursed by this place. Cursed to be brought back again and again. Keeping his face blank he filled the bottle one last time and got up, returning to his brother, who was sprawled out under a tree nearly asleep already.
Sarah was speaking to Bakura about the writing near the cliff and he nudged his brother to rouse him. "Drink some more before you go to sleep, Mokuba."
He sat up with a yawn and took the bottle. "This is messed up, nii-san."
"No kidding, kid." He agreed, sitting down beside him. "But we'll get home. I'll figure this out."
"You know you don't have to figure everything out by yourself." Mokuba told him after swallowing another mouthful of water. "There are a bunch of other people here to help and they all want to get out of here too." He rolled his eyes and Mokuba shook his head. "I'd tell you to stop being stubborn, but it'd be a waste of energy." He sent his brother an exasperated glance and Mokuba grinned before flopping back. "You could always go brainstorm with Sarah."
"I think if she had any ideas she would have told me by now."
"I suppose." Mokuba agreed as he tried to get comfortable. "It was nice of you to carry the bag for her." He said nothing to that and he saw Mokuba watching him out of the corner of his eye. After several seconds of silence Mokube went on. "Are you really going to be this way about it?"
"What?" He asked, frowning over at him.
Mokuba sent him a disturbingly penetrative stare. "Seriously, nii-san. Even you aren't this dense." His brother sighed deeply and closed his eyes. "You're really hopeless."
Knowing very well what Mokuba was hinting at he continued on with his silence, leaning against the tree. Bothered that his brother has sussed the situation out so accurately when he was doing his damndest to hide his feelings, he decided the best course of action was to do nothing. If he denied what Mokuba was implying it would only have him goading him endlessly, if he confirmed it he was actually afraid to know what might happen. Knowing his brother he would end up trying to be a matchmaker. He would have to kill him, his only family, to save himself the embarrassment. Irritated by getting caught out he wasn't really in the best mood when Yugi walked over, even if Mokuba was snoring and clearly done talking about the whole thing. "Do you want to watch first?" He grunted in agreement to the other man's question. They had all been taking turns keeping a lookout while the others slept and he hardly cared when his turn was. "You did a good job finding this place."
"Are you not even remotely bothered by any of this?" He asked irritably. "Or even a little shocked that of all the things we could have found we stumbled over hieroglyphics? You know very well where we are."
"I could ask you the same thing." Yugi replied. "But no, I'm not surprised at all. I always knew I would end up back here somehow."
"He's dead." He told the other man bluntly. For all he loathed Yugi for beating him over and over again he would admit they had a connection. The pharaoh he had once carried around with him was one of the few people to ever challenge him in any real way. So while he might despise Motou, he also respected him. Respected him for being good at what he did, for being clever, and for working hard. It bothered him more than he cared to admit that Yugi still seemed lost without Atem, even though in the end he had been the better duelist. He needed to learn to stand on his own. "You pine over him like he'll come back again. He's moved on the way he wanted to, the way you should."
Yugi stared down at him, his expression unreadable. "Don't you ever get tired of fighting this, Kaiba? Of fighting who you are?"
"I know who I am." He snapped.
Yugi's eyes flicked up, across the small oasis where Sarah was still talking to Bakura. "And Sarah? We both know who she is, but she doesn't does she?"
"You leave her out of this." He demanded angrily.
"You should tell her." Yugi told him, not backing down from his anger. "One way or another she's going to find out the same way you did. Don't you think she'd rather hear it from you?"
"I think she'd rather have a long and happy life away from all of this." He told him. "Which is exactly what she'll have."
Yugi kept watching him, his own seemingly innocent eyes radiating understanding. "You still love her don't you?"
He clenched his jaw, and only years of training and self-discipline had him maintaining eye contact. "What I feel or don't feel is none of your concern. Keep your stories to yourself and leave her be."
Yugi shook his head but didn't argue with him. "Wake Sarah up after you. Joey is watching after her. She said that was fine earlier."
He glared after the other man resentfully and must have appeared as irritable as he was when Sarah came over and flopped down. Around the area everyone else was finding spots to sleep, and soon they were all within ten square feet of one another as they laid down. "What's with the grumpy face? You look like we're trapped in the desert about to die or something." She commented, tilting her head at him in question.
"Very cute." He switched to English to reduce the understanding of their conversations should anyone decide to eavesdrop. "You should sleep while you can." He reached out and carefully held her jaw, barely touching her with his fingertips. Turning her head toward him he looked her over critically, especially her skin, which really wasn't getting any better despite being out of the sun for over nine hours. "If you can sleep at all burned to a crisp the way you are." His thumb touched her lip with extreme care, even it was scorched, and cracked from the heat.
"I've been burned before, and you're starting to get red yourself." She told him. "Why are you so worried about it?"
He dropped his arm away. "We're going to take turns keeping watch again. You're up after me. Get as much sleep as you can while you can."
"Alright." She agreed as she looked about for the best spot to lay down.
"When your shift is done wake up Joey." Sarah shot the blond a distrustful look and his lip curled. He didn't fault her for worrying about Wheeler actually being responsible. "I feel the same way, but he'll be fine with his sister and Valentine here. Especially after they were threatened. He is protective if nothing else."
"Did my ears deceive me or did you just compliment Joey Wheeler?"
"It was a blanket statement about his character." He assured her. "Not a compliment."
Her eyes danced happily at his denial. "If we all get skewered I'm blaming you."
"I refuse to take responsibility in any way for the mutt." He informed her as he settled in to keep watch, shifting so he was more comfortable leaning against the tree.
"Good to know. Goodnight, Seto." With that she twisted and lay with her back to where Mokuba was sleeping and she closed her eyes. It didn't take her long to fall asleep and when his hour was up he was reluctant to wake her up, but he needed to rest as well. Leaning over he shook her gently and her head came up at once. Her blue eyes gazed up at him sleepily. "It's your watch." Reaching to his wrist he unclipped his designer watch and shook it off. He handed it to her and she took it from him as she sat up. "I would like that back in the morning."
"But it matches my shoes so perfectly." She replied dryly.
He rolled his eyes. "That mouth of yours."
She laughed under her breath and his lips twitched as he lay down next to Mokuba. As she occupied the position he had abandoned. He fell asleep quickly considering how much stress he was feeling and dreamed of nothing for the first time in days. He was sure he would have slept solidly until the next night if it hadn't been for Tea screaming fearfully for help.
He sat up with a jolt and found utter chaos. The sun was sinking and the oasis was bathed in the red light of dusk. All over the clearing men in dark brown cloaks with hoods over their faces were grabbing their group. Lunging forward he punched the one leaning down to get Mokuba, knocking him backward. His brother scrambled up, kicking the man for good measure, and darted behind him as he got to his feet. He wasn't the only one fighting, as Tea had alerted everyone that their was a problem, but several people had already been pinned, including Sarah.
She was being held tightly under the throat by a very large man who was all but dangling her off the ground by her neck. Coughing as her airway was constricted, and yanking at the man's very large arm, she was fighting to keep herself on the tips of her toes so she could keep breathing. As he saw her struggling the man spoke in a deeply resounding voice. "I suggest you all calm down before I have to hurt the girl." He rocked back on his heels, his fists clenched, as ice ran through his veins.