Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the characters from the anime. I own the plot and the Tide Whisperer.
Warning: Violence and blood continue, but not as much. Also undercurrents of YAOI sprinkled throughout the chapter.
Chapter Twenty – Darkness
Seto leapt off of the back of his horse even before the mare had come to a complete stop. He hit the ground running as he rushed toward the gate leading to the inner courtyard of the fortress, his heart hammering on in his chest so fast that he half expected it would jump clear out of his torso. He saw the civilians running for safety, he spotted several of his men scattered throughout the crowd fighting against guards and do-gooders, he even saw Mahado in the rear of the commotion near the platform battling it out against a quad of soldiers who tried to corner him. Even so, he couldn't see any sign of Atemu.
He irritably brushed one man aside as he continued to scan the courtyard for the boy, but the man came back for round two, and Seto slammed his fist into the man's face. The man reeled backward and collapsed to the ground. Just as Seto glanced up from the downed man, he saw a flash of movement he hadn't noticed before on the left side of the platform.
He watched as Atemu spun and landed a roundhouse to the side of one soldier's head and continued his spin to strike a second guard's midsection in a mid-roundhouse. The second man doubled over, clutching at his suddenly bleeding side, and Seto realized the momentum from the double-spin had been enough to break through the weak point in the armor Atemu had told Seto about.
Something was off though, and Seto couldn't pinpoint exactly what the problem was. All he knew was that seeing Atemu move a little too quickly, how quick he was to finish the kill…it left the pirate cold inside.
Atemu was cutting through the soldiers like a battering ram, and he left no survivors in his wake.
Seto started threading his way through the crowd as fast as he could, pulling the sword from one preoccupied soldier's belt and continued on. He quickly lobbed off the head of one man who had foolishly gotten in Seto's path to Atemu, and without a moment's hesitation, Seto ran toward Atemu.
Atemu steadily worked his way around the outside of the crowd, heading straight for the fortress.
Right about now, Mokuba and the others should have already taken Louis into custody, and Atemu had some unfinished business with the prince-turned-king.
"You can't do this. Do you know who I am?" Louis demanded indignantly as he grasped the bars of his new prison. Ryou and Tristan ignored the king's irate ranting, but Mokuba and Ryuji both found the teenaged noble's statements quite entertaining.
"We know exactly who you are, your majesty," Ryuji replied, that one word dripping with his own, special malice. "We just don't give a damn."
"How dare you?" Louis spat.
"Aww, did I hurt the little king's feelings?" The raven-haired, emerald-eyed man quipped to Louis' extreme distaste.
"Enough talk, Ryuji." Mokuba commented as he turned his steel-gray eyes to glare at Louis, "The White Dragons have far too much dignity to waste our time talking to the likes of him." The teenaged first mate retorted with a frigid bite in his words.
"You just wait until my father finds out about this. You'll ALL BE SORRY!" Louis vowed.
Mokuba couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculous threat.
Seto changed position as he saw Atemu steadily moving toward the fortress, and he moved to meet up with the boy. It was irritating how many obstacles kept getting in the way of him and the boy. One would think that when all-out war erupts in a cramped courtyard, the civilians would have enough sense to vacate the premises. Of course, these people weren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, and although some had enough sense to make a break for the gate, many were floundering about, too skittish to go anywhere near any of the pirates who so maliciously fought against the king's guards while others simply kept getting caught in the crossfires and were suddenly so nervous that they refused to move a single step after the first five times they had been jostled about or were almost cut down by a warring weapon.
Gunfire rang out through the courtyard, steel clashing against steel, grunts of pain, cries of agony, and the screams of women and small children who couldn't find their way out of this mess kept pulling Seto's attention from Atemu's movements.
He was curious as to what the young man had planned, seeing as how meticulous the boy had been in developing this rescue and leading the charge against the king and his soldiers, but Seto seriously didn't like to see the boy's glorious scarlet eyes had darkened to the deepest obsidian.
Three guards cut off Atemu path while a fourth soldier came up behind the boy. Seto's throat closed around a phantom lump that had somehow gotten lodged in his esophagus as he thought the boy might be cut down. Seto could tell that the boy was slowing, but even so, the boy fought.
He feigned right and slipped out of the way as the four guards came at him. He grabbed one soldier's arm, locked the man's wrist, and then swung the man into the other three before he continued without finishing the four men. Seto narrowed his eyes at the contradiction, but just as he broke free from the crowd, he watched as Atemu burst into a run and disappeared inside of the fortress walls.
Atemu rushed to the area of the south wing of the fortress where Mokuba was to have taken Louis after they restrained the teenaged king, and it wasn't long before he finally burst through the door that led down a flight of stairs to the dungeons.
Mokuba turned his head toward the sound of approaching footsteps. His hand inched toward the pistol that was holstered at his hip but he didn't draw, figuring it might very well have been Atemu. The door to their section of the dungeon opened and the boy walked out of the darkened archway toward the four White Dragons.
"Glad to see you in one piece." Atemu commented to the teenaged first mate as Mokuba moved to meet the boy. Mokuba handed Atemu a small key ring with five brass keys.
"You as well. Has anyone been injured?" Mokuba questioned.
"Not that I could tell. We'll have to take a closer look after the battle is over, but I did make a sweep of the courtyard before I came inside, and everyone seemed to be accounted for. Including Seto."
"My brother really came back?"
"Apparently he's a glutton for punishment." Atemu commented with a hint of affection in his tone, and it caught the younger teen's attention immediately but he didn't comment.
Atemu brushed past Mokuba and sauntered over to the cell where Ryou, Tristan, and Ryuji kept Louis contained.
The boy king's eyes widened and his face paled as if he'd seen a ghost, or, more appropriately, a demon in human disguise.
"You…" Louis gasped quietly.
"What's the matter, Louis? Didn't you want to see me again? Wasn't that the reason you kidnapped my little brother, to draw me out of hiding?" Atemu mocked venomously, his dark eyes spitting daggers of loathing at the king. "I must say, if I hadn't hated you before, you have surely earned my eternal enmity with that foolish move."
It was almost comical how violently the faux-confident boy king trembled under the frigid scrutiny of Atemu. Mokuba half expected Louis to lose control of his bladder at any moment.
Atemu flicked his gaze over toward Ryou, "Is everything prepared?" He asked silkily.
"Yes." The English pirate commented solemnly.
"Good." Atemu stepped up to the cell door and unlocked the door. The four pirates watched the king shrink away from Atemu as he slipped inside and started for the boy king.
"N-n-n-no, y-you s-stay b-back." The king stammered pathetically.
Atemu tilted his head up three degrees in a haughty motion that caused Louis to freeze as pure terror rendered the boy king motionless.
Atemu reached out and grabbed the collar of Louis' glamorous tunic and hauled the quivering mess to his feet before he half pulled, half dragged the boy king out of the cell and down the hall to a second room. Atemu held one hand firmly over his mouth and pinched his nose and motioned for the others to stay back as he unlocked opened the door and tossed the prince-turned-king inside.
There was a large, four-poster mahogany bed with luxurious burgundy blankets and plush, goose feather pillows. There was a single mahogany nightstand, a small, rectangular table, a stuffed, leather chair, and a wardrobe.
"Your majesty, you must be exhausted. So I'll leave you here for now so that you can rest for a while. I'll come back for you once I've finished with your guards." Atemu crooned malevolently.
Mokuba watched in confused fascination as Atemu closed the door and locked it from the outside.
"What is so special about that room?" Tristan asked.
Atemu didn't reply right away. He didn't turn around to face them, he simply stared at the oak door in front of him as if it had become the most difficult puzzle the boy had ever encountered.
Finally, he said, "It's infected." And then he turned away and started back down the path toward the door.
"Infected?" Ryuji inquired, not understanding.
"That room had been a quarantine area for person's inflicted with smallpox."
That was all the answer the others needed.
Mokuba, Ryou, Ryuji, and Tristan all exchanged uneasy glances at each other before Mokuba nodded approvingly, "Let the bastard suffer."
Wordlessly, Atemu slipped out of the room and left the quad of pirates in the prison block.
Although he talked tough, Mokuba grew nervous. How could Atemu so nonchalantly explain to them, as if he had been commenting about something so inconsequential, such as the weather, that he had quite literally enforced smallpox on another man? Sure, Louis was a bastard and deserved to die…but wasn't this going a bit far?
Seto stalked through the corridors of the fortress trying to find where Atemu had gone.
"Atemu." He called out, his voice echoing grandly from the acoustics of the building.
To Seto's right, he caught a glimpse of movement.
"Santiago?"
"Yes." Atemu replied, although his voice sounded cold, vacant of emotion.
The boy strode out into the torchlight, and Seto noticed that Atemu looked a bit weary.
Seto strode across the space between the two men in three long strides before he grabbed hold of the boy's shoulders, yanked him forward, "You're a fool." he murmured.
Their lips met in a fierce, desperate kiss.