A/N: The reason this took longer than expected is that I sort of ran out of momentum at one point. This chapter was meant to be part of last chapter, if you recall, and things simply got longer than they were supposed to. Nevertheless, after an excellent betaing job from Tawnykit, the finished product is ready. I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: Apparently 'dibs' does not legally render ownership, therefore I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The First Last Charge
Through the hole in the side of the cave, Serenity watched the stars twinkle. They were bright here, unlike in the city back home. She could make out constellations, although she knew that they were constellations that didn't exist back home. For a moment, she almost felt nostalgic, but the heat emanating from beneath her eliminated that thought. She curled up closer to Seto's sleeping form. His armour lay at the side of the bed they'd been given, but other than that he was, like her, fully clothed. Even his cape hung limply beside him.
He was warm, and surprisingly soft for a hardened warrior. She'd seen him in the ferocity of battle. Now, he was docile. His arm was draped around her back, and she wondered how he had it in him to fight. Of course, tomorrow, he'd be a warrior again. It was probably the warrior in him that drew her, not the prince. When he was polite, he was cold, detached. When he roared with anger, he was passionate. It was the same passion he showed toward her, and there wasn't an ounce of malice in it. Tomorrow, they would end the entire conflict. She looked back out at the stars again.
She wished tomorrow would never come.
Tomorrow, she would go home to her cold apartment, to her meaningless job search, and this entire game would be forgotten. She would leave the prince behind. If tomorrow never came… she'd be happy. In fact, lying against the Dragon Prince, she tried to remember the last time she'd been so happy. It must have been back on the beach with Joey, back before anyone saw her as a load to be borne; back when they all saw her the way Seto saw her.
She closed her eyes and rested back down. A form darkened the doorway of her room for a brief second, and then it was gone down the hallway. Serenity ignored it. Moments passed, and she almost drifted asleep. Then, without warning, Seto quietly shifted out from under her, resting her back on the bed as not to disturb her rest. She almost told him she was awake, but she waited instead. She let a minute pass slowly by and then slid out of bed. Seto's sword and armour were gone. Slipping into the hall, she followed the path she guessed the prince must have taken.
The path took her to the doorway of the cave, and she leaned cautiously against the mouth. Ahead of her, standing on the sand in the starlight, Seto stood, locking blades with the bandit chief.
Joseph narrowed his eyes at the prince. "You haven't changed at all, ya know. You're still the same arrogant bastard."
"I'll take you seriously when you earn it," Seto replied. He slashed his blade across the lock and Joseph jumped back. But the bandit chief was used to fighting in the sand, and he let the sand slow his reversal. A moment later he charged forward, slashing in an aggressive flurry of attacks against the prince.
The prince swatted them aside almost effortlessly, barely retreating against the onslaught. "You're still careless," he observed. "What good are you to anyone if you throw your life away?"
"This is the last fight I got, blueblood," Joseph retorted. He suddenly pulled back from the attack, letting Seto's parry swish past, and then lunged again. The prince sidestepped it and rushed past the bandit, swatting him on the back of the head with the flat of his blade as he passed.
"You've improved, but you're still just an amateur."
Joseph charged again, stopping short of the mark and letting the shifting sand carry him the rest of the distance. His blade cut low, and Seto's blade arced down to swat it aside. But that had been the purpose of the attack. As he slid into Seto, Joseph drove his head forward, smashing his forehead into Seto's face. The prince staggered back, slightly blinded by the attack, and Joseph pursued relentlessly.
Seto managed to parry the first few slashes, but stunned as he was by the blow, even Joseph's sluggish attacks were hard to follow. The blur of motion shifted slowly into full images. The prince squinted against them. Retreating against Joseph's blade, Seto finally saw his opening. His blade moved quickly right and blocked Joseph's and then the prince swept out his enemy's legs. He moved forward as he did and drove his palm into Joseph's chest, sending him onto his back.
"Amateur," Seto spat. "Don't let your guard down because you think you can win. That's when you need to be most on guard."
"Whatever," Joseph replied, regaining his feet and dusting himself off.
"Whatever?"
"Yeah, whatever. It was a good fight, right? So I lost dis time. You're not goin' anywhere soon. So I'll get another chance. And den I'll win," Joseph explained. Serenity smiled slightly.
"Ridiculous. I thought this fight meant something to you."
"It does, a'right? You got no right bringin' her here."
"I didn't have a choice."
"Right, I buy that. The blueblood's got his back to the ropes."
"Watch your tongue," Seto warned, angling his sword at the bandit, "or you'll lose it. And then it'll be so much harder for you to clean all those hard to reach places."
"Why you-" Joseph grunted. He lunged forward at the prince. Seto parried easily with his blade and then twisted, pinning Joseph's sword between the spur and the weak of his blade. Then, with one motion, he twisted again and drove Joseph's blade back into his scabbard.
"Put it away."
Joseph stared hard at the prince and finally slid his blade the rest of the way home. "You're leavin' tomorrow, blueblood."
"Of course. Probably the safest way to avoid ticks anyway."
The bandit shook his head and spat. "Right, I forgot, you'd rather be sleepin' all alone in that empty castle o' yours. Or did you manage to hire some friends to fill it?"
"I have a few guard dogs if you want some company," Seto replied levelly.
Joseph shook his head, "You're a piece o' work, y'know," he muttered and headed back into the cave. He didn't even seem to notice Serenity standing in the mouth. A moment after he left, Serenity walked out over the cool sand to the prince.
"What was that all about?" she asked.
"Bad blood," he replied.
"Why?"
Seto just shook his head.
"Who were you talking about?"
The prince's eyes remained upward, and it didn't seem he was planning on answering. Serenity simply stood at his side, hoping for an answer but content to wait. "His sister," the prince answered after a moment.
Serenity quirked an eyebrow. "The Countess of Landstar?" she asked.
His gaze snapped back to her. "How did you know that?"
It wouldn't do to tell him that the Countess and the bandit were modelled after her and her brother. "Lucky guess," she answered.
Seto scoffed. "I believe that," he commented sarcastically. He began to walk out into the desert. Serenity simply stared after him. A few strides away, he turned to look at her. "Come on," he said.
The girl quickly caught up with him, and the two walked out into the desert. Seto's eyes remained upward, and Serenity suddenly remembered what he'd told her about the stars in that world. Each represented a person. "Who are you looking for?" she asked.
"You," he replied.
She smiled and wrapped her arm around his. "Thought so."
"It's strange though… I can't find you."
"You know everyone around your star?"
"Of course. There aren't very many left. Sagaelen, Fallacian, the Empress… Shale's is gone."
"Shale?"
"General Shale, the man who taught me how to fight. Apparently, he's been killed."
Serenity squeezed his arm. "I'm sorry…"
"Don't be," he replied. "By the end of tomorrow, the sky will likely be a good deal emptier. Whatever happened, Shale died without regrets. He died doing something of importance. I can't imagine him dying any other way."
"I guess… and that makes it better?"
"It does."
"Why?"
Seto paused in thought. "Death is inevitable. It should mean something."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it isn't sad."
"Fine," Seto grunted. "It is… sad."
The two walked in silence for a while, until Seto felt Serenity shivering against his arm. He brought her in and wrapped his cape around her, and she drew in close to him. They walked for a while longer.
"She was a friend of mine," he stated finally.
"Who?"
Seto grunted. "Forget it."
"The Countess?" Serenity pressed.
Staring into space, the prince slowly nodded. "I had already had a few run ins with her brother, but when I met her for some reason she persisted in trying to be my friend. I tolerated her, I suppose, because it bothered her brother. Eventually, I realized she genuinely fascinated me. Of course, her brother was convinced I was a fiend out to deflower his innocent sister. It's why he decided to stop me. In hindsight, I didn't discourage the notion. But I never thought he'd be so foolish. He broke into the palace and attacked me. We fought."
"I take it he lost?"
"Not exactly. Of all the times we've fought, that time he was at his best. I still outclassed him, but there were a few moments where, if he'd been smarter, he might've one. His sister came in while we fought and screamed for us to stop. We ignored her. She decided to stop us, and intervened. I couldn't stop my blade, and I injured her badly.
"The battle ended there. For a while, it looked like she would die. But Sagaelen devised a way wherein we fused her with a Mystical Elf. She remained largely the same person, except for a few minor details. The healing abilities, for one, were picked up that way. But more focally, she lost her identity and her memories. She even reacted violently when we tried to remind her. Joseph decided that the best thing for her was to be removed from Cobalt, and eventually she ended up in Landstar.
"That's where the bad blood comes from. He blames me, with good cause. I give him the opportunity to fight. He loses. It's a habit."
Serenity chuckled slightly.
"Aren't you going to ask?"
"What?"
"The obvious question."
"Am I a replacement for her?"
"Yeah, that question."
The two stood in silence. "Am I?"
"No. It may have been what interested me to begin with, but the rest is you."
She drew closer to his arm. "Good to know," she said quietly.
Serenity yawned, and Seto turned wordlessly and headed back toward the cave. She almost protested, but she felt another yawn rising and realized that even in the game she needed sleep. Eventually they made it back to the bandit stronghold, and Seto gently nudged her toward the door.
"Are you coming?" she asked.
"I can't sleep," he admitted. "I'll come in later."
She watched him for a moment, and then gave a quick nod and smile. "Okay," she chirped and headed back into the cave.
Seto walked out a short distance from the cave and drew his sword. Silently, he began to go over the attack routines Shale had taught him. Somehow, it seemed the most fitting memorial. It took nearly an hour to run the gamut of attacks, and by the time he finished he was quite winded. He sat down on the sand and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. "I missed when you came in. You're pretty good," Seto commented as another form stepped out from the shadows.
"Thanks," Damien replied and sat beside him. "Your style really is quite distinctive, y'know."
A grunt came in reply.
"Are you ready for tomorrow? I doubt you're planning on attacking Sandalphon lightly."
"There shouldn't be a battle until we get into the Holy Palace."
"True. But we only really have three combatants."
"When has that stopped us before?"
"It isn't the same, and you know it."
Seto nodded. "We don't have a choice."
"I know. Sucks, doesn't it?" Damien quipped.
"You've been to Sandalphon?"
"Haven't we all? It's practically law to attend a yearly mass in the Holy Palace. Haven't been in years myself, but then, I never did have any respect for the law. But I know the layout, yeah. We've been through the same rhetoric, remember?"
"Yeah," Seto said.
Damien leaned back and looked upward. "You gonna take back the throne?"
Seto sighed. "Yeah. Looks like my fight won't end even after this."
"I'll fight with you."
"Why?"
"Huh?"
"It's not your fight," Seto said.
"I guess. I'm here because this matters, because I knew that it matters. Yeah, I followed because my brother was involved, but I'm still here because I have to fight for this, right? I mean, if I don't, it… could be the friggin' end. But, all the same, fighting with someone… I mean, it means something, right? Anyway, when that fight comes, I'll be there," Damien explained.
Seto rose to his feet, pushing himself up off Damien's shoulder. "Thanks," he muttered.
Damien smirked. "No problem."
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A wind, sweeping across the plains of Kaiba, whisked down the open roof of the cave and into the opening where the fiends waited. The Tyrant looked irritably up at the hole and shook his head. "Tomorrow morning," he hissed quietly.
"Too long," Adramalech spat. "We should attack now."
"Yes!" Azazel agreed emphatically, flapping his fleshy wings. "Let us charge into battle."
The Tyrant turned toward them and silenced their complaints with a glare. "You want to charge into battle?" he asked.
"Yes!" the fiends clamoured in reply.
"And you want to see Remiel and the prelates killed, and the entire church, nay, all of Kaiba, in ruins?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Then you will wait," the Tyrant hissed. "Or do you have such short memories? It was I that united us when we were nothing but warring beasts! It was I that arranged it so that we would be able to spill this blood. It is my vision, my power that makes us strong! Do you question me?"
The fiends murmured among themselves.
"If we attack now, there will be a quick uprising that will be crushed. If we wait, then the fire will spread. First, the plains of Kaiba will be engulfed in battle. Then Cobalt itself will be consumed. Our fire will spread to Sandalphon, and civil war will erupt across this fragile country. They will slaughter each other by the thousands," the Tyrant hissed rabidly, "and we will fight and kill with them. But first… we wait."
Murmurs passed through the assembled fiends, but slowly they all backed down. The Tyrant grinned avariciously and turned his eyes skyward again.
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With his arms folded neatly against his chest and his head slumped only slightly forward, Seto Kaiba may well have been wide-awake. As Mokuba knew, this wasn't the case. Kaiba had passed out after what had become something of a stressful day. At that very moment, Kaiba Corp.'s security was searching the area for Tristan Taylor. Mokuba wasn't sure he wanted them to find him. Whatever Tristan's reasons were, the younger Kaiba was sure that Tristan thought he was doing what was right. When Kaiba's men found him, though, the black-haired boy knew they wouldn't be so understanding.
Mokuba opened up a runtime window for the program and began to go over, for the fifth time that day, the processor log for the few seconds over which Prince Seto became a true AI. It was hard to pinpoint what exactly had happened to spur the computer into motion, and the problem had to be diagnosed before the program made its way out of testing.
Sneaking a peak at his brother, Mokuba couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. After all, Kaiba had planned on supervising the game through the private observation lab so that he could prepare the final tweaks. Now, his brother's perfectionism had to be put on hold because Mokuba had overlooked a potential problem he should have spotted when he'd been checking his brother's code the first time. Of course, Kaiba didn't blame Mokuba, but Mokuba did.
The teen leaned back and glanced over the code again. The problem, of course, was attachment. For whatever reason, Prince Seto had become attached to the girl, which in turn had led to the incident of his creation. The code worked too effectively, or at least, worked beyond the realm of its intended scope.
Lethargically, Mokuba poured himself a cup of coffee. He'd seen his brother pull all-nighters over things like this before. He could do the same thing, if it meant fixing his blunder. Somehow, Prince Seto had to be taken care of. Kaiba was working on that. But Mokuba meant to make sure no further problems arose.
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The Tyrant walked back into the empty space that the fiends had taken for the assembly and strode to the jut of rock in the centre of the chamber. Quietly, he rose to the top of it and grinned at the gathered monsters. "The marching orders are sent. It's a simple matter of time now," he declared.
He squatted on the stone and his purple eyes peered out over the assembly. "Quiet now. Can you hear the footfalls? One hundred soldiers march on Sandalphon."
Straining their ears, the fiends stood in complete silence. In the distance, echoing from above the cavern, they could hear the soft sound of footfalls in unison. Murmurs of excitement rose from the fiends. Soon, they had grown in to full out cheers of joy. The Tyrant silenced them with a wave of his hand. "Our waiting ends soon."
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The wind passed through the streets of Sandalphon and rose beneath Raphael, casting his cloak about. The prelate folded his arms quietly in front of his chest and looked out over the plain to the south, his eyes following the mass of soldiers. "Who are they, Raziel?"
Raziel frowned, "They are Fallacian's men. But since the loss of General Pyrite, my information from them has been unreliable at best. It seems odd that they should march against Sandalphon."
"How many holy guardsmen remain here?"
"Three hundred."
"Do we close off Sandalphon?"
"No," Raziel replied. "That's what he wishes. If we do that, he will be free to take Cobalt nearly uncontested."
"What, then?"
Raziel stroked his chin. "I do not know. War is Azrael's field."
"Charge them," Azrael called as he entered from the palace. "Meet them on the field and stop them outside the city."
"We'll lose a lot of soldiers," Raphael informed him.
"So what? What do their lives mean to us?"
Raphael paused. "Nothing. Send them out."
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With the caverns of the Cur Desert far behind them, the group listened instead to the soft churning of the train. Draped in the black cloak he'd left in Joseph's cave on their previous visit, Seto had managed to get aboard the train from Pinion. It seemed that more waiting was inevitable. Out in the hall of the train, Damien paced. Sagaelen stared blankly at a text, and the Countess murmured old poems to herself. Even Seto tapped his foot impatiently. Serenity simply sat quietly.
Finally, the prince rose and strode out of the booth. He bumped into Damien, who cursed and fell back into another cart, as he passed through the door of the cart. Serenity followed quietly after, pausing only to give Damien a hand off of a tourist's lap.
"Impatient?" she asked as she joined him on the back of the cart.
"I hate waiting," he admitted.
Serenity nodded. "So… this is it."
"It will be."
"Are you scared?"
"No."
Serenity smiled and leaned against his shoulder. "You're such a jerk."
Noiselessly, the folds of Seto's cloak enveloped her. "I should warn you, any of us could die in this battle."
"How is that any different from any other battle?"
"This isn't just any foe. The prelates are elite, and they won't give up without a fight."
"You'll beat them."
"And if they manage to summon the Forbidden One," Seto continued. "I doubt it's possible—"
"Seto," Serenity interjected, "we'll win. We're the good guys, remember?"
The prince scoffed. "Right. It won't be so simple."
Shifting slightly, the girl moved to be face to face with the cloaked prince. "But it will be. You're the best there is, remember?"
His eyes refused to meet hers. Gently, she pressed her lips against his chin. "Remember?"
Jerked forward by Seto's arms on her back, Serenity felt her mouth claimed by the warrior. She quietly pulled herself closer to him, and her face flushed with heat, in spite of the wind.
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Lieutenant Ijolite put his head down against the wind and called the column to a halt. The orders Warlord Fallacian had given him were to force the battle to go as long as possible, letting the fiends take the brunt of the assault to inflict maximum casualties. "Prepare the archers," he said barely over the wind, and the order quickly shifted through the men.
Out from between the colossal towers on either side of the entry to Sandalphon, the holy guardsmen began to march. Ijolite wiped the dust from his polished white armour, grateful that Fallacian had been correct in predicting their course of action.
Once the full opposing column was out, the soldiers began to murmur amongst themselves. The enemy outnumbered them three-to-one. They were now relying on demons.
"Steady! Hold formation!" Ijolite barked, although he felt the same tingle in his spine he was certain they did.
The eunuchs marched in unison, and Ijolite motioned the pikemen to the front of the formation. Once they drew close enough, the fiends would come to their aid, but not until then. Of course, trusting a group of devils seemed ridiculous.
"Hold," Ijolite warned again. "Archers at the ready."
Slowly, the enemy force began to split up into three columns. "They're going to flank us," Ijolite muttered. When the two side columns fell into place on either side of Ijolite's force, retreat would be impossible, and his plan of neutralizing losses would become equally impossible. "Archers, press their flanks, force them toward the centre.
Even as the first volley left the hewn bows of the archers, the centre column charged. "Strong on the front!" Ijolite yelled, and then his voice was drowned out by the sound of weapons clamouring and soldiers falling. He drew his sword and charged into the fray, slashing left and right at the eunuchs that had broken through.
Lieutenant Ijolite cast his eyes about the overwhelming foe, now flanking his force on either side. His life was now in the hands of demons.
A/N: Action, action, action, action, action, action, fluff. Enjoy it while it lasts. The climax is beginning, we've reached the start of the fifth act, and it'll be pretty action based from here on out. This chapter is the last bit of dedicated fluff you'll see for a while. I shall do my utmost to keep the romantic focus going in spite (or because) of the action to follow. Lemme know what you think, and if you see the opportunity, give me some tips of what to improve on. Please.
