I really do not have anything to say actually. Mainly because I've been working on this chapter for half the day and I want to go to bed. So: Enjoy (You are a horrible person if you enjoy this btw)

Chapter 36: Darkness revealed

"Well... I guess this is goodbye then." Anzu said as she turned around to leave Kaiba's office.

No word had ever hurt him half as much as those. It felt like his heart was ripped out of his chest with an ice blade. Like the whole world had suddenly turned black. He just stood there, not knowing what he should do. He had long stopped pretending he didn't care about Anzu. However he had been more than content of not taking things any further than they needed. But now, If he did nothing he was going to lose her for good. He couldn't lose her, he couldn't bear the thought of it. She made him fell alive again. He couldn't remember ever feeling anywhere near as good as he felt when she was with him. Whenever she smiled at him, whenever she touched him, or kissed him, he couldn't even begin to put those feelings into words. Yet if he opened up to her...Trusting people had never brought him anything but pain and betrayal. He couldn't, he just couldn't trust her...

"I should have let her kill you." He said, in a icy tone of voice.

Anzu froze when she heard those words. Without thinking, she quickly turned around and raised her arm to slap him. However, Kaiba caught her wrist before she could even touch him. The moment she looked up at him, all her anger instantly turned to fear. The coldness of his eyes froze her blood. She should have known better than to raise to his provocation, especially in this situation, when Kaiba's mental state was uncertain...

"Let go of me." She said in what she hoped was a calm tone of voice.

"Make me." Was Kaiba's answer.

Despite herself, Anzu couldn't keep hiding her raising fear. The memories of the other night were still too fresh. She tried to pull her arm out of his grip, but it did little good to her cause. Seeing her quickly losing her confidence, Kaiba smirked down at her.

Anzu panicked when she saw the look in Kaiba's eyes, the same look he had that night. With her free hand she tried to pry his hand away from her wrist but before she could do anything useful he grabbed her other wrist and pushed her back against the wall.

Trapped, Anzu could do nothing but to stare up at him. "Seto...please..." She tried to plead with him, but she was at a loss as to what she should say. She didn't understand what was going on and had no idea what to do or what to expect.

Kaiba looked down at her for a few seconds, then, to Anzu's surprise, he swiftly closed the distance and kissed her. That was probably the last thing Anzu had expected and thus she offered little to no resistance as Kaiba deepened the kiss, the thought of stopping him never even crossed her mind. He was being rougher than usual, possessive, controlling...dangerous. Weirdly enough, Anzu could't help herself but to feel parts of her stirring and responding to Kaiba's actions. That's what brought her back to reality, this was wrong, so wrong.

She tried to turn her head away, but Kaiba let go of one of her arm and used his hand to tilt her head up. With her now free arm, Anzu tried to push him back, but he was too close for her to put any real strength in it. Anyway, it wouldn't have changed anything, there was just no way she could physically overpower him. Desperate to get away, Anzu did the last thing she could think of: she bit his lower lip as hard as she could.

Kaiba hissed and pulled back instantly. The flash of anger on his face scared the hell out of Anzu. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and raised her available arm to protect herself, bracing herself for whatever might come next. However, he didn't hit her. Anzu tensed up again when she felt him move, but he only rested his forehead against the wall, somewhere over her head. "You should go." He whispered as he let go of her other wrist.

Anzu didn't need to be told twice. Still shaking, she slipped away from him and quickly made for the door of the office. When she reached the door, she let out a breath she hadn't even known she was holding in. She had made it out somewhat unscathed, now she could leave, go back to her life and forget all of this mess. She looked back, Kaiba had let himself slide down with his back against the wall and was now sitting on the ground, looking away from her. Anzu could not help but think about how vulnerable he looked right now and how she was the one responsible for it. When she first tried to approach Kaiba, everyone tried to stop her. Warning her that she would only hurt them both. She hadn't listened, she had kept going, made her way into his life, through his walls and in his heart... But she wasn't strong enough to deal with what she found there, and now... "You're an idiot." She whispered to herself before closing the door.

Kaiba closed his eyes when he heard her leave. He told himself that it had been a mistake from the start, he never should have let her get anywhere this close to him that it didn't matter and he didn't care, knowing that eventually it would become the truth. His eyes snapped open when he heard the sound of someone sitting down next to him. He turned his head around and was stunned to see Anzu. Silently, without a word, she sat down next to him and rested her head against his chest.

"What are you doing?" Kaiba asked suspiciously, his eyes narrowing slightly. Her actions confused him and he didn't know what to think anymore.

"I'm staying." Anzu answered, trying her best to hide her fear. Truth be told, she was still quite shaken up by the whole ordeal and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't afraid.

However, her discomfort didn't go unnoticed by Kaiba, who misinterpreted it. "Just leave me, I don't need your pity."

Anzu snorted. "All the pity in the world would not be enough to keep me here." The probably wasn't the right thing to say, Anzu could practically feel Kaiba frown. "Seto...What were you thinking when you put yourself between me and that woman?"

Unsure where this was going, Kaiba answered carefully. "I...wasn't thinking. I just had to protect you."

"Didn't the thought that you might die cross your mind? Weren't you afraid?"

"...Yes." Kaiba answered hesitantly.

"Then why did you still do it?"

"Because it didn't matter, so long as you were safe..."

Anzu smiled against him. "I'm not here because I pity you, nor because I feel responsible. I am afraid and lost, I know I might get hurt, all my common sense it telling me go get away from you and forget all of this. I tried to leave, but I can't, because I don't care about all of this. I care about you. We'll make it through this."

Slowly, making sure not to scare her, Kaiba put his arms around her. "What did I ever do to deserve someone like you?" He asked softly.

Anzu sighed. "You're a much better person then you give yourself credit for."

Kaiba gave no answer, but Anzu did feel the shift in Kaiba's mood. Telling her Kaiba was not convinced by her words. They stayed in silence after that. Kaiba was deep in thought, Anzu didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but she could follow his train of emotion by the way he was breathing, his heartbeat, the way his body would sometime tense or whenever he'd start stroking her arm or play with her hair.

Kaiba found himself wishing that this moment would never end. Right now, with Anzu laying against him, he felt at peace. But eventually he knew it would end, and reality would come back. Even though Anzu had said she'd stay with him...things just couldn't stay the way they were. He didn't want to hurt her again... For a moment, he considered leaving... but then what was the point of everything he did so far? No, he wanted to be with her. And even though he knew Anzu would stay, it wasn't right of him to make her go through all this without even understanding why.

No matter how much she cared for him, he knew that eventually it would become too much for her. In a few months...a year, five, or maybe more. He didn't know how long it would take, but one day, it would be too much for even her. And when that day would come, he could not blame her. He didn't want this. Aside from his brother, she was the first person who ever deeply cared for him and the only one he ever cared for. He had come too far to back out now. He cared too much already... He couldn't lose her now, nor ever, that meant that if he wanted things to work, he had no choice but to trust her.

"I wouldn't have let you stay that night... If I had known there was the slightest chance that that could have happened." Kaiba said after a long moment.

"It's ok..." Anzu said, shifting slightly so that she could look up at Kaiba's face.

"No it's not." Kaiba said. "I could have killed you...would have, if Mokuba hadn't stopped me."

"I know you didn't mean to." Anzu said.

"That still does no make it right... I'm sorry...for everything." He stayed silent for a few moments before he spoke again. "How much did Mokuba tell you?"

Anzu hesitated for a moment, not sure exactly where Kaiba was going with this question. "Not much... He said that sometime when you were younger you started having nightmare and that there were... minor accidents. That he thought everything you went through lately probably had something to do with it happening again now."

Kaiba frowned. "What else?"

Anzu hoped that she wasn't going to put Mokuba in trouble as she answered. She told him what Mokuba had told her, about how he changed after Gozaburo almost killed him, and how it esclated until the day Gozaburo died and until they met.

"It's not exactly how things happened... I don't expect you to understand everything...there are things you just can't understand unless you live it." Kaiba said, looking ahead. He took a deep breath, as if trying to put his thoughts in order.

"My mom died giving birth to Mokuba, my father died five years later...that much you know already. I don't know why, but our family sent us to an orphanage not long after. Mokuba was 5, cute and bright, he would have been adopted easily enough. But ten years old barely ever got adopted. Usually, they'd stay for a few months, then are moved from one foster family to another until they turn 18 and the government stops providing for them. It's the first thing you learn when you enter the orphanage. Gozaburo Kaiba was my only chance to avoid becoming a number in the system and have a life... Of course I had no idea what kind of man he was. In retrospective, a foster home doesn't seem that bad."

"Calling Gozaburo a monster is an understatement. I got my first beating mere hours after entering the mansion. It only went downhill from there. Gozaburo wanted a perfect heir, so everyday he 'trained' me, like I was a dog or something. He'd beat me whenever I gave a wrong answer, took too long to answer, didn't walk straight, had a tone in my voice he didn't like or just because he felt like it. Most of the time I didn't even know why. There are no words to tell you how it was. Living in constant pain and fear, never knowing when the next beating would come. Even at night, every once and a while when he'd had a bad day he'd take his frustration on me. The helplessness... I was only a kid, Gozaburo was way stronger than me. He could have snapped my neck any moment and there wasn't a single thing I could do to stop him."

Listening silently, Anzu took his hand into hers and squeezed lightly. She had known helplessness, when Kaiba had been chocking her and she had realized that there wasn't anything she could do to stop him. But that had been only a fleeting moment in her life. Living with that feeling for years like Kaiba had...Anzu wasn't sure she'd be able to take it. No, she knew she couldn't, she wasn't that strong. "But you made it through, for Mokuba." She said, she had always admired Kaiba for everything he did for his little brother.

However, Kaiba snorted as a darkness appeared in his eyes. "No...No amount of love, would ever make anyone willingly go through that, no matter how strong they are. If I could have left, I would have, with or without Mokuba... and I did try."

To say that Anzu was shocked by Kaiba's words, and the coldness with which he said them, would be an understatement. She was totally unable to look away from Kaiba's eyes. She had never seen them so dull and lifeless before. Anzu wasn't sure if it was because he was trying to detach himself from his feelings of those time or if this was what he had been feeling. She realized it was likely the first time he spoke about those times, after trying to forget it for so long.

"The truth is: I could not leave, Gozaburo would never had allowed it and there was no way I could ever hope to escape him. Telling myself it was all for Mokuba was nothing more than a way to try and cope with it. I needed all my suffering to have a meaning. But it didn't work for very long..."

Anzu didn't know what to say. It was like everything she thought she knew about Kaiba was a lie. That was when everything suddenly clicked together and she realized the real meaning of what Kaiba had said earlier. "What did you mean when you said that you tried to leave..." She asked as she sat up straighter to look at him directly in the face.

Kaiba chuckled darkly when he saw that she was catching on. "Gozaburo was always a very careful and composed man, always in perfect control of every situation. Everything he did, he did it with utmost precision. I barely have any scar to show what he did to me. He never would have accidentally hurt me seriously enough to threaten my life unless he meant to kill me... and I wouldn't be here if he had."

Anzu felt as if the temperature suddenly dropped 10 degree. "You..."

"I tried to kill myself."