CHAPTER 37: RAGING BATTLE

Stories are full of magical creatures living on alien worlds in galaxies far, far away. But perhaps the most mysterious alchemy of all is the way tales take the most mundane objects and make them into something extraordinary.

Is there anything more commonplace than a mirror? What mystery can there be in an item used for checking whether there's spinach stuck between our teeth? An object that tells the story of our aging in the way our search for pimples becomes a check for gray hairs?

And yet in the hands of story-tellers, the humble mirror becomes a detective agency for wicked witches or a portal to a looking-glass world full of playing card armies and fierce – if never fully described – jabberwockies.

But sometimes the scariest use of all is its original one – when we look into its smooth surface and see ourselves.

YAMI'S NARRATIVE

I ran after Kaiba, anger and frustration lending me speed, even as a fog blew in and deepened around me. Ever since I'd met him, Kaiba had asked – no, he'd demanded – that I prove that friendship was real. But how do you tell someone that they're wanted… that they're loved… when they refuse to listen?

I thought of all the times Kaiba had turned from me, had run into the waiting arms of ice monsters and Wicked Worm Beasts, more comfortable in their embrace than mine. Kaiba deserved what he'd gotten now – facing danger in a nightmare world on his own. Except my breath stuck in my throat at the thought of him hurt… and no one deserved to be that alone.

I'd experienced the world through Yugi; his confidence that we existed to care for one another was carried through our shared blood. But Kaiba's reality had never been Yugi's. He didn't prefer his demons – they were all he'd known. That was such a big thing to forget, but I did it over and over.

In his own way, Kaiba had tried to tell me: we'd banished Gozaburo from his body; his voice remained. It had been taunting him, tearing at him the whole time we'd been in this world. It was the last thing Kaiba heard as he fell asleep after we made love; it was the voice he woke up to before receiving my kiss each morning. I'd known he was haunted; I was stunned at how deep the wound ran, like a flaw that could shatter the hardest diamond.

Except he was never shattering ever again. I'd never given up. I wasn't quitting now. Neither would Kaiba. As often as he lost sight of himself, he always found his way back one more time. I'd stood at the center of his soul. I knew the strength that lay there.

The fog parted as suddenly as it had rolled in. Kaiba suddenly appeared in front of me. He was in the middle of a fight. He'd never been as far away as I'd thought. I wondered if the game had hidden him from my sight until I was ready to see clearly.

It took me a moment to recognize the demon in front of Kaiba, even though I'd seen Kaiba face his adoptive father in Noa's virtual world. He was back, flame still running off his enormous, red monster's form. He was impossibly, intimidatingly tall… only Kaiba wasn't intimidated. There was no room for anything but hatred and defiance on his face, for all that he looked a child next to the monster's bulk. A lash swept out; it struck Kaiba across the arms as he reached out to protect his face.

"Seto!" I yelled. I still thought of him as "Kaiba," my proud rival. But I called him by his given name, the name no one else used; it was mine alone.

He turned to face me, still watching the monster in front of him out of the corner of his eye, and I knew Sugoroku was right. Kaiba hadn't expected me to follow.

"You came?" he asked quietly, his face blank. His mouth remained half open.

I was better at command or even reassurance than love. I'd told Kaiba over and over again that everything would be all right; I'd never told him just how precious he was to me.

"Always," I answered. "This is where I want to be… by your side."

He looked at me, weighing something only he could see. He came to a decision and nodded.

"Then stay," he said. A small smile, the kind he only gave Mokuba, graced his face and disappeared as quickly.

Gozaburo tried to take advantage of Kaiba's seeming distraction. He swung again. It was what Kaiba had been waiting for. He side-stepped the whip, called in his katana and swung upwards, partly severing the joint connecting the whip hand at the wrist. The creature dropped the whip and roared in pain. Kaiba darted to the side and swung at the tendons above the monster's enormous heel. With two strokes of his sword he'd gone a long way towards crippling his foe. But this was no Wicked Worm Beast to be taken down with a couple of blows. I doubted Kaiba could kill him. Already Gozaburo had retrieved his whip, ready to wield it with the left hand.

Kaiba grinned. This had been the opening gambit in his counter-attack. He snapped his fingers as if he was still on his duel tower and a holographic stadium full of imaginary spectators were chanting his name. Copycat appeared, shining his mirror at Gozaburo then reflecting its trapped light back at Kaiba. Kaiba seemed to grow; he was engulfed in flame until he was as large and as monstrous as his foe – with one crucial difference: Copycat had duplicated the monster in its original, undamaged form. Now Kaiba had the power to kill his adoptive father and enemy.

But not like this.

Only Kaiba would try to silence Gozaburo's voice by becoming him, his humanity dissolved in flame. Unexpectedly, I felt a curious tenderness for his capacity for always arriving at the wrong conclusion, his steadfastness at marching down the wrong road as quickly as possible. I thought of that line of hieroglyphics now embedded in his coding: "Whatever happens here becomes real." Kaiba might hate me for it, but he wasn't going to be defeated, not like this, with his victory damning him forever.

I played Ground Erosion. The earth opened at Kaiba's feet. Pink and yellow and orange light flew upwards and wrapped itself around his newly created monster's form. He tried to hold on to his inhuman body but he was tossed around by the light. It tore his new form from him as easily as a parent stripping off an infant's clothes before disappearing back into the earth. The ground sealed itself until not even a scar in the dirt remained. Kaiba turned to face me, human once more. I'd expected his anger; it was the pain that almost undid me.

"I was about to win," he whispered. "Why did you stop me?"

"You can't win by becoming as much like him as possible," I said, gesturing to the monster in front of us. "All you can do is lose the most precious thing you have. And what if everything that happens here truly does become real? Is that what you want? Or is it that you just don't care what happens to you?"

"It's my life! You have no right to interfere!" he howled.

In a way Kaiba was right. I had no idea what would happen to me when the game ended. How could I tell him how to live his life when I had such doubts about my own? And yet wasn't caring for him – loving him – its own right?

"You can't ask me to stand here and watch you destroy yourself. Never ask me to stop caring," I said, my voice as low and intense, pitched to reach his ears alone.

"He really does have you on a leash, doesn't he?" Gozaburo laughed. It was hard to recognize anything in his voice but pure malice and hatred. "You're not just a stray dog – you're one that's been broken to heel every time he snaps his fingers."

"No," Kaiba said, but he didn't sound convinced.

"You just keep telling yourself that, but every time you roll over for him, you're just proving me right."

"No," Kaiba said, more firmly this time. "I know you're wrong. I can't help listening to you anyway – and that's the real weakness. That's why I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of you."

"Even by fighting with his weapons? You tried that once. How well did it work out for you?" I asked sarcastically, angered that his adoptive father still had such a hold on him.

Gozaburo laughed again. With my entrance into the game, Kaiba's foe had gained seven more cards he could use at will. He called in Red Potion, healing his wounds instantly.

"Thanks," Kaiba said sourly.

"You're pathetic. You're still hoping he cares," Gozaburo sneered. "He was just waiting to betray you now that he's tired of fucking you – and if you weren't weak enough to want to believe in him, you'd know that."

"It's not a betrayal to beg you to remain yourself, to beg you not to give into the darkness you've fought off so many times. You want to know how much I believe in you? I believe you can find a better way to win – and that you can do it without becoming the monster you just swore to destroy," I said. I wished I could find to words to convince him. I wanted to take him in my arms.

"No matter how much it hurts?" Gozaburo sneered as he played Dark Room of Nightmare. Stone walls rose around us, entombing us within their cold confines. I drew in a deep breath, needing to remind myself that my long-overdue grave hadn't claimed me. Then a cool breeze hit my face. I looked up at the roofless sky. I could see the twilit night above us.

I frowned, considering the card he'd chosen. Surely he couldn't expect a mere change of setting to upset Kaiba? The Dark Room of Nightmare added to battle damage by decreasing an opponent's life points. But although, as in any duel outside, the stronger monster would win, life points were irrelevant here. I looked back at Gozaburo and gasped. Gozaburo had been a creature of pure flame, now shadows swirled around him, flaring out like one of Kaiba's trench coats.

"Predictable," Kaiba muttered.

I shook my head, puzzled. Kaiba caught the movement and glanced at me, rolling his eyes at my confusion. "There's more than one kind of battle damage."

I looked at the tattered sleeves of Kaiba's coat, at the still seeping cuts on his arms and across his chest, and understood.

Gozaburo summoned two monsters to the field. I recognized them from Kaiba's deck: X-Head Cannon and La Jinn, the Genie of the Lamp. The bastard was using Kaiba's monsters against him.

"We're a team, Seto," I said. "My entrance gave him seven extra cards. If you need mine, tell me how you want me to play them and they're yours. I want to help."

"Then stand back so I can fight this battle on my own," Kaiba said.

I started to protest, then held my peace, thinking of the last time we'd faced Gozaburo in that holographic chess game at Kaiba's mansion. Even though we'd beaten him together, even though Kaiba had been the one devising the strategy and orchestrating the moves, my presence had tainted the victory in his eyes.

Kaiba smile was twisted, but it was there nonetheless. "You challenged me to find a better way, and that's just what I'm going to do."

He summoned the Hitotsu-Me Giant on the field, as he'd done to start so many duels. Kaiba surveyed him as dispassionately as he did all his sacrifices. Either X-Head Cannon or La Jinn could have killed the giant duel monster easily. But Kaiba wasn't looking at them; he was staring at Gozaburo. He was willing to throw away one of his remaining six cards to see what Gozaburo would do.

Gozaburo didn't hesitate. He waved his monsters off and grabbed the Hitotsu-Me Giant in his claws, incinerating it instantly. He laughed as it turned to ash and blew away.

I'd never given Anzu or Honda enough credit. It must have been hard for them to stand on the sidelines smiling cheerfully whenever I turned my head.

"You threw away your chance to win, you pathetic fool – and worse, you did it at his bidding," Gozaburo said, nodding in my direction. "You had a chance to defeat me, to be a man, instead of the sniveling girl you are."

Kaiba's face turned white. He pressed his lips together so tightly they disappeared into a thin line, then opened them enough to say, "I thought you'd do that."

The wound on his chest widened; blood dripped from its edges. Kaiba caught his breath; one hand lifted to the gash on his chest. But Gozaburo wasn't the only one who could borrow from Kaiba's deck. I played the Holy Elf's Blessing. She walked over to Kaiba. I tried to repress a flare of jealousy as she touched him, as her fingers played across the wound on his chest. The bleeding slowed and then stopped. She moved on to his arms, stroking them gently before disappearing.

"Tell me Seto, how does it feel to be his pet?" Gozaburo said, as if his words could undo the Holy Elf's blessing and make Kaiba bleed again.

I gritted my teeth, furious at Gozaburo for using Seto's name – the name I thought of as my own – to mock him.

I refused to acknowledge Gozaburo even to refute his accusation. I said to Kaiba, "I promised not to interfere, but I can't watch you in pain and not try to ease it."

"I remember the first time you said that," Kaiba answered. "Do you remember the tag-team match we fought at Battle City against Lumis and Umbra?" he asked, as if this was an ordinary conversation, as if he wasn't standing in the middle of a duel facing a giant monster in a limestone walled tomb.

"The one where you got everyone so pissed at you it was hard to tell who wanted to push you off that tower more? How could I forget it?" I asked.

Kaiba smiled briefly, then said, "Do you remember when I lost my Blue Eyes White Dragon? Did you mean it when you said you'd take revenge for me, even if it cost us the match?"

"Every word," I assured him.

"Or was it just a ploy to get me to stop and think? You said that anger was clouding my judgment."

"It was. I would have done it anyway," I said.

"You say so many things so casually - as though they're universal. But they're not. Anger fuels me. It's what got us out of that orphanage, it's what enabled me to beat Gozaburo, to stand up to the Big 5," Kaiba insisted.

"It's passion that fuels you, Seto – not anger. There's a difference."

Kaiba turned back to La Jinn and X-Head Cannon. It was hard to tell if he was talking to Gozaburo or me as he said, "But sometimes, hatred really does make you stupid. There's a reason you never put two monsters with equal attack strengths on the field at the same time. It makes it so easy to do this…"

He played Brain Control. The ridiculously oversized brain looked comically out of place, like something from a children's cartoon, as it floated through the air to hover over La Jinn, taking automatic control of his actions. The demon stroked the giant lamp at his side, laughing gleefully the whole time, not caring if he was about to die as long as he could take someone else – even a comrade - to the graveyard with him. X-Head Cannon tried to resist, moving backwards against a sudden wind before being pulled irresistibly into La Jinn's lamp. La Jinn burst into a black and purple flame the moment X-Head Cannon disappeared, until all that was left was a soot covered lamp that slowly melted into a puddle of darkened gold and sank beneath the dirt.

"Thank you for sending both my Light and Dark monsters to the graveyard. It enables me to call the Chaos Emperor Dragon to destroy you," Gozaburo said. It was another monster from Kaiba's deck. The tall, scaled monster appeared in front of us, its webbed wings stretched wide. Most dragons were magnificent. This one, for all his size, was an ugly, pinched-in creature.

"If you had any doubt that I'd be willing to pay any price to get rid of you – here's the proof," Kaiba said as he summoned his Blue Eyes White Dragon to stand in opposition.

It was all I could do to keep from crying out. Their attack strengths were equal. Even if he managed to take out the Chaos Emperor Dragon, Kaiba was going to lose the dragon he'd called his pride and soul. And, as usual, he'd thrown it onto the dueling field without any spell or trap cards to protect it.

Gozaburo shook his fiery head. "Did you really think I'd send out my dragon without a back-up plan?" he asked as he equipped it with Dragon Nails. The Chaos Emperor Dragon lurched forward, swinging wildly. The steel tipped talons caught the Blue Eyes White Dragon across the neck, severing the jugular, turning its silver-white scales red. Kaiba grimaced, but refused to turn away, watching as his dragon fell forward and turned to a gray mist that dissipated before our eyes.

"Look at you. You're lost. You can't even find your way out of the game you designed. Just like you keep pinning your hope to those dragons, and they always fail. Just like you. Your brother needed you to be strong. Instead you threw away the things that gave you power. You said it yourself a moment ago… you never would have been able to rise so high without your anger and hatred. They're what give your dragons their wings." Gozaburo's voice was now seductively soft.

"I tried to kill him too. Every time I'm tempted to listen to you, I remember that," Kaiba said.

"Anger… hatred… cruelty… they're not like a coat you can take on and off. They're what you are. It's time to drop the pretense you could ever be anything more. You can't play with a deck you were never meant to use," Gozaburo went on, still in that damnably gentle voice.

"I'm not failing – and neither are my dragons," Kaiba said, but he looked as lost as he always did when his beasts were sent to the graveyard.

"Its light was so easy to extinguish – just like yours," Gozaburo said.

"Go ahead and try," Kaiba sneered as he played Consecrated Light. It floated above us, a smiley-faced soap bubble spinning in the middle of a rainbow – all pastels and pinks. Kaiba stood out like shadow, silhouetted against its brightness. It was the last card I expected him to play; its buoyant light was so at odds with the funeral mood that the loss of Kaiba's dragons always engendered.

The Chaos Emperor Dragon swung forward again, but this time his claws swept harmlessly through Consecrated Light. The pink bubble at its center reformed; it smiled at the dragon. Dark monsters were powerless to hurt it. The dragon stumbled forward, thrashing wildly, but it was like trying to fight a sunbeam.

"I let darkness in once. I'll have to live with that. But you can't break through again," Kaiba said.

Gozaburo sprung forward, swinging his whip, but his attack had no more effect than the Chaos Emperor Dragon's had. Consecrated Light smiled at him with undiminished sweetness. Gozaburo grabbed for the seemingly powerless monster, but each time Consecrated Light slipped through his grasp. Gozaburo threw back his head and roared in frustration.

"You can't touch him. Are you going to pretend that you're not just as much a creature of darkness as the Chaos Emperor Dragon? Remember who you're talking to. I know better," Kaiba sneered.

"I still have one last monster to call to the field – and the puny thing you've summoned has no attack or defense points to stand against it. It's weak like you. You've thrown away your last chance to see your brother. You really are worthless, aren't you? You've even forgotten that losers die."

"How many times do you have to beat Gozaburo before you stop listening to him?" I yelled in frustration.

Kaiba whirled around to look at me. The color drained from his face. His gaze was wide and open –like he was staring into his worst nightmare. Except I'd seen Kaiba wake up from his nightmares before, and he'd never looked this stricken. I glanced down, expecting to see a knife in my hands; I was that sure I'd stabbed him.

Kaiba turned his back on me and screamed at his opponent, "Even if you're right, even if thinking I can change is a fool's dream, even if every time Yami and I look at each other all he sees is the reflection of how badly I've screwed up, of how some things can never be forgiven – it doesn't matter. I'm never becoming the monster that tried to kill my brother again. I'm never becoming you. If I have to move forward with you clawing at my back every step of the way, I will. But you're not stopping me. Play your last card so I can win."

Gozaburo summoned a Blue Eyes White Dragon of his own as the ultimate insult, planning to kill Kaiba with his own beast. But Kaiba smiled as he turned over Torrential Tribute. Gozaburo had played his final monster. Now Kaiba had swept him off the field. But the gusting wind and lightning didn't end with the dragon's disappearance. Instead it intensified until it was strong enough to extinguish even the flame monster Gozaburo had become.

"You chose to become a monster; you thought it made you more powerful. I don't know what else there is, or how else to be – but I know that's not strength. Now go to the graveyard with all the others," Kaiba said as Torrential Tribute drowned the last flicker of Kaiba's adoptive father, leaving the twilit sky clear and the field in front of us empty.

Gozaburo was gone, but Kaiba didn't relax. He pivoted on his heel and leaned back slightly, spine stiff, arms crossed in front of his chest, ignoring the half-healed wounds adorning both. He glared down at me. For Kaiba, the battle hadn't ended.

"That wasn't Gozaburo," Kaiba said.

"Kaiba?" I asked, staring at him in bewilderment.

"Yeah. It was a Kaiba all right. You just had the wrong one. That wasn't Gozaburo. It was me." He laughed. It was painful to hear. "How can you say I'm different from my adoptive father when you can't even tell us apart?"

"That monster wasn't you, Seto. Never believe that. It was your fear and your doubts. I didn't recognize it because when I look at you I see a dragon flying free… as powerful as your Blue Eyes White Dragon, beautiful as the Shimmer Dragon you worked on before we came here."

"Drop it, Yami," he said.

"No! Are you calling me a liar?" I yelled. "I've stood inside your soul. I shattered it. That monster was not you." I took a deep breath, about to say something irrevocable. "I know the man I love."

Kaiba stared at me. His lips parted, then closed.

"I'm not asking for a response," I added quickly. "I wanted you to know what I feel, how I see you. That's all. Sometime I feel like I don't know anything. I had no idea you were under siege even though we've been together every waking moment and watched each other's sleep. But the one thing I do know is that monster may be tearing at your soul, but it's not a part of it."

"You see a dragon. Gozaburo saw a weapon. That's what he called me," Kaiba said.

"When?" I asked.

"That first time I saw how my designs had been used. Do you remember the design for the trap card, Burning Land?"

I nodded, seeing holographic fire sweep across the land, consuming everything it touched, picturing those vibrantly alive flames and the dead earth beneath them.

"That's what it looked like, seeing the missile I'd designed, detonate as it reached the ground. I'm not going to lie… it was beautiful. And that's when Gozaburo said it: that that missile was me… it was my anger, my hatred, my need to destroy. He was right. Everything I've ever designed has been a part of me. Everything."

"But you would have turned it into a hologram. The anger would still have been there; it wouldn't have killed." I thought of Burning Land again… of all of Kaiba's fire cards… how the flames seemed to dance in the air… how Phoenix Reborn's fiery plumage carried him back from death. "Fire isn't only destruction, it's life as well… it's desire."

Kaiba said, "I wanted to kill you once. I wanted to prove that nothing mattered but power and I was ready to murder anyone who got in my way."

"And I would have let you fall to your death on Pegasus' tower. You've always understood, haven't you? Even Yugi was horrified."

He shrugged. It felt like absolution. "I know what it's like to lose sight of everything but winning. I would have done it again tonight. It would have been just like the Wicked Worm Beast all over again… another meaningless victory."

"But you didn't. You won on your own terms," I reminded him.

Kaiba nodded. "So I did," he said, a note of satisfaction finally creeping into his voice.

I was under no illusion that Kaiba had silenced his monster forever. It was possible that for as long as he lived, his demons would follow behind, now nearer, now father away – even as Seto, as he'd promised, continued to move forward in spite of them. But I was glad he'd had this victory. And I was grateful that the game had made his demons flesh and bone, had put them in a form where Seto could do what he did best – fight against all odds and win.

I thought of the cards Kaiba had been working on after we'd banished Gozaburo from his body, if not his soul… the day I'd realized he'd planned to kill himself if we couldn't. It suddenly struck me that last quartet of cards – the Phoenix Reborn bolting like a comet across the sky… the Shimmer Dragon exhaling crystalline fire, the delicacy with which it was drawn at odds with its diamond-hard scales… the wobbly determination of Fledgling Grace as the untried colt stood on its own for the first time… the feeling of grace that fell from the sky with Light of Hope… these cards were all about life.

And where did I fit in? I felt alive, and yet I was in an imaginary world. I had to find out which was real. I owed the answer to Kaiba – and to myself.

Kaiba flopped down awkwardly on the ground, too worn out to stand. For once exhaustion had stolen his usual grace… and he'd let me witness the theft. I'd told Kaiba I loved him. He hadn't answered. But he'd let me stay and watch him duel his own fears; he'd let me see the monster he was afraid of becoming. Once, I'd forced my way into his soul. This time, he'd invited me in.

I sat down next to him. Up close I could see that while the Holy Elf had patched him up, the cuts hadn't fully healed. I started to call in the salve again, trying to remember how much was left.

"Leave it, Yami. They don't hurt," he ordered, hugging his arms across his chest again.

"If we don't take care of them…"

"What?" he asked, laughing harshly. "They'll scar? I didn't need the Holy Elf's Blessing. I could have managed."

"I know. I never doubted you'd win."

"I didn't. Not all the way. Not yet. But I will one day." Kaiba shook his head. "I still don't get it. How can you walk the road of battle with a partner?"

It had been hard enough to listen to those cruel taunts, to see how deeply they'd reached their target when I'd thought the voice had been Gozaburo's. To know that it was Kaiba's…

"Seto, it's okay to need," I said, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"To need what?" he asked irritably.

"Just to need," I answered.

Was this why I was still chained to the Puzzle? Because as much as I was growing to hate being an insubstantial phantom, ghosts didn't need? Kaiba had faced his fears and had, at least for the moment, won. Could I do the same?

I looked down and my gaze was caught – as it so often was – by those older scars, the ones that would never vanish, no matter how much salve I rubbed into them. I leaned over and traced the long scar on his side. He shivered.

"Stop that. I'm sick of you focusing on them," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the last thing I want is your pity."

"You couldn't be more wrong!" I said.

"When you look at them, it's pretty obvious I couldn't protect myself, that I was powerless to stop a damn thing. What else could you see?"

"Strength," I answered.

KAIBA'S NARRATIVE

It suddenly hit me: the battle was over.

I'd won. I wanted to gloat. I wanted to take it out on the nearest available object. I wanted to celebrate. And Yami was sitting next to me. Inexplicably, against all expectation, he was here at my side.

I'd known I'd be facing a challenge from the moment I'd strode away from Yami and Sugoroku. I'd known I was going to be alone. Sugoroku couldn't follow and Yami was too pissed off to care. When I realized just who my enemy was – that all my anger and bitterness, all the stuff I'd kept bottled up – had been given solid form, I'd been glad no one would be around to witness the fight.

Then Yami had followed.

He'd stuck around through the whole mess… he'd seen all my pitiful fears and doubts… and he'd just told me I was strong.

Sugoroku had said once that there was a difference between power and strength. I didn't know any other way to be, how to live unless it was one step away from being consumed by my own anger and bitterness, but that was a good place to start. I'd chased power all my life. But I valued strength.

Yami was sitting next to me. I kept saying it to myself, kept sneaking looks at him. It took some getting used to. I'd run away and he'd come after me. He'd seen it all, he'd stayed, and he was a finger's length away.

My shirt and coat were in tatters, my chest was bare. Yami had too many clothes on. I knew the body under them, all lean muscles and wiry strength. I wanted to see it, to hold him in my arms, to press him into the ground as I followed him down. I wanted more from him than I'd ever asked for before. I wanted to possess him, to be a part of his body as thoroughly as he'd invaded my mind. He'd marched into my soul at Death-T and he'd never really left. I wanted to claim a piece of Yami for myself. Even more, I wanted him to feel the same ache, the same desire to let me in. I wanted him to want me.

I shoved Yami towards the ground, harder than I'd meant to. I expected him to push back. Instead went he flat on his back, utterly pliant, and looked up at me. I followed up my advantage. It was part of my nature, after all. I stripped off his shirt while capturing his lips, thrusting my tongue down his throat as far as it would go, until it was halfway between a kiss and a gag. I ground my hips against him, hard, while my leg pushed its way between his. I was frustrated by the clothes that still stood between us. Somehow I'd managed to trap his hands above his head; I was holding them both captive with my own. I'd never won a match against Yami, and here I was, pinning him to the ground, hearing him moan my name as I ground against him.

He looked like prey.

Was that all this was? A way to finally tell myself I'd won, that I'd come out on top? Worse, I could hear a voice in my head like an echo from the challenge I'd just endured, telling me that I had to hold Yami down or he'd never stay.

Instantly, I loosened my grasp. Yami could have pushed me off if he had wanted to, but he didn't. I leaned down and kissed him again, so that I was too close to get a good look at him, so that I wouldn't have to see the man who'd rescued Mokuba, the man who'd handed me my first defeat, looking defenseless. So I wouldn't have to wonder if that was what had run through Yami's mind every time that our positions had been reversed, every time he'd looked down on me. Despite all his protests, had he seen someone helpless? Had that been the turn-on; what made him go through with it?

I stopped moving; our lips were barely touching. I heard a snort and risked raising my head to look at Yami. Even with me still trapping his hands, he didn't look weak. He was smirking. His eyes had darkened to the color of dried blood. He had the same arrogant expression on his face as he wore for all our duels – especially the tag-team ones – the look that said he knew something I didn't and was waiting for me to catch a clue. Then his expression softened. I was willing to bet he was remembering everything he'd heard tonight, because suddenly, he looked like the man who'd chased after me, the man who'd stopped me from becoming my worst fears, who'd seen everything there was to see – and had told me he loved me, afterwards.

He looked like Yami. And, of course, he thought this was the perfect time to talk.

"Seto, passion and anger aren't the same. You can share one but not the other. You can have aggression without contempt." His smirk widened to a grin. "You should try it some time – starting now."

His words sounded as plausible as a marketing pitch, but I wasn't buying… not totally. There was something I needed to know. "Every time you've done this to me… every time I've lain beneath you… you felt like you were winning a duel… like you were beating me all over again, didn't you? Don't lie."

His eyes narrowed; the grin slid off his face. He really did look like we were dueling. "Sometimes all I can hear is the blood pounding through my body. Then I look down at you, ready to give me a piece of yourself you've never given anyone… I see your eyes, for once unguarded and looking into mine, for once, truly the mirror of your soul… and I do feel triumphant, like I've won something infinitely precious. Everything my body screams at me to do… to take… matches what I know in my heart. Yes, it feels like winning – but that doesn't mean one of us has to lose. I don't… I couldn't think less of you in the moment of expressing my love. I swear it."

Something about our position… about the way he was lying almost bonelessly beneath me as I pinned him to the ground with my hips, effectively immobilizing him… made it easier to talk.

"I don't know if I can match that," I said.

The cocky grin was back. "Of course you can. Or you wouldn't be hesitating now."

I'd sneered at the way Yami kept saying he trusted me, but now I wanted to believe him.

"You can have passion without anger," he repeated.

His legs were hooked around mine. His eyes were still wine-dark and intent. Yami was just as fierce as always; I was just as driven, just as relentless. Just as eager for more. And like Yami had said, all I could hear was the echo of my blood as it pounded through my veins. The sight of him lying there, waiting impatiently for me to take him… it thrilled me more than any duel.

It was time to prove that Yami was right about me.

It didn't take long to lose the rest of our clothes. Then I was the one covering him, moving across him, rolling over him like a fire across the earth. But he wasn't passive and this wasn't Burning Land. I wasn't taking anything; I wasn't sucking all the energy out of him and keeping it for myself, leaving him barren and empty. We were both a part of this heat growing between us; the way kindling and oxygen combine to become flame. This was pure, raw need. It was the same ache I'd felt every time Yami touched me, bringing the same promise of completion.

All the things I'd worried about, all the things I'd feared feeling, feared becoming, fell away. As new as this felt, it was the same, and if I'd been a praying kind of person, I would have given thanks. For all that it felt like anger, for all it had my blood singing the same way, it wasn't. It was what I'd experienced every time we'd made love and discounted because I'd been too busy afterwards trying to sort out winners and losers, trying to rank us in some leader board that existed only in my mind.

This was passion. It was a need that fed on itself until nothing else existed but this craving, until nothing would satisfy it but this joining. Until nothing mattered but the way Yami filled my senses, the sound of him moaning my name, the sight of him beneath me, his hair in matted strands across his face as his eyes drifted shut and then opened to stare, dazed, into mine, the feel of his sweat-slick body under me, the indescribable exhilaration of us merging together… of my body burning with hunger everywhere we touched… the headlong, heady feeling of everything rushing together, like fire gathering before a soon to be opened door, holding itself in wait in that last moment of anticipation. And then the door opened. I was drowning in sensation. It moved over and through us like a wave rolling over a burning land, consuming the fire and bringing peace.

Yami was right. This was winning. And there were no losers.

I lay on top of him, spent for the moment, then rolled off. Our hands were touching. I expected Yami to say, "I told you so," but he didn't. He crawled into my arms. I enjoyed feeling his now familiar weight against my heart.

"I keep trying to surround myself with light… Mokuba… my holograms… my dragons… but it feels like the darkness is always just one move away," I said, knowing it was an offering for my earlier doubts.

"Is that why you never let this world experience true night?" he asked.

I snorted. Trust Yami to be so romantic about something that was purely a matter of business strategy. "That was a commercial decision. People don't want to pay money to stumble around in the dark."

"Was that all it was?" He reached up to cup my cheek. "I don't want you to erase the things that make you Kaiba. Did you think I would pick the name Yami but never learn to embrace the darkness?"

I moved slightly and smiled into his hand. I reached up and took it in my own, only now I wasn't capturing it; he wasn't my hostage. I held his hand as my tongue swirled around his fingers, as I sucked each one in turn. He nuzzled my chest. We were sated, but this felt nice. It was companionship, I guess. That was the word Yami would have used. For all he'd talked about the power of unity, I was pretty sure this had never been what he'd had in mind. It was the closest I could come to understanding it though.

Yami had said he loved me. I hadn't known what to reply. I'd never used the word myself. Like friendship, it had seemed like a concept that had no place in my life except as it applied to Mokuba, and Yami wasn't my brother. It certainly wasn't a word I'd ever expected anyone but Mokuba to say to me… not say and mean, anyway. But unfair as it was, since I still had nothing to contribute on that score, I wouldn't mind hearing Yami say it again.

He had slipped his hand out of my mouth; he was brushing the hair off my forehead. His mouth had moved to my neck; his tongue was making little whirling motions against it. I could feel him start to harden a little as he pressed against me, could feel the first re-stirrings of my own arousal. It was different though, not as fast or as furious… desire without the urgency that would soon accompany it. Contradictory as it sounds, it felt almost serene, and that momentary sense of peace made it possible to ask, "Why did you say it?"

"What?" Yami asked without raising his head, his warm breath teasing the skin of my neck.

"That you love me."

He lifted his head at that and looked at me, the same direct look as always. "Because it's true. For the longest time the only thing real about me… the only thing that was truly and uniquely mine was my voice. You let me stay with you throughout that challenge. You set yourself over and over to live up to my belief in you. I've never seen anyone say more with silence than you – but there are times I need to speak… I need to hear myself say the words, because for the first time, I can."

He dropped his head back to my neck, biting and sucking harder now, claiming my attention. His explanation had been simple enough. I would insist to my dying day that I hadn't needed him to say that he loved me, that I didn't need anything. But as I felt my heart start to race from everything Yami was doing to me, as I felt myself lose everything again but this need to touch Yami and have him stroke me in return, I was left with the realization: I may not have needed Yami to say anything, but I'd wanted to hear it, nonetheless.

Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm really curious… when I wrote the chapter I wanted it to seem like the monster could be Gozaburo, since a lot of what he was saying were things that came out of Gozaburo's "training." I wanted it to be a surprise when it turned out to be Kaiba himself, but I also wanted that to fit, to feel like the monster he was facing was sort of taunting him with all the things that Kaiba has never been able to throw off from his adoptive father's influence. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if people could let me know if you were surprised to find out it wasn't Gozaburo and if the way it turned out made sense.

I ended up being nervous about a lot in this chapter. I can see Kaiba being really hung up on sexual positions because he basically over-analyzes everything in terms of winning and losing and what it says about power. He probably doesn't brush his teeth until he convinces himself that it means he's chalking up a victory over cavities, and I don't see sex being the exception. So I could see him tying himself up in knots about what he was feeling and what Yami might be feeling. A lot of it is actually stuff he's been going back and forth about in his head, and I realized after writing it that he finally found a way to talk to Yami about some of what's been going on with him.

Review Note: I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

As always, comments would be adored…