SandstormAmaterasuZira: Thanks! And I would have to agree about the fight scene… I have this thing where I have to be in this exact state of mind to write a fight scene well and I really wasn't in that state of mind when I was trying to get that chapter finished (part of it probably comes from wanting to finish this before the year ends and also that I'm so done with this story, I've been working on it for too long ;.;) This chapter will make up for it though, thanks for the review!
Velgamidragon: We'll just have to see if Seto still has to pay for Joey's wedding, won't we? After all, the chapter following this one so everything will come together then! Thanks for the review!
MythCreatorWriter: Oh my gosh, I would not be surprised if Batman was Seto… I actually had an idea a couple years back to write a story like that, where Seto was like Batman, a vigilante hero in the city and Mokuba was like Robin. It was pretty cool but never lifted off the ground. About the fight scene, yeah, it's like I explained to Sandstorm, if I'm not in that exact state of mind, fight scenes don't come out well. But I'm so happy we're almost done with this and with only a week left to put the next chapter up! I hope I can make it. Thanks for the review!
PlayTheGameWithBacon: Gozaburo could probably use a couple of those things… he's so messed up in the head. You have to admit, though, it does make him a great villain for a story! Thanks for the review!
Cuteandsweet: Aw, thank you so much! It warms me to read such a comment. I'm glad you liked the last chapter and I hope you enjoy what I have left to offer in this story. Thanks again!
Axl Howlett: Hello new reader! You came just in time for the second to last chapter before everything comes to an end. I'm glad you liked what you read and thanks for the review! Enjoy.
Chapter 49: Radicalism
A breath, a single breath was drawn from his mouth. Suddenly, time was passing by slower. Everything around him had disappeared into darkness. The only thing that remained was Gozaburo, standing across from him… and the gun in his hand. The gun was pointed in another direction from Seto, but Gozaburo's eyes were staring directly at him. The gun was not meant to physically wound Seto… though it was meant to hurt him in every other way possible. Gozaburo knew this and took pleasure from it.
Time began to pass normally again and Seto snapped back to reality.
"Don't hurt her," Seto stated, trying hard not to let the desperation seep into his words but it wasn't working. He was so worried he didn't think he could keep his composure for much longer. The thought of Gozaburo killing Kisara right in front of him was close to sending him into mental hysteria.
"Why would I do that when this is much more fun?" Gozaburo made a slight movement and fired the gun.
"NO!" Seto screamed louder than he had ever thought he could. Everyone else's cries had been overshadowed by Seto's. Kisara was unharmed for the most part but this did not change the fact that Seto's entire being had shaken with fright in that one moment. Gozaburo had purposely missed for the pure reason of freaking Seto out. This, however, was exactly what he had been hoping to witness before getting back his company; watching Seto suffer emotional agony.
"Stop this Gozaburo… now. Please… leave her out of this," Seto said, feeling exhausted just from the stress of all the tension and worry in his head. Gozaburo clicked the gun again. "I said stop this!" Gozaburo began to laugh.
"This is exactly what you get for besting me while my guard was down. You can't blame me for the situation you're in, you can only blame yourself."
"And how do you figure that? You're the one who's being an asshole and threatening to kill Kisara!" Mai shouted, becoming enraged by what Gozaburo was saying. She knew that to Gozaburo, none of this meant anything. All he wanted was to be able to watch exactly what he was seeing; Seto suffering.
"Isn't it obvious?" Gozaburo said, his eyes never leaving Seto, "Seto, I had told you it wasn't over between us but you let your overconfidence get the best of you. You never considered the fact that you had only won round one. Then you went on living your happy little life for the next three months without a worry in the world, becoming weaker and weaker as you grew less suspecting of my return. Then you did the unimaginable…"
Gozaburo glanced at Kisara for a half second, "You let yourself care for another human being. Not only had you been weak caring for Mokuba… but now her?"
"Stop it…"
"I thought I had raised you better. I thought you would've known to never let yourself come to this."
"Stop it."
"Now look at you… don't you see why I taught you to never care for anyone else? If you had listened, you wouldn't be in this situation."
"STOP IT!" Seto yelled, "I don't care about what you're saying, just leave Kisara alone! I'll give you whatever you want, I'll hand Kaiba Corp. back over to you! It doesn't matter anymore. Just stop this right now!" Gozaburo's eyes widened.
"You… want to run that by me again?" Seto's hands balled into fists as he held them up. His heart was pounding. So many emotions were coursing through his body, he could no longer tell whether it was the fear or the anger causing him to have this reaction. He just wanted it to stop. He wanted it all to stop. The way Kisara's eyes were looking on in fear, the way he could see her body shaking, the way she was trying to scream but couldn't because of the cloth in her mouth. And then there was the gun… gleaming in the faint light of the room, pointing in only one direction… towards Kisara's head.
"Take my company! Take my life! I don't care, just stop what you're doing and don't hurt Kisara." Gozaburo could only respond with one word.
"Why?" And it was in that moment, that a barrier within Seto broke down. A sudden realization caused him to disregard the one wall inside his heart he thought was strong enough to withstand anything. A piece of himself he had never truly considered a part of himself. Seto let his hands drop to his sides.
"Because… I love her." Everyone stared at Seto, wide-eyed and shocked, especially Kisara.
"You… love her?" Gozaburo broke out into a loud and uncontained laughter. The way he was laughing hysterically was a little unsettling. Mai thought it was going to be a smug chuckle first but no… he apparently found this hilarious. Gozaburo could barely contain himself… he almost threw himself off balance he was laughing so hard. As Gozaburo stumbled a bit, Seto ever so slowly, shifted closer to where Kisara was sitting.
"I can't believe what I'm hearing. I mean, I knew you cared about her, but to actually love her? Oh Seto, you can't possibly be a Kaiba with a heart like that. No Kaiba would ever sacrifice their company or title for a woman," Gozaburo brought up his gun again; "I guess I'll just have to do away with this one to make sure you never disgrace our name again." Seto froze.
"There has to be a way we can stop him before anyone gets hurt," Mai said to herself. She looked down and noticed that Seth hadn't moved an inch since Gozaburo had pulled out the gun… nor had he said a word. "Seth, have any bright ideas of how we can take some control of this situation?" Mai whispered over to Seth. Seth gulped and continued to stare blankly at the scene in front of him. "That's… a good sign…" Mai turned back to look on. What was there to do? Was she supposed to stand by and let this happen? Wasn't there some sort of action she could take? Suddenly Mai felt herself breaking down. It was all over.
"Gozaburo, don't do this!"
"Sorry Seto, but this is the way it has to—" Gozaburo stopped for a second and looked down. There was a noise that was coming from beneath them on the lower floor of the building. First, the sound of a door being forced open and then the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, and not just from one person. Gozaburo's face darkened with brutal realization of what this might mean.
In the few seconds that Gozaburo was distracted recollecting his fate, Seto had dashed over to Kisara and untied her arms and legs. She quickly undid the cloth tied around her face and spit it out from her mouth.
"Seto!" Gozaburo's eyes darted back towards Kisara and Seto.
"Kisara, get out of here!" Seto said, pulling her up from the chair and pushing her towards the door. Just as he did, the door to the room was slammed open a second time and police officers came storming into the room. Gozaburo spotted them as they came barreling towards him. He took up the gun in his hand and fired at Kisara just before he was tackled to the ground and disarmed by two police officers.
Kisara suddenly felt weak just as her legs began to give out on her. She never came close to falling to the floor though, for someone's arm had looped under hers and caught her. Kisara slowly opened her eyes, almost afraid of what she might see. She was surprised and relieved to see it was Seto hovering in front of her.
"Seto… you're here!" Kisara wrapped her two arms around Seto's neck and hugged him. "I was sure I was a goner there for a second… I guess Gozaburo's aim is off even when it's not on purpose." Seto chuckled softly.
"I wouldn't say that…" Kisara pulled back a little and noticed that Seto was only holding himself up by using his arms to lean against the wall behind her. Her eyes looked down to his chest. The blood was just beginning to seep through his clothing. She gasped.
"No… Seto!" Seto didn't have the strength to continue to stand up so it was Kisara who caught him, carefully helping him down to the ground while still holding his head in her arms. "Please Seto… you have to be okay. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose another person I care about!" Kisara said, running her hand through Seto's hair. She hadn't even realized she was crying until she saw tears fall onto Seto's cheek.
"You don't need to worry. Everything's going to be alright. You're safe now…"
"Why did you let yourself get hurt like that? Why couldn't you have let it been me?"
"It's like I said earlier… it's because I love you."
"Kisara!" Mai ran over and kneeled down, "Are you alright?" She glimpsed at Seto and gasped.
"We're going to need a medic. Someone bring in a stretcher! We've got a man down!" Mai turned to Kisara, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine but… Seto..." Someone placed their hand on Kisara's shoulder, Kisara looked up.
"Ma'am, we're going to need to take it from here. Please step back." Kisara got up and got out of the medics' way. Kisara was still crying as she watched them hoist his body onto a stretcher. Mai rose to her feet as well.
"Don't worry Kisara they're going to take good care of him… which reminds me," Mai twisted her head and spotted Seth still on the floor, "Oh yeah! We have another one who needs medical assistance." More medics rushed over to Seth and helped him onto a stretcher. Mai still felt like there was one more thing left on the agenda and that was the mystery of who had called the police.
No one had needed to ask because the answer walked right in. Her eyes were fierce and by the way she walked into the room, no one could have been able to pin point just how old she was. It seemed her determination made her appear young. She walked right over to Gozaburo, who had his hands handcuffed behind his back and was being held by two police officers. Gozaburo was in disbelief of who he saw.
"Kaori, what are you doing here?" Kaori grinned.
"When I told you we were over, Gozaburo, I meant it." Now Gozaburo looked pissed.
"What the hell are you doing here? I thought I sent you away to Tokyo and told you to stay there until I was finished with all of this." Kaori walked up closer to Gozaburo and leaned it. At first, it almost appeared as though she was going to kiss him but instead she pressed her lips to his ear.
"There's a simple explanation for that… I decided I didn't care anymore what you told me to do." Gozaburo lunged forward in rage but the officers held him back. Kaori took a few steps away from Gozaburo, still grinning.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Through-out our entire marriage, I let you do what you want because I was afraid that if I didn't, you would hurt Seto. But while I was staying at the hotel I had an epiphany… I realized that it didn't matter what I did because no matter what, you were going to hurt Seto anyway," Kaori's eyes briefly glanced in Seto's direction but turned back to Gozaburo, "That was when I decided to stop living in fear and take action to save my only son. You can't control me or Kaiba Corp. anymore. You're done and we're done. Take him away, boys." Gozaburo said nothing to her as the police officer took hold of him and forced him out of the room.
Kaori walked over to the stretcher that had Seto on it and placed her hand on his arm. Seto had momentarily closed his eyes out of exhaustion but re-opened them when he felt a familiar touch on his arm. He looked up and saw Kaori and to everyone's surprise, he smiled.
"You're okay…" Seto said quietly, "I was worried you had been hurt. I swear I was going to go look for you but… I got caught up in other stuff." Seto glanced at Kisara, who was being held in Mai's arms at the moment and therefore wasn't paying attention.
"I wish it were you who was the one that was okay. I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner. It took some time gathering all these people together and I knew I was going to need back up which reminds me… why in the world didn't you call the police?" Seto didn't answer and Kaori didn't need him to. She knew exactly why he had gone to face Gozaburo without even considering calling for help. It didn't matter, he was safe now.
"You're taking him to Domino City Hospital, right?" One of the men holding the stretcher nodded, "Good." They carried Seto out of the room and everyone else followed. Seth had already been taken out and was probably on his way to the hospital already. Kaori turned to Kisara and Mai.
"You two can come with me. I drove myself here so we can go to the hospital together." Kisara and Mai nodded and followed her out of the building. When they got outside, they were immediately rushed by police officers and medics, asking them if they were alright and trying to find out what happened. The entire place was surrounded by police cars and three ambulances, not to mention a crowd that had built up outside of the perimeter.
It was around then that three individuals approached the scene from within the crowd. Amongst them was a tall, blonde teenager accompanied by two small children. It was the black-haired child that was leading the way through the people, running ahead to trying to get closer and understand what was going on. The other two tried their best to keep up.
Noah: Mokuba and I had tried our best to out-run Joey while we were on our way to help Seto. We thought we had done it after a while but… we also hadn't remembered Seto lending one of his spare cars to Joey in case of an emergency. So Joey found us and because we refused to go back with him without going to find Seto, Joey had no choice but to take us to where we wanted to go.
"Excuse me, pardon me, sorry," Mokuba mumbled repeatedly as he made his way to the front of the crowd. He hated to be rude but he had a brother to find… Mokuba didn't even care if Noah and Joey had lost him or not. When Mokuba had finally reached the front, he was relieved to find cop cars surrounding the warehouse. At least someone had the intelligence to call the police which meant Seto must be okay.
But then Mokuba saw the ambulances… not only that, but there were three of them. Mokuba quickly went under the yellow tape and came closer. He was immediately confronted by police officers but Mokuba hadn't even noticed them because then he spotted someone on a stretcher.
"NII-SAMA!" Mokuba slid through the grabbing hands of the officers who had commanded him to stay away and went over to the stretcher they were preparing to move into the ambulance. Again, Mokuba was confronted and commanded to stop what he was doing, this time by a medic.
"We need you to stand back, little boy. We're taking this man to the hospital."
"This man is my brother!" Mokuba grabbed hold of Seto's hand, "Nii-sama, are you okay?" Mokuba's eyes went wide when he saw Seto's blood stained shirt. The medics had to pry Mokuba away from his brother before they could get Seto into the ambulance. Mokuba was screaming and crying for Seto as they closed the door to the ambulance and took off.
"Listen kid, you need to calm down and tell us who you are. Did you say that Seto Kaiba was your brother? We're going to need to ask you a couple questions…"
"Mokuba?" Mokuba twisted around and instantly leapt into the arms of the first familiar person he heard call out to him. That person was Mai.
"Mai, they took Nii-sama and I don't know where he went and I'm scared and he's bleeding and I don't want him to die! Please tell me he won't die!" Mai couldn't even understand half of what Mokuba was saying because he was sobbing so much and had his face buried in her stomach. She was a little stunned.
"Mokuba, calm down, it's okay. Your brother's going to be fine…"
"Mai, you're okay!" Mai turned around to find another pair of arms hugging her as well. This time it was someone she was a little more used to being hugged by. "I was so worried about you. Before you ask, I'm here because the kids ran off and the only way I could get them to stick with me was if I brought them here. But is everything alright? It looks like some serious shit went down."
"A lot of stuff went down." Joey's eye caught sight of the third ambulance, appearing to stand by before taking off.
"Are you sure Gozaburo didn't do anything to you? What about Kisara? Is anyone else hurt?" Kisara and Kaori came up to Joey, Mai, Noah, and Mokuba.
"We can explain everything on the way to the hospital. Everyone should follow me to my car in the mean time," Kaori stated, not wanting to waste anymore time standing around and talking. Her son wasn't in the greatest condition and she wanted to be there for him as much as she could. She silently prayed to herself that Seto would be alright as they all walked towards the car.
Secretly, Kisara was doing the same thing. The damage had been done and that was the only thing she could do as they all gathered into the car and made their way to the hospital.
A/N: I finally finished the chapter! Hooray! I'm so happy… not to mention extremely exhausted (since I've started break I've started staying up until 2a.m. every night… only to find myself wake up at 9a.m. every morning which means I'm getting around the same amount of sleep I got when I was still in school.) But anyway, I had been hoping to update this a lot sooner but as my sleeping habits have gotten worse and so has my laziness. I especially got stuck after the Kisara "shot but not" scene but once I pulled through that, everything else came together. Next chapter will be the final chapter and just as this chapter ran a bit long, I suspect so will the next one but we'll see. I'm sticking with my plan to finish this before the next year so expect an update within the next week. I've been working on this so long that I really want this story to be done so I can move on. Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion of "Real 2 Radical"! Thanks for reading and have a merry Christmas tomorrow!
