An error message appeared on the screen and Seto smirked at it. The system was down, he was trying to access a file that didn't exist, it was over.
Another shot took away that last thought. Seto lifted the gun as he stood, checking the door to see the barricade rocking. They'd shot out the latch on the doorknob, likely pressing their weight to the other side to force it open.
Seto thought he heard his name come from Pegasus's direction, but ignored it in favor of walking over to the door, keeping to one side in case they decided to send any more bullets his way. The small weapon in Seto's hand certainly wasn't the best on the market, but if he got an opening, he would take it.
And they were giving him an opening every time they threw their weight forward again. It wasn't like firing his weapon would reveal his location any more. They knew Seto was inside. He might as well make himself known. And if they knew he had a weapon, they might assume it was more than a single gun. The men would have no choice but to fall back, even for a few minutes. Pegasus must have known a way out.
He checked the chamber. Eight shots. Gozaburo was dead; he had to be, so Seto didn't need to worry about saving a shot for himself anymore. That gave him seven bullets for Aizawa's men, and hopefully he could hold on to one for Pegasus, just in case.
The door fell closed for a beat while the men stepped back in preparation to batter it again. Seto used the moment to switch sides, lifting his gun in aim of the gap the men would create. He held it at what he guessed would be eye-level for most of them. Messing around with non-fatal shots would only be a waste.
The door collided with the barricade again, and Seto took his first shot.
Pegasus let the mattress fall back against the wall and lifted the blind to check for men. Most of them were too far off to see, but he didn't catch any signs of movement. A helicopter he didn't recognize had landed on its side and could've been concealing dozens of people, inside and out. It was still better to chance certainly injured men, especially if some of his were crawling around with them.
"Seto—"
The second round from the gun said what the boy couldn't in the heat of the moment.
No time.
Judging from sound alone, and nothing was clear over the relentless assault of the barricade, the second bullet made impact. He grabbed a lamp and knew it would have to do.
The struggle against the door was quieter. Even if the man Seto shot hadn't been fatally injured, he was too weak, or in too much pain, to continue fighting. The barricade skidded further across the carpet, leaving a few inches of space, Pegasus watched Seto swerve back into the corner and froze where he stood. The box springs thudded back heavily against the door as the men braced themselves to ram again, and he took a chance to move closer.
Something slumped heavily against the wall near the door, and the next time it opened a bloodied hand reached feebly between the space before sliding down the door frame.
It twitched once before a steel toed boot shoved it out of the way.
One dead.
"How many?"
There was no sense trying to conceal himself, even if the men didn't know he was with Seto, the second it took to force their way in and catch him standing in the open would be all they needed.
The wood of the door splintered at the corner and the bedside table tumbled to the ground, two legs snapping with the motion.
The distinctive black and silver gear of Gozaburo's men flitted into view. Half a body through the door, stuck fast and jerking for the gun in Seto's hand.
A third bullet. The gurgle of blood pooling in his throat and sputtering up from his windpipe.
A second assailant slumped forward, convulsing in the space between the door.
"Shit."
Pegasus got low to the ground and came around just far enough to peer through. From his vantage point, he couldn't see how many men were left and it was too risky to come around to the other side with no reasonable weapon. He stood upright, counting the seconds they stalled, holding his breath.
They wouldn't come this far to leave now...would they?
Each gasp for breath from the man stuck between the door brought more fluid, no air. Seto raised the gun again, whether out of mercy or necessity Pegasus couldn't tell, but he chanced another remark, "Don't waste it," he snapped.
The blood-soaked body shuddered a final time before the man's eyes fixed themselves straight up, listless.
They were at an impasse.
The box springs thudded back against the door again, pinning the body tighter. The men would have to move him if they wanted a clear shot at Seto, but getting close enough left them open to his gunfire.
Pegasus clutched the lamp tighter, trying to make sense of the tactic which assured one thing he'd never expected. Even though these men had made it into his castle, at least one of them hadn't managed to keep their weapon or their ammunition.
Two shots fired in quick succession, followed by the sound of bodies hitting the floor.
He opened his mouth to call to Seto but was interrupted.
"I'm sorry sir," it said, cocking the gun and taking a few steps forward. "I couldn't follow your orders."
Two men shouldn't have been such a relief. But if they made it down the hallway to take out the men by the door, then there was a clear path out, at least, clear enough they could get back through. Pegasus's castle ran half the length of the island, at least underground, so there had to be places to camp out until backup arrived, if backup was coming.
The lamp Pegasus held dropped out of the defensive position, and Seto shook his head at the absurdity of the weapon choice. Too bulky, too heavy for Pegasus to have swung it easily.
Seto helped the man—Hadley? he thought—get the door open enough for Seto to fit through. While Pegasus followed, Seto knelt to go through the bodies lying piled on the floor, plucking up two guns and checking them for ammo. Thirteen shots now, but three guns to carry. Seto kept the one with five shots remaining and handed the gun with three to Pegasus.
"Don't aim near me."
Pegasus held the gun like its own lifeform, and Seto ignored him in favor of glancing either direction down the hall while sliding his extra gun into the waistband of his jeans. He really should have put on shoes.
Gunshots came from his right, so he turned to both Pegasus and Hadley, the other guard keeping an eye on the hall behind them, and said, "Lead the way."
Hadley moved them to the end of the corridor where a concealed door lead down. "Most of the shots you'll hear are our men," he called over his shoulder. "The person you're looking for never showed up."
Pegasus kept his pace even with Seto's, letting his eyes trail narrowly to the weapon in his hand. Aimed with precision, the mark of a man who knew several lives sat restless on his shoulders.
"I doubt he'd leave these people as escorts," Pegasus replied as they started down another flight of stairs. He looked to Seto for any reaction, but found nothing he could gauge.
Gunfire sounded beyond a door. The strangled cry that followed meant two things: flesh wound, intentional.
"He wouldn't risk coming down here like this." Moans faded on their heels, sending them further into darkness.
You wouldn't, Pegasus corrected as the dim light of broken torches flickered at their feet. Aizawa had too much at stake not to ensure at least the victory of being an end to Seto. Men with something to prove didn't throw their hands in the air and resign themselves to being known as cowards. He'd have no life to go back to, nothing to rebuild even with an alias.
An army of men were hunkered down in hotel rooms waiting for news of his triumphant victory. Much like prophets who falsely predicted the end of the world, if Aizawa couldn't salvage Gozaburo—and Pegasus had watched the server go up in proverbial smoke—he'd sooner become the man than let the world fall in around him.
Hadley's gun went off once before he hurried all three of them past the intruder and through several miles of dungeon. Moving quickly was their best option, but with so many tunnels to navigate, all littered with casualties, it was cumbersome.
The door to the outside world opened to a battlefield. Eight men, half armed, most injured, and Aizawa at their back. From the last time Seto had seen him, he changed, facial hair grown out, he carried himself more broadly, and he didn't wear his glasses.
His eyes found Seto the moment he showed his face; Gozaburo's smile gleaming beyond his curled lips.
"I've been waiting for you, Seto."
What do you call a ghost that dies again?
Hadley stepped in front, obscuring Pegasus's view and Seto's aim as the crescendo of gunshots sounded. The men behind Gozaburo branched out left and right, searching for cover behind the trees to make their stand.
Seto made two headshots before a bullet skimmed his arm near the elbow, causing him to bite back a curse. He tossed the gun to his other hand and fired at one of the men moving around, trying to flank them. Gozaburo would have wanted trained men; his army turned out to be men deluded by power fantasies.
Seto was the only person here he'd trained.
Pegasus watched as the man once called Aizawa reached in his back pocket, and behind Hadley, Pegasus steadied his weapon, waiting for the first flinch of him taking aim at Seto.
Pegasus fired, missing narrowly. Gozaburo only blinked in annoyance before bringing the cigar out and lighting it. Around him, his wooden army crumbled, collapsing behind the trees as feeble as their strength.
The man's last stand was pathetic, but it was all he could muster. Outsmarted by a child, a prodigy he had reared, empire disintegrating before his eyes.
"No matter where you go, I'll be waiting for you."
Seto's bullet didn't miss.
As the other men failed miserably to hold them off, Pegasus straightened, shaking the blood of Hadley's flesh wound from his fingers, and watched the body hit the dirt.
The weight of the gun finally settled on Seto, and he lowered it as the last of Gozaburo's men went down. All of the injuries from the past few days screamed for the attention adrenaline denied them, and Seto took a step away from Pegasus, from Hadley, and over to Aizawa's body.
He kicked the cigar away from the limp hand. The moon didn't provide enough light to see clearly, but Seto recognized that smirk, still frozen in death.
I'll be waiting for you.
The rest of the bullets from the one gun found a home in Aizawa's head—Gozaburo's head. The blood splattered up onto Seto's legs, but he was already drenched in so much blood. What did a few more drops matter?
A hand rested on Seto's shoulder and he spun around, holding up the empty gun directly at Pegasus's face. Hadley's gun rose with Seto's, and Seto wasn't in the mood for a standoff. He just wanted Pegasus away from him.
Pegasus waved down Hadley at the same time Seto tossed his worthless weapon to the ground. He still had the gun tucked away should he need it. Whether or not Pegasus had helped, he was still the enemy, and now his excuse was gone.
Seto ran his fingers back through his hair, careful to avoid the still-healing injury, and stared down at Aizawa. There were other men on the island, but Pegasus's staff would take care of them. Gozaburo's remaining supporters would fade back into nothing.
And that left the question Pegasus had refused to answer.
"Now what?"
"There are plenty of safe places on the island to hunker down for a few days." He nodded toward Seto and took a few steps closer. "Before we go, should you decide to, you have a phone call to make."
Seto's hand twitched instinctively toward the weapon. Gozaburo was in the ground. Again. No one was going to run his life, call his shots, drawl out orders like they had authority over him.
"You won't get reception in the forest," Pegasus offered.
Seto's eyes were trained on the corpse at his feet, but he turned in the direction of the castle, back deliberately toward the wooded expanse on his left. Pegasus shook his head. "Now you're just being stubborn. There's too much to be done in there."
Bodies to be moved, blood to be cleaned, evidence to be stripped away.
"If there's some place you're going back to, I'll figure out a way to get you there. Someone needs to treat your injuries first—don't give me that look—shards of that bullet could've embedded in your arm." He shook his head, too tired to fight, too swept up in the surrealism of what had just happened.
He turned to look back at the castle, taking a moment to tame his own hair.
"Sir?" came Hadley's tentative voice.
"I'm not going to make demands of you, but I am asking you to look at me." He didn't budge, Pegasus's hands balled to fists and he sucked in a long breath through his nose. "That body's going to be here after you've checked on Mokuba. I'll make sure of it. Gozaburo is gone, Seto. Let your brother know you aren't."
Seto's entire being seized, leaving Pegasus no time to react as he reached for the gun in his pocket.
It raised in a blur as Hadley leapt in front of him, slowing the world to the sharp cry of Seto's name from his lips, and a single gunshot.
Seto's finger hardly released tension on the trigger before his shoulder erupted into fire. The gun toppled to the ground when Seto lost all sensation down his right arm. His left hand squeezed the spot where the bullet must have gone in and Seto realized he'd stumbled back several steps, tripping over the body on the ground.
He was falling.
Seto hit the ground after the gun and as Pegasus and Hadley did the same. He forced his head up to see where his shot landed only to find a growing splotch of red on Hadley's chest, off to one side and nearly a miss.
He missed.
Seto never missed.
Even if he had hit Pegasus, it wouldn't have killed him in that spot, not with the medical attention he was sure to receive. Seto waited and watched for movement. Maybe the bullet had gone through and hit Pegasus.
Hadley seemed to move first, and Seto felt his own shoulder for an exit wound, finding nothing. He clenched his teeth while scanning the ground for the gun, spotting it several feet ahead of him and out of reach.
The gun that had been responsible for shooting him was in Croquet's hand, back at the entrance to the dungeon tunnels. More men in uniform followed him out, and Seto dropped his head back to lie on the dirt and the grass, legs still stretched over Aizawa's body.
He stopped pressing against his shoulder, but left his hand in place. Maybe he did manage to kill Pegasus and Croquet would empty his gun into Seto's skull, just as he did to Gozaburo.
He nearly laughed but the pain stopped him at the first motion. At least Mokuba was safe, and hopefully on a plane to China.
"Get up Hadley," Croquet called, gun still leveled at Seto. "I told you to replace that damn vest."
The man in question stumbled hazily to his feet, "Shoulda...listened to you..." he mumbled, clutching his chest where the bullet had skimmed and feeling for any fragments. "Christ."
Pegasus lay stunned in the dirt, propped up on one hand with his legs splayed out and the breaths pulling heavily through his chest. Every inhale brought more dirt into his lungs, burning its way down his throat. He coughed despite himself, shoving into a sitting position before testing if his legs would hold his weight.
"Are you alright?" he finally wheezed, clearing his throat to give the illusion of composure.
Hadley nodded, working the bullet from his vest and and letting its pieces fall to the ground. "Just nicked me."
Croquet closed the gap between their forms, motioning for the men at his back to move in behind him. "What are your orders, sir?"
Hadley turned to look at Seto, knowing if he was the one chosen to finish him off, he wouldn't be able to do it. If he'd been in the kid's shoes he might've done the same thing. Hopefully without fucking it up.
He was as good as doomed now.
Pegasus's hand rose dismissively. "We've had enough of that tonight," he said, nodding toward the gun. "Get him up and inside. Hadley, take care of yourself and see me in the morning. It's foolish to ask you to nurse the man who shot you back to health, but I haven't much choice in the matter." Their eyes met. "Understand?"
He nodded, turning toward the castle so he wouldn't have to see the boy's defeated face in the light, "I'll do it." He said, and walked on.
Croquet grimaced as he pocketed his gun to follow orders, "Keep your gun on him; shoot if he tries anything." He instructed to the men at his back. Even in the dim light he could see Seto's pupils constricted in pain. He grabbed both hands and twisted them firmly behind his back, bringing the bullet in his shoulder closer to the surface and earning a muffled cry in response.
Seto bit down on his lip to force the sound back, moaning weakly in the hold he had no hope of breaking. Croquet pulled him roughly to his feet and pushed him forward even as Seto struggled the little his feet would allow.
"Mr. Kaiba, you're owed my honest assurance in all this. I will get you back inside that castle, the more you struggle, the more holes you'll get along the way. Those men are trained to shoot at my signal."
Seto's knees buckled with the shove and he slumped about halfway back to the ground before being jerked up again.
"Let me go," he growled, trying to think through the pain and relenting in the impossible task of forcing his vision to focus. His eyes closed heavily as Croquet's pace quickened, "He—told—me" he took a quick, shuddering breath between words to keep from moaning through the pain, "I—could—go."
The movement stopped, his head slumped forward to the sharp ache in his shoulder and he did his best to shake the hair from his eyes.
"What will you have me do Master Pegasus?"
Seto blinked hard to make his eyes cooperate as much as they were able. Pegasus walked around his right side and stood directly in front of him. His forefinger and thumb ripped the bullet from the wound and held it, shimmering with the heat of blood under the moonlight.
Seto's body went rigid in Croquet's hold and his head snapped up with the note of a scream he didn't manage to bite back. Pegasus watched moisture glisten in the corners of the boy's eyes.
"Take him inside," he said, gaze never leaving Seto, "Stop the bleeding."