Title: Tsubasa o Orinasu Mono (Part I of the Cubes Trilogy.)

Summary: AU; yaoi? Found by a clan vampires, Seto and his colleagues can only hope that their captors will kill them swiftly. But maybe humans aren't the only ones trapped among the vampires.

Warnings: None, methinks.

Thanks: to tenshimagic, for her wonderful editing skills that saved me from writing "vile" instead of "vial" on multiple occasions.

Chapter 3: Light


So Yuugi had left him in the snow. To freeze to death?

Why?

Apparently, Yuugi had paid four 'gold' for him. Grudgingly, Kaiba admitted that, by vampire standards at least, Yuugi owned him. So why would he just leave? Did he expect Kaiba to just wait out there like an obedient puppy dog? Of course, he really had no other choice, seeing how he was bound and completely frozen.

To prove his point, he struggled against his bonds, and found that they were gone. Shock enlarging his eyes, he painfully bent one arm up so he could look at it, not quite believing that it was free.

The cloak fell off with an almost inaudible thud, and his torso, which had been warmed by the fabric, complained. Carefully, with no little incredulity, he picked the cloak up and slipped it back around his shoulders. He stood, sore muscles screaming, and slipped his arms through the sleeves, pulling the edges of the cloak together to better cover himself.

Yuugi had… cut his bonds… given him his own cloak… and left… after whispering the name of… a fruit? Contemplating this ashe began to massage the life rather painfully back into his limbs and gritting his teeth to keep from hissing in pain, he concluded that all vampires were completely bonkers. Too much snow could do that to a person. Or non-person.

Well, he figured, rubbing his hands rigorously over his face, at least he was free. If Yuugi had expected him to just sit here, he shouldn't have cut his bonds. And now he would just run and…

Taking a hesitant step, he realized that running was easier said than done. Knees weak and ankles sore, he found himself practically falling face-first into the snow. He managed to catch himself in time, but when he stood straight, his knees trembled uncontrollably. Of course, there was nobody around to see, so there was really no sense in trying to uphold his dignity (even if he was Seto Kaiba), but he still didn't want to be trembling, so…

Wait.

It was too perfect.

There was no way he could be allowed escape so easily. How could… Why would Yuugi just let him go?

They must've been watching.

Eyes widening with enlightenment, Seto rotated slowly to get a good look at his surroundings. They could be hiding anywhere, waiting for him to break forth into song or some other such ridiculous thing. He could picture them as cats, with strange Cheshire grins, toying with their prey and laughing as they crushed the hope out of dying eyes…

Hm. Well, he'd just have to defeat them at their own game.

Slowly, he resumed trying to bring the life back to his pale cheeks, wondering just how many people they had tortured like this, first giving the illusion of freedom, then taking it all away… Such a tactic wouldn't succeed on Seto, of course. Seto was one step ahead of them: he already knew they were out there.

Posture regal and step confident, Seto walked along the row of tree stumps in the opposite direction Yuugi had gone, knees bent just so to prevent them from shaking, eyes set on the seemingly-endless avenue of uncut trees he could see in the distance. Even so, he remained alert, waiting for them to jump out of the bushes so he could turn right around and take out his anger and humiliation on them.

He had just been starting to tire when what had been a wall of trees to his left gave way to empty snow. Turning around, he found that he had just passed by the entire forest, with not a single vampire to be found. No matter. They were probably still trying to lull him into a false sense of security. He'd have to stay alert.

The trees had long since vanished into the distance and all sense of time had disappeared from his mind when he finally stopped to admit that maybe, just maybe, they weren't out there, waiting to get him after all. Snowy dunes had melted into one another in Seto's memory, and he realized that he could go insane out here, staring at the same thing forever despite having covered so much ground. His legs, recently freed from their stiffness, were complaining, and despite the cloak, his fingers felt numb.

Of course, he'd have to continue walking. He couldn't exactly stay out here forever. Wasn't there a town around here somewhere? Juneau? Yes, there was a city somewhere ahead of him because he had landed, in an airplane, in Haines, and they had driven southeast from Haines, and in that direction was Juneau. That is, if he was walking in the right direction at all. Though with all his luck, he'd find probably himself in the Pacific by nightfall; too tired to distinguish between land and water in the dark, he'd probably fall right in.

To get his mind off the incessant landscape, he turned his mind to thoughts of civilization, thoughts of a warm bed, good food, and a computer. Mokuba must've been so worried by now… no, wait… had it really only been six in the morning when they had set off in the van? Depending on what time it was (2:00 at the latest, judging by the sun), Seto couldn't even have been gone for more than twelve hours. The thought was mind-boggling.

Digging his fingers into the pockets for warmth, he stopped walking when each hand brushed against something. Something smooth was in his left hand, and he drew it out to find another vial, filled with that same amber liquid Yuugi had force-fed him earlier. Half expecting a little slip of paper reading "Drink Me" to be affixed on it, he turned it around and around, but found nothing.

Did Yuugi honestly expect him to drink some random potion?

Snorting, Seto raised it into the air and heaved it down, expecting it to break into little shards. Instead, it held together, didn't even crack. Glaring at it and promising to deal with it later, he turned his attention to the other object, rough against the tips of the fingers of his right hand. Drawing it out, he found that it was wooden: the thing Yuugi had been whittling, perhaps?

It was a dove.

Carefully, he stroked one well-formed wing, wondering why Yuugi had made it, why Yuugi had put it in the pocket if he had known he was going to give the cloak away. Peace, doves meant. But wings always meant freedom.

No, he reconsidered. Wings only meant freedom to those who had desperate want for it. Wings only meant freedom to captives.

Something made him bend stiffly and pluck the vial from the snow, fumbling to uncork it with fingers made clumsy by the cold. With only the slightest of hesitations, he tipped all of its contents down his throat, gazing all the while at the bird he clutched in his other hand.

It wasn't until later that he realized how much warmer he was, as if he were wearing three cloaks instead of just one. In fact, he barely felt the cold anymore.

Strange.

So lost was he in this miraculous new discovery that he didn't notice the rather significant change in the monotonous scenery.

"Para, look, we have a visitor," a voice, very close by, interrupted Seto's thoughts. His eyes snapped up, to be met with a bald man wearing oriental-looking, pale green robes draped over black sleeves and leggings. Neither green nor black looked particularly warm, and Seto wondered why the wearer wasn't dead.

In response, another man stepped out from a door, bringing Seto's attention to the fact that there was a door at all. The door led to a stone building that looked about two stories tall. It was cylindrical in shape, a throwback to the towered castle. It was definitely not something you'd expect to find in Asia.

This didn't really matter, though, because that was when Seto spotted the gate.

Taller than the not-at-all-oriental building, it was constructed entirely of black metal, formed into swooping curves and sharp angles that looked as if they'd really hurt to walk into. In either direction of the gate's hinges spread stone walls. Was this… the boundary?

"He looks lost, does he not?" The second man was saying when Seto tuned back around to stare with fascination at the matching tattoos that perched prominently on each of their foreheads. Was it Chinese? Japanese? Korean? Para's looked formed entirely of diagonals while the other's was constructed mostly of bold, horizontal lines.

"So, traveler, what brings you to vampire property?"

Seto scrutinized them cautiously, choosing his words with the same amount of care. "Actually, I was just leaving."

At this, they both simultaneously burst into laughter.

"Did you hear that, brother? He thinks he's leaving!"

"I heard, Para, shall we enlighten him?"

Derisive smile still lingering on his face, Para turned his beak-like nose to Seto, dipping his head and shoulders in a mock bow. He spread an arm towards the gate, in a gesture of welcome. "Please, be our guest. Continue 'just leaving'."

This seemed ridiculously funny to the both of them, and they crowed with laughter yet again. Impatiently, Seto pushed past them and inspected the lock holding the gate shut. It was old fashioned and looked like it went along with a skeleton key, which Seto most definitely did not have, but keys weren't always necessary, were they?

Humming lightly to himself, he twisted the lock around to inspect its back, then tilted his head to inspect how exactly it was secured to the gate. Ah. He tugged on the lock, newly unfrozen fingers slipping a bit, as the lock was cold, if not his hand, and kept on tugging until the lock broke free with a snap.

The two men stopped laughing.

Smiling to himself and marveling at the wonders of rust, Seto slowly pulled the gate open and stepped through.

They recovered quickly.

"Very good, human, you have passed the gate… but can you also pass this test?" At Seto's puzzled expression, Para motioned before them, and his partner spoke for him.

"The test of the doors. Which one will you choose?"

There were hundreds of them, the line stretching out as far as the eye could see. It was absurd, of course, all these doors sticking up in the middle of the vast, snowy landscape, each painted a different color, some blindingly vivid and others inconspicuous enough to blend in with the snow, giving the illusion of uneven spacing between the doors.

Did the doors actually lead anywhere?

They were all in a row, knobs to the right, hinges to the left. Besides their color, they were blank. Some were large, some were oddly shaped, and yet, there was really nothing remarkable about any of them that wasn't repeated in another door. Of course, no two of them were exactly alike. Whoever made them must've had way too much time on their hands.

"What… is this?"

"One door will lead to your freedom," Para explained gleefully, "And all the others will lead to your demise."

"And why can't I just walk around them?" Seto demanded, eyes darting from one door to another.

"Try."

Glaring suspiciously, Seto did so. Picking a spot between a medium sized, white door and a small, oval door, he marched up and promptly collided with empty space. Where his body had hit what seemed to be nothing, wall flashed briefly into view before disappearing again.

"You are actually standing before a building and, though invisible, it will be your end."

"The building holds nine hundred ninety nine methods of death. There are one thousand and one doors," the other added helpfully.

"What's with the extra one?" Seto asked, busily assessing this new development.

"Let me amend that. There are frequently one thousand and one doors. But since the doors are constantly shifting, there are occasionally fewer, occasionally more."

"And so what's the extra door?" Seto repeated.

"Well, if you're really unfortunate, you won't pick either life or death…"

"And you'll be cursed to dwell forever in between."

That made no sense to Seto, but it didn't really matter anyway. Walking quickly away from the two men that finished each other's sentences (which was just plain creepy), he inspected each door as he went by, and found that indeed, they sometimes changed. It might've been amusing to watch them change, the once-solid wood melting right before his eyes, taking on new shapes and colors, but for the fact that his life depended upon this decision.

"Do the same doors always lead to the same place? If I picked, say, the blue door with the bites taken out of the corners, and then someone comes along later and finds the same door in a different place and went through it, will we both have gone to the same place?" Seto wondered aloud, then took the surprise in their eyes for a yes.

He wandered along the line of doors. Hot pink. Tranquil green. Brownish gray. Woah, that was a weird shape.

"What happens if I open a door, don't like it, and choose a different one?"

Para and his partner grinned in unison, revealing pearly white incisors. "Guess."

Repressing a shudder, Kaiba quickly turned around again, inspecting each door with renewed caution. Which one was he supposed to pick? He probably wouldn't even see all the doors before he froze to death. 1001, were there? His fingers itched to just reach out, grab a random doorknob, and pull it open, but he had to use caution. Was there a trick to this? Maybe there was a pattern to the doors…

Red. Teal. Black. White. Off-white. Light pink. Maroon.

…Orange.

Seto stood before the door, stunned. It was normally shaped, possibly like something one would find in a cheap apartment. There wasn't much to set it apart from all the other doors. Quickly, he glanced to his right, and then his left. Except that no other door bore orange, in any shade or hue. Again, he looked at the door before him.

The doors always led to the same destination.

"Hurry," one of them called, or perhaps they both spoke at once, grinning hungrily. "There is a time limit, you know."

Putting a few fingers to his face, Seto remembered a warm touch and a soft voice uttering, "Orange".

What other choice did he have?

Two sets of feet that sounded as one began advancing, probably tired of waiting. That was perfectly all right.

Seto was tired of waiting as well.

Without further hesitation, he pushed open the door, stepped through, and closed it carefully behind him.

End Part I

Note: Congratulations. You have made it to the end of this story. I would like to admit that this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written, including my first story ever (a shameful Mary Sue) and that weird After Dusk thing.

I had originally put "End Part I" so I wouldn't get mauled for my lack of a decent ending again, but I think there will seriously be a Part II later on. And a Part III as well. Look for the next part of the Cubes trilogy (for that is what this is called) by June. It should be called Branches and Things, unless my sanity returns to me in time.

Oh, and just to let you know, Tsubasa o Orinasu Mono means Wingweaver.