Book Dragon: "Thank you for the reviews!"

Chapter 23: A Time for Tears

The spirit remained unmoving in the dim bedroom, consumed by the silence of it, but yet his mind was clamoring loudly with his own thoughts. His eyes sought the inside of his eyelids with a fierceness that could only be described as the thirst a man feels after being lost in the dessert for days, but still he fought them back, knowing that if he slept it would be bad. Though that confused him.

She could do nothing to his mind, he had proven stronger than he had imagined. Her mind was not as alluring as he had thought, but he also had to consider the spell on her. Could he have resisted had the spell hadn't been on her? He could not fall to her, that would be accepting death, and he was still not done with his business.

He wanted, no needed, to kill the Pharaoh. He needed to be punished for the wrong he has committed, and the only way to replace those lives was with his own, since there was no greater thing he could give. Justice would be given to those who were dead. He would make sure of it.

He would not let him get away with killing his whole village, taking their bodies off to be melted into the seven golden items, as a sacrifice so a magic would work. He suffered from the greed of power, and so he deserved to have that power. He would go through hell to make him pay in a heart beat, but the only way to do that was to get the items and use the power to kill him.

"I have not lived through countless centuries, waiting for him to return to let him slip through my fingers." He growled to himself in a half asleep voice, content with his thoughts of death. It would've lulled him to sleep had he not been snapped awake by the odd female thoughts wafting through the opening. He fought sleeps luring by slamming his ankle against the chair, using the pain to keep him awake.

"No," He growled to himself, "To sleep would be taking my guard away and that would cause…" He trailed off, realizing for the first time how exactly that could entice him, since she was trapped in the spell. Before he could think it through the pain had left him and sleep had caught him, letting him fall swiftly into it, despite his refusal.

When the soft troubled snoring of the 'youth' was caught by the ancient King's ears, he let out his held breath in a soft breeze, and hoped that in his dreams he wouldn't be so troubled. His foe's struggles were so deep he would wish it upon no man, but still there was nothing he could do, but make a plan and wait for the moment.

As he laid his hand on the door, Yami wondered why everything had gotten so…gray, compared to before, when he had been 'young'. The days when it was simple, evil was truly evil and good was good. It was so much easier back then. What had changed it?

Pressing his head softly on his hand, he already knew the answer. It was when he had lost him. Yugi had let the Orichalcos take him instead. It was that day he was shown to have that same evil lurking inside him. Perhaps it was the fact that Yugi seemed so pure and innocent that made him believe that ether a person was all good or bad…no.

It was even before that damnable piece of magic took his vessel away that he was starting to see gray. Everyone around him had turned bad due to horrible experiences. And TombRobber was one of them.

But he was being helped. Perhaps not totally healed, but helped. If they got Bakura's daughter back, that was. She was the key. She had the power to heal both of them. Bakura and the TombRobber. She was enough like her mother and enough of a character none of them knew to like both her father and the Robber. She could love them both…

Yugi didn't have that.

"Pharaoh?"

Yami turned quickly, surprised, and found a pair of dark blue eyes staring at him through the shadowy gloom of the hall. Even though he already knew who it was, he had to blink his watering eyes to see his grim face clearly.

"Hello Kaiba."

"What are you doing?" he demanded. Yami blinked again, startled, and was aware of the tears starting to slide silently down his face. He would've turned away had Kaiba's icy eyes had not held him so strongly. Narrowed eyes…deep eyes that swirled.

The CEO took a sharp inhale and after a pause asked in a soft voice,

"Why are you crying?" Yami was silent; surprised that he would be asking such questions. When Kaiba didn't demand the answer out of him, but instead patiently waited, that made Yami speak.

"Nothing." He responded, turning to wipe the tears from his face when Kaiba's fist slammed the wall beside his right shoulder, blocking him from exiting. Yami turned back and looked at him with confused and shocked eyes. Kaiba's face was calm, stern, despite the strong emotion swirling in his eyes. What was it?

"That's bullshit!" He whispered agitatedly, the young CEO he use to be surfacing through that aged face, "You never cried for nothing. You were too strong for that. Is this about Yugi?" Yami's eyes widened before he shoved the man away. Kaiba came straight back and caught him by the shoulders with a vice grip so hard it made the ancient king yelp as he slammed him against the wall.

"Is it!" He demanded, his voice breaking. Yami lowered his gaze to the floor, in a submissive behavior and was completely silent. Kaiba, angered by how easily he gave up, snarled, and let him go, backing away in his rage.

For a few moments neither of them said or did anything, just listened to the talk going on down stairs. It would go to happy chatter to muttering to finally roaring and then die down again. In a weird way it was much like a song, one that was interrupted when the click of a lighter.

Yami looked up and caught the business man lighting a cigarette, his face caught in the soft orange glow of the flame licking the end of the white death stick, until he flicked it off and took a large drag. The embers glowed eerily for a moment, and with the quick exhale Yami's nose picked up the disgusting smoky smell. After a few drags, Kaiba finally spoke, while staring at his cigarette.

"My wife made me quit when she got pregnant with Javas, she said it was bad for the baby. I don't even know why I even started smoking in the first place…I suppose it was when Mokuba died," He took another inhale, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a slow cloud, "that little break in from those thieving bastards, they were going to steal some of my prototypes, or at least that was what they said. Still, they were all carrying revolvers; I guess their employers asked for a hit, too…" Yami watched silently as Kaiba's face twisted with extreme pain, and took another drag from his shaking hand.

"…I was asleep." He said after a moment, "When they came into my room…Mokuba had woken up to the noise they made. He was always a light sleepier…" Kaiba laughed, but it was an aching crackle.

"The damn security system fails and my brother wakes up. The one time where a human beats a machine…" He laughed a little harder, with a less sanity. Yami watched silently.

"He was small. You remember don't you? He was always shorter than you…and there where at least five of them there. Sure Mokuba was fifteen then, but that's still young…" Kaiba looked up to the ceiling, his blue eyes brimming with hot tears, as his shoulders began to shake.

"…I-I woke up when the gun discharged. The police told me there was a struggle…t-they even said he tried to talk them out of it…but one of them…" He took a troubled breath and his usually dry face was sudden damped by a stream of tears. The famous heartless Seto Kaiba was now crying.

"He was going to shoot me…but Mokuba threw himself in the way and took the bullets, one in the shoulder…one in the chest…I guess seeing him go down gave me enough of an adrenaline rush to chase them out of the house, I'm not sure what exactly happened… next thing I know is I have my brother in my arms…h-he was soaked…and coughing up blood…they had hit a lung…he was getting really pale…and he was just staring up at me with his calm and peaceful eyes. He looks at me, and smiles, just smiles, as he takes my hand and whispers in the smallest voice, 'I love you big brother.'…and then his g-grip just loosens…and I don't see any of the brightness in his eyes anymore…"

Yami shuts his eyes, feeling his own eyes starting to grow wet again, as he listened to his old enemy start to sob. When the weeping cuts down, Yami re-opened his wet purple orbs and looked at Kaiba's equally wet face, and his swimming eyes.

"I was sure I was dead at that moment…actually I was dead. It was like the two of us just died at that moment. I threw myself into my work after that and never came out again. I locked my cards up and never looked at them again.

"I can remember a dozen nights sitting on the floor of my bathroom, staring at a glassful of water with a handful of pills in my hand, trying to get up enough balls to take them and just crawl back into bed, knowing I'd never have to wake up again…but I couldn't.

"So I walked like a dead man to work and back everyday, and bled…until I decided to have a little too much to drink one night and stumbled into Serenity. She had been coming home for the Library that night and without a second thought took me to the apartment she was living in." He smiled slightly at the memory, the white smoking stick in his mouth turning up.

"One thing led to another, and I found, when they gave me my son, the first time I really got to hold him, I was met with the biggest bluest eyes, an exact replica of my brother's eyes, staring right back at me. And that has to be one of the happiest days of my life." He continued to smile weakly as he took a finally drag and looked around for a place to discard the thing. When he found none he simply continued to hold the smoldering end and turned back to Yami.

"Serenity told me about what happened between Yugi and Tea. She said she thought that you thought it was your fault the two of them separated. It probably is, but that's not the point. You couldn't control that. Even for a 5,000 year spirit you were young, and that was because Yugi was young. Tea was an idiot. She believed you'd immediately love you if she said so and just leave Yugi out of the picture, even when she was pregnant. She was just angry when her dream didn't come true and ran off like a little girl. From what I can tell, Yugi's over it. He doesn't care about what part you played in there separation and still he loves you like a brother. So why must you let it tare you apart inside? My point is what's been done, had been done. There is no way to go back and fix it. Do what you can now to live with it."

He turned away from Yami and started toward the stairs, leaving him with the difficult path of healing, when he suddenly stopped. With his back still turned to him he spoke.

"Yami?"

"Yes, Kaiba?" Yami responded, wondering what else he had to say for once.

"…My son… is going to ask you to teach him to duel. I can see it in his eyes. He's like Mokuba in that regard. So teach him with all your power or you'll be hearing from me." Kaiba growled. Yami smiled weakly as he began to wipe the tears from his eyes.

"I will." Kaiba half turned back and looked at him for a moment.

"Good." He said with a smile on his face, turned back and headed down the stairs, his trench coat flapping as he wiped away his own tears.

Book Dragon: (looking up at the sky nervously) "HMm…Please Review."