By ElveNDestiNy, written February 7, 2005
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: Nothing really to say; couldn't resist writing more. This doesn't 'follow' the last one, but Fates Intertwined was originally just a series of loosely connected one-shots. Don't be confused if you're reading this right after the last chapter; this is from Amelda's perspective and takes place a year later.
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He went back to the cemetery only once. Out of sheer curiosity, probably. The people looked at him strangely; he wasn't dressed as if he had come to mourn. Amelda was looking for someone living, not dead, and they must have just missed each other because there was a white rose lying on the grass before the headstone, so fresh that he could see dewdrops on the petals.
After that, he didn't seek him out anymore. It was odd; for a long time he had trailed Seto Kaiba everywhere, biding his time, trying to determine what would be best for revenge – what would hurt Kaiba the most. In the end, he had only found Mokuba, the little brother, the one weakness that didn't fit with the image Kaiba had so carefully built for himself. And despite how hardened he was to pain and cruelty, Amelda didn't have the heart to hurt the child. Not when he was so much like his own brother. He and Kaiba were too alike; hurting him was like hurting himself. But that was the point, wasn't it?
Kaiba's mask had slipped only once. He remembered clearly how vulnerable the curve of his mouth had been, how bright those blue eyes were, revealing all the pain that was usually well hidden from the world.
It was why he had come back to this site – because he felt some restless need to see him again, even though he didn't expect to. To find out the truth behind those cold blue eyes. That, and because there was unfinished business between them, a bond...he didn't understand it himself, but that didn't change the fact that it was there. As if he needed to ease the other's suffering.
He didn't seek him out anymore, but they met again anyway. Maybe it was fate; maybe it was just luck, or one of life's little idiosyncrasies. It was almost a full year later.
It was the kind of thing where he just walked into a club and immediately saw him, sitting alone in the corner with a glass of golden liquid on his table. Not that Kaiba would ever let himself lose control through alcohol. Others called it power – it was, in a kind of way. They had both grown up in situations where they were helpless, where they could only react to what life threw at them. The lesson of how precious control could be had not been lost on them.
Kaiba hadn't changed much, except that he looked a little more tired, like he had passed from anger and rebellion to despair. Amelda almost smiled to know that he hadn't lost the knack, after all. He was still one of the few people in the world who could read Kaiba with a quick study. Maybe it was because he had observed him for so long in the past, but over the years of his life, he had discovered that few people took the time to look beneath the surface of anything. Kaiba wasn't a master of illusion or even a particularly good actor—it was just that no one made the attempt to try. Except for Amelda.
"I've been looking for you," came the hoarse whisper as he neared the table. Amelda stared at Kaiba for a moment, concealing his surprise.
"Why?" His question was harsher than he had meant it to be.
"Your brother…"
"What about him?" He grabbed Kaiba by the wrists; the brunette twisted away but didn't break free, though he could have. He was surprisingly strong for someone so slender; then again, Amelda was the same. Appearances were deceptive. "Tell me," he hissed, all pretense of calmness dropped instantaneously.
"He's not dead." Blue eyes stared at him, challenged him. Amelda couldn't have hated him more, in that one instant. His hands tightened around Kaiba's wrists in an extremely painful grip, but he didn't notice and Kaiba didn't say anything. He couldn't say why he believed him so completely, why he never doubted that Kaiba was telling the truth. Why, at his three words, Amelda had discarded what he had seen in front of his eyes – the tank exploding, the tank that Amelda had just told Miruko to enter.
Kaiba put his black briefcase on the table and flipped it open with a sharp click. "All prisoners captured are photographed." His voice was brisk and dispassionate as he slid a small photo towards Amelda, who looked down at it numbly. "This was taken a few years ago."
"Where is he?" He's not dead…not dead… Everything was lost after he had heard those words. Amelda stared blindly at the young man sitting before him.
"I don't know. I've searched for him with all the considerable resources at my disposal. All I can tell you is that he's alive – somewhere out there."
Defeat. Guilt. A heartbreaking, crushing anguish. To have come so close, to have been given fragile hope, only to have it slaughtered – his eyes blazed grey and he didn't care that he could feel everyone looking at them, staring. It is the nature of angst, that it is a private torment, more grotesque for the fact that it is forced to be on display before eyes that cannot understand, whatever their good intentions. It is also human nature, to love the spectacle of personal suffering exhibited in the public, the way it somehow cheapens the meaning of pain, while making it all the more horrifying.
"We could search together." Amelda looked at Kaiba for a moment before he understood the words. The monogrammed letters on the lapel of Kaiba's trenchcoat seemed to mock him, reminding him of how many times he had seen the exact same symbol of power during the war that had destroyed his world.
Now the young CEO of that same company, so famed for his arrogance, was offering him an uneasy sort of alliance. A pact built on bonds of guilt and something else, something more, that neither of them completely understood.
"Yes." He said it without meaning to. What he should have said was that he worked alone – he had always worked alone – but every time he was with Kaiba his life changed again, and the whole world shifted. So he said the things that were on his mind, things that he ordinarily would never have voiced aloud.
Kaiba made an odd little sound and Amelda looked down at him curiously, almost dispassionately. He finally realized how crushingly his hands held the other's wrists, and he let go. But the sudden rough movement shifted the long sleeves that otherwise never would have moved, buckled in place. For a moment he saw shiny, raised marks on skin, and then Kaiba jerked back, standing, and the full glass of alcohol was knocked over. Amelda reached out instinctively to stop the spill, but he knew what he had seen.
I might need you right now for the sake of my brother, but you're hurting, too. It was a weapon, one that he knew he would never use against Kaiba, but a weapon nonetheless. Revenge should have given him some sort of satisfaction, joy. Instead, discovering Kaiba's secrets only made him tired—tired of how difficult life could be.
Blue eyes met grey eyes, and both looked quickly away, unable to stand facing a mirror. So now you know… Either could have said it. Amelda was a skilled dissembler; now he was disconcerted to find that a talent cut both ways. He had never felt so exposed, as if nothing was between them except truth.
Yet in the end there was hope, and his brother to find and to search for, with his new partner. And he finally understood revenge then - an enemy to himself.
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