Yay! Another chapter! Sorry if this one has some bad writing in it, but I've been busy with school work and tired, too. Oh, and it's most likely shorter than every other chapter I've written so far...sorry about that. Especially with band, with two periods of it a day, thirty minutes of lessons each Thursday morning at eight, four hours from five to nine of marching practice on Tuesdays, and Saturday rehearsals from nine to five, it gets tough to squeeze in time. Oh, did I forget to mention four hour football games that we play for sometimes? We've already done one…

But enough about me. Thanks to my reviewers!

lilxangelxsweetz: I tried to update as soon as I can…but here's the chapter! Hope you like it!

shanichan11: Maybe you're right about the crying thing…hmm…but thanks for the compliment, too!

bingbing: I have no idea if you were hyper then…haha, probably not. Or else you're always hyper when you review. And thanks for pointing out all the errors…but she's not crying too much because…well, the evidence is in this chapter. I found an error in your review, too, Miss Self-Named Nitpicker! You made cannot into two words! Mwahahaha! Just joking.

So, I don't own Yugioh…still… On with Chapter XII!

"It's a pity that Serenity had to leave so soon," Yugi commented. "The fun seemed to die away after she left."

The small group of four—Yugi, Tristan, Joey, and Tea—had left the donut shop. Serenity had exited not ten minutes before they had, but after she left, they had decided to leave, too. It was getting late, and it was time for them to go home or to their jobs, whether it was to finish homework or to get some money. However, they still had a bit of time to walk leisurely down the road and enjoy a bit of conversation.

"Yeah," Joey answered his friend dully. "Now that she spends all her time with Kaiba, I barely see her anymore. I feel a lot better when she's around."

"Only because you hate Kaiba so much. If she was with one of us, you wouldn't be so…grumpy about it." Tea looked at him for a second, then looked up at the sky that peeked between the tall buildings. "Well, you'll see her tonight. The rest of us won't see her until tomorrow, if you guys decide to meet us again to walk to school together."

"We will," he said. "What makes you think that we're not going to?"

"Easy, old pal." Tristan slung an arm over his friend's shoulders. "This morning, I didn't see you or your sweet sister's face."

Joey threw off the arm with a scowl. "Don't be messing with my sister," he warned. "No flirting with her, either. She's my sis and no one else's."

"No need to be so overprotective, Joey," Tea said as they crossed a street. "She's our friend, too, you know. She's known us longer than anyone else here other than you."

"I know," he muttered. "But seriously, that guy over there…"

"Hey!" Tristan butted in. "I'm not 'that guy'."

"What? You're a girl?" Tea said sarcastically. "I never knew that…not that I want to, of course."

"I never said that!"

"Yeah, Tristan, whatever."

Serenity was sitting at the edge of the curb near an ambulance, hugging her knees to her. The medics had insisted on looking over her cuts and bruises awhile ago, and she had been too frightened by all that had happened to say anything. Now, she was covered in thin layers of antibiotics and a few bandages, tears still leaking out of her eyes every once in awhile as her thoughts drifted back to the note that had been on the road.

"I warned you already. Do what I asked you. This is a simple little warning about going against my words, nothing big. Just for taking so long to agree to my terms and the small job I gave you. However, do anything worse, and I'll make sure you'll regret it forever. Remember, I have eyes and ears everywhere to do my bidding."

Kaiba was sitting by her side, knees up and arms dangling from them. He was wrapped up in his own bandages and covered in medications, a large but shallow cut on top of his eyebrow left unbandaged starting to dry up. His trench coat was lying on the ground beside him, torn and covered with little shards of glass and a few drops of blood. He didn't say anything or even look over at her, but somehow, his presence was reassuring to her. She couldn't explain it, but she didn't feel alone or so vulnerable with him there.

It didn't take away the fear that was nestled inside her, though. "Seto?" she asked in a small voice.

"Hmm?" He looked at her with a distracted gaze, focusing on a point above her huddled figure.

"In the note—do you think what was in it—about knowing exactly what I was doing—is it true?"

His eyes looked down and focused on the piece of paper that was in his hands. Serenity had dropped it and hadn't wanted it back. "No. If it were true, he would have done something worse. At least what he said about giving you the consequence for taking so long to agree to his terms proved that. He doesn't know you told me." His voice stayed quiet, not wanting anyone to overhear their conversation. "However, how he knew about you not doing anything he told you to…that means that someone's watching you." He looked back at her.

Serenity looked down at her hands clasped around her legs. The tears that seemed to keep on coming still came. She felt foolish, but she couldn't stop them from leaking out of her eyes and down her face. Everything that happened scared her so much…

She felt the weight of Kaiba's gaze lessen. "It's okay to cry. You've gone through a lot. Don't expect yourself to be able to stand up against everything right away."

She didn't answer. She continued to look out across the road at nothing, trying to build her composure back up again. Something must have shown in her eyes, because she heard the light sound of glass falling and felt something heavy but warm come to rest on her shoulders. Looking up in surprise, she saw Kaiba's trenchcoat wrapped around her, and his clear blue eyes looking out into the distance once more.

The silence was comforting once again. Not wanting to break it, she looked out into a place of her own.

The gang had stopped at a crosswalk waiting for their turn to cross the road. They were still bantering and chatting with each other, their subject no longer Tristan, but ideas for a school project they would be working on soon. Tea looked at the surroundings around her, familiar but ever changing. A large crowd of people and cars caught her eye. "Guys, what do you think is happening over there?"

"I might choose to do—what, Tea? Where?" Joey asked.

Yugi saw it, too. "Right at the corner of the next block. Over there, right in front of us." He pointed.

Tristan began walking across the street in that direction. "Well, what are you guys waiting for? It's in our way, anyway. Might as well check it out."

"Um, Tristan, whatever is in that crowd might not be a good thing…" Yugi started to say. However, his friend was already too far away to hear, or else he chose to ignore them.

Joey started following. "Stop worrying so much, Yugi. It's probably nothing. Come on, let's go. The light's going to change soon."

"Yeah, we need to cross the street anyway," Tea said. She looked down at Yugi, who was still standing there, unsure. "I don't really want to know what's there, either, but we have to go that way, so why not just cross the street now?" She prodded him.

"Alright," Yugi sighed.

In the end, they were almost running. Tristan was way ahead of them, and neither of the three wanted him to do anything before they got there. Despite their doubts, none of them could restrain their feeling of curiosity that was slowly but surely taking over. Also, Joey was setting the pace and pulled them along. "Hey!" Tea said indignantly. "You're not supposed to drag a girl around like this, Joey!"

However, when they caught up with Tristan in the middle of the crowd, they forgot about the manner they had used to get there. "Check it out, you guys," Tristan said softly. An expensive car was smashed into a light pole on the side of the road, glass and small scraps of metal strewn all around it. The windows were gaping holes, and skid marks came from behind the back two wheels. A small bundle was still in the back of the car.

"It looks a lot like Kaiba's car…" Yugi commented nervously.

"Joey?" a young girl's startled voice called out. "Yugi? Tea?"

They turned as one to the sidewalk several feet away from them. Shock lit up their features as they saw who it was. Serenity.

"Serenity! Are you okay? What happened?" Joey ran to his sister, heedless of the glass underfoot and the officials still on the scene.

She tried to get up and walk over to her brother, but she was still in disorder from the accident. She was halfway up when she fell back onto the curb. Kaiba stood up and helped her to her feet, then followed her as she went to Joey. "I—I'm okay. I'm not seriously injured, or anything like that."

"Are you sure? You look really pale. What—" He stopped when he finally realized who was standing close by other than his friends. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Kaiba? I thought you said you were going to make sure she was safe. You just got her in a car accident!" he exploded in barely contained anger.

Kaiba looked at him with a flat gaze. "Wheeler, if you thought I was speeding and lost control of the car, or did something else equally stupid, think again. A—"

"I don't care if you did something stupid or smart! You just put my sister's life in danger! She could have been killed!"

"I'm not done yet." He said it in such a cold tone of voice that no one dared say anything more. He let his gaze wander over them one by one, now burning with a blue intensity. They rested on Joey. "A pedestrian decided that it would be safe to cross a busy road in black with his head down. By the time your sister caught sight of him, it was too late to do anything but turn the car around."

"My sis caught sight of him? What about you? Where were you looking? And it was too late to do anything but turn the car around? What about the brakes?" Joey's hands were fists by now, and a scowl crossed his red face.

"I was taking a glance at the rearview mirror to change lanes, Wheeler. If I had stepped on the brakes then, the car would be on its hood. And neither your sister nor me would be here right now, dead or alive."

"Why, you…" Joey lunged at Kaiba.

"No, Joey! Don't!" his sister cried.

However, he didn't seem to hear her. His fist connected to Kaiba's jaw before any of his friends could stop him. Kaiba staggered backwards, then regained his balance and grabbed Joey's wrist as the hand attempted to draw away, then twisted it sharply. Everything else was a blur of fists and arms as the Wheeler sibling attempted to hit Kaiba, and as Kaiba defended himself.

Tristan and Yugi grabbed their friend's arms and dragged him away as he continued to try and hurt the man before him. Serenity jumped between them. "Stop it, Joey! Stop! It wasn't his fault!"

"Yes it was," he growled, trying to loosen his friends' grip and escape for another chance to hit the man. "Let me go! And get out of the way, Serenity! He deserves it!"

A hand reached out and rested on Serenity's shoulder. "Don't get in the middle of this. If his friends can't hold him, you'll get hurt." She turned around and looked up at Kaiba, who was looking at Joey. His cut was bleeding again, the blood running into his eyes, and a bit of blood ran down the corner of his mouth and his bruised jaw. He didn't seem to care, though; he looked at her brother instead. "Wheeler, I thought we had an agreement. I kept my side of the bargain. But it seems you've broken your side of the pact for the second time today. I'm starting to think it's a waste of my time. Your sister has already been through a lot; you're only pulling her into the middle now. If you don't care about my feelings or have any respect for those around you, at least think about your sister." His gaze was blazing in anger, though he looked composed and calm otherwise.

"I am thinking about her! If I wasn't, I wouldn't care a bit about you being here! Who else's fault would it be that she's hurt?"

"You don't need to beat me up for me to figure out it was my fault. I never said it wasn't mine."

"Yes I do! After everything you've done to me, Yugi, and the rest of us, what else do you need? If it wasn't for your arrogance and your thinking, 'I'm better than you', we'd all be better off!"

"Joey, please…" Serenity pleaded.

He didn't listen. "I don't care if you're a CEO of a company, and I wouldn't care if you ruled the world! Power doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want to us!"

"Joey! Please! Just listen to me for a second!" Tears were glistening at the corner of her eyes. She couldn't stand to watch her brother and Kaiba fight, especially over her, because…well…because… Because Seto was a close friend to her now. She knew someone was going to end up hating her because of her decision, but what could she do? No matter what she tried, all she would end up doing would be to hurt both of them more.

"Wheeler, there is a huge crowd of people watching us. Unless you want your face on the front of the paper tomorrow morning, I would suggest bringing this somewhere else." He spit out a mouthful of blood and wiped away what was still on his chin.

"Forget the papers! You'll be on there tomorrow, anyway! Because of your brother and all of the other stuff going on!" He turned to his sister. "I told you not to help him! I told you it would all end bad! If you weren't helping him, you wouldn't have your life hanging on a thread right now!"

Serenity was taken back by the sudden turn of anger. "J—Joey…I—I…"

Kaiba interrupted. "Well, maybe I shouldn't have let her then, huh?" he said softly. Serenity turned around quickly, not believing what she had just heard. "If I never agreed to let her, then…Well, if it makes two siblings happier to be together and not have someone in the middle, then it's the right thing to do." He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. They revealed nothing. "Serenity, you can do whatever you want in the afternoons, but you're not staying with me or helping me."

Her eyes widened in shock, and a few tears that she had successfully kept in her eyes ran down her cheeks. Kaiba didn't care for them, though. "Your brother's right. If you don't hang around me, you'll be better off. Think of how your life was before…before Mokuba was taken. You seemed happy enough with your friends. Now, it's just a bunch of stress and thoughts in turmoil. I can read it on your face. So stay away from me. It'll be better that way."

With that, he turned around swiftly and strode off before anyone could say a word. Serenity gazed after him wordlessly with tear-filled eyes, blurring the world. But she saw clearly his form as he turned his back on her, leaving her and the memories of their friendship behind. Striding away with his head held high, even after what the words had cost him, and walking out into the open and to whatever his fate held for him. The memory would be with her for years.

It was only when he was gone when she realized she still had his coat around her. She pulled it tightly around her, turned away, and let the tears fall freely.

So, that was the chapter. Worse quality writing than normal, huh? And I know it's shorter, but I don't have much time to type right now…maybe after November and marching band practices are done and over.

Okay, I have never been in a car accident—I've only been in a car that was touched by a truck, but that's it. So if the description is off…sorry. I don't know what it's like. Also, I'm too young to drive, and I've never really seen any fights, so those may be…um…yeah….

Review, please!