When vengeance goes too far
Chapter 9: Saving Serenity
Disclaimer: I don't own any the characters from Yu-Gi-Oh. They are the property of Kazuki Takahashi, Shonen Jump, Konami and Shueisha comics.
At Domino City Hospital, Serenity Wheeler sat depressed in the lobby. She had Tristen and Tea sitting on either side of her. She was absolutely devastated. First, the results of an important test at school were altered, then her room and possessions were destroyed and to top it all off, her mother and brother had both been beaten and it was all thanks to Seto Kaiba. She had stood up for Joey and humiliated him. She had been quite proud of that fact. Many people saw it and Kaiba had become the laughing stock of the area, but anyone that knew Kaiba would also know that no one got off scott-free when they humiliated Kaiba. Yugi was the only exception since he had humiliated him in Duel Monsters and Kaiba had yet to beat him in a fair duel. Serenity did hear from the others that Kaiba defeated Yugi at Duellist Kingdom, but that was due to the fact Kaiba had threatened suicide. Yugi had the match won, but Kaiba, unable to accept it decided that he'd rather die that suffer another defeat, at least that what Serenity thought. She didn't know that Pegasus that kidnapped Mokuba and told Kaiba that if he didn't defeat Yugi, then Mokuba's soul would be his forever. Kaiba just couldn't bear the thought of going on in the world without his brother and was too blinded with pride to allow Yugi to go in and save Mokuba.
Speaking of Mokuba, Mokuba was in the seat next to Tea fast asleep. After he found out what his brother had done to Serenity, he had basically told Kaiba that enough was enough and that he was through defending him against verbal assaults that were mostly true. Mokuba may have stuck up for his brother, but he wasn't stupid. He could see why many of the people that badmouthed his brother would do it. However, he had thought a small part of the person that his brother once was, was still inside him, but after what he did to Serenity, Mokuba had decided that he had thought wrong.
"Man, it's so quiet!" Tristen said, bursting with frustration.
"Calm down," Tea, said, "Maybe we should go home."
"Calm down," Tristen, said, "How can I calm down when my buddy's in one of the wards here after a beating from Kaiba? Man the next time I see that Kaiba, I'm gonna split his freakin' head wide-open."
Tea sighed. She knew that whenever Tristen got frustrated, it was almost impossible to calm him down. Tristen started pacing up and down again.
"I'm going for a walk guys," Serenity said quietly. However, it was so quiet that no one even heard her. Tristen was busy pacing up and down, Tea was watching him with growing annoyance and Yugi was too into a magazine, so no one noticed her leave and Serenity was too depressed to realise or even care that her last statement had been ignored. She walked over to the stairwell and started climbing the stairs. Her life was ruined. Thanks to her altered test results, he career plans had been set back. If it had been that alone, Serenity would've probably have learned to move on, but after her room was ransacked and her possessions destroyed, she knew that she couldn't replace them. Sure she could've bought a new diary, but all the previous entries in her old one were gone for good and she didn't remember everything that she had written in them and her locket was a one-of-a-kind. However, if that wasn't enough, Kaiba had to go and have her mother and brother beaten. It completely devastated her to the point where she felt that life wasn't worth living. Sure, her mother and brother would recover, but in her devastated state, Serenity had over exaggerated their condition. She thought that they were injured for life. She couldn't bear it, she just couldn't. She looked up the stairwell and nodded. She decided that she was going to put herself out of her own misery by jumping off the hospital roof. She knew the fall would kill her.
"Why should I live on when my life's going to be nothing but endless misery?" she thought, "I should end it now."
Since she was taken away from Joey, she had felt lonely. Because of her nature, she had been too afraid to make friends out of fear that her quietness would cause others to reject her. She only had her mother and the thoughts of her brother. Those two things had stopped her from trying to commit suicide before. Now that she felt the two people that mattered the most in her life were suffering from permanent injuries. Two people in her may not have been much, but Serenity admit that it was better than no one. It could've been worse. Joey could've ended up like their father just as their mother had thought and her mother could've abandoned her since after being separated from Joey, Joey was all she ever talked about. Mrs Wheeler could've just dumped her off at an orphanage or somewhere like that infuriated that her daughter would rather be with her son, whom she saw as nothing more than a younger version of her ex. However, she didn't. She just put up with it and helped her cope.
Seto Kaiba arrived at the hospital in his limo and rushed into the lobby. Unfortunately, he caught the attention of Yugi, Tristen and Tea.
"It's Kaiba," Tea said
"That snake," Tristen, said, "He's got a lot of guts showing his face here after what he did to Serenity."
Kaiba came up to them.
"Where's Serenity?" he asked.
"Kaiba, how could you?" Yugi said in a tone filled with both anger and heartbreak. He was clearly fighting back tears.
If Kaiba didn't know any better, he could've sworn that Yugi felt betrayed, but why? He never saw Yugi as a friend, did he? He knew that Yugi saw him as a friend and maintained that believe even when Kaiba had repeated denied it to his face. Yet why was Kaiba feeling sorry? This was Yugi Moto, the only one to ever defeat him in a duel. Well Pegasus also managed to defeat him, as did Noah, but in both cases, it was due to cheating and Kaiba cheated in his second duel with Yugi, so in his mind, those matches didn't count. He may be a ruthless duellist, but at least he duelled fairly. The only time he ever cheated was because of his brother.
"Spare me," Kaiba said, maintaining his "I don't care about anyone" attitude.
"You got some nerve showing yer face here," Tristen said as he waved his fist in front of Kaiba's face in a threatening manner. Kaiba, unfortunately for Tristen was not intimidated in the slightest. He didn't even flinch.
"Tristen's right," Tea, agreed, "You have got a lot of nerve coming here. Your little revenge campaign against Serenity has gone too far."
"That's why I'm here," Kaiba, said, "Now where is she?"
That's when Yugi, Tristen and Tea realised that Serenity was missing
"She was just here," Yugi said.
"Why'd you want to see her anyway?" Tristen asked suspiciously, "Do you want to rub what you've done to her in her face?"
"I don't have time to waste on you geeks," Kaiba said. True, he may have been trying to save Serenity and apologise to her, but he sure as Hell wasn't going to admit it openly to anyone.
"Where could Serenity have gotten to?" Tea said, forgetting that Kaiba was present and her anger towards him.
"Kaiba here probably scared her off," Tristen said angrily.
"Oh please," Kaiba, said, "If you idiots had been paying attention to your surroundings rather than what you were doing, you'd have realised that she was gone before I showed up." Suddenly, a frightening thought occurred to him. Without warning, he rushed towards the stairwell, pushing Tristen and Tea aside.
Tea fell back into her seat, but Tristen stumbled backwards and fell into someone.
"Hey watch it jerk," Tristen said.
However, when he spun round to confront the person, he immediately regretted what he said. The man was a big seven and a half-foot tall man was an incredible muscular build. He glared at Tristen.
"Nice day huh?" Tristen said nervously.
BAM! The man punched Tristen in the face and he stumbled back and ended up in the seat to Tea's right.
Mokuba stirred.
"What's happening?" he said as he awoke from his sleep.
Kaiba didn't know how, but he somehow knew what Serenity was planning to do. Since he realised that Serenity hadn't been present in the lobby when he arrived, he kept wondering if he was too late. He just couldn't let Serenity go through with it. She was only thirteen-going-on-fourteen and still had her life ahead of her. Kaiba didn't know why he loved Serenity. After all, considering who she was related to, Kaiba had been surprised to discover that he loved her. How ironic that it a situation that she was in dire peril and he was the instigator of that situation to make him realise that he loved her. There was also the issue that she was five years younger than he was and technically still just a minor, but Kaiba didn't care. It wasn't like he was planning on marrying her. He knew that to do so would get him in trouble with the law. Besides, he also knew it would be rushing things. He could wait till she came of age to legally get married and it was also a chance for him to take it each step at a time. That was assuming that Serenity forgave him, which he doubted. However, if she couldn't forgive him, then Kaiba decided that at least she should know that he was sorry and that suicide wasn't the answer.
"Please don't be too late," he thought to himself as he ran up the flights of stairs.
Serenity had reached the hospital roof. She was surprised to find the door to the roof unlocked. The way up to the roof was only meant for maintenance crews and window cleaners to get to the high windows. At first Serenity thought that someone was outside and feared that her plan would be ruined. However, upon further inspection, she was relieved to find no one outside. Someone must've forgotten to lock the door when they were done. Serenity walked outside and walked to the edge. Looking down made her dizzy, but she wasn't planning on just jumping off. She decided that a running jump would be more appropriate. She didn't want any of the patients near the ward windows noticing her. She backed up till she was at the opposite end and began to run.
"Goodbye cruel world," she thought.
However, suddenly, Kaiba burst out of the door that Serenity had came through and saw that she was about to jump.
"No," he said as he lunged at her and then tackled her to the ground. He was lucky that she had been so close to him otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to stop her.
Serenity was in a daze and she shook her head. What had just happened?
Kaiba stood in front of her, ready to move in to stop her should she decide to continue her suicide attempt.
Serenity recovered from her daze and glared at the person that dared stop her. To her, someone had obviously been working on the roof after all and had saw what she was going to and decided to stop her, but to her surprise, her rescuer was none other than Seto Kaiba, the guy responsible for her recent misery.
"Kaiba," she said, "Why did you save me? Do you want to devastate me more? Is me killing myself not enough for you? Why must you torture me? I'd think you had enough satisfaction out of beating up my mother and brother."
Kaiba sighed. This would be difficult. Saying that he was sorry was pretty easy, but convincing her that he meant it, not to mention deterring her from committing suicide was another.
"Look Serenity," Kaiba, said, "This is hard on me and I still don't understand it fully myself, I want to say that I'm sorry for everything I've done to you."
"Oh," Serenity, said, "What happened to Wheelerette? Are you going to call me a bitch now since that is the proper name for a female dog and you've insulted Joey enough with dog jokes? Is this part of your plan?"
"Listen Serenity, you can believe what you want, but suicide isn't the way out. Believe me, have you ever considered the impact it would leave on your family and friends?"
"Why would you care?" Serenity, said, "Is it because Mokuba finally saw you for what you truly are and ditched you?"
Kaiba said, "Like I said, believe what you want. However, the reason I came here is because my conscience caught up with me. I realise that I went too far. Look I know that you have a personality disorder that makes you get devastated easier than others. I don't know why my conscience caught up with me because until recently, I never thought I had one. I also realised that I love you Serenity. I don't know why; believe me I don't know why considering who you're related to."
Serenity looked into Kaiba's eyes. Her intention was to glare into them and tell him that he was full of it, but when she saw the look in his eyes, she could tell that Kaiba meant what he said.
"Look," Kaiba, continued, "I don't expect forgiveness. All I want is for you to know that I'm sorry for what I did to you and that what you're doing is a mistake. You'll be causing an awful lot of pain to a lot of people, more pain that I caused you. Do you think your mother and brother will not care that you're dead? I may have insulted your brother countless times in the past, but he's got heart. When it comes to you, his usual street-thug attitude vanishes and from what I heard, he entered the Duellist Kingdom tournament to get the prize money in order to save your eyesight."
Serenity considered what Kaiba was saying. True, she never thought about what others would've thought had she committed suicide. Now that she thought about it, she realised that perhaps that would've made matters worse. Joey, in his anger would've probably have blamed Kaiba and his rivalry might've grown into a murderous grudge and Serenity knew that no matter how heartless Kaiba was, even he didn't deserve that. Her mother would've probably have blamed Joey because she didn't know Kaiba that well and hadn't even met him in person and to be frank, their would've been no one else for Mrs Wheeler to pin the blame on and it probably would've only fuelled Joey's desire to kill Kaiba Serenity realised that she had been selfish. Kaiba really meant what he said about being sorry, which was unusual. He normally only ever said sorry just to get on with his business and he never really meant it. This time however, he had come to her and apologised himself without anyone forcing him to. She could just chose to let him wallow in misery. It would be the ultimate revenge, but looking at him, she realised that she couldn't. Kaiba had also been devastated when he lost Mokuba and losing Mokuba was enough for him to go insane.
"I guess I can forgive you," Serenity, said, "But why do you love me?"
"I already said it," Kaiba, said, "I don't know why. When I saw you devastated and my conscience started to catch up with me, I guess I realised it. I'm really sorry Serenity, but if you'd like, I could try and have your grade for that last test changed."
"It's a start," Serenity, said, "But nothing will repair my locket or my diary."
Kaiba sighed. It was unfortunate that he couldn't reverse all the damage done, but at least Serenity was beginning to feel better.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can fix those. However, I'm sure you don't need a locket to remember your mother. She's always with you in your heart." "I can't believe I'm doing this," he added in his thoughts, "But it feels nice and comforting. You were wrong Gozaburo. Guess I won another one over you."
Serenity looked at Kaiba. He did look pretty handsome. If not for his cold attitude, he'd probably have girls swooning over him and he had gone out of his way to save her knowing that she probably would never forgive him for what he did to her. It was very out-of-character for him. However on the bright side, he'd saved her from making a mistake, a mistake that could've cost Kaiba his life. She could argue that he was only trying to get Mokuba back, but looking into his eyes, she could tell that Kaiba meant every word he said, including the part about loving her.
"I love you to," she said, "But don't expect me to marry you."
Kaiba was astonished. He hadn't expected that. How could Serenity return those feelings after what he did to her?
"Don't worry," Kaiba, said, "Marriage isn't on the agenda, at least not for a good few years."
"Good," Serenity, said, "Because I'm still just a minor. I really admire the way you came to me and apologised and opened yourself up to me. I could tell you meant it just by looking into your eyes. I have to say you look really handsome. I bet if not for your attitude, you'd have girls swooning over you."
"I never thought much on relationships," Kaiba, said, "Gozaburo told me that love was what made humans weak and that all wives are good for are producing heirs. I can see now that he was wrong."
Little did either of them know that Yami had watched the whole thing from the door back down into the hospital. He had a smile on his face.
"Let's just hope your newly discovered kindness lasts Kaiba," he thought.
Author's Notes: Okay, so Kaiba saved Serenity. However, that's not the end of it. There's still Joey and Mrs Wheeler who were victims of Kaiba's revenge to apologise to and knowing Joey, he's not as forgiving as his sister and how will both mother and son react to the news that Serenity and Kaiba love each other? You can bet that they won't take it too well. How ironic that Kaiba ends up falling for the girl whose life he set out to destroy. I know if you think the whole sequence between Kaiba and Serenity was a bit lame, but I had unfortunately experienced a bit of writer's block. Anyway, next til, will Kaiba be forgiven by all and how will Joey and Mrs Wheeler react to the news that Serenity and Kaiba have fallen for one another? Till next time.