Their Promise

by Waifine

"When he looked at her, Kisara knew for certain. His scowl was just as hollow as her smile. Inside, they were both screaming in pain." The untold story of Kisara, from Atlantis, to Ancient Egypt, to Medieval London, to its final conclusion in Modern Japan.

9. The Wind of Change

Book I | The Wind of Change

Duelist Kingdom Arc

Part V

Seto Kaiba: 18 years old

Kisara Pegasus: 16 years old

…

The field of their duel was set. On the roof of Pegasus's Castle, Kaiba stood at the top of one tower, and Yugi on one adjacent to it. The battle itself would play out in the isle connecting the two. All was in place on this annex. Were it not for the dire nature of the circumstances Kaiba might almost have appreciated the staging of it all. He, who played chess so excellently, had become a pawn. He knew, somewhere, that twisted bastard Pegasus was watching.

And, for a flicker of a moment, he wondered if she was safe, and if she was watching too. The cold wind blew through him and banished the thought from his mind.

…

From a window of one of the surrounding towers, keeping just out of sight, Kisara leaned against the thick stone wall, looking out at the battle spread before her. Her wound was throbbing from the climb, and yet was nothing to the havoc of her nerves. That same wind rustled past her, catching at her white hair and wafting it out of the slit-like window as she looked down on the scene below.

The duel began.

Kisara's eyes remained fixed on Kaiba. She watched the sheer calm with which he entered the first phase of his attack. Even from here she could see his own exhaustion. After she left the dungeons she had been unable to sleep in the night, not knowing whether or not Kaiba and his brother had escaped – not knowing whether all of her meddling had been of any help in the end, or if it only caused more harm. Well, her father was all too happy to answer that question when, cheerily over breakfast, he suggested that she go up to the annex to take a look around. "Might do you a world of good, Angel-face," he had cooed. "Who knows," he added, a piece of pancake sitting on the end of his fork, "you might even see something you like." With a vicious smile, he bit in.

Kisara shuddered, returning her attention to the playing-field. The Kaiba brothers had not escaped. And now, Seto Kaiba was once more stepping through the elaborate motions laid down by her father to get his little brother back.

…It was interesting, watching Kaiba play. Kisara had always avoided seeing his duels on television, for the obvious reasons of her feelings on the matter of the man. Still, she would have expected him to be one to toy with his opponents. To duel as he lived. But now… even from the little that she knew of dueling and of Duel Monsters, she could see that Kaiba was trying to finish Yugi off as quickly as possible.

And yet… as Kisara's attention began to encompass more than the duel itself, she began to realize that there was so much else on this field before her eyes. So much which, mere weeks ago, she would not have recognized– like the instant, hardly even a flash, in which a boy of seventeen had transformed into the nameless Pharaoh of old. Around his neck flashed an inverted pyramid, with an eye at its center. The Millennium Puzzle.

Kisara's throat went dry as she saw before her a man from a memory she could not fully place. "Ugh." She pressed her hand to her head, and gripped into her crutch more firmly. To have something so close that she could almost recall it… it would drive her mad. If it hasn't already. Her eyes narrowed on the man who was no longer 'Yugi Mutou,' who now combated Seto Kaiba. The man, who was not a boy, called forth the Dark Magician card. Again, the hairs on the back of Kisara's neck rose. Why did this scene, with this Monster and this man, seem so familiar to her? Where had she seen it before?

Kaiba jeered across the playing field. "I'm surprised you'd put your Magician at risk, Yugi."

The man who called himself Yugi simple smiled. In response, he in turn played Eye of Truth, to better see just what Kaiba did have in store for his Magician, he explained. And as the holograms of Kaiba's cards spun about, the Eye revealed something truly striking. In his hand Seto Kaiba was holding a card of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and it spun out to face directly against the tower that held Kisara Pegasus. For the first time in her life Kisara, daughter of the creator of Duel Monsters, found herself face to face with the card of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Her nails dug into the stone wall against which she braced herself.

I don't understand. If he has the Blue-Eyes, why hasn't he played it yet? In her mind echoed Kaiba's own jeer at Yugi… for putting his Dark Magician in danger. Looking at the design, even from this distance, she had to admire her father's artistry. Pegasus had painted the scales blue, but in such a way that it looked more like shadow than pigment. Kisara raised a hand to her own hair, which took on many of the same tones when it caught the light, almost streaking blue at times. She absentmindedly played with a strand, still looking at the card. It was the eyes which Kisara was transfixed by. Not due to any beauty, but to the strange affinity of them. …As when one looked into the bathroom mirror. What was Kaiba planning for the Blue-Eyes? Kisara felt her heart skip a beat. And will it hurt?

"Kaiba sure loves his Blue-Eyes." The phrase wafted up to where Kisara hid herself. One of Yugi's friends had spoken. There was a whole cluster of them watching the duel. Kisara blinked down at the scene. And Kaiba did not merely possess the one. He had two more within his deck. All of the Blue-Eyes cards currently in circulation belonged to this man.

Another boy, however, interrupted Kisara's thoughts before she could dwell too long on the exact words that the first boy had used. "Three Blue-Eyes White Dragons?" he said in awe. "That's got to be nearly impossible to beat!" Kisara's eyes flickered between duel and spectators. The first boy to speak had had blown, spiked hair. The second one's hair was white and tattered, and he– and he–

Kisara's heart constricted. She lurched away from the window. She clutched at her own mouth to keep from screaming. She could have sworn that as she moved out of sight, so too his head turned to look at where she'd been. Only to find the window empty.

No… she thought to herself, closing her eyes. There is no way. She could not see him well enough from where she stood. It cannot be him.

After a few minutes where the only sound in that stone tower was her own rapid breathing, Kisara slowly turned back to look once more out of the window. The white-haired boy's attention was again on the duel – if it had ever left to begin with. Kisara swallowed. There is no way that all three of them are on that rooftop right now… However… if that was who she suspected it to be… and if her memories of that time were not misleading… then Kisara was looking at a convergence of three of the most powerful men in all of Egypt's history. And she suspected that not a single one of them had a clue.

Meanwhile, the duel went on.

"Behold!" Kaiba bellowed, lifting a card into the air, "the mighty Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" Kisara's eyes widened. It was here. With a roar which, to her, sounded all too much like her own voice, and a spray of electric sparks, it issued forth. "Now, Yugi, your fate belongs to me!" Kisara looked upon the beast for the first time in her life as wings, glimmering white scales, and mighty heaving muscles hauled themselves forth from the Duel Disk and onto the turrets of the Pegasus Castle. It stretched out its great leathery wings and opened its eyes to the world. They were the same arresting shade of blue as her own.

Seto Kaiba for the first time fully appreciated the dragon's similarity to the girl into whose eyes he'd stared the night before. His breath almost caught. The moment passed. "Take flight!" he roared, relishing in the way the creature responded to his voice. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon, rise!" The beast cried out and, with one almighty flap of its wings, it tore off, high above the castle. The tower in which Kisara stood shook. She craned her head up and out of the window.

She favors her right wing, Kisara thought absentmindedly, a smile pulling at the corner of her thin lips as she conjured an Industrial Illusions jet in her mind. The same as I do...

"Go," Kaiba continued, "White Lightning Attack!" The blast outshone the sun, and when it crashed down onto the castle it enveloped the entire tower. Kisara gripped into the castle wall. It was all that she could do to keep from toppling. The smoke cleared to reveal man and beast set side by side. None of the looks of self-confidence that Kaiba had exuded up until this moment could compare to that which now set on his face. He looked like a man who could challenge the world and win, with the Blue-Eyes by his side.

Kisara stared in awe, not at Kaiba, but at the dragon. This… is what I have, she thought, mind numb. This… was my gift to him. In that moment Kisara realized that, no matter what uncertain and unhappy cacophony of feelings she now had for the man who had caused her so much pain and so much good, it was nothing to what she must have felt for him once, in another life. She realized then… that she must have adored and trusted him with absolute clarity to have bequeathed such a gift on such a man. But for the life of her, she could not remember–

…Why?...

With his next move Kaiba performed an act beyond imagination. He brought the dragons together. "Now I create a Duel Monster without peer. With attack force so great that no monster can stand against him." The pronoun clashed hard against Kisara's ear, even as her attention remained riveted to the field. An explosion erupted from the Duel Disk. Kisara had to throw up an arm to shield her eyes. Then, when she looked again, blinking against the glare, she saw the silhouette of a colossus appearing from the smoke. Kaiba's voice went before the monster. "I create the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"

Kisara's lips parted as she started at the mutation. The three-headed dragon let out a snarl as it towered over the man that Kisara knew to have been a once Pharaoh of Egypt. She swallowed. Was she… daunted? No. She was amazing. Enthralled, even. Because, as she seemed to be understanding so much from watching the manner of Kaiba's dueling, Kisara now also understood one thing more: that just as she sometimes seemed to know the man better than he knew himself, he had the same knowledge of her. He knew how to make the Blue-Eyes more powerful than even Pegasus could have imagined. He knew how to turn her weakness into strength. Even as the realization washed over her Kisara felt the pain ease up from her joints. She felt new-found adrenaline pumping through her body. Tentatively, she attempted to shift her weight onto both her hips, and onto her legs, without the use of her cane. And for the first time in weeks… it held. In awe, Kisara looked back to the field. The fusion had made her stronger.

The man who called himself Yugi responded simply. "Before this Duel's over, your dragon will fall."

Thought she felt that she ought to have better faith in Kaiba, Kisara was scared. And within one turn, the man made good on his threat. Kisara watched the actions of the once great Pharaoh and they gripped around her heart like a cold hand of fear. Fear for Kaiba and his brother. Fear for the dragon. Fear for herself. After everything that these last weeks had brought her, she was so afraid of pain. One after the other 'Yugi' conjured forth Mammoth Graveyard, Polymerization and The Living Arrow. Kisara watched as Kaiba put into words both her fear and her query.

His voice shaking, he asked, "W-What's a Living Arrow card?"

"Living Arrow allows me to use my other cards in combination, not with my own cards, but with my opponent's monsters. I'll show you–" Kisara did not understand. How could she understand? She had no real knowledge of the game. And yet now, though she did not understand the technicalities, she felt like an animal staring down the barrel of a gun. Unable to run. And then the gun fired. "I can use the magical power of The Living Arrow to bond my Mammoth Graveyard to the heart of your beast."

The arrow shot across the field. There was no running now.

With the shadow of the Mammoth engulfing it, the arrow struck at the core of the Blue-Eyes and, with it, at the core of Kisara Pegasus. Without the support of her crutch, which she had leaned against the wall some minutes before, her knees hit the ground. The sudden smell of putrefying flesh rose into her mouth like bile. The heads of the dragon reared back in such an agonized cry that who could possibly have heard Kisara's little scream over their three deafening shrieks?

…

Though nothing in the world should have made Kaiba look away from the horror playing out on the field before him, for some reason, his gaze snapped to an empty window in an adjacent tower. On the floor, out of sight, Kisara, with fingers trembling and mouth stretched open in pain, clawed at the brace around her stomach.

On the field the head of a mammoth cadaver through the belly of the Blue-Eyes.

"No, my dragon! What have you done?" Kaiba felt the strangest desire to drop everything, and to cross the field and beat Yugi with his own two fists. Forget the cards. This was not a card game. What Yugi had just done– What had he just done?

Meanwhile, the smug little shit across the field launched into exposition. "My Mammoth Graveyard can't properly fuse with your Ultimate Dragon. Instead it causes your monster to rot and decay from the inside out." The words struck against Kaiba's ears like a physical blow. "Each turn your Ultimate Dragon will weaken until your creature is no more."

His eyes flitting across the field. All that Kaiba could do was take in how quickly his plan was unraveling at his fingertips. "There must be something I can do to save my Ultimate Dragon," he rasped, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face. Not again. Surely he could not be so helpless again. Surely he would not be made to watch for a second time in so many hours as something precious to him was snatched away – destroyed within his very reach.

Not again.

With every turn that passed the Blue-Eyes weakened. And with every turn, in the tower adjacent to that of the duel, Kisara could feel it as she lay prostrate across the rising stairs, unmoving, save for the twitch of her fingers. The stench of her own flesh filled her nostrils. The carcass on the field began to ooze and drip, violet gasses of decomposition pluming from it.

Kaiba's eye twitched. Can't lose. The fate of Mokuba's soul rides on this game. And only god knew what else. At another time such wild thoughts might have been laughable. He was not laughing now. Again, despite the horror of the scene before him, his eyes darted up to that vacant window. Almost hysterically, Kaiba called out for the dragon to attack again. Wretched and wounded, it complied. To no avail. No… I will not- cannot- be defeated. Again he cried out for the dragon to attack. Again it proved completely useless. And still the Blue-Eyes continued to sicken. Now Kaiba was shaking in earnest. At the sight. At the smell. At the knowledge of his own uselessness in the protection of those whom he cared about most.

"Once again you have failed Kaiba." Yugi said out loud what Kaiba felt to his core.

Kaiba stood tall, lips slightly parted, shoulder limp, hands now loose by his side, and eyes unseeing. Yet he felt like he was seeing far too much. Yugi, the idiots, the castle, all fell away, and all that was left was he and the poor, crippled beast before him. I can't believe it. I failed. I failed my brother. I failed Mokuba! His soul will be trapped… forever. The lack of food and sleep finally took their toll on his addled senses and Seto Kaiba fell into hallucination. As the strange and horrifying thought reverberated through his mind, his eyes slowly slid from one wing, oozing and pussing, to another, rotting to the bone. What had he done to her, he wondered absentmindedly. You were so magnificent. He stared into her dulled, opaque eyes.

Those eyes turned downward. He followed their gaze, and in the place of the Mammoth, found himself looking at his little brother, trapped in the husk of the beast. "Seto!" It was a younger Mokuba. A child Mokuba. The Mokuba to whom Kaiba had given his oath of protection. And now, that small child was reaching out his hand to his big brother. "Help, Seto! Please, help me!" The dragon groaned, as though echoing the child's cry. Kaiba remained fixated, staring, rooted to the spot. "Brother, please!" The ooze pooled over his little brother's face, dripping like so many bars of the cage from which he could not free him– obscuring him. "You promised! You promised to help me!" The dragon shuddered, its knees buckling beneath a weight it could no longer uphold, fixing Kaiba with a desperate, pleading stare.

I promised to help you both.

Kaiba watched as, from where he stood, his own younger self, the boy who once met Kisara at that gate all those years ago, tore across the boundless expanse toward Mokuba. Towards the dragon.

"Seto, hurry!" Mokuba cried. The dragon roared in pain.

"Big broth-!" The last of the child's fingers vanished inside the corpse of the beast. Like a knife, he reached the dragon's heart. It too let out one final cry that seemed to echo Seto's name, before it broke apart into pieces.

"Mokuba!" The child version of the man skidded to a halt, just as the dust rose from the bones of beast and boy. Without turning, his voice filled with self-loathing, he whispered, "You're rotten to the core, Seto Kaiba, just like that dragon." That dragon, which he had brought to this state of horrible destruction– she had been so strong, before he chose to once more meddled in her life. Kaiba blinked. …How is it that I destroy everything that I touch? The man lifted a hand to look at it. He blanched at the sight as, sure enough, he too was decaying before his very eyes, the flesh peeling and dripping from the bone. To the core. Rotten. Truly. And he infected everything else that ever came near him. Everyone else.

"It's all your fault!" The boy whom he had once been whipped around to look at him, catching his thought midair. "Why, Seto?! Why didn't you help him?!" Why did you not help them? After all… "You promised you'd always be there for him. You promised him, Seto Kaiba!" Even as the words struck his ears, Kaiba felt his own flesh blistering away. "You promised!"

He did once, didn't he? Promise. He promised to take care of Mokuba, and to keep him safe. He promised to protect Kisara, and here she was, a specter of this castle, as much as any ghost. And now… when he had tried to restore her to strength... Now, once again, he instead flung her to the dogs. A carcass. Mokuba, lost. Kisara, the Blue-Eyes, lost. Her name stuck in his throat. His brother's, however, did not. He felt himself falling backward, back into the world of the living, his lips parting in a final cry of, "Mokuba."

Seto Kaiba's vision cleared, and he was once more standing on the turrets of Pegasus's castle. The wind swept past him, through his thin coat and, covered in a sheen of cold sweat as he was, it chilled him to the marrow. For a few moments he stared vacantly, not knowing what or where he was. Then his mind snapped into place, and he knew what he had to do. His eyes narrowed. He had no other option now. One of the dragon's heads whimpered out weakly– a final plea for his help. He would not fail. Neither her, nor his brother. He would keep his promises.

Kaiba took a deep, steadying breath, and watched with cleared and hardened eyes as Yugi summoned the Celtic Guardian, and it attacked his dragon head on. Kaiba jaw clenched as, to the sound of a helpless yelp, the Guardian's sword cleaved through the throat of one of the dragon's three necks, and a head fell to the ground with a sickening squelch. It did not disappear, but lay there between the duelists. Enjoy your victory, short as it is. Because as I live and breathe, you will not touch the Blue-Eyes again. Sure enough, strong as the Blue-Eyes was, the blow was not enough to bring it down. However, one more blow and he would lose the match. But it would never come to that. He had promised.

Kaiba closed his eyes, preparing himself. Then he looked across the field to his opponent. "Yugi… it can't end this way. If I don't defeat you in this duel, Pegasus will keep Mokuba prisoner. Forever." He knew that what he was saying made no scientific scene. But he also knew that he believed it with all of his being, and it terrified him. For some reason he wanted Yugi to understand. Yugi was an honorable man. He deserved this explanation. …Also, Kaiba could not stand to see the dragon fall. Somehow, he knew, in his heart of hearts, that if the dragon were to fall, it would be one injury too many. The Blue-Eyes was stronger than the best of them, but even it could not survive this. "I can't let that happen," Kaiba continued, interrupting his own thoughts. "And even though I don't have a card that can keep you from attacking, I think I still have a strategy that will stop you in your tracks." The wind, which had before been so cold, now blew fiercely past him once again, and he was grateful for it. It cut through him and awoke his torpid legs. It was the wind of change. This was his one chance at victory. Kaiba stood a little straighter. "I'm going to force your hand, and win this battle, Yugi." He took a step backwards. These were the moments that defined Seto Kaiba. Another step back. Joey Wheeler made some joke about him retreating. These were the moments that had made Seto the CEO of Kaiba Corp. Wheeler stopped joking. Another step back. Kaiba's tactician's mind. Another step. His ruthlessness.

Yugi was an honorable man. Seto Kaiba never had been. He was standing at the ledge of the castle tower. Kaiba, without looking, raised his leg, and stepped backwards onto the risen barricade. With this one action he had drawn the complete, wide eyed and horror-struck attention of everyone on the annex roof. The cold wind whipped up around him and, carefully, Kaiba rolled onto the balls of his feet to keep from losing his balance. "The real game starts now. Your move, Yugi." He stared his opponent down. "You can attack my Blue-Eyes again and wipe out my remaining lifepoints. But if you do, the resulting shockwaves might cause me to lose my balance." There. He spelled it out for all of them. He stared, unblinking.

"Don't tempt me," Yugi snarled with all of the helpless ferocity that Kaiba had himself felt mere moments before.

A small, sardonic smirk hooked at the corner of Kaiba's mouth for the first time in hours. His gaze did not waver. He'd made his choice. Now it was time for Yugi to do the same. "My fate is completely in your hands, Yugi," he said. "You'll decide this duel one way or another. Of course, if you don't surrender, I might be… 'hurt.' You wouldn't want that, would you?" Another gust of wind blew through the parapets. Kaiba teetered, and then slowly crossed his arms. "We're not playing with lifepoints anymore, Yugi. We are playing with life." His life. His brother's life. The Blue-Eye's life.

"I'm warning you, Kaiba, don't push me too far," Yugi blurted on, repeating himself, losing control. "I must win this duel to rescue my grandfather!"

Kaiba remained unfazed. "And I must win this duel to rescue Mokuba. The difference is I'm willing to risk anything to do it." The decapitated head of the Ultimate Dragon still lay between them. Its stench was such that even the wind could not carry it off. "You know I can stand up here all day, Yugi. And I'm certain you won't make any attack for fear that you might knock me off, even though you know, by not attacking, you give up the only chance you have to save your grandpa." As he spoke, riling his opponent with every syllable, he felt a safety on this ledge that he had not felt since clapping eyes on the Living Arrow. Was he really certain that Yugi would not attack? No. Not in the least. But that did not matter anymore.

Yugi winced as Kaiba's words struck.

Kaiba continued. "…Which means I have the advantage over you, for in my case there's nothing holding me back." And with that, he drew a new card. And his faith was rewarded. "Ah." An actual breath of something akin to relief pushed through him. He showed the card to his opponent. "Reborn the Monster, which I'll use to resurrect the Blue-Eye's head that was just destroyed by your Guardian."

"What?" Fear tremored in Yugi's voice. "Restore a head of the Blue-Eyes?" Kaiba could have smiled. And you thought that you could cripple such a dragon. He slammed the card down on the Duel Disk and, with a roar of relief, a fresh head tore through the stump where the old one had been felled. And there it was, scales shining and eyes bright. Alive.

Kisara coughed in her tower, and blearily blinked awake. Her joints aching, she slowly forced herself up onto her elbow. Her hair fell lopsided over her face. Well, we are certainly going to have to stop making a habit of this, was all that she could conjure in her muddled brain as she shakily whipped away the spittle that had streamed out of the corner of her mouth.

Swallowing through the lingering taste of rot, she latched her hand onto the window ledge, and hauled herself into view of the battlefield once more. Alright then. And here I thought that I was frightening enough to look at to begin with, she mused, surveying the moldering remains of the dragon. Her gaze trailed onward, and fell upon Kaiba, standing on the ledge of the turret.

Her eyes went wide. Oh gods, no.

"Our lifepoints are equal, Yugi. Strike now, if you dare. Otherwise, next turn, I swear I'll take you down." Kaiba spat across the rooftop. His dragon was once more by his side. There was nothing he could not do.

You idiot. Kisara stared, horror struck once again. With a groan and a hiss, she reached up for an outcropping rock and pulled herself back to a standing position. All of the health and strength that had come to her with the fusion of the Ultimate Dragon now vanished and left behind it nothing but the smell of death. Death. Is that what you are looking for? Seto, there are only so many ways I can protect you, and you have already run through most.

"Surrender, Yugi!" Kaiba's voice cut through the air. Evening was nearing. The cold was beginning to seep into the skin. "That is unless you have the courage to unleash your attack!" With those words Kaiba drew a thumb across his neck, and Kisara mutely put a hand to her own throat, her eyes darting to the reborn head of the Blue-Eyes, so recently sliced. Kaiba is daring the Pharaoh to use his cards to cut Kaiba's throat.

Yugi –no, not Yugi –the nameless king of Egypt, thundered back. "Kaiba, I've never backed away! And I'm not starting now!" Kisara's mouth opened in dread. If it were the boy in control, then she knew that no harm would come to Seto. She knew that the boy could never go through with such an attack. The man, however, the sovereign– that was an entirely different story. And she could see as even Kaiba's face turned guarded. "Celtic Guardian," the Pharaoh bellowed with all of the might of the ruler that he did not remember that he was, "Attack!" Kaiba's jaw clenched. Helpless and knowing all too well that the next moment might well see the end of both Kaiba and herself, Kisara lurched forward, through the window.

A brunet girl, the only girl in the group, separated herself from Yugi's friends and tore across the battlements to him, crying out for him to halt the attack. Her words reached him, as a look of horror plumed across Yugi's face – the child's face. "STOP!" He howled, his arms outstretched, his knees hitting the ground. The Celtic Guardian halted. Kisara's hands only just caught her against the frame of the window. The wind whipping her white hair around in a billowing mass as she watched, transfixed.

Kaiba closed his eyes, almost in respect for the soon fallen adversary. "Couldn't do it, huh?" he whispered. Kisara read his lips across the distance. He opened his eyes and, instead of calling out the Neutron Blast of the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, he yelled out the far more familiar, "White Lightning Attack!" With a roar and a searing light, the Guardian was blasted away. The match was over. Seto Kaiba had won.

In the hollow aftermath, Kisara numbly pulled herself back from the brink and into the safety of the tower. She looked down on the crumpled form of Yugi Mutou. Even from here she could see his shoulders trembling violently as he stared down at his hands, and at what he had almost made them do. His brunette friend stood over him, her own face contorted in remorse, empathy and guilt.

With a click of his heels, Kaiba hopped off the brink and, though Kisara knew that the manner of his victory was underhanded, she almost felt relief for him. Almost, were it not for the fact that this victory brought him to the doorstep of an adversary infinitely more dangerous than that he'd just faced.

…

The girl, Tea Gardner, had sunk to her knees by Yugi's side, consoling him with words of how his grandfather would never have wanted to be saved at the cost of another life. Mokuba would never have wanted Kaiba to hurt anyone either, but that was not the point. It was not as though the one being saved had the option to choose the method of their rescue. If they were at liberty to be so particular, they would not need saving in the first place. That was why it was up to the discretion of the rescuers to figure out the details. Or not, and leave their loved ones rotting in Pegasus's care, as Yugi had elected to do.

"Then I guess he got what he wanted," Kaiba cut in through the coddling. He wanted Yugi to know his own mistake. Kaiba thought better of him than to allow this sort of weakness to slide. He would have him understand that his, Kaiba's, love for his little brother had been greater than Yugi's for his grandfather, and if Yugi wanted to prove differently, he would have to be willing to go farther. Kaiba had demanded to play Yugi now, for the right reasons. And he had. He just had not played in such a way that Yugi's friends approved of. But then, fighting for something as important as the right reasons meant fighting dirtier than ever sometimes. Because there was no limit to how far Seto Kaiba would go for someone he cared about, bastard though he knew he was. That much he could claim upon himself. Playing dirty in a card game did not even scratch the surface of the things he would be willing to do if put to it. "Each player had to decide how he would react if he were the enemy. In order to win, he had to put himself in his enemy's place. And if I had been Yugi," Kaiba's expression was of stone, "I would have pushed my enemy over the edge, to fall to the bottom of the castle, without hesitation. All games, including cards, chess and war mean conflict between enemies. People are given a single chip called life to use in these games." And if the risk wasn't worth it, then neither was the life.

"People's struggles aren't a game!" Tea snapped. "And you are the real loser here, betting your chip as if it meant nothing and not having the courage to live with a loss." Nothing? Loss? Kaiba's lips parted with the sheer unbelievability of what he was hearing. Loss of a game? Did she really think that he would rather live with the loss of a game, then not have risked his life, and lived with the loss of Mokuba? Did she even hear her own idiocy?

"Yugi may have lost one lousy Duel Monsters game, but at least he hasn't lost his heart. Not like you, Seto Kaiba. You've spent so much time with your machines you've forgotten what being human is about!"

His eye twitched. Her words pricked him.

She wasn't finished either. The girl must have quite some lungs. Bringing her hand to her chest, she continued. "Yugi has a heart, Kaiba. Yugi has us– friends that will stand with him to the end, no matter whether he wins or loses some lousy game." It was an unpleasant reminder of how the five members of his board turned on him the instant he had lost that first, fateful duel with Yugi. "…And what do you have Seto Kaiba? What do you have at the end of the day?!" Staring down that rooftop at Yugi surrounded by his moronic friends, Kaiba felt uncomfortably vulnerable. "Tell me!" Tea Gardner pressed him. "TELL ME!"

His entire form felt rigid, and he could not pinpoint exactly why her words affected him as they did, as she and all the other trash surround that child to comfort him. Kaiba's eyes flickered to window, still vacant, which he had been drawn to the entire duel, for some reason or another. The starchips rose before his eyes, refocusing his gaze. "I have all I need!" He finally snarled back across the field, and clasped them out of midair.

It was true. He held the chips to save his brother in his hand. And he had protected his dragon against the inexplicably frightening possibility of being destroyed before his eyes. He would get Mokuba back. And, perhaps, when all of this was over, he would thank Kisara for what she had risked for him. He knew better than anyone that to defy Pegasus was to risk everything. And he felt concern for her. In truth, he felt concern for them all.

Kaiba walked to the center of the field, and turned to leave this rooftop. The sun was now setting rapidly, its last rays splashing across the island of Duelist Kingdom. Joey Wheeler tossed him back his other Duel Disk, spitting out, "Just don't forget, it was Yugi who saved you!" Kaiba caught it deftly, and continued on his way to the castle, to Pegasus, and to his little brother. He did not spare Yugi a second glance. He was not proud of having prevented his opponent from saving his own loved one from Maximillion Pegasus. Kaiba would have preferred, truly, if there had been some other way for him to achieve his ends. And he did not often waste time on such preferences. The wind, which had won him the duel, billowed beneath his coattails. The day was coming to a close.

…

"Long time, no see."

Kisara froze at the voice behind her, and stopped in her tracks. Slowly, she leaned against her cane. Descending from the tower was, impossibly enough, harder than the climbing. Darkness had completely fallen outside the castle by the time that she found herself back on level ground, cane in hand. And there would be no time for rest, much as the idea of her own bed allured Kisara to no end. No. She knew that sooner or later Kaiba would face off against her father. And, if she knew either man at all, and she had her suspicions that she knew both better than most, it would be sooner.

"Long time," she concluded, half turning to face the tall man with tattered white hair whom she had seen from the tower. Oh, but he did look different now. This was not the face he wore around his friends. This was not the kind, supportive, concerned face she had glimpsed during that annex duel. "How did you get in here?"

Her eyes trailed down to the large ring which he wore around his neck. Another accessory which he had added since she'd last seen him, along with his now seemingly permanent leer. It was sizable golden circle, which contained in it a triangle with that same eye, and from which hung five sharp arrowheads. Of course, where would he be without his Millennium Ring.

This time the previous evening Kisara had been tearing through the dungeon halls, held up in support by Seto Kaiba. Now, the world seemed deathly still.

How could she have ever forgotten those flint-like brown eyes. He spoke again, hands in pockets, casually taking one step towards her at a time. "When one is friends with… shall we call him Yugi Mutou… all sorts of doors open up." His smirk stretched. "Come, come, my dearest." Another step. "It has been such an age. Surly we can think of better things to talk about than the 'how' and the 'why.'" Not in this lifetime had a man looked at her with such open want. And yet, it was not unfamiliar, coming from those eyes. Kisara shifted uncomfortably. In all her travels with her father, in all of the galas and evenings she had attended, she had been looked at with curiosity, mild alarm, or milder interest. Not want. It filled her with a plethora of feelings, and Kisara was not able separate the bad from the good.

When it came to Bakura, she had never been wholly able to separate the bad from the good.

He stopped short. "You haven't changed," he finally whispered, his eyes appreciating every broken crevice of her battered, sickly body. And it was appreciation in his eye. Somehow. It felt more pleasant than Kisara could say to be appreciated at a time when she never felt more cracked. And it felt less pleasant than she could possibly articulate to feel as though a cold finger was slowly tracing up her spine.

Instead, with one or two more 'clanks' of the cane she herself turned around completely to face him, and with more bravery that she would have felt around almost any other man, looked him up and down as well. "You're scrawnier," she answered finally with a sort of casual familiarity.

He snorted. It was almost a laugh. "And paler," she added for good measure.

He raised a white eyebrow. "Oh, and you're really one to talk about pallor?"

She shrugged. "It's not as noticeable in this part of the world as it was in that," she said, almost nonchalantly, looking away.

"Noticeable enough." Kisara turned her head back to find that he was standing a hair's breadth from her. She could just make out the budding white stubble on his chin. Slowly, she looked up into those eyes that she had thought to never see again. It was strange. With Seto, all it took was one glance and she knew exactly what he was thinking. But with Bakura… had his gaze become softer? Two eyes. Kisara almost smiled. She was not used to their being two.

"I did not think to find you here," he finally said, searching her face for something, though she could not think of what it was. Perhaps she had known in the past, when she had been older. Now, however, at sixteen, she could not think of what it was. Once, in an age she did not remember, there had been some long forgotten pledge between them.

"No? I did not think to find you here either," she responded, her voice giving off the slightest tremor.

A gong sounded. In unison they turned their heads towards the noise. They had once worked well in unison, if Kisara remembered correctly. If she remembered at all. Another gong. A duel was about to begin. She looked back up into Bakura's eyes, and stilled. There was something predatory in his eyes and again, she did not know whether she liked it or did not, but she knew that she wanted to remain still.

A third gong. The moment was up.

Bakura took a step away from Kisara, the distance between them remaining unbroken. "Better hurry," he rasped. "I somehow doubt this is a duel either you or I will want to miss." With that, he turned on his heel, and was gone. Like a thief from her past into the darkening night.

The evening wind drifted past her from an open window. Kisara shivered.