Chapter Five of Behind Bright Eyes
Disclaimer: In addition to not owing Yu-Gi-Oh! (Kazuki Takahashi) or Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling) or anything else copyrighted in this fic, Hikari and her alter-egos also don't own Marie Blackfelt or Wendi. Marie is owned by Random Person number three and Wendi is owned by Torina Archelda. Both have given her permission in using their OCs in this fic. Both also made up the age and the description, and Random Person number three also made up Marie Blackfelt's history. Random Person number three also owns Arina Arono. I also don't own "Shinjitsu No Uta" or "Song of Truth" and the translation is from a site that I have to find again.
Warning: This chapter contains strong language.
Akaku nijimu
Taiyou wa subete o
Terashite kita
Ima mo mukashi mo
Kono yuuyami ni
Egaiteru souzou wa
Hatashite
Kono te ni oenai mono na no ka?
(The crimson-stained sun
Has illuminated everything; now and the past.
Is what I have imagined within this twilight
More than my own hands can accomplish?)
They took the train to their destination. Nobody, except Seto and Harry, knew the purpose of their destination. The two sat off in a corner as the others stood – the train had a couple of people, but not too many, as it wasn't rush hour yet. Harry didn't trust his voice not to carry, so he set up mental barriers against any unwanted eavesdroppers and asked his teacher, (/(So… we're going to identify a person's body?)/)
Seto looked grim as he nodded. (((Yes. The alien magic that I sensed belonged to a person who I'm surprised even remembered where Hikari lived… they used to be best friends, but they got into a huge fight and haven't spoken to each other since… except on one occasion. Five years ago, there was a reunion, for everybody who had gone to that school, and he was there. Hikari invited me to come along, and I remember that I felt that he had magic… that feeling has never left me, as if I knew that he was going to come back into her life…))) He stayed silent.
Harry couldn't help but feel for him. He had always rather liked his aloof teacher, and had always trusted him, finding a surprising likeness in their characters. He was meaning to ask him what exactly he had gone through as a child to protect Mokuba, but he wouldn't… not when one of the only people he loved was going to experience such agony. Instead, Harry said, (/(So… you think that to get revenge because of what they argued for, this guy kidnapped and killed Hikari's sister? How big was the argument?)/)
Seto rubbed his eyes. (((They had been on thin ice for six months or so. That argument signaled that ice to break. Hikari was accused of loving him – she personally refers to him as RSS, and so shall I. But anyway, RSS accused Hikari of loving him, when she was just learning the meaning of love. She was but eleven years old, and was hurt deeply as he disgraced her entire being… her looks, her personality, her behavior, her friends, he denounced them all, and scorned her affections for him… although he felt the same for her. She was young, then, and he left a lasting impression on her… she still has not healed from that slur to her being, and, mind, this happened ten years ago. Since then his very name or thought has made her uneasy, and she harbors a grudge I doubt she'll ever fully throw off…))) He sighed. (((When they met again, at the reunion, he acted as if he had done nothing wrong, as if he had not hurt her in any way… in fact, the moment he saw her, he swept her up in his arms and no less kissed her – despite their friendship, they had never exchanged even a hug in their life. Of course, you could imagine both of our reactions – ))) Here, Seto paused, and saw the growing grin on Harry's face, as the latter imagined how his tallest teacher would react to seeing is girlfriend kissed by another man. He chuckled, and begged him to continue. (((Yes, well, I knocked him out… and when he woke, he insisted on finding out what he did wrong… when Hikari scorned him the same way he did to her the five years previously, he grew angry. And yet, I remember he had smirked, kissed her again, and insisted that they would meet again… and before leaving, he told me that she would leave me and love him…))) Seto grew quiet.
Harry looked out the window. (/(So… to get his revenge, he kidnapped and killed Aazar… Perhaps he "found" the body and told the morgue that he thought he knew who it was…)/) Harry found his lips in a snarl. (/(But I think I detected familiar magic within this RSS's…)/)
Seto looked at him.
(/(I could have sworn that besides Marik's magic, RSS's magic was the one assisting Voldemort when we were fighting him in March, in that Duel Monsters attack.)/)
Motto ima ijou ni
Hadaka ni natte
ikite yuku jutsu
Oshiete yo
honno sukoshi dake
Watashi o yogoshite
Sou yatte hitori
Kizutsuitari
Mawari o nakushita to shite mo
Shinjitsu no uta wa kono mune ni nagare
(Please teach me how to live
A little more vulnerably than I do now.
Won't you taint me just a little?
That way, even if I get hurt
And lose everything around me
This song of truth will flow through my heart.)
There was no sign to signify that the building they were entering was a morgue. Seto quietly talked to the receptionist as they looked around. It was dark and slightly damp; Harry believed that they had gone underground. At last, the receptionist told them to follow her. She led them down a dimly lit hallway. It was cramped, especially since there were nine of them, plus the receptionist. They went down a flight of stairs, when the woman stopped in front of the first room. The door was made of stone, and, from what Harry could glimpse, so was the room. She told them to wait, walked in, and, after a few moments, left it. She bid them to enter as she walked down the hallway.
They filled into the room. Harry noticed two other people in the room, one decked in the depressing black garb such a place dictated, the other in a white doctor's coat. Harry noticed a counter on one side of the room, with various possessions and clothing's, and, close to it, a covered table, which looked like it covered a body…
Harry's stomach gave a sickening lurch. He had seen four people die, and yet, it was different when it was the unmet youngest sibling of one of his closest friends.
Zal had pulled the doctor aside and was talking to him in low tones. Hikari was looking around, confused, when the other man bid her to follow him to the table. He said, "A man brought a body here earlier, and then said that the body looked familiar. He thought that someone from the Daeron family could possibly identify it."
She looked horrified, but, after a time, nodded. He walked to the table and pulled off the covers to reveal a girl's face.
Arasoi wa mada tsuzukun darou
Dono michi ima ga taisetsu na no sa
Gamushara ni natte
Miotoshite kita mono
Tatoeba dare ka no yasashii hohoemi mo
(This dispute will probably go on
About that which is most precious
I've become a rebel, I've overlooked things
Even the gentle smiles of strangers.)
Hikari gasped, her face going stark white, before she fell to her knees. She reached out and gently touched the pale face of the girl before her tears were flooding her face as she sobbed, occasionally touching the girl's long, thick brown hair, so similar to her own.
Zal turned around at his sister's cries and froze. Harry watched, grief flooding through his body, as the man paled and clenched his fist, eyelids squeezed tightly together. When he opened them, tears started to stream down his face as well. He walked towards his two sisters, one wishing she were dead, the other wishing she were alive. He, too, touched the face of his youngest sibling before falling to his knees, holding his sobbing sister as she buried her face into his shirt. "Aazar…" he moaned, crying freely. "Oh God…"
"Aazar…" echoed his sister. "Aazar, joon e deliman, chereah shomah! Ey Khodoah ya! Chereah mahn nemetustam bemiream begah eh ehn?! Chereah ehn gol eh moh boyat bemireah?!"
"Aazar," whispered Malik, pale, with tears in his eyes. "Aazar, my heart's love, why you? Oh God! Why couldn't I die in her place? Why did this beautiful flower have to die?" Harry looked at him, and realized that he was translating the anguish cries of his relative. He glanced at Joey, and saw that he, too, was in tears. Malik continued quietly as Hikari spoke, the Persian words flowing from her lips, the English translation flowing from his, and Joey's, who joined in. "This light from God has been taken from the unworthy Earth. She was the only one with a pure heart in this desecrated war zone. Why were the unholy ones not taken in her place? Why must she suffer for the sins of the millions of others? She does not deserve to be taken from us so soon! Why can she not return to this darkened Earth and fill it with her light once more?"
They stopped, as Hikari had ceased to talk. Harry looked at the two sobbing siblings, their grief stricken cousins, the crying Ceribi, the pale Yugi and the upset Ryou, both of whom were holding her. He blinked away his own tears at the scene, realizing that someone was missing. He turned to the door and saw Seto's trench coat whip out of sight. He followed him. Catching up, he asked him where he was going, noting that the older man was pale, but looked furious.
"The guy told us that someone had brought the body in and suggested calling the Daeron family – and you'll never guess who I just saw hanging around here."
Harry gasped. "RSS?"
"The very same."
Eien o shireba
Donna kurayami mo
Itami mo
Itsuka kiete
Sou yatte ima wa
Watashi o yogoshite
Zutto mukashi mita
Tenkuu no shiro ni
Itsuka wa
Tadoritsukeru
Shinjitsu no uta o michishirube ni shite
(If eternity knows what manner of darkness
And when pain will vanish,
Then that way, you shall taint me
I looked always to yesterday, to the castles in the sky
When will I be able to follow them?
This song of truth shall be my guide.)
Harry and Seto ran down the hall, their footsteps echoing, until Seto turned into an empty room – save for one person.
"You bastard!" he growled, spinning the man around and slamming his against the wall. "You fucking bastard!"
Harry surveyed the other man. He was the same height as Seto, fairly built, with black hair gelled back and brown eyes. His mouth, Harry realized, was upturned in a smirk. Harry scratched his hand that had the scars from his old professor Umbridge etched into it. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. If he msut not tell lies… then why did he have the feeling that he knew the man before him?
"Hello, Seto Kaiba," said the man, still held up on the wall. "Long time no see."
Seto slammed him into the wall again. "Don't 'Hello Seto Kaiba' me, you fucking bastard! Is this the way you take your fucking revenge? You kill her fucking sister?!" He dropped him and punched him in the face.
The other man stood up, touched his bleeding lip. He smirked again, showing bloody teeth. "I have no idea what you mean. I merely saw you all walking in here and came to see if it was anybody I knew, and if I could offer my condolences."
"Offer your condolences?!" spat Seto. "Don't think that shit will work with me! I know you killed her, you son of a bitch! What are you going to do now – try and comfort her sister and tell her that I killed her?!"
By the way that the man kept smirking, Harry could tell that that was exactly what he was planning on doing.
Seto pulled his famous Kaiba glare, pulled his arm back, and punched the other man so hard that his head slammed into the wall and he was knocked out.
Eien o shireba
Donna kurayami mo
Itami mo
Itsuka kiete
Shinjitsu no uta wa kono mune ni nagare
(If eternity knows what manner of darkness
And when pain will vanish,
This song of truth will flow through my heart.)
They returned to the grief-stricken friends and family outside. Harry and Seto had gone to the bathroom to clean Seto's bloodied hands beforehand. When they joined the others, they made up an excuse, and Seto took the responsibility of holding Hikari from her brother.
They had Zal's fiancée come and pick them up. She dropped them at the Daeron house, taking Zal over to her house. As Hikari took a shower, Joey turned on Seto and demanded to know where he had been.
Seto – with Harry's help – explained the story of RSS, from the start to the finish. Joey, Ceribi and Malik, who knew the background information, were obviously impatient to hear the point, but when they explained his appearance at the morgue, they were shocked.
"… So do we tell her?" whispered Mokuba.
Seto let out a bark-like laugh. "Of course we don't. She has enough to worry about as it is." He was standing next to the brick fireplace, and presently punched it, so that his knuckles scrapped against the brick and started to bleed.
Hermione gasped as he repeated this several times. "Professor!" she murmured. He paid no heed.
He punched the bricks a seventh time, and his fist remained there, his arm straight, as he looked down. Harry could have sworn that a tear slipped from Seto's eye, but if it had, he showed no sign of it when he brought his head to face them. "I should have been there to stop this, to stop her pain," he muttered, turning around to face them, but looking at his knuckles. "I should have been there to protect her from this… When Altáriël died, she locked herself in her room for five days, refusing to eat anything… Mokuba and I spent ages behind that door, trying to convince her to come out… and she did, a few days after that… She hardly ate for so long, and only recently started acting like her normal self for everyone… and that was her cousin! Imagine what the death of her younger sister will do to her!"
It was now that Hikari entered the room. She looked normal, if not a little pale. They all looked at her as she glanced about. She spotted Seto's bleeding hand. "Oh Ra," she said, coming forwards. "Let me look at that… Well! You've certainly done a number on it this time, Seto Kaiba – this 'll leave another scar…" Harry realized that his teacher must have done a similar thing when Altáriël died. He watched as Hikari left the room again, moments later reappearing with bandage and ice. She wrapped his hand and placed some ice on it, as it had begun to swell from punching not only the wall, but also RSS's face.
With his other hand, Seto lifted her chin up. "Kari?"
"I'm fine."
He chuckled sullenly, unsmiling. "Of course you're not. You don't need to put on a brave face for me. You know that. What good is our relationship if we don't even let our true emotions show?"
Her lip trembled.
He put an arm around her and led her out of the room. (Hermione, Harry was pleased to note, was staring with incredulity and rage. At last, she realized that the CEO would never have eyes for her.)
Joey and Malik both started, but Ceribi and Harry grabbed them both.
Motto ima ijou ni
Watashi o yogoshite
Hon no sukoshi dake
Watashi o yogoshite
(Now, please, taint me just a little
Please, just taint me, only a little.)
"Don't you see that this is one time where Kaiba is proving to everybody and himself that he loves her?" Harry said. "Right now, Kaiba blames himself for not being there for Hikari, and Hikari blames herself for Aazar's and Altáriël's death. This is one time that they can prove that they can conquer any difficulties together – including death. This is the one time that they need to be alone, without anyone there to watch over them."
"Right now, Hikari needs the assurance of his love," said Yugi quietly. "Otherwise she'll literally kill herself over this. She needs a guide in the time of her darkness."
Mokuba finished the thought. "And my brother's the best one. He's already gone through this when he had to protect us against Gozaburo. He encased his heart in the darkness so that it can keep its light.
Shinjitsu no uta o michishirube ni shite
(This song of truth shall be my guide.)
Hey. I sorta like this chapter.