Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the characters from the anime. I own the plot and the Tide Whisperer. Warning: Graphic fight scene; blood/gore.
AnzuFan: That's what I love most about this pair. It's the epitome of the phrase "opposites attract". Don't worry, there's more where that came from.
Chapter Nine Bar Brawl
Atemu stared at the man across from him with equal awe and subtle disbelief. Seto…was a prince? A prince whose country and people turned their backs on him and Mokuba, leaving them with nothing but a ship and a renegade's reputation?
And I thought I had it bad…?
"Don't feel sorry for me, kid." Seto snapped. "Despite how it happened, I couldn't have asked for a better life than I'm living now. I may not have the traditional home with four walls, but I've got everything I need right where I am."
Well, if you put it that way…
Atemu stood up and stretched, his body curving as languidly as a cat, and he back popped several times making the boy groan in pleasure.
"Well now that we know that I'm not going to go for anyone's throats in their sleep, want to go down and see what the crew's up to? I feel like playing a couple hands of poker." Atemu offered as he left the room. A few minutes later, after Atemu was seated at one of the larger tables down in the tavern, playing against seven other men, three of which were White Dragons, Seto followed, feeling oddly…lighter now that he had told someone of his burden.
"Lay 'em down, boys." The brawny, dark-skinned dealer announced in his booming baritone.
Malik was first, placing a hand of three of a kind in nines.
Two of the strangers at the table had already folded.
Mokuba had a flush of spades.
Jounouchi tossed his cards, facedown on the table in a snit. "Shit." He mumbled.
The dealer had a full house, nines over fives.
Atemu laid his down, his face looking positively bored, as he revealed a four of a kind in jacks.
Mokuba, Malik, and Jounouchi all groaned, while the two strangers glared venomously at Atemu after realizing that he had just won the last seven rounds.
Seto cocked an eyebrow, cupping the fingers of one hand around his chin in contemplation and grudging appreciation. "Hmm."
Atemu reached out and pulled his winnings toward him from their place at the middle of the table.
"You feel like playing, Seto?" Mokuba asked as he looked up at his older brother.
"Not right now." He replied, still more interested in watching Atemu.
There was something about the way Atemu played that reminded Seto about the boy's youth. For the majority of the time the captain and cabin boy were together in the same vicinity, Atemu projected such a mature personality. It was difficult to keep in mind that he was only two years older than Mokuba.
Atemu had a youthful exuberance hidden beneath his seemingly emotionless mask that never told what he held. Even Seto, who was considered one of the best poker players in Europe, if not the best, was hard-pressed to admit that he couldn't hide his reactions as well as the kid could. He felt like he was seeing something rare, watching Atemu enjoying himself.
The dealer shuffled the deck and distributed five cards to each player. Seto pulled out a nearby wooden chair, spun it around so that he could straddle it, his arms resting across the back, and he watched the players bet on their hands, exchanged their cards, and studied the careful contemplation that schooled Atemu's expression.
"Three." The boy murmured. Instantly, the blank look came over his face when the dealer dealt him three new cards, and Seto wondered what the kid had this time.
Jounouchi folded, but other than that, everyone else stayed in on this hand.
"Lay 'em down."
Mokuba had a straight, queens high.
Malik had a full house, fours over twos.
The two strange men each had two pair; one had been tens and eights, the other sevens and threes.
The dealer had a four of a kind in fives.
Atemu had a straight flush, kings high.
Seto whistled appreciatively.
This time when Atemu reached for his winnings, he had to jerk his hand back as one of the strange men pulled a knife. The blade dug deep into the table right between Atemu's middle and ring finger of his right hand.
"What the fuck? Are you nuts?" Malik shouted in Atemu's defense.
"You cheat." The man slurred slightly, wiggling the knife to dislodge it from the wood.
"I have done no such thing." Atemu barked, his scarlet eyes darkening to crimson as his rage built.
The man had bolted to his feet and started toward Atemu; Seto was on his feet in an instant, his arms encircling the drunkard's waist before he slammed the man to the ground.
The man's buddy at the table, as well as six other equally bulky, more or less drunken men, stood and surrounded Seto, Atemu, Mokuba, Malik, and Jounouchi.
"We don't take kindly to cheaters." The fallen man's buddy said in a slightly less articulate tone.
Atemu rolled his eyes as his hand twitched, hovering over the handle of his cutlass, waiting for the slightest provocation to draw it. He just didn't want to have to fight these moronic bastards if he could help it, especially over something as trivial as imagined deceit.
"You harm him, and you'll wish you'd never been born." Seto hissed as his hands tingled with the urge to strike.
"Ooo, so scary." One man mocked, infuriating the captain even further.
Seto Leandro was not to be made a fool of.
Atemu drew up behind Seto, placing his back against Seto's. The other White Dragons were already keeping an eye on every small motion to judge when they would have to retaliate.
"You'll pay for stealing my money, boy." The original instigator spat, getting to his feet and then he lunged at Atemu.
Atemu met the man halfway, he slammed his fist into the drunkard's ribs. The man staggered and Atemu took advantage of his broken equilibrium. He slid behind the man, slipping his arms under the man's armpits and lacing his fingers behind the man's neck. The drunkard was effectively pinned, and Atemu slowly lowered himself into a crouch, bending the man's spine in a way it wasn't meant to be bent. It wasn't long before he heard, and felt, the sickening crack of the man's spine snapping in half.
That first attack set off a lethal domino effect.
Seto drew his cutlass and slammed the butt of the handle into one man's chest. The man clutched at the stinging spot on his chest and, while distracted, Seto grabbed either side of the man's head and twisted. He pivoted and kicked his leg high, his foot connecting with the side of the second man's neck. He dropped like a ton of bricks, instantly unconscious from the jarring of his head and the pain of the impact. Seto buried the tip of his cutlass into the man's heart and jerked.
Malik got punched once in the stomach and once in the face. He had moved to avoid a direct punch to his nose, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge completely. His right cheekbone caught the hit; his lip busted open and a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his face.
"Oh no, you didn't just mess with my face." He growled menacingly and lunged, his shoulder burrowing into the fool who had struck him, shoving him backward. Malik reached out and grabbed hold of the man's dreadlocks and he tugged the man's head closer, his knee coming up to collide with the man's face. He then stepped back, leaning his weight on one leg before he kicked the man back a few feet. He landed in a heap near Seto's feet.
Seto stomped down on the man's throat and grinned in satisfaction at his choked scream as the man suffocated.
Jounouchi and Mokuba were outnumbered five to two. Smirking, Jounouchi wrapped his arms around Mokuba's chest, and he literally threw the smaller teen at three of the approaching drunkards who had stood too close together. Mokuba maneuvered in midair so that he barreled into the three at an angle that sent them to the ground. The boy rolled into a crouch and slit each man's throat before rejoining the fray.
Atemu half hissed, half snarled as he felt a sharp, searing pain rip through his shoulder from behind. He threw himself backwards, and although that served to bury the knife deeper, the movement pushed his attacker off balance. Atemu whirled and the side of his fist drove into the side of the man's head. He then grabbed a hold of the man's collar and dragged him forward, head butting the man's in the face. A shard of the man's nose shot up into the man's brain. His eyes rolled back in his skull, blood filled his eyes like tears and from his nostrils. He was dead before he hit the ground.
He grimaced as the man's blood splattered onto his face, but he paid little mind to it. Atemu reached behind him and yanked the knife out of his shoulder before he flipped the blade in his hand and threw the knife to bury between the mans shoulder blade's and in his heart. He had been sneaking up behind Seto while he was preoccupied with the fight and would've killed him. The man froze before he turned his head enough so that the last thing he saw was Atemu's furious crimson eyes.
Seto whirled to find Atemu behind him, and then he looked down at the dead man, understanding immediately what the boy had done.
Once the fight was over, the White Dragons took in a couple of deep breaths before each man considered the others' wounds.
Atemu seemed to have the worse of the wounds after being stabbed. Mokuba's eyebrow had been slit and blood trailed down the side of the teen's face. Jounouchi clutched his bruised stomach but was more or less unscathed. Malik's lip was starting to swell and an impressive bruise was blooming on his cheek; he looked like he was still spoiling for a fight. Seto's knuckles bled freely after one of the men had raised a wooden serving tray to block one of Seto's punches, bursting his knuckles in the process. Needless to say that the fool had been efficiently beaten afterward, but his hand still stung like a frigid bitch.
Violence and death were nothing new in the Pirate Haven, Sale`. The occupants of the tavern simply went on contentedly sipping their beverages, gorging themselves on their suppers, or gambling as they paid no attention to the battle. Some of the waiters came out to discard the bodies, but other than that, nothing was done to indicate that there had been a fight that resulted in seven men's deaths.
Seto came up beside Atemu, "Come on, let me take a look at that wound."
Atemu glared, "Being part of your crew is seriously hazardous to my health, Seto. I swear at this rate I won't last out the month."
Seto chuckled at Atemu's comments as he led the boy upstairs, the other White Dragons following close behind.