Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the characters from the anime. I own the plot and the Tide Whisperer.
Warning: This chapter is 95% violence, blood, and gore.
Chapter Nineteen – Revolution
Seto was still having trouble controlling his breathing or his heartbeat after the double-close call he had just gone through. He glanced over at the cloaked figure beside him, who was crouched and motioning for Seto to follow as they moved toward a passageway that was undoubtedly previously not supposed to have been there.
Seto was confused out of his mind, but he obeyed, seeing as the other option was to stay and die.
The crowd was a continuous roar of commotion as the royal guards rushed through the crowd toward the platform in pursuit of Seto and his escape accomplice. Atemu sought out the White Dragons among the crowd, making sure they were all in position, before he ran for the stage before the guards could reach the trapdoor. Atemu slid toward the executioner to extract his knife and relieved the two dismembered guards' cutlasses.
Concealed beneath the hood of his burgundy cloak, Atemu tripped the snap on the trapdoor to replace the wood to cover the hole. He ignored the two who were slowly bleeding out from having both of their hands sliced off when his knife had made the executioner stumble and the ax maneuver away from its original target. They would die soon enough, and Atemu didn't have the time to waste on the inevitable.
One guard toward the center of the crowd, having been blocked off by a family of six, drew his pistol and aimed it toward Atemu. Jounouchi, who stood to the left of the guard, silently slammed the butt of his stiletto on the guard's temple. The guard fell like a sack of potatoes, and on the way down, Jounouchi punched the blade through the soft flesh of the guard's underarm.
Atemu lunged for the closest guards to reach the bottom of the platform. He rage became completely unbound, and with an animalistic roar, he jumped off of the platform and hurled himself at the first guard. The guard tried to raise his sword to defend, but Atemu knocked the blade aside with one cutlass and slammed into the guard. They both crashed to the ground and Atemu rolled up onto his feet immediately, leaving the other man on the ground wallowing in his own blood from where he had punched through the weak point in the guard's armor.
His attack began a domino effect as the hidden members of the White Dragons. They were careful to leave innocent civilians out of the line of battle, but a couple of vigilante men tried to assist the guards in their fight with the pirates, and they were soon cut down. The pirates had no choice but to silence the interference. Four royal guards evacuated the king to safety within the fortress.
Atemu was grabbed around his shoulders, the grip too weak to have been a soldier. He threw his head back and it connected with a solid blow to whoever was behind him, square in the face. The man's cry of pain was cut off as shards of his ruined nose pierced his brain. His hands still clasping the cloak, the dead man pulled the material off of Atemu's body. It was exceedingly difficult to keep the demon within from slipping its leash.
Mahado spun and kicked one guard back, and as he stumbled, he brought his halberd down across the back of the man's neck. The dismembered head rolled away from the rest of his body as the guard crumbled to the ground. He turned and worked his way through the crowd toward the area he had last seen Atemu fighting, to find that the front of the platform was already littered with the bodies of soldiers and vigilantes alike.
He watched as Atemu grabbed hold of one guard's hand, locked the man's wrist, and slammed the heel of his free hand first onto the outside of the man's elbow and then swiftly he jerked the man's broken arm around until Atemu was behind the guard. The motion had unbuckled the man's breastplate, and immediately Atemu thrust his dirk into the man's back. Atemu let him go and the man dropped, and before the first guard's body could even touch the ground, Atemu had whirled and had slit the throat of another guard and threw the dirk at a third guard, which stuck right between his eyes, when that second guard had just barely taken aim to shoot Atemu.
Mahado stopped, stunned by the blood crazed look in Atemu's eyes. Even with the distance between the two cousins, Mahado could see Atemu's usual burning scarlet eyes had darkened to the purest crimson. His heart leapt in response, a peculiar emotion filling up inside his heart. He was concerned for Atemu's sanity, and yet some foreign part of him was fascinated by the lethal grace and breathless beauty in Atemu's death dance.
Mahado saw that the guards were gathering around Atemu, too many for the boy to take on by himself, the older man rushed forward to lend his younger, bloodthirsty cousin assistance.
Seto followed the cloaked man along the makeshift tunnel out of the courtyard of the fortress, still trying to comprehend what had happened.
Once they were far enough away from the pit that had been dug beneath the platform, the man lowered his hood to reveal Malik underneath, "Jeez captain. Only you could get yourself in this sort of a bind when you go on such a simple errand." The sandy-blond man grumbled indignantly.
"What are you doing here? What happened back there?" Seto demanded.
Malik grinned mischievously, "That kid is one of the most reckless, bravest bastards I've ever met in my life." Malik replied in answer.
"Santiago?"
"Who else?"
Seto whirled around to look in the direction they had come. Atemu…you fool!
Malik heard the rapid footsteps of Seto rushing in the opposite direction, "Hey, captain, you're going the wrong way. Gah!" Malik grumbled as he raced after the captain.
Seto's heart pounded violently, panic flooding him as he returned to the pit.
He found that the trapdoor had been replaced somehow, blocking his way back to the surface.
"Damn it, Atemu!" He shouted as he stared at the offending wood that separated Seto from Atemu and a thousand guards.
"Don't worry, Captain. The rest of the crew is up there, and-"
Seto turned on Malik, "Get me out of this hole right fucking now." He hissed menacingly.
"The exit would be in that," Malik gestured toward the tunnel, "direction."
Seto growled, but decided that the faster he got out of this hole, the quicker he could make it back to Atemu.
Once again, he left Malik behind as he raced back through the tunnel.
"God, I'm going to get dizzy from all this indecision." Malik mumbled as he started after Seto.
Atemu was cornered, but he fought back like a wild beast caught in a trap. He had been brought down to only his dirk and one cutlass, but that was enough.
I've got to get through them to get to him.
He lunged for the nearest soldier, but he brought his sword up to block, and he shoved the boy up against the side of the platform. He cried out in pain as the motion jostled his injured shoulder. The rage grew larger, more frigid, and suddenly Atemu's world went black as his demon took complete control of the boy's consciousness. Only one thought was going through his head now.
Louis. Must. Die!
"What the hell?" One guard gasped in shock as the young boy's crimson eyes were plunged into pure obsidian, as dark as midnight and as cold as the Atlantic Ocean in the winter season. The boy's mouth opened in a soundless snarl, and suddenly he lunged. The boy went for the guard on the left first, moving with unnatural speed as his foot connected soundly in the man's midsection.
The guard doubled over with a groan, and the boy sank the blade of his dirk deep into the man's neck, and jerked until he snapped the man's spinal cord.
He left the dead guard fall as the boy rushed for the guard on the far right. The man raised his pistol and fired, the bullet skimmed the side of the boy's face, but instead of a hiss in pain, he growled venomously.
Mahado slammed into the back of one of the guards who had Atemu backed up against the side of the platform, and slammed the butt of a stolen pistol against the man's temple hard enough to puncture the skull. He got back onto his feet to go after a second, dropping to the ground and swept the second guard's feet out from under his body. The guard fell with a metallic thud, and he rocked like an upturned tortoise before Mahado kicked out and the guard's head snapped to the side, and severed the spine.
Once again up on his feet, Mahado continued on toward his cousin.
Two guards blocked his path, and he rammed full speed into one, bracing for impact and it sent the guard reeling. While he tried to keep his balance, Mahado fired the pistol and the bullet punched through the second guard's skull at the back. He then turned the pistol on the wobbly man and he fired a second time, the bullet lodged deep in his right eye.
Seto spotted the growing light at the end of the long tunnel and he forced a new burst of speed through his legs as it carried him closer to the end. He burst from the tunnel and doubled back toward the looming fortress a quarter-mile to the south.
Malik popped his head out of the hole and whistled for the captain's attention, "Hey, do you honestly think Atemu hadn't thought of everything?"
Seto cocked an eyebrow as Malik whistled again, two short, shrill trills that proceeded the thundering of approaching hooves. He grinned at the sight of the ginger mare and bay gelding Atemu had bought rushing to answer Malik's summons. Immediately he mounted the mare and coaxed the horse into a full run.
Louis felt as though something had been lodged in his throat as his four personal guards led the king through the winding corridors in the fortress. This wasn't how things were supposed to have happened. He was outraged that he didn't have the chance to see that bastard Leandro's death, to relish in the sound of his final groan of pain before it was painfully cut off by death.
Oh well, there will be other times. All this commotion caused was momentary diversion.
As they continued down the hall, the sudden anguished cry of pain to his right had him turning his head just in time to see one of his four guards fall, a knife protruding from his side.
A short, young, raven-haired boy with steel-gray eyes and a youthful face and severe expression stood behind the fallen guard. A moment later, before any of them could recover from the initial shock of the ambush, the boy raised his pistol and shot off three rounds, each one dropping the remaining guards, leaving Louis alone with the boy.
"Who the hell are you?" Louis demanded, outraged at the slight trembling in his voice.
"Aw, you don't remember me, Louis? Ah well, it has been eight years since your bastard father conned his way to the throne." The boy mocked as he leveled the gun toward Louis' head.
The king squinted a moment before his eyes widened, "Mokuba?"
"Correct." The boy confirmed with a cheerful grin before his expression dropped and he coldcocked the prince with a swipe of his hand.
The young pirate watched the teenaged king collapse with an expression of disgust on his face. He then turned toward his left and behind him to where Ryuji, Ryou, and Tristan stood.
"Take this filth to the tower."