Author's Notes: First-ever Yu-Gi-Oh fiction. It was just a random spurt of inspiration. :) Go easy on me.
By Callisto Callispi
The tip of the candle flame wavered. It was a frail light, threatening to go out as each second passed.
Icy dragon eyes stared back into his own. His slender fingers grazed the surface of the tattered card. Motionless and lifeless, his Blue Eyes. Yes, it was just how he wanted it.
Kaiba leaned his head back in the plush of the chair, gazing out the window like a drunken man. He watched as rain slithered down his window like snakes. A glass cup half-filled with sparkling water glinted in the side of his right eye. Three black capsules rattled like bullets in his good hand. They would lead him to salvation, to the truth. Yet why was it so hard to reach?
He flinched as burning pain throbbed through his other hand, the mutilated one wrapped with layers of ointment and bandages. The burns would never heal. The good hand, the one unscathed, trembled. One black pill slipped between his fingers. It rolled on the white-carpet floor like a dying centipede.
Kaiba hadn't been expecting anyone to trip the security alarm of the mansion during that hurricane. And he
certainly didn't expect her to rush into his arms, weeping silently. Rain hid the tears that streamed down her face.
She felt what he felt. But she wasn't really there, was she? Was he imagining her tears?
Yet ignoring the tempest clouding his mind, he accepted her embrace and held her. Together they both wept in the rain.
He still felt her hand caressing his cheek if he closed his eyes. Stop. Stop! Enough of this torture! His hand reached for the glass, and yet when he touched the surface, he drew back. He saw her, wide-eyed and grim, standing in front of him.
"No, Seto," she whispered.
Another capsule dropped to the floor.
Who knew that Téa Gardner was so beautiful in the rain? Who knew that Seto Kaiba was still victim to the desires of the flesh? Who knew that the very epitome of what he hated was what he desired the most?
It was her fault. He didn't ask her to press her breasts so sensually against his chest. He didn't ask her to wear such a thin shirt. He didn't ask her to place her moist lips upon his own.
Grief overtook them like a wave. It made them blind to everything.
"Kaiba," she gasped as he lightly bit her neck. Her voice deepened with desire and pain. "Yugi . . . Yugi's dead."
His fingers did not falter as he unbuttoned her shirt. He and Téa should have been shivering. They should have been blocks of ice. Icy rain battered their skin, and yet they felt nothing but heat. Kaiba squeezed his eyes shut.
"Mokuba is too."
"Stop, Téa," he whispered hoarsely as she walked closer to him, eyes translucent and skin milky white. Her fingers slid in through the white creases of his shirt and slowly caressed his skin. He gasped, shrinking back at her icy touch. "Please, Téa."
Her eyes were unyielding.
The last capsule dropped to the floor. Kaiba closed his eyes and lost himself within his memories, as he felt her body meshing with his. Those long, dancer's legs straddled his torso. Soft lips fondled his own. No salvation. Not today.
The candle flickered out and left him in darkness.
"Do you feel guilt?"
Kaiba shook his head, horror clutching his throat. He sat up and walked slowly to the window, eyes hardening. He saw faces in the glass, laughing, jeering, weeping. Yugi Moto, Joey Wheeler, Mokuba, others . . .
"It was an accident. A fucking accident!"
"They all saw what you did, Kaiba."
Kaiba whipped around, facing the very being that tortured his soul. Téa Gardner. "What are you doing here?"
"You called me here."
"When?"
"You call me everyday."
Kaiba shook his head furiously. "I would never call you."
Téa smiled a humorless smile. Kaiba's blood chilled. His eyes flickered over to the three black capsules scattered on the floor. Téa smiled and swept them into her hand, bouncing them in her loosely closed fist.
"Trying to escape yourself again? Trying to escape me?"
"You -- you bitch!"
Téa's eyes hardened. "They were my friends, Seto."
Kaiba shook his head. "Do not address me so informally."
Dark amusement tainted her lips as she picked up the tattered Blue Eyes White Dragon card. She walked toward him, strides slow yet sure. "It's always been your servant. This card. This dragon."
Kaiba, despite his anger, backed himself slowly toward the window. "You shouldn't have come. None of you should have. It was a prototype!"
"But you wanted us to. You wanted to defeat Yugi once and for all. After Duelist Kingdom, after Battle City, after losing your God cards? I should have known. We all should have known!" Téa's voice rose with each word, almost reaching inhuman pitches. "Your disgusting pride! It was a monster from the beginning, that pride!"
Kaiba's back grazed the glass window. His heart hammered in his chest. "No," he moaned. "No!"
Téa's eyes glinted. She looked so real, so solid. "Yes, Seto. Yes. You've called me since that day. That day in the rain. And I've come, each and every day! But no more, Seto. No more!"
Rain falling in torrents. The duel of their lives. A new prototype he designed while he was fueled by the raving anger and madness that had been welling deep within him.
"I challenge you, Yugi Moto! Step into the arena!"
Half-circuited wires. Bolts of lightning outside. Mokuba wasn't supposed to be there. Wheeler wasn't supposed to be there. Neither were Tristan and Téa.
No one was supposed to be there.
It was only his prototype!
"Blue Eyes White Dragon, come forth!"
The illusion was too strong. The walls cracked. Water met with electricity.
"No! No! NO!" Kaiba screamed, back slamming into the glass of his window, shattering it into a million glittering pieces. The bandage of his burnt arm, the arm burnt by the electric shock, tore against broken glass, revealing his pink, shriveled skin. "NO!"
"How is he, doctor?"
The doctor had a harried face despite his youth. Gray streaked his thin chestnut hair, new wrinkles lined his pale face, and weariness that had once plagued Seto Kaiba's eyes clouded the doctor's.
"Yes, Mister . . ."
"Ardan. Telan Ardan," the man in the business suit said promptly.
The doctor shifted his spectacled eyes down to the folder of papers he held in his hand. "And you are Mister Kaiba's attorney?"
The man in the business suit nodded. "His head attorney."
The doctor removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. It had been a tiring day, what with the surgery and whatnot. Healing would be a painful process. "His spine has been fractured from the fall. He is paralyzed from the neck down. He's lucky that he's alive."
Ardan sucked in his breath. "Oh my God."
"And --"
"My God, there's more?"
"-- Mister Kaiba has suffered severe head injuries from the fall. He is currently in a coma."
Ardan felt bile rise up to his throat. "Will he ever . . . wake up?"
The doctor sighed. "Perhaps. There is a chance that he might. But I think it'd be better if he didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"I've heard rumors, Mister Ardan, surrounding this willful young man. That explosion that killed those two prominent duelists and their two friends . . ."
"It killed his younger brother, as well, doctor," said Ardan icily. "It killed the only family left to him!"
The doctor remained in stony silence, thick fog obscuring his eyes. Ardan challenged that gaze, only to draw back when the doctor's impatience finally snapped.
"Why was he at his home, Mister Ardan?" the doctor demanded, anger contorting his features. "He should have been monitored by nurses, by doctors, by psychiatrists! Do you know why he's now in a coma, why he's paralyzed? Because of his own negligence! He should have taken his medications! Those three pills could have wiped away the delusions! Instead he threw them onto the floor and hurled himself out the window!"
Ardan looked down at his hands. "He claimed he was fine."
The doctor stared at the ceiling in disbelief. But then he regained his calm and opened his drawer. "Mister Kaiba had this clenched in his hand when we found him. I think you should keep it for him."
Ardan's breath tightened as the doctor took out the card that marked Seto Kaiba as who he was. The Blue Eyes White Dragon. The doctor stared at him pointedly, offering the wrinkled card.
"I'll be sure to notify you personally as soon as he recovers."
Ardan nodded and stood, legs wobbling. He reached his hand out to take the card then gasped. The card fluttered down onto the ground.
"Is there anything wrong?" the doctor asked.
Ardan paused, wondering if he should say anything. He bent down to pick the card up. "Nothing. An electric shock . . . The card just shocked me is all."
And yet Ardan could not help but tremble slightly as the icy blue eyes of the dragon pierced his own. Its irises seemed to be dancing with laughter.
END