Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Clear Vision ❯ Chapter Thirteenth ( Chapter 13 )

Clear Vision

A Seto/Joey fanfic by subaruxkamui4ever

AN: I return to you all as the newly crowned "Prince of Anime Angst". I have never been more proud of anything else in my entire life, and I thank you all for your fantabulous reviews. They keep me warm at night, and you all flatter me so very much, and I am truly grateful for each and every opinion. But this golden statue….(cries profusely) is so wonderful and shiny that I wish I could really hold it in my hand. Ahhhhhhh….. well, here is some more angst for you all, and for me as well. The other day, I made the mistake of re-reading The Urgency of Life, because of the new oneshot I wrote for it (already posted it, if you wanted to know), and I straight up cried for like, 45 minutes. Never again will I read something that I wrote, that's sobbing grounds, I swear. Here, however, is the beginning of the end for Clear Vision. As it draws to a close, I find myself worried, because of the hollow and empty days that will undoubtedly follow, with nothing to drag me out of bed. Except, perhaps, a new angsty and very drawn out fic of epic proportions that has already formed in the back of my mind. Will it never end? Oh, Seto and Joey, there will be no rest for you as long as I'm around…..

The sensation of breaking the boundary of my own soul was the most painful experience of my short life. While still much less painful than what was soon to follow, my form became racked with torment in my mind, it was almost unbearable and yet I knew that there was no escape, and no way to turn back from this point on. The previously endless silence that permeated the landscape of my inner heart was broken the moment I fell through the barrier that Zahra had placed between the two of us, and in the instant that I passed through, a terrifying scream tore throughout my mental form, and as it continued on and on I recognized it slowly as my own. I simply could not stop screaming, the anguish was far too large a burden on my unsuspecting mind. Through my torment I was able to open my eyes and see what had become of me, and my cries of pain froze momentarily in my throat as I gasped aloud at what had come to be my surrounding, here in Zahra's realm.

Flames ravaged it endlessly. Everything was nothing but a terrible fire, all around me, within me even, and spanning out in every possible angle and space, as far as I could see and endlessly farther still. I felt a heat engulfing me wholly, a burning that was not like a burning whatsoever, but rather like a flame made of the purest form of ice, it seemed so cold here, yet it was so intensely hot in the same awful second. I fell through the flickering blaze and into another, they made up the whole of Zahra's world, and I realized at once that this was where he had been residing for all this time. I knew then that I could fall here for an eternity if I chose, as he had chosen, and I would still never find the place where the flames had not yet reached and taken hold. His entire existence was the fire, the same one that had taken his life, and the life of the only person Zahra had ever loved. I cried tears of both terrible pain and unending sorrow, Zahra lived here, this was every moment of his stolen life hidden inside my heart. An undying and ever excruciating fire that consumed him forever and for always, and would continue to do so until the day that he finally let his memories go. This was his punishment for not following the natural order of reincarnation, for standing up and following his heart, trying so desperately to be reunited with Sethe. He spent every moment reliving the very last moment of his life, an eternal cycle that he refused to break, instead choosing the only available alternative, which was to endlessly live in the last moment he spent alive. How terribly unfortunate that he had been burned to death.

The tears that I cried in my heart were instantly burned away from my face, and I could feel the intensity of the heat in every corner of my soul, there was nowhere to run from here. This was not my world, this place belonged to Zahra. I knew that I would never land in this world, and the sensation of weightlessness that I felt here was my only reassurance that I was not falling still. I bit back the terrified screams that lay in my throat and instead resolved myself to finishing this place, and rescuing Zahra from a torment that he couldn't end on his own. No one deserved to live this way, and yet he had been carrying on here for 5000 years. It was simply unreal, the extent to which he truly loved the High Priest. But this wasn't right.

"Zahra!" I cried out to him, desperate to be heard over the roar of the fire that consumed both he and I and the realm that we now existed within. I saw him then, just after I called his name, he was just before me. I tried my very hardest to ignore the awful burning, and I reached out to him, he was now just a few inches from my outstretched fingertips. He looked at me calmly as I watched him in the very midst of burning alive, and he never so much as flinched at the flames that felt as though they were taking away one of my lives with each passing second. He must have grown accustomed to them, I thought suddenly, and he watched me closely, not seeming alarmed but instead curious as to why I had remained here in such pain. I had to reach him, I felt it deep inside that this was the way, and I tried harder still, stretching out across the visible fire that he didn't really seem to notice all that much. It was still so very unbearable to me. I made it at last, catching him by the arm and pulling him against my chest, as if he were the one who needed the comfort and support, when clearly I was the one who would have never made it nearly as far as he. I had so much awe and respect for Zahra in that moment, as I realized that I would never have done all of this, living out the most terrifying experience of my life indefinitely for the sake of someone else. I couldn't do it, I thought in a nearly audible way, and cringing in the constant pain I held on to Zahra even tighter, and I think that he sensed my feelings, because he gripped my waist in response, accepting my regret for the way he had to live, and taking my pity wholeheartedly. I knew that he was just as sorry as I was, but he just couldn't bring himself to end it all. He needed my help.

"I'm so sorry…." I gasped out the phrase haltingly as I blinked back the dried out tears of misery that threatened to spill over, and I brought Zahra's form to my eye level and gazed into his lifeless stare. He seemed as though he could just barely make me out in his haze, and I knew that he simply couldn't do this for very much longer. He was losing himself in the fires, and his memories were leaving him slowly, yet he pressed on, Sethe must have been worth so much more than his very self, in Zahra's own mind.

"I love him so very much, and yet….and yet he hates me still. Is there anything left…?" Zahra's voice fell from his lips in a language I did not know, but still I felt every thought and each feeling that lay behind the spoken phrases that he uttered slowly, as if in a dream. Or perhaps, a nightmare. I watched his face, hoping that he would speak again, but he did not. It was all that he had inside.

"Zahra…it time to rest. I swear to you with everything inside of me that I will find a way to reach him. You see…" I met his eyes and it seemed that he saw me at long last.

"You see, I love Sethe as well. But I love who he has become, in this lifetime. And I believe that he loves me, as well. So, you and Sethe will be together, because you are me, Zahra. You and I are the same soul. And the same is true for Sethe and Seto. But you are dead, and you have been for some time now. It's time for you to rest…" I watched his features carefully for his reaction, and hoped for the best. He appeared lost at first, and he seemed to stumble around the words that I spoke, but slowly he came to understand, and he nodded slowly. But then after a moment, his face was stricken in a dead panic, and his grip around me became tighter still, clinging in desperation.

"But all this time, all the misery and the sorrow I've carried with me, has it all been in vain? Had I already lost before it even began?" His eyes welled with fresh tears, but I brought my hand to his eyes and carefully pushed them aside with a small smile of reassurance

"Of course not. If you had not been there to give me those dreams of your death, I never would have come to live with Seto for those few days. And Sethe, if he hadn't been so unruly within Seto and taken hold of him like that, Seto would have never even believed in his existence. Nothing was in vain, Zahra. You did all that you could, and it was enough. It was enough to bring us back together, and it brought you and Sethe back together as well. You saved us all." I smiled at him, and he smiled back, despite the drowning heat of the flames that ate away at our souls, and I embraced him fully.

It seems that every once in a great while, true love really does win out in the end.

"Then I am ready." Zahra set his face in a determined way and pulled away from me, no more than a mere foot or so. "Would you do me a small favor?" His hopeful eyes looked into my own, and I gave him a short nod. "Anything."

"Will you tell Sethe that I'm sorry?"

He was so brave, and I nearly cried right then and there, before he had even gone from me, his selflessness was truly a sight to behold.

"Of course I will."

His smile was brief but honest. "Then it's all right. Everything is in its place, and I will never regret a moment of it. Thank you…" He trailed off as the distance between the two of us closed, and he was suddenly very close to me, within inches were our faces and it was a very sad and silent moment, the final seconds that he would continue to be real. But he would remain real long after his leaving me, for I would always keep him in my memories. He would be a part of my soul, and I would always be a part of him.

I kissed him. To this very day, I cannot describe exactly what it was that possessed me to do this. It seems almost wrong when I tell this story to others, but right at that second, with he and I so very close and with the ever raging inferno all around us and within us at once, I knew that he and I would have to cease our state of separation in some way. He and I were the same soul, and somehow along the way our soul had been shattered, broken in two, and now it needed to be remade. And I knew inside my heart that he and I could make it together. And with that thought, his lips met mine, and I felt an awful rushing sensation, all over both he and I and in the place that we were. The fires that took hold of everything were frozen in that very moment that we touched, and after the kiss was over, each and every inch of flame soundlessly shattered into countless tiny pieces and then were gone a moment later, leaving behind the sane and familiar dark void that felt nearly like home to me. I recognized it immediately as my own mind, and I nearly cried out at the relief that washed over my heart, my mind, and my soul, all in an instant. The terrible anguish was no more, and as I looked around at the black night of my soul that surrounded me indefinitely, I saw that Zahra was no more, as well.

I opened my eyes, and I both felt and saw the warm and welcome light of morning.

AN: Almost done! One more chapter, and then it's on to a new story, which I have already begun. I hope that it is as warmly welcomed as all my other fics have been, but who knows? We shall see. So, did you like the kiss? How can something so wrong feel so very good…..? I love it. If it's forbidden, then I'll write it. yeah.