Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Dragoness ❯ Child ( Chapter 13 )

Kaiba couldn't help blurting his thoughts out. “Where is she?”

 

Aliex raised a hand to force Kaiba to stop. “Patience, Mr. Kaiba, patience. I needed to find out if you were really the heartless bastard that everyone says you are.”

 

“Satisfied?”

 

“Yes,” concurred Craven. “I knew I couldn't hand her well being over to someone who would be emotionally involved, like I am.”

 

“Emotionally involved?” Craven raised a white finger towards a scraggly tree in the moor. Kaiba advanced cautiously, looking out for the famous moor sinkholes.

 

There was a shadow under the shrub- but then again, there were shadows everywhere. The moor at night was an experience that could barely be put into words- like the Shadow Realm, only so much more real.

 

“Lilly?” he said, finding his voice muffled by the fog, which was beginning to look more purple than gray. Wading through the mist, he came in contact with a human body.

 

He had seen someone like this once before, but he couldn't bring himself to think it. She was sallow, her pale skin bearing a yellowish tinge; her eyes were vast pools of russet irises, totally unseeing. She was shivering, clinging to her emaciated body like someone who had lost their mind. Had she? I mean, lost her mind?

 

Unwanted, the flashback came.

 

FLASHBACK

“Mokuba?” he said in a daze. What did he do to him! he thought, horrified. The boy was so thin, so dirty, so empty. He had never seen his brother like this.

Pegasus let out an evil laugh.

END FLASHBACK

 

“What did you do to her?” he shouted, accusingly. His harsh voice echoed off the fog, distorting the sound.

 

“Nothing!” protested Aliex, raising his hands as if to defend himself from Kaiba's tone.

 

Kaiba calmed a bit. Keep it under control, Kaiba. Can't lose your cool if you want information out of this creep. “Do you know what happened?”

 

“I'd better start from the beginning.” He sighed. “It was maybe two weeks ago. I was in a club in Monaco, called the Heartbeat, if I recall correctly. I was doing a little PI work for some rich lady who thought her husband was cheating on her… it turned out he wasn't… when she walked in. I recognized her right away as…”

 

“Ryca,” supplied Kaiba.

 

“Yeah, that's it. Anyway, she was in a bad way. I mean, she was drinking like a fish. I had never seen her drink like that. Maybe she had, but I was only a lacky with a gift of languages. I didn't talk to her that often, but she knew right away who I was. `Aliex,' she said with a slight slur, `how has your life been since I left them?' I answered somewhere on the lines of “terrible.” She wholeheartedly agreed, and began jabbering away about Kikas International, Kaiba Corp, her marriage, and strange things of that sort. I must have gotten pretty drunk by then, because I don't remember any more of Monaco.

 

I figured I would never see the woman again, so I went back to my sister's villa by the sea, where I had been living. I got a call for a job in London, and within the next day, I was sleeping in a motel in London. But then something weird happened- she showed up on my doorstep. Couldn't even speak her own name. I don't know who did this to her. I haven't seen that look since the Millennium-”

 

Kaiba didn't wait to hear what else Aliex Craven had to say. Already, his worst fears were confirmed. Had the Rare Hunters gotten to her after all? He scooped the shaking woman up, and she didn't even make a sound.

 

“Here Kaiba,” said Aliex, thrusting a small slip of paper into his hands. Even in the distorted moonlight, Kaiba could see it was a photograph, but of what, he couldn't tell. “She was holding it when she came to me.”

 

-------------------------

 

Every specialist that he consulted had the same verdict- a mental breakdown. She sure looked it- vacant eyed and silent, sometimes rocking back and forth and crying. Kaiba was confused, didn't know what to do to help her. So he did all he could- sit by her bedside in the hospital, reading stock reports and business cases to her, to see if that would trigger something.

 

The photograph made him worried. It was of a tiny newborn, with a shock of black hair and baby blue eyes. It was wrapped up in a blanket, and some female was holding him for the photo. The hands in the picture didn't match Lilly's, thankfully.

 

It happened suddenly, just as suddenly as Craven described. One morning, she woke up crying, moaning “I'm so sorry Kowegi there was nothing I could do…” Kaiba placed his bony hand onto her icy one.

 

“Lilly?”

 

She focused her brown eyes on his blurry face. “Seto?” she gasped, and he didn't bother to correct her.

 

“What happened to you?”

She began to sniff again, her red eyes raw. “You… you don't know? Aliex didn't tell you? He promised he would tell you everything.”

 

“How much do you remember?”

 

“Everything until… the death.”

 

“Who died, Lil?” he said, using a pet name that he had never called her before.

 

Her face was somber, white and round as the moon. “The picture… didn't you see the picture?”

 

“This?” he inquired, drawing the slightly crumpled baby photo from his pocket. She snatched it and smoothed it out the best she could.

 

“Him,” she finally pointed.

 

“Who?” he asked, beginning to get irritated with her roundabout way of saying what she meant.

 

“The baby. Our baby. My Kowegi.”

 

He stood up, a sound like a thundering tide bellowing in his ears. He stumbled from the room, not knowing where he was going or what he was doing.

 

Impossible.