Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Dragoness ❯ Handkerchief ( Chapter 15 )

“Hello?” called a timid voice in the vast expanse of the dark underground computer room. “Kaiba, are you in here?”

 

To place his strong hands around her neck.

 

And listen to her squeak in surprise.

 

And gasp for that final breath.

 

And hang off the ground, like his fingers were a noose.

 

And his tall, thin legs were the gallows.

 

And it was done faster than he could have imagined.

 

And she dropped like a rag doll, her face contorted blue and ugly.

 

Just like his.

 

And he felt some peace.

 

.

 

.

 

But he didn't. Or couldn't. The English author Thomas Hardy had once commented in one of his novels that

 

“...Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life… [His] arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.”

 

Perhaps this was what held Kaiba from doing what his darkest heart desired. Perhaps it was something more. He didn't, or couldn't, but technicalities do not matter in the bridge between desire and reality.

 

He was abrupt with her, to the point. “Why Kowegi?” he asked, emphasizing the word with his harsh tongue, resisting the meaning that it held to him.

 

Her face was contorted, shriveled almost. It reminded him of a broken man. He had seen so many… so many men on their knees before him like he was the dauphin of business, and they were but humble serfs begging for the chance to redeem themselves under the cruel eye of the master. He recalled laughing, in that high, insincere way, and feeling like he was the king. King of Games, almost.

 

He pulled her up to his eye level, the shriveled being of a soul elongated from gravity's release on her spine. What spine? Kaiba knew that it was an act, somehow. Couldn't believe that this female creature could ever loose the cold hatred in her heart that made her so much like him.

 

A female Seto Kaiba.

 

A Mrs. Kaiba.

 

He locked his steel blue eyes with her lonely brown ones. There was a spark of defiance that roared into a fire in her eyes.

 

“You knew, Kikas, that Kowegi was my father's name.”

 

And she admitted it. “I knew, Seto Kaiba,” she said, finding her old voice. “The name crossed my desk one day at Kikas International. But it never belonged to me. It belonged to you, to the pain of your childhood. And I intended on refreshing that pain in every waking moment of your life. But inadvertently it became the name of my pain.”

 

He dropped her to her feet. “How long?”

 

“How long were you going to keep him from me if he hadn't died?”

 

“Oh, I suppose forever,” she said wickedly. “It's not like you wanted him or anything.” Taking a look at his expression, she changed her mind. “Oh, perhaps you needed an heir. After all, there's nobody since Mokuba is dead-”

 

“Shut up!” he said firmly, shoving her backwards. “Just shut up!”

 

“Oh, I'm sorry. Strike a nerve?” she said wildly, her brown eyes holding some unkempt emotion of anger and pain that he had suppressed.

 

“Bitch!” he retorted coldly, striking a red mark across her face.

 

.

 

.

 

He had never run away from a trouble. He had always faced it head on, plowing into it as to not have to wake up in the morning with the dull fiery ache that death brought upon him. In the instance of Mokuba's death, he had simply buried himself in his work. Burying the past.

 

In the death of the son he had never known, he found himself familiarly back at his desk, sleeves pushed up, knee deep in paperwork.

 

It had been two weeks since he had crossed the boiling point and hit her. He had never struck a woman, no matter how infuriating or malicious she became; not Serenity, not any one of those bed-hops that filled the other side of the mattress, never.

 

And because of this, he couldn't bear to look at her face. So when the tall, green haired woman walked into the room and stood by his desk with a fistful of papers to add to the stacks, he didn't look up.

 

Except she wasn't Lilly…

 

“Mr. Kaiba,” said the harsh, brazen voice of the stranger said before shoving a sweet smelling cloth in his face…

 

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

 

“Kaiba?” chirped Serenity as she ducked into the room. “Kaiba?” The room was vacant. The pink haired secretary crossed the room and dialed two digits on the phone. “Mrs. Kaiba,” she said, forgetting to be spiteful as she talked to her ex's wife, “will you come up to Mr. Kaiba's office?”

 

.

 

.

 

There was a handkerchief on the desk. This was one of the two clues that tipped Lilly off that there was something wrong about the situation. These two clues had also tipped Wheeler off, for she was familiar with her boss/ex-lover's habits.

 

The other was that his papers were scattered in every direction on the desk. A meticulous perfectionist, Kaiba would never leave his workplace like that.

 

Lilly picked up the handkerchief, wafted the strong off-sweet odor. “Chloroform,” she said decidedly. There was a monogram on the limp piece of cloth. It was the letter F…