Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Behind Blue Eyes ❯ A Cry for Help (part 1) ( Chapter 3 )

~The Heart Behind Blue Eyes~

***

~It's five years after Battle City, and Seto Kaiba has sunk into a deep depression; feeling that there is nothing left to live for, he is shocked by a vivid dream that promises him a return to happiness. But when this dream turns reality, his greatest rival realizes that he is merely spinning a new path to his demise, but can Yami save him from the deadly promise of happiness, bring him back to reality, and show him that there is much to live for? A Seto-centric fic, eventually S/Y.~

I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! The characters in this story, or anything else that has been patented! If I did then I would be insanely rich, I definitely wouldn't need to be writing fanfictions, and the show would be a little different, heh heh heh. So anyway, DON'T sue me because all you will get will be six fifty in loose change, my school supplies, and an enormous lawyer bill.

"Blah blah blah." indicates speech

'Blah blah blah.' indicates thoughts

...Blah blah blah... indicates flashbacks, or memories

*~*~*~*~* indicates the start and end of a dream

/Blah blah blah./ indicates yami and hikari talk to each other

<Blah blah blah.> indicates that the frivolous author is inserting some deeply insightful comment.

<Alright, I'm so sorry guys! To anyone that actually reads my li'l fic, they would probably know that I promised the third chapter to be up by Monday... and it is definitely Tuesday night right now. But very truthfully I have been SO busy, and I just managed to write part of this chapter so I'm putting up half of it now, and half of it later when I get a chance to type it up! I'm so sorry, but I didn't want to leave this story all alone until I got the entire chapter up, so you'll have to settle for two parts. Anyway, this would have been a long chapter so this might be for the best! Seto acts a little out of character, but that's only because he's really shaken up, and keep in mind what he's gone through in the past week. But he'll act more Kaiba-like soon. He's still getting over his... oh I'll just let you read the fic! ^_~>

Chapter 3: A Cry For Help (Part I of II)

The pale blue light flicked over the floor of Yami's room, the lightning outside giving tantalizing glimpses of darkened corners before vanishing. Though Yami had not spoken of the event, the incident at the hospital had been on his mind almost constantly over the past week. Yugi had pestered Yami about it for a while, but had eventually given up the task as hopeless when met with Yami's close lipped grimace.

Sighing heavily, Yami turned over onto his side and squeezed his eyes shut, willing sleep to come. 'Damn him,' Yami thought viciously as his body refused to cooperate with his command to sleep. 'Even when we're not facing each other he manages to make my life miserable. Why the hell did he do... "that"?!' Frowning into his pillowcase Yami moaned with frustration.

Ever since he had set eyes on the blue eyed boy's wounds, Yami had been puzzling and berating himself, trying to find a reason in him that he would be so involved in Kaiba's destruction. The brunette had seemed fine just a few days ago before they had left for the camping trip and they had stopped by to borrow a rain fly from Mokuba. In fact, the CEO always seemed fine. What had brought about this sudden descent?

From the first time Yami had laid eyes on Kaiba, the blue eyed brunette had seemed powerful; confident, capable, strong, intelligent, besides his lack of revealed feelings he seemed to live a model life. The boy was tall, one of Yami's own personal gripes, had passed through high school and college with flying colors even graduating early, he was filthy rich and owner of his own company, and hardly ugly to look at. In fact, Yami reflected on Kaiba, he had noticed but never admitted how good looking his rival was. Whenever he looked into those striking blue eyes, so much like the dragon that Kaiba loved so much, Yami's heart tingled and he felt the tiniest of memories from ancient Egypt. If only he could remember what had happened; all he could piece together from his scraggly glimpses into his past was that he and Kaiba had been close, how close he didn't know. Yes, they had even been rivals then, for Yami had seen the minutest flashes of duels, and the competent smirk that always graced the boy's delicious lips when he dueled. Yami shook this last thought off quickly; if there had been something between him and Kaiba in his past life, it was gone. The blue eyed boy had impassable barriers, and was too cold and aloof for anyone to develop feelings for beyond attraction.

Finally feeling the first tugs of sleep against his eyelids, Yami decided that he would confront Kaiba about it tomorrow in the hospital; Yugi had told him that the brunette was recovering and was scheduled to return home within a week. Nodding firmly against his pillow, the game king let all thoughts out of his mind and drifted off to sleep, keeping only the vague hope that more glimpses into his past would be revealed inside his dreams.

***

In the gloomy halls of the hospital, Seto Kaiba's door looked as nondescript as all of the others. But inside, the patient was tossing and turning, thrashing and crying out softly as he fought with some unseen force in his dreams. With a single louder cry that echoed in the room, the boy's brilliant blue eyes flew open and he sat up straight in his bed breathing heavily.

For a moment Seto was disoriented, glancing around his surroundings curiously, before it all came back to him and he felt the dull pain his left arm under the heavy bandages that he was forbidden to remove. Sighing deeply, the brunette turned his eyes towards the window beside his bed, twitching the cord that hung from the shades with his right hand. Cool blue/white moonlight streamed over the bed, kissing his sweat dampened body, and placing comforting arms along his hot skin.

Seto loved the moonlight, it reminded him so much of his precious Blue-Eyes White Dragons. Some people might snicker that a person favor a card so (though surely never at him since he could easily see to it that they never had a pleasant life thereafter), but Seto often felt that he had an odd sort of deep connection with his dragons. His Blue-Eyes were the pride of his deck and his heart, but even the lesser dragons called to him, which was why he kept so many of the cards in his deck. Yugi and Yami would preach about heart of the cards, and Seto had laughed and scorned them in his past years, but had also come to a grudging agreement. Though he never labeled his feelings as 'the heart of the cards,' his belief in his deck had proven to surprise him, his cards, especially his beloved dragons, seemed to rise through his deck to his hand as he needed them, and it had gotten so that he expected one of his mighty Blue-Eyes to come to him whenever he wished it to come.

Seto shook his head wearily and with one last dose of moonlight, let the slats of the shade close again. In the darkened room he felt strangely alone, as if he was again a little boy sitting in fear of the dark. The CEO forced himself to smile about that; imagine being afraid of the dark, it was merely the absence of light. Light... wasn't that what Yami and his other ancient Egyptian friends called those bozos that had released them from their Millennium items?

Quickly frowning Seto shoved himself violently back down onto his hospital bed. Why was it that the infernal Pharaoh always seemed to creep into his thoughts just when he was acting like a normal person again? He roughly raked his right hand through his sweat-dampened hair, and glowered at the foot of his bed where the observation note folder was kept, currently empty.

Using his advantage, that the nurses seemed to find him attractive even in his current state, Seto had pieced together what had happened to him: His breakdown; the crazy rants about seeing Yami where he couldn't possibly be; cutting himself almost to the point of death, they still wouldn't let him see the self inflicted wounds; the sluggish recovery until suddenly he had returned to himself and the healing process sped up. That stupid Pharaoh had even managed to penetrate his madness!

'Ra! I bet if that arrogant king-of-games had never appeared in my life I would be perfectly normal!' Seto fumed. Suddenly he paused with interest. Had he actually just said the word 'Ra' as an exclamation? Being the over educated genius that he was, he naturally knew about the Egyptian god, but had never thought of him in such a context before. Frowning, he tried to will his thoughts back to more 'Seto-ish' topics. Whenever that idiot came up Seto just started going crazy again. He would have to stay even farther away than he had before. He already didn't know what had possessed him to bare his arm to that knife anyway. The world wasn't good enough for him to die for. Pleasing so many people by passing out of existence was not something he wanted to do; he could still show up any other company with his technology, so why stop at monopolizing Japan? Besides, even Yami wasn't worth killing himself over. 'UGH! There he is again! Will he never leave me alone?!' Seto pulled at his mahogany hair in anguish and bared his teeth to the darkened room.

'There may be nothing to turn to, not even death, but I'm Seto Kaiba. I WILL find a way!' With these stubborn thoughts firmly implanted in his mind, the blue eyed boy meditated on his new mantra until his eyelids drooped and he slipped into an uneasy sleep.

*~*~*~*~*

The blue eyed teen opened his eyes feeling much refreshed, and blinked as he realized he wasn't in the hospital any longer, but lying on some sort of cold stone floor and surrounded by dim darkness. Hastily he rose to his feet and turned around, trying to ascertain how he had gotten "here" and what "here" was.

Spinning around again, Seto saw that the stone floor was old worn blocks with some sort of ancient writing, what looked like small pictures, etched on the weathered surface. The darkness seemed illuminated in the place where he was standing, and as he strode away from the place he realized that the light seemed to be radiating from around him.

For what seemed like an hour, Seto strode with false purpose through the darkness, searching for some clue as to where he was, and what the dimensions of his prison were. Though Seto hated to admit it, he was growing more and more uneasy, and his sense seemed to be playing tricks on him. It felt like the air around him was ancient, and that a feeling of anticipation and power was slowly permeating the air and building up pressure throughout his mysterious prison.

Suddenly Seto froze in mid stride and listened. He was sure he had heard something, he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Then he heard the distinct sound of a scuffing, as a shoe on stone, and the whisper of a swirling cloak through heavy air. Seto whirled around on one foot and raised his arms defensively... but there was nothing there. Keeping his arms up, he slowly scanned around him.

The slightest noise of a snicker or a giggle came from behind him, and once more he spun around. Raising his arms and centering his balance, prepared to fight if someone should shw themselves, he failed to notice that his arm no longer hurt, and the few pounds he had dropped in the hospital were recovered.

Now a light tinkling laugh sounded, directly behind him. He wheeled about faster than he could think and cocked his fist to strike, before stopping dead in his tracks. No one was there. Puzzled, he glanced all about him, but saw no sign of another living thing.

"Seto Kaiba..." A mysterious and alluring voice seemed to pulse from the very air.

"Who's there? What do you want?!" Seto growled trying to locate the origin of the voice. He was faced instead with another chime-like laugh.

"What do you want Seto Kaiba?"

"I want to know who you are, and what I'm doing here." The CEO didn't feel like being pleasant and he continued to scan his surroundings. This time there as a slightly deeper laugh, both amused and prophetic.

"I am someone that wants to help you Seto Kaiba... And you are here because you need me."

"What?" The brunette was outraged at such a presumption.

"Come with us and you can live without pain or remorse, without the burden of a broken heart or the stress of an image to maintain. Come with us and you can be truly happy... and so then shall we." At the end of this mysterious recitative, the lower laugh seemed to be joined by hundreds of others, but so faint that the boy could only hear the new depth of the sound.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Seto said sulkily crossing his arms across his chest.

"You will soon, for we are here to serve you. When you are happy our spirits soar, when you are sad we cannot move for depression, and when you are angry we rally with glad hearts to be your allies. Soon you will understand how we serve you, Seto Kaiba. Soon..."

"Enough of this nonsense, what are you talking about?!" Seto screamed into the darkness, sensing that the voice, backed by hundreds of others, was fading away.

"This is not the end Seto Kaiba, it is the beginning. Perhaps next time you will understand better. Farewell Seto Kaiba... remember that we were always here for you, through all these years. Don't forget, I charge you to remember, Seto Kaiba. Farewell."

"You haven't answered any of my questions! I want to know what you mean!" Seto was now screaming as loud as he could his shoulders shaking with frustration, but he slowly felt light coming his way, and the fading of the presence. With one last shout of rebellion he disappeared from the dark place.

*~*~*~*~*

Seto Kaiba, CEO of KaibaCorp. (blue-eyed, brunette, child prodigy, genius), opened his eyes and saw the sterile white tiled ceiling of the hospital. His mind raced with the strange vision he had seen, and he bit his lip thinking about it. Glancing over to his left he saw a tray that carried what the hospital tried to pass off as breakfast, and a further look at the clock displayed the time as 10:30 in the morning.

Frowning slightly, the blue eyed boy brushed his chestnut hair away from his face, and sighed into the palm. It certainly was a strange dream, and it didn't even have to do with Yami this time.

'RA! Why can't I go for a simple day without that arrogant know-it-all butting into my head! Next thing I know I'll be seeing him in places he can't be again.' Still fuming, Seto jumped as he heard the door open. His eyes widened to the size of biscuits as he watched the very Pharaoh he was cursing shuffle uneasily through the door.

"RA! I didn't mean it!" The brunette shouted, not noticing how the Egyptian boy jumped back in surprise against the side of the wall. All he was conscious of was intense disgust with himself, only furthered as he realized he had just used 'Ra' as an explanation twice in the last minute. "Dammit you accursed illusion!" Seto screamed at the form of Yami backed up against the far wall, not caring who heard him in his state. "Why can't you leave me alone and let me be normal! Ra, why can't you- DAMN!" Flopping back in furious frustration in his hospital bed, Seto gripped his mahogany locks with his right hand and proceeded to mutter his mantra from the previous night as he counted the ceiling tiles for the forty-eighth time.

Yami stared at Kaiba incredulously, wishing in vain that he had never decided to come. He had thought the doctors had said that Kaiba had returned to normal and was inside the hospital merely to monitor his health and keep his bandages fresh, soon to be released. But this was clearly not a sane person.

Looking over at the blue-eyed boy, Yami easily admitted that Kaiba was scaring him. He didn't know what he had expected as a reaction to his presence, but this certainly wasn't it. He wondered faintly if he should just leave, but at the same time the hardened ruler in his mind told him to stay and carry through with his objective. Unhappy with his own determination, the former Pharaoh walked hesitantly across the floor until he was standing beside Kaiba's bed.

As he looked down at the boy, Kaiba's gaze flickered to his face for a second, before his eyes widened even further (if possible) and his muttering became more intense and frantic. Frowning, Yami reached out a finger and gently prodded Kaiba's upper arm before speaking.

"Kaiba? Um... are you... alright?"

What Yami expected as a reaction to these words, he wasn't quite sure. But once again he was surprised and ended up flattened as hard as he could against the back wall.

Upon the physical contact of the Pharaoh's finger and Kaiba's shoulder, the brunette had let out a shrill shout, jumped in the air about six inches (Yami hadn't even known that was possible when lying down), and come down in a sitting position. Now he was gazing at Yami with a plain mixture of fear, embarrassment, and disbelief written across his usually stoic face.

"Ohmygod," Kaiba's finally stated. "You did just touch me right?" This last part was added in a voice that clearly conveyed how half of him hoped that Yami's answer would be 'no.'

"Yes-" Yami answered slowly, not daring to leave his post against the wall.

"AGH!" The brunette hit himself smartly on the forehead with his free right arm, before looking up at Yami with an expression of apology and embarrassment. He seemed a totally different person as he looked at the Egyptian, his emotions clear to see like any other person... an intriguing development in the eyes of the former Pharaoh.

"I'm so sorry Yami, it's just-" The boy broke off, looking confused and torn between revealing a secret and keeping it safely hidden. He finished awkwardly, "-I'm not quite myself. I had a strange dream last night, so I reacted to you a little strangely." His explanation sounded more like a question than an answer, Yami thought blandly. He wondered what Kaiba had been going to say.

"Well..." The king of games was lost for words. Faced with a Kaiba that seemed capable of feeling, and feeling sorry, he wasn't quite sure of what to make of his situation.

There was an awkward silence, in which the blue eyed boy looked everywhere bu at Yami, his face bright red from embarrassment. Yami chose to study the CEO, trying to decide what it was that made the boy so different.... so, strangely... appealing. The former Pharaoh shook his head at this thought, and made up his mind to say what he meant to say, hear the answers he wanted to hear, and leave the hospital as soon as possible.

"Kaiba, I-"He started. Unfortunately at the same time the brunette was trying to say 'So, what-". They both halted again, flustered. Finally, Kaiba gestured clumsily for Yami to go first.

"Kaiba, I came here..." He faded off again. The luminous blue eyes had finally turned to him. he depths of them were strangely frightening, but so entrancing that he thought he could get lost in them. But what stirred him the most was in the deepest recesses of those eyes, he saw fear of the words he was about to utter. He stuttered, and coughed into his hand, stalling for time. All the while those blue eyes never left him. "Kaiba, I came here to find out why I was... so prevalent in your... accident." The former Pharaoh spat out the statement with little grace, and rebuked himself internally for it. He glanced at Kaiba to see his reaction.

Oddly enough, the reaction seemed more thoughtful than repulsed, or angry. The youth turned his head to look out between the slats of his window, the sunlight streaming down his profile and seemingly combing through his thick mahogany hair. Yami twitched as he felt deja vu, seeing a similar vision of the boy, but the shadows on his face were not from shade slats, but through the leaves of a tree. He wondered at this, then stored it in the back of his mind to puzzle about later.

***

<Heeheehee, am I evil? I tried to stop at a part that wasn't too exciting so I wouldn't have a huge cliffhanger, but there really wasn't anywhere to stop at all! So I just stopped it here because I'm tired and I want to go to bed, and this was the most un-cliffhanger-ish spot that there was around that time in my typing. I'll have the next part of the chapter up soon! THANK YOU TO ALL REVIEWERS! I love this feeling of having reviews, I'm still a little nervous about flames, but so far so good! I'll thank you all personally in the second part of the next chapter, but my eyelids are droooooooping right now so I have to stop!>

Review Replies! (I know, laaaaaate. I just wanted you guys to know how much I appreciate you taking the time to review!)

Solitaire-I think I cleared up the 40 stories up thingy with the second and third chapter but thanks for telling me, keep that up in the future. I have been known to make incredibly stupid mistakes and feel just as incredibly stupid when alerted to them!

Silver Mist4-Yay! Thanks for loyally reviewing! It makes me feel so warm and fuzzy knowing that there are people that will actually 'continue' to read and review the story! A 10/10 story so far? You flatter me! I hope the story is still up to par!

Rosabell-Yea, isn't it annoying when you get all excited because you see that there's been an update, and then it's just an author's note? I hate that! Heh heh, I just had to see what it was like at least ONCE in my career! Thanks for reviewing!

Shadowheart378-I'm just like you? I guess that's good... I don't know, I'm pretty weird at times... ^_~ but then again, perhaps great minds think alike! (I can hope) Thanks for reviewing!

Cartas-Wow! You flatter me so much! It means so much to hear people say that I can actually write! I hope that I wont become one of those 'quiet lately' authors. It bugs the heck out of me when my favorite stories don't get updated. I'm trying, I'm trying people! I never realized how stressful this writing stuff could be!

ssjmiraitrks-It's good to know that I can keep readers on their toes, without making them hate me! I'm writing as fast as-(okay, maybe not as fast as I can, but I need a life too) I can, so the updates are coming!

Meloncrisp-Thanks for the feedback! I didn't mean to have Mokuba left out of this, I assumed in my head that he was concerned and by Seto's side as often as possible, but I just kind of left that out of the story. Sorry! I'll put him in more, I don't want it to seem like he doesn't care! As of right now, not a lot of people know about Yami's name being written on Seto's arm, Seto himself doesn't know it because he hasn't bothered to check and the doctors don't want to say anything about it until his condition is more stable. Before they release him from the hospital, they are going to make him got to counseling about it, but he's going to find out soon enough on his own.

AngelicSlayer-Kaiba rules! He's the best character! I'm continuing this fic as quickly as my poor brain allows, and if you check my profile I'm planning on writing some more soon! So, will I be expecting three reviews for every chapter from now on? Just kidding! ^_~

Thanks again reviewers! Nothing stokes the writing process like reviews! Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge.