Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Young God ❯ Chapter 10 ( Chapter 19 )

Chapter 10

" Well, now what are we going to do?" Rishna asked Ashika. " We lost him to that Pharaoh!"
" Well, if you haven't been so busy hugging him until the guards came, we might have made it out of there!"
" And where would we go, may I ask? Seto looked so pale and so happy I had to. You know that! But if you hadn't simply followed along with the guards we would have gotten him out!"
" In any case," Ashika threw his hands up hopelessly, " Seto is with the Pharaoh and now that guy has lost all sense of logic. He's planning on keeping that kid!"

The two immortals bickered with each other in Rishna's room, until finally they stopped and sighed.

Seto was getting worried. He felt that the Pharaoh was beginning to get paranoid. Sighing, he sat down.

You can NOT see them!
I'll have that tomb robber's throat...
You will not go back.

Tears welled up in the young child's eyes. Belumfel was not letting him go see his dear friends. He's going to punish Malik and Banat badly, and he wasn't going to let Seto go back to his home either. Shivering, he started to sniffle, trying his best to suppress it and wipe away his tears.

Taknash stopped by the entrance of the child's quarters and sighed. He went inside.
" Are you alright, little one?" He asked.

Seto started, then cowered slightly away from him.

" Hey, kiddo, I'm not going to hurt you." Taknash sat down by Seto's side and wrapped his arms gently around the shivering boy. " Rough day, huh?"

The child nodded against him.

Taknash knew why the child was crying. The Pharaoh was going mad and the whole country knew it. Not that they could do anything about it because the Pharaoh was still too powerful to be overthrown, and it's a god they're talking about here.

Taknash rocked the child soothingly and Seto closed his eyes. He was so tired, so tired...

In an effort to keep him awake, because he had to, Taknash asked a very obvious question.
" What does your name mean?"

Seto opened his eyes in surprise. He was not expecting that.
" It...means a lot of things." He said uncomfortably.
" Like what?" Taknash asked.
" The sky," Seto said, his voice distant as he remembered the beautiful blue skies of his childhood. " The snow," The pale blue snow that fell directly from the sky, " The light, beauty, courage, grace, wisdom, and strength...and much much more."

Taknash was silent for a long moment.

Seto suddenly leaped to his feet, despite his exhaustion. " The Pharaoh's going to execute Banat!" He cried, then ran out of the room down the hall to the dueling arena.

" Wait!" Taknash cried. " You can't go in there!" Hurrying to his feet, he followed the young child down the hall.

" Over my dead body," Banat hissed, freeing himself from the bonds with a glow of his ring and with a wave of his hand stone tablets appeared. " You're not going to take Seto for yourself without a duel. The child is not yours. You'll have to duel me before you do anything to me or claim him."

" So let us duel, then." The Pharaoh said calmly. He was said to be the King of Games. That was not very false.

Suddenly, the doors burst open. The crowd turned to the young child, as the servant grabbed the boy from behind.

" Pharaoh! You can't!"
" Seto!" Banat breathed, his eyes widening.
" Let's duel." The Pharaoh said, impassively, totally ignoring the weeping and sobbing child behind Banat. The tomb robber, completely shakened, turned back to the Pharaoh and regained his composure.
" Let's duel." He said.

Taknash tried his best to soothe the shakened and terrified child as the battle began, but Seto would not be comforted.
" Banat will lose." He whispered despairingly, " And the Pharaoh will condemn him to the worst fate of all. I can't stop it! I can't stop it!"

The tension was in the air. Banat proved to be a more skillful duelist than all had anticipated. Seto watched in apprehension-he saw it. He knew what was going to happen. It was what happened to every game played to the Pharaoh. The odds will be with Banat. But at the last moment, the crucial moment, the Pharaoh would draw a card that will very well end that game right there. And Banat, as punishment, would-

" Pharaoh! Please! Sae emon forthon!"

The Pharaoh ignored him. " I place the Celtic Guardian in attack mode."

Seto trembled and Taknash restrained him.
" Seto, he's not going to listen to you,"
" Pharaoh!" Seto yelled, and gathered light into his hands, his eyes shut fiercely-
" Seto! No!" Taknash pulled him back, and the rays shot into the far wall. The Pharaoh stepped back in shock as piece of stone fell. But the room held.

Belumfel glared at Seto.
" Taknash, take him out of the room." He said.
" Banat," Seto begged to the tomb robber this time, " Please, call off this, you can't keep playing!"

But Banat was no more willing to resign then the Pharaoh. " I put a tablet facing away." He said. " Your move.

Taknash dragged the child out of the room, all the while shaking, because it seemed his Pharaoh was no longer the same.

" We have to do something!" Rishna sighed. " The Pharaoh's going to use the Sennen Items and he's already becoming corrupted by them!"
" There's nothing we can do! The robber's fated for eternal hell anyway," Ashika said in annoyance. " Seto's crying like a maniac, Taknash is all panicky, the Pharaoh's angry, the robber's acting like an idiot, and the monsters have divided and killed each other, and if anything happens to Seto, the Blue Eyes White Dragon won't be able to help him because that idiot robber wounded the sapphire."
" But we can't just sit by and do nothing!"
" You don't get it! We can't do anything against the holders of the Sennen Items! They're protected from our powers in this realm!"

Rishna sighed. " Alright, we need to calm down. We know that Seto is with Taknash so he's safe for now. The robber is going to lose. The Pharaoh will go nuts...and what else?"
" We're locked up in this room with guards all over the entrances with no way to get out."

Rishna blinked. " Helloo, we're immortal. What are you, a man? We're suppose to go places without having to walk there!"

Ashika immediately understood what she meant.
" Idiot." Rishna shook her head as they faded out of sight.

" We can't leave him in there," Seto whispered, his blue eyes darting back and forth in alarm.
" Hush, little one, don't worry, everything will be fine."
" Everything will not be fine! Banat's going to lose and it's all my fault..."
" It's not your fault, Seto."
" I have to do something,"
" You can't do anything." Taknash rocked the child back and forth. " Relax. Everything is going to be alright."

Seto knew that it was a lie. But what can he do?"

Banat watched with dread as the final move was over, leaving him with no lifepoints at all. He did not show his dread though. He would not give the Pharaoh that kind of satisfaction. His mind turned to the child, the boy who saved his life and tried to save his life again. He remembered the innocence in those wondrous eyes, the crystalline tears, the divine laugh. He remembered the little body tumbling down the stairs, the soft hands on his own rough ones. The child was a god. He remembered lifting the little body up, even for that brief moment. The golden circlet with the sapphire in the middle, and the soft hair framing the fair face.

" I condemn you to eternity in the confines of the Sennen Ring." The Pharaoh ended at last, in a loud, powerful voice. His Sennen Eye glowed in the middle of his forehead as the curse was put on the tomb robber. But Banat did not hear the words nor heed to their meaning. He was thinking of the boy's laughter, gentle and divine. He thought of the child's panicked eyes as they dueled, the fair voice screaming and begging him to stop, begging the Pharaoh to stop. Did the boy know that this would come? Of course he did. Seto Kaiba was a god. He knows exactly how the battle will turn out.

You tried to save me again. Banat thought. You tried your hardest, dearest child. But this time...this time it's not going to work.

Sudden pain filled him and he let out a loud scream. The scream was bloodcurdling and terrible, as was the pain. Suddenly, the tomb robber glowed in a bright white flash, and the Millennium Ring dropped heavily to the floor, the holder soulless.

The body was pale. The red eyes were lifeless. There were no signs of breathing and all of the blood rushed deep down below the skin. The tablets fell as if bowing to the victor beside the body. The Millennium Ring lay beside the body.

But inside the ring, Banat was shivering, and as he looked around the darkness of his soul room he realized what exactly Seto was trying to save him from.

Eternity in Hell...

Seto started crying anew and tried to rush out of the room again, but Taknash stopped him.
" It's over!" He cried, " You can't do anything!"
" He did it..." Seto was pale and trembling as he suddenly froze. " He really did it. I can't believe he would do it..."

What happened to the generous and warm hearted Pharaoh he knew? Who's heart was merciful and kind? What happened to the reasonable and wise mind, clever and intelligent? What happened to the Pharaoh in general?

He condemned his own cousin...

Seto fell to his knees and did not respond when Taknash tried to help him up.

The Pharaoh is a monster...

Just like Mother said...

Rishna and Ashika materialized into view and hugged the boy tightly.

" Oh Seto..." Rishna whispered.
" You didn't help him!" Seto accused. " I tried to help him and you knew what was going to happen too! You didn't help him!" He wiped his tears out of his eyes. " You didn't help him..."
" Oh darling," Rishna said softly, " Sana, don't cry. It's fate. We can't do anything even if we tried."
" The Pharaoh's a monster."
" The Pharaoh is not a monster, Seto. He loves you. He is corrupted by the Puzzle he can't help it."
" He condemned his own cousin!" Seto wept bitterly. " They share in flesh and blood...and he condemned him for so trivial a thing..."
" Banat kidnapped you." Ashika tried to voice in reason, but Seto would not have it.
" Seto, Seto, calm down. We'll find a way to deal with this." Rishna squeezed the little body tightly. " It's going to be alright..."

Seto wandered about the halls in a dumb stupor. He only knew to avoid the Pharaoh and everyone else who might see him, but especially the Pharaoh. He did not want to see them at all.

Even so, it was hard to escape the watchful eyes of the Living Isis.

Anksuna followed him from a short distance for a while in silence, knowing the pain the boy was going through as well as the horror. She heard what Belumfel did to the tomb robber and was horrified herself. She looked at her Millennium Tauk. That item had the power to do the same thing. Shivering, she fingered at it before going forward and touching Seto's shoulder.

Seto started and turned around at her.
" Lady," He whispered. His dull, lifeless blue eyes stared back at her.

" Are you alright?" Anksuna asked finally. The child shook his head.
" Banat. It's all my fault."
" It's not your fault, little one." Anksuna sighed.
" If only there's some way to, to, to stop him..."

Anksuna paused. " Come with me." She said.

Inside the room, there were tons of golden artifacts. But Seto was only interested in two of them.

One was a rod, pure gold with delicate carvings on it. The other was an eyeball.

Seto was not interested in sacrificing one of his eyes for the power of an eyeball, however powerful it may be. He turned to the rod.

The minute he touched it, Seto knew what to do.