Chapter 4 - Chapter Four
Submitted January 23, 2009 Updated April 22, 2009 Status Complete | Takes place in the middle of Season Five- right after the Grand Prix tournament, and before they go on the memory journey to Egypt. I hope you guys like it! I'm not used to writing fanfictions! X]
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Anime/Manga » Yu-Gi-Oh! series |
Chapter 4 - Chapter Four
Chapter 4 - Chapter Four
I stepped out of the jet at eight-thirty, and Mokuba followed me. I quickly brushed some dust off of my lapel and walked towards Pegasus’ ballroom. We were in Duelist Kingdom, now; the air was nippy and the sound of the sea washing up on the island’s shore reverberated around. It was windy; Mokuba was patting his hair down every few seconds.
I liked this tuxedo, fine. It was a symbol of my financial power; it was pearl-white, with bright blue trimming around the collar, vest and cuffs. A silk cape hung from my shoulders and down to my ankles, suspended by pure golden buttons. I looked handsome; Mokuba had a tuxedo just like mine, except his was lined with a dusty purple instead of blue. On our right ring fingers and left middle fingers were golden bands, each embellished with one enormous diamond in the symbol of KaibaCorp’s logo. We reached the entrance of the building; I opened the doors and we entered.
I was not surprised to see that Pegasus had taken the liberty to decorate this place as fancy and overdone as he possibly could. A large fountain was in the middle of the room, and on a balcony overlooking the room that had been turned into a stage was a small orchestra playing quiet classical music. Animatronic duel monsters were stationed here and there, alongside the golden tapestries and floors; I felt myself go a little cold with hate when I saw a robotic Toon Blue-Eyes-White-Dragon in one of the corners.
I frowned and approached the Toon Blue-Eyes statue. There were people near me; but, none of them were looking at me. I carefully and quickly ‘accidentally’ leaned against the statue; it fell over and broke into several pieces when it hit the floor. I heard it clatter, but the chatter and music in the room drowned out the noise to anyone but me.
“Oops,” I said, with a smile, kicking the severed head of the statue under a table swiftly and walking away. Nobody noticed a thing.
Lots of people were here; most of whom I didn’t recognize, but a few I did- sitting at a table were the Schroder brothers. Leon, the younger, looked classy enough in a black suit, but Ziegfried looked right at home with his flamboyant hot-pink tuxedo and enormous fur coat; a real, huge rose sat pinned to his lapel. It was the largest rose I had ever seen… it took up about a third of his chest… it was nearly the size of his head! I looked down at my own boutonnière. My sky-blue lily took up perhaps a fifth of my chest. I chuckled darkly.
Mokuba waved mildly at Leon; they were the same age and got along well enough. Leon got up from the table and approached Mokuba, greeting him; they both walked off, laughing about games and tournaments. Leon wasn’t a bad duelist.
I suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap themselves, out of nowhere, quickly and very tightly around my shoulders from behind me; I felt my feet leave the floor a few inches. Startled, angry, arms pinned to my sides, and feeling myself fully suspended in the air, I growled, “Who is that?”
Whoever was hugging me set me back down and let go of me. I turned around to see the beaming face of Pegasus; the tall, childish creator of Duel Monsters. He looked rather dressed like Ziegfried, I thought to myself, observing his fancy frilly magenta suit with disgust.
“Kaiba-boy!” he said, with all the delight of a grandmother greeting her favorite grandson. I wondered where he developed this feeling of friendship; I was sure I was sending out a vibe of absolute despise, because that’s what I felt. “I’m so glad you came! I’m so sorry to hear about your friend Roland.”
“You would do well to not hug me,” I said poisonously. He didn’t reply to that; he instead took a step back from me and sighed lovingly. “Oh, Kaiba-boy, you get more handsome every time I see you!”
I frowned even deeper than I already was frowning. “Thank you for having me here,” I forced myself to say, but not bothering to put a very polite tone to my voice. “What will we accomplish tonight? I’m not here to socialize.”
“Oh, I will explain so much as soon as all of the guests are here and have finished dinner! Join me at my table with Zieg-boy and Leon-boy. It will be fun!”
He swept off gaily, greeting other guests with enthusiasm. I then noticed that my fists were tightly clenched with fury; I forced them to relax, slightly afraid that I might make my palms bleed if I didn’t stop. The lily pinned to my lapel was slightly crushed and crooked, now; I took a moment to re-pin it.
I exhaled deeply and lightened my frown, until I heard a young voice shout, “What? Let go of me, you stupid freak!”
I saw, through the crowd, that Pegasus was doing to Mokuba just what he had been doing to me a moment ago, except that poor Mokuba was suspended several feet in the air. Pegasus set him down happily and patted his head; I went over to where they were. Mokuba moved closer to me; Pegasus sighed lovingly again. “So protective! You boys are just amazing. Your bond just warms my heart so!”
He left again. Mokuba looked up at me, obviously not knowing what to say. “Are you okay?” I quietly asked him. He shrugged and nodded; Leon was laughing at him. Mokuba scoffed at Leon and went back over to him; they engaged in a friendly argument.
Pegasus never ceased to amaze me, but this was certainly a negative thing. He had done to both me and Mokuba what Dartz had done to me… now that I thought about it, why were our souls such prizes, anyway? Except that Pegasus had left us both to die, souls imprisoned in his special cards… he had stolen my company, kidnapped my brother… I hated him so much…
“Come on, Mokuba,” I said to him and, inadvertently, Leon; both boys looked up and stopped play-fighting. “Let’s eat dinner so that Pegasus can get his crap started.”
The boys nodded and followed me to the table where Ziegfried was sitting, blathering on in his infuriating drone, talking about his milk baths and fur coats. I sat next to him, Mokuba on my other side, and Leon on Ziegfried’s other side; Ziegfried smiled adoringly at me. Why did everyone whom I hated seem to like me?
“Ah, Herr Kaiba,” he said. His voice had a naturally sultry tone to it that never ceased to frighten me. “It has been such a while! Business is good, yes?”
I nodded shortly. No, it hadn’t been ‘such a while;’ he had participated in my tournament just a month or so ago… at the thought of my grand prix tournament, I allowed a small, victorious smile to creep onto my face… if anything, the tournament had been spectacular because after everything he tried to do to ruin my company and destroy my computers, I had completely crushed him in every way. He had suffered a horrible and humiliating defeat at my hands… I allowed my air of superiority to dominate my mood, at this table.
“Good, good,” he went on, in response to my nod. “You look very, very sharp. Blue is a wonderful color for you; it brings out ze fantastic cerulean color of your eyes. Just beautiful!” He chuckled and turned to a female guest who was sitting across the table whom I didn’t recognize. “I am ze go-to god for fashion. Zis coat cost upwards of a million dollars… but money must be sacrificed when quality… und a good designer… is in order.”
I thought I might gag. I busied myself in slicing a piece of bread from the appetizer loaf in the middle of the table. I chewed lazily on it as more people sat down at the table, and finally, the waiters brought out plate after plate of food. At least it looked and smelled delicious; seafood of every kind, vegetables that looked as though they had been picked minutes ago, fruits with spectacular colors. Maybe Pegasus could do one thing right, I thought for a millisecond, before realizing that all of the food was being served on colorful, childish plates; all of them had pictures of cartoons on them. A waiter sat a glass of water in front of me, and I sighed when I saw that the glass was sort of shaped like a red-and-gold goblet, with decorations of diamonds on the sides. Mokuba was observing his glass with a confused look on his face.
I ate quietly, mildly tuning into conversations that were going on around me; even though Pegasus had told me to join him at this table, he never showed up. An old man on the other side of Mokuba was complimenting our company on our technological advances, and I heard him gasp aloud when Mokuba told him that he was the vice president, and that I was the president. The man went on with more compliments, among which I heard, “brilliant children” and “genius” and those sorts of things. I smirked to myself. It had been a while since someone had referred to me as a child, owing to as I hadn’t ever really been one, anyway.
Food gone from my plate, I took a sip from my water goblet and looked over at Ziegfried, who had taken the liberty of bringing his own wine and was pouring himself a glass. I had forgotten that, where he was from, he could legally tote alcohol around as early as the age of sixteen; I had just less than three years to go before I could. Ziegfried looked over at me and chuckled darkly. “Oh, seventeen-year-old Kaiba, would you like to try some of my wine?”
“No,” I said dryly, sure that he would try to slip poison or drugs into it, or something. Ziegfried chuckled again and took a sip from his glass, before saying, “Pegasus has done a lovely job of gathering all of zees people. I am impressed.”
I gave him a sort of approving hum as a response, not bothering to look up from my glass. He continued, eyeing me, “What is ze brand of ze suit you are wearing? I’ve never seen zat style before.”
I looked up, ready to roll my eyes into next week; I grumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Do you have your own designer? Zey do a very good job.” He flipped his long, weird pink hair out of his face with an elegant toss of his head; I now noticed that his hair was the same color as his suit; it almost hurt my eyes to look at him for too long. “Oh, your suit matches Mokuba’s. How darling! Ze capes are a nice touch. Ze suit makes ze man, Herr Kaiba.”
Or the woman, I thought to myself, chuckling quietly despite my attitude; he looked so very pink and flowery.
“Yes!” he said, mistaking my chuckle for an agreement to his statement. “My suit gives me a delicate flair zat gives a visual metaphor to how I describe myself as a rose… even ze most tender flower can be quite thorny und dangerous…” The girl across the table giggled; Ziegfried was loving this. “Und you, Herr Kaiba, look like a prince, as you are ze prince of gaming. Magnificent!”
I leaned my head in my hand, exasperated. Ziegfried chuckled again and sipped from his wine glass. I then felt a tug on my sleeve, and I looked down at Mokuba, water goblet still in my hand. “Yes?” I asked him.
“What is Pegasus doing?” he asked me, pointing over his other shoulder. I looked up and saw Pegasus on the inside balcony, speaking with the conductor of the orchestra, all of which the members were sitting up there with their instruments.
I frowned. Was he requesting a song? Asking them to stop playing?
Pegasus picked up a microphone, and everyone looked up at him when he said, “Greetings, my lovely guests!”
What was he doing? Was he going to make his big announcement from up there? “I am pleased you’re all here! Tonight, we will make history with the gathering of the most powerful CEOs of the most powerful companies in the world!”
Everyone applauded. “Thank you!” Pegasus said. “Now, I have a proposition for you all.”
I set my water chalice down. This was it.
“I know what the world thinks of us. I know the world thinks of us and sees us as a bunch of stuck-up tightwads who don’t know how to have fun.”
That sounds about right, I angrily thought to myself. Stop being an idiot and get to your point, already.
“And you know what?” he continued. “That is so wrong! Tonight I’d like to introduce you to the Illusions Orchestra!”
What? Everyone clapped for them.
“I know very well that we all have actual lives! I believe we should take a few moments from our fine dinners and meetings and have a dance! Shouldn’t we?”
A few more people clapped. My stomach seemed to explode. He had to be kidding.
“So! I have hired these fine musicians to play a waltz for us, while we wait for the meeting to start! Everyone, find a partner and prepare for a fine dance!”
Oh, please, be shootting me, I thought hopelessly, as Ziegfried got up and offered his hand to the girl across the table from him. Mokuba looked up at me and shrugged, before leaving the table, too. I stared in shock at him and stood up, but couldn’t manage to take even one step to run away before someone had grabbed my hand from behind me. Realizing that I wasn’t going to get away from this because my hand was now in some sort of vice grip, I turned around slowly and looked down at Vivian Wong.
I recognized her; she was the daughter of the man who owned a large string of Chinese restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing. She had also participated in my tournament. Dressed in her finest oriental dress, she looked pretty enough, I supposed. I didn’t really have anything against her; she wasn’t a bad duelist.
“Seto Kaiba! Seto Kaiba!” she squealed breathlessly, causing some of the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. “I had to make sure I got you before anyone else did.”
I raised my eyebrows. She continued, absolutely star-struck, “I saw you at the tournament’s opening party. You’re so smart! So smart… It was so great to be in your tournament. Me… in a tournament hosted by the Seto Kaiba.”
I wondered briefly if she ever bothered to stop and breathe between paragraphs. She started walking towards the dance floor, still holding my hand tightly, going on about, “so talented in dueling… so strikingly handsome… always wanted to spend time with you…” Blah, blah, blah, I thought to myself, grudgingly following her.
We reached the floor; I saw that Mokuba had found the courage to ask to dance with a girl his age whom I didn’t recognize; she had curly black hair and was wearing a huge green tulle dress. How cute, I thought, rolling my eyes. He actually was taking this seriously.
The music started, and Vivian positively threw her arms around me and nestled her face in my chest. I cringed, annoyed. She moved her feet, at least, in the steps of a waltz, and I followed her moves; Mokuba and I had been taught to waltz a few years ago, at part of one of my stepfather’s similar fancy parties.
The music ended, and Vivian let go of me, beside herself with delight; she bid me an enthusiastic goodbye and ran off to go giggle with her friends. Relieved that this was over, I looked up at the balcony and saw Pegasus picking up the microphone.
“Please!” he said, also very happy. “Take your seats. I would like to begin the discussion that is the reason we all are gathered here tonight.”
Finally, I thought, and sat back down at my seat. I watched Mokuba slightly reluctantly leave the girl he had been dancing with. Did he like her? I smirked to myself. He sat next to me, blushing, as news stations began to set up their cameras near the balcony. I looked up at Pegasus. Finally, the media was here; the truth about these monsters would come out.
“As we all are aware, my poor duel monsters have been roaming the Earth unattended, just like they were a few months ago.”
There was a breakout of murmurs from the crowd. “I would like to address the media on the causes of these problems so that the public can be aware of where the monsters come from and what to do about them!”
Good, I thought. Pegasus and I were basically enemies, but I knew he wouldn’t blame these monsters on me, especially since such an accusation would be false.
“Well… I would like to address the media, but I believe there’s a man here who can do a better job of explaining what’s happening, than I can. I’d like to introduce you to the C.E.O. of the Paradius company…”
My heart stopped… Paradius? Mokuba gasped, “What!?” I stared, horrified, at the balcony, as a man entered it from a door behind it; the man walked up next to Pegasus, smiling down at all of us. He had teal hair that reached to his ankles, and an immediately-recognizable calm-before-the-storm smile. It was him. My insides turned to ice. Dartz.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Dartz said. His voice always sounded calm. “My name is Dartz; I am pleased to be here tonight to speak with all of you.”
“Seto,” Mokuba gasped shakily, looking, horrified, at me. “What’s he doing here? I thought Yugi sent him back to Atlantis or something…”
I couldn’t believe he was here. I hated him almost as much as I hated Pegasus; but knew that while Pegasus was a dangerous man, mostly, he was a foolish child; Dartz, on the other hand, was extremely intelligent, and thusly, I saw him as much more of a threat. He claimed to have been living for thousands of years… so he told the Pharaoh during their duel. I wasn’t sure what to believe about his age, but knew that he was significantly smarter than Pegasus was…
“Currently, I am not only the president of Paradius; I also reign over the reborn kingdom of Atlantis. Monsters sealed away, and banished of my own darkness, I have been rebuilding my glorious civilization in honor.”
Murmurs broke throughout the room. I narrowed my eyes. Is that what the Pharaoh had done to him? Sent him back to his land? So, Atlantis was no longer underwater… but, he said the monsters had been sealed away, not really totally defeated. Did Yugi trust him, too much? Should I trust him when he says he’s stopped being evil?
“As you may know,” he continued, “months ago, I led a quest to resurrect the Great Leviathan, a creature that existed in the golden age of my country long ago. I abandoned this quest when I realized that humankind is not purely evil; however, not everyone in my nation agrees with me. And that is what leads us to our current situation.
“My two top advisors are powerful, intelligent people. Disagreeing with my change of heart and believing that Atlantis can only be truly paradise once the Great Leviathan destroys everything on Earth, they managed to break into my palace and steal a large fragment of the stone that I had hidden; the green stone, from which fragments power the Orichalcos seal and allow the bearer to control it, and summon monsters.
“They are now continuing what I had foolishly begun. Using the light of human souls, the Great Beast is gaining strength; originally, it had taken me tens of thousands of years to bring it to the brink of consciousness; my advisors have manipulated the power of the seal so that now, it has taken them mere weeks.
“I advise you all to be alert and, perhaps, frightened. I will work with Mr. Pegasus to bring down the Great Beast, as it was defeated before. Until then, I understand that the monsters have been roaming the globe; the monsters, infused with new powers, now killing them instead of merely sending them into comas after extracting the souls of their victims, are extremely dangerous, but as I understand it, can be defeated if the fragment of the Orichalcos stone that they appeared from is destroyed.”
I frowned. I remembered I had seen the stones at the feet of the monsters. The monsters could be killed with physical force, but perhaps it was more effective to crush the stones. I hadn’t thought of that earlier.
“Good luck to you all. I want to express to the world the absolute fact that, while they appear similar to those featured on Duel Monsters trading cards, the monsters and attacks do not, by any means, come as a fault of the technology developed by Industrial Illusions or KaibaCorp.”
Everyone in the room clapped. I felt better, slightly. Mokuba looked up at me for a moment. I narrowed my eyes back up at Dartz, who was now talking with Pegasus, on the balcony, again. The news cameras were being packed and put away. Dartz and Pegasus left the balcony, and I couldn’t see them anymore.
“What do you think?” Mokuba asked me. I looked down at him. “Do you think he’s lying?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Yugi seemed to believe he isn’t a threat anymore. I don’t know if Yugi was wrong.”
We both stood up from our table. “All that matters, now, though, is that at least the public understands that KaibaCorp is innocent. At least that will save us from losing money, right?” Mokuba asked.
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” I said, agreeing with him; it did feel like a load was lifted off of me. One less thing to worry about, perhaps.
I felt a hand on my shoulder; a bucket of ice seemed to drop into my stomach. I turned around slowly and looked right into Dartz’ face.
He had that calm smile on his face, and I scowled. “Good evening, Kaiba,” he said. I felt Mokuba grab my hand, standing very closely to me; Dartz looked down at him and chuckled. “Don’t worry. I won’t take your brother from you.”
Mokuba said nothing; only moved closer to me. “What do you need,” I asked Dartz, glaring at him.
“I wanted to apologize for my monsters’ assailment on you this morning. While I am aware of all of their actions, visible through the Orichalcos stones, I cannot control them any longer. I am sorry my creatures attacked you.”
Mokuba looked up at me, not knowing whether to be frightened of him, or to believe him; I felt the same way. I looked back up at Dartz. “I wasn’t harmed,” I said shortly.
“Good.” He sighed when he saw that I was absolutely not going to be friendly. “We’re in the same boat, now, Kaiba…” he began, but I said, “You’ll understand if I am reluctant to work with you.”
“I do understand, my poor friend,” he said, closing his eyes and nodding. Friend? “But I’m in as much danger as you are. We’re in this together, now… yes?”
I didn’t smile or give any approval to his statement. Mokuba gripped my hand tighter and said, “We don’t trust you,” quietly.
“I understand very much, and know that I will now work to earn your trust,” he said, extending his hand to me. I wondered if I should shake it or not. Should I believe him?
I was saved making this decision right now by Pegasus, coming suddenly out of nowhere. “Kaiba-boy!” he said cheerily, clapping me on the back. “May I have a word with you in private?”
I frowned; Dartz withdrew his hand, nodded at me and Pegasus, and walked off. Mokuba let go of my hand. “What do you want,” I asked Pegasus.
“Follow me, my dear boy. We have serious business to attend to.”
I sighed, irritated, and followed him out of the main ballroom; Mokuba frowned as I walked off with Pegasus; I gave him an assuring nod before I was out of his sight. He led me to a balcony not far from the ballroom; the balcony overlooked the ocean. The sky was spectacularly clear; I took a moment to marvel at the amount of stars overhead, very visible even with the light of the full moon. The sky seemed silver, with them.
“So. Our companies are safe!” he giggled.
I looked down from the sky and at him. It was dark out here; I could only see him in the light of the moon. “I suppose I should thank you for that,” I said shortly. “Although, I’m not entirely sure how many people will accept as true Dartz’ story; how believable is it that he’s ten thousand years old, and the king of a supposedly-lost civilization?”
“Kaiba-boy, you’re the only one in the world who refuses to believe that sometimes, strange things can just happen. Don’t you worry for a second. Your company’s reputation will be fine!”
“Yes,” I said. That’s all that mattered.
“But,” he continued, with a dramatic sigh, “That still doesn’t say enough. We still have the problem of the monsters running around all over the place! Oh, they are so after us…”
“Rabid duel monsters, huh?” I asked lamely.
Pegasus, wide-eyed, approached me. I crossed my arms. “You know what happened to all of us last time the Orichalcos was around! Such wonderful prizes we all were, for Dartz and his people, back before the Pharaoh banished his darkness… his people, the ones who are still bad guys, don’t want to give up us, the prizes, because they know what we’re worth!”
My frown was so deep that my face was starting to hurt. “I will not let what happened to me last time happen again,” I insisted, incensed.
“I’d hope so, Kaiba, but we can’t really be sure of that, can we? At least not until we get rid of the monsters once and for all, and especially since they have already had a glimpse of what kind of power we can offer them!” He lightly prodded a finger into the middle of my chest. “That strong little spirit of yours almost single-handedly rose the Great Beast! They’d just love to have their hands on you again. You know they would!”
I brushed his hand away from me and scowled, but albeit felt as though the fact that there were swarms of creatures that happened to always be around me, Joey and Yugi made more sense. “Don’t be like that!” he said happily, walking away from me and standing between me and the main building. “They’re after me, too. I had to fight off several of them this morning, in my own home!”
I didn’t say anything. He smiled up at me. “You know what you need to do, Kaiba-boy.”
I glared at him. “What do you mean,” I demanded.
“You have a duty to go to Atlantis and stop whoever has betrayed Dartz this time. You know it.”
“I have a duty?” I growled at him. “This is nonsense!”
“My cards are in such wrong hands,” Pegasus sighed sadly. “My poor god cards. You must help Yugi get them back! You are among the rare few people in the world who can control them!”
“You are asking me,” I said, injecting every ounce of venom I could, possibly, into my voice, “to go to an island, the birthplace of those creatures, and use my duel monsters trading cards to fight an enemy that’s after my soul? Yes?”
Pegasus nodded pleasantly. I couldn’t believe it.
“I am not going to bet my soul getting your precious cards for you,” I snarled, grabbing his frilly collar and lividly pulling his face closer to mine. It infuriated me that he thought this was a game or a joke. “I am not going to do your bidding.”
His hand lifted to mine and he placed it on my wrist gently. I let go of his collar and retreated my arm. “You’re not quite doing my bidding, Kaiba-boy. These monsters are after you, and my Millennium Eye allowed me to put real power into your cards when I created them… your cards, and Yugi’s, and Joey’s… they’re not just cards; they’re weapons! You’d be protecting yourself by getting rid of the monsters!”
“What, by walking right into their trap?” I asked furiously, not bothering to try to calm down.
“They’ll keep coming for you, Kaiba-boy. They’d love nothing more than to possess your soul, and mine, and Yugi-boy’s, and Joey-boy’s… and well, Mokuba’s, too, why not.”
Chest still heaving with vehemence, I didn’t say anything. Was he right? One had been approaching his room, that night…
“This is about revenge against the Pharaoh,” Pegasus continued, finally injecting some seriousness into his voice, which, in turn, made me feel less blindly irate about this conversation. “These people want to finish what Dartz started, and Dartz can’t do much to stop them. They know just what they need, too. They’ll keep churning out those monsters in swarms. You can’t fight them off forever!”
I felt myself grow colder, no longer quite so mad. “Going to that temple and helping Yugi-boy get rid of those things and get the god cards back is the best thing you can do for Mokuba-boy, or else those monsters will keep showing up, and the next thing you know, they’ve attacked you in your sleep.”
I stood silent for a moment, and then slowly turned away from him and put my hands on the railing of the balcony and looked over at the full moon’s incredible reflection over the water. I was still frowning. But… “You’re right,” I said quietly, successfully dwindling my anger. “…You’re right. …okay.”
“That’s a brave boy, Kaiba!” Pegasus said cheerily, walking over and standing next to me and clapping me on the back happily, before leaving my side, re-entering the building, and disappearing. I sighed and looked back over the balcony’s railing. I didn’t want to be a part of this… but I had promised Mokuba I would, and I owed it to him to do everything I could to keep us both safe.
I left the balcony and re-entered the dining hall. Guests were starting to leave; it was nearing midnight. Mokuba was on the other side of the room, still talking to that black-haired girl; I chuckled mildly and sat down at a table and waited for him to finish his conversation. A moment later, he noticed me and waved goodbye to the girl, and approached me.
“There you are. I’m tired,” he said. “Can we go home?”
“Yes,” I said, standing up. I felt awake enough to fly the two hour-trip. “Come on, we can leave now.”
We exited out of the front doors. “That girl is pretty,” Mokuba said mildly. I ruffled his hair a little bit and we reached the jet. I climbed into the pilot’s seat and he climbed into the passenger’s; within moments, we were soaring across the spectacular night sky.
I liked this tuxedo, fine. It was a symbol of my financial power; it was pearl-white, with bright blue trimming around the collar, vest and cuffs. A silk cape hung from my shoulders and down to my ankles, suspended by pure golden buttons. I looked handsome; Mokuba had a tuxedo just like mine, except his was lined with a dusty purple instead of blue. On our right ring fingers and left middle fingers were golden bands, each embellished with one enormous diamond in the symbol of KaibaCorp’s logo. We reached the entrance of the building; I opened the doors and we entered.
I was not surprised to see that Pegasus had taken the liberty to decorate this place as fancy and overdone as he possibly could. A large fountain was in the middle of the room, and on a balcony overlooking the room that had been turned into a stage was a small orchestra playing quiet classical music. Animatronic duel monsters were stationed here and there, alongside the golden tapestries and floors; I felt myself go a little cold with hate when I saw a robotic Toon Blue-Eyes-White-Dragon in one of the corners.
I frowned and approached the Toon Blue-Eyes statue. There were people near me; but, none of them were looking at me. I carefully and quickly ‘accidentally’ leaned against the statue; it fell over and broke into several pieces when it hit the floor. I heard it clatter, but the chatter and music in the room drowned out the noise to anyone but me.
“Oops,” I said, with a smile, kicking the severed head of the statue under a table swiftly and walking away. Nobody noticed a thing.
Lots of people were here; most of whom I didn’t recognize, but a few I did- sitting at a table were the Schroder brothers. Leon, the younger, looked classy enough in a black suit, but Ziegfried looked right at home with his flamboyant hot-pink tuxedo and enormous fur coat; a real, huge rose sat pinned to his lapel. It was the largest rose I had ever seen… it took up about a third of his chest… it was nearly the size of his head! I looked down at my own boutonnière. My sky-blue lily took up perhaps a fifth of my chest. I chuckled darkly.
Mokuba waved mildly at Leon; they were the same age and got along well enough. Leon got up from the table and approached Mokuba, greeting him; they both walked off, laughing about games and tournaments. Leon wasn’t a bad duelist.
I suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap themselves, out of nowhere, quickly and very tightly around my shoulders from behind me; I felt my feet leave the floor a few inches. Startled, angry, arms pinned to my sides, and feeling myself fully suspended in the air, I growled, “Who is that?”
Whoever was hugging me set me back down and let go of me. I turned around to see the beaming face of Pegasus; the tall, childish creator of Duel Monsters. He looked rather dressed like Ziegfried, I thought to myself, observing his fancy frilly magenta suit with disgust.
“Kaiba-boy!” he said, with all the delight of a grandmother greeting her favorite grandson. I wondered where he developed this feeling of friendship; I was sure I was sending out a vibe of absolute despise, because that’s what I felt. “I’m so glad you came! I’m so sorry to hear about your friend Roland.”
“You would do well to not hug me,” I said poisonously. He didn’t reply to that; he instead took a step back from me and sighed lovingly. “Oh, Kaiba-boy, you get more handsome every time I see you!”
I frowned even deeper than I already was frowning. “Thank you for having me here,” I forced myself to say, but not bothering to put a very polite tone to my voice. “What will we accomplish tonight? I’m not here to socialize.”
“Oh, I will explain so much as soon as all of the guests are here and have finished dinner! Join me at my table with Zieg-boy and Leon-boy. It will be fun!”
He swept off gaily, greeting other guests with enthusiasm. I then noticed that my fists were tightly clenched with fury; I forced them to relax, slightly afraid that I might make my palms bleed if I didn’t stop. The lily pinned to my lapel was slightly crushed and crooked, now; I took a moment to re-pin it.
I exhaled deeply and lightened my frown, until I heard a young voice shout, “What? Let go of me, you stupid freak!”
I saw, through the crowd, that Pegasus was doing to Mokuba just what he had been doing to me a moment ago, except that poor Mokuba was suspended several feet in the air. Pegasus set him down happily and patted his head; I went over to where they were. Mokuba moved closer to me; Pegasus sighed lovingly again. “So protective! You boys are just amazing. Your bond just warms my heart so!”
He left again. Mokuba looked up at me, obviously not knowing what to say. “Are you okay?” I quietly asked him. He shrugged and nodded; Leon was laughing at him. Mokuba scoffed at Leon and went back over to him; they engaged in a friendly argument.
Pegasus never ceased to amaze me, but this was certainly a negative thing. He had done to both me and Mokuba what Dartz had done to me… now that I thought about it, why were our souls such prizes, anyway? Except that Pegasus had left us both to die, souls imprisoned in his special cards… he had stolen my company, kidnapped my brother… I hated him so much…
“Come on, Mokuba,” I said to him and, inadvertently, Leon; both boys looked up and stopped play-fighting. “Let’s eat dinner so that Pegasus can get his crap started.”
The boys nodded and followed me to the table where Ziegfried was sitting, blathering on in his infuriating drone, talking about his milk baths and fur coats. I sat next to him, Mokuba on my other side, and Leon on Ziegfried’s other side; Ziegfried smiled adoringly at me. Why did everyone whom I hated seem to like me?
“Ah, Herr Kaiba,” he said. His voice had a naturally sultry tone to it that never ceased to frighten me. “It has been such a while! Business is good, yes?”
I nodded shortly. No, it hadn’t been ‘such a while;’ he had participated in my tournament just a month or so ago… at the thought of my grand prix tournament, I allowed a small, victorious smile to creep onto my face… if anything, the tournament had been spectacular because after everything he tried to do to ruin my company and destroy my computers, I had completely crushed him in every way. He had suffered a horrible and humiliating defeat at my hands… I allowed my air of superiority to dominate my mood, at this table.
“Good, good,” he went on, in response to my nod. “You look very, very sharp. Blue is a wonderful color for you; it brings out ze fantastic cerulean color of your eyes. Just beautiful!” He chuckled and turned to a female guest who was sitting across the table whom I didn’t recognize. “I am ze go-to god for fashion. Zis coat cost upwards of a million dollars… but money must be sacrificed when quality… und a good designer… is in order.”
I thought I might gag. I busied myself in slicing a piece of bread from the appetizer loaf in the middle of the table. I chewed lazily on it as more people sat down at the table, and finally, the waiters brought out plate after plate of food. At least it looked and smelled delicious; seafood of every kind, vegetables that looked as though they had been picked minutes ago, fruits with spectacular colors. Maybe Pegasus could do one thing right, I thought for a millisecond, before realizing that all of the food was being served on colorful, childish plates; all of them had pictures of cartoons on them. A waiter sat a glass of water in front of me, and I sighed when I saw that the glass was sort of shaped like a red-and-gold goblet, with decorations of diamonds on the sides. Mokuba was observing his glass with a confused look on his face.
I ate quietly, mildly tuning into conversations that were going on around me; even though Pegasus had told me to join him at this table, he never showed up. An old man on the other side of Mokuba was complimenting our company on our technological advances, and I heard him gasp aloud when Mokuba told him that he was the vice president, and that I was the president. The man went on with more compliments, among which I heard, “brilliant children” and “genius” and those sorts of things. I smirked to myself. It had been a while since someone had referred to me as a child, owing to as I hadn’t ever really been one, anyway.
Food gone from my plate, I took a sip from my water goblet and looked over at Ziegfried, who had taken the liberty of bringing his own wine and was pouring himself a glass. I had forgotten that, where he was from, he could legally tote alcohol around as early as the age of sixteen; I had just less than three years to go before I could. Ziegfried looked over at me and chuckled darkly. “Oh, seventeen-year-old Kaiba, would you like to try some of my wine?”
“No,” I said dryly, sure that he would try to slip poison or drugs into it, or something. Ziegfried chuckled again and took a sip from his glass, before saying, “Pegasus has done a lovely job of gathering all of zees people. I am impressed.”
I gave him a sort of approving hum as a response, not bothering to look up from my glass. He continued, eyeing me, “What is ze brand of ze suit you are wearing? I’ve never seen zat style before.”
I looked up, ready to roll my eyes into next week; I grumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Do you have your own designer? Zey do a very good job.” He flipped his long, weird pink hair out of his face with an elegant toss of his head; I now noticed that his hair was the same color as his suit; it almost hurt my eyes to look at him for too long. “Oh, your suit matches Mokuba’s. How darling! Ze capes are a nice touch. Ze suit makes ze man, Herr Kaiba.”
Or the woman, I thought to myself, chuckling quietly despite my attitude; he looked so very pink and flowery.
“Yes!” he said, mistaking my chuckle for an agreement to his statement. “My suit gives me a delicate flair zat gives a visual metaphor to how I describe myself as a rose… even ze most tender flower can be quite thorny und dangerous…” The girl across the table giggled; Ziegfried was loving this. “Und you, Herr Kaiba, look like a prince, as you are ze prince of gaming. Magnificent!”
I leaned my head in my hand, exasperated. Ziegfried chuckled again and sipped from his wine glass. I then felt a tug on my sleeve, and I looked down at Mokuba, water goblet still in my hand. “Yes?” I asked him.
“What is Pegasus doing?” he asked me, pointing over his other shoulder. I looked up and saw Pegasus on the inside balcony, speaking with the conductor of the orchestra, all of which the members were sitting up there with their instruments.
I frowned. Was he requesting a song? Asking them to stop playing?
Pegasus picked up a microphone, and everyone looked up at him when he said, “Greetings, my lovely guests!”
What was he doing? Was he going to make his big announcement from up there? “I am pleased you’re all here! Tonight, we will make history with the gathering of the most powerful CEOs of the most powerful companies in the world!”
Everyone applauded. “Thank you!” Pegasus said. “Now, I have a proposition for you all.”
I set my water chalice down. This was it.
“I know what the world thinks of us. I know the world thinks of us and sees us as a bunch of stuck-up tightwads who don’t know how to have fun.”
That sounds about right, I angrily thought to myself. Stop being an idiot and get to your point, already.
“And you know what?” he continued. “That is so wrong! Tonight I’d like to introduce you to the Illusions Orchestra!”
What? Everyone clapped for them.
“I know very well that we all have actual lives! I believe we should take a few moments from our fine dinners and meetings and have a dance! Shouldn’t we?”
A few more people clapped. My stomach seemed to explode. He had to be kidding.
“So! I have hired these fine musicians to play a waltz for us, while we wait for the meeting to start! Everyone, find a partner and prepare for a fine dance!”
Oh, please, be shootting me, I thought hopelessly, as Ziegfried got up and offered his hand to the girl across the table from him. Mokuba looked up at me and shrugged, before leaving the table, too. I stared in shock at him and stood up, but couldn’t manage to take even one step to run away before someone had grabbed my hand from behind me. Realizing that I wasn’t going to get away from this because my hand was now in some sort of vice grip, I turned around slowly and looked down at Vivian Wong.
I recognized her; she was the daughter of the man who owned a large string of Chinese restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing. She had also participated in my tournament. Dressed in her finest oriental dress, she looked pretty enough, I supposed. I didn’t really have anything against her; she wasn’t a bad duelist.
“Seto Kaiba! Seto Kaiba!” she squealed breathlessly, causing some of the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. “I had to make sure I got you before anyone else did.”
I raised my eyebrows. She continued, absolutely star-struck, “I saw you at the tournament’s opening party. You’re so smart! So smart… It was so great to be in your tournament. Me… in a tournament hosted by the Seto Kaiba.”
I wondered briefly if she ever bothered to stop and breathe between paragraphs. She started walking towards the dance floor, still holding my hand tightly, going on about, “so talented in dueling… so strikingly handsome… always wanted to spend time with you…” Blah, blah, blah, I thought to myself, grudgingly following her.
We reached the floor; I saw that Mokuba had found the courage to ask to dance with a girl his age whom I didn’t recognize; she had curly black hair and was wearing a huge green tulle dress. How cute, I thought, rolling my eyes. He actually was taking this seriously.
The music started, and Vivian positively threw her arms around me and nestled her face in my chest. I cringed, annoyed. She moved her feet, at least, in the steps of a waltz, and I followed her moves; Mokuba and I had been taught to waltz a few years ago, at part of one of my stepfather’s similar fancy parties.
The music ended, and Vivian let go of me, beside herself with delight; she bid me an enthusiastic goodbye and ran off to go giggle with her friends. Relieved that this was over, I looked up at the balcony and saw Pegasus picking up the microphone.
“Please!” he said, also very happy. “Take your seats. I would like to begin the discussion that is the reason we all are gathered here tonight.”
Finally, I thought, and sat back down at my seat. I watched Mokuba slightly reluctantly leave the girl he had been dancing with. Did he like her? I smirked to myself. He sat next to me, blushing, as news stations began to set up their cameras near the balcony. I looked up at Pegasus. Finally, the media was here; the truth about these monsters would come out.
“As we all are aware, my poor duel monsters have been roaming the Earth unattended, just like they were a few months ago.”
There was a breakout of murmurs from the crowd. “I would like to address the media on the causes of these problems so that the public can be aware of where the monsters come from and what to do about them!”
Good, I thought. Pegasus and I were basically enemies, but I knew he wouldn’t blame these monsters on me, especially since such an accusation would be false.
“Well… I would like to address the media, but I believe there’s a man here who can do a better job of explaining what’s happening, than I can. I’d like to introduce you to the C.E.O. of the Paradius company…”
My heart stopped… Paradius? Mokuba gasped, “What!?” I stared, horrified, at the balcony, as a man entered it from a door behind it; the man walked up next to Pegasus, smiling down at all of us. He had teal hair that reached to his ankles, and an immediately-recognizable calm-before-the-storm smile. It was him. My insides turned to ice. Dartz.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Dartz said. His voice always sounded calm. “My name is Dartz; I am pleased to be here tonight to speak with all of you.”
“Seto,” Mokuba gasped shakily, looking, horrified, at me. “What’s he doing here? I thought Yugi sent him back to Atlantis or something…”
I couldn’t believe he was here. I hated him almost as much as I hated Pegasus; but knew that while Pegasus was a dangerous man, mostly, he was a foolish child; Dartz, on the other hand, was extremely intelligent, and thusly, I saw him as much more of a threat. He claimed to have been living for thousands of years… so he told the Pharaoh during their duel. I wasn’t sure what to believe about his age, but knew that he was significantly smarter than Pegasus was…
“Currently, I am not only the president of Paradius; I also reign over the reborn kingdom of Atlantis. Monsters sealed away, and banished of my own darkness, I have been rebuilding my glorious civilization in honor.”
Murmurs broke throughout the room. I narrowed my eyes. Is that what the Pharaoh had done to him? Sent him back to his land? So, Atlantis was no longer underwater… but, he said the monsters had been sealed away, not really totally defeated. Did Yugi trust him, too much? Should I trust him when he says he’s stopped being evil?
“As you may know,” he continued, “months ago, I led a quest to resurrect the Great Leviathan, a creature that existed in the golden age of my country long ago. I abandoned this quest when I realized that humankind is not purely evil; however, not everyone in my nation agrees with me. And that is what leads us to our current situation.
“My two top advisors are powerful, intelligent people. Disagreeing with my change of heart and believing that Atlantis can only be truly paradise once the Great Leviathan destroys everything on Earth, they managed to break into my palace and steal a large fragment of the stone that I had hidden; the green stone, from which fragments power the Orichalcos seal and allow the bearer to control it, and summon monsters.
“They are now continuing what I had foolishly begun. Using the light of human souls, the Great Beast is gaining strength; originally, it had taken me tens of thousands of years to bring it to the brink of consciousness; my advisors have manipulated the power of the seal so that now, it has taken them mere weeks.
“I advise you all to be alert and, perhaps, frightened. I will work with Mr. Pegasus to bring down the Great Beast, as it was defeated before. Until then, I understand that the monsters have been roaming the globe; the monsters, infused with new powers, now killing them instead of merely sending them into comas after extracting the souls of their victims, are extremely dangerous, but as I understand it, can be defeated if the fragment of the Orichalcos stone that they appeared from is destroyed.”
I frowned. I remembered I had seen the stones at the feet of the monsters. The monsters could be killed with physical force, but perhaps it was more effective to crush the stones. I hadn’t thought of that earlier.
“Good luck to you all. I want to express to the world the absolute fact that, while they appear similar to those featured on Duel Monsters trading cards, the monsters and attacks do not, by any means, come as a fault of the technology developed by Industrial Illusions or KaibaCorp.”
Everyone in the room clapped. I felt better, slightly. Mokuba looked up at me for a moment. I narrowed my eyes back up at Dartz, who was now talking with Pegasus, on the balcony, again. The news cameras were being packed and put away. Dartz and Pegasus left the balcony, and I couldn’t see them anymore.
“What do you think?” Mokuba asked me. I looked down at him. “Do you think he’s lying?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Yugi seemed to believe he isn’t a threat anymore. I don’t know if Yugi was wrong.”
We both stood up from our table. “All that matters, now, though, is that at least the public understands that KaibaCorp is innocent. At least that will save us from losing money, right?” Mokuba asked.
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” I said, agreeing with him; it did feel like a load was lifted off of me. One less thing to worry about, perhaps.
I felt a hand on my shoulder; a bucket of ice seemed to drop into my stomach. I turned around slowly and looked right into Dartz’ face.
He had that calm smile on his face, and I scowled. “Good evening, Kaiba,” he said. I felt Mokuba grab my hand, standing very closely to me; Dartz looked down at him and chuckled. “Don’t worry. I won’t take your brother from you.”
Mokuba said nothing; only moved closer to me. “What do you need,” I asked Dartz, glaring at him.
“I wanted to apologize for my monsters’ assailment on you this morning. While I am aware of all of their actions, visible through the Orichalcos stones, I cannot control them any longer. I am sorry my creatures attacked you.”
Mokuba looked up at me, not knowing whether to be frightened of him, or to believe him; I felt the same way. I looked back up at Dartz. “I wasn’t harmed,” I said shortly.
“Good.” He sighed when he saw that I was absolutely not going to be friendly. “We’re in the same boat, now, Kaiba…” he began, but I said, “You’ll understand if I am reluctant to work with you.”
“I do understand, my poor friend,” he said, closing his eyes and nodding. Friend? “But I’m in as much danger as you are. We’re in this together, now… yes?”
I didn’t smile or give any approval to his statement. Mokuba gripped my hand tighter and said, “We don’t trust you,” quietly.
“I understand very much, and know that I will now work to earn your trust,” he said, extending his hand to me. I wondered if I should shake it or not. Should I believe him?
I was saved making this decision right now by Pegasus, coming suddenly out of nowhere. “Kaiba-boy!” he said cheerily, clapping me on the back. “May I have a word with you in private?”
I frowned; Dartz withdrew his hand, nodded at me and Pegasus, and walked off. Mokuba let go of my hand. “What do you want,” I asked Pegasus.
“Follow me, my dear boy. We have serious business to attend to.”
I sighed, irritated, and followed him out of the main ballroom; Mokuba frowned as I walked off with Pegasus; I gave him an assuring nod before I was out of his sight. He led me to a balcony not far from the ballroom; the balcony overlooked the ocean. The sky was spectacularly clear; I took a moment to marvel at the amount of stars overhead, very visible even with the light of the full moon. The sky seemed silver, with them.
“So. Our companies are safe!” he giggled.
I looked down from the sky and at him. It was dark out here; I could only see him in the light of the moon. “I suppose I should thank you for that,” I said shortly. “Although, I’m not entirely sure how many people will accept as true Dartz’ story; how believable is it that he’s ten thousand years old, and the king of a supposedly-lost civilization?”
“Kaiba-boy, you’re the only one in the world who refuses to believe that sometimes, strange things can just happen. Don’t you worry for a second. Your company’s reputation will be fine!”
“Yes,” I said. That’s all that mattered.
“But,” he continued, with a dramatic sigh, “That still doesn’t say enough. We still have the problem of the monsters running around all over the place! Oh, they are so after us…”
“Rabid duel monsters, huh?” I asked lamely.
Pegasus, wide-eyed, approached me. I crossed my arms. “You know what happened to all of us last time the Orichalcos was around! Such wonderful prizes we all were, for Dartz and his people, back before the Pharaoh banished his darkness… his people, the ones who are still bad guys, don’t want to give up us, the prizes, because they know what we’re worth!”
My frown was so deep that my face was starting to hurt. “I will not let what happened to me last time happen again,” I insisted, incensed.
“I’d hope so, Kaiba, but we can’t really be sure of that, can we? At least not until we get rid of the monsters once and for all, and especially since they have already had a glimpse of what kind of power we can offer them!” He lightly prodded a finger into the middle of my chest. “That strong little spirit of yours almost single-handedly rose the Great Beast! They’d just love to have their hands on you again. You know they would!”
I brushed his hand away from me and scowled, but albeit felt as though the fact that there were swarms of creatures that happened to always be around me, Joey and Yugi made more sense. “Don’t be like that!” he said happily, walking away from me and standing between me and the main building. “They’re after me, too. I had to fight off several of them this morning, in my own home!”
I didn’t say anything. He smiled up at me. “You know what you need to do, Kaiba-boy.”
I glared at him. “What do you mean,” I demanded.
“You have a duty to go to Atlantis and stop whoever has betrayed Dartz this time. You know it.”
“I have a duty?” I growled at him. “This is nonsense!”
“My cards are in such wrong hands,” Pegasus sighed sadly. “My poor god cards. You must help Yugi get them back! You are among the rare few people in the world who can control them!”
“You are asking me,” I said, injecting every ounce of venom I could, possibly, into my voice, “to go to an island, the birthplace of those creatures, and use my duel monsters trading cards to fight an enemy that’s after my soul? Yes?”
Pegasus nodded pleasantly. I couldn’t believe it.
“I am not going to bet my soul getting your precious cards for you,” I snarled, grabbing his frilly collar and lividly pulling his face closer to mine. It infuriated me that he thought this was a game or a joke. “I am not going to do your bidding.”
His hand lifted to mine and he placed it on my wrist gently. I let go of his collar and retreated my arm. “You’re not quite doing my bidding, Kaiba-boy. These monsters are after you, and my Millennium Eye allowed me to put real power into your cards when I created them… your cards, and Yugi’s, and Joey’s… they’re not just cards; they’re weapons! You’d be protecting yourself by getting rid of the monsters!”
“What, by walking right into their trap?” I asked furiously, not bothering to try to calm down.
“They’ll keep coming for you, Kaiba-boy. They’d love nothing more than to possess your soul, and mine, and Yugi-boy’s, and Joey-boy’s… and well, Mokuba’s, too, why not.”
Chest still heaving with vehemence, I didn’t say anything. Was he right? One had been approaching his room, that night…
“This is about revenge against the Pharaoh,” Pegasus continued, finally injecting some seriousness into his voice, which, in turn, made me feel less blindly irate about this conversation. “These people want to finish what Dartz started, and Dartz can’t do much to stop them. They know just what they need, too. They’ll keep churning out those monsters in swarms. You can’t fight them off forever!”
I felt myself grow colder, no longer quite so mad. “Going to that temple and helping Yugi-boy get rid of those things and get the god cards back is the best thing you can do for Mokuba-boy, or else those monsters will keep showing up, and the next thing you know, they’ve attacked you in your sleep.”
I stood silent for a moment, and then slowly turned away from him and put my hands on the railing of the balcony and looked over at the full moon’s incredible reflection over the water. I was still frowning. But… “You’re right,” I said quietly, successfully dwindling my anger. “…You’re right. …okay.”
“That’s a brave boy, Kaiba!” Pegasus said cheerily, walking over and standing next to me and clapping me on the back happily, before leaving my side, re-entering the building, and disappearing. I sighed and looked back over the balcony’s railing. I didn’t want to be a part of this… but I had promised Mokuba I would, and I owed it to him to do everything I could to keep us both safe.
I left the balcony and re-entered the dining hall. Guests were starting to leave; it was nearing midnight. Mokuba was on the other side of the room, still talking to that black-haired girl; I chuckled mildly and sat down at a table and waited for him to finish his conversation. A moment later, he noticed me and waved goodbye to the girl, and approached me.
“There you are. I’m tired,” he said. “Can we go home?”
“Yes,” I said, standing up. I felt awake enough to fly the two hour-trip. “Come on, we can leave now.”
We exited out of the front doors. “That girl is pretty,” Mokuba said mildly. I ruffled his hair a little bit and we reached the jet. I climbed into the pilot’s seat and he climbed into the passenger’s; within moments, we were soaring across the spectacular night sky.
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