A Christmas Carol with Kaiba

The End of Seto Kaiba

Seto walked towards him, following him into the darkness that had swallowed the world whole.

"So why'd you take this job?" asked Seto. He didn't like not knowing anything about this guy. Yugi and Joey he had known, but this one...

"Low number of applicants," he said, "and I've been dying to watch the big bad Priest cry like a baby."

"I'm not the Priest." Seto knew who he was talking about. He had been to that ancient world.

"Oh, but you are, and that's why all this is so wickedly funny. You were once so high and mighty, now look at you." The man cackled.

A dim light was ahead of them. As soon as Seto noticed it, the darkness vanished, and he found himself out in the street on a cloudy, snowy day outside his mansion. As his vision cleared, he could make out men coming in and out of his house, watched over by one of his butlers. There was a stage out on the lawn, which the men would bring an item, one at a time, before an auctioneer, who rambled at quick-fly speed into a microphone. A crowd of people gathered before the stage, lifting up their numbers occasionally.

Seto snorted. "If this is suppose to make me feel sorry--"

"You've died yesterday." Bakura had a finger to his chin, as though contemplating the universe and not the fact that he just so rudely cut Seto off. "Now tell me, where is that dear little brat of yours in all this? I'll tell you: hundreds of miles in the Bahamas with his new wife."

Seto flinched. "Wife? He got remarried?"

"No, you idiot, but who cares?"

"Wait, what year is this?"

Bakura 'tch'ed him as though he were a child. "No one is allowed to know the date of their death for their own protection, though..." that wicked smile returned to his face, the one Seto had hoped to forgotten from all those years ago in that strange ancient Egyptian drug trip. "Such a pity your life won't be very long, and with all that money to enjoy."

The auctioneer cried out a loud 'sold!' and Seto watched as a man in gloves handed over a coffee table to be loaded up into someone's car.

"And now, what you've all been waiting for..."

A loud hush came over the crowd. The air of excitement was almost tangible, even for the two otherworldly visitors standing at the gates.

"I want to see your face," said Bakura, gesturing to him. "Come come, closer we get."

And then Seto was at the end of the stage, staring out into the crowd, watching the auctioneer as he built up the suspense. Seto didn't really listen to a work he was saying, his mind starting to wander to things he'd rather not think about, when a man stepped up onto the platform holding a glass case as though it were gold.

Seto's breath hitched.

Inside, laid against velvet and protected in their own cases, was his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

Bakura snorted. "Aw, Ra, you're something."

"I don't need your commentary."

"Ah, but see here, this just goes to show what kind of man you really are. I bet I wouldn't have gotten as big of a reaction if I had taken you to your own brother's funeral, but show your precious dragons being auctioned off to someone else on Christmas day," he laughed into his throat, tucking his too-white hands into his sleeves. "I love your priorities, Priest."

And then suddenly, without Seto's notice, the two of them were walking up an aisle of a humble church. The pews were empty, and yet there was a casket in the front made of fine ebony and pouring with white and blue flowers. Two people sat on the front row, and Seto instantly recognized his brother and his girlfriend. His heart leaped as he realized his brother didn't look much older than he was in the present, even with his face smeared with trails of tears.

"What--" he turned on the smirking Bakura, who was petting the head of his curved scythe like a cat. "What is this? How can I die so young?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." purred his host.

Seto felt his insides tremor in a way he always tried to avoid. He wouldn't admit to what it was, for that would only feed it.

"Tell me now, or I'll--"

Bakura burst into high-pitched laughter. "Oh, that's quaint! A dying man! Threatening me? Oh that's lovely. What are you going to do? Sue me?"

And then suddenly they were somewhere else.