Similar Indeed (Seto Kaiba)

Chapter 24-Plan Twist?

''As Seto untied the ropes holding Y/n prisoner, he did wonder:

If he could ever free her from the chains of her past.''

Seto felt like an eternity had passed. He was still tied down, his shoulder was hurting, but he couldn't focus on it. He couldn't find it in him to care about himself when Y/n was bleeding from everywhere. Her black tank top was all destroyed. Her eyes were only half open and she looked like she was sleeping, but her body was still reacting to all the hits she was receiving.

The knife that the guy had used to stab her rib was now bloody from all the cuts the man had made on her soft yet scarred skin. His friend, who was on the phone with his girlfriend before, was now back. And instead of doing anything to stop it when he saw what was happening, he simply smirked and joined in on the fun.

Seto's heart was about to burst with pain for her. She hadn't done anything to deserve this. He was the one who was supposed to take all of the hits for her.

She sat slumped in the chair, her body barely holding itself upright, a motionless ruin of flesh and blood. She hadn't struggled. She hadn't screamed. She had simply taken every hit, every cut, every cruel touch without resistance, letting the pain wash over her like an inevitable tide. She found it slightly weird, feeling like she was back in the past, like she hadn't escaped it.

Blood painted her skin in streaks and smears, dripping from the deep slash along her right rib—a wound so wide and raw it seemed to pulse with every shallow breath she took. Her temples slick with crimson where blunt force had torn the skin that was already hurt from the hit she had received prior to the torture. The blood ran down in slow rivulets, tracing the contours of her cheekbones, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone.

Her lips were cracked, her mouth slightly parted as if she had once meant to speak but had lost the strength before the words could form. She was silently calling for her angel, for the girl who has kept her standing all those years. Her eyes, unfocused and heavy, stared blankly ahead, she was not here anymore, her mind was long lost, she had travelled back to the past and she had yet to come back.

Her eyes had shown no fear, no defiance, just the hollow emptiness of someone who had surrendered before, the emptiness of someone who had already lived through it.

Her arms, limp at her sides, showed the marks of the rope that dug into her skin. Bruises were blooming in sickening shades of blue, purple and black, staining her skin like ink spilled on paper. The colors of them mixed with that of dried blood made her entire body a canvas of what she once was and of what she was right now.

She was broken, again. Hurt again. Destroyed and burned. Her body had taken yet another series of hits and for now, all she could think about was how badly she wanted to rest. Her mind started to close and she was giving up before she had even started to fight.

Seto was also broken, his heart had tried to hold on when the guy had hit his Y/n.

Agony was too small a word.

It wasn't just pain—it was something deeper, something that hollowed him out from the inside. A slow, merciless carving of his soul, leaving nothing but raw, exposed nerves. He had thought he knew suffering before. He had been wrong. This was nothing like what he had felt when his adoptive father had abused him, years ago. This was much, much, much worse.

Rage burned hot in his chest, a wildfire with nowhere to go, caged inside his ribs. It begged to be released, to destroy, to hurt the ones who had done this. But it was useless. He was useless. The helplessness gnawed at him, a relentless weight pressing down, suffocating.