Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ A Feary Tale ❯ Seto and the Seven Hanged Men ( Chapter 1 )

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… ;.. Then the young man went and seated himself under the gallows and waited till the evening, and feeling cold he lighted a fire; but at midnight the wind rose and blew so fiercely and chill, that even a large fire could not warm him. The high cold wind made the bodies of the murderers swing to and fro, and he thought to himself, if I am so cold down here by the fire, they must be frozen up there;… …he climbed up, untied the ropes and brought down all the seven bodies, stirred the fire into a blaze, and seated them round it so close, that their clothes caught fire. ……

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#2: Seto And The Seven Hanged Men#

When they arrived at the camp, there was smoke everywhere. His ´mutilator´ had arrived shortly before him and was now busily trying to stomp out the fire while suffocating smoke clustered the air. Choking, Ryou held his sleeve in front of his mouth and nose. He was trying to see what was going on, but the thick smoke got into his eyes and made it almost impossible to make out anything of use.

Somewhere off to the side, he could hear the other curse in a colourful language and at the corner of his vision he thought he'd seen some remotely human figures. One of them seemed to burn. Ryou sincerely hoped he was wrong.

A few minutes later the fire had been put out and Ryou could see again. Yet he seriously hoped that the smoke was only playing a trick on his senses. The brunette was surely not kicking a man lying on the ground, stomping out the last sparks and probably hurting the other person badly in the process.

crack

"Damnit, stupid pants-!"

The other had accidentally stepped onto the unconscious one's arm, breaking it in the process and causing the white-haired boy to wince. When the mysterious stranger finally seemed to be satisfied with his ...rather rough method of stopping the fire from spreading any further, he finally turned to the baffled youth. Ice-cold, blue eyes sparkled at him.

"What are you doing here?"

The ruff question tore Ryou out of his shock-induced daze. After all, one didn't get to meet a guy who knocks an attacking vampire a fang out and smothers fires by stomping into them like the heat was nothing, everyday. The vampire blinked.

"Eh?" Realizing what a stupid answer that had to be, he quickly stuttered out. "I-I followed you because I thought that maybe you might need my help. You, or the... other people who are here."

He glanced meekly at the human shapes that were surrounding the fire in some distances. None of them were moving. Ryou felt his heart drop. Now that the smoke had cleared, he could make out that there were, altogether, seven human shapes (including the one the other was standing over - he hadn't bothered to step off of his arm yet) surrounding the campfire that had caused the fire. The other one's eyes were calmly following his gaze, not showing any hint of emotions the whole time.

"They're all dead."

Somehow, the pale vampire felt sorry for him. Sure, a few minutes ago he'd wanted to suck his blood out of the jerk that had broken his wonderful fang, but still - coming back, just to find all of your travel companions, and probably friends, dead had to be hard. In an afterthought he added.

"I´m sorry."

Not understanding, blue eyes turned to him.

"Of course they are."

Ryou blinked, caught off guard by the unemotional tone he'd said this with. As if he hadn't cared about them at all.

"But- aren't these your friends?"

"Friends?"

The other let out a laugh. Hard and chilly. Ryou suppressed the urge to shudder. He was the vampire here. It was he who was supposed the strike fear in the other's heart, not the other way around. Though somehow, he had problems with realising that part. That guy was scary! The person in question was watching him with a cold look.

"I'd hardly call them that."

Ryou shuddered. There was no remorse in that voice, just a cold, sarcastic amusement. Seeing his distress, the other stepped closer until just a few inches were between them. Looming menacingly over the paler boy, he purred. "I didn't frighten you, did I?"

Tugging on his panicking nerves, the pale boy forced himself to meet the blue eyes calmly.

"Of course not."

Sadly, his words didn't sound half as confident as Ryou would have wished them to be. The other one smirked.

"Good."

Still wearing that unnerving smirk he went over to the lifeless body and kicked it so that it rolled over. Ryou gasped.

"It would be rather difficult to befriend somebody who's been dead for the last two days at least." The smirk turned into a smile that was not compellingly friendly. "At least, in my humble opinion. You can make friends with whomever you want."

The words were spoken with a sadistic humour that would usually have shocked Ryou, if he hadn't been too busy staring at the corpses. And corpses they were. All seven of them, he realised. It was visible between the shabby rags, and the skin was unhealthily off-white, and dark patches that were once bruises had formed. The eyes were wide, unseeing and swelling out of their sockets in a way that made Ryou feel sick. A thick rope was wound around each of their necks, telling the white-haired boy that they had been hanged. Probably for some bad deed or another. The population of this particular part of the region was rather famous for dealing with riffraff quickly.

Ryou gulped.

"Did you…?"

The other shot him an amused look.

"I took them down and set them up around the fire." Seeing Ryou's disbelieving look, he chuckled lightly. "What? I was feeling lonely."

Ryou rose an eyebrow.

"So you took all that rotten corpses and sat them up around your fire?" He didn't even try to hide the disbelief in his voice. The other mimicked his move.

"Yes."

Ryou frowned.

"You're crazy."

This caused the other one to actually laugh. This time it was more friendly.

"Why? Because I got myself a couple of dead guys as company?" He prodded the next corpse with the tip of his shoe. "These guys are a lot less dangerous than the living things I've met since I was here." With a grin, he added. "At least they didn't try to jump and bite me when I cut them from their tree like somebody else I've met."

Ryou choose to ignore the last sentence in favour of giving him a doubtful glance.

"Aren't you afraid at all?"

Again that slightly amused look.

"No."

Ryou shook his head, speechless. And here he thought that the way he'd reacted to him had been unusual. A guy who was sharing a picnic with seven hanged men in the middle of the night and not seeing anything disconcerting in it definitely was something special.

"What's your name?"

Ryou's head jerked up. "Huh?"

The other rolled his eyes. "I asked you for your name, white-head. Or would you prefer it if I'd just call you 'One-fang'?"

"No!"

The youth smirked at his outburst. Ryou fought the urge to sigh inwardly and blush. He wasn't a very good vampire.

"I´m Bakura Ryou."

The other nodded. "Ryou."

Now it was on Ryou to shoot him an indignant glare (which was amazingly unimpressive). Or maybe not. That guy was slowly beginning to give him the creeps.

"What's yours?"

The blue-eyed teen looked up from where he'd been inspecting the body, which had caught fire. Giving Ryou a short glance, he answered.

"Kaiba Seto."

With that he turned back to the corpse again. Ryou twitched. That guy was far too professional in handling the supernatural for his liking. He decided to stay on guard.

"So... What are you making here outside at such a late time?" This question earned him an amused look. "Aside from putting fires out that have caught some hanged men's clothes?"

Seto shrugged.

"Not much. I was on my way to somewhere. It seems like I miscalculated the length of my way a bit, though, and since there's no inn around here, I decided to put up a camp."

The white-haired boy gave him a curious look.

"You were heading somewhere you say? Where?"

The brunette gave him a blank stare that made the vampire nervous. Forcing himself to smile sweetly, he continued.

"Maybe I can show you a shortcut. I've been hanging around this area for some while, ever since left I left Bllood."

"Blood?"

The mistake caused Ryou to grin lightly. "Bllood. My hometown."

Seto blinked. "Oh. I'm from Domino, more in the west."

This caught Ryou's attention. By now, the vampire was pretty sure that this Kaiba Seto was no hunter. If he were, he'd have had plenty of opportunities to place a stake in the young vampire's heart, which he didn't. Also, Domino was a rather big city and most of its citizens were quite rich. The brunette next to him made the impression to be well off, so that lead to the question what he was making so far away from home.

Seeing the unvoiced question in the albino's eyes, Seto laughed quietly. The sound was something that made Ryou shiver, silky and low. Listening to it for a long time must have had the same effect as staying too long in ice-cold water did. Sooner or later one would simply surrender and let Seto do whatever he wished.

"You're wondering why I have left Domino."

Ryou's eyes snapped open. "Huh?"

The statement efficiently had caught him out of his daydreaming and once again gave him an excellent chance to prove his own idiocy again. The sparkle in Seto's blue eyes told him that he'd noticed it as well and made the youth suppress the urge to rub his head sheepishly.

"Actually, yes." He admitted.

Seto's eyes sparkled for a moment. Then he shrugged, turning half away from Ryou and towards the slowly dying campfire. Putting some smaller branches into it, he said.

"There's not much to tell. I've always had ...some differences with the rest of my family and a few weeks ago these... conflicts, escalated." He looked up, giving Ryou an unreadable look through the flames. "I left Domino and since then I'm travelling around."

Ryou nodded, deciding that it would be wise to ignore the question of the nature of those 'conflicts' and instead, turned to the more present one of the other's destination. Why he was so intrigued with Kaiba Seto, he didn't know. Just that he simply was.

"And the place you are going to..."

The dark shadow in the brunette's eyes vanished.

"A job I said I'd do. I have to stay for three days there and see that everything's working the way it should."

Ryou blinked, surprised. "That's all?"

Seto shrugged. "According to them, yes. Though I'm expecting some sort of catch on it, since they had some strange conditions."

"Strange conditions?"

Again, a bemused shrug.

"They insisted for me to name three things I'd like to bring with me for that span of time. Actually, I'd have asked for an interesting companion, since it's been getting rather boring alone lately, but... Humans don't qualify as things. So I choose these instead."

He gestured to a rather bulky bundle that Ryou hadn't noticed until then. The white-haired boy felt his curiosity get the best of him.

"What's in it?"

Seto's eyes glinted.

"Secret."

Seeing the other's disappointed expression, he presented him with a slight smile that made Ryou uneasy.

"But I'll tell you something, Ryou. An offer, actually. Since I'm pretty bored and those guys aren't any good company..." Ryou tilted his head quizzically. What was Seto aiming for? "Why don't you come with me for these three days?"

"Na-Nani?!"

Seto grinned humourlessly. "You heard me. I want you to come with me."

Ryou stared at him with wide eyes. He couldn't be serious!

"But-But I'm a vampire!"

The brunette shrugged. "So?"

"I could bite you!"

"You already tried."

"Yeah! And you broke my fang out…"

Seto smirked. "Exactly."

Ryou didn't find it that amusing at all. Frowning, he made a step forward.

"Wait a minute! You're right, I attacked you. And you broke my fang out! The only one who's been hurt here was me! I don't have to obey you. If it were, then it'd be you who owes me…!"

All during the up-worked boy's rant, Seto's expression didn't falter once. "Your point is…?"

Ryou glared at the brunette. For a minimal moment, the colour of his eyes became redder and they were becoming sharper, harder.

"You have no right to order me!"

"Right." Seto's smile was malicious as he spoke these words. "Yet you still will come with me."

Ryou was speechless. "What…?"

Deep blue eyes studied him with a calculating look over the crackling campfire's flames.

"Think about it, Ryou. You are right. You attacked me and I retaliated, hurting you in the process. Yet you still followed me and are still here. Why?"

"……"

Ryou slumped, defeated, to the ground. Seto was right. Under any normal circumstances, he'd have left the other's company a long time ago. But there he was, leading an argument with Seto that was completely pointless. It was already clear that Seto was right. No matter where the damned brunette's destination was, Ryou would be going with him.

Because, as admittedly pathetic for a vampire as it was, Ryou could understand Seto. He was lonely as well.

"Alright. You've won." The pale boy didn't look up from where he was, crouched on the ground. All viciousness had dropped from him, leaving nothing but the air of one defeated behind. "I'll go with you."

Seto smirked. "Fine." Standing up, he put a surprisingly gentle hand on Ryou's shoulder. "Then help me bring those guys back from where I got them and when we come back, we can share my food."

Ryou didn't have a proper return for that, except a meek. "Yes."

Just what the hell had he gotten himself into?

->Chapter ...3?