"Planetarium"

By UnfalteringDream

Chapter 1: Revelations

Disclaimer: Yugioh doesn't belong to me.

Note: This is an Azureshipping (KaibaXAnzu) fanfic with a bit of Revolutionshipping (AtemXAnzu). This takes place AFTER the original Yugioh series, so there will be some spoilers. Seto Kaiba and Anzu Mazaki are the main characters, and it starts off with Anzu's POV and will switch back and forth from her POV, to 3rd person, and etc. Hopefully it won't get too confusing. If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask me! (Constructive criticism is welcome!) Enjoy!

000

Five seconds.

All it takes to turn a life upside down. The would-have-been screams echoing in a deaf ear. The imaginary step taken across a dimension of fear. The words that would have changed a destiny… one voice… one word… could have made all the difference…

"No."

Why does life have to leave you wondering? All those what if's, all these questions hanging like yesterday's dried laundry: fluttering in the bygone wind, floating in a sky whispering empty dreams, barren promises… hope.

Can you help but fail to see the silver lining behind a cloud of lies?

000

Strength is only in the hearts of those who care to find it. Sometimes it manifests itself in the form of friends, of family, of your own courage to stand up to the lions and wrestle bare handed. The thin line running between achieving happiness and slipping off the edge of despair...Say that you lost that courage. Where is strength then?

It's been 8 months… since…

RING!

"I'm coming!" 16-year-old Anzu Mazaki sprinted down the mahogany steps, taking care not to slip off the edges. That obnoxiously ringing phone had cut through the air, shaking away sleepy dreams of departed days. Oh, what a certain someone would give to travel back in time to that place… that hour… that second… RING!

"Moshi moshi," Anzu answered lightly, a hand on the phone and the other softening it's hard hold –that she never realized she had- on the corner of the table. To her surprise, the voice on the other end of the phone answered in English with a heavy dash of a British accent. "Hello. Is this the Mazaki residence?"

"Um. Yes, may I ask who you are looking for?" She responded effortfully, racking her brain for the words that sensei Smith had tried to drill into their brains before the second semester ended. She could hear okaa-san calling from the kitchen amidst the clatter of silverware.

"I am looking for…" The hesitation before a struggle to pronounce a foreign name. "Anzu. Ma-za-ki." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I am she. May I ask what you are calling for?"

"I am calling on behalf of President William Gardner of the Gardner Corporation. Your father-" Immediately, Anzu slammed down the phone into the receiver with enough force to break the table. Rage was stirring inside her, a rage that was awoken after so long that it felt so foreign… like the angry summer sun, which's intense heat you had forgotten and will yet have to endure once more. President William Gardner. Otherwise known as the President of Europe's number one gaming company- the Gardner Corporation. Also known as… her no good, lying, selfish father who had married her mother, had her and then divorced her before Anzu reached the age of 2, sending Anzu and her mother back to Japan to live in a moderate apartment in Domino while he continued to run his company in Europe and never once called to acknowledge them… until now.

Why is he calling now? What does he want from us? Questions that hung in the air, unspoken, unforgiving. Questions that demanded answers.

Yet…

"It's no one, okaa-san. Just someone with the wrong number!"

000

She was standing barefoot on the sand. The cool ocean waves gently lapped at her toes, reaching… recoiling… reaching… recoiling… Something salty hung in the air. A crab scrambled sideways by. A lone seagull, separated from it's group, spinning dizzy circles in the sky. All around her, the world spun on it's axis, four seasons, 7 continents, billions of lives. Endless numbers of smiles, tears, hugs, broken hearts, kisses, hands holding on tightly- afraid that once they let go, the world might stop. Believing that as long as they don't let go- they still exist. At one point, she wondered if everyone left this world, leaving their hopes, dreams, friends, family behind… would the world just stop? Like an interrupted serenade, would the notes fall through empty pages- without any bars or lines to catch them?

Would they fall long and fast, swirling through an eternity of pain and sorrow, seeing the brightness of heaven and retreating at the sight of hell? Would they fall swiftly to their deaths- longing for more time, regretting?

Or would someone catch them, hoard them in their long skirts, running home and gently ushering them into a jar, keeping them safe for when they might fabricate yet another beautiful, sad serenade? Before they fall, before their song ends forever, would someone start playing once more? Would someone catch them? A gamesman, perhaps?

Would someone catch her?

Seto Kaiba was a realist. He saw things in manner that no joke could slither into, no laugh, no smile, and no hope. Just the cold, hard facts presented just as they are- cold, harsh reality. Reality. He hates liars. He hates people who lie to themselves. That is why he cannot smile- because the world was just full of too many cold, hard facts that just don't allow for joy or happiness. That is why he is so, as others would describe him, callous, because there are too many little girls out there getting hurt, too many parents getting divorces, too many foreclosures, too much cursing, disease, war, poverty, racism, segregation, egocentrism… how can one still be happy and shrug as if it did not all exist?

Reality.

He liked to think himself a man of his word. Of loyalty. Of trust. Or at least… if you can gain it. But if someone is trying to lie to him, if someone is saying one thing- and means another, if someone tries to convince him to believe in something when they cannot prove why it is, then he likes to think himself correct when he automatically label them untrustworthy and therefore- just another number to add into his statistics of Reality. Just another nameless face to fade away from memory. Unfortunately… not all faces fade. Nor do all faces let you be. Either way, he was determined not to let anything ever break his resolve. Once he believes something, it'll take more than just words or hollow actions to make him think otherwise. That's why, it is important to analyze something from all angles, taking into consideration how they presented themselves… and why?

'What the…'

Sometimes things present themselves in a manner that was the truth- yet did not make sense enough to comprehend it. Sometimes you think you know a person, or at least, enough to know that they don't normally run to the beach in the middle of September, without a coat, literally throw their shoes somewhere unfathomable, run barefooted in the freezing sand, and slow down as they reach the water. You know them well enough that they don't normally stare off into the sunset for at least an hour, and then throw their heads back- suddenly- in a loud, strangled sob, and then watch as they give up all dignity: collapsing onto their knees, body racking with terrifyingly hard sobs, hands holding their body, head bowed low to the sand- tears probably pouring from large, dangerously deep, transparent, shining, azure eyes…

One moment Seto Kaiba is sitting at his usual bench at Domino beach, typing away on his laptop… and the next, he witnesses Anzu Mazaki- the annoying, always smiling, always happy, always sporting an optimistic countenance, cheerleader- break down into nothing but a pitiful, broken being.

It took five seconds upon the first sight of her tears for Kaiba to register such a dramatic change in his beliefs about Anzu Mazaki. Five seconds of stunned, dumb-struck surprise. Five seconds for him to think something other than "What the…" and revert back to his original state of mind. Five seconds of nothing but blank, frozen words that just couldn't make their way into his head to describe what he had just witnessed. Five seconds.

000

No… turn around… stop.

Five.

Don't go… don't leave me.

Four.

I have to stop him… Why won't my feet move?

Three.

The door is closing… MOVE!

Two.

No…

One.

Five seconds.