A/N: For the YGO Fanfiction Contest Season 11 Round 6. The pairing: Reboundshipping (Dark Magician Girl x Dark Necrofear). How do I even begin explaining this one? (So watch me try and breathe some sense into Yugioh.) Basically, why two Dark Magicians are so radically different: it's my headcanon that the monsters take on some characteristics of whichever person holds them. Since Yuugi is also the Pharaoh, he gets the originals of the monsters/triggers their memories. For everyone else, the key monsters simply lose their memories (as there is no trigger) and get a blank slate as their starting point. Which is why both Yuugi and Pandora could use Dark Magician without there being a conflict of interest (the red DM didn't turn on Pandora at the first sight of Yuugi, which I kinda expected, tbh). Cue "Heart of the Cards" – what you put into your deck, you get back in the way cards treat you (luck of the draw etc.).
Also don't ask me whose deck is this.
Disclaimer: Kazuki Takahashi and all associated companies are the rightful owners of the Yuugiou! franchise and I claim no association with any of them. No copyright infringement intended with this and no money is being made from this. Please support the creator by purchasing the official releases.
Warnings: none.
Fade Out, Fade Into
"But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?"
It's war all the time. Not always a victory. And whoever put them on the same team is an idiot, Dark Magician Girl thinks, side-eyeing Dark Necrofear who cradles her broken baby doll as gently as if it's a living thing – and maybe it is. She supposes that, in Necrofear's mind, it always is.
It's war. Repetitive, useless, ever recurring, pointless. Especially pointless, as Nanobreaker says when they end up side by side in a formation once. On her other side is Damage Mage who comments nonchalantly on the weather and calmly fixes her cloak, as if making herself presentable for the enemy is going to make a difference in the outcome of the battle.
"Sometimes it does," Hazy Flame Sphynx says in her deep chest voice another time when Mana mutters something along those lines in disapproval, certain that nobody's listening in. "Fear is the greatest enemy. Fear can hide in the smallest of things and make them gargantuan."
Mana – who, unlike the others, still remembers her name from the time when she was human – thinks, but doesn't say where Sphynx can shove those words. She is still upset with her from that time a good while ago when she told her that she was going to forget her name. That she was going to forget everything that once made her human. As if!
Hatred is still alive in her heart and it resurfaces every time she looks at or works side by side with Dark Necrofear. It's not really her fault, though; Mana is smart enough to admit that. It's just a very unfortunate association, because Dark Necrofear is good friends with Diabound Kernel. Because of Diabound Kernel, Mana no longer has a master. She hates Diabound and, by extension, everyone who works with him on the battlefield. She even hates herself for working with him on occasion, but there's no helping it. It's war. You don't choose your allies. You don't kill your fellow soldiers. You help your fellow soldiers kill your common enemies.
Ironically, Diabound is the one who tells her about Necrofear – when she was still human. About the destruction of her village, about the child she lost in the fire. She couldn't take the child's spirit with her; couldn't find him amid all the blood and murder. All she could scrape together in the ruins of her house was a broken doll. Mana hates him even more after this. Hates him for telling her things she now wishes she didn't know. Things she wishes she could unlearn. Loathes him for laughing at her when she counters his story with her arguments as to how none of that was the Pharaoh's fault. Her hatred burns a hot path down her throat when Diabound simply looks at her in silence, and the unsaid words are slowly sinking in. Deeper and deeper down into her mind where they let out their roots and envelop her side of the story with the other side. Puts them in stark contrast and then blends them together into one.
It's war on a miniature scale. War against her own mind. Her master is dead. Everyone she knew is gone. She is all alone amid those who used to be her enemies. So what does that make her, she wonders to herself on one cold, wet night when the fringes of her card puff up from all the water that's seeping into her wielder's pocket, too exhausted after a particularly long and strenuous duel which they lost. What does that make her?
. - . - . - .
At first she thinks it's because she's a magician that she can tell the difference. That she has the awareness of being a card in a game while being something else, something more in a different plane of existence. But Sphynx only chuckles at her in those low, rumbling tones when she brings it up, and a hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing it in a comforting, encouraging manner. When Mana glances back over her shoulder at its owner, she swallows subconsciously.
"It gets better with time," says Dark Necrofear, smiling a thin, sad smile. "You stop noticing it. You learn to forget."
Mana wants to pull away, to slap her hand away, but Necrofear is cradling her baby-doll with one hand in such a precarious way that she is afraid to upset the fragile balance. While she knows that nothing would happen even if that broken thing crashed to the ground, she hasn't the heart to hurt Necrofear – for whom it would be a tragedy. Who is currently trying to make her feel better. Mana shivers.
"I won't forget," she whispers, suddenly unable to get the necessary volume behind her voice to make it carry strong and confident. She sounds like a small child. The child she is, in their eyes. Her fists clench and her shoulders sag inwards because the thought is insulting and she's choking up. There are memories she mustn't forget. "Never."
The look Necrofear gives her is full of sadness and understanding. She squeezes her shoulder a little tighter before letting go. "You will." When Mana shakes her head defiantly, wisely choosing to keep her mouth shut this time and her gaze downcast because she doesn't need to see the pity in their eyes, she adds in a distant, rueful tone, "I did."
When Mana's head whips up to look at her in startlement, she has already turned around and begun to walk away, humming a tune which Mana belatedly recognises as an old lullaby. She blinks away the tears because the melody brings back a whisper of a memory from a time she isn't even sure she ought to remember.
Sphynx silently watches the stunned Magician Girl with her golden eyes, then rises and stalks away to a different sand dune to continue basking in the last rays of the setting sun. She doesn't have any more words to spare for her on the matter.
But something has already shifted inside of Mana. She can feel the change somewhere deep, at the bottom of her being where the roots of Diabound's words haven't yet stretched.
. - . - . - .
Another war brings Mana and Dark Necrofear fighting side by side. She slips up a little, but Necrofear is there to block the attack. When she needs to strike the enemy directly, Mana clears a path for her with her spells and, when the enemy unleashes an underhanded trick, they retreat together. When a surprise attack knocks the doll out of Necrofear's hands, it only takes a second for her anguished cry to reach her ears, a moment to take in the scene and the dismay on the other woman's face, and then Mana is already spinning on her heel, brandishing her staff, the words of an incantation flying from her lips before the staff is even locked in the proper position. A jet of white fire rips across the battlefield, incinerating the culprit, and she feels a deep satisfaction upon seeing the startled looks of their enemy.
In one stride, Dark Necrofear is by her side, her eyes jet black in fury and her doll held tightly to her chest, as dark shadows swell around her. "I need a clear path," she growls low. Her eyes are set on the line beyond the monsters. She doesn't even have them in her sights anymore.
Glee trickles a hot path through Mana's chest because she knows what's coming now. A hundred or so battles fought side by side and she can no longer tell them apart, but moments like these are brightly burnt in her mind. She raises her staff, bares her teeth in a grin and says, "Gladly."
Then she steps aside and watches the destruction unfold.
. - . - . - .
"How can you do that?" Mana asks one night in the Graveyard while another battle is raging overheard. Getting discarded before the fight has even begun properly isn't the most fun experience, but she's in good company. She is curled up on the ground, her head on Dark Necrofear's thigh while the older woman slowly threads through her hair, combing them with her fingers. She hasn't seen a comb in forever. She hasn't seen a great many things in forever.
Necrofear's baby doll is safely tucked inside Mana's hat, which she is currently cradling in her elbow. It's not all that comfortable, but they've had worse. They've had better too, but none of that is particularly important right now.
Necrofear tilts her head to the side slightly, but her hands don't stop what they're doing. "Hm?"
"Forgetting," Mana clarifies.
"You let go. You don't remember. You don't look back."
She mulls this over in her head for a while and then concludes, "That's hard. I don't know how you can just… not remember. Isn't that like forgetting yourself?"
Necrofear smiles. It's a rare thing. A beautiful thing. "It's okay. It's okay because Diabound remembers for the both of us."
Mana shudders.
"Sorry, did I pull too harsh? There are quite a few snags in your hair..."
"Mhm. A little," she lies and resists the urge to get away from her. The doll is suddenly a leaden weight and she becomes aware of just how numb her arm is starting to feel. "I hope this battle ends soon."
. - . - . - .
They're enjoying a particularly long break between one war and the next. It's something they haven't had in quite a while. Nanobreaker is off sparring with Maiden of Macabre and their distant battle sounds create a titillating background noise. Many of their group are thirsty for blood, restlessly stalking around with too much pent-up adrenaline and no outlet for it. Sparring with each other lost its novelty some two hundred battles ago and now they're slowly going insane from inactivity. It's a wonder Vampire Lady hasn't snapped yet and started dropping bodies of her fellows, though she has been following Blazing Hiita around with a twisted, hungry look upon her face, as if in a trance. Similarly, the tail of Hazy Flame Sphynx has been whipping around in a clear sign of irritation, belying her composed expression.
Mana actually wishes for a war, for a change. There are so many things only a battlefield can put back in order, as she has come to find. When exactly this revelation came to her, she can't tell. It simply seeped into her conscious thoughts one night post-battle when the fires burned warm and the layer of ash and dust on her arms was directly proportional to the number of opponents she had killed that day. She catches herself, not for the first time in the past few weeks, forgetting certain things from her past. She remembers telling someone an episode from her childhood in the royal palace gardens; something to do with vases and playing hide-and-seek, but the details are getting fuzzy already.
She sits cross-legged and listens to Dark Necrofear hum a merry tune she's never heard before while the older woman braids her hair. She's still racking her brain about that particular memory, but every time it feels as if she's getting closer, it slips away from her and twists into something else. Something with trees, peaches, and snakes, and she can't make sense of any of that.
"Mine used to be just as long," Necrofear had said wistfully one day while gently arranging her wild blond mane in a more presentable way, and that had started it all.
Mana hadn't needed to ask to know that she'd lost hers in a fire. She's not so sure on the details as to what exactly caused the fire, but that's somehow not important anymore. She's seen a hundred thousand bursts of fire while fighting all these pointless wars. Does it really matter which one scorched all of Necrofear's hair off?
"What song is that? I've never heard it before."
"I don't know," Necrofear admits and even though Mana can't see her face, it's clear from her voice that she's smiling. "I heard Shadow Tamer sing it the other day while she whipped the life out of a berry shrub."
Mana snorts. "Heh. Bet she made it up."
"Considering that the words were 'slash, slash, burn, ha-chaa', I think you might be right."
Mana sputters, then laughs out loud, earning a few sharp looks cast their way. She shakes her staff in the general direction of the few more hostile-minded monsters to let them know that she is in no mood for a fight before settling back to let Necrofear finish her braids. It's a soothing feeling, and she feels lazy and relaxed enough to start dosing off.
That night, they sleep back to back and Necrofear's lullaby sends her off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
. - . - . - .
These days, Mana is more used to being referred to as Dark Magician Girl. It's easier for everyone and less of a hassle with the newcomers – and there's a surprising number of them while a good number of the old faces get deployed elsewhere – who keep tripping over their own names sometimes. Diabound is gone as well, and with him – something like a heavy burden has lifted from her shoulders.
Necrofear is humming some new tune, cradling her baby and swaying lightly from side to side when she finds her. Her eyes are closed and her expression has to be the most serene she's seen yet. She smiles, recognising Magician Girl's footsteps and, without opening her eyes, asks, "Is it time for another war?"
"No. I just need a break from all the newcomers. Mind if I stay here?"
Necrofear doesn't say anything in response, only makes an inviting gesture with one hand and resumes her new song.
Dark Magician Girl sits down behind her so that they are back to back, leans against her and lets herself get lulled by the low hum of her ribcage into a trance-like state where all other noises fade to an ambient background sound. The melody is simple enough to let her mind wander as it may. The sun is warm on her face and the light breeze is barely a whisper in the treetops. This is what home feels like, she decides, hands fisting in the lush grass.
"So many things changed lately," she says at length, but Necrofear keeps on humming. Still, she knows the other woman is listening. And it's not really a question – the things she's saying right now. She just feels the odd urge to voice the feeling that's been growing inside of her lately. "But somehow it feels like it's always been this way."
The words of Necrofear's song slowly become more pronounced until Magician Girl can just barely make them out. She chuckles under her breath and shifts to make herself more comfortable against the other woman's back.
"I suppose it does," she says in response to the song. "Sometimes it does."
She laughs at herself then. At her words, at the feeling of sun caressing her face, at the very need to laugh. Because any another moment now it could be war again. Useless, repetitive, pointless war. And whoever put them on the same team was actually rather smart, Dark Magician Girl thinks, relaxing against Dark Necrofear who cradles her broken baby doll as gently as if it's a living thing. She knows for a fact that, in Necrofear's mind, it really is.
"And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?"
- Pompeii by Bastille