Oh my god, look who's back? Kat-chan is! I've been gone forever. I'm sorry. Shit has been happening lately and well, I haven't bothered trying to write. Shockingly enough, I haven't really done anything Yu-Gi-Oh based in this time off, either, so this is why this was for Arc-V and not one of the other anime I got into. Again, I'm sorry I've been gone.
So, let's have a small intro to this story. It is my first attempt at first person since...fourth grade, I think. And I'm in ninth grade now, so that's quite a gap. I just feel it fits, so if anybody has any pointers for me after this chapter, please let me know so I can improve the story as we go! Since it's first person, we will follow this story through the eyes of my OC, Aviva. I plan for the chapters to be pretty long. This story is an AU that I thought of recently, and I'm so into it. I had to make this. I couldn't resist.
Anyway, let's get on with the first chapter, shall we?
XxXxXxXx
(This is simply an intro of sorts. I will truly start the chapter off after this.)
My eyes have seen more things than one can dream of. I have forgotten more than I ever knew. War does that to a person, especially rebels. The consequences vary. Many are captured and tortured, some are forced to join in, and others...must lose completely for the rest to succeed.
I'm sure we all know just how war generally effects people. They see tragedy, it scars them, blah blah blah. But what about the children and teenagers? All anyone ever sees on television or hears on the radio is about the soldiers who have seen shit. Don't get me wrong; it's awful that they're seeing such suckish stuff. But what about us? What about people like me? I've watched the people I know and love go insane. Some of them have died right in front of me. It's awful. Never would I wish for someone to see this happen to them.
For nearly a year, my home city, Academia, has been at war with its surrounding three living areas. Those areas are Maiami City, Heartland City, and, get this, City. Why would anyone ever name a place "City"? Eh...I don't know myself. I've asked locals. They claim that nobody ever knew what to call it, so that's just what they went with. Lame, if you ask me, but hey, I'm not judging...much.
I, myself, am a rebel. I wan't nothing to do with this war. Do I get a choice? Of course not. There's no place to go that's safe. Until someone takes Academia down, everyone around the world is in potential danger, especially those three cities I mentioned earlier. I've Academia has already completely destroyed Maiami, save for a few buildings, and they're currently moving onto Heartland.
About a month ago, I fled here, to City, and tried to blend in. They knew right off the bat that I was from Academia. My clothing gave it away. I can't help that! It's not like there are spare changes that look much different than what I currently wear. After explaining that I'm not with them in a fighting manner, however, a few seemed to warm up to me. In fact, some of us grew rather close.
Good thing, too. When in a war, you'll want every ally you can have.
Especially once multiple tragedies begin to strike...
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"For God's sakes, just move over two freaking feet! It's not a lot to ask so Rin can fit in with us!"
"I already told you, girly, that I'm not moving!"
"Scoot over before I kick you over!"
"You wanna fight? I have no problems with that!"
"Bring it, bitch!"
I sat in the corner, watching as yet another fight was about to go down between Simone and another refugee (Simone is, by the way, one of my friends from City). It was nothing new. This happened almost daily. Simone's bright yellow eyes seemed to shine with her anger. She clenched her teeth, growled lowly, and swung at the man she declared battle with. Her fist connected with his face, stunning him, and giving her the opportunity to swing again. This she took with no lack of energy, hitting him again and knocking him to the ground.
"You shoulda moved before, dipshit," Simone snarled. Her long, purple-streaked blue hair fell over her face, her bangs nearly covering her eyes. "All we needed were two feet."
The man looked unamused. I couldn't blame him. He'd just been knocked down by Simone the twig, the skinniest, shortest one in the room at that moment. If I had been him, I'd be pretty embarrassed too. However, something interesting happened after that. The man grabbed Simone's bad ankle, which she had injured long ago, and picked her up. This caused her to scream in what I assumed was shock and pain mixed together. Simone began to flail, screaming and smacking at the air.
"I think you need to learn your limits, child," growled the man. He tossed Simone across the room, and she landed right in front of me, faceplanting into the concrete.
"You bitch!" she cried. "I oughta-"
"Simone, that's enough," I interrupted, glaring at her. "We can just move to this corner. There's no need to start the seventh fight of the day."
Simone looked up at me, her yellow pupils full of curiosity and anger. "But Aviva, I'm tired of being the one who has to move!" she countered, pouting a little bit.
"And I'm tired of you fighting constantly. You're gonna get yourself killed someday by doing that, Simone. Just accept the fact we get the corner."
For a little while, Simone just stayed in her little spot. Finally, however, she stood up, brushing herself off and growling lowly.
"Fine," she sneered. "I will get that area one day, though."
I shook my head, chuckling a little. Simone was always the wildest of the group I hung around with. She and Yugo were nearly even, actually, however, Yugo didn't really start fights. He came close a few times, but always backed off whenever Rin pulled him back. To be honest, I was never sure what he saw in her, but I assume he saw something. Otherwise, he wouldn't have listened to only her.
The front door to the shelter opened. Simone and I looked over to that general direction. Walking inside were Yugo and Rin, soaked to the bone and shivering from the rain outside.
"It's freaking freezing out there!" Yugo wailed. A visible shudder crawled over his body, and he growled a bit, obviously frustrated by this struggle. I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. Yugo was such a dork at times, it wasn't even funny.
Rin glanced back at the blue haired boy, taking notice of his drooping, blond bangs. "Yeah, Yugo. We know it's cold. This is why we have sleeping bags."
There was that attitude I hated to much. In my opinion, Rin needed to learn how to keep her mouth shut sometimes. I realize she was very precious to Yugo, but come on! Even he should be able to get a little angry with her now and again. Little things like "Duh, we have so-and-so to fix that" just got on my nerves so much. When I thought about it, Rin acted like a mother that we never really had. Sometimes, that was great.
Other times, however, I wanted to blow up on her.
Yugo didn't seem to mind the words the green haired girl said, however, so I didn't say anything about it. I figured it would just start pointless drama among us.
"Guys, where were you?" I asked, looking towards Rin for an answer. "I was beginning to think someone captured you or something."
Rin shrugged. "We got stuck in the rain and tried to wait it out. But after a while, it looked like it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. So, we simply decided to walk through it anyway."
"Yeah!" Yugo exclaimed, shaking his head like a dog. Water flew everywhere. I shielded my face with my arms, snarling a little at his ignorance.
"What time is it?" asked Simone, who took her hands away from her face ever so slightly.
I looked around. The clock had stopped working long ago, so I wasn't really sure what to tell her. Nor could I understand just how she kept forgetting this. So many stores had gone out of business, and even if they hadn't, we'd run out of cash a while ago. There wouldn't be a way to by more batteries for that clock, anyway.
"I don't know, Simone." I simply shrugged. "The clock is broken, remember? Nobody can get batteries for it."
Simone, confused as hell, blinked a bit. Her mouth opened a little, and she gasped. "Ohhh. Right. Oops."
Rolling my eyes, I turned around, heading back toward the sleeping bags in the corner. Yugo followed me, and soon enough, Rin and Simone were there, too. While they lay down to go to sleep, I simply sat there.
They'll never know how hard it is, I thought, clutching my sleeping back with my fist. They'll never understand the difficulties. How insane it is to run from your own family because they have lost it. How hard it is to find someone who will accept you. I'm just lucky I found them. If Yugo hadn't been relatively okay with me...ugh. I don't even want to think about that.
"Hey, Aviva? Are you going to bed?"
Hearing Yugo speak to me snapped me out of my thoughts. I jerked up a bit, blinked my light orange eyes, and turned to stare at him.
"What?" asked I, having failed to understand him, despite hearing his voice.
"I said, are you going to bed?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about stuff."
Yugo also nodded. He flopped onto his side, closing his blue eyes. "It's cool. I get it. You've got stuff on your mind."
I said not a word as I went to lay on my side. Yugo was right. I had a lot of things on my mind. There was so much I was afraid of, so much I worried about. I knew there was no reason to worry, but I couldn't help it. It kind of just...happened.
Quit thinking about it, I scolded myself. You'll only make shit worse on you.
XxXxXxXx
In all honesty, when I woke up, I was surprised. I hadn't even realized I'd fallen asleep the night before, considering the fact so much had drifted into my mind. Which, might I mention, sucked. Just when I thought it was gone, bam! It's back!
Huh. Shocking, isn't it?
I sat up, yawning quietly, and stretched my arms a bit. While I did this, I heard my spine crack slightly, which actually felt rather nice. Running a hand through my long, purple and blonde locks, I looked around for any sign of Yugo, Rin, or Simone.
"LET ME GO!"
My head jerked to the left upon hearing Simone scream that. What a shocker. It took little to no effort to find her. I scrambled to my feet and ran in the direction of her voice, and when I got there, I felt my jaw drop and was legitimately shocked it didn't quite touch the floor.
Before my very eyes stood two guards from the local prison. They had Simone in their grip, and she was struggling like a madman to get free. Yugo and Rin stood few feet away, watching with shocked expressions.
"Put Simone down!" I demanded, stepping forward and glaring at the guards. "What do you think you're doing, anyway?"
"Taking her to the lockup for multiple reports of assault," replied one of the guards.
"You can't do that! She never started the fights! Other than one minor one, but still!"
My lying was probably obvious as hell. Simone was who always started the fights. It was her nature. Thankfully, it was for the benefit of all of us, but still. I felt like my attempt to cover for her was a major fail on my part.
"Sorry dude, but she's gonna be locked away for a bit."
"NO!" Simone cried. "Put me down! They need me to be here for them!"
No answer came from the guards. I stood with Yugo and Rin, watching with widened eyes as they dragged Simone away. My thoughts began to scatter, and I could tell I was near panicking.
"Shit," Yugo muttered. "What now? Simone was who got us our food and sleeping quarters. Without her, we can't get those! I can't even do that because of not having the energy to handle it!"
Well, he had a point there. I sighed and looked away, knowing life was about to take an even harder turn for the fo- I mean, three- of us.
"C'mon, guys," I muttered, starting to walk away. "Let's just get today over with. It's gonna be hard, so we might as well accept it."
Rin and Yugo followed me, obviously agreeing to it. They looked rather angered, but at the same time, somewhat sad. I couldn't blame them. We'd just lost a person very close to us, and for what? I don't think those guards realized that the potential to be at war with Academia was extraordinarily high. Fighting seemed pointless at the moment, yes, but in reality, it was great practice for the struggle ahead of us all. I'd even had my fair share of fights.
Sighing, I stepped outside, knowing today was going to drag on and on for what seemed like an eternity.
XxXxXxX
So, I suppose maybe I was wrong.
Three weeks had passed since Simone had been dragged away by local cops here, and in all honesty, it didn't take as bad a turn in life as I thought it would. Yugo had only had one fight, and the guy wound up getting taken just like Simone for something I can't honestly recall. Did I care? Not at all! We still got our sleeping area and our food, which was all that mattered. Most importantly, we had each other. Even without Simone, it was pretty good for being caught in the middle of areas at war.
At least, that's what I thought. Shit took a turn. It just took longer than I expected it to.
Yugo, Rin and I were sitting outside, perched on a hill. Clouds were covering the sun, which was pretty good, considering how high temperatures had been getting lately. I sat with my legs crossed, thinking about god knows what. Yugo and Rin weren't really doing anything other than watching clouds. Now and again, I would glance up there, curious to see what was so interesting to them about those gray masses. When I found nothing, I looked back down, playing with the grass strips.
Out of nowhere, I felt a small bit of wetness on my nose. I thought nothing of it at first. Then, I felt some on my cheeks, my ears, my arms, hands, everywhere. With every second, it picked up speed.
"You have to be kidding me," I muttered. "Yugo, Rin! We should go in! It's starting to rain!"
Yugo groaned, an unamused expression forming on his visage. "Again? Uggghhh!"
"Come on, Yugo," Rin ordered. I felt a small tick go off in my head when I heard that tone that I found oh-so-annoying, but shrugged it off and began to follow them inside. The three of us managed to arrive relatively dry, while others weren't so lucky. Some were only a little bit more wet, while others were soaked completely.
Well, shit, I thought. If we're all wet, there won't be enough towels to dry off with. Some are gonna have to wait...and I know that doesn't go over too well.
By "wait", I meant some would have to be outside in the cold, pouring rain while the rest of us towel ourselves off. There weren't a lot of private areas to go to, hence the whole waiting outside thing. Thankfully, however, there was a covered porch out back, but with so many wet people, I knew not everyone would fit, so somewhere along the line, a fight would break out.
Joy.
Then, it happened.
From out of nowhere, a siren began to go off. It was not a tornado siren. Nor was it a flood siren.
No. It was the siren for war.
I always knew it would go off at one point, but shit, it all just happened so fast that it blew me back. I hadn't even realized I was running with Yugo and Rin for about ten straight minutes, but when I did, I felt my blood rush to my head. My panicking was worse than ever. The fear was flowing throughout my body, giving me chills on top of hot flashes and screwing my vision over royally. Regardless, I kept my steady pace, my drenched hair sticking to my shuddering body as I followed Yugo and Rin.
"Rin, we need to find a safe place far away from here!" Yugo said, panting between his words.
Rin nodded behind him. "Y-Yeah!"
"Hold it right there! You three aren't going anywhere!"
We all froze. Not because of the order, but because of the shock. When we turned around, our vision was locked on the three soldiers from Academia that stood there. Rain dripped off their helmets, and their wicked grins seemed to be brought out by the dark clouds. A loud thunderclap followed after a bright lightning strike, causing me to squeak a bit.
"R-Run!" Yugo cried. He began to charge up the hill, as did Rin. I stood in shock for a little bit, but I eventually gathered my nerves and turned around, chasing after them. I could hear the three soldiers behind me, their boots making slosh sounds in the wet grass.
Suddenly, Rin tripped over something. She cried out and went falling down the other side of the hill, getting covered in mud and grass. Yugo, being far ahead of her, barely heard her, but he stopped and turned. I gasped and managed to get to Rin without trouble, at least, until I got to the end of the hill.
Yep, that's when I screwed it up.
Upon trying to land on the ground from a small jump I'd made, having hoped I'd get further faster, I landed wrong. My ankle gave out from under me, and while it didn't sprain or anything, it caught me off my guard, scaring the hell out of me in the process. While I tried to get over my extra shock, the soldiers came flying down the hill, completely disregarding the fact that I was there, and instead focusing entirely on Rin. They grabbed her, lifting her off the ground, and I watched as she struggled.
"Put me down!" Rin ordered, fear in her orange eyes.
I wanted to help. I really did. But I couldn't move. My body defied my actions. I could barely manage to blink, and I do mean barely.
However, another shock was in for the three of us.
"Put Rin down right now!"
That voice was recognizable in an instant. Nobody had to think about it long. It belonged to Simone, who leapt from one of the trees, landed on a soldier, and began to attack him mercilessly. I watched in awe as she did the same to the other two, grabbed Rin, and headed my way. Right as she was about to pick me up, I saw the three men she'd just knocked down start coming towards us.
"S-Simone, behind you!"
I just wasn't quick enough. They were in the grasp of the Academian soldiers in an instant. I still couldn't wrap my mind around it, even as I tried to get up to stop them. With one of the brightest flashes I'd ever layed my eyes on, they were gone, leaving myself and Yugo, who had finally managed to run back here, all alone at the foot of the hill.
"Rin!" Yugo cried, tears forming in his eyes. "RIN!"
"Yugo..."
I felt awful. My body failed me at one of the times I needed it most. I knew Yugo would understand, as it wasn't the first time it had happened, but still! Blaming myself may not have been the best idea, but it was all I could really do. I mean, come on. I just sat there and watched.
That's definitely blame worthy.
"Yugo...I'm sorry," I whispered, averting my eyes from his gaze. "I'm so sorry."
I didn't even have to look to know that he was staring back at me. When his hand touched my shoulder, I glanced at him, seeing that the tears had lessened in their amount, yet still lingered at the corners of his eyes.
"It isn't your fault, Aviva," he assured.
"Yes it is," I retaliated. "If I had just gotten up..."
"Aviva. Stop blaming yourself. It wasn't your fault, okay?"
What he was saying was true, but I couldn't help it. I was still panicking just a bit, so I said nothing more. Only listened to what my banana haired friend had to say.
"We'll get her back together. I know you're not like the rest of them. So there's no way you'd try anything to hurt us. You would've by now. No threat!"
"Yeah..."
"So we'll get her as a team! We'll get both as a team, okay?"
We stared at one another, meeting eye-to-eye. A small smile crossed my face. Even though I knew that nobody else would help us, I was glad that Yugo was still here for me. And for Simone and Rin, as well.
"Yeah, man," I replied. "We'll get 'em together."
XxXxXxXx
So...h-how was my first attempt at first person here? Good? Decent? Not so good? Lemmie know how you think, and maybe even point out some ways I can improve. As always, remember to review please, and await the next chapter!