Cards: The Hidden Context
Summary: Can cards actually depict one's story, one's personality, and... one's future?
A/N: Somewhat major revamp to the story, though still the same context. An Aki drabble as she reflects on the events of the Fortune Cup and comes to a realization.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters
As the young psychic duelist sat on the sofa of her small apartment, her mind echoed with the event from the Fortune Cup. Her mind echoing with the screams of 'witch' and other cursed words.
Aki screamed inside her mind. Why were humans so… so stupid? They had emotions. They had brains. They should be able to understand what others were going through.
Yet they didn't.
They knew nothing but discrimination, their minds set on status and reputation. Their eyes could never see any further than the outward appearance of another person.
Plants had life and, though they could not speak, they could understand you far better than anyone else. They would not hurl abuses at you, nor call you a witch, nor curse you for having a power that you never wanted.
Plants would listen.
They would not interrupt. If plants could talk, they would try to take in your troubles, try to comfort you, try to lift your spirits, and try to make you forget what made you unhappy.
That was why Aki loved plants, especially roses, even with their thorny necks, and built her own deck focused on the plant archetype using the booster packs she received on her birthday, the same day her powers awoke and manifested themselves as the accursed red mark that stretched across the entirety of her forearm.
Taking out both her decks from her duel disk, she combined them, shuffled, cut the deck three ways, restacked, and placed the deck on the table in front of her.
Picking up the first two cards, she examined them. Her past.
"Seed of Deception, and Phoenixican Seed," she mused softly. Both seeds, both with amazing potential to bloom into what people believed to be the most beautiful and delicate flowers, and what a perfect representation of her life they were.
Seed of Deception, as its name implied, symbolized how deceptive her flawless childhood would be. She had a family. She was rich. She had a loving father and mother. She was way better off than the residents of Satellite. Right?
Wrong. Her life seemed perfect, until things took a sharp turn, and her seed started to sprout. In duels, the Seed of Deception card could be used easily to special summon the Phoenixican Seed monster, which despite its somewhat bizarre appearance was merely a weak level two monster with eight hundred attack points and no defense points at all. Something that would be destroyed in the blink of an eye had it not possess the effect that it had.
"The present," She whispered, and Aki drew her next card.
Her fingers brushed over the beautiful picture of the Phoenixican Cluster Amaryllis, a monster was a stark contrast to its seed. Strikingly elegant, a beautiful mix of scarlet and amber, and blessed with sentience and the gift of resurrection. Yet hidden under its magnificent appearance was a curse. Death to both parties if it attacked, and death to both parties if they attacked, it was a monster that was cursed to isolation. It represented herself and her powers. Each time she used it, others would get hurt, killed even. And each time she used it, her conscience would be eaten away by guilt and self-loathing.
The card was just like her, or rather, if she were a duel monster, that card would probably be the form she took.
The fourth card she drew from her deck, Black Garden, brought about painful memories from the semi-finals match of the Fortune Cup. She remembered what her opponent, the profiler Kodo Kinomiya, had said to her, that she used Black Garden because she wished to be able to make friends with others.
An inviting palace of twisted ivy, the sweet scent of death from jet black roses, and the irrevocable feeling of being watched by slit pupils, who in their right mind would dare trod in her paradise?
Ivy Wall, her fifth card, represented her heart. Throngs of ivy chained her down, and even if there were those who would be willing to prick their fingers, they would in time realize the futility of their wasted attempts.
Manipulation wasn't the way to go either, Aki knew, as she drew her sixth and seventh card.
Mark of the Rose and Hostile Vassal, two cards with great combination prospects in battle, used in turn with each other to steal the servitude of her enemies, and harm them the minute they defected. And if she did manipulate others into entering her sanctuary, they were the only ones who would get hurt, and desert her in time to come when they realized what lay behind the pretty picture of a false Elysium.
"No one would ever want to be friends with a witch." Kinomiya had said. And she had agreed with that statement.
That was also one of the reasons why she separated herself from the world and isolated herself in her Black Garden. It was a world of her own, her paradise, where nobody would dare tread into its cage of wiry shadows. The demeanor her sanctuary provided her was that of a cold, silent, and heartless monster, who would chase away anyone who offered their assistance.
Over time, secluding herself in her own world did turn her into a monster, which was represented by her eighth and ace card, Black Rose Dragon. It was a creature that hid within the depths of the Black Garden, disguising its cruel features with the appearance of a gigantic, seemingly harmless red rose. It was the slit eye that watched wearily as intruders trespassed in its world. It was heartless creature who did not care if it hurt itself, its enemies, nor its friends. It was a terrifying beast which cared about nothing but destruction, even if it had to reach the point where it had to severely hurt itself to get rid of what was instinctively thought of as a threat.
And her rejection of others would manifest in the form of her ninth card, Thorns of Hatred. If they came too near, her thorns would strike. She would make them suffer for all she'd been through. She would take out her rage, her anger, her sorrow, her rejection. She would take them all out even on people undeserving of her emotions.
That was what she had become.
On the inside though, a little part of her wanted someone to talk to, someone who would understand her. Someone who would see her as what she held within and not as a witch who would exterminate anyone in her way; someone who would risk pricking their fingers to extract the delicate rose underneath the surface. She wanted a knight to protect her. She wanted a true friend.
Her deepest desires. Her future. With that in mind, she drew her tenth card, Night-Rose Knight.
Her mind shifted to that conversation that she had during the final duel she had in the Fortune Cup. The duel where she received a colossal amount of abuses from the audience, and the only duel she had so far in the sixteen years of her life where the opponent she was up against never did throw a single abuse at her for being unable to control her own powers.
It was also only duel she had so far where her opponent showed genuine concern for her even after knowing what she was, and after what she did to him.
To love yourself, he had said. But it was impossible for someone like her. How could she, who had immersed herself deep within hatred and self-loathing, erase and forget the years of torment that she had suffered? How could she love herself if others did not love her?
Was it because he held a similar birthmark as she did that he said that? Or was it because his deep cobalt blue eyes seem to perceive the pain and loneliness that she had been through?
Her mind wandered to his friends.
The old man, the stout gangster, the bespectacled child, and the teal-haired twins, one of which she recognized as the child prodigy Ruka. All of them seemed to enjoy his presence even though he was a marked criminal from Satellite. Had their friendship been gained in the same way?
After his duel with Enjo Mukuro, the audience did not jeer at him when he went up to face Bommer. Instead, his entrance was met with cheers.
When she met him after her duel with Kinomiya, she noticed that the twins treated him like an older brother.
During that vision she was shown, Ruka showed a lot of concern for him as he was about to be hit by Jack's counter-trap card.
Even Jack Atlas himself seemed to respect Yusei a great deal.
How was it possible for someone like him to gain everyone's favour with a single victory, when she had achieved as many victories as he did, but was still treated in the same way?
His words rang through her head once more, and then she realized. No. She had realized all along but refused to admit it.
He had wanted to help. He did understand what she went through. He wanted to be her friend, to save her from herself. Perhaps he would be the knight that would guide her out of the abysmal realm of loneliness and despair.
Perhaps she should change, like what he told her. Her given name was probably foreshadowing this event.
"Aki" stood for autumn, a season where trees and plants shed their leaves in order to prepare for the coming winter, a harsh and cold season. However, for the vegetation that survived it, the season that followed brought about a new change. Spring, symbolizing life anew though the revitalization of the earth: the growth of new leaves, the sprouting of seeds, and the blossoming of flowers.
Her name foretold what she had to go through. She had to change, she had to shed her leaves, and she had to strive on through the hardships she had to face while changing, to strive on until the winter was over. Only then would she be reborn as a new her, someone who would be accepted by society.
She set her cards down and gazed at the plain white ceiling, her mind constantly recycling Yusei's image, the stubborn cobalt eyes boring into her soul, determined to help her out, to change her into someone better.
But could he really help her when she couldn't even help herself?
That was the only thing she could not read with her cards.