A/N: I wanted to try and start posting things I write to not exclusively Tumblr for a change, so here I am. The idea for this came to me in the dead of night a week or so ago, and I just couldn't let it go. Because apparently I can't let my favorite characters have a happy ending. Well, I mean, this story was originally going to have a happy ending, but it sounded so bad in the PoV I was writing from that I had to scrap it. So, enjoy your bleak, hopeless story about the side effects of the lethal combination of children's card games and cosmic horror.
Of course, Bushiroad owns Cardfight! Vanguard and all of the characters or concepts depicted within, I just enjoy picking apart their characters and analyzing what I find under a high-powered microscope.
Warnings for: Potential nightmare fuel, language, and more angst than you can shake a stick at.
The voices didn't stop.
They should have been gone, along with every other trace of Void's existence, but they never left you. There were many times you wondered why they continued to haunt your mind-at first in horror, which quickly morphed into a feeling much more desperate and frantic the longer they remained-but they answered you every time.
Because you're weak.
Because it's all your fault, Toshiki.
Your memories of the time you spent completely submitted to Void had been fuzzy. All you remembered were fleeting emotions of fear, sadness, and an unshakable feeling of having done something horribly wrong. It hadn't taken much thought to figure out that you must have played a far larger role than being another simple pawn, though. Your friends always seemed to avoid the subject whenever you're around, and occasionally you would catch them glancing worriedly at you when they thought your attention was elsewhere. The first, and only, time you ever asked about what happened during the gap, was when the voices started.
You were at Card Capital, playing a friendly match with Aichi. He had seemed on edge, nervously shuffling through his hand and wincing whenever you dealt damage to him. The longer the game went on, the more the feeling of dread grew within you as the question that you had been putting off asking finally became something unavoidable. You sighed and set your cards down, looking straight into Aichi's eyes.
"Aichi…what did I do to you?" You weren't able to completely mask the anxiety that you were feeling, and the hesitance in your voice was painfully obvious to your own ears.
"Kai-kun?" He seemed to be caught off-guard by the sudden question, but he smiled. It was unbelievably fake, and that terrified you. Aichi was never a good liar. "It's nothing, I-"
"What did I do to you?" you repeated, raising your voice without meaning to. You couldn't help it; in that moment there was nothing more important and frightening to you than everything you didn't know. Everything that they had kept from you was-
Toshiki.
Your thoughts were interrupted by a voice that some part of your brain subconsciously remembered. It was a voice that was neither male nor female, both a hoarse whisper and a deafening shriek, and jagged enough to send a sudden spike of pain through your head with every word it spoke. Your entire body suddenly felt cold, and your heart pounded in your chest. Your face must have gone completely pale, because you briefly registered Aichi asking you what was wrong before you were finally able to put a name to the voice that suddenly invaded your mind.
"Void…?" You may have spoken the word aloud, but you weren't sure.
The voice chuckled lightly in a way that didn't sound inherently evil or sinister. It sounded amused, as if it were enjoying itself.
I see you haven't forgotten.
Another voice followed. But you have forgotten everything you have done. To Miwa. To Ren. To all of your friends…to Aichi.
And another. You hurt them. Every single one. And all because you couldn't accept reality.
Aichi nearly died because of you.
"Aichi…I-I…" you stammered deliriously, your words not directed at Void or at Aichi, simply being an unintentional vocalization of the shock that you felt at what you were being told. You couldn't find it in yourself to question what was happening, and something about what it was saying seemed familiar. As much as you wanted to deny everything you had just been told, you slowly started to remember fragments of your memory. You remembered the sound of Aichi's agonized screams, getting fainter and fainter as you walked away from him; you remembered Miwa's eyes shining all-too brightly and his shaky smile as you coldly watched the onset of Reverse replace them with a dead, lifeless gaze and a malicious smirk. You remembered…
You stood up and ran as fast out of the card shop as you could on your shaking legs. You thought you heard Aichi frantically asking what was wrong behind a rustle of commotion as everyone else that was there with you two noticed what had been happening, but it sounded like nothing more than white noise against the chattering and laughter of countless voices inside your head, mocking your weakness and your inability to face the truth.
You had no idea how you could ever accept this.
The next thing you knew, you were inside your apartment, sitting on the floor with your back against the wall. The lights were all off, and the light of the setting sun was peeking through the window. When did it get to be so late? You muttered a curse under your breath, feeling both mentally and emotionally exhausted.
"Will you ever leave me alone?" you asked, unable to bring yourself to care that you were talking aloud to something that only existed in your mind.
As it turned out, that was the one thing the voices would not respond to.
It's been four days since then. You haven't gone outside once. You've barely slept, and whenever you lose your grip on consciousness you always wake up within the hour, sweating and shivering uncontrollably from the nightmares. You would see the terror-filled faces of everyone you fought in order to spread Void's control, and remember how satisfied you felt every single time you won. And every time you woke up, you would hear the voices again. But you're too exhausted to even care anymore. You're completely numb; even the constant headaches feel duller. Your grip on reality has loosened somewhat, and every once in a while you start to question what is real and what isn't. If Void is really speaking to you, or if the voices you're hearing are some sort of subconscious manifestation of the memories that you had repressed. Maybe these past four days have been nothing but a nightmare. Or, maybe you've finally flat out gone insane.
As you mirthlessly laugh to yourself at the thought, you hear your phone ring from where you left it at the other side of the room. Probably another text from Miwa. You haven't bothered to answer any of them, but he's messaged you several times over the past few days. Or, at least, you assume it's him. It usually is. You shiver, suddenly aware of how cold it is in your room. You close your eyes with a sigh, leaning your head against your knees. You're just so tired…
Go to sleep, Toshiki.
Sleep and waste away, until the outside world forgets about you.
You don't have any family left to miss you.
Why would your friends care, after everything you did to them?
"I know," you hiss, anger starting to break through the numbness.
You're worthless.
Everything is your fault.
You've never been there for your friends when they need you the most.
You just cause problems for everybody.
They'd be better off without you.
You don't deserve friends.
You don't deserve Aichi.
"I KNOW!"
You can barely hear the sound of your own heavy sobs over the shrieks of laughter reverberating through your mind.