A/N: Another short introspection piece that's only about three pages long. Unfortunately, this oneshot is not the one that I had promised to post a while ago. I haven't had much time on my hands to really write anything longer, but I hope this can make up for it!

Warning: implications of the belief in the afterlife, and whether or not an individual's morality matters to it

Please enjoy and review! Tell me what I'm doing!

(Yuugi's POV)

I never really asked how he felt like when he was first released from the Millennium Puzzle, and I think that maybe he's grateful for that. He wasn't the nicest of people when he first appeared. There was a time when I used to plead and beg him to show mercy to those that hurt my friends and I, a time when I would cry for him to wake them up from whatever nightmare he had condemned them to live, and all my words would fall on deaf ears and my tears would just be wiped away so that I could look warily at his confused face.

He still doesn't understand why I want them back – why I want all of them back. It doesn't matter whether or not any of them "deserve" what they got. It's still wrong, and not even the other me, who means so much to me, can get away with that. I don't really believe in karma. I don't know whether or not hurting all of those people will come back to the other me and bite him in the ass.

But I am worried – not just for all of them in their dreams or living nightmares, not just for the cruel words that the other me, Anzu, Jonouchi, and even the Kaiba's (who are usually so indifferent) say: "They deserved it – just leave them there!" What I'm really worried about is why...or how? How can the other me, and sometimes even the others, think like that – even now? Wasn't he supposed to be more gentle? Wasn't he a kind pharaoh, and weren't the kindest and greatest kings always merciful? So how, and why?

Maybe it's because of all his time in the Puzzle? That's what I think, but I don't talk about it unless he wants to. It must have been so lonely in there, I'm sure. I thought I knew what loneliness was before I found out about him, before I found out where he's been for a few thousand years, unable to escape, only able to wait for someone to solve the Puzzle, and even then not really being free from it.

I did have nightmares in those first few days or weeks after putting on the Puzzle, but they were very light nightmares, only subtly horrific. I was never really frightened of those nightmares. I dreamed of eyes that changed color – first purple like mine, then darker, to red, then flashing green and blue and orange to red again, then it would turn darker and darker until it was beyond black, until what was in front of me were no longer eyes but something deep and completely without light. I would stay in that state for a while, not feeling afraid but uneasy, and I would eventually wake up with a faint memory of what happened in that darkness: A voice, probably the other me's, but it was different from the way he sounds now; A voice and touches, very light, so much that I barely remember.

I had nightmares of a crossroads, or was it really that? Thinking about it now, it could have been our shared soulrooms. Maybe I was even sleepwalking into the labyrinth in the other me's mind. When I was standing there, confused and too shaken in my sleep to know which way to go, someone would come to me. I don't recall a face or a voice, but when I asked, the other me did say that sometimes he would find me somewhere within our shared mind, and he would lead me by the hand and walk with me until I woke up. I asked him why he never introduced himself back then. He said that I was too dazed in my sleep to even walk, so why would he have even tried to communicate? I wasn't as mentally strong as I am now, he said.

But then I did have other nightmares, sightings that were not dreams. I saw my body move without me wanting it to, without me telling it to. I saw my reflection in the mirror and realizing that it wasn't me, because the eyes that were on my face were not mine but the one's from my dreams, and the smile on my face was one I would never wear. I could feel my fear without really acknowledging that it was mine, that I was feeling it and that it was real. The other me had tried to put my mind to sleep whenever he took over, tried to lull me into a peaceful state while he did whatever he thought was necessary, using my hands. When it didn't work, sometimes I felt him with me, pinning me down and shushing me, "Sleep, sleep, sleep..."

He would stand still with my body, our body, and I could hear myself cry out in my mind, "Stop it, please! What's happening? Tell me what's happening?" I remember him sending me into a trance that was like a dream, and it was like looking up at a tree under the sunlight, at awe with the illusion of stars and sparkles it made with the light in the gaps of the leaves and branches. I would look at those ever-changing eyes, unnatural and hypnotizing, and I'd hear his voice.

"Stop fighting. I'm here now. You can sleep, and I'll still be here. You don't have to worry."

The way he said these things made it sound like a lullaby. It put me to sleep, eventually. Those were some of my most terrifying but peaceful nights, and I would get the best sleep. I had dreams of those trees that I was in such awe of, of raindrops falling peacefully, or playing in that rain, under those trees, and sometimes he would place me with my friends, though usually it was just me, and I was still happy.

When I asked him about it, told him all of this, now that we finally know one another, he smiled. Though it wasn't completely happy. In fact, it was almost the eerily familiar smile he had on whenever I looked into the mirror after recently finishing the Puzzle, the one I realized I never wore.

Sometimes he would wear some of those smiles in the dueling arena, but usually I only see those smiles when we talk about the past. Not the past that took place in ancient Egypt, not the past that he's forgotten, but our past, the past that he remembers, the time when he was reborn.

The fact that he still smiles like that makes me wonder how much he's really changed, what lies beneath him. Though I'm afraid, I know that he's never hurt me, even at his worst. If not then, then why should he ever? Though like I said, I'm just worried about him. About his soul, about where this sort of attitude and those sort of smiles and everything that goes through his thoughts that should cause those smiles to reappear will take him when...when his time comes.

I can feel my face fall as I murmur, "You're not going to let them go, are you?" I mean the souls, the people who are still in their penalty games, the people he still hasn't shown any mercy to – even now. We don't talk about this frequently, but rarely. Still, every time we do, it's always this same dead end.

He smiles.

"No, partner," he says. His hands are on my face, his thumb rubbing at my cheek as though I'm crying, like I might have done before, a while ago. "I won't."

Something in his eyes says that he cares, that yes, he understands now why I might care for the mortal souls who he has trapped. But he doesn't, really. He doesn't understand, even when I try to tell him, that I care about him, of whatever's going on with him. He doesn't understand that I'm worried about just how much he has changed, and if it's even good enough.

I close my eyes so that I don't have to stare into his, only to open them to do just that, deciding to try and persuade him once again.

A/N: I was unsure of what to title this piece; Windmill or Wrath? What do you think?