Title: Spirit Memories
Characters: Zarc||Pair: N/A
Word Count: 1,000/1,000||Chapters: 1/1
Genre: Angst, Drama||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing: YGO Arc-V: B28, angsty piece; Arc-V Angst Week, day #6, Spirits
Summary: He's returned. It takes a few moments of memories to recall all that he needs to, but once he's done that…
Hadn't he known people? Didn't he know people? Weren't they there, somewhere in his memory?
Fingers of remembrance reached for their faces, his ears strained to hear their voices again, didn't he even know what it was like to touch them?
No. No, he didn't. If he'd ever known, he couldn't remember it now.
No one had ever touched him, not the way that he wanted to remember.
When people called to him, they demanded victory or shouted in rage at a loss. Had anyone ever asked something simple and human of him?
No.
Why should they?
What did it matter?
Was he even human?
Had he ever been human?
If he had been, he wasn't now.
Other memories shifted and stirred up, ones buried from long ago, tucked beneath a blanket of splitting and forgetting, edged now in fiery pain.
He'd never had a family. Not the way others thought of having one. He had his spirits. He had every spirit he'd ever met, whether they were a part of his deck or not.
He didn't know when or how he'd been able to see them. So far as he remembered, they'd looked as solid and real as the humans he met. Most of them were even better than the humans. At least they didn't expect miracles out of him. They were more than willing to help him create miracles, though.
And more than once, some spirit would come and ask him to come to their world. Or worlds. Some of them said something that led him to believe there were far more worlds than he could imagine, places where he would be welcome and no one would ask him to win duels or even fight duels unless that was what he wanted.
But every time he turned them down. Every time he thought about what it would feel like if he couldn't win, didn't win, just walked away from it all for a life of boring nothing…
For a life so much like what he'd had before he'd started to win his duels. Even if he had people to talk to, there wouldn't be anything like the Pro League.
There wouldn't be anything like the thrill of seeing his opponent's life point drop down to zero, of riding and flying with his monsters, of coming up with clever plans and strategic ways to avoid whatever plans whoever he dueled against had.
He couldn't do that to his monsters. They trusted him. They wanted him to help them.
Their names floated back up. Tiny little words that clicked into different parts of himself.
Starve Venom Fusion Dragon.
Clear Wing Synchro Dragon.
Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon.
Odd Eyes Pendulum Dragon.
Their variants hummed underneath it all as well, but those were the four that he held closest to his heart, the ones that he refused to let slip away, the dragons that were his as much as he was theirs.
They'd stayed with him, no matter what. They'd guarded him when he wasn't himself and fought to get him back, even when it meant they had to fight each other.
But all of that was over now. He could feel them close to him, hear their whispers and cries, how they'd missed him and each other.
So glad that they were together again. So glad that they were all one again.
He reassured them over and over, hands touching their scales, murmuring reassurances and how nothing would ever separate them ever again. He would not let anything separate them ever again.
Until he'd met them all – and that had been a long process covering years – he'd never truly been able to bring himself to care about anyone else. He'd gone to school. He'd had a few odd part time jobs.
And he cared nothing for any of them. They'd only been necessities. He'd had to go to school. He'd needed money to buy cards. Once he started making enough money dueling so he didn't need to have mundane jobs, he stopped those.
That was right around the time that he'd encountered Starve Venom. Winning that first duel together…
That had been amazing. To feel the strength of his dragon next to him for that very first time…
He'd found one dragon at a time and they cared about him, he cared about them, and that was it. Other cards of the deck mattered as well, in one form or another, but the dragons? They were the best. They were the core, the heart, and the soul of his deck.
And she tried to separate them. To put an end to everything that he wanted. To finish him forever, not even in a duel, but just using that power.
He'd not believed it could work against him, so he'd let it go in those long-gone years, enjoying himself in other ways. The people could do nothing to stop him. Those who tried – and there had been a few – learned quickly that they stood no chance.
And now that he and his dragons and everyone else in his deck reunited, he had but one goal: to bring about that which he hadn't before, and make this world what it should always have been: his.
A tiny part of him – perhaps four tiny parts of him – whispered sorrow at his goals, but he knew better than to listen. He'd wanted to finish all of this the first time and when he'd been thwarted…
No more. Never again. They demanded that he keep winning and this would be the most ultimate of victories, the win that could never be stopped.
It was what they wanted. It was what he wanted.
The voices – if they could even be called voices – faded away. Good. They were part of him and even if they had wills of their own – which they didn't – they would see that he knew what was right, what was true, what needed to be.
Now he had a world to teach that to.
The End
Notes: Zarc just kinda took this one over. It was originally meant to be the Yuus but then he was just… there. Guess that's Zarc!